• ℹ️ Heads up...

    This is a popular topic that is fast moving Guest - before posting, please ensure that you check out the first post in the topic for a quick reminder of guidelines, and importantly a summary of the known facts and information so far. Thanks.

Thorpe Park: General Discussion

I understand Thorpe Park are making some people redundant.

Unsure on numbers.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
 
AstroDan said:
I understand Thorpe Park are making some people redundant.

Unsure on numbers.

Sent from my SM-G930F using Tapatalk
Click to expand...
The bill for DBGT was clearly being paid for by the cuts we saw late last season. Looks like they've gone for the payroll bill for the long term.

Merlin's handling of Thorpe these last few years characterises everything that's incompetent about the way they run RTP'S.
 
Yep, Thorpe Park realised their OTT marketing and thrills only wasn’t right, but I’m a Celeb was a poor short term focused thing and Angry Birds should have been bigger. AB was also wrong characters as they were losing popularity.
When I first saw they were building a dark ride building that was quite exciting and Derren putting his name to it at least meant it should be of reasonable quality. But as soon as I head it was VR based I lost interest and still haven’t visited for it. They could have got a solid proper dark ride in there but instead went for a fad with poor downtime!

They really need to invest in a decent indoor family friendly attraction at Thorpe to round out the park better at the moment I can’t be bothered to visit for thrills only (my stomach can’t handle thrill flats as well as I used to) and fad attractions.
 
I actually really like Derren Brown's Ghost Train and find it an impressive and enjoyable attraction. I was surprised, however, that it had a 1.4 metre height restriction and 13 advisory. Neither of these affect me personally, but I wonder whether these have limited the success. It's unusual for a dark ride to have such a high restriction.

If they're laying off staff then I'm genuinely sorry to hear that. In my experience when British parks lay off staff it often doesn't have that much relevance to how hard people worked or what they actually did. It can also lead to a lot of bitterness and internal politics. I hope that no one's hurt too badly by it, and that it doesn't affect the quality of the experience too much for the park's visitors.
 
I thought DBGT was funded by Merlin directly for it's first three years? I can see come 2019 DBGT only being open weekends and school holidays.

If it is budget related and MMM fund DBGT, then it'll be the millions they shelled out for The Walking Dead license that has caused this (as well as the Merlin cuts), another fine example of Thorpe management missing the boat by about 3 years on something being popular.

That doesn't take away from the fact that DBGT is a huge angry white elephant and a colossus waste of money and should be burnt to the ground in an inferno by a swarm of angry fireants.
 
It's amazing really Merlin invested so much into one attraction at Thorpe, when the park struggled with The Swarm, which is far easier to market and sell to the public. Plus a ride with actors in a park that has had attractions with actors that have become very short lived. It doesn't really take an idiot to figure that DBGT was never going to be a raging success.

I think DBGT may have worked considerably better at Alton Towers.
 
I am not sure if the 1.4m height restriction is more to ensure people of a certain maturity are going on the ride (not fail safe but easier to implement than an age restriction). I don't think the height restriction is influenced by the ride hardware. The same approach was taken with Sub Terra?
 
Merlin failed to understand properly why the Swarm 'failed', they convinced themselves that the coaster was at fault for the park not increasing gate figures and didn't take into account that there was only 2 weeks that year that it didn't rain and that there was this other international event going on down the road that happen to be on during those two dry weeks which by some miracle managed to capture the nations attention.

It's the same kind of blinkered attitude that has now morphed into the polar opposite so they're blaming Smiler and insane terrorists for the downturn in their numbers this year instead of the blatantly obvious.

Whoever thought DBGT was a good investment should be pensioned off, it'll be cheaper long term than letting them continue dreaming up stupid ride ideas, even I could have told them what was going to happen to the VR kit in advance.
 
The 1.4m height restriction is there to say to the GP 'well it's a big ride you know' whereas the 13+ age restriction (Due to some of the stuff on the ride can be seen as graphic even though it's too low res) is sensible but it isn't strictly enforced.

Hopefully they won't put a 1.4m height restriction on SW8, just because it's got a 'scary' theme.
 
Bert2theSpark said:
The 1.4m height restriction is there to say to the GP 'well it's a big ride you know' whereas the 13+ age restriction (Due to some of the stuff on the ride can be seen as graphic even though it's too low res) is sensible but it isn't strictly enforced.

Hopefully they won't put a 1.4m height restriction on SW8, just because it's got a 'scary' theme.
Click to expand...

The 13+ is just a recommended age and not enforced,i went last june and my 10 year old daughter came on with me after i'd asked about the restriction

A decision she regretted...the poor girl was totally petrified she was literally shaking i felt terrible for her and got a serious mouthfull off my mrs who was waiting for us with our little lad at the exit

The funny thing is she asked if she could go on it again the next day!? (which she couldn't as it was out of action...surprisingly)

On the subject of the ride i really enjoyed my first time on it...everybody on the train seemed to be enjoying it and the actors gave it their all...our VR was good and all effects worked perfectly

We went back down in october and rode it again on a monday(non fright night but that had been on the night before) and i thought it was terrible..hardly any actors and the ones there seemed completely disinterested...the actor on the tube station and tunnel didn't have a megaphone so you couldn't hear her at all
 
Bert2theSpark said:
Hopefully they won't put a 1.4m height restriction on SW8, just because it's got a 'scary' theme.
Click to expand...
Don't worry @Bert2theSpark. I can almost guarantee that SW8 will not have a 1.4m height restriction. It will probably be about 1.2m at the most. Merlin may make some odd decisions occasionally, but they are not stupid enough to put a 1.4m height restriction on a family GCI. They didn't put a 1.4m height restriction on Thirteen, and that was marketed as the scariest ride ever!
 
James said:
It's amazing really Merlin invested so much into one attraction at Thorpe, when the park struggled with The Swarm, which is far easier to market and sell to the public. Plus a ride with actors in a park that has had attractions with actors that have become very short lived. It doesn't really take an idiot to figure that DBGT was never going to be a raging success.

I think DBGT may have worked considerably better at Alton Towers.
Click to expand...
The incompetence of this decision is staggering. The Swarm didn't take off for the park because it was an expensive b&m aimed at a market the park had already won over. It preached to the converted.

Fast forward a few years and they yet again go for it with DBGT, but this time step it up a gear. An expensive installation, unacceptably unreliable with absolutely shocking operating costs.

Had either been built at Towers, at least we would see some sort of return on investment.

Thorpe is a small local park that has foolishly marketed itself for years as a teenagers thrill paradise. It wouldn't matter if DBGT and Swarm ended up being a couple of intimidating looking Gerstlaurs that cost a fraction of the price, it would make very little difference to park attendance figures.
 
I just watched an interview with John Burton, Thorpe Park's MMM executive, on Thorpe Park's Facebook page. I can't put a link to the interview in right now, but I can summarise some of the key points he raised in the interview:
  • Most Merlin themes are dark and dingy themes because the guests at Thorpe Park "have a real thirst for fear". He also said that not all of their themes are dark and dingy.
  • He said that they consider "everything" when they design an attraction; from guest experience to profitability.
  • He said that he is proud of what the whole MMM team achieved with DBGTROTD as they won a Thea Award for it.
  • He also said that the only two projects he has worked on are DBGT and Wars of the Roses Jousting at Warwick Castle.
  • He finalised the video by saying (in response to a question about replacing Slammer) "New rides and attractions take up to 4 years to develop, so we can't tell you anything now!"
Overall, it's a really interesting watch and I'd really recommend it if you're on Facebook.
 
I watched half of it last night but stopped because of corporate and amateurish it came across.

:)
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top