• 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

HermanTheGerman said:
Literally no one thinks this are you on coke?
Click to expand...
Most of Greater London shrugged when they opened Swarm. No?

I was suggesting that the impact of new roller coasters is different now than it was 20, or even 30 years ago. That's clear to see. There's a reason why rides used to be shown on News at 10, it was an event with things like The Big One, Nemesis, even Oblivion. Their introduction is now more common and less prominent - with very little hullabaloo until there is an accident, or an accidental non-event.

A 20 minute stoppage on a ride can get more press than the opening of a new one.
 
I would say London were distracted with bigger matters than Swarm in 2012. Probably combined with a poor in hindsight overall campaign.

There is probably some truth in a lack of interest, but at the same time Smiler and Wickerman both got a half decent crack at the media whip.
 
Rick said:
Most of Greater London shrugged when they opened Swarm. No?

I was suggesting that the impact of new roller coasters is different now than it was 20, or even 30 years ago. That's clear to see. There's a reason why rides used to be shown on News at 10, it was an event with things like The Big One, Nemesis, even Oblivion. Their introduction is now more common and less prominent - with very little hullabaloo until there is an accident, or an accidental non-event.

A 20 minute stoppage on a ride can get more press than the opening of a new one.
Click to expand...

Hahaha, on the opening of a new ride, they always used to pick the reporter who was terrified of rides, so you never really learnt much about the new ride other than it was bloody scary.
 
The Swarm did kind of have an IP in terms of the song by Me You at Six, which was like a really half arsed IP. If The Swarm was themed to music like Rock and Roller Coaster it would have worked better, but as it was the IP felt shoehorned in and irrelevant.

I thought The Swarm had a really good teaser campaign during the construction, and then the marketing around its opening was a bit strange. The two main stories were about the pop song and a publicity stunt saying the water dummies’ legs had fallen off, or something like that. The mainstream marketing push didn’t seem to focus that much on the ride. Would they have been better off focusing more on what the ride did? It’s impossible to say.

Since The Swarm they do seem to have gone a bit easy on all the publicity stunts, so I think Merlin are wondering whether they got it wrong. I do also wonder whether there’s been an element of the boy who called wolf, where news outlets got bombarded with publicity stunts that didn’t have any substance, and then when there was a real news story about a new ride opening, they weren’t that interested.

We know that the news likes a human-interest story. Back in the 90s John Wardley, Geoffrey Thompson, Doris Thompson and Andy Hine were all people the media would pick up on when a new ride opened. There are plenty of charismatic people working in the theme park industry, and some high profile enthusiasts, but I don’t think we’re getting the human interest stories around new rides that we once got.

One way or another new rides aren’t getting the mainstream attention they once did and that’s damaging for the industry.
 
Last edited:
Should be nice as a filler year; is it known where in the park it is going?

I must say, I think Black Mirror is a good choice of IP; I've never watched it, but it seems pretty popular!
 
I love how Thorpe Park is now filled with unused spaces where this could be going.

I'm a Celeb, Living Nightmare, Saw Alive...

The park is a graveyard. I give the new attraction a year. The IP is odd but it is not the main problem.

I wonder what next year's IP of the week will be. Fingers crossed for Stranger Things.
 
unknown.png

Black Mirror attraction >>> Some RMC
 
Matt N said:
Should be nice as a filler year; is it known where in the park it is going?

I must say, I think Black Mirror is a good choice of IP; I've never watched it, but it seems pretty popular!
Click to expand...

Every year since Derren Brown has been a filler year. They are in dire need of a major investment.
 
Danny said:
Every year since Derren Brown has been a filler year. They are in dire need of a major investment.
Click to expand...

Sorry, didn't even include that waste of (two good coasters worth of) money when I thought about how many filler years there had been!
 
It’s better than nothing but surely there has to be planning applications submitted in the next year or two for a new coaster?

Mean while in Europe they have investments drawing international crowds to their parks.
 
This is an unconventional IP in that Black Mirror is purely a series of stand alone episodes connected only by theme. There’s no common setting/characters between episodes, just the overall idea of scary technology in some dystopian alternate universe.

I suppose this is beneficial for Thorpe Park, as there is no necessity to recreate famous moments (E.G: don't dead open inside sign in the Walking Dead attraction). Instead, it will likely be a series of mildly themed corridors with a few strobes and mirrors to allude to the idea of spooky tech - barely relating to the original IP.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top