Thorpe Park: General Discussion

Understanding the long term economic impact of this thing is impossible. What if there is a second wave and we end up back in lockdown as things are appearing to return to normal, so many what ifs.

Not only that, the government's medium term response which hasn't yet been fully formulated, let alone announced is a key factor.

 

I did hear it implied somewhere that the government wanted to announce additional support for tourism at some point in the future, so I’d assume that parks will benefit from this in some way if it comes.

 

That might well be, but any real optimism comes from understanding what that additional support looks like, when it's delivered, how it's provided and how long it is sustained for against how long trading conditions remain difficult.

Don't believe the hype.

 

What ever money they get it won’t touch the sides. It will be a sort of thank you for closing when you did payment. As I said before the sort of money that Merlin could possibly lose, the government won’t even get dare get close to giving them that much.

 

If the government agree to support the tourism industry -- and that is a big if for many reasons -- it will be 'life support', not capital to build roller coasters with.

 

They paying 1000’s of staffs wages for them just like every other business but my company got customers who need there gauges but Merlin the guests are there customers.
Out of all the Merlin parks I can see Thorpe having the biggest problems with social distancing as there height for most of there big rides is between 1.3 and 1.4 so can’t see many families going maybe groups of young adults and couples.

 

What percentage of staff at a Merlin ran theme park are permanent staff i.e. not on seasonal / zero hrs contracts? I can't say I know the answer but I'm betting not many.

So they could be experiencing huge staffing issues when they do get the green light to reopen. Many of the zero hrs staff will have probably found work with supermarkets and amazon etc by now.

 

Varies wildly park-to-park, Legoland for example has a very different staffing model to the other parks.

While no doubt you're right that a lot of staff may have found other employment, don't forget that a large percentage of theme park staff work at a theme park because they love it, and so will probably be hanging on to their contract as long as they can.

 

Quick question for Thorpe locals, when I last visited the park in October 2018 I had my first and so far only ride on Derren Brown's Ghost Train, but all that was described as being added as part of rise of the demon in 2017 I do not recall whatsoever. We simply left the train and walked into the attraction shop, that was it, nothing else. Is the rise of the demon expansion regularly out of use?

 

I get the impression that it might be somewhat unreliable; it is apparently supposed to be

Spoiler

a demon animatronic

, but towards the end of last season, some were apparently getting

Spoiler

a park employee coughing

.

Out of interest, what do we think the future holds for DBGT in a post-COVID world, as I don’t think VR is very hygiene-friendly?

 

I think DBGT will either be closed or they will try and replace the VR with acting which if done correctly might enhance the experience but in practice will probably make you less immersed in the experience if the acting is bad/cringy (which knowing Thorpe it would be).

 

Some might say, a warning from the near-future. Perhaps the ride served a purpose after all?

Spoiler

It didn't.

 

With those headsets getting wiped after every use, I sure there will probably be the most contagion free item around the park

 

That’s a good point, but I think some may potentially take issue with putting something on their face that many other people would have touched; of all the things in a theme park, I’d imagine that VR headsets are among the highest risk in terms of COVID transmitters.

 

Please say no one is naive enough to think that someone who's spent 6+ hours being verbally abused by guests is going to clean headsets properly when they are rushing.

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Biggest flop attraction ever in UK? For the rumored price or it it has to be right up there. A bog standard ghost train would have cost them half the price and they would be better off for it.

 

Yep, when I saw the orginal planning permission to add a building I was very optimistic as a dark-ride was exactly what Thorpe needed. Then when I heard what was built I just didn't care. I love Derren Brown (was due to see him live last month before Covid postponed it) but this attraction is just pants, a weak storyline on an unreliable technology.
Imagine how good it could have been if they kept Derren Brown's ghost train as the theme but went with a proper dark ride similar to Spider-Man etc.

 

VR on a tracked dark ride would have been better than what they opted for. But I'm not a fan of the technology tbh

Give me setpieces, good audio and real effects any day. Doubt that will ever change.

 

I always feel like VR is a cop out for just theming something properly.

 

Thats the weirdness of Derren's Ghost Train. It is well themed, it feels like a real tube car inside a real train carriage. But the VR does not tell a good story. You can theme exceptionally well, but it doesn't always mean it is a great attraction. It needs the right blend of theme, story, action etc.

VR can be better in some cases, Crazy Bats at Phantasialand was fantastic and the same probably couldn't be acheived on that coaster any other way (you would end up more like Lego Dragon Coaster with the slow-moving show scenes).

Similarly even if it was enclosed it is hard to feel like you are truly in space on a coaster, so Galactica kinda works. Then compare Space Mountain with Mission Space at Disney, choosing a simulator environment works better than a coaster, having the right hardware is important (and in the 70s when Space Mountain was built the simulator tech didn't exist)

But in general, yes VR doesn't always work better than the right theming, but more important is choosing the correct hardware to tell the story that the attraction is trying to acheive.