Thorpe Park: General Discussion

[Sam]

Re: Thorpe Park

Their 2012 season being such a failure makes me think they'd be more likely to build a GCI, not less.

They spent an absolute fortune on Swarm and it tanked, so spending much less on a slightly more 'experimental' major coaster might appeal to them. They could get one for a third of the price of Swarm.

 

[Dar]

Re: Thorpe Park

I never really understood the whole shuttle bus between Thorpe and Chessie, I've seen it as kind of pointless. It people wanted to go to Thorpe Park for the day, surely they'd just go to Thorpe Park for the whole day and perhaps Chessington another time?

Once again I do wish they offered a (free for an annual pass holder) shuttle bus service between Chessington and Thorpe Park!

But why should it just be free for MAP holders? Imagine who much it would cost someone to get entry tickets to both Thorpe and Chessie, the price of the shuttle bus and stuff to spend in both parks? Besides I generally so no reason to do both Thorpe and Chessie in one day.

I'd see as like a "combined resort" idea. Put a hotel on either site, like they have, and you can have families have a day and stay at Thorpe or Chessie for the night and get the shuttle to the other for a day out there. A cheaper two day ticket valid for both parks for both days.

Except Thorpe seem to have eliminated the family market from their offering.

 

[Novas]

Re: Thorpe Park

Any kind of transport link between the two would be an utter waste of time.

Whilst a handful of obsessive MAP holders may be able to sprint around Thorpe in half a day for 99.9% of guests both parks are a full day out even on the quietest of days.

A combined resort will never happen due to the location. This isn't Disney or Universal or even Alton, where your pretty much penned in and reliant on the resorts facilities. In the 30 minutes (traffic pending) it would take to get from Thorpe to Chessie you could reach literally hundreds of other competitive attractions and restaurants.

The parks are aimed at completely different markets and I think it works. This year I’ll probably do Fright Nights with my mates which will include getting trashed in the dome and sleeping in a shipping container (when in Rome ey,) and I’ll most likely also have a chilled out day with the mrs at Chessie in the summer. I have no desire to combine these two experiences into one trip!

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Re: Thorpe Park

On the subject of Thorpe Park, I feel sorry for those who got to know it during the 80s/early 90s, because that nostalgic family park image has been so profoundly obliterated.

I think you could probably stretch that right up until the early 2000's.

 

[nickhutson]

Re: Thorpe Park

I've done Thorpe and Chessington very happily in one day. And I always enjoy Chessington more than Thorpe - mostly due to memories of my childhood being strong at Chessington.

Maybe I'm just wishing on a star for easier transport between the two!

 

[BigAl]

Re: Thorpe Park

Determined to design a big dark ride so I spent a few days making this:

I'm not sad! Okay, maybe a little...

 

[Danny]

Re: Thorpe Park

John Burton who? That's bloody fantastic and could easily fool people into thinking that was genuinely real!

 

[joelpagett]

Re: Thorpe Park

Determined to design a big dark ride so I spent a few days making this:

I'm not sad! Okay, maybe a little...

Its a fantastic idea, something like that could fit in very well at Thorpe Park. They need a good dark ride like that, something of a similar scale to Duel or Tomb Blaster! I like that alot !

 

[PowerOfTen]

Re: Thorpe Park

I really do believe that Thorpe Park gets a massive amount of undeserved criticism on these boards and it's getting to the point where some of the 'fact's' being spread around appear to simply not be true.

Now, I can't comment on the effect of the Swarm but from my own limited experience it does not appear to have been received well simply because it is not intense enough, many people I have spoken to much prefer other rides at the park, notably Stealth. In fact, I can't think of a single person I know that has said it is their favorite ride at the park, as it's 'too slow' or 'doesn't have enough G-Force' or quite simply 'boring'. Of course, that is an impossibly small sample and quite simply irrelevant in the wider scheme of things but it speaks magnitudes to me. In my opinion, that's the price you pay for buying a B&M.

As for gate attendance, it is my belief that it has been steadily increasing contrary to previous posts in this thread:

http://www.totalthorpepark.co.uk/features/history.shtml
http://riderater.co.uk/2012/thorpe-park-records-modest-increase-in-visitors/
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/How_many_people_visit_thorpe_Park_each_year_on_average

Of course, 2012 is still in question.

Profits. I personally believe that Thorpe Park makes a good profit. I find it very hard to believe that they are Merlin's second least profitable park and I question why Merlin would continue to invest so heavily in the park if that were the case. Now, the following is a very tenuous source and it is out of date. Furthermore individual years are not an accurate indicator of a businesses long term profitability due to one time large investments and other factors, however, I believe that the following comparison somewhat disputes the claims that Thorpe Parks is completely financially inadequate (paraphrasing somewhat):

Thorpe Park:
Annual turnover: £48,020,000.00
Annual profit: £7,046,000.00
http://www.worksmart.org.uk/company/company.php?id=06127478

Alton Towers:
Annual turnover: £82,375,000.00
Annual profit: £526,000.00
http://www.worksmart.org.uk/company/company.php?id=06127441

Note: I am not claiming that Thorpe Park makes a greater profit than Alton Towers on a regular basis, I was just using what figures I could find for comparative purposes to support my argument.

Target Market, I can't dispute this, it seems a strange business move. On a personal level, however, I fully support it, the Intamin's are among my favorite rides in the country, with Stealth being a stand out number one. The B&M's on the other hand..

Just my little input, against the flow somewhat..

 

[Dar]

Re: Thorpe Park

The trouble with those figures is that because Merlin is a group, they don't really properly represent the individual businesses.

If I'm understanding it correctly, from what's been said around here and other boards, Alton makes loads of money, £82million apparently, so Merlin off load their costs onto them through creative accounting. A license fee here, some groundwork here. Not illegal, questionable but legal. Merlin Studios is a prime example, charging large amounts for seemingly trivial things.

Attendance I can't comment on because I only visited once last season and the season before.

 

[TheMan]

Re: Thorpe Park

If I'm understanding it correctly, from what's been said around here and other boards, Alton makes loads of money, £82million apparently, so Merlin off load their costs onto them through creative accounting. A license fee here, some groundwork here. Not illegal, questionable but legal. Merlin Studios is a prime example, charging large amounts for seemingly trivial things.

If you are one big company though, I can understand that - after all it is group profits and loss, I find those figures hard to believe accurate regards to Thorpe V Alton profit % though, that's a bit extreme and doesn't really fit logic.

Companies accounting for this magnitude are extremely complex, and I'd doubt, unless we have someone from Deloitte & Touche in here, that any of us will be any the wiser to anything like the true nature of the company accounts.

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Re: Thorpe Park

How the hell do Alton Towers have costs of well over £80 million a year?!

 

[nickhutson]

Re: Thorpe Park

Staff
Electricity Bills
Gardening
Maintenance
IP Rights (Charlie)
Legal costs
Marketing
Ride repair/checks
Overtime
Management Fees
Halloween installing/design
Catering
Research and development

to name a few. Doesn't come cheap!

 

[smudge]

Re: Thorpe Park

How the hell do Alton Towers have costs of well over £80 million a year?!

... They don't, but even if they did, I'm assuming that will be including the investment. £15m on Th13teen for example maybe that year?

 

[James]

Re: Thorpe Park

If I'm correct that over £80 million figure includes the whole resort. Theme park, waterpark, hotels, golf, spa... the resort side of things is what costs so much - especially with it being near enough a 365 resort (aside from the theme park obviously).

 

[CoasterCrazyChris]

Re: Thorpe Park

For that kind of profit a year I'm surprised Merlin are still interested in Alton Towers.

 

[Dar]

Re: Thorpe Park

For that kind of profit a year I'm surprised Merlin are still interested in Alton Towers.

Like I said:

The trouble with those figures is that because Merlin is a group, they don't really properly represent the individual businesses.

If I'm understanding it correctly, from what's been said around here and other boards, Alton makes loads of money, £82million apparently, so Merlin off load their costs onto them through creative accounting. A license fee here, some groundwork here. Not illegal, questionable but legal. Merlin Studios is a prime example, charging large amounts for seemingly trivial things.

 

[Wilsy]

Re: Thorpe Park

I believe this has been posted somewhere before, but as of this year all merlin theme parks will come under Merlin Attractions Operations Ltd, whereas previously Alton Towers was run by Alton Towers Resort Operations Ltd. (likewise Thorpe is/was run by THORPE PARK Operations Limited)

I presume this is so they don't need to keep moving money from business to business. It probably also means that these kind of figures won't be released in the future.

 

[Scott]

Re: Thorpe Park

According to that website, £20m of Alton's costs are on wages alone... It's not hard to see how things stack up. Besides, as others have said it is impossible to truly gauge the 'successfulness' of a park via their perceived profit. When in a group like Merlin, it's obvious they will place costs and things on their most valuable and secure asset: Alton Towers.

As Wilsy has said too, they've made the sensible step of diluting all the individual operating companies into one - so that the budgets won't have to be manipulated to do all this anymore as all turnover and costs will come in and out of one big pot!

Theme park financing is a very weird world and I doubt any of us will truly get our heads around it to be honest.

 

[Ted]

Re: Thorpe Park

Thorpe Park have posted the new near miss element on their Facebook page

Looks a bit bland, but there's still 2 weeks to go so they may add some details. But it looks like a tight squeeze!