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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

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Posted over at Thorpe Mania, apparently the Divisional Director has gone.

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So Love Island flopped and they've got rid of those responsible I guess?

Whilst not my cup of tea I can see why they went for it. A hugely popular TV show mainly watched by their exact target audience.

Is it possible that Thorpe have hit their ceiling in terms of potential visitors? Theyve tried every IP under the sun in recent years and clearly there's never been a huge increase in attendance.

As we are not in mainland Europe, maybe it's not accessable enough to be as successful as they want as a thrill destination? Maybe they will look to expand their family offering.

I mentioned on a another forum if I was in charge I'd work more closely with Heathrow Airport to target international visitors looking for a day trip. London is one of the world's most popular tourist destinations but you never see big groups of foreign visitors at Thorpe.
 
Personally i think thorpe need to get more family friendly. Alton got it bang on with the wickerman, brand new woody but for the family too, it appeals to everyone. They will lose massively to the likes of AT and CWOA. Get a couple of proper family rides in and more people will come.
 
The problem with Thorpe is every 3 years or so they decide they want to be a family park again and manage to get families visiting then wreck it by doing something that alienates the families and then it takes another few years to get them back.

This year families (and people not interested) have been put off by year of walking dead and love island, two questionable themes for younger visitors and they also lost X.

Instead of all this PR of biggest, best, world scariest etc they need to go back and focus on getting the very basics right first. Getting rid of marketing is obviously a step forward and remains to be seen if sacking the divisional director was right but ultimately the mistakes happened under his watch.

They’ve also got to do something to make sure the staff they employ are suitable, you wouldn’t catch staff at any of the other parks messing about like you see at Thorpe.

I doubt we’ll see dramatic improvement until 2020
 
RicketyCricket said:
Is it possible that Thorpe have hit their ceiling in terms of potential visitors?
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This, we live in a society where exponential growth is expected year on year from "the city" and when a company doesn't produce it, they get beaten up over it, it's completely immaterial that as the years ago on, the population is not increasing to take account of it.

Thorpe, much like Alton, cannot cope with the crowds it gets on a peak day now, and some bean counter somewhere wants them to magically increase gate attendance by 12% year on year (arbitrary figure pulled out my arse), it's never going to happen.

Anybody who is interested in coasters and lives within driving distance of Thorpe, probably already has an annual pass and there's only so much growth you can expect from a country whose population has been relatively static for the last decade and as others have said, tourists have no interest in visiting, they want "Royal", not Zombies (although any differences between the two may well be questionable at best).

Staff too, agree on that, never seen such unprofessional behavour from public facing staff as they have (and that's not even throwing an evil look at our favourite security team either).

I'm a big walking dead fan, will often watch it live on US time I'm that much of a fan, but it hasn't made me want to go to Thorpe any more than normal this year, they are five years too late with that franchise.
 
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Kenton80 said:
Get a couple of proper family rides in and more people will come.
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Agreed, loggers leap (what's left of it) says hi. Whilst doing that bring back X imo or at least lose the walking dead theme on it .

Thing is with Thorpe many older visitors feel ripped off due to big queues and need for fastrack. Younger families don't have enough to do there. Also it doesn't "enchant" their visitors, things like shipping containers don't help.

Hopefully good things to come for Thorpe
 
I've got to say, this is interesting news as Thorpe is quite frankly, a mess. Probably a good decision. Correct me if i'm wrong but i've never seen a long term plan for Thorpe. It feels like they make it up as they go along. The Love Island and Walking Dead IP events feel desperate. Was the Divisional Director Dominic Jones? I'm sure he was appointed from Oakwood last year.
 
Smilertron said:
I've got to say, this is interesting news as Thorpe is quite frankly, a mess. Probably a good decision. Correct me if i'm wrong but i've never seen a long term plan for Thorpe. It feels like they make it up as they go along. The Love Island and Walking Dead IP events feel desperate. Was the Divisional Director Dominic Jones? I'm sure he was appointed from Oakwood last year.
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Yes it was Dominic, he lasted just under 2 years at Thorpe. And yes he did come from Oakwood.

Love island was bizarre and Walking Dead the ride was probably forced due to the cost of the IP for Fright Nights and needing to maximise return. But declaring it was the year of walking dead was by far the most strange thing to do.

And to give Dominic some credit he did oversee the improvements to the look of the place and getting new audio.
 
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ringo said:
I don’t know but I’m guessing he was a scapegoat. It happened under his watch so must be accountable.

Was hinted elsewhere others are / were the problem at the park...
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What happened under his watch? This is what I am confused about!

:)
 
The park has performed poorly this year. Thorpe just had a total lack of direction; first it was The Year of The Walking Dead, that didn't work so it become a Love Island summer, then that was over and now all that matters is Fright Nights.

Next year will probably end up being a family year, then in 2020 they'll reverse their brand identity again and become #TheWordsSCARIESTThemePark or something like that.

:)
 
Kenton80 said:
Personally i think thorpe need to get more family friendly. Alton got it bang on with the wickerman, brand new woody but for the family too, it appeals to everyone. They will lose massively to the likes of AT and CWOA. Get a couple of proper family rides in and more people will come.
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Last time they did that we got Angry Birds, X and I'm a Celeb...

They're completely confused as a park what to do because the thrill side never works out long term but it's the only type of ride they feel like they can add because of the obsession regarding USPs...
 
X was definitely an improvement though, but that wasn't hard. The problem is is that Thorpe's attempts are so half arsed it's not even worth putting them in.
 
HermanTheGerman said:
Aside from the other issues mentioned- attendance has fallen, profits have fallen, and KPI scores are absolutely on the floor.

The park is something terrible like 192 out of 200 total attractions in the Merlin leaderboard for guest survey results.
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192 out of 200 is ridiculous. But im not surprised whatsoever.

Every time I go there I feel ripped off without even spending a penny.

Tbh it's great that they get utterly slated by the average guest as it will force them to actually run the place with some care.

In terms of operations and ride availability it's surely one of the worst parks in Europe?

Maybe this is the turning point? Merlin seem to have realised finally that short term money grabbing has cost them long term.
 
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