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Thorpe Park: General Discussion

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No matter how many excuses can be made for Thorpe's crap performance, it's the park itself that is the problem. Rediculously heavy focus on thrill, lack of variety outside of flats and coasters, a complete neglect of the family market, crap execution, hooligans everywhere, poor investments like Ghost Train and walking dead, poor operations, overselling of fast track, Angry Birds "land", a rapids ride that's hanging out of it's arse and that's all only the tip of the iceberg.

How will a B&M hyper solve any of these problems?
 
Do we know if Thorpe have a long term plan at all? It just seems to make things up as it goes along.

Do we think that Thorpe maybe scared to step of the toes of it's family orientated neighbours? Merlin potentially robbing it's own parks as visitors?

If you were Merlin right now, would you:

a) Carry on with the three parks (Thorpe, Chessington and Legoland), appealing to different age ranges?
b) Potentially sell off one or two of the parks and put a sole focus on one park being a jack of all trades (combined family/thrills).

I don't think there is a correct answer here but the difficult is that if each park is targeting a specific age group, they need to stop dithering and plan in accordance.

PS. I think a B&M Hyper would be fantastic on the island like no other. What is the height limit, do you think they could surprise us with a giga? ;-) haha.
 
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I think the biggest problem is that none of the parks cater for families where the children are different ages or thrill tolerances, if you have a 10 year old who wants a thrill and a 7 year old who doesn't then which park do you go for?
Selling off one of the parks whilst it would be good for consumers to have competition would not be in Merlin's interests as that would damage the annual pass and require Merlin to up their game in terms of value for money or people will vote with their feet.
Whilst Merlin probably don't want to have two parks with the same market so close to each other, the only other option is the status quo.
 
Personally I think Thorpe has poor to average visitor numbers simply because it's crap.

It's the money grab Merlin park, where there's not a lot there to inspire regular visits for your average guest.

This is where Wicker Man has worked so well, it's a real crowd pleaser and gives another reason for guests to come back. Thorpe need to focus on just building a solid coaster and not a short term marketing gimmick.
 
Yeah Thorpe are better off just remaining a thrill park really although they seriously need to up their game in that respect. Flat rides are getting old and one even SBNO. No new coaster for ages although that seems to be coming to an end with *fingers crossed* the tallest coaster in the UK. A world class B&M hyper would really do wonders for the park.

I don't think the three parks need to go into different directions. They just need to do what they do now but even better.
 
Benjsh said:
Yeah Thorpe are better off just remaining a thrill park really although they seriously need to up their game in that respect. Flat rides are getting old and one even SBNO. No new coaster for ages although that seems to be coming to an end with *fingers crossed* the tallest coaster in the UK. A world class B&M hyper would really do wonders for the park.

I don't think the three parks need to go into different directions. They just need to do what they do now but even better.
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That's a fair summary. Thrills have worked for them previously but the likes of Saw and Colossus are no longer fit for purpose.
 
Sharko said:
Do we think that Thorpe maybe scared to step of the toes of it's family orientated neighbours? Merlin potentially robbing it's own parks as visitors?
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From what I can tell, it was all but confirmed that this was why they pursued thrills so aggressively in the first place.

Before Tussauds came along in 1998, Thorpe Park was very much a mild-mannered family park aimed almost primarily at young families. Under the ownership of RMC (not the RMC you’re probably thinking of, unfortunately), the park directly competed with Chessington and Legoland, and it never really went especially thrilling (the most thrilling thing RMC built was probably Loggers Leap, although X:\NWO was also aiming to be a more thrilling ride).

Believe it or not, Chessington was actually considered the most thrilling of the 3 at the time, as well as the most popular, and this meant that Tussauds were majorly painted into a corner when Kingston Borough Council wouldn’t let them build anything else major after Vampire. This meant that Chessington was consigned to being more of a family park, against Tussauds’ initial hopes. Tussauds initially satisfied their urge for a market-leading thrill park by building and developing Alton Towers, the pre-existing market leader in Britain, but they still yearned for one in the South.

Chessington’s move to primarily targeting families meant that Thorpe was in close competition with Chessington at the time, and also had fairly lax planning restrictions, so as such, Tussauds decided to buy Thorpe and convert it into a thrill haven in order to eliminate their closest competition in the family market (as John Wardley once put it, Tussauds’ mentality was one of “if you can’t beat them, join them”).

In order to not have the two Southern parks compete with one another, Thorpe was rather aggressively re-targeted towards thrill seekers with the surge of investment in the 2000s. While I’m unsure if the change would have happened quite as quickly or as jarringly had things like the Wicked Witches Haunt fire not happened, I think this path would inevitably have been followed due to the issue of the parks competing with themselves in the South.

When I write it like that, it really does put into perspective just how insane the 2000s must have been at Thorpe… I’d wager that few, if any, UK parks ever changed quite that drastically in a decade.
 
It's long been an issue that guest spending at Thorpe Park, largely coming from the pockets of teenagers and younger folks, is much less aspirational than at Chessington, Legoland or Alton, which attracts a particularly diverse portfolio of guests.

The short break market in the detainment facility at Thorpe is a drop in the ocean compared to its siblings, especially Alton. The park just doesn't make anywhere near as much money beyond the gate, a situation worsened by years of cheap Annual Pass abuse.
 
Plastic Person said:
It's long been an issue that guest spending at Thorpe Park, largely coming from the pockets of teenagers and younger folks, is much less aspirational than at Chessington, Legoland or Alton, which attracts a particularly diverse portfolio of guests.

The short break market in the detainment facility at Thorpe is a drop in the ocean compared to its siblings, especially Alton. The park just doesn't make anywhere near as much money beyond the gate, a situation worsened by years of cheap Annual Pass abuse.
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This is a very good point actually. I never thought of this. All the other Merlin parks have pushed accommodation, earning the 'resort' status etc, however, eventhough Thorpe is named 'resort', it has very little in the way of accomodation except the shipping containers. I know that Thorpe is much more accessible to local hotels etc, however it is very un-Merlin like to not want to provide competition and add hotels with certain perks (if any).

Eventhough i like a bargain when planning trips to parks, i also like being amongst it if there are things going on at the hotels.
 
This is the major problem they face. It has an image more akin to a Six Flags park than a true world class resort. Not sure how you change that image either unless you go down the family route too. They don't have a lot of land to play with either for a great big Hotel or two in addition to a world class family themed area of the park.

The annual pass point definitely holds some weight too. Anyone who lives in the south of the country who loves Theme Parks would be a fool to not buy one really as you can make it pay very quickly. For somebody like me in Manchester it wouldn't make sense at all as I'm 200 miles away from the three London based parks.
 
Sharko said:
a) Carry on with the three parks (Thorpe, Chessington and Legoland), appealing to different age ranges?
b) Potentially sell off one or two of the parks and put a sole focus on one park being a jack of all trades (combined family/thrills).
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I think whatever they do with their parks and the target markets they must be better off keeping ownership and maintaining that cross park control rather than relinquishing one to a rival operator and no longer having that target market control across the estate. Put another operator on one of those sites in close proximity and they could very soon find themselves with the problem they are trying to avoid, and a real potential that someone else would do it better.

Considering how close they all are it would make sense to me for all three to have an at least acceptable offering, and enough to do, for all ages at all parks, and market them as a multi centre destination. As it stands each parks alienate some visitors from a typical older family group to the extent that that isn't really viable. They could still have their speciality and focus, just not so restrictively as they do now.
 
As for Thorpe's target market I think they should remain mostly a thrill centred park but with more for the family to do. They need to improve the offering for things the older thrill seekers and the not yet tall enough thrill seekers to do. If a B&M hyper does happen it will likely increase park attendance but I'm not sure the park has got the supporting rides, especially if they are closing old town in its entirety. There is no reason they cannot balance the three parks nicely while also having them cross over a bit.
 
JAperson said:
As for Thorpe's target market I think they should remain mostly a thrill centred park but with more for the family to do. They need to improve the offering for things the older thrill seekers and the not yet tall enough thrill seekers to do. If a B&M hyper does happen it will likely increase park attendance but I'm not sure the park has got the supporting rides, especially if they are closing old town in its entirety. There is no reason they cannot balance the three parks nicely while also having them cross over a bit.
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In terms of your point about supporting rides; could they not do what Chessington are doing with their 2023 project and throw in a couple of additional family or thrill flats on the side? With the typical footprint of B&M Hypers and the amount of land available in Old Town, there would almost certainly be space for some!
 
Matt N said:
In terms of your point about supporting rides; could they not do what Chessington are doing with their 2023 project and throw in a couple of additional family or thrill flats on the side? With the typical footprint of B&M Hypers and the amount of land available in Old Town, there would almost certainly be space for some!
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Yes technically they could however there's a few things that make me a little hesitant that they might do that.
1) Expense - Even in a package deal a B&M hyper is going to be one of Merlin's most expensive additions ever. Add in hopefully quite a decent marketing budget and I'm not sure Merlin would give them the cash for some flats at the same time.
2) Marketing - The focus would need to be on the record breaking status of the B&M hyper. These extra flat rides might be seen as a waste of investment as they wouldn't be able to market them.
3) Chessington - Chessington are doing it and it might look like they'/ve copied them. This is of course not a big issue but something worth mentioning. Also the reason Chessington are doing it is because they really struggle with planning permission. Having it all in one planning application makes it easier for Chessington however I actually might be a little bit of a inconvenience for Thorpe.
4) Planning - They've got to convince the planners that a ride that big isn't going to disturb the locals and its going to be an awkward battle. I think they'll get away with it by appearing to compromise. Like they did with Stealth by painting the top white so that it didn't stand out as much. Adding in the flat rides are probably going to just be a hassle for them.

However non of these reasons stops them from adding in some family rides the year before or the year after and theming them in. I'd be very much in favour of them doing that as it might well keep the hype for an extra year.
 
siralgenon said:
Could Thrope not build the highest coaster in the UK to top The Big One? Or do they have a hight restriction?
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I think that's the general consensus of the point of them building a hyper. To break the height record and I'm not sure it would make financial sense for them to do so if it wasn't going to break the height record.
 
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