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Travellers Day Scarefest

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Jb85 said:
In fairness, and its hard to say after a wasted day's hard earned cash (took my two lads, left early £200 down the drain), but it's a cultural thing. Like it or loathe it I don't feel it's correct to isolate and call them out as having something 'wrong'
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'Cultural' does not excuse rudeness, queue jumping (breaking the rules of the private property they are on), violence, aggression etc. This would not be tolerated if a crowd of football fans attended park ... they would be called hooligans, removed from the park, banned from returning. The truth is, this group of people behave in a disgraceful way and this should not be tolerated. It makes an unsafe environment for workers and visitors alike and using "it's their culture" just makes further excuses for behaviour which has no place in a public environment
 
Left just before 3. Saw/heard nothing today from the queues I was in apart from a lady deciding to horribly shout at a staff member on the monorail back to accommodation because her child ‘had fallen through the gap and onto the track’ because the doors were open ‘too long’.

It’s very unfortunate how a few can turn the day into a nightmare for some, and for little cause and reason. Also gutted we couldn’t have a beer in the sunshine!
 
Danscott22 said:
as much as we’ve had discussions about discrimination in the past, when they are behaving like this, I’m really not surprised people feel a certain way towards them, no matter how this comment sounds, particularly if they are abusing people on park
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This is bang on
 
Jb85 said:
In fairness, and its hard to say after a wasted day's hard earned cash (took my two lads, left early £200 down the drain), but it's a cultural thing. Like it or loathe it I don't feel it's correct to isolate and call them out as having something 'wrong'
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Being rude and unruly to them isn't seen as being 'wrong' though sadly. It's par for the course of the traveling community from my experience anyway.

Not sure what you do to stop it. I certainly wouldn't book tickets on the same weekend as a race meeting at Utoxetter though.
 
There's another racing meet at Utoxetter on Friday the 28th apparently but it's usually only the one weekend where it happens so I think this may have been it.
 
Unicorns_are_lovely said:
I had a prebooking for today but decided against going as thought it might be "alcohol free family fun day" today. As a lone female visitor there is no way I'm taking a risk on visiting when this behaviour is out of control on park. It's a shame that AT can't get a grip of this, but with such a huge footprint of a park the security can only be in one place at a time. I'll visit on a weekday this week and should have a lovely, stress free day!
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AT Security are useless.
 
Unicorns_are_lovely said:
'Cultural' does not excuse rudeness, queue jumping (breaking the rules of the private property they are on), violence, aggression etc. This would not be tolerated if a crowd of football fans attended park ... they would be called hooligans, removed from the park, banned from returning. The truth is, this group of people behave in a disgraceful way and this should not be tolerated. It makes an unsafe environment for workers and visitors alike and using "it's their culture" just makes further excuses for behaviour which has no place in a public environment
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Oh I totally agree but I'm not sure what can be done about it. I'm just playing devils advocate a bit as I don't feel it's correct to label everyone when it's a minority.

But I do agree, AT should do more to stop this behaviour.
 
Had a good day at the park today. Noticed large gatherings in X-Sector and in front of the Towers but nothing unruly. Interestingly, few members of the community seemed to visit other areas of the park, particularly Forbidden Valley and the lawns with the stage show where we spent a lot of our day. No problems with queue jumping, a few small groups of youngsters being "rowdy" and acting "tough" but nothing truly intimidating.

It's sad to hear that others had more negative experiences.
 
First time visiting on one these days today, would have rearranged if we'd had the chance but couldn't as it was booked as part of a holiday and had other things planned on the other days.

Will certainly be doing my best to avoid these days in the future, made me and my wife feel on edge pretty much all day. Saw queue jumping and other negative behaviour in the queues for all the major rides we went on. Saw the aftermath of a fight on our way into X-sector with security seemingly moving quite a few people on.

Felt most sorry for the staff today though, with another guest telling us he'd seen groups of them being aggressive to the staff on thirteen and forcing there way on through the fastrack/RAP queue.

Not really sure what the park can do about the situation though, apart from even more security around the park or maybe in the queues.
 
Pretty horrific day at the park today.

Was shoved multiple times walking around, abused for my appearance and received homophobic abuse for having a pride symbol on my water bottle.

X-Sector was the most intimidating and uncomfortable place I've been in for a long time.

Obviously there was queue jumping as everyone has pointed out, experienced this the worst on Oblivion and Thirteen.
 
Ash said:
Alton Towers don’t like police on park as it doesn’t help a “family” image

Here are the results…
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Odd as I saw quite afew police on park today along with external security staff and towers own security.
 
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Ash said:
Alton Towers don’t like police on park as it doesn’t help a “family” image

Here are the results…
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I imagine Alton Towers don't like police on park as it is hugely expensive! If a private company puts on a large event that requires a planned police response the cost of that isn't met by the taxpayer.

Police presence would have two main purposes at an event like this, as a visible deterrent and as a reactionary option to deal with issues. Ultimately, if they didn't want a huge visible presence police could very easily be either plain clothed or mostly waiting in backstage areas to act when called to do so by regular security.

Either way, it sounds a lot like the security and/or police numbers were not at all sufficient to properly deal with issues yesterday. If an event leads to a surge in offence recording or emergency response requirement the police could have something to say about the event continuing in the future...
 
rob666 said:
But if people just choose to turn up on the same day, without warning, how do you stop the "non event" from happening.
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The security they do have it place suggests they do know when the day is going to occur.

Not sure if that's in response to my comment? If so I mean Scarefest, not 'this day'. Not suggesting we are anywhere near that, and a quick glance at the crime stats show Oct is quite significantly the lowest crime month of the year in the area for some reason so there is zero to support it being an issue. But if this turns into some large scale disturbance one year, which from witnessing these days in person it certainly has the potential to, that could change pretty quickly.
 
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