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UK Merlin park guest figures through the years

Gate figures are definitely not indicative of some things but they are a helpful metric in some regards.

One thing that they really don't assist with is understanding profitability. A park full of Sun ticketers and season pass holders is not as profitable as one half full with once a year day trippers paying somewhere approaching list price.

The evolution of the parks into resorts also makes it harder. With the peak 1994 number, most people came to the park for the day, nowadays many resort guests will enter two or three times.
 
Another thing that I‘ll admit to being stumped by on that graph is; why did Oblivion have such a limited impact on Towers’ attendance? It grew attendance by less than 50,000, or only about 1.1%, by my reckoning, and to be honest, I was close to logging it as having caused no change in attendance at all. I only logged it as an increase of 31,250 because the Oblivion dot looked ever so slightly higher than the 1997 figure.

I was under the impression that Oblivion was widely considered a huge success and a cultural icon of the late 1990s due in large part to hefty marketing. If that was the case, then how did it not do more for guest figures in the way that Nemesis did in 1994?

Weirdly, though, it also had a similar effect to Nemesis in that guest figures plummeted off a cliff the year after the ride opened… in spite of them never having risen in the first place. Therefore, the 1999 season, with an attendance of only 2.59 million, wiped out a considerable percentage of the park’s gains during the Tussauds era, and was the lowest year since 1991… a considerable contingent of guests who had been visiting since 1993 (where guest figures first hit the 2.8-2.9 million figure that was maintained for most of the 90s) chose not to return in 1999.

It’s very strange… I wonder why Oblivion had so little impact on figures?
 
BarryZola said:
Maybe the attendance would have fallen a fair bit though without the new ride, so it's not always easy to tell how much impact the new ride had. Maybe the figure could have been 500,000 fewer without the new ride? Who knows?
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That’s a good point. 1999 did see a big fall in attendance, as did 2000 and 2001 after that, so that would certainly make sense.
 
1994 was a very exciting and profitable year for the park, but Nemesis was almost too successful. The park didn't yet have the variety of headline attractions to support the crowds, and as good as Nemesis was (and is), people were regularly forced to wait two or three hours for it as standard. Some of those people didn't come back. Things were a little better-rounded by 1998, and Oblivion had obviously been reactively designed with extreme capacity demand in mind.
 
Benjsh said:
Gate figures are NOT an exact science. Plenty of visitors in those 'peak' years may have decided to go elsewhere the following year for a change. Doesn't necessarily mean they had a bad time at Towers.

I dont visit the same park over and over again myself. I can go quite a while between visits to even Towers. I haven't even been once this season for example. We will be going for our one and only trip during Scarefest this year for a change.
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My question was more; why did Alton Towers not sustain that 3.3 million peak for longer than just 1994 when all of the other 3 parks managed to sustain their peak attendances for a good few years?

I get that some would have decided to go elsewhere in 1995, but surely all of the other parks would have had an element of this too, no?

Why did only Towers suffer this huge drop off in 1995 that none of the other parks did after initially hitting their peak? If this is the case; why didn’t Thorpe have a huge drop off in 2010? Why didn’t Chessington have a huge drop off in 1996? Why didn’t Legoland have a huge drop off in 2014? That’s the question I’m asking, as it seems rather odd to me that Towers seemingly has a relative inability to maintain peak attendance compared to the other 3 parks.

Whenever the other 3 parks got a huge spike in attendance, they mostly seemed to maintain it for a good few years, or even consistently grow further past it for a few years in some cases. Alton Towers, though, often seemed to have the short, sharp sugar rush of that initial spike for 1 year, but none of the long term growth or elevated guest figures that the other 3 got, and I find it curious that Alton’s peaks seem to lack longevity compared to those of Thorpe, Chessington and Legoland.
 
Matt N said:
My question was more; why did Alton Towers not sustain that 3.3 million peak for longer than just 1994 when all of the other 3 parks managed to sustain their peak attendances for a good few years?

I get that some would have decided to go elsewhere in 1995, but surely all of the other parks would have had an element of this too, no?

Why did only Towers suffer this huge drop off in 1995 that none of the other parks did after initially hitting their peak? If this is the case; why didn’t Thorpe have a huge drop off in 2010? Why didn’t Chessington have a huge drop off in 1996? Why didn’t Legoland have a huge drop off in 2014? That’s the question I’m asking, as it seems rather odd to me that Towers seemingly has a relative inability to maintain peak attendance compared to the other 3 parks.

Whenever the other 3 parks got a huge spike in attendance, they mostly seemed to maintain it for a good few years, or even consistently grow further past it for a few years in some cases. Alton Towers, though, often seemed to have the short, sharp sugar rush of that initial spike for 1 year, but none of the long term growth or elevated guest figures that the other 3 got, and I find it curious that Alton’s peaks seem to lack longevity compared to those of Thorpe, Chessington and Legoland.
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I may be wrong but could location have something to do with it? The other 3 parks mentioned are so much easier to get to, and have the largest population pool in the country right on tbe doorstep.
 
Plastic Person said:
1994 was a very exciting and profitable year for the park, but Nemesis was almost too successful. The park didn't yet have the variety of headline attractions to support the crowds, and as good as Nemesis was (and is), people were regularly forced to wait two or three hours for it as standard. Some of those people didn't come back. Things were a little better-rounded by 1998, and Oblivion had obviously been reactively designed with extreme capacity demand in mind.
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I'd actually say the park had more variety of headline attractions back then, what they didn't have was many thrill rides.
In terms of variety there was a lot of new or nearly-new attractions in 1994, Runaway Mine Train and Haunted House both opened in 1992, then in 1994 there was Nemesis, Toyland Tours and Peter Rabbit on Ice. Definitely a wide variety of family-friendly headliners. Thunder Looper was still in the park too.
Whereas now in 2022 where is the variety, what are the headline family attractions other than Gangsta Granny?

I don't think the park did get more rounded by 1998, just it started replacing more standard off-the-shelf style coasters like Thunder Looper and The Beast with more modern attractions like Oblivion and then Air.
 
Accessibility and car ownership have probably increased in that time? Population certainly has, so reasons for the park's failure to attract numbers surely lie elsewhere. Perhaps it is seen as offering a declining product or one of less value for money.
 
Tom said:
Accessibility and car ownership have probably increased in that time? Population certainly has, so reasons for the park's failure to attract numbers surely lie elsewhere. Perhaps it is seen as offering a declining product or one of less value for money.
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Probably the second one..... I've certainly cut back on my visits to 2 or 3 a year max
 
There are more options for leisure at home and elsewhere outside the home these days as well. Theme parks have to contend with all of these things. Super cheap air travel may have had some effect as more and more people jet off abroad. It would be hard to pinpoint an exact reason. It would probably be worthy of a 2000-4000 word researched essay to have a good stab at it really.
 
Jb85 said:
I may be wrong but could location have something to do with it? The other 3 parks mentioned are so much easier to get to, and have the largest population pool in the country right on tbe doorstep.
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I think this is definitely a huge factor. Towers wasn't and still isn't easily accessible for non-drivers.

Don't think you can read too much into these drops really. Towers in 2008-2011 was still miles better than the alternatives so it's definitely not down to the product.
 
Matt N said:
I was under the impression that Oblivion was widely considered a huge success and a cultural icon of the late 1990s due in large part to hefty marketing.
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I think this shows you can't depend solely on enthusiast hearsay. Not only was Oblivion a big change of step for the park in the theme (at that time) but the whole park's brand image changed. There was a conscious effort to move away from its family image towards a more "edgy" contemporary image, including changes of development plans for the park.

I think the attendance graph proves that it wasn't actually the right decision in the long run
 
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NickB said:
Maybe one for the unpopular opinions thread. I've never rated it. Maybe ride it once every few years.
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It was groundbreaking at the time but isn't great compared to newer models or other tech available.

I also think the theme helped make it better. Given the state of it now I feel it takes the edge off.

That all said, it's still better to be in the coaster lineup then out of it
 
All these old gate figures don't show one big thing; weather. A prolonged washout in the summer months would do more to damage a seasons gate than a new ride opening would likely do to improve it. In the days before prebook and onsite hotels if the weather looked ropey people wouldn't bother, it was only really coach trips that were committed to visiting in advance.
 
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