White Elephants

[Altonadvocate1]

I couldn't decide whether to post this in the future or general section as I could make a case for both, but have opted for this in the end.

White Elephants... projects whose costs are vastly disproportionate to their value.

They used to be rare at AT, with two of its earliest big budget projects being The Flume and Corkscrew, both of which drew huge numbers of guests to the park for a long time.

Through the Tussauds''s era and beyond the SW series delivered fantastic attractions.. Nemesis... Oblivion... Air (not as good as the first two), Rita (I know, not a SW, I don't even like it but it's popular), Thirteen (it's underated) and The Smiler ( I love it, but it could have been better).

These are all projects that drew guests to the park and will have a lifespan of 20 years plus (though I hope Nemmie lives forever). There have been numerous worthwhile low and mid level investments too.

But what has gone wrong the last few years? So much money on developments that have failed to excite guests, not improved gate figures, or have been withdrawn or left SBNO after a couple of seasons.

Examples.

Ice age 4D - where did the alleged 3 million pounds go (probably the licence). A chance to view a 10 min clip from a movie you could have seen at the pictures with very basic 'special effects'. I don't see the point.

Battle Galleons - I absolutely love it, but then I'm a masochist. Personally I think this SHOULD be a success, but hardly anyone goes on it. Guess it's just too wet.

Nemesis Sub Terror - Anything bearing the Nemesis name should be awesome befitting the mighty king of rollercoasters, but it promised so much and delivered so little. I actually liked it, but high staffing costs and a cheap manufacturer that has gone under results in a SBNO attraction after very few seasons.

Galactica - A fortune spent on retrofitting a good but not great roller coaster that did exactly what it said on the tin. To create the motion of flight. The VR has taken away any sensation of speed or flight, massively slowed the despatch, massively increased staffing costs resulting in cuts elsewhere and resulted in prolonged downtime. Somebody thought they knew better than Jon Wardley. They didn't.

CBEEBIES Hotel... OK it's early, but seriously. We have too huge hotels and an 'enchanted village'. We have low occupancy rates even with heavy discounting and have to close Splash Landings for a significant proportion of the year.. what do we do? ... build another hotel!

Oh and let me hop over to Thorpe Park where an allegedly biggest ever budget has created an attraction where you sit on a stationery seat, in an admittedly well themed tube train and view images through glorified glasses fed by an unreliable computer. It is already possible to have a better VR experience at home. Personally I thought the technology was impressive, but the ride ticked the cardinal theme park sin. It was BORING.

Anyway, time for a few considerations.

When Tayto Park can get a huge fantastically themed log flume that like AT flume will last for over 30 years, why do Merlin spend more on two attractions that last next to no time?

Where has all the imagination gone?

Is this caused by jumping on the next trendy bandwagon (Eg: VR), rather than delivering the things that people actually want at a theme park?

We're JW' 's shoes just too big to fill and is no one up for the challenge?

I remain optimistic about SW8 and think we will get a solid family thrill coaster, but what after that?

What trendy flavour of the month is going to be the next lazy and expensive feature implemented by Merlin?

What will the next White Elephants be?

And finally, how do we avoid the next white elephant and get back to what made AT such a great Theme Park in the first place... attractions that are FUN, IMAGINATIVE and THRILLING that deliver the ESCAPISM that people really want from a theme park?

 

[MakoMania]

Just think....
Galactica: £2,000,000 (excl Rollercoaster Restaurant which was a worthwile investment)
Nemesis Sub-Terra: £2,000,000 ish
Ice Age: £3,000,000 ish

That's at least £7,000,000 and I'm probably forgetting some more things! Enough to pay for flat ride replacements for both Ripsaw and Submission with some left over for park TLC or durable, long term kids attractions!

 

[ChristmasPud]

We're JW' 's shoes just too big to fill and is no one up for the challenge?

I agree with many points you raise but the decline in quality is nothing to do with John Wardley, there are some fantastic designers working in and around the UK parks industry today, but to do with the growth of the company and its policies on the whole.

..Especially its marketing practices (bare in mind advertising and marketing are two different things) and the way it has bought out almost the UK industry over time. But the British public seem quite happy to lap up all their half baked and stingy product anyway, so things continue as they do.

Also so much of their style is to propagandize staff & guests to great lengths in order to keep people believing that they are a part of something amazing, "catching up with Disney" and that the next development will always be the best one yet, no matter how commercialised and lazy their track record is. They often seem to capitalise on people's enthusiasm to get things done.

The company is full of failing development strategies, hindered by internal politics and and constant baseless decisions at every level, even when they needlessly lose themselves money on vanity projects like Derren Brown's Ghost Train (could have been great but once again terribly designed & developed), but nothing's broken from their point of view since people visit anyway and the company is now bigger than ever.

 

[Rob]

Ice Age: £3,000,000 ish

Is that what you think it cost or have you seen that figure somewhere? Surely there is no chance that the re-theme of an existing theatre cost £3 million, even if the IP cost a decent amount!

 

[MakoMania]

Is that what you think it cost or have you seen that figure somewhere? Surely there is no chance that the re-theme of an existing theatre cost £3 million, even if the IP cost a decent amount!

I remember seeing it somewhere, I suspect the IP wasn't cheap considering it's a huge brand.

 

[Plastic Person]

Ice Age isn't really a 'huge' brand in the grand scheme of commercial IPs, despite it's international appeal and Hollywood roots. I'd wager CBeebies cost more. The series was on it's way out even when the attraction opened.

It's also worth bearing in mind that a lot of these statistics are nonsense, drummed up by marketing.

 

[djtruefitt]

There's been quite a few bad decisions from Merlin in the past few years.

It's hard to believe that the two rides that opened in 2012 are now both closed or gone completely. With ice age lasting 5 years and Sub-Terra barely making 4 years.

Then over at Thorpe they turned Swarm backwards for a couple of years, which has now gone back to being forwards, then we have I'm a celeb, which now a few years old is only open in the school holidays.

Also at Thorpe this season we are now in June and hey still haven't opened their second hand frog hopper, which has been sat there since March!

It seems recently Merlin has spent a fortune on coasters, but then all the bits in between have been crap or have just not lasted long.


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

 

[MakoMania]

and we still have next to no airtime

 

[Altonadvocate1]

Is that what you think it cost or have you seen that figure somewhere? Surely there is no chance that the re-theme of an existing theatre cost £3 million, even if the IP cost a decent amount!

Can't immediately find it, but I seem to recall a quote from an AT spokesperson which stated that Ice Age 4D and NST were investments totalling 6 million between them and an even split. I believe it was widely quoted on enthusiast forums around the time

 

[Rick]

I remember seeing it somewhere, I suspect the IP wasn't cheap considering it's a huge brand.

It's also worth bearing in mind that a lot of these statistics are nonsense, drummed up by marketing.

Merlin aren't always clear in terms of what the posted price tag actually relates to. With refurbishments, it sometimes is costed as if everything was new. A brand new Ice Age theatre with IP license etc probably wouldn't be far off £3m from the first spade going into the ground to the first guest leaving thinking 'WTF was that?'.

For most large projects, the 'marketing' price is usually close to what is being presented to investors, so it can't be wildly inaccurate.

Merlin's record is patchy and I would suggest it's perhaps more so at Alton, than their other properties. Gardaland have had some real home runs since the Merlin acquisition.

 

[Benzin]

To be fair it wasn't difficult to improve Gardaland from their offerings pre Mammut... But it does still suffer from some of the half baked ideas (Oblivio's bloody awful bridge for one) we've come to know from them...

 

[Rick]

To be fair it wasn't difficult to improve Gardaland from their offerings pre Mammut... But it does still suffer from some of the half baked ideas (Oblivio's bloody awful bridge for one) we've come to know from them...

It's hardly the Golden Gate, I agree - but it is just a bridge.

 

[ChristmasPud]

But bridges are ripe with design/theme opportunity. One bridge can make a great difference if you know how to use it, not even as a feature necessarily, just an opportunity to show a view or effect some change of level/landscape. It's a shame Gardaland's Oblivion bridge is an ugly orange Ikea type structure

 

[Rick]

But bridges are ripe with design/theme opportunity. One bridge can make a great difference if you know how to use it, not even as a feature necessarily, just an opportunity to show a view or effect some change of level/landscape. It's a shame Gardaland's Oblivion bridge is an ugly orange Ikea type structure

This is where I really struggle to find enough mutual ground to have a debate. On the whole, the nuances don't grate on me like they seemingly do with other enthusiasts. I get off that ride and think "Great ride, better than Krake. Let's get some food and a beer" - I am not thinking about bridges, but fair play if that's your thing.

 

[ChristmasPud]

This is where I really struggle to find enough mutual ground to have a debate. On the whole, the nuances don't grate on me like they seemingly do with other enthusiasts. I get off that ride and think "Great ride, better than Krake. Let's get some food and a beer" - I am not thinking about bridges, but fair play if that's your thing.

I'm not saying anyone should be "thinking about it", the opposite. Architectural effects are not a conscious thing. I hesitate to say its a 'subconscious' effect because that sounds arty farty, when actually it's a very objective effect using space & design.

It affects everyone's experience and build up to the coaster, whether they care/realise or not. By constantly cheapening out on design and missing opportunities like this, the end result is far less impressionable. Simple as that, it's a wasted opportunity.

Stick a Nemesis clone on a flat car park, or even just stick the queue on a flat switchback plot of tarmac and move all pathways away from the ride - the experience is drastically different right? And not nearly as good, despite being the same coaster. That's just all architecture & design. (including landscape architecture)

The whole ride would be far more disposable without that stuff and would feel totally different, missing out on the impressionable interaction which builds most the experience for people - without them knowing it.

..It's like editing in a movie, it's not what people are thinking about and that's the point, but it makes for most the experience for everyone. Bad editing makes a wasted opportunity for a far better film even with exactly the same story, scenes, etc.

Obviously you need a good layout matched with a good design, but if you think anything but the coaster hardware is superfluous then you'd be very surprised the solid difference it makes.

If you really couldn't care less, and yet you have been to much better parks outside the UK where it is done far better, is it possible you're just very jaded by this point having been an enthusiast so long? In which case, fair enough, but it does work when done well.

 

[Rick]

@electricBill - you need not have hesitated to use the word subconscious as not to sound arty farty, the rest of your post took you straight into that realm and beyond

I don't disagree that Nemesis wouldn't be as good on a flat car park (see most other B&M inverts...) - but this is just a bridge that you wander across - not something as fundamental as the the trenches around Nemesis.

Take the Batman: The Ride clones - they're fantastic rides and for me, personally(!), the fact that they have virtually no theming and load from inside a rusty metal shed, makes no difference to me - but if it does to others, fair enough.

 

[ChristmasPud]

It's only "just a bridge that you walk across" because it was designed that way! If it were designed with anything in more mind other than easy buildability then it could have been as part of the build up experience as Nemesis' quarry paths.

Even Oblivion at Alton Towers' bridges from the tower, over a drop and into the station was all part of the design to evoke that progression. Except it's all been pretty botched now so doesn't really have much effect, but still a much greater effect than had it just been a tarmac blob.

I study architecture and it really isn't "arty farty", it's just good design and knowing how it affects people. Things are only the sum of their parts.

 

[Rick]

@electricBill I think I sort of get what you're going at here, but I still can't get on board with it. It's like 80,000 people at an Oasis gig singing their hearts out to Don't Look Back in Anger, before a musicologist steps up to the mic and begins to explain to them why it's not a good song because it's a rip off of a couple of Beatles songs and so many others and has little musical value of its own. But - that doesn't matter to the masses, in the same way the little things don't matter to the bulk of folks who visit a park.

I'm good to be in the latter category, but I get that people get some strange joy out of being in the former and fair play to them.

 

[ChristmasPud]

You seem to be reading what I'm saying through a black and white agenda. The scenario you describe would be called being a finnicky arsehole and stopping people being entertained. That is no analogy for any of the pretty basic design things I'm talking about.

Here's a better idea. You're at a concert and the singer can barely be bothered to perform the song well, because he knows everyone will sing along anyway, and the sound quality is crap, it sounds like a wall of mush. Yes, everyone will still sing along but they're enjoying it only a fraction than if it was being done better and properly, with care & effort going into it behind the scenes.

Those things make the difference for everyone, even though nobody needs to stand there saying "Why is the sound quality rubbish?"

If you stuck your room on a flat tarmac square it be a very different place to live in than if it were stuck on a hillside, or if the lighting inside was nicer, or if the colour was good. Even though it's "the same room" and that's all you may consciously care about, it still makes a total difference.

And if you don't understand that, fine, you don't need to as a guest - but it should be encouraged because it makes a solid difference to any themed attraction. In fact architecture & creative "experience" (yeah yeah) design is the whole fundamental point of a theme park - apart from coasters where you can't just substitute good landscape/architecture for a good layout, but they work together.

 

[Plastic Person]

Even for you two, this discussion is a bridge too far!!!

You're both great posters, but put you together in one topic and we always go round in circles. Rick, you spend all day on this forum, and clearly invest a huge amount of time and money travelling to parks, so you're "I'm just a normal fella, not one of you geeks!" shtick doesn't totally wash with me at least. Nonetheless, you're right; most people don't care about this stuff, and this forum regularly loses perspective. Bill, your passion and knowledge is brilliant, and you can identify what is missing from Merlin's concepts with almost laser-point precision. But unfortunately, it's 2017, Merlin can get away with this, and you're not logging on to post in 1993.

Sort it out lads!