Why is it that thrill-focused parks struggle in comparison to parks aimed solely at families? What makes them different?

[Matt N]

Hi guys. In a Thorpe Park trip report thread I was just reading over on CoasterForce, Serena from CoasterForce made this really interesting post:

Okay, I'll bite

Families with young children who go to Thorpe Park simply don't do their research. It's not the parks fault if they have a disappointing day. It's like going to a vegan restaurant and moaning there's no meat options.

If you look at their marketing, Thorpe don't bill themselves as a family park. It's almost always groups of young adults / teens in their photos. That's their target demographic, clearly.

When talking about "what is there to do for families" at Thorpe - I also think we forget that many older kids love thrills. When I worked there last year, the majority of the best feedback was from 10 - 13 yr olds loving the big coasters. Again, families who do their research and bring thrillseeking kids over 1.4m in height will likely have a fantastic time.

So when we ask: what is there for families to do - the question is too broad. What type of families? Families with 4yr olds? 8yr olds? 11yr olds?

The southern UK Merlin park trajectory for families is clearly intended to be Legoland then Chessington then Thorpe. Thorpe isn't a massive cater-for-all place like Alton Towers, in the same way that Chessington and Legoland aren't there to cater for thrillseekers.

We don't criticise Chessington for having no thrilling rides. So why do we criticise Thorpe for having a small selection of tame rides? Parks that are only 30 miles apart are supposed to be different from each other and have contrasting ride offerings.

It's a bit like critising a horror movie for being too scary. Thrills are the purpose of Thorpe, that's why they're building the UKs tallest coaster. And families with thrillseeking 1.4m kids will LOVE it. As will the majority of their teenage / young adult / groups of mates clientele too. Celebrate it for it's purpose.

Now I didn’t just cite Serena’s post for no reason. To a degree, I do agree with her, and her post did get me thinking; why is it that thrill parks often don’t seem as successful, and often receive a lot of stick compared to parks that go solely for young families, for instance? Why is it that enthusiasts constantly bemoan the fact that Thorpe lacks family rides, but never bemoan the fact that Legoland and Chessington lack thrill rides? And why is it that thrill parks often seem to struggle compared to solely family-focused parks? Why is it that thrill parks aren’t simply accepted as another genre of theme park with a different target market in the same way as children’s parks are, and are often told that they need to change and appeal to young families more?

I’ll admit I’m a bit stumped, and I’d be intrigued to know your thoughts. I’ve often heard it said that families have more disposable income and money to spend on park than thrill seekers, but the more I think about it and the more I hear, the less I agree with that statement.

As another poster in that same thread mentioned when I raised that point, a lot of families visiting the Southern Merlin parks are working off of a tight budget; many of them will be MAP holders who visit on a regular basis with their own packed lunches and don’t buy any merchandise or extra goodies, and even if they aren’t MAP holders, many families are on a tight budget, and whatever they buy on park will naturally cost more due to an increased group size, thus possibly deterring them from making the spend. The park gets no money at all from those MAP guests, and less money from those types of families even without MAPs.

With thrill seekers, on the other hand; while there are of course plenty of thrill seekers who fit the description of “MAP holder who visits every weekend and doesn’t spend any money”, this audience might have less of a tight budget for a theme park day, and things will naturally cost less for them due to them usually paying for less people than a family group, so they might be more inclined to spend that little bit of money on in-park food, for instance. Yes, I know that a big family group would generate more money per purchase than a smaller thrill seeker group or single thrill seeker, but if the families aren’t making those purchases and the thrill seekers are, then the smaller thrill seeker purchase is financially preferable to the non-existent family purchase.

As Serena also says, thrill seekers and families are not necessarily mutually exclusive groups, so that makes the struggle of the thrill park all the more interesting.

What do you guys think?
P.S. Here’s the thread I’m referring to, in case you’re interested: https://coasterforce.com/forums/threads/thorpe-park-how-crap-is-it.45495/

 

[Themeparksandy1981]

I think it’s really is as Merlin own all the big theme parks around London and most of the midway attractions In London they got 3 theme parks for different age groups and markets.

Like Legoland it’s perfect for kids up to 7&8 years old as they only got 2 attractions that’s over the min height of 1m which is on average 4+

Chessington got a mixer of 1.1 to 1.2m tall attractions with just 1 ride for 1.4m tall with the rest needing a adult to ride with them to they 1.3m tall. So really Chessington is aiming for younger families but most attractions aimed at families 5+ up to 11 years old.

Thorpe Park is a thrill park with not many attractions available under the 1.2m tall but most rides been 1.4m which is on average between 10 and 11 years old and when they become teenagers/young adults they want to go theme parks with there friends not there parents.

 

[Benzin]

The target market of thrill focused park don't have the disposable income.

Thorpe's constant jumping from idea to idea (adding family rides, then turning X into an adult themed attraction) sends mixed messages to the public.

 

[Craig]

The problem you have is that even if you have families on a tight budget, they'll still spend something. Be that coffees for the adults, a bit of merchandise for the kids at the end of the day.

As others have mentioned, Merlin have a number of parks in the south and there was an active decision a while ago to target them more specifically to families, or in Thorpe's case to the teenage/adult market. In theory that's fine, but you need to have a number of things in place to make it a success when you've taken away the things that made a family visit to Thorpe a little more worthwhile. Firstly, you can't just rely on rides, you need a decent amount of additional events to increase guest spend. If you don't have things like entertainment to see outside of a queue line/on a ride where spend is pretty much zero, then you're unlikely to encourage people to part with their cash. We've seen from the likes of Oktoberfest that this is now changing, but the underinvestment/poor investment caused by their previous issues means they're playing catchup on the rides front now too. We've also seen "knee jerk" investments like Thorpe Shark, in theory a great idea, but like everything it was done on the cheap so has to be heavily discounted to maintain occupancy.

To increase guest spend per head you also need to ensure that the park is priced appropriately. The fact that Thorpe were pretty much selling an annual pass for the cost of a day ticket meant that after that first visit, repeat visits by these guests were starting from zero in the first place. Suddenly you're at least £30 down from that one guest before they even spend anything in the park.

The fact the passes are now priced appropriately is an improvement, but their previous issues now mean they have a long uphill battle to get a decent overall product that'll attract people back. Unfortunately, that's a multi year thing that's going to need major, substantial investment.

 

[jon81uk]

Now I didn’t just cite Serena’s post for no reason. To a degree, I do agree with her, and her post did get me thinking; why is it that thrill parks often don’t seem as successful, and often receive a lot of stick compared to parks that go solely for young families, for instance? Why is it that enthusiasts constantly bemoan the fact that Thorpe lacks family rides, but never bemoan the fact that Legoland and Chessington lack thrill rides? And why is it that thrill parks often seem to struggle compared to solely family-focused parks? Why is it that thrill parks aren’t simply accepted as another genre of theme park with a different target market in the same way as children’s parks are, and are often told that they need to change and appeal to young families more?

A family with an 9, 12 and 14 year old could send the 14 year old off with other kids for the day and just take the younger ones to Chessington for the day. Its a lot harder to do that the other way round and just take older kids to Thorpe and leave the younger siblings at home.
Having a park that can attract a wide range of people who like different things will attract more guests.

 

[Ils]

Thorpe Park is still the only main park as family we haven't been to in the UK and it's all due to us owning a short arse 8 year old who is currently at 1 metre 32 inches.

It's not just Thorpe Park though, you could say the same for SeaWorld Orlando. Although they have tried to bridge the gap for about three hours with Icebreaker there really is not much to do there for 7 - 9 year olds.

I would expect the new B&M to have a height restriction similar to Emperor of 52 inches as it entices families with children in that age range to visit the park and feel like you are getting your money's worth.

My 8 year old in October will hopefully be going on Accelerator , Hangtime, X2 etc but yet isn't tall enough for Stealth, Colousous or Saw...go figure.

As another poster has pointed out Teenagers want to go with their friends but they don't really have much disposable income and are probably restricted to a tight budget. Yet I know first hand when Mummy and Daddy go with children, their bank comes with them and therefore more expenditure occurs.

 

[Enter Valhalla]

Thorpe Park, in my opinion, made the big mistake during their transformation into a park for adults and teenagers, of assuming that all adults and teenagers enjoy thrill rides. This simply isn’t the case.

I have friends and their 20s and 30s who don’t enjoy intense thrill rides, but who will happily visit theme parks, sit out for the big coasters, but enjoy all the medium to smaller sized rides, as well as the shows, animals (in the case of some parks), and other things to do, and leave having had a great day. Visit Thorpe Park with people who fit this description, and they’ll have had a pretty miserable day.

This would also be true of some Six Flags parks which are crammed with intense thrill coasters but lack the more ‘thrilling and fun’ category rides, as well as nice park atmosphere and charm. At least with Six Flags though, they seem to find the money to throw up big new coasters every few years, a business model which was never really going to be sustainable at Thorpe.

 

[jon81uk]

Thorpe Park, in my opinion, made the big mistake during their transformation into a park for adults and teenagers, of assuming that all adults and teenagers enjoy thrill rides. This simply isn’t the case.

I have friends and their 20s and 30s who don’t enjoy intense thrill rides, but who will happily visit theme parks, sit out for the big coasters, but enjoy all the medium to smaller sized rides, as well as the shows, animals (in the case of some parks), and other things to do, and leave having had a great day. Visit Thorpe Park with people who fit this description, and they’ll have had a pretty miserable day.

This would also be true of some Six Flags parks which are crammed with intense thrill coasters but lack the more ‘thrilling and fun’ category rides, as well as nice park atmosphere and charm. At least with Six Flags though, they seem to find the money to throw up big new coasters every few years, a business model which was never really going to be sustainable at Thorpe.

Yep, when visiting Six Flags Magic Mountain I struggled to find a ride to do straight after lunch as didn’t want to do a coaster with a full stomach. Ended up queuing for ages for the rapids. Only other non-thrill ride there I remember is dodgems, which I suppose is similar at Thorpe Park really where the dodgems is one of the few fun rides that everyone can do.

 

[venny]

As others have touched on, it’s a perfect storm of lower guest spend per capita because of the demographic attracted, but also the high cost of investment due to the nature of hardware required to satiate and attract that thrill market.