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Wicker Man - General Discussion - Part Two

I wouldn't say the public thinks woodies are unsafe. However based on my survey with a sample size of one (my mum) I would say they think they're unpleasant and that's equally as bad for ridership.
 
I always assumed the ‘unsafe woody’ thoughts were somewhat stemmed from the fact we had next to no modern woodies in the UK and thus most people’s perceptions of them were based around the old rickety seaside woodies around the country.

Of course it may have just been late Tussauds/early Merlin BS.
 
You are probably right, @Scott. I remember my mum saying about how she didn’t like wooden coasters in 2017 when Wicker Man was still during construction, because she thought they were rickety and unsafe. Needless to say, after having ridden Wicker Man, she now thinks it’s the best ride in the park!
 
I wonder if it was part of nothing to loss plenty to gain, after that incident with the sw before it.
If it flopped they could use the 'we were boldly trying to change the public view of wood coasters' excuse. Which would play better that 'the public still has no confidence in AT safety'

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TakeYourMedicine said:
Well by that time, Tussauds and Merlin were pretty much the same company using the same blindly marketing-led tactics, just with a top change of management. Merlin certainly continued to deny the wooden coaster for years, there's a relatively recent interview somewhere I remember from Nick Varney saying they just couldnt do a wooden coaster. Somehow the company were finally persuaded to change their opinion after years, bringing everyone a really fun wooden coaster at last!



I wouldnt put much thought into any part of that programme. Bradley as a creative designer most likely had zero influence over what gets built at parks and when, those decisions are made by Merlin's development board. He was more directing how the theme and experience turned out.



Not really because John Wardley was a park development director along with a couple others, not a creative designer, though he would get very involved in the actual layout proposals, ride types, give the starting point to a theme. He gave the 'brief' if you like, to which the ride would be designed.

There were creative designers who were doing a role similar to Bradley back at the time of Nemesis, etc. Only difference was they didn't get featured on TV.

The decision to have John as the figurehead or 'designer' of all these rides was deliberate because it makes it more promotable, same with the decision to feature Bradley as 'creative genius behind the Wicker Man' on this one. There's actually a whole lot more two it, and the two of them were doing very different jobs.
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For me it comes across that at the park level, Bradley Wynn is the new John Wardley, he might be part of a team of creative people, but Bradley and John are the ones who have got to jump around enthusiastically on TV talking about their rollercoasters (Nemesis & Wickerman). It seems you are being a bit hypocritical stating that Bradley had no say in the ride but John did and then also stating they are doing similar jobs. Yes things are different between 1994 and 2018 but John Wardley had to work with a team as well.
Also don't forget that by the time Oblivion and Air were being built Tussauds Studios was doing most of the concept stuff in the same way that Merlin Magic Making do now, in fact TS and MMM are basically the same entity. Saying that it was the development board for Wickerman could be true, but it could also be true of many other things at the Tussauds parks in the 90s as well.
 
Or maybe it was the other way and John didn't want the credit for the ride when others had clearly put the work in originally, after all, all he did was put the camel humps in after looking at the original design and finding it shyte.
 
John’s involvement in all SW projects since Air has been drastically over exaggerated though.

I think with Wicker Man he was saying he’s just had enough of being pulled in for 5 seconds worth of “consultancy” then wheeled out constantly for the press as “the designer” character.

He never even was on the creative team, even back in the ‘90s. Just a project and development manager who got very heavily involved.
 
I don't know exactly what John Wardley's involvements were, but I'm sure he was a lot more than just a manager. This is someone who's built his own audio animatronic and then used the technology to create a whole show. This is someone who created special effects for James Bond films. He's also put on professional magic shows for the public. He comes across as very practical, rather than just being an ideas man or a manager. Admittedly Walt Disney stopped drawing cartoons early in his career as he became the creative force behind large scale projects. When you look at how many projects John was involved with, I'm sure they were team efforts with many specialists, but I still see him as an extraordinary talented designer. Most of the managers I've come across can't do anything more practical than send a few emails and change the numbers on an Excel spreadsheet. I think it would be grossly unfair to clump John Wardley with those people.
 
Think of John as the producer of a film, out of a small team of producers. He didn't 'create' the film, but he made key 'bigger picture' decisions about what it should be. Then think of Bradley as the production designer/ art director of the film. Still a big important part the overall attraction, but a different role to John.

The fact that they both get to dance around on TV (Bradley in a much more self centred way apparently) doesn't really mean much. Media will always want to portray one person as "the maker", because it's more complicated than there being one "maker" really.

What the ride 'is' or does gets planned by Merlin's park development team. With Merlin, the overall premise seems to come from marketing or at least gets heavily vetted by marketing.

Funcone said:
I don't know exactly what John Wardley's involvements were, but I'm sure he was a lot more than just a manager.
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Not saying John is "just a manager", he was a developement director. That's an instrumental part of how a park developes and what gets built. You're absolutely right that he drew upon his background in the entertainment industry to better inform on what people would enjoy, arguably better than most ride marketing today!

Nobody's trying to downplay John's huge contribution to developing the parks. Things were much simpler then, so he was able to have more personal influence on the overall attraction. He even makes very clear on his website that he does not actually design rides.

DiogoJ42 said:
I wouldn't be surprised if the sorry state Air ended up in compared to his designs was his "screw this, I'm done" moment, you know.
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Well it's not true it was over Air, but yeah it was pretty indicative of the time and no wonder he left. You've got to feel more sorry for the actual designers of all the landscaping and features around Air who spent months of work on it, only for it to turn out like a car park.
 
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I feel their pain. If I had a quid for every time I've come up with something creative, new, and / or exciting at work, only to be told "Erm, that's interesting. I think we'll stick with exactly the same thing everyone else has been doing for the last few decades, if it's all the same with you..."

:rolleyes:
 
It all feels a bit strange to me. They asked for his opinions then pretty much said "Thanks but no thanks"

I question how much different (better?) the park would be if they gave John his way every time
 
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