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Wicker Man - General Discussion

Matt N said:
If the park built Wicker Man because they wanted good publicity post-Smiler, why on Earth would they pick to build a ride type notoriously rejected for years on the grounds of it being perceived as unsafe by the broad populace in a period when the park was desperately trying to regain the public’s trust on safety?
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I found it strange that AT decided to build a ride that combined fire with wood - especially in light of the then-ongoing Smiler crash lawsuit, and concerns over the safety of rides at AT in general.

P.S. This might sound like a very strange analogy, but John Wardley reminds me a bit of Hazel Savage (the police officer who investigated the serial killer Fred West); Hazel (correctly) deduced that he had murdered and buried his daughter (and spent 18 months trying to persuade others that he had), but her fellow officers thought that she was insane to actually excavate his house on the basis of a mere rumour / hunch – but, out of respect to her tenure, they eventually agreed to her request (and she was proven to be right).

Likewise: John Wardley fought for years to have a wooden rollercoaster built at AT or Thorpe Park – in the face of overwhelming opposition – but, eventually, AT caved and - perhaps out of respect to his long track record - finally built one (the only part that I am unclear on is why they waited until after he retired before finally building one?).
 
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Secret Weapon said:
P.S. This might sound like a very strange analogy, but John Wardley reminds me a bit of Hazel Savage (the police officer who investigated the serial killer Fred West); Hazel (correctly) deduced that he had murdered and buried his daughter, but her fellow officers thought that she was insane to actually excavate his house on the basis of a mere rumour / hunch – but, out of respect to her tenure, they agreed to her request (and she was proven to be right).

Likewise: John Wardley fought for years to have a wooden rollercoaster built at AT or Thorpe Park – in the face of overwhelming opposition – but, eventually, AT caved and - perhaps out of respect to his long track record - finally built one (the only part that I am unclear on is why they waited until after he retired before finally building one?).
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Well that's certainly... a take.

I’m struggling to decide which is more unsettling: the mental gymnastics required to link the pioneer of the B&M Flyer to the excavation of 25 Cromwell Street, or the implication that building a GCI wooden coaster is a feat of forensic deduction on par with catching a serial killer.

Still, it’s a bold comparison. I look forward to your next post, perhaps comparing the removal of the Corkscrew to the fall of the Berlin Wall? Or even, how the closure of The Flume was basically the maritime equivalent of the sinking of the Lusitania?
 
Hid said:
Wickerman could really use a queue point within the batching area whereby the main queue passes the baggage hold and zig zags into the holding zone would make it more effecient
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It still baffles me why a little cattlepen has not been set up in the pre-show. By all means, keep the batched system, just a direct route around the room would remedy the small stampede of guests.

We’re English, we love a queue!
 
The_bup said:
It still baffles me why a little cattlepen has not been set up in the pre-show. By all means, keep the batched system, just a direct route around the room would remedy the small stampede of guests.

We’re English, we love a queue!
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The problem is they have to cram as many people as they can in a shortest amount of time possible, if there was a little bit more space especially between the station and the preshow then a cattlepen would make more sense, but I think the staff would find themselves waiting for guests a lot of the time, actually seen this happen many of times.

There are times where I do feel as though they just need to turn off the preshow, for example straight after the fireworks display it can become an intense crush of people who are tired after a long day and there can be confrontations between people trying to squeeze past and causes more frustration in guests than enjoyment.
 
George W said:
The problem is they have to cram as many people as they can in a shortest amount of time possible, if there was a little bit more space especially between the station and the preshow then a cattlepen would make more sense, but I think the staff would find themselves waiting for guests a lot of the time, actually seen this happen many of times.

There are times where I do feel as though they just need to turn off the preshow, for example straight after the fireworks display it can become an intense crush of people who are tired after a long day and there can be confrontations between people trying to squeeze past and causes more frustration in guests than enjoyment.
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That’s what made me wonder whether the pre show has been shortened, it seems a lot less of the shouty Scottish stuff than before. I personally think it was pants anyway.
 
The_bup said:
It still baffles me why a little cattlepen has not been set up in the pre-show. By all means, keep the batched system, just a direct route around the room would remedy the small stampede of guests.
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I'm not sure why, but one disadvantage might be that taller guests at the front could block the view of shorter guests at the back?

Then again, the video is quite high up on the wall, so perhaps this wouldn't be a major problem!
 
George W said:
The problem is they have to cram as many people as they can in a shortest amount of time possible, if there was a little bit more space especially between the station and the preshow then a cattlepen would make more sense, but I think the staff would find themselves waiting for guests a lot of the time, actually seen this happen many of times.

There are times where I do feel as though they just need to turn off the preshow, for example straight after the fireworks display it can become an intense crush of people who are tired after a long day and there can be confrontations between people trying to squeeze past and causes more frustration in guests than enjoyment.
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but they don't have to cram as many people in as they can... even a moderatly full room overflows the pre station queue, they could easily reduce the number of people in the room with a good chance of maintaining enough people to keep the seats full
 
I was always against losing the pre-show as i thought it was a suggestion unfair on people who have never experienced it to placate MAP holders.

I do think it needs modifying though. Whether that's an actual queue line round past the baggage hold, shortening the show or even making it a rolling show that people queue past. The latter seems the most practical, then everything from the pre-baggage merge point becomes a continuation of the queue until batching.
 
Pre show rooms tend to work better on dark rides than coasters for me.

A continuous one on a loop in the Wickerman queue makes far more sense than what they currently have. The only caveat though is if the ride ever goes down for a short while then hearing the pre show non stop for 30 mins can get very annoying so hopefully they pause it.

I do actually think the actual content of the wickerman pre show is pretty good though so Id keep the animation.
 
I agree with many of the views expressed here. The actual content of the Wicker Man pre-show is good, but the organisation of it is horrible and the prime reason I actually liked the way Wicker Man was run during COVID.

If they did the pre-show with a queue running through it to keep the organisation, or perhaps rolling like Curse, I think it would be excellent. But currently, the absolute carnage after the merge point takes away from it more than it should.
 
As stands it's normal for younger families to avoid the pre show. I'm not sure how that could work if it was a continuous walk through experience
 
That Guy said:
As stands it's normal for younger families to avoid the pre show. I'm not sure how that could work if it was a continuous walk through experience
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The Curse is equally if not more frightening with a significantly lower height restriction. As long as its clearly advertised as part of the attraction i don’t think that needs to be taken into account other than disabled access.

You could say the same about Vampire otherwise which features an unadvertised narrow dark tunnel and ominous organ player, again with a lower height restriction.

Being frightened on a theme park ride designed to be frightening, what a thought.
 
It would be much easier to skip the pre show if if it was running continuously, you could just wait at the door until the queue moves enough for you to walk straight through.

I'm not a fan of the idea though - the "reveal" requires a blackout and it looks really silly when it resets
 
Dark themes and rollercoasters are different types of fear and likely to have very different impacts on small children. Many small children do not need exposing to unnecessary fears about the world being a dark place.

I know plenty of families with children under 8 who avoid curse, despite the height restriction. There the dark theme is integral to the ride type/ experience, on wickerman it's not as integral. There is already a shortage of rides that can cover those big enough to be past cbeebies but not fully a teenager yet.

I'm not convinced an animatronic organ player is the same as a presentation on human sacrifice. Being afraid is not the same thing as being exposed to dark storylines/thoughts/concepts which many parents would want to avoid. Last time we avoided the preshow I spoke to a family whose children apparently still (unhappily) brought it up months later (and were as a result avoiding it this time).
 
Down to the parents really. It's not as if the Wickerman isn't an unknown tale of pagan ritual and been made into films.

The pre-show room and station are awfully designed with not enough space between the two. It overspills so often and that is often as a result of batchers cramming both the holding and pre-show rooms full.

Bad design often equates to bad operation.
 
Wicker Man is very PG in its content around the ride, I remember opening week of the ride there were a lot of 8-9 year olds taking their first rides too. So not that much a step-up from Mutiny Bay from a thematic level, family attractions should easily be catering to the older pre-secondary children within family units.

Rollercoaster demographics have gotten a lot broader over the past decade so if the likes of Drakon, Mandrill Mayhem and The Wave are considered family-thrill rides, and with Wicker being a step-down from those rides, then it is absolutely appropriate for a family half-term event and serves an important role within that offering.
 
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