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Wicker Man - General Discussion

Benzin said:
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.
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Yes the pre-show room should have been larger and the station needs another switch-back of queue space. The whole building needed to be bigger. The pre-show is good and should exist, but it doesn't need to be as crammed in, its bad design and bad operations.
 
jon81uk said:
Yes the pre-show room should have been larger and the station needs another switch-back of queue space. The whole building needed to be bigger. The pre-show is good and should exist, but it doesn't need to be as crammed in, its bad design and bad operations.
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Am I correct in thinking that originally the pre-show and baggage hold were originally one building, more akin to the station next to it on the original plans for the ride? Back when the Flume’s station was going to be retained for the Smokehouse restaurant and the viewing plaza were still on the plans too?
 
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Bert2theSpark said:
Am I correct in thinking that originally the pre-show and baggage hold were originally one building, more akin to the station next to it on the original plans for the ride? Back when the Flume’s station was going to be retained for the Smokehouse restaurant and the viewing plaza were still on the plans too?
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Hard to say. I'm not sure that the baggage hold as we have it ever actually appeared in any of the plans, likely because it is such a small structure.

At the point of the EIA (which I think was the only documents which referenced the Smokehouse, but happy to be corrected), the preshow was shown with a question mark, suggesting that at that point they hadn't actually decided they would have a preshow at all. Notably, whilst most other buildings are shown in that plan pretty close to their final form, the suggested preshow building shown in those plans was a notably different scale and orientation to the preshow that appear in the final plans (which is pretty much exactly as it was built).

wicker-man-station-eia.png
 
GooseOnTheLoose said:
If Merlin were truly that terrified of water quality or guest behaviour on log flumes, they would have closed Dragon Falls at Chessington and Loggers Leap at Thorpe Park immediately. They didn't. The Flume went because it was knackered, not because it was dangerous.
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I'd agree with Goose on this one, we still have Tiger Rock so I don't think Merlin were terrified of Log Flume behaviour. I think they'd be more terrified of Rapids behaviour.

Modern Log Flumes also now have lap bars with a prime example being Chiapas (my recommended next investment inspiration for Alton Towers).

Secret Weapon said:
I remember Chris Atkinson (author of "Making Thorpe Park") mentioning this rumour in an online interview.

John Wardley told Chris in "Making Thorpe Park" that his original layout for Stealth was much longer, but I'm not sure if Chris ever asked him whether the scrapped portion became Rita or not...
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I saw something a while ago that Stealth was going to use Xcelerator's layout as a mirror as a concept.

With Rita, there has been a lot of rumours about it including being part of Stealth and also allegedly being planned for Oakwood before the plans changed due to the Hydro incident.
 
Skyscraper said:
Bringing the discussion back on topic, am I right in thinking that the original plans for Wicker Man featured a restaurant in the flume's station area?
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I wonder if this is why the ride has a slogan of “Feed the Flames” ?

i.e. Was the slogan for the BBQ smoke-hut restaurant intended to be “Flames that Feed !” (or something similar), so that the two attractions would have matching / symmetrical tag-lines?

P.S. Given that Heide Park copied the Wicker Man concept for their 2019 Colossos retrack, it would have been good if they had also borrowed the unused BBQ smoke-hut concept as well !
 
Secret Weapon said:
I wonder if this is why the ride has a slogan of “Feed the Flames” ?

i.e. Was the slogan for the BBQ smoke-hut restaurant intended to be “Flames that Feed !” (or something similar), so that the two attractions would have matching / symmetrical tag-lines?

P.S. Given that Heide Park copied the Wicker Man concept for their 2019 Colossos retrack, it would have been good if they had also borrowed the unused BBQ smoke-hut concept as well !
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Log off the blotter mate.
 
Secret Weapon said:
I wonder if this is why the ride has a slogan of “Feed the Flames” ?

i.e. Was the slogan for the BBQ smoke-hut restaurant intended to be “Flames that Feed !” (or something similar), so that the two attractions would have matching / symmetrical tag-lines?

P.S. Given that Heide Park copied the Wicker Man concept for their 2019 Colossos retrack, it would have been good if they had also borrowed the unused BBQ smoke-hut concept as well !
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This is obviously not true, but it's brilliant creativity and I have to commend it 😂.
Being serious I do wish the viewing plaza had become a thing, as much as I love the view you get, I think Wardley was always right in that rides can be enjoyed by both riders and non riders, and although Wicker Man is still quite good for this, having a different queue layout with a full view of Big Bob for non-riders could have been really cool. Not that I would bother changing it now obviously.
I do believe that the station building is a poor design but they have done the best with what they have got, and although I do like the pre-show, I do wonder if one day we might see it retired and the room used as it was during COVID. I'm not saying I'm necessarily in favour of this, but on really busy days, if it was proven to have large improves on throughout I wouldn't be totally against eventually.
 
JAperson said:
I do believe that the station building is a poor design but they have done the best with what they have got, and although I do like the pre-show, I do wonder if one day we might see it retired and the room used as it was during COVID. I'm not saying I'm necessarily in favour of this, but on really busy days, if it was proven to have large improves on throughout I wouldn't be totally against eventually.
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I can’t see removing it having any impact on throughput. The gates and batching area are always full as it is and they get trains out quickly.
 
Bowser said:
I can’t see removing it having any impact on throughput. The gates and batching area are always full as it is and they get trains out quickly.
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The ride operators are saints in my view for what they have to deal with. Worst queue merge point in history turning into a complete rabble before the bag drop, then a “London underground at rush hour” pre show experience before more pushing and shoving crowds in the batching area.

I should go and have a moan about how the Oblivion batching area is dangerous to us tall people while I am at it..
 
Bowser said:
I can’t see removing it having any impact on throughput. The gates and batching area are always full as it is and they get trains out quickly.
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I believe this is very similar to what Efteling does with Baron in terms of the mandatory bag storage, pre-show and a limited amount of people boarding at once.

The way they do it to accommodate single rider is actually clever, I'd love to see Towers try that if Single Rider ever happens for Wickerman. Efteling use tickets for every rider indicating the row and car they've been assigned before lockers which very much is doable for Wickerman
 
owenstreet7 said:
I believe this is very similar to what Efteling does with Baron in terms of the mandatory bag storage, pre-show and a limited amount of people boarding at once.

The way they do it to accommodate single rider is actually clever, I'd love to see Towers try that if Single Rider ever happens for Wickerman. Efteling use tickets for every rider indicating the row and car they've been assigned before lockers which very much is doable for Wickerman
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Except Baron has three rows and a lane for each one from the pre show to the station, whereas Wicker Man has twelve rows and only one lane from the pre show to the station.
 
rob666 said:
Lanky *** here...
Oblivion, never noticed, in all those years.
Come on, details...
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Hard to describe it I think the second station the one at the back.. past couple times I’ve been when it’s been busy and they’ve been packing people into the gates the roof curves right at the back and I’ve banged my head on it.

You’d think I’d learn after the first time and yet here we are.

No head banging to speak of at WM though
 
rob666 said:
Lanky *** here...
Oblivion, never noticed, in all those years.
Come on, details...
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Originally when Oblivion opened there was a deditcated bridge to the front set of airgates and a seperate one to the back set of airgates.
Later on when Fast Track was added they dedicated the back bridge to Fast Track, this means at times they make people from the main queue move from the front bridge to the back airgates, due to the curved wall/roof in that area it has low headroom, as was never designed to be a walkway.
 
Skyscraper said:
Except Baron has three rows and a lane for each one from the pre show to the station, whereas Wicker Man has twelve rows and only one lane from the pre show to the station.
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Yeah, that is very true although some adjustments could be made to accommodate for that. Baron has two trains worth of people at a time as well

If Wickerman had two lanes for two trains worth of people with row assignment at the end of that line like on Baron

I'd imagine things would be so much more organised but it's too much effort for Merlin 🤣
 
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