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An interesting question with a few answers. First off, to answer you concern: it was nothing to do with it being "too extreme". There wasn't enough serious complaints from guests who did it to warrant its removal. Frankly, I don't even know if there were any complaints - everyone knew what they were getting themselves in for. These sorts of experiences have a niche market (albeit, Thorpe and Towers' alone experiences expanded and simultaneously watered-down the niche). A short answer: There wasn't a strong enough drive internally to get it to come back. Devising the experience takes time (it wasn't simply "actors do whatever they want"), and there was no one who was in a position (in terms of the time-commitment required) to create it. There had been some backlash from actors about the experience who didn't feel comfortable doing it (something I'll go into later), plus it could add another hour onto an already very long day, where they have to work 10x harder. Those two together meant it just wouldn't get off the ground. A long answer: Less of an answer, and more of a story.. Face it Alone came about in 2013, with the park trying to diversify their line up and really focus on becoming a bigger, better and more unique Halloween event. The Lionsgate IP bought in the brands and the interest, completely refreshing the concept of Fright Nights. They tried new maze concepts: choices (Cabin in the Woods) and outdoors (Blair Witch Project). They introduced a (sadly poorly received) overnight experience, which was trendy at the time, and pushed forward with the Face it Alone: an extreme and an alone experience in one; again something which was trending and on the up in the scare industry at the time. For anyone that did it in 2013, you'll no doubt know that every experience was different. The actors were given a scope of things they could do, boundaries they could push and ideas they could toy with. It was free-reign, but it gave the actors a much freer realm to work in. Another important thing to note is that Face it Alone wasn't particularly popular in 2013. People were unsure what exactly it was, whether it was worth the £15, etc. You could also choose which maze to experience. Which all in all meant it was easier to organise, give a personal touch, etc. When 2014 came along, the experience changed somewhat. Whilst it was still 'extreme', the actors stuck to much stricter roles. Basically, actor 1 did x to you, actor 2 did y to you, etc. By no means a bad thing (if planned correctly, this can be a very good thing), just different. Again, this year you could choose your own maze and, whilst it had gained popularity, it was still pretty calm. 2015 is when everything changed, and was arguably the beginning of the end. Face it Alone became a much bigger spectacle. Gone were the days of choosing your own maze, and it was instead replaced with the Roulette Ceremony by Big Top. A great idea in fairness, and one that many enjoyed. This meant it garnered more attention and became much more popular, and went outside of the niche. Already teetering on the edge here. 2015 did go back to 2013's free realm style too. There were clearly things that certain actors had to do at certain points to progress you through the experience, but in between actors had a very large scope of what they could do. The next thing with 2015 was the overt sexualisation of the experiences. It's probably not suitable to discuss the details on a public forum, but many things done within the experiences weren't scare tactics, they were simply there sexualised things made to make people feel uncomfortable, humiliated and uncertain. This was the first year that a safe word was introduced too. Safe words do appear in many extreme attractions, but I don't think it's a coincidence that a safe word appeared at the same time the sexualised content of Face it Alone occurred. This was a completely different direction to what had happened before. Whilst Face it Alone may have featured things like nudity/being tied up/etc - ie things that COULD be sexualised - they never WERE. By doing so, it adds a very different tone. And this tone meant that people were enjoying these experiences in a very different way. There were plenty of times that people within Face it Alone experiences were asking for certain things to be done to them so that they could 'get their money's worth' and be satisfied with the experience. These sorts of things had happened in previous years, but not to the degree they had happened in 2015. This, unsurprisingly, led to some actors being rather uncomfortable with the experience. Come 2016, things had been toned down again. It went back more to 2014's "carbon copy" style experience. Originally it led to some complaints that it wasn't as extreme. I think one issue was that the 2015 version of Face it Alone had created a following of people who hadn't experienced extreme attractions outside of Face it Alone, so they had a very set idea of what should happen. When this didn't happen, it lead to that sort of backlash. Getting the balancing act right likely proved hard. And yet there were still people asking for certain things to be done to them, etc. Then 2017 came along, there had been a feeling of discomfort for a while from some actors. The experience had expanded too far out and wasn't something that could be controlled and marketed as it should. People changed roles. The amount of work required to hit that sweet spot was ever-growing, for perhaps diminishing returns. Fright Nights also focused on The Walking Dead, and AMC are known for very strict guidelines about their attractions. Working out a Face it Alone experience for those mazes would have been near-on impossible. So everything together just meant it didn't happen, and it hasn't returned since. And that's that. New external IP, internal concerns and arguably a bit of apathy/running out of steam all really finished it off. Maybe in the future it can return. With the AMC contract disappearing soon that would help. Seeing the extreme version of Creepy Caves at Chessington being a success probably helps. But it requires a lot of work, a lot more than many perhaps realise and appreciate. And I'm not sure I could see it happening soon.

I hate this guy

I'll be making my television debut and appearing on classic quiz show Countdown! My debut is this Friday (Oct 28th), airing at 2.10pm on Channel 4, and of course available on catch up after. There'll also be a bit of geeky chatter and roller coaster puns, because of course they run with me being a roller coaster enthusiast and turned it into my entire personality (not far wrong tbf). Would be lovely if anyone gave my episodes a watch!

Have removed a couple of posts from here - Regardless on your opinions on Nick’s music - fair play to him for organising this - just looked and I saw he’s raised almost £600 to donate to a mental health charity and no one deserves to be berated for that - that’s significant amount especially during these times from such a niche market. Whilst I get it may not be everyone’s cup of tea I think it’s great people when people l come together and do things like this which will ultimately benefit others more in need, especially in times like this!

For £10 I will expect to have a ball gag in my mouth, made to squeal like a pig and crawl around on all fours whilst being pushed about and then have a big fat man dressed as a baby put a custard pie in my face and throw straw at me #BigTopBraveItAlone #TheGoodOldDays #SharedBallGagNotCovidSecure

I am really getting quite sick and tired of seeing enthusiasts moaning and crying about POSTPONED trips to theme parks this year thanks to the pandemic. Look, I know this page is ofcourse a forum dedicated to a theme park and I myself am very proud of being an enthusiast. However, I do feel some enthusiasts on social media really need to look at what's going on in the world before they go on an Ian Beale style "IVE GOT NOTHING LEFT" sulk about postponed park visits. People are losing their jobs and with that, the abillity to make a living to pay the bills. More importantly, many people are losing loved ones to this virus. So with all that happening, I personally find it hard to feel sympathy to a bunch of people who are crying over not being able to visit parks that will STILL BE AROUND when all this is said and done. Those who are losing loved ones do not have that luxury. I have a friend who lost her nan recently and was not even allowed to attend her own nans funeral. So yes, forgive me if I find it hard to feel sorry for having to wait a little longer to ride the likes of Shambhala,Taron, Zadra,Taiga and Iron Gwazi or going to flaming Disneyland Paris. Rant over. Again I know this doesn't apply to all enthusiasts but I am seeing enough of it to really get on my wick. It's not just postponed park trips. It's also the sulking over canceled festivals and concerts. People should check their priorities as far as I'm concerned.

God he's good. Must be why he's a mod. Waff zooooooom splosh splish splash I was takin a bath rub a dub dub things are lookng UP. I'm desperate, so where can I.P. We need more time, lord.

I predict that construction for Project Exodus will go vertical on Monday 9th October. I reckon the first supports will go in sometime between 11am and 1pm that day.

Looks like a load of dumped shingle/hardstanding to me, almost certainly for storage, site offices etc. One would assume the loggers trough that's underneath it next to the CFM/LL station building will be the very last piece of Loggers that'll be removed (and then cut into slices to sell as merch innit). I eagerly await the Peepy Poop guy to say something along the lines of: Exodus has something in STORE, and the ROAD maybe shorter then you think. Buckwheats or out of luckwheats Rocky or just rocks Time will tell. Who's Ghost Train is it? (oh hold up went off on a tangent there)

I imagine next year will be a near repeat of this year. TWD, DBGTROTD, BM all closed. Capacity issues elsewhere. If only they had a nice open space like a farm to relax in, a large capacity train ride to take you there, an event space like an arena where people could be spread over a large searing area, or a log flume where each riding group could have their own socially distanced ride vehicle.

So here's the Thorpe problem in a nutshell. Their investment in the 2000's was big. it was exciting, it was dynamic, it was a dream to be a Uk theme park fan with rides left right and centre. But the Thorpe problem comes down to a lack of space and a lack of diversity. They've got themselves into a rut when The Swarm kind of failed. Their target audience demands the newest, most exciting attractions. Who cares about Colossus and its measly ten inversions when The Smiler has fourteen.So then when they fail to grow, they start to downsize. The problems start to increase. The lack of investment means a lack of return which just spirals until we get to now. Thorpe doesn't have the advantages of the family market. Chessington went through a similar slump when it left the thrill market altogether and turned to family. The difference there though is that the family market spends money. Kids demand toys and treats. Ap family holders are all too happy to grab a nice meal and a pint with their family. They like staying in an over-priced hotel. Kerching. Thorpe's target audience doesn't. Thorpe AP holders are happy to only spend a pound in the park all day. It starts to cost too much money to remove the SBNO attractions. Just build a wall. Who do you target at now when the bulk of your attractions are thrill heavy. Really there is absolutely no reason why the park couldn't build a family rollercoaster or some entry level flat rides (give me a breakdance you cowards). But they won't because all they want are headlines and aren't interested in sustaining the park beyond the end of the financial year. So we get short term rubbish like I'm a Celeb or Black Mirror instead of attractions that stand the test of time. I'm amazed that Chessington actually replaced Black Bucaneer and are replacing Rameses with a generic drop tower AND redid Tomb Blaster AND built a Rainforest area, refurbishing Toadies and building a Log Flume at the same time. This stuff never happens at Merlin, it will certainly never happen at Thorpe because the idea of cookie-cutter attractions would never fly. So instead the current attractions just age away and nothing gets built or done. If you were to ask me what Thorpe should do, I'd go with refurbish attractions, build rides that attract a wider audience and beef up that awful entrance with a new look and better security stations. Inferno shouldn't be turning green, family rollercoasters are awesome additions and a stabbing should never be able to happen again. There is absolutely no point in building an RMC or B&M Hyper if the rest of the park looks like a rubbish dump. Putting a bow on trash is still trash. And that for me is the Thorpe problem.

Hopefully it will be used to show replays of live streams where YouTubers say a ride name 50,000 times.

I would sell my soul for Exodus to open tomorrow just so we never have to listen to this nonsense ever again.

You might want to avoid supermarkets for the next couple of months m8

Not once did D.M.K mention crowds or the park being busy as a source of disappointment. All the issues raised were operational and customer services ones completely in the parks control.

Where have I heard these things before? Let me ask my buddy, Derren: "I don't know Josh, I just don't know..."

I have said this time and time again. A fan forum will almost certainly reflect the current state of what it is dedicated to which in this case is Thorpe Park. If Thorpe Park was performing and delivering to its potential, this forum would reflect that with members getting real excited about the place. As it is, the park has been a shadow of its old self for a few years now to the point where many who once loved it are now staying away as they are fed up. So ofcourse this forum reflects that. It would be nice to see positivity.....but when the park is leaving little to find positives in, its hardly surprising that you see more constructive criticism on here

We can’t all be positive when there is nothing to be positive about.

I went on the BTS tour of the park today. Great tour it should be said; it was headed up by Russ, who is a fantastic speaker. I did mean to ask about the screen, but honestly forgot. It does seem like it won't be fixed for start of season (I believe the park said this in the passholder group a few weeks back too). A real shame. Hopefully they can hide the dead pixels with whatever they put on the screen. Okay, now time for some updates. Everything is still a Work in Progress it should be stressed Toilets Loo enthusiasts rejoice. All the toilets have received some love. Swarm toilets. The walls have been painted green (originally white), and no more foot pedal sinks Megastore toilets are nicely themed Tidal Wave The rebuilt bridge, with the original Pier 13 style. The fire effect is proving very tricky to implement, but is being planned still Big Easy Boulevard Stealth Colossus The park have released that the entrance is a bit flat, and so are looking to add more colour/depth to it, although this will happen mid-season. The shop front looks nice. In terms of the rest of the repaint, and indeed a Sparkle Project continuation, the park hope to do that either next closed season, or the closed season after. The park want to do it regardless, and recognise they need to keep up appearances - literally - now that they've started to do this. Personally, I hope it happens next closed season, as it does look a little jarring in places. The park is looking lovely though, with the Hyperia area coming along and looking smart. There's other small updates too, such as KFC getting refitted and other new food places. Some parts of the park are still a bit tired looking / haven't really been touched. Rumba/Inferno is the big example I would say. And the Sparkling up does highlight how tatty some parts of that area, and the likes of Swarm and Saw, look. I do wonder if this means that, come opening, some enthusiasts will focus too much on those and not the fab stuff that we've seen heavily documented and shouted out about. But yes, it's clear to see the park have put time, effort and money into things this winter, and they're taking strides in the right direction. I'm excited to see what will happen and hope their plans pay off!

Pretty cool how clearly you can see the inversion from Staines Lane. Just walking to the site now to take some pics. 😁 EDIT: Extra track piece going in This part's gonna be so weird but thrilling 🤩 Other piece going in now Slowly but surely Final photo before I post the rest. They positioned originally but then took it back down after. Looks like they're securing it into place now.

Being serious for a moment though. I sense most of the negativity towards the name is because of it being similar sounding to Hyperion at Energylandia Lets be real though, what percentage of the people walking through the gate at Thorpe on any given day actually have heard of even Energylandia let alone Hyperion??

It'll be called Big Bird.

That's gone well then.

I mean, she had such a huge impact in Haunted House and Duel. Pivotal almost.

You've had some fun silly posts, but there comes a point when you cross a line and it just reads like a spam bot. This is the point. Let's stop the overt obtuseness now please.

Piff paff wipee woo waaa. Upppppp and awayyyyyyy. Someone's knocking at your door, someone's ringing the bell. I'm loving it.

Has there really not been a post here for over a year, even with Velocicoaster opening. Wow. So I managed to get over to Florida after a two year delay and part of the trip was to give Universal a bit more time to enjoy. I usually give the whole resort a day to do everything but this time each park got a day. Which I think is more than enough as with good planning you can get on everything you want really easily. Whilst everyone rushes to Hagrid's and Velocicoaster, we started with Hulk, Spiderman, the Seuss rides, Forbidden Journey and Jurassic Park before 10:30. Which is the ideal order as it covers over half the major stuff before going into the longer waits. Baring in mind, the last time I went, the Dragons had only just stopped duelling so majority is new. So:- New Hulk- Rides better then the previous version and the soundtrack really adds to the ride. I still maintain that the last third of the ride are a complete waste of time but the first two thirds are so snappy, precisely paced and hit after hit that I am more forgiving than I was in 2012. Spiderman is great, still remains a revolution in dark ride design and is a lot of fun. Seuss land is nice. Forbidden Journey has aged really well. It is a lot of fun and now that it doesn't command an hour queue at a minimum, its so much easier to ride and a lot less is hanging on the ride experience to deliver. My fiancé doesn't understand a thing about Harry Potter but appreciated the effects and ride experience. I'm completely biased in saying River Adventure is one of my favourite rides at the resort. I love dinosaur themed attractions, I love Jurassic Park and I love the variation and story telling of this attraction. It's so much fun and the physical precense of the dinosaurs really adds to make this a 10/10 attraction. So there. So to start.. Velocicoaster. So this is one of the best rides in the world. I think we all saw this coming but it further refines the successes that Intamin have had with Maverick, Taron and Taiga and I think adding this in a Universal park, one that commands huge attention in the theme park industry will bring Intamin a lot of success. We got four rides in various rows and it delivers in every seat. It feels like what would happen if Taron were more refined. Thats not to say that I think its better then Phantasialands ride (The jury is still out on that front) but the two are very similar in terms of sensation and pops or airtime litter both rides. Pacing is important to me and this ride has it in droves. The theming is okay, I think the story itself is a bit forgotten the moment you complete the first launch and it just becomes another rollercoaster albeit this has a beautiful location over the lake. Next Hagrid's motorbike thing. We waited an hour each for both of our rides and this ride is okay. It throws every Intamin trick in the book at you and its frankly a miracle that this works. I don't think its the greatest ride in the world because the Harry Potter implementation is a tad too weak for a Hogsmeade ride and frankly a lot of it is just a bit meandering. I admire the ambition if nothing else. So thats IoA for another decade. A great visit. 26F85C4E-CCD9-4EB2-801F-3CFE4F83D57B.heic

It's loggers, isn't it? 😄

I believe it is currently waiting on a part. I think it's been removed from the app, so will probably be down for a while. Rotten timing given the weather and it being half term. This is a dreadful idea in my opinion. Despite what many people think, queue prediction is hard. Few parks actually manage to do it well in my opinion. At the moment, it is even more volatile thanks to Covid and social distancing (or lack thereof). I imagine this idea is being tried for the following reasons: 1. They don't know what the queue times are when they're very long 2. They're getting a lot of complaints because of long advertised queue times When it comes to solving problem 1, there's not much they can do short term. The park is busy, queues will be long. But that in itself is a problem. A quick look on social media suggests that plenty of people feel that numbers aren't being restricted enough for Covid. Should the park, in future, be restricting numbers more? Should they now be looking at relaxing social distancing measures on rides (filling up all seats / rows)? The second problem is more insightful to their thought process. Anyone who's filled out one of the park's survey machines will know that you're asked a question to the effect of 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. This is a pretty big KPI that all the Merlin parks (and likely parks outside of Merlin) are interested in. Presumably, at the moment, they're getting a very high percentage of people answering "Yes" to 'Did queueing spoil your day?'. They've probably also noticed that "Rides per head" (the average number of rides each person has ridden) is low. As such, one possible conclusion that could be drawn is that "People aren't riding rides and saying that queueing has spoilt their day. We're advertising long queue times, so maybe people are put off by the long queue times". The solution there is then to not advertise long queue times, but instead advertise a minimum waiting time. That might not be what has happened. To be honest, I'd be surprised if there's people looking into KPI scores and probing in that way to come to that conclusion in that way. But it's a possible thought process. Equally, it could just be that they're getting a ton of complaints of 'The queues are all saying they're 2 hours'. As Matt says, people will not see the '+' here, and just assume a 90 minute queue. People leave common sense at the door when going to a theme park. There's another problem I've skirted around here. Operations in general. In my experience this year, they've been a mixed bag. Certainly not as bad as they have been in recent years, but not as good as they should be. Why that is, I don't know. But they need to come up with practical solutions to be able to get more consistent operations that are sensible and in line with what the rides can achieve, and with what the park needs. As for the more specific topic at hand... 1. If this is a trial to see if '90+' works, I hope they see it doesn't work, and they see that quickly. 2. If there's concerns about accuracy, introduce broader time frames, especially for higher values. 3. Work on actually make queue times accurate. More on this below. 4. The park need to understand that, ultimately, long queues are happening To expand on these points... 2. Perhaps they should introduce ranges like '90-100', '100-120', '120-150', '150-180'. When a queue is at that high level, it doesn't matter if it's 120 or 140 really, it's still a 2-2.5hour commitment of your day. Next to no one is going to enter a 140 minute queue, and then check their watch just before boarding and go 'Ooh, well that queue only took us 137 minutes, great job!' 3. I'm sure some remember a trial that happened on Saw a few years back to improve queue time accuracy. This would display queue times accurate to the minute, rather than in increments of 5-10 minutes. There's more details on this technology, provided by a company call Headmapper, here: http://www.headmapper.com/case-studies Interestingly, there is also a report which outlines how successful the trial was in 2015, which is largely positive. The technology was again used in 2017 for another trial. One reason why it didn't seem to carry on was costs involved with the product. Another is because it's a bit of faffy system which requires fixed cameras at certain locations (when usually, cameras are need to be moveable for security purposes)....so it would involve the costly installation of more cameras. So if the park really wants to improve queue accuracy and have a positive impact on people's day out, they could put their money where their mouth is and fork out for this. But then that still doesn't address the above point. And why spend out so much for something that doesn't tackle all the issues here. There are alternatives though, which are much cheaper. However, getting people within the park to get on board with the idea that queue accuracy is important is much harder than one might expect. So unless there's a shift in philosophy on that, this will never happen. 4. I'm not saying that the park don't know that long queues happen, or that they're bad or anything. But from my experience, there's a certain fear in acknowledging that the park will have long queues, and that this impacts that all important aforementioned KPI. Instead, there's an over-focus on improving queue accuracy, short term incentives to ride staff for improving throughputs and other weird stuff. Instead, there should be an acceptance that queues will be long as it stands and looking at ways to sustainably ensure that this causes minimal impact to someone's day. This should include making queues more interesting to be in, investing in the park so there's more things to do and making the park a more pleasant place to be in outside of the rides. And that should happen on top of the park improving queue accuracy and throughputs. Even if that should be a secondary focus. --- Wow, that was a bit of rambling rant. I'm sure some people on here know this is something I've had prior involvement in in one way or another. and even if not, it's probably clear I have some level of interest in this at a deeper level. Obviously there's many issues here, and many of them are long term, costly things to sort out. It's worth looking at short term alternatives, as well as little things that can be trialled in the short term to get a gauge on if they work. But honestly, this is the equivalent of sticking a used plaster on a wound that needs stitches. In short, the park need to acknowledge that they will always have long queue times, invest in the park to improve the number of things people can do, have queue lines be more interesting to be in and put some actual thought into how to estimate queue lengths over just picking a number out of thin air

2021 Edition Part two. The other day, someone said Steel Vengeance was over-rated. I'm going to stand out here, shout to the world that if you decide to refer to something as over-rated then you have no critical discourse whatsoever and you need to pick up a thesaurus and learn some new descriptive language. Saying something is over-rated is the laziest critique anyone can possibly muster up because it requires no explanation and only looks to disregard peoples opinion. It says to others, 'sure you like a ride but thats only because you're following the crowd. No, I am the only true oracle, the only one that can see past the rose tinted glasses of hype and I stand before you now to tell you that you're a blind sheeple. Follow me, I declare that Steel vengeance/Taron/Nemesis/anything people quite like isn't as good as you think it is'. Under-rated is different. There are so many attractions out there (Alpina Blitz at Nigloland for example) that fall completely under the radar and deserve to be spoken about more. The term under-rated is actually quite nice because it can be used to inspire people to try something or go somewhere they wouldn't necessarily go to without the recommendation. Over-rated is an awful awful phrase and looks to just belittle others viewpoints and enjoyment.

You also get a prime view of the mass refurbishment that is happening to transform Tomb Blaster back into Terror Tomb for the 2021 season.. I heard dan from the donut stall is happy to give more info

I love it when Jack comes back every year or so to complain about Fastrack at Thorpe. It's like when Steve posts every now and then to tell us how **** Merlin are. It's like a comfort blanket.

If anyone's interested, I decided to have a bit of fun this evening and cobble together a rough Planet Coaster recreation of Hyperia to gauge a rough idea of the sort of forces and speeds we might be hitting through some of those elements. I'm aware that the profiling and such aren't perfect, and as such, I'd take some of the exact g-forces with a pinch of salt (for instance, I don't think we'll be pulling 5.6G at the bottom of the dive loop...), but I built the large elements to roughly the same sort of height as they will be in real life (lift hill 236ft, Immelmann 157ft, large outerbank 164ft, dive loop 137ft, small outerbank 65ft, final airtime hill 48ft), so I think it should give a rough ballpark idea of speed in particular. I hope you like it! Here's a POV and some cinematic shots of my creation: And if you don't want to watch the video, here is the heatmap of vertical g-forces throughout the ride: As well as the heatmap of speed throughout the ride: And the stats of the ride: And just for fun, here are some shots of the layout in the day and at night: In terms of speed and forces; I think it paints a very promising picture! If my recreation is at all accurate, it suggests that we could be absolutely flying through the Immelmann, with the ride maintaining a speed of nearly 50mph even at the Immelmann's highest point! The other two large elements maintain speeds of 35-40mph at their highest points. In terms of trimming in the splashdown; I erred towards the more fierce end of the trimming spectrum and went for a deceleration rate of 4m/s2, which reduced the speed by 10-15mph. And even then, the outerbank and final airtime hill still appear very potent, with negative g-forces of nearly -1G still being registered in both elements! So overall, then, I reckon Hyperia could pack some brilliant g-forces throughout and hold its speed really well! I hope you like my recreation! I have to say, this has also reminded me just how much fun getting stuck into a good Planet Coaster build is... I really need to get back into Planet Coaster, as I haven't really had too much time for it as of late and it shows. I haven't updated any of my ongoing park projects for the forum in nearly 2 years! If you'd like to play with my recreation yourself, here's the Steam Workshop link where you can download it from: https://steamcommunity.com/workshop/filedetails/?id=3113374891

The twisted outerbank dive is complete!

Better late than never. Here are more photos of the site.

Note: I intend to keep editing this post as time goes on and more years are released. Hi guys. During the coaster consultations in 2021, Merlin released an attendance graph showing all their parks' attendance figures since the early 1980s. I had some time on my hands yesterday evening and decided to try and extrapolate some slightly more precise guest figures for each park from this graph to try and determine the precise(ish) attendance trajectory of each UK Merlin park from the earliest year listed here (1984 for Alton Towers and Chessington, 1983 for Thorpe Park, 1987 for Windsor Safari Park and 1997 for Legoland Windsor). For some idea, this is the original graph I was working with: https://www.cwoa-consultation.com/proposals?lightbox=dataItem-komw1163 To make things easier for myself, I divided each million on the graph into 8 rows (thus leaving ~125,000 guests per row, as my rather crude MS Paint annotation indicates): As such, I then decided to extrapolate a precise(ish) figure from the graph by looking at what row each park's figure fell within. All of these figures are rounded to the nearest 31,250; I know that sounds oddly specific, but it's 1/32 of a million, and a quarter of one of these rows, so it's the most precise figure that remains easy to determine by eye. It also keeps the margin of error to only 1 or 2 percent in most cases. The precise(ish) trajectories that I managed to extrapolate for each park, including percentage increases and decreases for each year, were as follows: Alton Towers - opened 1980, first year on graph 1984 1984: 1,843,750 (first year, #1/3 on graph) 1985: 1,812,500 (-1.7%, #1/3 on graph) 1986: 2,250,000 (+24.1%, #1/3 on graph) 1987: 2,312,500 (+2.8%, #1/4 on graph) 1988: 2,875,000 (+24.3%, #1/4 on graph) 1989: 2,437,500 (-15.2%, #1/4 on graph) 1990: 1,937,500 (-20.5%, #1/4 on graph) 1991: 1,843,750 (-3.6%, #1/4 on graph) 1992: 2,625,000 (+42.4%, #1/4 on graph) 1993: 2,843,750 (+8.3%, #1/4 on graph) 1994: 3,312,500 (+16.5%, #1/3 on graph) 1995: 2,843,750 (-14.2%, #1/3 on graph) 1996: 2,875,000 (+1.1%, #1/3 on graph) 1997: 2,875,000 (0.0%, #1/4 on graph) 1998: 2,875,000 (0.0%, #1/4 on graph) 1999: 2,593,750 (-9.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2000: 2,437,500 (-6.0%, #1/4 on graph) 2001: 2,187,500 (-10.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2002: 2,656,250 (+21.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2003: 2,562,500 (-4.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2004: 2,086,750 (-18.6%, #1/4 on graph) 2005: 2,187,500 (+4.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2006: 2,218,750 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2007: 2,250,000 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2008: 2,593,750 (+15.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2009: 2,656,250 (+2.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2010: 3,062,500 (+14.0%, #1/4 on graph) 2011: 2,687,500 (-12.2%, #1/4 on graph) 2012: 2,406,250 (-10.5%, #1/4 on graph) 2013: 2,593,750 (+7.8%, #1/4 on graph) 2014: 2,312,500 (-10.8%, joint #2/4 on graph) 2015: 1,968,750 (-14.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2016: 1,750,000 (-9.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2017: 1,875,000 (+7.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2018: 2,187,500 (+16.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2019: 2,500,000 (+14.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2020: 968,750 (-61.3%, #1/4 on graph) 2021: 2,343,750 (+141.9%, #1/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 3,312,500 (1994) All-Time Low (excluding 2020): 1,750,000 (2016) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 3,062,500 (2010) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,750,000 (2016) Chessington/Chessington Zoo - opened 1931, first year on graph 1984, first year as CWOA 1987 1984: 625,000 (first year, #3/3 on graph) 1985: 562,500 (-10.0%, #3/3 on graph) 1986: 500,000 (-11.1%, #3/3 on graph) 1987: 875,000 (+75.0%, #3/4 on graph) 1988: 1,187,500 (+35.7%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1989: 1,250,000 (+5.3%, #3/4 on graph) 1990: 1,062,500 (-15.0%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1991: 1,437,500 (+35.3%, #2/4 on graph) 1992: 1,218,750 (-15.2%, #2/4 on graph) 1993: 1,531,250 (+25.6%, #2/4 on graph) 1994: 1,687,500 (+10.2%, #2/3 on graph) 1995: 1,875,000 (+11.1%, #2/3 on graph) 1996: 1,812,500 (-3.3%, #2/3 on graph) 1997: 1,843,750 (+1.7%, #2/4 on graph) 1998: 1,843,750 (0.0%, #2/4 on graph) 1999: 1,656,250 (-10.2%, #2/4 on graph) 2000: 1,562,500 (-5.7%, #3/4 on graph) 2001: 1,531,250 (-2.0%, joint #3/4 on graph) 2002: 1,281,250 (-16.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2003: 1,312,500 (+2.4%, #4/4 on graph) 2004: 1,218,750 (-7.1%, #4/4 on graph) 2005: 1,093,750 (-10.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2006: 1,031,250 (-5.7%, #4/4 on graph) 2007: 968,750 (-6.1%, #4/4 on graph) 2008: 1,250,000 (+29.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2009: 1,343,750 (+7.5%, #4/4 on graph) 2010: 1,437,500 (+7.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2011: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2012: 1,406,250 (-6.2%, #4/4 on graph) 2013: 1,531,250 (+8.9%, #4/4 on graph) 2014: 1,562,500 (+2.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2015: 1,437,500 (-8.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2016: 1,437,500 (0.0%, #4/4 on graph) 2017: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #4/4 on graph) 2018: 1,593,750 (+6.3%, joint #4/4 on graph) 2019: 1,656,250 (+3.9%, #3/4 on graph) 2020: 500,000 (-69.8%, #4/4 on graph) 2021: 1,281,250 (+156.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2022: 1,468,750 (+14.6%, N/A) All-Time Peak: 1,875,000 (1995) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021, including pre-CWOA years): 500,000 (1986) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021 and pre-CWOA years): 875,000 (1987) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 1,687,500 (2019) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,281,250 (2008) Legoland Windsor/Windsor Safari Park - opened 1970, first year on graph 1987, first year as Legoland Windsor 1996 1987: 812,500 (first year, #4/4 on graph) 1988: 875,000 (+7.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1989: 968,750 (+10.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1990: 1,062,500 (+9.7%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1991: 1,031,250 (-2.9%, #3/4 on graph) 1992: 968,750 (-6.1%, #4/4 on graph) 1993: 937,500 (-3.2%, #4/4 on graph) 1994: N/A (-100.0%, N/A on graph) 1995: N/A (0.0%, N/A on graph) 1996: N/A (0.0%, N/A on graph) 1997: 1,468,750 (first year as LLW, #3/4 on graph) 1998: 1,312,500 (-10.6%, #3/4 on graph) 1999: 1,500,000 (+14.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2000: 1,687,500 (+12.5%, #2/4 on graph) 2001: 1,531,250 (-9.3%, joint #3/4 on graph) 2002: 1,593,750 (+4.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2003: 1,437,500 (-9.8%, #3/4 on graph) 2004: 1,437,500 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2005: 1,500,000 (+4.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2006: 1,625,000 (+8.3%, #3/4 on graph) 2007: 1,500,000 (-7.8%, #3/4 on graph) 2008: 1,875,000 (+25.0%, #2/4 on graph) 2009: 1,906,250 (+1.7%, #3/4 on graph) 2010: 1,906,250 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2011: 1,906,250 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2012: 2,031,250 (+6.6%, #2/4 on graph) 2013: 2,312,500 (+13.8%, #2/4 on graph) 2014: 2,312,500 (0.0%, joint #2/4 on graph) 2015: 2,343,750 (+1.4%, #1/4 on graph) 2016: 2,187,500 (-6.6%, #1/4 on graph) 2017: 2,312,500 (+5.7%, #1/4 on graph) 2018: 2,125,000 (-8.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2019: 2,062,500 (-2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2020: 687,500 (-66.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2021: 1,562,500 (+122.7%, #2/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 2,343,750 (2015) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021, including pre-LLW years): 812,500 (1987) All-Time Low (excluding 2020, 2021 and pre-LLW years): 1,312,500 (1998) Peak Within Merlin Era (2006 and later): 2,343,750 (2015) Low Within Merlin Era (2006 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,500,000 (2007) Thorpe Park - opened 1979, first year on graph 1983 1983: 843,750 (first year, #1/1 on graph) 1984: 1,031,250 (+22.2%, #2/3 on graph) 1985: 1,093,750 (+6.1%, #2/3 on graph) 1986: 1,093,750 (0.0%, #2/3 on graph) 1987: 1,093,750 (0.0%, #2/4 on graph) 1988: 1,187,500 (+8.6%, joint #3/4 on graph) 1989: 1,343,750 (+13.2%, #2/4 on graph) 1990: 1,000,000 (-25.6%, #4/4 on graph) 1991: 968,750 (-3.1%, #4/4 on graph) 1992: 1,093,750 (+12.9%, #3/4 on graph) 1993: 1,281,250 (+17.1%, #3/4 on graph) 1994: 1,218,750 (-4.9%, #3/3 on graph) 1995: 1,125,000 (-7.7%, #3/3 on graph) 1996: 1,187,500 (+5.6%, #3/3 on graph) 1997: 968,750 (-18.4%, #4/4 on graph) 1998: 875,000 (-9.7%, #4/4 on graph) 1999: 906,250 (+3.6%, #4/4 on graph) 2000: 937,500 (+3.4%, #4/4 on graph) 2001: 1,187,500 (+26.7%, #4/4 on graph) 2002: 1,437,500 (+21.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2003: 1,531,250 (+6.5%, #2/4 on graph) 2004: 1,468,750 (-4.1%, #2/4 on graph) 2005: 1,562,500 (+6.4%, #2/4 on graph) 2006: 1,812,500 (+16.0%, #2/4 on graph) 2007: 1,843,750 (+1.7%, #2/4 on graph) 2008: 1,843,750 (0.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2009: 2,125,000 (+15.3%, #2/4 on graph) 2010: 2,187,500 (+2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2011: 2,125,000 (-2.9%, #2/4 on graph) 2012: 1,843,750 (-13.2%, #3/4 on graph) 2013: 1,786,250 (-3.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2014: 1,843,750 (+3.2%, #3/4 on graph) 2015: 1,531,250 (-17.0%, #3/4 on graph) 2016: 1,625,000 (+6.1%, #3/4 on graph) 2017: 1,562,500 (-3.9%, #3/4 on graph) 2018: 1,593,750 (+2.0%, joint #4/4 on graph) 2019: 1,500,000 (-5.9%, #4/4 on graph) 2020: 562,500 (-62.5%, #3/4 on graph) 2021: 1,218,750 (+116.7%, #4/4 on graph) All-Time Peak: 2,187,500 (2010) All-Time Low (excluding 2020 and 2021): 843,750 (1983) Peak Within Merlin Era (2008 and later): 2,187,500 (2010) Low Within Merlin Era (2008 and later, excluding 2020 and 2021): 1,500,000 (2019) To sum up each park's trajectory: Alton Towers may have been top dog for the bulk of the years since 1984, but it has also had the most volatile guest figures. It has had peaks as high as 3.3 million in 1994, but also troughs of only slightly above 2 million in the mid-2000s or even slightly below in the early 1990s and mid-2010s, with a nadir of 1.75 million being reached in 2016. At that point, it was well away from #1 and almost rubbing shoulder to shoulder with #3 park Thorpe. Interestingly, its peak was early, in 1994, and only 2010 has ever come close to that since. Merlin have attained fair growth at Alton Towers; between 2007 and 2019, attendance grew by 11.1%. Chessington started off fairly well, attaining steady growth from 1987 up until 1994, where it stayed at its peak until about 1997. However, attendance dropped through the floor from 1998 onwards, hitting a low of under 1 million in 2007, so it's fair to say that Chessington's trajectory has been far from uniform, although things improved notably under Merlin. Interestingly, Chessington is the park that has thrived most under Merlin, with attendance having grown by 74.1% between 2007 and 2019. Nonetheless, the high water mark was hit quite early on at Chessington, with that near 2 million peak guest figure being all the way back in 1995, and no year post-1997 has yet come close to it. Legoland Windsor has had the most consistent growth trajectory of all the parks. With its low back near opening in 1998, its peak in 2015 and no particularly catastrophic attendance drops (COVID aside), it's grown fairly consistently over the years. It's also a park that has thrived pretty well under Merlin; between 2005 and 2019, attendance grew by 37.5%. Thorpe Park has had a bit of a roller coaster of a growth trajectory. The 80s and 90s were a little bit choppy at Thorpe Park, with peaks of close to 1.5 million and lows of under 1 million. The park really hit its stride from 2001 onwards, maintaining a near perfect growth trajectory right up to the park's 2.2 million peak in 2010. However, things have been a bit of a struggle since then, with guest figures having almost consistently declined since 2011 right back to a low of 1.5 million in 2019. The park has comparatively struggled under Merlin, with attendance having fallen by 18.6% between 2007 and 2019. I hope you find this interesting! If you don't agree with something I've done or notice any errors, however, don't be afraid to flag them to me.

I just think it's great that Thorpe have bought back rollbacks on Stealth.

I can't believe the ride that everyone hates is being adjusted and everyone hates its even more.

The "we're a small park" excuse is rubbish. Go back 20 years, when the park was (excluding The Farm) technically smaller, and they had defined areas, with portals and signage. Look at a park like Phantasialand, which is small and compact, and they have some of the most well-defined, high quality themed lands out there. The simple and honest reason why the park don't do themed lands is because they don't want to. That's fine too, if that's the case. But let's face, it's not because they couldn't.

Rocky Express is going in there!

I dunno, I think it was a nice refreshing addition to the thread.

PLANS HAVE BEEN SUBMITTED. Some highlights: -The ride will feature trains of 20; 10 rows of 2. The trains will have lapbars. *Not too surprising, but nice to know. -No manufacturer is confirmed; this is not of interest for planning permission, but it is acknowledged it is of interest to roller coaster enthusiasts. Equally, the application just mentions ride comparison are done to a 'similar ride in Europe' -The ride will reach a maximum speed of around 130km/h (though this is not definite) -The ride will have a light track colour high up, similar to Stealth *This was mentioned in the consultation period. I haven't found confirmation of *what* the colour is for the high points, or the low points. This is usually contained within there somewhere. -The ride's highest points are: 72m, 50m, 48m and 43m *This puts to bed an initial thought I had that the park might try to go for the world's tallest inversion record. -Lots of trees will be planted around the station building -During construction, the lake will be infilled partially. Originally, the supports were meant to go into the lake, but it looks like they will go into a small part of land within the lake. I guess this is a compromise between having a nice looking lake and ease of maintenance. -The expanded construction area appears to just be for the *full* demolition of Loggers Leap, as opposed to just the bits in the way. So no extended layout. -Construction should start late this year, and the whole process should last 16 months. So Spring 2024 opening Now some more photos: An interesting look at an alternative layout Trees In past applications, we have gotten a look at the design of buildings, etc. But I can't find any of that. Usually we'd even get fencing plans, saying the style, height, material of every fence in an application. Again, doesn't seem to be here. Interesting, in a geeky sorta way. All I can say about the station is it has walls and a metal roof (a roof shouldn't be taken for granted). So there's no clarity on theming, style, colours or anything. Random note: the transfer track is after the station and at the start of the ride, as opposed to at the end of the ride / before the station. Somewhat different.

This seems like as good a thread as any to post this in... I passed my PhD today!

Roses are Red Violets are Blue I have limited patience... ...for lame cryptic Clues

Closed by 2023 is all I could think of to be honest.

He, much like other YouTubers, are slaves to the algorithm. Stop posting videos for a bit and then suddenly your viewership (and revenue) drops considerably. I think he's one of these people who became a bit of a favourite whilst working at Towers, and he took full advantage of that, allowing his fanbase to be in a good position when vlogging became such a major thing (I remember when the "Theme Park Room" was one of the most cringiest things to ever cringe). My experiences of him have been limited (even if I accidentally appear in one of his vlogs in the background), but it's not been great admittedly. Being loud and annoying in the middle of Nemesis entrance area and then kicking off because he and his group weren't allowed to be the first on MRAWS. There's certainly an edge to him which was put under the spotlight this year. Unfortunately (and this is a larger trend), the fan base of said creators are perhaps some of the strangest of beings. The mental gymnastics they will perform to support someone because they've gotten involved in shenanigans is often a sight to behold. All in all, even if it was technically work related, travelling across the country in the current climate is certainly not a great idea. Though half the issue is down to the poor handling of this pandemic from our dear leaders.

Nothing much to add to this discussion really, other than it's been an interesting read! I can't see the future looking too bright for DBGTROTD and would agree with @JoshC. to be honest... can't see that it will open in 2020 at all. It would take quite some retheme to change it to something else minus VR. It has been, and is going to continue to be, a huge problem for the park. One thing I will say - and have always said - the show building exterior (generally), the pre-show, and above all else, the Victorian carriage exterior, the tube train interiors, the Underground station and the fake shop (minus the guy in the white t-shirt) are all pretty much world class - and I say that without a sense of irony at all. They've nailed those. It's just such a shame that the rest has always been a bit of a confused mess. Maybe that bodes well for keeping it and rehashing it to something else, I don't know. For it to be removed in it's entirity after the Derren IP expires, or before, would be unheard of - but I don't think it's out of the question. The money pot isn't never ending, and there comes a point where you have to admit defeat, especially with the added complication of coronavirus (and the very valid points about the storyline featuring corona symptoms, plus people probably not wanting doom and gloom when they can finally go to a theme park after all this has passed) - it's going to be morbidly fascinating what happens next.