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Marc

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Posts posted by Marc

  1. There’s a clear shift in how Merlin spend money the last couple of years tbf, I would guess the combo of a new CEO / going back to private have made this more possible.

     

    Agree all this stuff should be standard but I guess it isn’t in recent times here so it is nice to see.

     

    Hopefully once it is done they can keep it up - even just smaller touches up around the park each year can keep it up to a decent standard whilst not costing multi millions which I can only assume all this is costing to bring it up from where it currently is / was.

  2. They also confirmed it’s getting a major PLC upgrade so that fits in with the rumours about being able to unlock individual restraints. I’d be surprised if it’s able to unlock one bar at a time without also major works on the train but maybe one “car” at a time?

     

    That said they can already unlock 2 rows at a time on Inferno but they still recheck all bars after unlocking 2 rows - but that’s more a recent policy thing than anything.

  3. On 11/7/2023 at 12:11 PM, Glitch said:

    Thorpe to Imascore….

    Hi we have a new rollercoaster being built could you produce the music please…

     

    imascore… sure thing that will be xxx

     

    thorpe… oh that’s a little bit high, perhaps we will get our crew to do it….

     

    imascore…. How about you offer us a seminar with your enthusiasts to bring the cost down slightly.

     

     

    thorpe…. Sure thing! Let’s sell this out!!

     

    in all seriousness I wonder if this is the day in which the music for hyperia will be signed off and handed over to the park and then this event is a little add on to make some east money?

    They are also producing a new entrance and dome theme to be fair!

     

    Event was posted on the Thorpe annual pass Facebook group 

  4. 17 minutes ago, Cal said:

    Original black hole soundtrack on Detonator and the pistons back 🤞

     

    I doubt we'll see the pistons back though unfortunately as I imagine theres a technical reason why they were removed 

    I wonder if they just broke and there was no budget to replace - maybe with the new way where Merlin seem happier to spend it’s possible.. I hope!

  5. On 10/24/2023 at 2:43 PM, coasterverse said:

    I said on Twitter a couple days ago that I really do think over Fright Nights especially (as none of their other events seem to get anywhere near as many people as Fright Nights does) the park should further limit their capacity (and fairly drastically at that), and then just chuck a few more days onto the end of the season to compensate. That way those customers you'd potentially lose by limiting capcity could rebook on a different day.

     

    There's no ride or attraction in this country that warrants a 3+ hour queue time - that's pure and simple. 3+ hour queues are for the likes of Universal and Disney - beautifully themed, long duration attractions that would make the 3 hour wait worthwhile. It was absolute craziness to me to see 3+ hour queues for Stealth last week. A RIDE THAT LASTS 20 SECONDS!! The RAP entrance for Stealth was also snaking all the way back to essentially the main entrance which is also disgusting.

     

    So in short - my opinion is to further limit capacity, extend the season by a few days to compensate, and put a cap on how many fastracks are available on the day.

     


    I think the issue with this is people don’t want to go on some random days at the end of October - It’s always the same weeks / days packed every year simply because that’s when demand is. The park do limit the capacity, I’m pretty sure the numbers they let in are no where near what used to be seen back in 2008/9 etc.

     

    It is a tricky one to balance - it’s easy to say they should sell less tickets / fastracks etc but from a business sense that only makes sense if they also up the price - which will equally annoy some people. I do wonder if enthusiasts maybe overstate it and maybe people visiting once a year on fright nights just expect it to be packed and are pretty happy getting on a handful of rides and having a day out - hard to tell!

  6. 21 minutes ago, Benin said:

    Wonder how many of the "modern generation" are actually culpable given the top example had the victim as such. Plenty of people on those sites that should know better but act the idiot anyway for Internet clout.

     

    I can only imagine the headaches to operations that installing metal detectors would cause to the parks. Cedar Fair over-react to everything and Universal is a result of the Duelling Dragons incident. I'm also not keen on having a "nothing in the queue" rule when there's over an hour wait for things.

     

    Free lockers and the baggage store are the way forward from park perspective. The rest is instilling common sense into the guests, which hasn't been existent for a long time across the board, moreso in a post Covid world where people have seemingly become more self absorbed or ignorant of others.


    Yeah I agree with this - I would hate to see things like metal detectors at ride entrances and I don’t think you can really expect people to be without phones etc in queues.

     

    That said Thorpe have confirmed Hyperia will have the Mack rotating baggage stores which hopefully people will trust to leave phones etc in if they don’t have zip pockets to put them in.

  7. 10 hours ago, StevenVig said:

     

    Those aren't leg ticklers. Leg ticklers require the gap to be open and free to move in a 180 degree fashion. Those are just cables hanging out of the ventilation plates for the PCs. Sorry to burst your bubble. 

    They were leg ticklers - they would randomly go off at the end of the ride when the train I assume reset, they were removed not long after though.

  8. I think I remember hearing the licensing for imascore stuff is a lot simpler in the way that they pay for it and that’s that (but I could be wrong)

     

    I’m sure they do still have the rights to the imascore stuff seeing as they still seem to have a continued relationship with them

  9. I don’t really see how screens would work on Ghost train - on Hogwarts it works well with the movement of the train, but with Ghost train most of the time the trains physically sat still and really only moves a very short distance - they maybe able to come up with something but really not sure how it would work

  10. I agree with lots of the little points, better park lighting, fright nights audio for every ride more smoke machines would be good to see, they are quite cheap and easy things to do too in the grand scheme of things.

     

    Creek Freak maybe I’ve been lucky but my run throughs have been actor heavy (not just press night) but obviously this does seem to vary a lot.

     

    Id bring in a new maze to replace platform, use the lost city space again and make it a original theme / indoor maze. I do think they lack a maze they can just throw people though, they are all very story based now and when you throw through huge groups you lose abit of the experience, mazes like the Asylum were effective even when they were throwing in huge groups quickly when queues got large.

     

    I don’t think lowering the price of mazes is really realistic at this point, they are clearly selling too many as it is and with fastrack it’s all about supply and demand, we saw fastrack start off cheaper than it is now with far too much of it, over the years they have tweaked pricing to the point where generally it’s less of an issue (not all the time granted) but will still make a tidy profit for the park. I suspect we will see them playing with maze prices too till they get the balance right (I hope so anyway!)

  11. 29 minutes ago, JDann said:


    I went for the cheaper one without mazes on, but as long as we can get on all the rides and the queues aren’t really bad then I’ll be happy enough. 

    I’m sure will be fine, I doubt things will be walk on with fastrack but will still be significantly quicker than main queues!

  12. 1 hour ago, Coaster said:

    Potential X retheme if the Walking Dead sponsorship has come to an end?

    Hmm I’m not sure they would Re-theme X again. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but walking dead is probably the most complete experience of the coaster there has been i can’t see them changing it again before the coaster is at the end of its life. I would guess they would just renew with AMC now till the time comes they want to remove it.

     

    Could be wrong though stranger things have happened !

  13. 51 minutes ago, Coaster said:

    Potential X retheme if the Walking Dead sponsorship has come to an end?

    Hmm I’m not sure they would Re-theme X again. I know it’s not everyone’s cup of tea but walking dead is probably the most complete experience of the coaster there has been i can’t see them changing it again before the coaster is at the end of its life.

     

    Could be wrong though stranger things have happened !

  14. 3 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

    Correct me if I am wrong

     

    But unless the upcharge for mazes is just the cash grab I said it was last year, isnt the whole point of upcharge timed ticked maze admission to STOP long waits?

    The boards outside mazes do state there will be waits for mazes and it’s not instant access, queues will i suspect remain shorter than they would if they were still free mind.

     

    Have had similar issues at towers where the queues are so long it makes making the others a real rush, not ideal but hopefully they will adjust accordingly when they better learn the throughputs especially trailers.

  15. Looking forward to hearing the changes - I always thought swarms soundtrack was quite dull - I remember thinking last fright nights that it’s fright nights track would suit it permanently so look forward to seeing how it sounds.

     

    I do hope they’ve managed to fix the speakers in the ambulance/ under the plane and the bell tower - the tower effect in particular was always very impressive both in the queue and even for riders when it was timed right.

  16. 2 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

    Try and stop a project that could serve as competition to the parks and continue to be lazy with said parks as opposed to embracing competition which could improve the quality of the industry in this country and actually making an effort.

     

    Yep seems legit!!

     

    M£rlin (emphasis on the pound sign) really are the absolute pits of the industry.


    They are literally a business - any business in a similar situation would do the same. Universal objected a new attraction on international drive and they are certainly not the pits of the industry.. 

  17. 19 hours ago, RobF said:

    Thorpe copied October fest

    this just seems a rehash of the mardi gras idea at Towers.

     

    Thorpe seem to be unable to come up woth Unique ideas at the moment

    To be fair they are literally all the same company  - I wouldn’t say it’s unusual parks do similar / same events 

  18. The thing is I think there is potential with ghost train - on paper it’s really a very good idea in my opinion, the illusion is great and the movement of the train is really good and surprises plenty of people.

     

    I don’t even have a problem with VR, it’s the only way this attraction could work but long term for it to work it really needs a better story and more reliable VR headsets. I also think the middle section is such a letdown now, the original was the best despite the effect rarely working!

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