JoshC.

Odd choice to remove Spinball from ERT, but otherwise all good news. One can only hope that this works out for them and they can bring this sort of operating schedule back for the rest of the year. Or at the very least the summer...

Oh totally. I don't get it at all, but at least the majority enjoy and, most importantly, the public. Here's hoping it gives UK parks the confidence to consider wood more seriously for future investments. The scare thing is an interesting conversation. Kids certainly are getting braver and all that, and theme parks can bring that out all the more. My issue still remains the major mismatch I see between the pre show's target and the ride's target. A dark, scary, intense pre show should indicate a dark, scary, intense ride, which has potential to put people off.

It was a wonderful piece of marketing from Phantasialand. Fairly certain it isn't Thorpe and more just generic upbeat music. Might be IMAscore stock music or something I s'pose. Phantasialand certainly wouldn't be able to get away with using Thorpe music on one of their marketing videos!

It's literally a drop and pull out they've got to put in, should go up in a day or two. Then again, given this reasonably short coaster had its first piece of track installed in December, I guess a week or so for a drop would be quick for the project... Still in love with the track colour.

That's the beauty of a Mack - they are reliable rides, with tried and tested technology, and Blackpool have no need to work with them to develop anything new or different to suit their needs. I've no doubt that Icon will prove to be reliable all the time. Of course, with new rides, it's always reasonable to expect some downtime. Rides are complex pieces of machinery, and you can never truly know how they'll react to being used for 8 hours until they're in that situation.

Rode Wicker Man again this week, still feel like I'm riding an incredibly different ride to all those who love it.. I don't know if they've changed the wheels or something indefinitely to try and combat some parking issues or whatever, but it feels like a taller, longer kiddie coaster, that was designed exclusively for 6-8 year old to enjoy. There's basically no airtime, there's minimal laterals, and it's all just very meh for me. It's presented extremely well, and the theme and style is perfect for the older family audience, but the ride doesn't deliver. Maybe one day I'll get a good ride and I'll like it, but I just can't say 'Wicker Man is a decent family attraction' when it's themed and presented for one end of the family market, but rides as one for the complete opposite end.

Was lucky enough to be able to experience House of Monsters and Skin Snatchers today, as part of ScareCon. Haven't been to Scarefest for a few years so was nice to be able to experience these (and they weren't really any different to how they were last year apparently, so I get a fair reflection of how they are). House of Monsters is an absolutely brilliant attraction. Towers are onto an absolute winner with it; it's perfect for families and has the right balance of theatre, humour and scares to be executed perfectly. Perhaps not something suited to be re-done which may affect it in a couple more years without scene changes, but still a very clever attraction! Skin Snatchers is a great concept, especially with the helmets supplied by Haunted Lanterns. I was fortunate enough to be given one, and despite being a bit heavy at first, it was a great way to add suspense to the attraction, not only to me, but others around me. The story is a bit loose (you're going on a tour in a mine, and there's someone who will be in their underpants, but I wasn't quite sure why exactly people were wanting to snatch my skin?), but the scares come thick and fast, and the actors were interactive. The maze is surprisingly short, in a "I really wish there was more to it" sort of way, which isn't helped by the ending being rather lacklustre, although having a shotgun pointed in my face was a tad unnerving. So yeah, was nice to be able to experience some Scarefest attractions. Well themed with fantastic actors, and it's obvious to see why the event has done so well lately. Hopefully the good times continue for the park!

Visited the Castle for a couple of hours today, and was pleasantly surprised with how decent it was! The Horrible History attraction is actually really well done. We all had fun despite not being the target audience, and the (huge amounts!) of school kids present seemed to be loving it. The Castle Dungeons were seemingly running on limited time slots (felt like one group every half an hour?!), but seemed to work for the place. It's my second time doing it and it was fabulously done, there was a mirror maze section in there that I definitely don't remember though. Actors were doing a top notch job. Really hate the 'lock you in a room and try and push selling photos' sales tactic they do though. Couple of negatives, food related: -Pizza Pasta restaurant was closed -The service in The Coach House was terribly slow, despite being dead Food in Coach House, though on the expensive side, was very good though! The trebuchet show was good once again, but they no long fire a flaming fireball. Not 100% sure whether this is down to a jousting arena now existing right next to it, or following from the accident a couple of years back, but a shame as fire is good, fire is great. So yeah, it's not a 'must visit' place by any many means, but I do really recommend trying it if you're ever anywhere near the area. It's presented wonderfully and a fun way to spend a day!

I guess you could argue that if you're told "you will be split up during the attraction", it takes out the shock and fear factor. When Experiment 10 opened, all other mazes were conga line mazes, whilst Ex10 split you and locked you in a cupboard - the safety speeches were exactly the same! If you were told 'you will be split up / locked up', it would take away the scare factor. In saying that, actors certainly should be trained and able to recognise when someone can't be seperated, especially with yellow wristband people. Zombie themed mazes will always have the issue of storytelling. Zombies attack and eat people, which clearly can't be done, so how do you communicate that. Actors I guess should be chasing you, be behind fencing, etc, and then have scares built upon atmosphere and special effects, with actors just complimenting that. Chucking in more actors just makes the storytelling even more difficult, unless you have a huge amount of space (which Thorpe don't). Thorpe and Tulleys (and many other independent scare events) will have very different operational procedures. Because of Thorpe's / Merlin's position and intense H&S focus, they will have to e-stop for the tiniest of reasons; a light which doesn't work, a guest having a panic attack, someone who trips and gets a splinter, whatever. Tulleys, and many others, can gloss over these things a bit. It doesn't necessarily make them any less safe or anything, it's just Merlin have a stricter guidelines. So you'll always see more maze stops at Thorpe. Most e-stops are because of guest action anyways, so not much they can do. Thorpe of course are limited in space, which means they're never going to be able to make super long mazes. But that of course gives opportunity for creative attractions, such as Experiment 10, or creative sections, such as Big Top's strobe maze which is an actual maze. Long mazes aren't always good mazes.

Blackpool's marketing have really mucked this up here, as you're not the first person I've seen confused about this. They are currently selling the VIP boarding pass, which gives access for one ride early (IE, yesterday, today, tomorrow or Tuesday). They're now priced at £25(?) You then have the boarding pass for when the ride opens, which gives you access to the park, one ride on Icon and a special certificate, priced at £16. I think that lets you ride before the ride opens to everyone in the morning too. However, Icon is included in wristbands for all ride access. They have not made this clear whatsoever, making it sound like you have to buy an extortionately priced boarding pass to ride. No doubt the marketing push is there to make as much money as possible, but it really has left a lot of people confused.

The Walking Dead - Living Nightmare reopens this May half term, and is advertised to be more extreme than last year, and featuring "double the number of Walkers". And who knows what other changes and surprises lie in wait? The maze opens for previews to passholders this evening, 6-10pm. Use this thread to discuss and review the maze. And of course, there will be spoilers!

I've heard rumours they've taken inspiration from Baron at Efteling and are including an on ride pre show, so maybe an effect like that will happen there!

I get you. I guess the idea is because the train is a Fenix which is flying, the colour reflects the sky, etc. I'm willing to overlook because I'm still in love with the blue though. But anyways, here's some stuff even nicer than the blue, from the new entrance area... Posted by Paul Oomen, the park's Technical Director, on Twitter.

That Disney increase..Completely overshadows how well Efteling did last year. Then again, Grona had a pretty fab year and their eventual B&M invert will only help solidify their numbers in years to come. Interesting that Merlin's European parks took a hit last year, despite Heide investing big and Gardaland's over-riding popularity. Yay for Legoland Windsor though.

Blackpool's lord and saviour, Amanda Thompson, has said it's obviously a mistake, and seemingly done by an outside agency who deal with some of the park's marketing:

That world first claim is hilarious. Surely just a mistake, but the blatant lack of proof reading is dreadful. The advert isn't great. It feels more like an online teaser trailer to the main advert. If the main advert had been ten seconds of that style, followed by 20 seconds showing the ride and all the cool stuff it'll do, that'd been perfect!

Just as one coaster finishes (more theming and effects have been added to the area since that POV), there's some rumours of the 2021 coaster... Exact source I'm not sure about, but this is supposedly what the station for the mega coaster will look like. If true, Walibi really are hitting the sweet spot with theming!

So here's how the story goes now: Obviously don't take a tweet by TPWW by law, but the senior management perspective is that cameras can be used on Rapids at the owner's risk. For a bit of comparison, Thorpe's ruling is that no cameras are allowed on the ride full stop (you can even get told off when the boat is on the turntable). I suppose it's easier for Thorpe, as they can justify a blanket ban on all rides much easier than Towers can. Whatever the rule is, it's clear there needs to be a behind-the-scenes review of the ruling, and how exactly it is communicated to guests. There is also the ongoing issue of the people responding to tweets needing to have their attitude sorted out. For my personal opinion, I'm a bit surprised in this slightly overzealous H&S era Merlin are in, they allow cameras on the rapids. Think of some of the risks associated with a rapids ride: 1) There's no restraint, so people could be knocked about / out of their seat. 2) People could drop loose belongings and jump in to retrieve them. 3) Loose belongings could fly out of someone's hand and hit someone else. 4) Potential electric shock (highly unlikely given modern technology, but a potential risk nonetheless from the overzealous perspective). How can they minimize these risks? 1) Encourage people to hold on, keeping their hands free of loose belongings where possible. 2) & 3) Securing all loose belongings in pockets / bags at all times. 4) Keeping electrical devices away from potential water contact (in bags or pockets). Allowing people to have cameras and phones on rides increases the risk of accidents and potential injury. Just seems to go against their current H&S stance. Maybe that's a sign they're applying more common sense, but then when you look at other things, like ridiculously high fences and whatever else, it does make you wonder.

Proper good video that. One thing which you can also take into account is how you can get 'better' chances to win at certain times of day. HB Leisure in particular encourage their staff to give better deals (double the number of goes for no extra cost for example on skill based games) at the start of the day, as if/when people win, it's an advert for their games - "Oh, THEY won one, so technically we can too!". Obviously, by that point, you're having to pay 2 or 3 times the amount the winner at the start of the day did just to get the same number of goes to find the knack of it. HB Leisure have some restrictions these days though - they have to explicitly say some changes, such as with basketball games, where they say hoops are lower, but of an oval shape. Fairground stalls aren't under as tight restrictions, so can go the distance trickery and the shaping trickery and you'll be none-the-wiser! Games like this go through loads of 'testing' and mathematical risk assessments so they can price them right and give out appropriately priced prizes so they make the most amount of money. I'm sure people's heads would spin if they heard the amount of money the games stalls at Thorpe make in a day!

Who cares if this thread is several years old... Small plates were no issue here: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-44112260

I don't think this is being emphasized enough here. Towers' responses are blunt and edging towards rude. Regardless of what the rule is or isn't, their tone of voice over Twitter stinks in this instance, and in many others. Saw a tweet where someone was asking for bus times to/from the park, and their response was effectively 'Google it'. That's dreadful. The team running responses to social media posts clearly are terrible this year and need complete retraining on basic customer service and basic social media skills. Terrible image for the park, despite being so easy to get right.

I guess the concern from the park's perspective is that if someone has a camera out, they won't be holding on, which risks a person falling out of their seat / into the water. There's also the case where someone could drop their phone into the water and jump in to grab it. Unfortunately there's a lot of stupid people out there. Towers do say on their map and website that filming and photography isn't allowed on any attraction (so technically not even the monorail or Skyride if we wished to be pedantic). To say it doesn't explicitly say it on a ride restriction board is a bit of a grotty loophole which ends up with us having stupid, spoon-fed restrictions and over the top safety rules. This specific situation is obviously all the more high profile because we're looking at a well known enthusiast, who is an ex-employee of the park. It sets an example to over 20,000 people. Can understand why Towers don't particularly want them to go 'hey, we're breaking park rules and we get cool stuff from the park'. There's also the cynic in me which wonders if this is Theme Park Worldwide trying to just get more publicity. All publicity is good publicity as the saying goes..

I hope the minimal theming at the entrance, etc is there because they plan to remove it on weekdays (IE keep it as a bonus thing for Apocalypse Weekends). Less theming means it's easier to remove / put back up each weekend. Makes you wonder if it would have been better to have a 'Month of the Apocalypse' in June though, and have every June day as one of these things. Means they wouldn't have to worry about theming and signage being relevant, and they could spring out a bit more. My main issue with the Apocalypse Weekends is the fact it exists to give people a free return ticket in September. I know September is traditionally the quietest month of season, but why encourage people to collect a free return ticket when you should be encouraging people to buy an Annual Pass? If you're a first-time visitor, and you buy a ticket online for £30, and then enjoy your day, what are you more likely to do - spend an extra £19 to come back whenever, or be given a free ticket to come back in September if you want? More people are going to take the freebie. Feels like they're shooting themselves in the foot a bit if I'm honest. Should have been a different giveaway with the app - maybe free parking for the day if you upgrade to Annual Pass, £5 discount of an Annual Pass. I dunno. Just anything to drive people towards buying an Annual Pass whilst still making them feel like the app thing is worthwhile.

I've heard Chessington suffered from a minor power cut today (due to external factors), which affected rides like Tiger Rock and Tomb Blaster, as well as many of the queue boards. Problem was sorted out within an hour or two and the park extended ride close for some rides, including Tiger Rock, as a result. Not a bad gesture for what is still a very quiet day for the park.

I imagine it's similar to Big 6 Challenge Alton Towers did and the Island 7 challenge thing Thorpe did last year. You'll download the app, and you need to check in / take photos at certain points across the park. Probably themed around taking out Walkers or something. Once you've done so many, you've completed the challenge and huzzah.