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That is not what they said initially, they said the worlds first totally queueless theme park. I think even when they 'clarified' that point they still said 'major rides', which I'd put at everything from the likes of Quantum and Depth Charge up. I don't think even they really know where they are going with it as it is a trial after all, the results of which should shape the future use.

There seems to be some definite sadness and regret in how he speaks of pretty much the whole of the second half of his career, such a shame. Doesn't strike me he is proud of the smiler at all really. The more he speaks of Nick Varney the more he comes across as a bit of a tit. If the criteria for new investments is 'how well can we market it' and an afterthought is 'how good can it be' that goes a long way to explaining some of the mess we have here. It is another shining example of short-termism, what matters is getting people through the doors and not actually pleasing them when they get there, so they don't want to come back, so you have to work harder with more 'marketable' rides to persuade them back and so the spiral continues. I wish someone would ask him at one of these things how Nemesis got built. If we don't get wood now because it is perceived as dangerous by a focus group what on earth would such a group have made of the dangley legged like nothing seen before extreme monster that was built, which was then marketed with a story rather than being the first of anything much? I'm going to guess they simply trusted him. Why did that trust stop and what would our parks look like today if it didn't?

You can if it is used like fastpass, but with the parks proposed and preposterous zero queue park where rides are RnR only you would still take two hours to ride those threem, queuing virtually one at a time.

I suppose it is down to health and safety in some respects, as I can imagine using a train that they have removed lots of parts from would indeed be quite dangerous! As you may have noticed before, I hate this use of h&s excuses. Why don't they simply say they only use two trains as they only have two trains? Simple non lie.

The moment, in all its glory! Eternal thanks, Lauren. I thought it was 'grass' You thought it was 'trees' Turns out it's 'plants' Who knew?

Maybe I've worded it a bit strongly, but I used to have a decent working knowledge of all this OFT stuff, but things have moved on. My general gist is that the gate price is grossly overinflated to then be discounted by way of voucher. The original price in many respects simply does not exist. This is comparable (though clearly not the same as) the sofa companies creating false price points to discount from, or Tesco selling their strawberries for many months at half price after selling them at full price for a couple of days, something which they were fined £30.000 pounds for last week. I'm sure Merlin have themselves covered legally, as I'm sure Tesco and the furniture companies believed they did, but I'd say the practise is skirting around being 'honest and fair' at best. And why would you want to treat your guests like that?

What I was getting at was the more they overstate throughput the more fastack is available so the more people will push by you, and the more it is overstated the worse that gets. It would only be the actual same without fastrack if you believed that after skipping a queue fastrckers will be waiting as long as that queue would have been before fastracking again/another. Hopefully that is exactly what this new system will do. Not wanting to hijack this with another fastrack rant thread, but really? That is a very one sided view. Fastrack improves gust experience for those who can or will pay, but for everyone else it is hugely detrimental to their day and as a direct result of the people paying to be in front of them too. The more that pay the worse it gets for those behind, I find that disgusting. From the wizards mouth. Don't break the rules unless you pay us, then you can break the rules. Utterly wrong. As for the BOGOF situation, I totally understand how this works for the parks. But it is a con and you have to be careful with cons. People aren't stupid, it might get them there but when they're hit with the astronomical gate price (which 'happens' to be the same as a season pass! I'm sure that is priced fairly then!), an ever increasing parking charge and a pay to ride system that is becoming close to necessity on busy days they know the score. That is why it gets harder and harder to persuade people to turn up and is a short term view. If they stopped all this silliness people would actually want to come back without vouchers and expensive new rides thrown at them all the time. Most people I talk to, even about theme parks, are from the real non geek world. Almost all of them after a trip will tell me they had a good time but it was a rip off, and many of them will moan directly about fastrack. Thorpe have gone a long way to making things better this year, but fastrack remains a huge problem for me, and the pricing structure is simply farcical.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-leicestershire-23808442 Some better press than queue line punch ups!

The passion with which I hate fastrack, not only it's awful implementation but the whole concept, is hard to put in words. Not really, as you go on to explain so well the fastrack issue multiplies the error, the overstated throughput is exactly the amount extra they are wrong by with no fastrack, it is considerably more than that with the fastrack problem thrown in. ---- As for Reserve and Ride, I wonder how the park are really approaching it outside of PR speak. I'm going to guess the trial wouldn't even have happened if hey couldn't see some potential ££ at the end of the day. Cynical me, but there are many many simple ways to improve guests day and value without a big complicated system like this so there is clearly something in it for them. The system as described, as a total alternative to queueing creating a queue-less theme park, I think that concept is misguided at best, downright stupid at worst. That is not how a themepark works and they know it. You simply can not say 'this ride will process X amount of people in the next hour' with ANY degree of certainty. So what are your options: -You distribute the maximum potential and then when people will have to queue because of an unforeseen problem they will have the hump (as they have already been waiting elsewhere and have been told they will walk on when their time comes) -You slightly undersell to allow for any delays and not disappoint, but then you'll be sending empty seats when you do achieve (which will give people who can not get on the hump!) -You manage throughput to specific level below the rides full potential, in the same way trains plan to run slower than they can so theycan catch up if needed and are rarely late. This would be a whole new type of stupid. None of them work. This is the beauty of the Disney system. A huge amount of fastrack are given out, but there is a standby queue if you want it, creating a buffer of people to either wait a little longer in case of a problem or fill in the seats when there is a slight lull in fastpassers. It is the obvious solution and there is a good reason the biggest and best park do it that way, that's what this should, and I'm sure will, turn into. I'd like to see it as a straight two tier entrance ticket at differant prices, a 'visitor' ticket for access to standby queues only and a 'rider' ticket with fastrack use. But only one fastrack ticket at a time, so you get to jump a lot of short queues or less longer ones, it's your choice, but outside of that no further jumping. People can not pay their way round the park in a couple of hours and mess it up for everyone else then. What would be even better of course would be to just let everyone queue the same and fairly, charge a fair non bogof'd price to enter that gives them the profit they require and open the gates long enough for everyone to do what they want in a day. But that would be far to simple.

Video of the meet those quotes come from... Interesting stuff.

The HSE have fined Skegness Pleasure Beach £8000 for failing to maintain a ride which failed in 2011. Details from the Daily Fail, which includes a couple of pics I don't recall seeing at the time. Looks like if it went at just a slightly different angel it could have been really catastrophic. Elsewhere, a bad enough accident that could have been a whole lot worse. A loose rope on a fast carousel manages to wrap itself round the neck of a rider and nearly hang him. Upkeep of the theming and surroundings is just as important as the rides themselves! Also, I don't care if they are dangerous, I want one of these!

We do not know these things for sure yet!

That is quite amazing!

Pretty much imposible to answer the first two questions with what we know right now, but as for potential I'd saw Blair Witch.

It seems like now he is not receiving their ££ Wardley is being a bit more openly honest about the reality and frustrations of getting things done in Merlin, very interesting little quotes here... http://riderater.co.uk/2013/wardley-not-giving-up-on-wooden-rollercoaster/ A B+M standup? I wonder if that means they have some sort of development of that ride type up their sleeves as it has been dead for a good while now. A Wallace and Gromit coaster? Could have been interesting. WOOD. Still talk of wood. Keep on hoping.

Where has that been confirmed please? ScareTour are generally reliable, but remember it is not up to them to confirm what is and is not happening. That is THORPE PARKS job! Until they announce or confirm something I'd take it with a pinch of salt. When it comes to 'scare zones' I've not been much of a fan of how they have done it in the past. For me a zone should be just that, a general area you would pass through naturally. The way it has been set up before is like a really loose maze with an entrance and exit and a pathway and often a queue. 'Scare zone' at the moment means 'not very good maze', I'd like it to be something you stumble across and completely free flowing.

NI is great at night, you realise how much foliage there is and some of it feels quite secluded as you shoot through it. They've had some great lighting on it in the past too. Everything is better in the dark though!

Not just apparently, but actually. THORPE PARK just said themselves we don't know everything yet a few posts back! This all looks rather good. We all heard of the stipulations relating to quality and consistency that Lionsgate put on the Saw IP use (how much of that is true we don't know though), but if that was the case then I'm sure it would be now too. I think we could be seeing some real quality as a result of this.

Weekend towards the end of the event? Very busy.

Looks like it meanders around a little aimlessly at times to me, but looks OK I guess. What is it with Wingriders and odd dull endings, is it compulsory for some reason?

Well, that's a whole load of stuff come about since I went to work! All sounds rather good to me, IPs are ideal for this sort of thing, giving meaning and narrative to what is otherwise largely a short time running around in the dark. I'm going to guess that none of the old mazes will exist - this looks like a complete takeover. Having said that I'm sure the essence of a good few at least will remain the same, but pushed in the direction of the horror franchise they now are. And I'll say again... Currently being re done by Lionsgate. Please!

So gone then? Even if this leads to all the mazes being horror franchise themed it doesn't mean the core of the old mazes won't still be there, just tweaked to fit the theme.

You brought it up... I'll ask again, why you are so sure? Having an opinion is different to saying categorically something will or won't happen. You are doing the latter, do you mean to be doing the former? I'm not professing to know anything, but it would be pretty dumb to alienate your new target market a couple of months after deciding what your target market was, wouldn't it? I'll point out again, there is a massive difference between the little children based 'family' event Chessington put on and what I'm meaning by 'family' - I'm talking about the very young teenage market seen squealing away on the big rides in the summer adverts with their parents. Thorpe park is for them now just as much as the old 16-24 independent youth market they've been squarely aimed at for a number of years.

I think Paul Oakenfold should know better.

Maybe not quite that obvious, but yes, that sort of idea. Maybe more like (from what I hear, not done it myself) the Vampire maze at Chessington, which I'm told is fun scary with a decent narrative, not YOU'RE ALL GOING TO DIE scary. As for the roaming actors they used to have these at Chessington, all sorts of terrifying things (the best of which were huge stilted three legged things which would chase people for ages), a skilled actor knows their target and how to chose them. Older families would be fine with that sort of thing.