SteveJ

Haha "unstable". No.

"The GP" in other words "people" have been surprised, excited and amazed by dark rides for years. Only they've been way too botched or obscure for people to properly enjoy since the early 2000s. No wonder people have no confidence in them when the parks plainly don't know how to do them anymore. Hex is a great experience but is an acquired taste and very up-it's-own, so is a terrible indicator of how an average guest can enjoy dark rides. A lot of UK theme parks were established on the popularity and return-power of their dark rides alone, Chessington in particular (in fact is there any other reason why it survived through to now?). And unlike what people assume, guests were about as judgemental, thrill-demanding and clueless as to what "dark ride" really means as they are today. The difference now is that you can much more easily travel to the US where, unlike the UK, they didn't give up on dark rides and actually perfected their show techniques, and happened to have millions to spend on new transit technology. But you certainly don't need vast budgets like that to just entertain people and create a good ride. As long as this ride isn't as overly complex, abstract and arrogant as the hype is making out, then maybe it will feel really amazing and not need any gimmickry or existing knowledge of Derren Brown to pull off.

Hopefully it will stick to the golden rule of having a good time... Never give people what they ask for, surprise people with what they'd really enjoy without knowing they wanted it.

I think it was established ages back that it wasn't being closed for normal closed season maintenance.

(at CoasterJamie) To be fair there are a million reasons, in fact I'd say the closed season and closed season maintenance is one of the most misunderstood things in the enthusiast world. In fact it would be pointless to do most the work until much closer to when it opens.

COR look at dat, I mean it's still boring and flat but looks much better. See I said not to judge. *Runs away quickly.*

I honestly think it would be for the best if Thorpe Park built high walls and blew up Monk's Walk because people should never really see a work in progress of any creative project . And then the ride can severely disappoint or pleasantly surprise on the day, having met people's overly optimistic or low expectations.

One can always exaggerate and overanalyse that it's a terrible exterior, just as much as one can make endless excuses as to why it's good. But forget all the enthusiast logic, familiarity, plans, theme and expectations.. Think for a moment, is a flat wall of grey bricks exciting to anyone? Of course not. Now the building is certainly a work in progress, and the exterior of a dark ride is ultimately pretty irrelevant to whatever is inside. But you can already see how indifferent people will be to the exterior of the ride, because it doesn't look interesting. My main problem with this modern uk idea of theme design is that they don't have the guts or perhaps awareness to build anything genuinely effective, it's always so fiddly and thinly spread. I mean, we're here theorising over the quality of the brick lining and its colour, when there should at least be the foundations of something pretty unexpected and wonderful looking coming together by now. Even if they had just a few thousands to spend on the outside, there's always a way.

It doesn't have to be real brick to look good. It just has to have some slight creativity in it so that it looks like an actually characteristic facade, not just wall-fodder or 'theeminnggg''. Inside I'm sure it's better looking at least.

The one placed near the start of the queue in 2010 was from the finale with Abdab locked in the iron maiden. That was the first one to go if I remember, although it was just his torso and head.

I know there is regret that 3 of them were dumped in the Vampire queue line 5 years ago as they looked poor outside and were soon destroyed through vandalism & weathering. It's very unlikely anything like that will happen again.

I believe that is the intended colour as the 'brickwork' appears to be a textured vinyl-y layer that can likely be made to any colour, rather than painted. They've already cladded the whole thing and roofed over the tops of it, so it would be impractical if they were then wanting to paint it. A nice homogeneous shade of ugly. Please do better big cool sets inside thanks bye

On a side note, and not aimed at anyone in particular, I can't believe people are actually challenging whether this video is recent or from during its construction. You must be very far in denial if you believe people had camera phones in 1997 when Ripsaw was constructed, and to overlook the obvious wear on all the metal! It's gone. Shame, but it was old and had its time.

Abdab. By the way

I believe a conscious effort was made to make it more like its intended 1990 appearance as well. Which is nice. The photo Chessington Buzzy posted makes it look a bit flat & dark but it's got more texture in person.

Or 4/ The queue needed removing.

No he doesn't 'believe' in hypnosis, it is an act, but that grey area of whether hypnosis does or doesn't work is fundamental to his shows. The blurred lines between what is impossible and what appears to be real, and the way in which he does it distances himself from just being a 'magician'. All this psychological talk though is just his hype to get you believing in the show, but as he often explains outside of his shows it is all just an act. It is purely entertainment.

No, keeping things secret while it's a work in progress is fundamental to setting up a good show. It's about surprise - I don't mean like 'shock' surprise but just the fact you are going into something you have no pre judgement about. Unfortunately secrecy is mostly used these days by PR teams who use it to build up hype by drip feeding rumours and clues, even if it ends up giving a wrong impression. It can get long in the tooth.

Not to dampen your enthusiasm for their work this winter in particular, but all rides have to be dismantled entirely every winter for legal inspections, so Thorpe Park do a vast amount of maintenance every year without fail. However it's not usually so visible like this scaffolding, as more typical track inspections are done by harnessing people off the structure.

BORING *runs away*

They already tried that and saved it.

It's not a case of painting the entrance OR the track. To me that entrance is one of the last remaining parts that still gives off that fun old Gothic Vampire flair, not the track (which has been jet washed already as you may have noticed). To repaint the track you'd have to spent weeks doing it and get lots of contractors harnessed up, and would need additional budgeting for. To repaint the entrance you simply have to scaffold one small area and spend 2 days painting it with contracted scenic artists, which comes under the park's presentational/creative budget. They both need painting, ideally it would all be done together but it's not like a choice of one or the other. If guests can see it and enjoy it then of course it matters a lot.

As far as I understand it, more money has been spent on ride refurbishment than what was "planned" for the mythical 2016 ride anyway.

Yes, that is what I was saying in my initial post. I think they just simplified the truth in order to emphasise that "the ride is safe enough to reopen" and not explain why the event actually happened. Which is fair enough.