Project LC

If they have a contingency plan in place I'll be amazed. It's like the park is being run by a 10 year old child. The Twitter/social media team is so amateur it's embarrassing. They like tweets that they should definitely not be shared. They respond to a lot of complaints in a terrible attitude and they don't seem to have a clue with what's going on.

Merlin have taken the park and killed it. No direction No care No fun I used to love Thorpe park and I spent many days there growing up. It was a place of fun and while not perfect it was enjoyable. Reading Twitter this evening has been one of disappointment. It is disheartening to see a park I cared about so much run in such a poor way. The last 2 years the park has gone from steady decline into rapid nose dive. A new director might be able to stop the park from its nose dive but I don't see the death grip of Merlin letting up any time soon.

The park should bite the bullet for tonight and start issuing refunds, especially on fastrack tickets. It looks like a complete shambles and the vast number of angry guests vowing never to return is unbelievable. Failing to compensate the individuals is only going to make the word of mouth worse. Closing the coasters due to temperature is utter nonsense and a complete over the top response. Having heard how Merlin are as a client it's nice to see that they are consistent. Just ashame that they are consistently clueless.

I agree that it is probably not appropriate to discuss individuals and I do normally try not to comment negatively on individuals working at the park. However I feel that the last 1 and a half years the park has taken a serious dive. The concerns I had when it was announced the Midway's guy was taking charge pretty much all manifested themselves. While it might be a misinterpretation and lack of information I feel that ultimately the blame for the parks decline ends up on the directors shoulders. As for my comments on Varney I have great respect for him to turnaround the mess that was the parks and turn it into the giant that is Merlin Entertainments from his branding background. However with recent performance and the direction the company is going in I have doubts if he is still the best person for the Job and shareholders will certainly be asking the same thing. End of the day the company is hardly making any money and the time to keep blaming market conditions and weather is running out.

Well I didn't know that. The old guy from the Midway's wasn't around for very long at all. Do you know when was he replaced and if he left or was forced out?

They should look at the pay structure and make significant changes. Merlin pay very poorly especially at management level and are often £6000+ less than what similar roles offer in the south east. There graduate scheme for example pays £19k-£21k while the average for a graduate business management scheme is around £27k. I would have applied for the scheme if it wasn't for the potential 30% pay cut. They must be loosing out on countless motivated highly qualified individuals due to the poor pay. Then the ones they do get are then driven away by the poor corporate structure and lack of direction. The seasonal work and the poor pay for management means that they get very few career staff. Instead they get people working for them who's sole objective is to earn money with little to no motivation to make an impact. The business structure is rotten and lacks direction. I don't believe Varney is good as CEO anymore and needs to be replaced for the next business phase for Merlin. As for the new director of Thorpe I don't believe he has a clue what the parks history or objectives were and now he's come in and completely changed it to the thing the park was trying to move away from. Merlin could be doing a lot better and I feel all of its issues stem from the top. (I feel you are the reason you lost this task and for that reason, Varney, You're Fired.)

It's not so much about attracting business customers but encouraging visitors to spend more per head. If they are staying the night then not only will the park get the room revenue but those guests will be spending more on food as they will be there for at least one meal. It's a good way to increase revenue and a sound business model. Merlin's approach to balancing the offering within the group is to diversify between different attractions rather than within the attractions themselves. The hotels are just there it increase the revenue of the attractions rather than diversify the portfolios offering. In my opinion to increase revenue more effectively and protect the group from economic conditions they should be adding more indoor attractions to the "resort's" as well as the more traditional big ticket attractions. Doing so would enable the parks to extend the peak season and reduce the influence caused by the weather.

Well done Thorpe. I never thought we would see 10-10 in the summer and them open all the time in September and October but here we are. Hopefully they can keep the good hours next year or make them even better.

Thanks that was really starting to annoy me. Shame they didn't sell anything. I would have liked some incredibly nerdy and niche stealth/Edge stuff.

My mind has gone blank and I can't remember what stealth was originally going to be called. Anyone able to help me out? Also did they ever sell any merch with the original name on it?

At night when the tower lights up as the countdown building the suspense. Then when it launches it just keeps going and going. No launch ive been on can compete with its magnificence.

Thorpe did recently get a new director from the midway attractions. He seems to have completely changed the direction of the park but it's hard to tell how much of that was him and not someone else pulling the strings. A factor to consider is Merlin seem to pay staff quite poorly, the graduate scheme salary is about £5000 less than the average equivalent for example. I suspect it's resulting high staff turnover and young inexperienced teams. It is no mystery that the parks are falling into the state they are with the way Varney is currently leading the group. He is so focused with diversification of the business and international expansion that he seems to be loosing track of the core business.

Merlins corporate structure means all investments need to pretty much have an instant return. They need to have a strong brand which is easy to market and can be used to draw people in so that the marketing within the park can sell you a ticket to return to another Merlin attraction. Updating a ride for a third time 3 years after its launch isn't going to get a good return on the investment so Merlin have no financial incentive to update the attraction. Worryingly Merlin have also identified that staff costs are the largest overhead to the company and are trying to reduce them. Seeing as every "experience" they build now seems to have actors I only see the attraction getting worse over time.

The Merlin financial reports show a strong interest in developing all of the theme parks into resorts through the addition of hotel accommodation. The latest 2018 one highlights increasing accomodation as a key point of growth to increase profits. So to press on with the hotel expansion makes sense with the direction Varney is taking the company.

In park advertising should be very heavy on encouraging guests to return. Some general promotion on return for fright nights by buying something on leaving seems to be a source of revenue the park is missing out on. Sometimes it's just a matter of not being able to see the obvious thing right in front of them. That being said any return advertising would need to be done in the right way as word of mouth could end up with people discouraging friends and family and telling them to visit at fright nights.

If you ever read the financial annual reports from Merlin you'll find that Merlin only aim to have 90% guest satisfaction so providing 9 other people aren't dissapointed Merlin won't mind. I suspect they haven't started fright nights advertising because they are trying to maximise the investment they have made on Love island lates. It doesn't make much financial sense to start advertising an event in a few weeks time when you still have an event going on. It would just result in a loss of potential revenue for the summer period.

The only insight I took away from it was that Alton seems to have rather young teams. The documentary itself was poorly edited especially with the break down during filming the advert. I also felt like it was being padded out to fill the hour slot. Shame really as I was hoping it would focus more on the construction and development of the ride rather than mentioning the smiler every 2 minutes.

The ground settlement would have been accounted for in the detailed design. Most structures are designed to a 1mm tolerance so I doubt it would have been a mistake in the design especially as it would have been checked atleast 4 times before being approved.

It's that sort of thinking which management is following but is my single biggest issue with Merlin. You don't need the latest technology to have a good attraction. At the end of the day a rollercoaster is a rollercoaster. The public don't know the difference between manufacturers and they don't care how the experience is achieved. They just want a fun experience. Varneys brand/marketing background is showing its colours. New technology is easy to sell initially but nearly impossible to sell later on.

Rather interesting article. I've been looking into Merlin's business structure lately and this article gave some good insight. It does give me a bit of concern though with Merlin in the UK. With so much focus on China and development into North America coupled with him just expecting the UK to bounce back the near future, in my opinion, doesn't seem too great.

Another bad few weeks for Merlin with pre-tax profits down 13.7% leaving it with just £43m profit between Jan 1st and 30 June 2018. They are continuing to blame terrorism and weather for the drop. Some good news is for the theme park division as revenue grew 9.7% like for like in the same period last year. That profit for the size of the company is worrying especially when revenue grew by 10% in the theme parks. If it wasn't for the heatwave I suspect the fall in profit would have been significantly worse. Merlin aren't investing in the parks because they simply can't afford to.

£8 to park when you have already paid £25+ to get in is a rip off. It's hardly trying to stop people driving there anymore. At £8/10 it's just trying to squeeze more out of there customers. What a great lasting impression to give to encourage people back.

Why spend money to attract new guests and win over the fans when you can just give the illusion of spending money to keep the fans happy. The parks supporting rides are basically non-existent at this point. Once again Merlin's shortsighted decisions have left the park in a state needing serious investment in the next few years to solve the issues. Merlin's business decisions have been poor and have been with the aim to maximise short term revenue out of the assests to please shareholders. They have invested with no consideration of maintaining the assets so that money will keep coming in for years to come. I have great concern that this behaviour will lead to the parks becoming worse and the theme park division getting into financial difficulty.

Please don't give them ideas. There will be 2 tiers of fastrack before you know it. Fastrack and fastrack: the fast and the furious 8 or FTFTF8 as it will be called by the forum. Instant access to any ride all day for £1000. Oops now I've given them details for the idea...

Guest satisfaction went out the window to cut costs a few years ago. Doesn't surprise me if they are now cutting costs by removing staff members from places they are probably needed. It's depressing to hear how Merlin runs the place, especially this year. Although it's not Alton levels with the rapids. The way that is currently being run is just funny at this point.