Ian-S

What does that matter? It wasn't exactly representative of any culture associated with that time, its just been around a long time, and its original date of publication would never have come into consideration in choosing the IP. Its chosen because of the franchise potential and recognition value, just like everything is now. And because its on a downwards trajectory, after so many follow up books and other media based on it for years, and so they can get it cheaply.
 
Its a space filler for the next 5 years, exactly like all the Madagascar stuff was before this. UK parks arent about culture and creative enterprise anymore, its about flash in the pan trends and keeping up the statistics for Merlin's big empire. Not particularly interesting once you're over the age of 6/7 and just a first world indulgence to be honest

So do I, there's no need to assume I was talking about them all just because I said they in reference to idiots on the park.

hang on hang on, not trying to disgree for the sake of it, but there's no real excuse for having staff run along and tap people's legs.  That's a bit far fetched. I agree there's no way to "realistically grab" peoples legs like the woman in the video, but having someone footstep along tapping people's legs is not remotely convincing either.  Its just a cheap trick to make people jump that is unbelievably tacky when you can hear them footstepping around you.
 
People can say what they like about the attraction on the whole, but whatever your opinion surely the "staff tapping knees" trick is always going to be ridiculous. It's one of the tackiest things ive personally experienced in all my visits to parks ever. Really I don't see any point defending it and if this were seen in any other park than at "cutting edge" Merlin, people would be laughing out the door.
 
It should have occurred to the designers that if youre resorting to staff running up and down tapping guests knees to provoke a reaction, then youre doing something wrong. Think of a better idea altogether that makes use of the great potential the VR and ride has.
 
Personally, when I first felt the knee taps, I thought the staff had just bumped into my legs by accident, until they did it the second time and it hilariously dawned on me and others. It totally broke any kind of immersion with the VR too and was plain ...weird

However - the knee tapping seems to be the part that consistently makes people react the most. Which is ironic, probably a clear sign that you have not used your £30million correctly.

I once overheard my neighbour lamenting Thorpe because they'd gone on August Bank Holiday, queued for hours, and got on nothing because their kids were too short, to the point where she was loudly discussing the possibility of suing them for some sort of perceived discrimination.
 
Apparently she felt that her children were her responsibility and she considered the rides safe enough for them to go on and Thorpe were overstepping their mark by refusing access.
 
Her kids were 4 and 5 at the time...
 
But kudos to the big guy for loosing that much weight!

Minions were a great comedic sidenote in the first film, unfortunately popularity saw to a dreadful level of overexposure which peaked with their dedicated film...
 
As Ryan said, Universal hold the rights to that little pie of money making...

Me I'm afraid. They were always my least favourite part of despicable me (and I do realise I'm certainly not their target audience by the way.)

Pixar fans.

It was a children's book from the 90's that has been made into film/theatre in recent years. http://www.gruffalo.com/ 
 

Its interesting because Chessingtons target demographic shouldn't even be on Twitter 

Not too bad, it was surprisingly quiet and by the evening they were nearly walk-on (with the exception of Smiler). The bad weather in the morning probably put people off.

I guess you could say that The Swarm is Ian's bogey ride...

At the cost of getting you on the ride?
 
By the time you get on the platform, you really do just want to get on the ride and not be asked "How is your day going" for the 10th time by young adults who couldn't actually care less.
 
Good staff can interact brilliantly and not let it affect ride operations or destroy the themed environment. One good thing Graham McGrath did do was ban operators singing over the ride PAs - funny for staff but unbelievably tacky. I remember well around 2007 The Vampire music (back when you could hear it and it played with oomph through more than 1 speaker) was constantly being muted one day by a clueless operator who was being funny by caling out "Ladels and jellbeans - may I have your attention!" and it was the worst thing in the land.
 
Except I also remember staff being trained with the ethos that "People come here for the rides, but without staff the rides are just boring - its the interaction that makes their day". Ha ha 'the rides are just boring' and underpaid staff members chatting to you is apparently more worth the entrance fee. Fix the rides so they're not boring then. If the managers saw the same park 20 years ago theyd probably not believe their eyeballs.

Scary and Swarm backwards are never something that should be in the same sentence, I nearly fell asleep the first time I went on it.

Because of the perception of a minority of guests. 
 
Such " perception" would, of course, not matter if staff were trained better (practical training, NOT just more mandatory hours reading paperwork, which doesn't improve anything), stations and platforms were redesigned to now cope with the way they are being used, and there was more effective CCTV to prove against false claims. All that, although I see it as being essential, would cost them money and so they don't consider it, with the exception of better CCTV which did thankfully get implemented across Merlin parks.
 
Last year there were also slew of complaints about bars not being checked or people being let on under the height limit, which were all false, but there were many threats from newspapers to publish such stories in the wake of the accident. Unfortunately this exploitation by some people also contributed to the policy that high throughput operations were "no longer safe", even though it is a ridiculous notion and any understanding theme park operator wouldnt accept that.
 
However Merlin are obsessed with PR and so as long as guests perceive that slower operations = higher safety, then that suited them. In reality, most guests just want to get on the damn ride and have fun.
 
The correct procedure would obviously be to take a step back and take a fresh sensible and core approach to park operations, for much better efficiency and pragmatism, instead of dressing up weird cheap & adhoc decisions as "improved H&S standards".

They never hurry, they're too interested in chatting each other up or swapping nightclub reviews, even on a busy summer day with two trains and a two hour queue the second train was still sat on the brake run for a few minutes while they flaffed about loading people.
 
Then to make matters worse the batcher was getting annoyed with people for taking too long to get to the air gates, well if he had started batching people earlier instead of chatting....

They never hurry, they're too interested in chatting each other up or swapping nightclub reviews, even on a busy summer day with two trains and a two hour queue the second train was still sat on the brake run for a few minutes while they flaffed about loading people.
 
Then to make matters worse the batcher was getting annoyed with people for taking too long to get to the air gates, well if he had started batching people earlier instead of chatting....

It's only genius marketing if people connect the "object" with the "target", for example that opera singer and his annoying song, everybody knows he represents Go Compare, you don't need to Google him.
 
Until I read it here I had no idea the clowns were connected to a film, I just thought they were some bored inbred doing their thing, I didn't connect "clown" and "film", nor did I talk about said film as a result of the clown craze.
 
So in that respect the marketing is an utter failure as you either have to be a film buff or avid Googler to know what it relates to.

A girl round here had a knife put to her throat by one the other night, I'm afraid if anybody approaches me in a clown unform they'll get the sharp end of my tounge and if I'm in the car they'll be used as a hood ornament for as long as they can hang on for.

If you didn't have the head restraint keeping your head in the general place it's supposed to be then the result would be a basal skull fracture for you with some of those turns, which is your preference?

A girl round here had a knife put to her throat by one the other night, I'm afraid if anybody approaches me in a clown unform they'll get the sharp end of my tounge and if I'm in the car they'll be used as a hood ornament for as long as they can hang on for.

A girl round here had a knife put to her throat by one the other night, I'm afraid if anybody approaches me in a clown unform they'll get the sharp end of my tounge and if I'm in the car they'll be used as a hood ornament for as long as they can hang on for.

A girl round here had a knife put to her throat by one the other night, I'm afraid if anybody approaches me in a clown unform they'll get the sharp end of my tounge and if I'm in the car they'll be used as a hood ornament for as long as they can hang on for.

I'll give you that, but BPB has more rides, they may break your back and leave you in traction for three months, but they've got a far better selection than Chessie.

No this is the Halloween thread and it's only fair there's balanced discussion
 
I dislike it too (share an Oct birthday too), when I was a kid it was a nothing event and our only interest was picking which firework display to go to the next weekend, now it's like the entire month is dedicated to it, yet another wasteful import like Prom night from America I guess.

I hate halloween. I suppose it means that I hate October too, because whilst it is my birthday month, the whole period is taken over by horror related things.
 
And for those who don't know me, horror is not my thing. Never has been and probably never will. In the theme park industry, pretty much a month of the operating year is horror based. Which basically means a month of the year for me to not visit theme parks! 
 
The closed season's started early for me!