CharlieN

She’s looking fast!

I can’t work out exactly where it is.. is it on the entrance side of the pier?

Looking good! 18B74EE3-B47D-47E1-87EA-540711C82852.MOV

I love this thread. It makes me really excited to be a European enthusiast and I can’t wait to visit some of these more obscure parks in the future.

I'm currently writing an extended project regarding the future of roller coasters - and I need a bit of help! My dissertation discusses whether or not there will be a place for roller coasters in the leisure industries of the future - and I require some primary data from which I can draw a conclusion. Hence, I would be delighted if you took a minute out of your day to fill in this short survey: https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfSNAgCTe2izI_j_HA691SdR1xNQJ2s5XyaVR3fx3t5oXpZPA/viewform?usp=sf_link I need as many responses as possible - so please forward this link to anyone else you know who would be happy to complete it! Many thanks in advance and if the dissertation is a success, I plan on sharing it with all of you.

Good luck with the dissertation. I’m doing something similar for my extended project at school. I’d have loved to answer the survey, but it appears the maximum number of responses has been reached!

Thorpe’s social media is absolutely embarrassing. More and more brands try and present themselves as fun and ‘down with the kids’ whilst forgetting the basics. For example, you’ve got airports repeatedly tweeting about how they’re on giphy without communicating with the public regarding an incident. The best park Twitter is that of the Efteling, in my opinion. They don’t try to be your best mate by posting self-deprecating memes or stupid gifs; they actually treat you with the respect you deserve as a paying guest. Their responses are immediate, helpful and just by using punctuation, not too corporate sounding. It’s a simple approach, but social media is the only way a park can ‘speak’. Therefore, it’s so important that the ethos of the park and it’s rides are coveyed by the social media team.

2019 seems like a great year for Europe.

Which company calls their end of season party a ‘star ball’? It’s beyond me.

Now why are Vekoma’s roller coasters always 2 across seating? I wonder if their rejected concept for Energylandia’s hyper was 4 across...

Stay positive Sam. The league is crazy this year; any of the top 12 teams could get play-offs. Norwich are top... so anything can happen!

Uhh, here goes my confession: I’ve visited 0 theme parks all year. (well bar a 5 minute trip to Adventure Island to get on Rage) That’s not to say my enthusiasm’s waned at all; I spend most of my time researching, exploring and reading about theme parks online. I guess I was just busy this year and my inability to drive combined with a lack of theme park buddies does mean that getting to new parks is rather difficult. I hope that a year from now I’ll be writing up a very hefty park count... including trips to The Efteling and Phantasialand...

That’s why it’s a VR attraction! Shame it’s not Hollenblitz there, however...

Mack Powered coasters?

I haven’t been to FN - and I won’t be visiting - but the quality of attractions does seem to be lacking. Go back to 2013; you’ve got 4 very solid indoor mazes in Cabin, Saw, The Asylum and MBV - not forgetting Blair Witch. This year, 3 of the 4 indoor maze locations are in use: Saw is still Saw - which is surely getting stale. The Asylum is now Vulcan Peak - which is quite possibly the largest downgrade in the history of mazes. Cabin is now Living nightmare - which also must be seen as a downgrade; going from a critically acclaimed conceptually innovative maze to one which feels ‘almost’ there. Elswhere, the park has replaced 1 outdoor maze with... 4? Whyyy? What do each of these mazes do that others don’t? Blair has never worked as well as intended. Platform is still a bit iffy. Sanctum seems as hastily put together as it was last year. So what do Thorpe decide to do? Open another outdoor maze of course, instead of putting all that enthusiasm, energy and money into their existing offering. It seems like the overriding problem with FN at the moment is the lack of variety of actors. Both walking dead mazes use zombies, Platform has dead train people who act like zombies, Dead Creek throws infected people at you, who behave like zombies and Blair’s confused actors end up giving a zombie like performance. If you look at the Villains of Europa Park’s traumatica - you’ll see there’s vampires, werewolfs, ghosts and a whole host of other characters. That what Thorpe needs, for each maze to be distinctly different - with actors acting distinctly different. There’s too many blokes with black paint around their eyes growling at you....