Thorpe park performance and failure of The Swarm?

[STEALTHDAN]

Hey guys as some of you know I contribute to another online forum Pleasure beach experience that's dedicated to Blackpool Pleasure Beach and what comes up a lot on there recently is that supposedly Thorpe Park had a bad year in 2012 and that The Swarm was a failure? http://www.pleasurebeachexperience.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=8&p=58409#p58409

Having not heard anything official if there anything about a bad year? I just wondered your thoughts and if someone could maybe give me any insight into what there claiming?

[Coaster]

I don't think that the bad year was the fault of The Swarm.

[pluk]

On the planning application for the billboard (link should be somewhere in the Swarm topic a month or two ago) there are a couple of telling lines about The Swarm 'not having the impact on visitor numbers it was expected to, although it was well received by those who did ride it.' Something like that.

As far as I'm aware no official gate figures have been released but are widely rumoured to be quite poor, especially for opening year of a major attraction.

[RideAddict]

As far as I'm aware no official gate figures have been released but are widely rumoured to be quite poor, especially for opening year of a major attraction.

Official or non-official, I always take things like that with a pinch of salt. I'm always the Doubting Thomas.

[Dan9]

There are a lot of other factors. Proof being that The Swarm can't have been that badly received if Merlin have just bought their third wing-rider for Heide Park...

[Mark9]

I think it is slightly different situations here. Germany as an economy is doing better then the Uk or Italian economies. Germany is also to me, a theme park juggernaught. Heide Park has far more to compete with. I also think comparatively, Krake was a successful ride for Heide whereas Raptor did not do well for Gardaland (that darn Italian economy) and The Swarm had more outside factors to take on so whilst the ride itself did well for those that rode it, gate figures weren't as hoped.

There's so much more to this theme park stuff then just "it wasn't good"

[alexander]

It doesn't help with the target market they're aiming for, nor with the lack of care for already existing attractions. They've had some decent additions but fail to maintain a lot of the current rides. Barr Slammer and Samurai (arguably) which they've done a hell lot of work on.