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The Future Of Vampire


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  • 3 months later...

I never liked the new trains I loved the orginal Vampire with the old trains shame Vekoma didnt just do a recon. They used to fly to the ground and clip the top of the grass they now got those big pits so people dont bash there legs.

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I would personally expect it to be able to run longer than that. Apparently the service life of the coaster type is 25 years which is the length after which Big Bad Wolf had to close. However that had a lot faster/more forceful turns/drops and also hadn't had the kind of renovation Vampire had. Not only that, the things that caused BBW to have to close have apparently been sorted/prevented on other coasters of that type, so yeah I'd expect it to be around for a long time yet.

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I really wish the park gave a damn about Vampire to the extent that they clean up. Colossus seems to be the one everyone goes for.. "it needs a repaint, it looks shocking" and all that. Have these people actually seen the diabolical state Vampire is in at the moment. A repaint needs to be on the agenda, and soon.

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I agree, it is awful. The supports are an awful brown colour, and most of them have huge patches of cream or yellow for some reason. The whole track looks very mouldy, actually. :unsure: Why they had to change the colour is beyond me, the supports looked far better black and the purple trains clash badly with the cream coloured track.
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The ride really does need quite a bit of TLC, some areas of the track are hidden due to the amount of mould, but I agree with others a lick of paint is definitely needed.What colours do we think? I would personally go with a dark purple for the track and black for the supports. :unsure:

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I am not sure purple actually fits Vampire. It would look good on the track, at least it would be better than what we have now, but the rest of the ride is almost a mash between purple and old style. For example, the old entrance is themed well, with flickering wall lights and crumbling walls, but then the current entrance is a simple, boring purple bar.Then we have the queueline and its purple fences, but which leads to the crypt and dark corridor that leads to the station. The station itself is extremely half and half. The track colours suited the black bat trains well, but with non-sensical purple trains flying about it now looks ugly.I am not sure if I prefer this 'purple' theme or the original theme. Well, obviously the old one was much better and more of a full-on theatrical experience, but it would take a lot of effort to reinstate. I would do it, though, if it was my decision. The ride would also benefit heavily from brand new features to really improve it.However, for now I think the track ought to lose its old style and change to Vampire's newish purple/black colours. Then it would be great if the clash between styles was sorted out.
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I'd go with the Castle theme. Painting everything purple is not a theme. Merlin have proved with Wild Asia that they go for theme over style so if they were to do anything I'd want them to actually make Vampire look finished. At the moment it looks stuck awkwardly between awesome, best in the UK theming to just crap. It needs a real look at and a genuine redo. The ride itself is fine, it's not amazingly thrilling but its the perfect ride for the families. Now it just needs that little bit of theatre, a little bit of shine to reconfirm its place as one of the UK's most memorable rollercoasters.

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I agree. Vampire, though I never saw the whole ride it in its original form, used to be fantastic throughout. It was more than just a suspended rollercoaster that flew over some buildings, it had emphasis on the graveyard queueline, the castle station and the flight around Transylvania and into the cave tunnel. It seems to have worn off so much, and this is only partly down to this 'purple retheme' but mostly down to the lack of TLC.The old colour scheme/signage was black and red, with lots of theming all over the area. Most of the theming thankfully still exists or has been recently restored. There seems to have also been an emphasis on bats, but naturally this left along with the old themed trains.
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It is definitely somewhere along those lines. Which reminds me, I like the way you have no idea what Vampire is all about the first time you ride it. All you can see is the rollercoaster occasionally flying overhead and climbing lift hills in the distance. The station is hidden so well behind the trees and uses the crypt area to hide the warehouse. It is also very far back and it feels like a journey going through the queue and getting closer all the time.The place itself is never meant to be anything. You have the organist and the windows, with the darkish corridor going before. Riders don't know exactly where they are. The actual 'Vampire' is never hinted apon or heard of, maybe the rollercoaster is flying like the vampire? In a way it does something clever and leaves everything down to the rider's imagination. In recent years the castle/crypt/church emphasis has been half replaced with such marketing as: "Fly like a bat out of hell", "Are you ready for a fright? Grab your garlic and dare to ride the fang-tastic Vampire roller coaster" and especially "Vampire has one of the lowest height restrictions of any rollercoaster! Even little adventurers can fly."Uh oh. It has been dumbed down. :unsure:
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I think the main thing about the track/supports is that in my opinion it's one of the rides that can kinda get away with not looking brilliantly shiny and new...However, it does need some new bits added here in and there... Firstly having some black gothic looking queue fencing instead of the cheap purple affair we have now... Then it needs a bloody facade on the building, just a cheap 2/3mm painted piece of wood would be a great addition if painted in such a way to make it look like a castle/church/whatever the aim is...Inside, basically they just need to theme the air-gates (like the old days), and maybe add a few cobwebs/generic spooky things around the station...The brake-run could do with some stuff to look at that suited the theme (I.e. NOT the random masks from previous years)...And finally, bring back the original entrance... Please... It's so much better...

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I think the main thing about the track/supports is that in my opinion it's one of the rides that can kinda get away with not looking brilliantly shiny and new...

I'm actually entirely on the opposite side of the fence here I think. Nemesis and Colossus can get away with looking rough as one was already designed to look aged, the other is a lost city and doesn't need to be brand spanking new.Maybe Vampire would get away with it if the area wasn't looking so run down. I don't expect Vampire to look perfect in its 21st season but on the other hand looking like its falling apart is an entirely different matter.
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If I had my way with Vamps, I'd:- Re-route the queue back through the original entrance. Much more grand and welcoming. - Get the track/support/steelwork colours back to its good old self. Its not so much for theme purposes, more presentation. - Re-colour the trains to something dark. Purple contrasts greatly. - Add rockary instead of queue fences, slightly burried into the ground for the last section of the queue. Maybe even put some of it in tunnels. Bats live in caves or dark places, so I would like to add some of that darkness to the experince. - SFX? Vampire doesn't have an area/queue theme although it manages to generate a reasonable atmosphere without it. Through the graveyard section at the beginning you could have ambient cricket/bat sounds. Maybe windchimes in the trees. You go past it quickly, so it can't be tedious of boring to hear (like Saw's queue theme). - Place a few more pines arond the station warehouse to hide it a tad more. I think that would do it. Probally a big ask though for little gain.

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  • 2 weeks later...

I do agree it needs a repaint, and it needs something in the cave thta you dive into. For the queue I havent seen the old entrance but I am sure it is great, and because chessington is a zoo, maybe in the queue they can have a tunnel with real bats in and like dividers to stop them from getting out, that would be good.

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  • 5 weeks later...
  • 5 months later...
Where is this information coming from? It does actually sound like something Chessington would do, judging from their dramatic change from terrible to loved in the past two/three years. I hope they are actually starting to restore the former glory, that would be great, even if it is only small improvments at first.I hope this is genuine. :P
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Where is this information coming from? It does actually sound like something Chessington would do, judging from their dramatic change from terrible to loved in the past two/three years. I hope they are actually starting to restore the former glory, that would be great, even if it is only small improvments at first.I hope this is genuine. :P

It's a reliable source so yeah it should be genuine, exciting times :P
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