Ghost Train - NEW for 2023

[StevenVig]

On 4/13/2023 at 12:58 PM, coasterverse said:

 

Is this confirmed?

 

Yes, I spoke to him directly. 🙂

[ML27]

Was at Thorpe Park today and they were still painting and cutting up wood for sets ect. They had a props specialist on-site. This isn’t a ride which will be ready soon. 
 

Problem is it’s nearly may. I suppose a lot can change in over a month.

[MattyMoo]

Think I'm just gonna get a visit in for May now and save holding off for GST TRN. My first ride will be Fright Nights 😄

[ML27]

The period when there will be a lack of actors! 😝

 

In other news, actor rehearsals start monday

[Glitch]

Actors are starting training, I would say it will be a month or so, I putting my cards out there and saying this is the first project which Silkstone and team have been given full creative control on.... 

[MattyMoo]

We're probably going to go Thursday 18th for the first trip of the year - probably end up being the day before it opens, like when we were at Thorpe and Black Mirror had it's press launch, so saw Shane Sandwich, SLKSTN et al eXPeRIEnCinG it, but us plebs had to wait.

 

Turned out it wasn't really worth waiting for anyway but still.

 

[coasterverse]

12 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Actors are starting training, I would say it will be a month or so, I putting my cards out there and saying this is the first project which Silkstone and team have been given full creative control on.... 

 

And I can't really see actors starting if there's no place for them to rehearse properly. Yeah, sure, there's probably rehearsal rooms tucked away in the Thorpe Park Backrooms, but I'd imagine the park will be wanting to rehearse everything fully with places to hide for optimal scares and they'll want everything as streamlined and optimal as possible. Therefore I've got a feeling that at least the very basic sets are in place and are just finetuning things at this point.

 

Feels like opening is not too far away now, but also very likely that something goes wrong and ends up getting delayed again.

 

I saw on Twitter too that it looks like the actors have been told a date - I saw somebody asking when it's due to open and they responded saying it's top secret or something along those lines. So I feel like there's definitely an internal target, but they're waiting for a couple of things to fall in place before they actually announce anything.

[MattyMoo]

Same here seeing people on Twitter asking about dates - find it funny how Twitter slips in tweets into your feed that you don't follow, but quite often are interested in (or not, as the case may be....!)

[coasterverse]

Thorpe have just announced that 'The next train to depart Platform 13 at Thorpe Junction will be announced tomorrow 👀" - some news, finally!

[tactic]

 

20 minutes ago, coasterverse said:

Thorpe have just announced that 'The next train to depart Platform 13 at Thorpe Junction will be announced tomorrow 👀" - some news, finally!

Just seen that too. Do you think that means they will announce the opening date tomorrow?

[coasterverse]

11 minutes ago, tactic said:

Just seen that too. Do you think that means they will announce the opening date tomorrow?

 

Yeah I'm like 99.9% sure that's what they mean

[ML27]

Definitely opening date, gotta be somewhen this month. Only date they wouldn’t open Ghost Train is on same day as Subterra, so literally any date in May. 
 

The marketing budget for this ride is pretty much £10. The first announcement, was teased night before then fully announced and then the date is being teased the day before an announcement by just reusing that one picture 😂

[tactic]

7 minutes ago, ML27 said:

The marketing budget for this ride is pretty much £10. The first announcement, was teased night before then fully announced and then the date is being teased the day before an announcement by just reusing that one picture 😂

That is so true. At this rate we’re not going to get any TV advert or anything close to Curse at Alton Manner got.

 

I think the park have missed out out on that behalf. The scale of the refurbishment is pretty similar to what happened to duel (or I hope it is at least!) so you would have thought they would have seen the success of that and advertised it like Curse at Alton Manner was.

 

I do have a slight feeling that the lack of advertising is due to the fact that they worked with Jack Silkstone for advertising for the start of the campaign. No offence to Jack at all but he’s just not skilled enough to do marketing for a massive cooperation like Merlin, especially they’re not paying him or paying him very little to do it.

 

Hopefully we do see something new come out so because I don’t want this to be a wasted investment for Thorpe.

[ML27]

20 minutes ago, tactic said:

I think the park have missed out out on that behalf. The scale of the refurbishment is pretty similar to what happened to duel (or I hope it is at least!) so you would have thought they would have seen the success of that and advertised it like Curse at Alton Manner was.

That’s the thing, I don’t think anyone has any idea on the scale of this refurb. The marketing makes it look like this is just going to be a quick retheme to get rid of Derren.

 

However from the posters outside and the cafe “theming” it looks pretty substantial. In which case you think they’d try to push it for. From the website and just general online media. It doesn’t feel like there’s a new for 2023 at thorpe. It’s not teased on the map in big bold graphics. 
 

This leads me to think, the park we’re working with unknowns. They didn’t know when it was going to open. They didn’t know what the ride is exactly.

 

25 minutes ago, tactic said:

I do have a slight feeling that the lack of advertising is due to the fact that they worked with Jack Silkstone for advertising for the start of the campaign. No offence to Jack at all but he’s just not skilled enough to do marketing for a massive cooperation like Merlin, especially they’re not paying him or paying him very little to do it.

Marketing agency’s will always be more powerful due to resources and experience. Jack is perfect for event marketing and stuff for around the park, not necessarily things for mass media and creating noise to the GP. You’d think they would have used them for this ride if they genuinely wanted it to succeed 

[Vinlarr89]

30 minutes ago, tactic said:

That is so true. At this rate we’re not going to get any TV advert or anything close to Curse at Alton Manner got.

 

I think the park have missed out out on that behalf. The scale of the refurbishment is pretty similar to what happened to duel (or I hope it is at least!) so you would have thought they would have seen the success of that and advertised it like Curse at Alton Manner was.

 

I do have a slight feeling that the lack of advertising is due to the fact that they worked with Jack Silkstone for advertising for the start of the campaign. No offence to Jack at all but he’s just not skilled enough to do marketing for a massive cooperation like Merlin, especially they’re not paying him or paying him very little to do it.

 

Hopefully we do see something new come out so because I don’t want this to be a wasted investment for Thorpe.

Personally think that there is room for both types of advertising in this day and age. What percentage of Thorpes audience actually watches TV in the day and age of streaming? Probably less than you might think. That being said I agree that a professional marketing agency and Thorpe’s own social media channels should be doing far more. Also YouTube and social media focussed advertising seems non existent. Thorpe shouldn’t be relying on people like Jack, but using them as supporting acts as such. 

[tactic]

1 hour ago, Vinlarr89 said:

Personally think that there is room for both types of advertising in this day and age. What percentage of Thorpes audience actually watches TV in the day and age of streaming? Probably less than you might think. That being said I agree that a professional marketing agency and Thorpe’s own social media channels should be doing far more. Also YouTube and social media focussed advertising seems non existent. Thorpe shouldn’t be relying on people like Jack, but using them as supporting acts as such. 

That's actually a valid point to be honest. TV advertising won't target the main audience Thorpe want to attract (I assume they are still going for the thrillseeker, teen/young adult demographic). Even without the TV advertising etc. though, as you said, they have been very quiet on social media and in advertising the ride in general.

 

Either they are going to drop something massive tomorrow that they have been waiting to reveal until now, or the marketing budget for Ghost Train is practically non existant, which in my opinnion makes the investment almost not worthwile.

[coasterverse]

Some may also argue that they've plunged their usual advertising budget into the attraction itself... which in hindsight doesn't sound like a good decision if nobody knows the refurbishment is taking place other than those on social media and/or have visited the park 😂

 

To be fair, the park are fairly limited on what they can do with the attraction itself. Fundamentally, the transit system will remain exactly as it was and is the crux of the attraction - so regardless of what they do with the rest of the scenes, that's all just filler until you get onto the train.

 

Those expecting Duel to Alty Mans level of refurbishment I feel are going to be bitterly disappointed. As a rather generic style ghost train as opposed to Ghost Train at Thorpe Park, the options that Towers had for a refurbishment could've been endless - whereas Thorpe must maintain a transit system that's effectively just a stationary train (for the most part) on a motion platform.

 

I'd love for some more physical effects though. The fake train crash scene in the original iteration of DBGT was brilliant - but horrendously unrealiable for whatever reason.

 

More of that please, but make it reliable.

[ML27]

I agree with the above however, even though it’s got its ride system and has to be kept. The actual system makes little to very minor effect on how you as a guest enjoy the attraction. The back and forth movement of the carriage to point and point b stays the same. However the motions and sequencing can be changed. This is not forgetting the on -board effects, I hope we see some. What I mean by this, yes it’s limited where it takes you but the possibilities of what you as a guest experience are still endless. 

[MattyMoo]

Fingers crossed for it being open for my visit obvs. We're going first day of Mardi Gras (Thurs 18th) - park is closed the day before so maybe that would be an ideal time to have a press event for SLKSTN & Co.

 

....or, the press event will be the day we are there, like with Black Mirror, and we miss the eXPerIENcE by 1 day 😏 

 

ALSO - spotted that Mardi Gras is not showing on the website for 20th & 21st May but I assume that's a mistake, as elsewhere on the website it says "Mardi Gras is back at THORPE PARK Resort! Taking over the theme park every day from 18th May – 11th June – and it’s included with every park ticket." - as suggested by @JoshC. - that could POTENTIALLY be a GST TRN launch weekend now, but that would be quite odd to set Mardi Gras up for 2 days, for it to then sit there unused for 2 days straight away. But... Merlin.... so.....

 

[MattyMoo]

Website updated - 26th May midday opening!

 

No Fast track, no time slots for booking 😱 

 

[ML27]

 

Concept art looks pretty good, defintely a different take on DBGT. I might be a bit scared for it 😂 It feels more classic ghost train/scare experience.

 

Looks like we will be walking through a graveyard using a tube train to commute from a non London Underground train station.

 

Looks like they may use some UV lighting on board from the right hand side of it.

 

I just don’t know how they are going to run for multiple years an actor led experience. Not many parks do, especially Merlin parks. I don’t know how it’s going to be consistent either with actors but we shall see

[tactic]

Now we have a date for Ghost Train we can start putting bets on if we think Colossus with open before it 😂

 

I do think the photo looks like there may have been drastic changes to the ride, or at least to the storyline. Hopefully they have changed the theming on the train/station to match what seems to be a graveyard theme. It would just be odd to walk of a London Underground train into a graveyard with church behind it

[coasterverse]

I know concept art isn't really anything to go by, but my oh my does that look incredible. Struggling to see how they would recreate such a scene inside that building though - perhaps the second station platform has had all of the walls demolished to open it up as one big room rather than the station, scare maze tunnel and where the infected used to appear on DBGT - but not sure how structually sound that would be 😂

 

I suppose the building is massive, but I'm not sure how much of the room is taken up by the ride system itself...

[ML27]

Maybe the old floating carriage scene will be a grave yard set, if they allow you to walk around the bottom, it’s a tall open space except for the train.

 

Obviously they aren’t going to give away much effects wise but looks like there won’t be screens in the windows but utilising the existing screens above. 
 

Love how they’ve themed the train carriage with graffiti and carved in words before the clientele do.

[coasterverse]

1 hour ago, ML27 said:

looks like there won’t be screens in the windows but utilising the existing screens above.

 

Will be very interesting to see how they execute this if this is actually the case. How will they explain that there's no windows? If this is the case, feels like it's going to break immersion straight away.