Closed rides - what happens to the staff?

[Inferno]

A bit of a weird question… but one I’ve thought of a few times over the years.

 

When a ride unexpectedly goes down for a few weeks, for example Wicker Man at the moment due to the fire, that suddenly leaves a team of staff stranded.  
 

I assume it must take a team of around 15ish people to staff a ride like Wicker Man permanently, considering shifts, days off, etc. that’s quite a few people knocking about all of a sudden with no ride to operate!

 

For those who have worked at the parks, what happens to these staff during the time their ride is closed?  I assume they are seconded to other rides, although surely they are then over-staffed on those rides (if that is such a thing these days) with people who may not be trained to do much on those rides?   I hope it’s not a case of hours being cut or people being displaced on to other departments?

 

Likewise with the shorter delays of a few hours, what happens to the staff in the meantime?

[JoshC.]

I can only confirm my experiences at Thorpe, but can hazard a guess as to what would happen at other parks.

 

At Thorpe, the Rides Department is split into different areas, and each area has several rides. The idea is that, at first, you would be trained on 1 or 2 rides as a host, before maybe being trained further on more rides, or being trained to be an operator. Each area has a selection of smaller and bigger rides. What rides you were trained to host on didn't matter. However, the usual procedure for being trained as an operator would be you'd be trained to operate a smaller ride first, before eventually being given a bigger ride. You would also need to know how to host that ride too.

 

If a ride is closed for an extended period of time, and the park know this, the staff would be used in a variety of ways. One or two might be expected to stand at the ride's entrance to speak with guests (yes, even if the ride is closed for several weeks). Some may be asked to do extra cleaning of the queue line (as this is ride staff responsibility). Others may be trained on new rides. 

The other thing is: ride hosts are paid minimum wage, operators not much more. You will find, especially in the UK, there's a high turnaround of staff, and it can be tight to staff everything without having to get Rides Team Leaders / Managers to run rides. Just one or two staff absences can throw plans out the window. So having a ride closed can mean that they just get used as sick cover too.

 

I'd expect it is very similar at Alton Towers. 

 

 

8 hours ago, Inferno said:

I assume it must take a team of around 15ish people to staff a ride like Wicker Man permanently, considering shifts, days off, etc. that’s quite a few people knocking about all of a sudden with no ride to operate!

 

Whilst it is about 15ish people as a minimum who need to be trained on Wicker Man for it to run daily, there would be more people who would be trained on it (in case of absences, etc), who would also be working on other rides, and vice versa.

 

8 hours ago, Inferno said:

I hope it’s not a case of hours being cut or people being displaced on to other departments?

 

I wouldn't say hours are cut, but I knew of times when people were asked if they wanted to go home early (and obviously getting paid less). At Thorpe, given the average age of rides staff is quiet young, there would be people who would willingly take that, since they might prefer a few hours extra off over working and it doesn't impact them as much financially.

 

It would be very unlikely for staff to go into other departments since you would need department training, etc. I know Towers have permanent roles for Hosts where you're trained in several departments, so you might be put into your other department if you were in this situation, but that's not really a displacement. I guess sometimes staff might be asked to litter pick around the park too.

 

8 hours ago, Inferno said:

Likewise with the shorter delays of a few hours, what happens to the staff in the meantime?

Now this is an interesting one. If there's an expectation that the ride could reopen, there's expectation that the ride team should be available. If engineering say "Oh, it will take us about 3 hours to fix this", you don't want to displace the ride team for that ride for exactly 3 hours. Ideally, you wouldn't do it at all, in case it only take 30 minutes.

 

So, pretty much, staff are just hanging around, waiting. You should have someone at the entrance to give the standard line "It's closed, we don't know how long for", etc. But everyone else? They might be asked/expected to do a bit of cleaning of the queue line, but aside from that, it's a case of standing around waiting.

 

Weather delays at Thorpe are the worst for this. You'll get the weather alert on the system telling you to stop operating the ride. And then you just have to wait. It could be hours before you can go again.

I have not-so fond memories of standing in Swarm's stations for hours in pouring rain and heavy wind, knowing the ride won't reopen any time soon, but having nothing else to do.