Numbers of guests per day?

[Inferno]

Something I’ve wondered on and off over the years…

 

Does anyone happen to know the sort of figures that visit Thorpe per day?

 

For example, how many guests are usually there on average?

What is the capacity crowd levels on the busiest sell-out days?

How many people are there on the quietest of September weekdays?

 

I’d be interested to see how the numbers compare to things like stadiums etc, as it’s so hard to visualise since people are spread out across the park.

[Inferno]

That’s really interesting - thank you Josh. All of those numbers are lower than I expected.

 

It’s a good point about the “busy days” being generally less busy these days, and good overall that crowds have equalised a little throughout the week.

 

I wonder if their efforts to encourage people 

to visit on off peak days have played havoc with staffing etc?  In years gone by they could run with minimal staff all week then scale up for the weekends - now I suppose they need consistently larger numbers of staff.

 

I have noticed in more recent years that the park just can’t handle a crowd like it used to. I seem to remember in the SUPER busy days (2009 2010 ish) the weekends were extremely busy, but the queues seemed to move fast enough as far as I remember, and it was still a good time. Even at fright nights, the busier nights were very busy, but not as unpleasant as they are of late (it could be that I’m less tolerable now! But I’m sure it’s because like you’ve said the park were just used to big crowds and it was no big deal)

 

I’m surprised that max capacity is 15,000. Some days it feels more like double that when walking around.

[JoshC.]

I'll just give a boatload of info here...

 

-The park's maximum capacity is around 15,000. They can officially hold more, but there's internal H&S/operational considerations they go with. A "sold out" day will probably have around 14,000-15,000 people, as a buffer and also as some pre-booked guests don't turn up.

--There's some caveats to this. A "sold out" day may have less people if they have ride closures, expecting certain types of guests, etc. Buy out days are obviously capped at less.

 

-The quietest days I've known of have been less than 1,000. Very rare, but has happened. Last time I think that happened was like 8-10 years ago, when the park was open for a full week after FN. Those weekdays were dead.

 

-These days, September weekdays are probably the quietest. You're probably looking at around a couple of thousand people. Even then, that will vary quite a lot day to day. The park can still feel quiet if there's 2,000 people on park or 4,000 people on park.

 

-A standard weekend day will again vary significantly, likely around the 5,000-10,000 mark.

 

-A "busy" day, in terms of how the park feels and copes, will likely be anything above 9,000 I'd say.

 

It's an interesting situation that the park are in. 10-15 years ago, their weekends / "peak" days were heaving, and their off-peak days were dead. Like 10,000 might he standard on a weekend, and 1,000 on a weekday. The park wanted to increase attendance by increasing attendance on those quieter days.

 

They have of course managed to increase attendance on quieter days, but it seems to be that people are choosing to visit on those days over busier days, as opposed to attracting more guests. That helps on an operational standpoint in that the park can plan more consistent staff levels. But it now means that the park, and staff, are less used to busier days. 

 

As I say, back in 2012, for example, 10,000 on a Saturday was normal and the park coped fine. These days, 10,000 on a Saturday is abnormal, in that it is more than usual. So that means the park doesn't operate as well, and it feels worse.

 

It also means that when we hit those capacity days, it can hit even harder. 

 

 

I guess the big takeaway is that Thorpe, and indeed basically every theme park in the UK aside from Towers, hit small arena / stadium numbers. For a football example, we're looking at like League One/Two football matxh attendances (which are weekly things) on a daily basis.

[MattyB]

Just to add to this, back in the early to mid 2000's we were reaching numbers between 18000-20000.  However this did cause issues.  I particularly remember some of the days the queue to get into the car park went back towards the Sainsburys by Staines bridge.  For comparison, EPCOT at Disneyworld gets around 80000-90000 for their New Years eve celebrations

[JoshC.]

I imagine that the capacity would have been reduced following the closure of the farm? That took out a lot of physical space for guests to be spread about. Even if a quarter of guests weren't using that area, it would certainly have helped with things in theory.

[MattyB]

50 minutes ago, JoshC. said:

I imagine that the capacity would have been reduced following the closure of the farm? That took out a lot of physical space for guests to be spread about. Even if a quarter of guests weren't using that area, it would certainly have helped with things in theory.

Yep correct.  Also CCR and the water ferries as they were quite large capacity rides/attractions.