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Blackpool Pleasure Beach


Dan_Rush

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  • 2 weeks later...
11 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

“Valhalla to make a splashback soon!!”

 

*massive wooden fence put up in front of Valhalla

 

Seriously, Valhalla does desperately need some work and lots of it to restore it to the levels of its former self as so much is broken now. So here’s hoping the next year is put to good use.

Will it return to its former self though? Isn't a lot of it to cut running costs? If that's the case it'll be stripped of many expensive effects surely. 

 

I just hope it becomes a bit less wet. I'd be happy for the vortex to go TBH as that destroys you. Boats need to drain better as well. 

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Honestly I'm not surprised, Valhalla is a nightmare to run and maintain, it must cost the park a fortune. Pleasure Beach are independent too, they probably don't have that spare cash to burn. It also seems to have a decent amount of downtime and honestly I've always wondered how long it would last, this isn't your average water ride, its a full blown dark ride with pretty much every effect in the book. I hope the park can redesign it in a way where it is sustainable in the long-term but also fun.

Agreed with getting rid of some of the water effects, nobody wants to get that soaked while in Blackpool..

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  • 3 weeks later...

The main things I want sorted with Valhalla when it "makes a splashback soon" is the boats and the level of how wet it gets.

 

I get the idea of a water ride is to get you wet and I know they have signs warning you about how wet the ride is, but right now you might as well just chuck yourself off the end of the pier and into the sea and you wouldn't get as wet as what Valhalla can get you. It's all fair and good soaking riders if the climate the ride is in allows it. Florida being the prime example. Popeye is also a ride that soaks riders excessively, but this is no issue as the heat in Florida drys you near enough instantly. Valhalla delivers the same level of soaking but you are in the damn north of England. So that's the main thing that I feel needs sorting and that's before they deal with any of the rides effects.

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Attendance was down 5.8% in Icon's first season, however the loss was 1.2 million compared with 1.6 million the previous year.


https://www.blackpoolgazette.co.uk/business/losses-fall-at-blackpool-pleasure-beach-as-poor-weather-reduces-visitor-numbers-1-10189718


In my opinion, it's very concerning that after such a long wait for a new coaster, it didn't draw in any more guests.


Improved turnover could be attributed to things like all the new merchandise, increased fees etc - but if the overall gate figures are down in the year a 16 million pound coaster opens...


I don't think things will improve until the park stop blaming external factors and start focusing on what they can actually do to improve.

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As much as I hate Merlin's marketing led approach to any investment, this just goes to show that marketing at least needs to be considered and attempted alongside building something decent. If I weren't active around these places I'd have had no idea Icon existed, that's just not good enough for such a major new coaster.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Given the pleasure beach financial figures coupled with how expensive Valhalla is to run, I honestly would not have blamed them if they just cut their losses and did away with it altogether. It would be a shame to lose it but buisness wise it would make sense. Lower ridership for it goes against it too considering it only ever gets major queues on baking hot days which is hardly ever taken into account this is Blackpool we are dealing with.

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7 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

Given the pleasure beach financial figures coupled with how expensive Valhalla is to run, I honestly would not have blamed them if they just cut their losses and did away with it altogether. It would be a shame to lose it but buisness wise it would make sense. Lower ridership for it goes against it too considering it only ever gets major queues on baking hot days which is hardly ever taken into account this is Blackpool we are dealing with.

Seconded. Valhalla was/is a brilliant attraction though a huge liability to a park that probably cannot keep up with the high running costs that Valhalla demands.

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2 hours ago, JoshuaA said:

Seconded. Valhalla was/is a brilliant attraction though a huge liability to a park that probably cannot keep up with the high running costs that Valhalla demands.

 

While the ride wristband is good value for money, pleasure beach really shot themself in the foot when they introduced it the year after Valhalla opened. The ride would have near enough paid for itself had they had stuck to tokens a little longer given it cost the same to ride Valhalla as it did the big one although I could be mistaken on that last part.

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I think the gas is very expensive for the fire effecst but in general it's quite overstated how expensive Valhalla's situation is. I dont think removing it is on the cards. Amanda's tweet about "making it more sustainable" was probably just a nice sounding excuse, they had to close it for maintenance rather than to stop the park going bankrupt

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4 minutes ago, SteveJ said:

I think the gas is very expensive for the fire effecst but in general it's quite overstated how expensive Valhalla's situation is. I dont think removing it is on the cards. Amanda's tweet about "making it more sustainable" was probably just a nice sounding excuse, they had to close it for maintenance rather than to stop the park going bankrupt

 

Apparently it costs up to quarter of a million a month to run and takes up a third of the parks power supply. Don't know exactly how accurate that is though. I do hope when it does reopen, it somehow can achieve both being more financially reasonable on the park whilst also not overly diluting the experience. Not that it can get much worse given Valhalla has gone to the dogs in recent times sadly.

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Not to mention water rides cost a lot to keep the water clean too (especially stuff like Valhalla where so much is dumped on you). Tidal Wave is like the most or second-most expensive ride to run at Thorpe for example.

 

Actually figures of how much Valhalla costs to run are pretty meaningless as we don't know a scale of the numbers. If £250k per month is accurate, how does that compare to a roller coaster? Or to Tidal Wave? Or anything else? We don't know - it's just a number.

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