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The 'Definitely 100% Totally Going to Happen' London Resort


Liam T

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Date of opening is now pushed back to 2021 whilst they sort out transportation and environmental factors that have come up in consultations. We knew there would be delays of some sort anyway, when do things ever run on time but It's all still looking good and next year mid 2016 is the official planning to put forward to build I believe :D

Here is the link

Not a great sign, but I think they has realised just how congested that area of the country is and so significant transport provisions will have to be in place at opening, as opposed to opening the park and them trickling transport stuff. Hopefully financial backing shouldn't be too hard to come by, as The Smiler incident has sullied Merlin's name so it is the prime opportunity for a competitor to strike. 

 

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Nick Varney's response to a question on the competitive threat posed by Paramount Park, at the recent Investor Relations presentation:
 

We are scratching our heads at the economics of a £2 billion pound development, that's got 50% of its catchment area being the English Channel, using an IP that's never worked on a Theme Park brand before, and looking to get the same visitor numbers as Disneyland Paris and the entire UK Theme Park market... but if it gets off the ground, they'll be heroes.

 
...they're not worried.

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But Paramount did, back in the past, have some IPs that worked in a theme park environment... Granted they eventually got brought out by Cedar Fair, but I'm not 100% sure for the reasonings without trying to do some serious research, I don't think it was completely down to monetary failure... I could be wrong here...

 

Times have changed, rides based off Bond and Star Trek (and whatever others they had planned) would get a LOT of punters in... Plus of course they'd say a lot of catchment would be across the Channel, since you know, the location is by Ashford International...

 

 

 

Then again, Varney wouldn't say anything positive about the place in front of Merlin investors and scare them off... So pinches of salt for all!

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Ignore Merlin, Disney Paris has easy links, the Disney name and still struggles money and attendance wise.

 

Attracting circa 15 million people in 2014 is struggling?

 

The money woes come from when it first opened, such are the perils of building 6 massive hotels in one fell swoop and an American based IP trying to get over to the French (who detested the whole idea at the time)...

 

In regards to the solvency/profit side of it, depends if the people behind Paramount have a plan for that, one would assume most parks even the tiny ones make little profit at first... But that old adage of spending money to make money comes to mind, especially if that 2 billion covers the entire resort costs (park, hotels, entertainment district, transport, etc)...

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You do realise two billion is two thousand million pounds? So even at a very very generous 3% interest, the interest payment itself on that loan is 60 million a year, and that's before you contemplate repaying the capital and completely ignores compound interest and Inflation. Remind me again, because I don't know the exact figure, Merlin operate how many theme parks, and their best years operational profit was how much?

Yes there is the policy of spend money to create money, but there's limits to that.

There is no way this Paramount Park thing will ever make a buck, it'll either die a quick death or be bank rolled by the Arab backers as a tax write off until they get bored and turn their attentions elsewhere, that's assuming it actually get's built, last time they tried to build a theme park down that way it bankrupted the guy funding it and eventually led to creation of Merlin themselves.

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If that was a legit event I doubt the name would start with broadcasting themselves as the UK's DISNEYLAND before saying they are Paramount Park. Also those weird lines in the event title aren't very professional but then again neither is an open facebook event :P

Also what year is that 3rd of January date suggesting?

 

Last I heard things were not looking good for this park at all. They aren't even definitely happening let alone in a position to organise an opening party!

 

It also neglects to mention the BBC connection which I would have thought they would want everyone to know.

 

EDIT: Just found the event page.

 

Opening in Januray 2020? Yeah sure :P Also the page hosting it has 4 likes.......

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