Frightwater Valley Sold Out

[Mackem Lad]

I'm sure you all read about LWV's Halloween event earlier this year. Just a quick note on how it went.

Frightwater Valley was definitely an outright success. There were 7500 people in attendance. The park could have let upto 10,000 people (the demand was there) in the park but they know that such numbers would only ruin the day for everyone with queues. Brave move to turn away custom, hats off to the park.

In turn, Frightwater Valley will be returning next year and it will be at least a 2 day event with 2 firework displays. The park will also look at adding further Halloween attractions such as horror mazes.

Should have some photos up some time this week.

 

[Martyn B]

park could have let upto 10,000 people (the demand was there) in the park but they know that such numbers would only ruin the day for everyone with queues.

Sorry, but parks dont work like that! They dont turn down guests because ride queue's will be long!

The park will also look at adding further Halloween attractions such as horror mazes.

Thats good to hear. Pleasurewood Hills also put on a Halloween event this year, for the first time, and apparantly that was a huge success too. Good to see the smaller parks putting in more effort for Halloween.

 

[oriolat2]

park could have let upto 10,000 people (the demand was there) in the park but they know that such numbers would only ruin the day for everyone with queues.

Sorry, but parks dont work like that! They dont turn down guests because ride queue's will be long!

The park will also look at adding further Halloween attractions such as horror mazes.

Actually, parks as big as Lightwater could have 10,000 guests if the rides were properly staffed and properly operated. Heck, they have more than 2 coasters that run multiple trains.

Good to know they succedeed with their Halloween event.

 

[Mackem Lad]

park could have let upto 10,000 people (the demand was there) in the park but they know that such numbers would only ruin the day for everyone with queues.

Sorry, but parks dont work like that! They dont turn down guests because ride queue's will be long!.

Well in this case they did.

To put things into perspective, the normal attendance on a Bank Holiday is 5000 people, so they had 50% extra visitors on what would be normally classed as a busy day to begin with.

The queue for The Ultimate went all up to The Rat, and The Rat's queue went all the way down to The Conservatory.

I don't know about you, but I think the decision to cap it at 7,500 was both a brave one and the correct one.

 

[Inverse]

^ Yes, very brave and correct in my view too. That's massively busy for LWV, i'm really pleased it went well. Is there much competition up there for Halloween? Does Flamingo Land do anything?

 

[Mackem Lad]

They don't unfortunately.

 

[STC]

I presume The Ultimate was running two trains, and filling both...? Because a few weeks ago, it was one train and the back half of the train was full of sandbags. Didn't matter though, there was no queue to speak of, but of course you always have to wait for the bloody thing to get back to the station.

 

[Mackem Lad]

Yes, The Ultimate was running two trains.

Had another morning stall though. :lol:

 

[Martyn B]

^ When doesn't it!

The queue for The Ultimate went all up to The Rat, and The Rat's queue went all the way down to The Conservatory.

But that wouldn't be the reason to stop letting people in! There is no way any park, let alone a small one, would turn away guests because of ride queues getting long!

 

[Brookes]

^Thorpe limited the amount of people into fright nights didn't they?

 

[Jake]

^ Only because of the pre-book only thing.

In previous years, the park has hit capacity, which meant that by LAW they had to stop letting people in.

What people are saying is that LEGALLY, LWV could have let 10,000 people in, so it doesn't make sense, economically, that they closed the gates way before the park hit capacity.

 

[Danzibarr]

The Rat's queue went all the way down to The Conservatory

That won't take much, it has a throughput of about one person a minute!

Do they only ever run two cars on it now? Last visit I took there were only two and only ever one on the track whilst the other loads, I presumed it's cos of H&S and there not being sufficient blocking on the circuit? The queue was very short but took 45 minutes!

 

[Mackem Lad]

But that wouldn't be the reason to stop letting people in! There is no way any park, let alone a small one, would turn away guests because of ride queues getting long!

You're not listening though, I'm telling you that IS the reason why. Guest satisfaction was priority and the park knew that 10,000 guests would cause mammoth queues and people wouldn't get anywhere.

In the lead-up to Frightwater Valley LWV stressed that it was highly recommended that you pre-booked as there were limited tickets available on the day.

Pre-bookings went way beyond expectations. Last season 2500 people pre-booked - the park past that number with just under two weeks to go. A pre-booking figure of 4500 was then thought achievable, the park went way beyond that.

An emergency meeting was then held on Wednesday as management knew numbers were a lot higher than they budgeted for. Additional lighting rigs were hired, 7 more rides had their opening times extended to 7pm (that was on top of the 6 rides with 7pm close to begin with) and for those rides to continue to operate through the firework show aswell (not the original plan). Additional toilet facilities were brought in and the 500 corporate clients were moved to the grassy area beside Falls of Terror for the fireworks in order to make more room for guests in the fairground.

So, as you can see, the park dealt with the high demand as best they could. There was simply no way another 2500 guests could be on park which is why the event will run for at least 2 days next year.

 

[slappy mcguire]

Absolutely. If the attraction is to be a success in future years, the worst thing possible would be for LWV to have the sort of farce seen at a few of the winter wonderlands around the country a couple of years ago. Winter trading will become a more significant part for UK parks over the next few years, so the ones with the strongest perceived events will be the ones most likely to attract people that.

I honestly think the success of this event may be a crucial turning point for LWV, and would hope to see the rise of more theme weekends as a result, which is more likely to make the park prosperous, and see improvement.

 

[Mackem Lad]

Lightwater Valley have uploaded photos from Frightwater Valley to Facebook.

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=1 ... 1961685291

I've just been sent them via email, but I suppose this saves me the job of uploading them! :lol:

I'll get round to putting them in Valley Mania's photo gallery at some point though.

P.S. How awesome does the train driver (Dick Van Dyke) look?! :lol:

 

[bezzzzzer]

Absolutley pleased to the max about this ha! Lightwater Valley is an awesome place, and I'm glad it got the epic custom that it deserves.

Flamingo Land not doing anything definately has a factor though, so hopefully they don't catch on for a while. Let Lightwater Valley set the standard up north, then it'll be Flamingo Land who'll have to play catch up.

I'd love to go, but Halloween is my favourite time of year, and we do have some Halloween-ness in this country which is amazing (even on an International standard I believe). But anyhoo, well done Lightwater Valley!