The UK needs more Coasters

[Mackem Lad]

If they had the money it may have been successful, if Towers could make evryone think Rita was good, Camelot could have made Knightmare turn their fortunes around if they could afford it. Sadly they didn't have the money, which is the same for all the small parks, they just don't have money to burn taking risks and with large instalations.

It's a catch 22.

There's no money to spend, but you need to spend money to make it.

Smaller parks are in serious need for new revenue streams, but as you say, nobody seems to want to make a move or a statement of intent.

Paultons Park have brought in a few steady additions in recent years but the rest just continue to bring in tat.

 

[A-Kid]

We need to stop with this family and "that will do" bullshiit and up the game a little. We were doing fine 10 years ago, keeping up with the world. It feels like this country has given up... typical england falling behind and generally being a big failure.

 

[nealbie]

We need to stop with this family and "that will do" bullshiit and up the game a little. We were doing fine 10 years ago, keeping up with the world. It feels like this country has given up... typical england falling behind and generally being a big failure.

So now you're being racist towards us? Neal approves of hippo's standing on crates

 

[Ormerod]

Nothing wrong with family additions, if it gets people in the park and makes revenues exceed.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

Yes, of course we can get lots of massive new big rides, why aren't our parks getting them right now? Why aren't every park getting a new Intamin coaster yearly?

Oh yeah, planning permission is incredibly strict over here, and a lot of our parks aren't exactly very well finacially backed in regards to rides are they? Hence most of the time the only ones that can actually afford mega, 'world-class' coasters, are indeed, the Merlin parks...

You don't need world class rides to make a good park, not every park needs the biggest and fastest thing in 500 miles, just enjoy the rides we have because they are not the worst in the world...

Go live in Australia or similar places with small rubbish parks, then you'd realise that we're not off that bad now are we?

 

[Blaze]

Look at the last time a trully huge, iconic, record breaking ride was built over here.

It was PMBO and I need say no more about the coaster itself.

And look what Blackpool have done since. With the exception of the amazing Valhalla, they have built a poor tower ride and moved an SLC that was nearly 10 years old up the road from their sister park.

Building massive coasters can sometimes be a big mistake. Look at Alton Towers. They built Nemesis within stupidly tight restrictions, but still created a ride, 15 years later, is ranked 6th best in the world, miles ahead of anything else in the country. PMBO is lightyears away despite it's huge size.

 

[Pokemaniac]

Australia? Look at India! One billion people and growing, not a single park worth writing home about. Nigeria. Pakistan. Bangladesh. Indonesia. Vietnam. Brazil. Russia. Mexico. All countries with next to no parks, and a population (and often, population density) way above that of the UK.

Okay, I admit that poverty often plays a large role in this, but we still have Singapore. Be happy that you have good parks at all *snivel*.

Also, the UK is the capital and beacon of bureaucracy. Getting planning permission to build a coaster in the UK is harder than it is to become a certified doctor in most of the world's countries.

 

[andrus]

Building massive coasters can sometimes be a big mistake. Look at Alton Towers. They built Nemesis within stupidly tight restrictions, but still created a ride, 15 years later, is ranked 6th best in the world, miles ahead of anything else in the country. PMBO is lightyears away despite it's huge size.

I consider nemesis as a "big" ride. Although the ride itself is short all the work around it is immense! The huge excavations and all the theming, not to mention that the ride was the first of it's kind in europe and probably the most intense in the world at the time it was built!

The UK (aswell as the rest of europe) needs more new "big" rides. They don't need to be the tallest or fastest in the world, but they do need to be impressive! More nemesis/black mamba style rides or more "small" mega coasters like EGF and goliath (or even mega-lites). Big rides like superman la attracione and silver star will do as well, but they don't necessarily need to be the most expensive rides in the world to be impressive!

 

[furie]

I'm almost with A-Kid on this one. The UK has gone for "quirky" rather than fighting a battle of biggest, fastest, best!

It's a tough one to call though. It's that conflict of enthusiast against public opinion.

Let's look at some of the "big" rides built in the last few years (rides the public will have been made aware of in a big kind of publicity push).

Colossus, Inferno, Stealth, Saw, Kumali, Velocity, air and Rita. Not a great selection to be honest from an enthusiasts point of view.

However, from the public's point of view, all have been great additions to the parks. They love either the "greatness" (Colossus and Stealth), the thrill (Rita, Stealth and Velocity) or the quirkiness (Saw and air). All these rides fit under most public preconceptions of "big rides".

I'm not even going to start looking then at the rides built in Europe and America in the same kind of time period - it's depressing.

The problem is, that these rides are public hits. They have increased park visitor numbers and had a pay back. The public really love them.

This is the problem though. Parks can get away with providing "the least they need to do" to get people into the parks. They don't need to overly push design and planning permissions as they can almost just shove in any old rubbish and the public will lap it up.

Now they're selling on the family element (apart from Thorpe). It gets in people who spend more money per head and the installations required for them are cheaper than a thrill seeker build. So again, it's money in the bank going down that route.

There does seem to be a lack of driving force in the UK actually wanting to push good, thrill rides. As the Big One proved, a massive new ride really makes a big difference (two or three million visitors over four or so years) and Stealth too has certainly put Thorpe on the map. People are happy to be thrilled, but they love to be impressed.

On the flip side, I can't complain. The UK is chock full of coasters and parks. We do have some good parks and rides too. We're not brilliant by any means, but we're a long way from dreadful. I don't know what the answer is really? Somebody with real enthusiasm for rides getting in to the management at the parks really. Somebody who knows what a mega-lite is and knows why they're so popular. Until then, we're going to have to put up with mediocre install after install...

 

[marc]

Things have changed over the past 20 or so years from when I was growing up.

I was around for the building of:

Vampire
Nemesis
Air
Thunder Looper
Oblivian
Collosus
Inferno
Can never remember the name of the coaster at American Adventure
Shockwave

Then it goes down hill.

Stealth is probably the last big coaster the UK has got. The rides built since then have gone cheap and "this will do".

Merlin have the money they been boasting they are better than Disney, they have the parks now they need to spend the money and get a world class coaster and not rely on coasters that they did not build.

The USA are getting 2 huge coasters next year, we are getting a family coaster at Alton.

Denmark theme parks not only had good coasters but many were better themed as well.

Germnay has better theming and better coasters.

For me to go to Alton towers for the weekend costs about £200, for me to go to Germany for the weekend costs about £200. Guess were I would rather go.

I do with people would stop blaming the planning permission. Yes its harder over here than other places, but better rides can still be buit.

 

[Gazza]

they can almost just shove in any old rubbish and the public will lap it up.

Agreed.
When you look at a place like Thorpe, you sort of have to wonder why they went to the effort of building 'gimmicky' stuff ("Steepest Drop","Fastest in Europe" etc).
No matter what they build it will be a smash hit, so why not avoid going to the extra expense, lower capacity and higher unreilability that including these gimmicks often entails? They don't have to try that hard. They could just take the American approach, and just build a decent sized ride with high capacity, and that would work just as well.

Oblivian

This is just a general observation, bit it pains me the number of times I see it spelled Oblivian instead of Oblivion....Come on guys, its one of your most well known rides, so you should know how to spell it.

 

[marc]

That's my internet spell checker doing that

I will keep a close eye on it next time

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

The fact is that we have such a massive difference of view from the general public...

They will lap up anything, launches and uniqueness are the new thing, looking at Alton, Rita and Air ALWAYS have the longest queues, compared to Nemesis and Oblivion, both of them generally being better rides in our view, but because of what the rides are, the public prefer them instead...

Thorpe on the other hand have Stealth, Colossus and Saw, yet Inferno is often the one with the shortest queue, and (to me) it's miles better than anything else Thorpe has to offer...

The planning permission is of course an issue, and the way in which locals seem to act (SW6 and the hill fort for example), but of course we've gained stuff like Nemesis and Oblivion because of it, so it's not too bad, but problem is the way in which the audiences have changed, I doubt Nemesis would have the same impact today as it did 15 years again because of how guests view rides so differently now...

Look at what Disney do to their 'average' rides, without all the theming and Disney stuff Space Mountain and what not, so it's a case of rides against theming... Hopefully SW6 can change this but the UK is fine atm with how it's doing, showing we don't need new intense coasters...

Providing to the general public is so much more important to the parks than providing stuff for us, we are critics first and foremost and we provide minimal income for them since we rarely spend lots of money when going, even though we go more regularly...

 

[marc]

Inferno I find has the shortest queues due to the through put and not many break downs. Its fast loading and fast unloading. Air and Rita again have slow through put, I know the specs say different but how many times have you been on Air just to sit there whilst they re check the restraints?

Many time on Inferno and Nemesis you are waiting for the train to resturn so you can leave the station. Rita we are still getting in the train when the other one returns.

I know many people that are general public who go to Thorpe and their favorite coaster there is Colossus, many of them do not like Saw. They prefered Stealth, inferno and Colossus. I have had about 20 odd people say that to me as well. Again at Alton they say Nemesis is the best coaster there.

3 of the people live in Southend and 2 of them prefered Rage as they found it more thrilling.

Saw is going to have a very short life tbh and I think within the next year you will see shorter queues for it. The only way they will keep interest in it is if they update the theming which they wont do. Disney get away with it as most people only go once a year or every few years.

 

[Nemesis Inferno]

^It entirely depends on the Saw brand how long the Saw life goes... Saw 6 roll is coming out soon, and will probably be popular...

Throughputs can vary so widely for rides, depending on various factors, but last time I went to Alton Air was being run perfectly, and I had more stacking on Nemesis in my entire trip...

Marc how old are your friends that you asked? And where have they been ride wise? So many factors come into prefferred rides but waiting around exits and getting off rides I've seen more people commenting on the 'awesomeness' of Stealth and Saw more than Inferno...

It still doesn't affect my point that we make up a small percentage of the overall audience and that our opinions don't really end up doing much, otherwise Thorpe would be a much better place by now...

 

[furie]

I wonder if the issue is to do with the way we view theme parks over here?

Is it that because we have so many, so close (everyone has a theme park less than three hours drive away, probably less than two hours actually) we just treat them as any other National past time?

Fish and chips, camping in Wales, pub to watch the football and theme parks. They're all something that the majority of Brits do every year. We don't have to make a huge effort to go to a theme park, so a trip to the closest one is always a no-brainer.

Ergo, it is much easier for the parks in the UK to get away with this "stick it in and they will come" attitude. Any new ride will get the people who may have skipped a trip last year and the year before. As most public only go to one or two parks a year - they're much easier to impress as they have a less active comparison between rides.

Is it that in Europe and the US, with distances being further and planning a trip requiring more effort, the parks actually have to compete? This means that they do have to really work hard on making their rides the biggest, the fastest, the best themed? If they don't, then people just won't head there.

Is it Europa Park that has five hotels? They really must be ready to cater for a lot of people coming specifically for more than one day at the park. Here there is only Alton and Blackpool that is really geared towards that (though we have the Chessington Hotel, but it's not connected officially to the park and rumours of several other hotels due to be built - the FL caravan village thing too I guess, but that's not quite the same).

The UK is a victim of it's size maybe? We're so small and jam packed with parks and rides - there's no reason to make yourself stand out any more?

 

[marc]

My friends ages are around 19-25 so it is the age Thorpe aim for.

Furie I think the problem in the UK is that the 4 big parks that should be able to build fantastic rides are owned by the same company. So far Merlin have built Saw, and are building the new coaster at Alton.

Now would the old owners have built these new coasters? or would they have built like they used to.

Remember people have said Saw the coaster was not meant for Thorpe, Thorpe were meant to be getting something else but ended up with the Chessington coaster.

I know it looks like I always bash Merlin, but all I have seen from them so far is 2nd rate rides and sea life centers. Yes I know people love Saw, but it just could have been so much better.

 

[Ben]

Is it Europa Park that has five hotels? They really must be ready to cater for a lot of people coming specifically for more than one day at the park.

It's four and a "guesthouse". And a Tipi-Village. And a Camp Site

But, I'm not 100% sure that analogy works with Germany, because they are also pretty jam-packed with parks, with Holiday, what, 90 minutes away? And then Phantasialand about two hours north of that, and Tripsdrill also close?

I do agree that, bar Alton, our parks are all "day trips" (and Alton is still to the vast majority of guests, I get the impression a LOT of their revenue there is from conferences), but, is that because the public don't want them to be more than that, or because they just... aren't? If Europa was here with its excessive amounts of hotels, would it fail or succeed? God knows... probably not to be honest, you're probably right... Then you factor in the other German parks that have hotels, and I've really just started to back you up Phil despite my thoughts when I started this post...

 

[furie]

The question is, do places like Europa succeed as a holiday destination/weekend break because they have brilliant parks, or were the parks brilliant which meant that they had to increase the over night accommodation to satisfy guests? :lol:

I think Marc has the other good point. You essentially have three major parks in the UK - Alton, Thorpe and Blackpool. Thorpe and Alton don't want to compete as it's not in the umbrella group's interest. Blackpool don't want to compete because... Well, we don't really know why

The others are all bit players. Drayton, Flamingo, Fantasy Island and Oakwood? Either too close to the big players, or too far from civilisation (major cities that could provide them with passing trade). They just don't seem keen to invest the money required to really let them compete against the Alton/Blackpool/Thorpe trinity. Maybe it's a lack of confidence in return on investment? Maybe they just don't have the infrastructure to really expand? However, I do think Marc is right, with one company holding three parks, it's killing a degree of competition in the parks with money.

 

[marc]

What is strange is Alton years ago used to take 2 days to get around, I am going back to when Nemesis and Thunder Looper were there at the same time.

Why is it now you can get round the park in a day and there is meant to be more there?

Yes the rides there now are higher capacity, but I still find it strange.

Oakwood is a strange example to use but they have a coaster Alton and Thorpe need, Megafobia.

Flamingoland I think have taken a step back, they have gone the family route but for them its paying off. I do think they will install a big ride before Alton and Thorpe do. Yes Alton are getting a new coaster, but no matter how you dress it up it is still a family coaster.

Drayton could be so much better, they have the space but what route are they taking?

I just dont see where our next world class coaster is going to come from, Alton have shown they used to be able to do it but I feel Merlin wont.