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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

Matt N said:
I apologise in advance, but I’m afraid I’m going to be controversial here… I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.

Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
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Quite a good point.
 
Matt N said:
I apologise in advance, but I’m afraid I’m going to be controversial here… I have to say that I really don’t see the point of heavily promoting the “story” for Hyperia. If there was ever a ride where an in-depth backstory was pretty much redundant, I think this is it. The ride has next to no theming, and unlike many Merlin rides, it pretty much doesn’t appear to focus on theming or storytelling at all.

I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself. Just hammer home that silhouette of the layout and its giant elements and hammer home the records, with only the very vague “find your fearless” imagery present as an indication of the theme/style. To be fair, I think they’ve done that pretty well up to this point, but the marketing seems to have taken a bit of a weird turn in the last couple of days.

Granted, I’m no marketing expert by any means, but the approach of the last couple of days is certainly not how I’d approach marketing Hyperia. The coaster itself is the key strength of this project, so why not play to your strengths? I fear that this sudden focus on the theme and “story” of Hyperia will only invite criticism regarding the very minimalistic nature of the actual ride theming.
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It has a story, it has theme music, we’re starting to see props, it has a colour scheme, buildings surrounding it have been kitted out in the same scheme, there will be effects (splashdown, smoke etc) and lighting, we even have a protagonist now. This is no longer ‘just stylised.’

A few more props and a nice station and it will be fairly extensively themed, by UK standards. I said this on Sean Evans’ video, but it’s shaping up to be themed at a similar level to Oblivion.
 
Matt N said:
I’ve said this before and I’ll say it again. If I were Thorpe, I’d be ditching any major focus on the theme or story in marketing and just going all in on the coaster itself.
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100% agree with this. In my opinion, all the marketing needs to focus on is: Tallest and Fastest Coaster in the UK. That's the sell. That's what's exciting. And no one else in the UK can make this claim. I'm really surprised Thorpe haven't milked this more tbh.

The sudden reveal of a (kinda bland) character and a (very simple) story just gets in the way of what's really attention-grabbing about the ride. It feels unnecessary to me.
 
I find the entire marketing campaign for the new attraction somewhat lacklustre.

Outside of the theme park community, I think they've really missed the mark.

Hopefully, once it's open they'll throw the kitchen sink at it, as they really need to - this can't be a cheap machine so they'll need to show the bosses at Merlin that it's bringing in the cash!
 
Queue fencing is looking nice (ignoring the fact it's going to be a cattlepen)
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Looks like a lot of the flooring is still yet to be complete but what's done is looking nice. Most of the groundwork under the coaster is being done in the evenings once the Mack team have gone home so they're not working under the ride area whilst it's testing.
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The on ride photo is in place as well just before you head up into the outerbank invert turn thing.
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Source: Jack Silkstone
 
Ollie said:
Queue fencing is looking nice (ignoring the fact it's going to be a cattlepen)
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View attachment 31344

Looks like a lot of the flooring is still yet to be complete but what's done is looking nice. Most of the groundwork under the coaster is being done in the evenings once the Mack team have gone home so they're not working under the ride area whilst it's testing.
View attachment 31343

The on ride photo is in place as well just before you head up into the outerbank invert turn thing.
View attachment 31342

Source: Jack Silkstone
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Ngl I really like the flooring they have gone for in the queue. Great colour. But beige is easy to look horrible too… hope they keep on top of all the gum thats gonna be on the floor.
 
FogZog said:
Ngl I really like the flooring they have gone for in the queue. Great colour. But beige is easy to look horrible too… hope they keep on top of all the gum thats gonna be on the floor.
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It does look nice and blends nicely with the colour pallete of the surrounding area. Looks like they've got plenty of drainage on the pathways as well so hopefully wont be walking through huge puddles every time it rains.
 
I don't understand the comments on the lack of advertising at all... I'm seeing multiple different adverts, reels and posts for Hyperia, from the park's official accounts, across all social media platforms each day. I'm genuinely being bombarded, it's getting silly now.

What are you expecting to see? TV Ads? Billboards? The park's officials have repeatedly said this winter that they're returning to the strategy of focusing on the teen and young adult thrill demographic... Social media is where they should be, and are, spending most of their marketing budget. I do wonder if we'll maybe get a small classic media campaign but, up to now, they've rightly been focusing on social media.

Although I disagree with comments on the lack of marketing, as there's been loads. I do agree that it's been lacklustre, nothing 'viral' as such, they need that awesome viral post / reel... Teddy Bears on a train anybody? Jack Silkstone forced to ride it non stop whilst saying "14.8 seconds of airtime" 10,000 times? Throw some banter / shade at BPB? Something that gets people talking... Not just trying to incorporate a coaster into the latest dance / music shorts craze every single day.
 
Geeky Pastimes said:
I was talking to some year 12 students I was teaching yesterday who are going on a schoool trip to Thorpe Park in July, they'd never heard of Hyperia and had no idea Thorpe Park had a new coaster. If they are marketing to that audience, I don't think it's working
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That’s insane. But also, if you’re going to a theme park, wouldn’t you do research on that park? How do they not know?!
 
InvertsAreMyJam said:
That’s insane. But also, if you’re going to a theme park, wouldn’t you do research on that park? How do they not know?!
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That's very much an us thing to do I feel.

My niece did a school trip to Parc Asterix last year. She had no idea what was there before going.

I've also been to Paultons with my extended family twice and no one apart from me knew what to expect that first time and none of them knew that there was a new area the second time.
 
roomraider said:
That's very much an us thing to do I feel.

My niece did a school trip to Parc Asterix last year. She had no idea what was there before going.

I've also been to Paultons with my extended family twice and no one apart from me knew what to expect that first time and none of them knew that there was a new area the second time.
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Huh. Even before I became an enthusiast, I always looked at the map and rides on the website so I could plan my day and get the most out of my time there. I thought that was just a basic thing to do. People seriously show up to theme parks with no plan?!
 
Is there even a TV advert? If there is I haven’t seen it yet.

I saw the Nemesis reborn TV advert plenty of times.
 
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