Matt N
CF Legend
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UK Merlin park attendance over the years
- Thread starter Matt N
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- attendance merlin
Tonkso
Hyper Poster
I'm a little late to the party with the ULEZ discussion but aren't over 90% of cars ULEZ compliant? The scheme is designed to prevent the most polluting vehicles from entering London, and there really aren't that many of those about. There has been a lot of noise around ULEZ when it negatively impacts actually very few people.
Also as shown above, the idea that Chessington would have been specifically included is just nonsense.
Also as shown above, the idea that Chessington would have been specifically included is just nonsense.
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
The scheme catches older cars (think it's pre 2015/2016 the are not Euro 6 compliant for Diesel) and the scheme has been extended to cover more of London's poorer outskirts... Doesn't take a genius to work out that this change disproportionately affects poorer people and smaller businesses, with probably the worst timing possible. Since they're the most likely to be running older cars, it's easy to see it as another tax on the poor.
My old car is a 2015, and it's literally just the wrong side of the Euro 6 change (I have a new one arriving today ironically.) So I got stumped with two £12.50 charges just for driving into Stanmore, parking up for the weekend, and using public transport from there. For anybody that doesn't know know Stanmore, it's the Northern most point on the Jubilee line, the terminus, one of the first places you can reach, with a tube station, if travelling in on the M1 from the North. I've used Stanmore for years when visiting London, as the tube system is great for getting around, and serves Stanmore well.
The people of Stanmore make a good extra income from renting out their driveways to us folk from North of London. Probably not any more, I guess Watford would be the best place now for those with non compliant cars. Not nearly as well served by TFL, nor as convenient, but at least it's free, and does have 'some' links.
Anyway, not my point really, my point was that now poorer people, living on the outskirts, can't drive their vehicle without paying £12.50 per day. Stop taxing the poorer, hard working, folk of London, and just wait for the 10% to slowly be replaced over time as they would naturally anyway.
Matt N
CF Legend
Thorpe Park recently revealed that in 2023, they received around 1.5 million guests:
I have added this figure to the spreadsheet as 1,500,000, as even though this isn't coming from a new version of the Merlin graph (which I do hope is on its way before too long!), it is official park confirmation of guest figures.
1.5 million in 2023 is promising; that puts them on par with the pre-COVID figure from 2019!
I have added this figure to the spreadsheet as 1,500,000, as even though this isn't coming from a new version of the Merlin graph (which I do hope is on its way before too long!), it is official park confirmation of guest figures.
1.5 million in 2023 is promising; that puts them on par with the pre-COVID figure from 2019!
Nicky Borrill
Strata Poster
I like this marketing video... It's very clearly going for the 'Spotify Wrapped' vibe, and absolutely nails it.
Matt N
CF Legend
We’ve had a very interesting development from the planning application of Project Refresh and Renew at Chessington; a new Merlin attendance graph: https://towersstreet.com/talk/threads/chessington-world-of-adventures-resort.97/page-496#post-493105
The numbers from previous years seem to line up with the Merlin attendance graph we had before, which in turn lined up with our prior general understanding of the parks’ attendance trajectory, so I don’t see why it would be wrong… but it makes the very interesting and unexpected claim that 2022 and 2023 attendance figures at Alton Towers were on par with, if not higher than, those of 2010, attaining over 3,000,000 (no scale is given, but the prior graph which had scale had 2010 on around 3,062,500). The only year that looks notably higher than 2022 and 2023 on the graph is 1994, which the previous graph pegged at around 3.3 million.
Chessington is also pegged as having hit the 2 million mark and reached parity with Legoland Windsor in 2023. The figures for Legoland and Thorpe Park seem a bit more in line with what I’d have expected, with both being roughly on par with 2019 levels of attendance in 2022 and 2023. And again, this lines up with what we already know; Thorpe Park themselves confirmed on social media that they got 1.5 million in 2023, which is on par with 2019’s figure in the previous graph… which would make the Thorpe Park sums add up.
What do we reckon to this? I don’t see why these figures would be wrong, and as I said, the graph lines up with the previous graph for every year up to 2021, which in turn lines up with pre-existing understanding that we had about attendance trajectories at the parks. So under Occam’s Razor and just about anything you could say, I’m inclined to believe that they’re genuine… but the Alton Towers and Chessington figures seem so wildly out of kilter with what I was expecting that I’m inclined to question them to an extent…
The numbers from previous years seem to line up with the Merlin attendance graph we had before, which in turn lined up with our prior general understanding of the parks’ attendance trajectory, so I don’t see why it would be wrong… but it makes the very interesting and unexpected claim that 2022 and 2023 attendance figures at Alton Towers were on par with, if not higher than, those of 2010, attaining over 3,000,000 (no scale is given, but the prior graph which had scale had 2010 on around 3,062,500). The only year that looks notably higher than 2022 and 2023 on the graph is 1994, which the previous graph pegged at around 3.3 million.
Chessington is also pegged as having hit the 2 million mark and reached parity with Legoland Windsor in 2023. The figures for Legoland and Thorpe Park seem a bit more in line with what I’d have expected, with both being roughly on par with 2019 levels of attendance in 2022 and 2023. And again, this lines up with what we already know; Thorpe Park themselves confirmed on social media that they got 1.5 million in 2023, which is on par with 2019’s figure in the previous graph… which would make the Thorpe Park sums add up.
What do we reckon to this? I don’t see why these figures would be wrong, and as I said, the graph lines up with the previous graph for every year up to 2021, which in turn lines up with pre-existing understanding that we had about attendance trajectories at the parks. So under Occam’s Razor and just about anything you could say, I’m inclined to believe that they’re genuine… but the Alton Towers and Chessington figures seem so wildly out of kilter with what I was expecting that I’m inclined to question them to an extent…
owenstreet7
Mega Poster
I'm genuinely curious how Alton Towers got the higher numbers whilst Nemesis is down.
Chessington, I think the Jumanji area had a very positive effect on attendances. It certainly would've attracted more people to the park than previously.
I'd be interested to see the 2024 attendance figures when they're released to see what they are. I think Thorpe Park will have higher attendance due to Hyperia opening whilst Alton and Chessington will be comparable to 2023.