Thorpe are still running the park hours Oktoberfest where people can have beer, pretzels and roller coasters zooming in the background though. This is just Thorpe tapping into a huge potential revenue stream utilising their abundance of space and social reach to create non park / ride reliant events. The concept of drinking heavily at parks is something that just doesn't resonate well in the UK, the park time Oktoberfest lacks the drunken atmosphere required to make it feel like a justified event.I vehemently disagree with you.
Totally hear your points about locations and land being diversified in it's use; all for that. But again, as I stated in my previous sentence to the one you highlighted, Oktoberfest at a theme park conjures up images of steins of beer, pretzels, and rollercoasters zooming round in the background.
Previous beyond-open hours events, including summer nights as I previously mentioned, and Ministry of Sound nights have seen at least a limited ride lineup open throughout the event. It seems like a total no brainer to me to do this?
Of course, this is a personal perspective and I wouldn't expect everyone to imagine the same thing as me, I just think considering the history of events held at Thorpe with open attractions, why of all events would oktoberfest be the one that they decide not to have any. Thorpe is my local park yet I haven't been in years; I'm pretty certain if I told my mates about this event and mentioned even in passing that the rides wouldn't be open, they'd laugh in my face and just say to go to somewhere in central london instead.
It sounds like you haven't really taken onboard the tiny scale of the event that they're advertising. It's just a very small event happening in the marquee, not nearly on the kind of scale of those events you mention, the kind which justify ride openings.I vehemently disagree with you.
Totally hear your points about locations and land being diversified in it's use; all for that. But again, as I stated in my previous sentence to the one you highlighted, Oktoberfest at a theme park conjures up images of steins of beer, pretzels, and rollercoasters zooming round in the background.
Previous beyond-open hours events, including summer nights as I previously mentioned, and Ministry of Sound nights have seen at least a limited ride lineup open throughout the event. It seems like a total no brainer to me to do this?
Of course, this is a personal perspective and I wouldn't expect everyone to imagine the same thing as me, I just think considering the history of events held at Thorpe with open attractions, why of all events would oktoberfest be the one that they decide not to have any. Thorpe is my local park yet I haven't been in years; I'm pretty certain if I told my mates about this event and mentioned even in passing that the rides wouldn't be open, they'd laugh in my face and just say to go to somewhere in central london instead.
That's another thing too, when did these parks forget how to make a pleasant queue? Rides like Vampire and Nemesis have queues that feel like part of the experience and weave their way through the ride's course. Cattle-pens, switchbacks, whatever you want to call them, suck.
I know it's not exactly the same, but Queue Times usually does the trick for me for Merlin parks.I see Alton Towers have now resolved the glitch on the app so you can't view the queue times at all unless you're there
You can spoof your location to trick the app into thinking you're at the park. Same thing Pokemon Go cheaters were doing...I see Alton Towers have now resolved the glitch on the app so you can't view the queue times at all unless you're there
I know it's not exactly the same, but Queue Times usually does the trick for me for Merlin parks.
You can spoof your location to trick the app into thinking you're at the park. Same thing Pokemon Go cheaters were doing...
If you have an Android device, it's really easy, it's just an app you install.I'll investigate that later, not sure how they obtain their data...
Ha true, feels like overkill! Still seems such a petty thing to do and odd how only one Merlin park has done it.
There's only one reason for doing it, to have more control over publicity...
As soon as rides are down for any length of time, it's all over social media, and in some circumstances, mainstream media. Often it's people not even at the park watching the app and reporting on it.In what sense?
As soon as rides are down for any length of time, it's all over social media, and in some circumstances, mainstream media. Often it's people not even at the park watching the app and reporting on it.
really? If you don't mind me asking, are you not old enough to remember 2015 to 2019 in the industry? Alton Towers was in the national red tops almost weekly, every time a ride broke down. This faded a little in the last few years.Why would only Alton do it? Chessington has multiple major rides down every day. And can't say i've ever seen mainstream reports of rides being down considering it's a daily occurrence.
really? If you don't mind me asking, are you not old enough to remember 2015 to 2019 in the industry? Alton Towers was in the national red tops almost weekly, every time a ride broke down. This faded a little in the last few years.
But that's not necessarily why I think they've done it, more an 'aside.' I thinks it's got more to do with the social media side of things. In the last few years you can't seem to scroll more than a few posts on any Merlin based online community without reading about ride availability issues, particularly at Alton Towers. Screenshots of the app shared almost daily showing multiple rides down at a time during operating hours. Posts on Merlin Annual Passholder groups along the lines of 'glab I'm not at the park today, look at the downtime" or "What's happening, crazy queues today, pleased I didn't go." are a very regular thing.
Maybe it's got nothing to do with this, but I can't think of any other reason why they'd do it. I suppose another possibility is to reduce server load, and increase app reliability by reducing the number of database queries made by people who really don't need to know how long the wickerman queue is when they're not at the park... But that theory is never going to be as interesting as a good conspiracy theory.
Yeh, it was a thing, it seemed, post Smiler incident, like every single routine breakdown got it's own news story. They're still doing it now, although not nearly as regularly... Sorry for subjecting anybody reading to this... (**WARNING** MIRROR NEWSPAPER LINK, HAVE EYE BATH ON STANDBY BEFORE CLICKING) https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/alton-towers-thrill-seekers-left-30466857Ha, i'm early 40s but definitely don't remember that, although not a red top reader. Even the things you mention seem quite niche though, the percentage of people frequenting Merlin based online communities is surely a tiny fraction of their audience and enthusiasts of any type are always going to be the loudest complainers about the thing they love but i think the majority of people only pay attention when they're actively attending a theme park.
Ohhh I like that, first one kind of ties in with my theory, but hadn't even considered the second one, and definitely seems like something they'd do.I guess it's a mixture of both preventing people from spending money at the parks due to crowds ("look, ride X has a 90 minute queue, let's not go today!") and making sure as many people as possible have location tracking enabled during their park visit in the app so they can monitor visitor movement and spending patterns.
Tell me, since you seem adamant that publicity has nothing to do with hiding the queue times from none guests, you must have a better theory for why they've done it, care to share?