Alton Towers' Next Big Thing?

[Howie]

I know I've joked about this before, but... you know what would fit quite neatly into that building?
A Schwarzkopf Jet Star II, that's what. And guess what's currently being refurbished in the Netherlands?
They're bringing back The Black Hole as part of the Retro Squad, I'm calling it now!
If the new building is positioned right, they might even be able to just plonk it on the old foundations of the Alton Beast, if they're still there. Think how much cash that would save? The ride hardware itself surely wouldn't cost much, plenty of your £12.5 mill' leftover for the building and some lavish new theming.
If I'm right on this, I reckon you's all owe me a drink for sure.

 

[Matt N]

For some balance; I did have a thought as to how the building could possibly accommodate something like an Intamin Motion Tower while being too big for one on its own.

Could they do something similar to Hex, where it’s a longer experience with multiple pre-shows beforehand?

That would admittedly be one possible explanation for the 3 side-by-side doors, and it could also fill the space.

I still personally believe that an indoor roller coaster is the most likely outcome here, for the reasons I have set out. However, I do think that a Hex-style implementation would be another logical explanation that would work in favour of it being something like a Motion Tower, a Dynamic Motion Theatre, or a Flying Theatre.

 

[Rupert]

Moving away from this indoor attraction for a moment as water rides have been brought up - I genuinely wonder whether climate change will result in a new modern water ride getting built.

I don’t really buy the seasonal argument any more - we have much warmer springs and downright super hot summers these days (40 degrees this year won’t be an anomaly), not to mention it was over 20 degrees here just last weekend. For Alton Towers to only have one water ride seems really inadequate for the new normal.

Even saying that, it’s not like the flume didn’t have a regular queue when it was still around. Same with the rapids - even on a quiet but warm day it would have a 15-20 min queue and considering capacity this suggests big demand. I’d love to see one making some use of the valley to allow for larger drops.

 

[Hixee]

I’d love to see one making some use of the valley to allow for larger drops.

We wouldn't be worthy of a cross valley log flume.

 

[Matt N]

Moving away from this indoor attraction for a moment as water rides have been brought up - I genuinely wonder whether climate change will result in a new modern water ride getting built.

I don’t really buy the seasonal argument any more - we have much warmer springs and downright super hot summers these days (40 degrees this year won’t be an anomaly), not to mention it was over 20 degrees here just last weekend. For Alton Towers to only have one water ride seems really inadequate for the new normal.

Even saying that, it’s not like the flume didn’t have a regular queue when it was still around. Same with the rapids - even on a quiet but warm day it would have a 15-20 min queue and considering capacity this suggests big demand. I’d love to see one making some use of the valley to allow for larger drops.

One thing I would say about water rides, aside from seasonality, is that I’d argue that for many water ride types, a new ethical dilemma has opened up surrounding water ride safety in recent years in the UK. Water rides, particularly rapids rides, have been one of the types of ride more prone to incident in recent years, so while I appreciate that water rides can now have restraints and such, things like rapids rides do pose somewhat of a safety/perception of safety dilemma in this day and age in the UK because the HSE has now enforced guidelines that discourage the use of anything that encourages people to stand up, for all intents and purposes.

With that being said, I don’t think a water coaster is out of the question in the future. However, I don’t see a water coaster being what this project will be. The track on water coasters is very big and bulky, and they’re not the most versatile ride type, whereas this building, if it does house a coaster, will need something that has the ability to be compact and have a greater track density.

With regard to seasonality, however; I would say that climate change has not just caused hotter weather, it’s caused more extreme weather in general. As well as hotter summers, we’re also getting colder winters; some of the recent winters have been among the coldest and snowiest on record.

 

[MackMan]

Yeah i believe Alton Towers is not really in need of a water ride. Merlin have a bad rep with their water rides- all of their log flumes beside Tiger Rock have died in a ditch, and the rapids are like Matt said, are covered in a veil of over-safety right now after all the incidents.

Even with global warming Alton always seems to have quite meh weather- being in the midlands it gets a lot of rain, even in the summer. I have rarely seen Towers with hot weather- maybe that is just luck. Actually whenever i seem to go it ends up in some kind of rain.

 

[Matt N]

I have a possible theory about a ride type.

If this is a coaster, how about a ride like the upcoming DarKoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg?

The building for The Curse of DarKastle is not dissimilar in ground space dimensions to that of the main ride portion for Project Horizon. DarKastle’s dimensions are 82m*47m when taking the longest dimensions of the entire building, but the building is not a uniform rectangle, and that measurement includes its pre-show and indoor queue line… it looks as though the actual ride portion (the main rectangular portion of the building) may only occupy 60m*47m of that (the Curse of DarKastle layout looks pretty rectangular based on this link: https://www.themeparktourist.com/features/20170826/33120/modern-marvels-curse-darkastle?page=4), so DarKoaster could quite possibly fit into Horizon’s building ground space.

A DarKoaster-style ride could also be a good fit for this building, in my view, because DarKoaster will use high speed switch track technology to allow the ride to do two laps without sacrificing capacity, which would allow them to get a longer ride duration out of a shorter track length and less ground space. That could also lower the cost and match up with the £12.5m budget… because material costs would be considerably lower if the track length was shorter, and the high speed switch track technology having already been designed elsewhere would take out the R&D costs. A DarKoaster-style ride could even match up with Wardley’s hint at “impressive technology”, because I’d certainly argue that high speed switch track technology is impressive technology.

What do you guys think?

 

[roomraider]

I know I've joked about this before, but... you know what would fit quite neatly into that building?
A Schwarzkopf Jet Star II, that's what. And guess what's currently being refurbished in the Netherlands?
They're bringing back The Black Hole as part of the Retro Squad, I'm calling it now!
If the new building is positioned right, they might even be able to just plonk it on the old foundations of the Alton Beast, if they're still there. Think how much cash that would save? The ride hardware itself surely wouldn't cost much, plenty of your £12.5 mill' leftover for the building and some lavish new theming.
If I'm right on this, I reckon you's all owe me a drink for sure.

Nah you're almost right but not quite. Everyone's going to be so sad when it's just Alton Mouse in a box

And if I'm right I want Howie specifically to buy me that drink

 

[Nicky Borrill]

@Matt N I don’t have a problem with you making predictions bud. Just don’t want to see you disappointed if it’s not what you hope for. I know with exodus you were pretty vocally disappointed, maybe even a little upset. Just trying to manage your expectations to avoid a situation like that again.

 

[Matt N]

@Matt N I don’t have a problem with you making predictions bud. Just don’t want to see you disappointed if it’s not what you hope for. I know with exodus you were pretty vocally disappointed, maybe even a little upset. Just trying to manage your expectations to avoid a situation like that again.

For clarity, Nicky, I wasn't "upset" or even particularly disappointed about Exodus in isolation. It looks like it'll be an excellent ride, and I'm very excited for 2024! I simply felt that a B&M Hyper/the alternative layout was more my personal choice for the project, and I feel that it would have been a better fit for the park, for numerous reasons. I'm not bitter at all that Exodus wasn't a B&M Hyper, I understand why they went for it, I think it looks brilliant, and I'm very excited to ride it!

To be fair, I can understand why you might think that based on our long exchange a few months back debating the pros and cons of a B&M Hyper vs Exodus, but in my defence, the alternative layout emerging did arguably invite some comparisons, and my personal preference and thoughts on what Thorpe lacks were always going to make me come out in favour of the alternative layout in that particular comparison.

When viewed in isolation, I think Exodus as is looks excellent. Some of the elements look brilliant and unique, I am very excited to ride it, and I have tried (albeit clearly failed) to make the fact that I happy with Exodus when viewed in isolation clear in any posts where I'm more critical of the proposal.

Besides, I think I find it harder to get uber-excited about a project like Exodus when it hasn't even broken ground yet; being in that stage of the project where it's still very much an "idea" from the park, and there's not an awful lot of tangible concrete progress to discuss, naturally makes me dwell more on the B&M Hyper proposal. When they break ground on it and the reality of a 236ft coaster at Thorpe (!) sets in, I'm sure the B&M Hyper thoughts will fade away and my excitement for Exodus will grow considerably! When I actually ride the thing, that's when I'll find it easiest to view it in isolation, because being on a ride and experiencing its sensations in the moment doesn't instantly incite comparisons with other rides; they come later when I put a more little thought into it.

Do you get what I mean?

Onto this project, I still personally view a coaster as the most likely outcome due to the combined building dimensions lending themselves to one, as well as various hints to "rollercoaster" being dropped within the planning application (those documents are legally binding, so you'd hope that everything Towers says is correct, because they could be liable in court if not...). However, I agree that it would be foolish to rule out the other possibilities at this stage, because there are other pieces of evidence that could support a different ride type. And to be frank, we simply don't know at this stage.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

For clarity, Nicky, I wasn't "upset" or even particularly disappointed about Exodus in isolation. It looks like it'll be an excellent ride, and I'm very excited for 2024! I simply felt that a B&M Hyper/the alternative layout was more my personal choice for the project, and I feel that it would have been a better fit for the park, for numerous reasons. I'm not bitter at all that Exodus wasn't a B&M Hyper, I understand why they went for it, I think it looks brilliant, and I'm very excited to ride it!

To be fair, I can understand why you might think that based on our long exchange a few months back debating the pros and cons of a B&M Hyper vs Exodus, but in my defence, the alternative layout emerging did arguably invite some comparisons, and my personal preference and thoughts on what Thorpe lacks were always going to make me come out in favour of the alternative layout in that particular comparison.

When viewed in isolation, I think Exodus as is looks excellent. Some of the elements look brilliant and unique, I am very excited to ride it, and I have tried (albeit clearly failed) to make the fact that I happy with Exodus when viewed in isolation clear in any posts where I'm more critical of the proposal.

Besides, I think I find it harder to get uber-excited about a project like Exodus when it hasn't even broken ground yet; being in that stage of the project where it's still very much an "idea" from the park, and there's not an awful lot of tangible concrete progress to discuss, naturally makes me dwell more on the B&M Hyper proposal. When they break ground on it and the reality of a 236ft coaster at Thorpe (!) sets in, I'm sure the B&M Hyper thoughts will fade away and my excitement for Exodus will grow considerably! When I actually ride the thing, that's when I'll find it easiest to view it in isolation, because being on a ride and experiencing its sensations in the moment doesn't instantly incite comparisons with other rides; they come later when I put a more little thought into it.

Do you get what I mean?

Onto this project, I still personally view a coaster as the most likely outcome due to the combined building dimensions lending themselves to one, as well as various hints to "rollercoaster" being dropped within the planning application (those documents are legally binding, so you'd hope that everything Towers says is correct, because they could be liable in court if not...). However, I agree that it would be foolish to rule out the other possibilities at this stage, because there are other pieces of evidence that could support a different ride type. And to be frank, we simply don't know at this stage.

Fair enough

Whatever this is, it's insane how much effort is being pumped into Alton Towers right now!

I'll let you into a secret, I also think there's a good chance it could be a coaster, but I haven't seen anything that could amount 'evidence' yet, and I don't think we can say with any certainty that it's the most likely option... But with potentially 2 refurbished dark rides coming, and the last investment being a dark ride (all be it a family dark ride,) my main reason for thinking it's most likely, is because they'll have already increased the dark ride count significantly.

BTW Though, just to address a point you raised earlier about the legally binding documents. Rollercoaster is not legal terminology, and does not have a legal definition. Whoever suggested to you that they could get into trouble if it's not 'what us goons term' a rollercoaster is talking out of their ar**. Aside from that, what's inside the building isn't even subject to this planning application currently. Fact is, they copied and pasted the text, changing what needed to be changed. They took great care to change several mentions of coaster to attraction... Across every document, they missed 2... It was a mistake bud.

 

[Matt N]

Fair enough

Whatever this is, it's insane how much effort is being pumped into Alton Towers right now!

I'll let you into a secret, I also think there's a good chance it could be a coaster, but I haven't seen anything that could amount 'evidence' yet, and I don't think we can say with any certainty that it's the most likely option... But with potentially 2 refurbished dark rides coming, and the last investment being a dark ride (all be it a family dark ride,) my main reason for thinking it's most likely, is because they'll have already increased the dark ride count significantly.

BTW Though, just to address a point you raised earlier about the legally binding documents. Rollercoaster is not legal terminology, and does not have a legal definition. Whoever suggested to you that they could get into trouble if it's not 'what us goons term' a rollercoaster is talking out of their ar**. Aside from that, what's inside the building isn't even subject to this planning application currently. Fact is, they copied and pasted the text, changing what needed to be changed. They took great care to change several mentions of coaster to attraction... Across every document, they missed 2... It was a mistake bud.

Amen to that! It's certainly an exciting time to be an Alton Towers fan!

I don't know about you, but I would personally argue that the building dimensions, as well as snippets from some of the info given, are evidence that could point towards a coaster over other options. To me, it seems very tall for a typical tracked dark ride and very big in ground space for a typical media based dark ride (e.g. a flying theatre).

The building dimensions could admittedly suit a water ride as well, but the lack of a water supply to the building, as per the Sustainability Statement, puts me off that possibility somewhat; legislation has changed since the construction of Alton Towers' older water rides to mandate the use of a closed, treated water supply on all new build water rides, and surely that would typically require a mains water supply, no? I know you can have water supply options without using the mains, but short of building a giant reservoir nearby, I'm not sure how else Alton Towers could get water into the building without using the mains in a way that the council would need to know about.

For me, it's a kind of process of elimination based on the info we currently have that's leading me towards coaster. It seems to match up the most with the building dimensions and the snippets of info we have in the appendices, and while I concede that there are valid explanations that could debunk an indoor coaster and/or make another option very plausible (for instance, they could do a media based ride with a number of large pre-shows, or a tracked dark ride with multiple levels), those explanations are somewhat atypical implementations for the ride types in question, whereas a more "typical" indoor coaster could fit in the building. I should stress that the word "typical" is doing a lot of heavy lifting throughout these explanations, however...

Anything is of course possible, and it would be overly rash of me to categorically rule out any theory at this stage, but to me, a roller coaster seems the most likely option based on the evidence I see, and that is my personal prediction based on the info we currently have.

 

[Swat]

Something like this would be great!

 

[Nicky Borrill]

Amen to that! It's certainly an exciting time to be an Alton Towers fan!

I don't know about you, but I would personally argue that the building dimensions, as well as snippets from some of the info given, are evidence that could point towards a coaster over other options. To me, it seems very tall for a typical tracked dark ride and very big in ground space for a typical media based dark ride (e.g. a flying theatre).

The building dimensions could admittedly suit a water ride as well, but the lack of a water supply to the building, as per the Sustainability Statement, puts me off that possibility somewhat; legislation has changed since the construction of Alton Towers' older water rides to mandate the use of a closed, treated water supply on all new build water rides, and surely that would typically require a mains water supply, no? I know you can have water supply options without using the mains, but short of building a giant reservoir nearby, I'm not sure how else Alton Towers could get water into the building without using the mains in a way that the council would need to know about.

For me, it's a kind of process of elimination based on the info we currently have that's leading me towards coaster. It seems to match up the most with the building dimensions and the snippets of info we have in the appendices, and while I concede that there are valid explanations that could debunk an indoor coaster and/or make another option very plausible (for instance, they could do a media based ride with a number of large pre-shows, or a tracked dark ride with multiple levels), those explanations are somewhat atypical implementations for the ride types in question, whereas a more "typical" indoor coaster could fit in the building. I should stress that the word "typical" is doing a lot of heavy lifting throughout these explanations, however...

Anything is of course possible, and it would be overly rash of me to categorically rule out any theory at this stage, but to me, a roller coaster seems the most likely option based on the evidence I see, and that is my personal prediction based on the info we currently have.

I’m not making any predictions. Not serious ones anyway.

I kind of hope it’s not a rollercoaster, because the budget wouldn’t allow for that structure, a great ride and great theming… Something would have to be lacklustre… But I am definitely not ruling a coaster out.

 

[Matt N]

I kind of hope it’s not a rollercoaster, because the budget wouldn’t allow for that structure, a great ride and great theming… Something would have to be lacklustre… But I am definitely not ruling a coaster out.

My thought is that a coaster in this space would likely be a family coaster rather than anything SW-calibre. The building ground space and lack of digging doesn’t suggest an SW-calibre ride to me, and I’d also argue that a family coaster would provide more value to the park’s lineup than an SW calibre ride.

They currently only have RMT providing for the “too big for CBeebies, too small for the big 7” market coaster wise, and I think a family indoor coaster would be a great way to prop up the coaster selection for that demographic.

An indoor coaster is the only real gap left in Alton Towers’ coaster lineup, and I think it could provide something very different to their existing coasters, particularly if it were more family-orientated.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

My thought is that a coaster in this space would likely be a family coaster rather than anything SW-calibre. The building ground space and lack of digging doesn’t suggest an SW-calibre ride to me, and I’d also argue that a family coaster would provide more value to the park’s lineup than an SW calibre ride.

They currently only have RMT providing for the “too big for CBeebies, too small for the big 7” market coaster wise, and I think a family indoor coaster would be a great way to prop up the coaster selection for that demographic.

An indoor coaster is the only real gap left in Alton Towers’ coaster lineup, and I think it could provide something very different to their existing coasters, particularly if it were more family-orientated.

The last 2 coasters they’ve built have been family thrill and kiddie. They have 1 kiddie, 1 family, and 2 family thrill coasters. Whilst I agree they could always use more family / family thrill level coasters, I’m not entirely sure they’re desperate for them at this time.

Alton’s gaps

Water / Boat ride - Think Valhalla
Screen based motion simulator attraction - think skylion but a bigger, newer variant
Indoor coaster - Think black hole
Quality themed dark ride (tracked or trackless) - Something with a lighter subject matter than a ghost train, family friendly, but not just for small children… Think Symbolica, ratatouille or a much lower budget RotR featuring the drops too.

And… We all know they have nowhere near enough quality flats!!!

 

[Matt N]

The last 2 coasters they’ve built have been family thrill and kiddie. They have 1 kiddie, 1 family, and 2 family thrill coasters. Whilst I agree they could always use more family / family thrill level coasters, I’m not entirely sure they’re desperate for them at this time.

Alton’s gaps

Water / Boat ride - Think Valhalla
Screen based motion simulator attraction - think skylion but a bigger, newer variant
Indoor coaster - Think black hole
Quality themed dark ride (tracked or trackless) - Something with a lighter subject matter than a ghost train, family friendly, but not just for small children… Think Symbolica, ratatouille or a much lower budget RotR featuring the drops too.

And… We all know they have nowhere near enough quality flats!!!

I’m not denying at all that Alton’s lineup has greater gaps in the non-coaster department at this stage. They could probably do with another dark ride, they could possibly do with another water ride of some form, and they could do with some more permanent flats.

However, as coasters go, I think an indoor family coaster would be just about the best choice they could go for. As you say, an indoor coaster is a gap at Alton Towers, and it would fill that gap, but it would also provide another coaster (and major ride, for that matter) on the “too big for CBeebies, too small for the big 7” demographic, which many argue that the park lacks attractions for. Something along the thrill level of RMT or slightly higher would be very valuable at this stage, in my view.

For clarity, I didn’t include Wicker Man and Thirteen in the family coaster bracket because they’re 1.2m height restriction rides and considered part of the big 7, and I also didn’t include Spinball because that also has a 1.2m height restriction, and Alton classes it in the “Thrill” category on their app… I’m not really sure why Spinball isn’t part of the big 7 when Thirteen and Wicker Man are, come to think of it.

I also think that the dark ride gap in particular could be plugged by an easy win… the Dungeons building. There is still a very workable Mack boat ride system in there that could make a fine family dark ride with a fine throughput on a relatively low budget!

 

[Nicky Borrill]

I’m not denying at all that Alton’s lineup has greater gaps in the non-coaster department at this stage. They could probably do with another dark ride, they could possibly do with another water ride of some form, and they could do with some more permanent flats.

However, as coasters go, I think an indoor family coaster would be just about the best choice they could go for. As you say, an indoor coaster is a gap at Alton Towers, and it would fill that gap, but it would also provide another coaster (and major ride, for that matter) on the “too big for CBeebies, too small for the big 7” demographic, which many argue that the park lacks attractions for. Something along the thrill level of RMT or slightly higher would be very valuable at this stage, in my view.

For clarity, I didn’t include Wicker Man and Thirteen in the family coaster bracket because they’re 1.2m height restriction rides and considered part of the big 7, and I also didn’t include Spinball because that also has a 1.2m height restriction, and Alton classes it in the “Thrill” category on their app… I’m not really sure why Spinball isn’t part of the big 7 when Thirteen and Wicker Man are, come to think of it.

I also think that the dark ride gap in particular could be plugged by an easy win… the Dungeons building. There is still a very workable Mack boat ride system in there that could make a fine family dark ride with a fine throughput on a relatively low budget!

Ohh I’d LOVE them to convert the dungeon building back to a proper ride!!!

I don’t think anybody can really argue that any type of coaster is what Towers needs most of all as their next investment… For almost the last 7 years all we’ve heard about is how they need to stop installing coasters now and add lots of other attractions. Nothing has changed yet, apart from a refurb of Duel. And the temporary hire of some flats (because they clearly recognise this themselves too!)

Most of the kids that are too big for cbeebies head straight onto RMT and Thirteen, as did my own kids. The average height of a 7 yr old is 121cm. They now have Wickerman in the lineup too. (Spinball is a bit extreme imo to be classed as a true family thrill, my kids wouldn’t do it for a little while whereas they would Thirteen, but I guess every kid is different.)

So IMO you’re talking about a gap that just isn’t there. If your kid doesn’t want to ride Thirteen, then they have Octonauts and RMT to tide them over for the incredibly small amount of time they’ll be too scared / small.

 

[Matt N]

My argument is that I don’t think another ride between a 0.9m height restriction and a 1.2m height restriction (and that kind of “universal all-family ride” type thrill level) would be a bad thing for Alton Towers, whether it were a coaster or not. Currently, they only have RMT in the “universal all-family ride” demographic (Octonauts only really appeals to the youngest guests, while Wicker, Thirteen and Spinball are more family thrill and could be a bit too thrilling for some).

Also, an indoor coaster would be one of the few coaster types that would still plug a genuine gap in Alton Towers’ lineup.

Despite being a coaster, it would still be an indoor attraction that could operate and have appeal during the winter. I think that would still play a very important role and plug an important gap in the lineup.

 

[Nicky Borrill]

My argument is that I don’t think another ride between a 0.9m height restriction and a 1.2m height restriction (and that kind of “universal all family ride” type thrill level) would be a bad thing for Alton Towers, whether it were a coaster or not. Also, an indoor coaster would be one of the few coaster types that would still plug a genuine gap in Alton Towers’ lineup.

Despite being a coaster, it would still be an indoor attraction that could operate and have appeal during the winter.

Oh yeh, I get that, indoor attractions are perfect for Towers moving forward, and an indoor coaster would be marvellous, especially considering their Christmas event (see my earlier post.)

I don't personally see a specific need to focus on the height limit you speak of. They've just added world of walliams and Gangster Granny, before that they expanded cbeebies. Their last coaster can accommodate 7 year olds, and the one before even younger kids.

If it is an indoor coaster, I'd hope it would have a wider appeal than a RMT thrill level coaster has. Thrilling or family thrill at least.

But my point was just as a general, another coaster, of any sort, is probably amongst the last things they 'need' in their lineup.

Some kind of whole family, well themed, immersive attraction would be a much better addition to their line up, and is much more needed.