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Blackpool Pleasure Beach | Icon | Mack Multi-Launch

The only 'worryingly slow' parts of the first half are when dickhead Sanbrooke decides to slap a low quality, low FPS, laggy slow-mo effect on the shots to buffer the video out.
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I really should stop procrastinating.
 
I especially like the launch noise :) As I'd have said a few years ago 'Want!'
I'm not a fan of Mandy's way of doing things due to her complete disregard for history, but praise where praise is due, it's nice to see a PR campaign I can actually believe in.
Actually invest in an attraction and it will basically promote itself.
 
Just read this on the official facebook page in the comments... "doesn't look anywhere near as good as the big one" now I have more respect for the big one than most but if icon isn't better than a 24 year old arrow hyper coaster famous for being rough and having no airtime I give up.

Such a shame the UK industry is so used to gimmicks. Icon could well end up being the best coaster in the country but a commercial flop ..l
 
I’m sure it won’t be a commercial flop. They could’ve built a 500ft, 200mph coaster and some people would complain it were too short etc.

I have faith in Rule 5 who’re doing the majority of Icon’s marketing. We’re probably a month or so off seeing a TV ad, lets hope it’s good! :)
 
It could flop, let's be fair. The UK general public have had years of WORLDS FIRST ONLY ONE IN THE WORLD YOU HAVE TO RIDE THIS NOW OR YOU'LL DIE and, avoiding the chicken/egg argument for another tie, that sadly is how the market has been in recent years.

It remains to be seen if a good, solid ride can start to change that perception, or indeed if it will be enough to draw people in to visit BPB.

If I'm honest? I don't think it will have that big of an effect down this way, regardless of the marketing of it. I don't think people are going to drive up the M6 in their numbers for a ride that isn't the biggest, the tallest, the fastest etc... But that is my own cynical pessimistic view of it, and I'd love to be proven wrong. Whether it can draw in more people locally, or bring back customers from previous years who may not have visited the park for a while, that'll be a better test and I think they'll probably succeed in increasing their visitors in that demographic.

If they built a 500ft accelerator out over the Irish Sea, 100% they'd see a massive climb in visitor numbers, especially down this end of the country. People would flock to ride the new tallest, fastest, scariest coaster and tell their friends all about it.

But then they'd not go back to the park. If, and this is the crux of it, they can get enough people in to ride Icon and realise what a great ride it is, they can encourage people to visit not only for the first time, but to go back and want to ride it again.
 
Just read this on the official facebook page in the comments... "doesn't look anywhere near as good as the big one"

The reason it won't be a commercial flop is for that very reason. People are pre-judging it before riding. The GP can't "recognise" a gimmick here, which is what I think many people out there expect from the amusement industry, so it doesn't seem as "good" from a PR standpoint, which makes sense. That leaves an element of surprise for when they ride it, because it will clearly ride better than it looks... that's the whole point of a rollercoaster... ride it!
 
If I'm honest? I don't think it will have that big of an effect down this way, regardless of the marketing of it. I don't think people are going to drive up the M6 in their numbers for a ride that isn't the biggest, the tallest, the fastest etc....

The British public are too pessimistic not to try it just to have a moan. I think it might not be an instant like blow up type success, it'll be like a sleeper hit. Got to bare in mind what limited coaster selection most of these people have been on, this is the closest thing the GP will get to Helix.
 
But what if this puts them off from going out to ride it in the first place?

This comment about Icon I found on Facebook pissed me off no end:-
It looks crap! It's basically the big one without the huge drop... 16million for that ...
 
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I don't think the GP will be put off riding it just because it's not tall, some people just like to brandish their opinions all over the internet nowadays... makes 'em feel important.
 
The reason it won't be a commercial flop is for that very reason. People are pre-judging it before riding. The GP can't "recognise" a gimmick here, which is what I think many people out there expect from the amusement industry, so it doesn't seem as "good" from a PR standpoint, which makes sense. That leaves an element of surprise for when they ride it, because it will clearly ride better than it looks... that's the whole point of a rollercoaster... ride it!

But they won't go to the park and ride it. That's the point. Look at ATI's post for a perfect example of that. Because it doesn't do the "biggest/tallest/fastest", some people just aren't interested because they've been conditioned to think that a good ride has to have those features.
The British public are too pessimistic not to try it just to have a moan. I think it might not be an instant like blow up type success, it'll be like a sleeper hit. Got to bare in mind what limited coaster selection most of these people have been on, this is the closest thing the GP will get to Helix.

The general public don't know what Helix is. You could chuck Helix or even Taron in the middle of BPB and people would probably say it looks ****. As I said above, hopefully the likes of Icon and Wickerman start to change the public perception that a ride HAS to be biggest/tallest/fastest to be good and word-of-mouth feedback about how good it is starts to convince nay-sayers to give it a go.
 
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