Re: Thorpe Park construction?
^^To be honest, they're so hard to compare since, in my honest opinion, they all have crucial flaws which greatly undermine them. Saw's rough, forceless and unexciting, Colossus has just been abandoned by management, Stealth's too short, and Swarm, whilst a good ride, has little 'kick' to it. Inferno is probably the most rounded coaster they've got, but just needs to be 20/30 feet taller, with a more inspired layout. Stealth is the only eyebrow-raising coaster at the park.
^Things are still bad in places...Colossus running 1 train on a peak day that really could be replaced with a profound impact on the ride experience. Chavs get angry at those kinds of things really easily don't they? :wink:
Call me late to the party - but here's my take.
Following lukewarm public reception to The Swarm, Thorpe Park Resort – along with its parent company, Merlin Entertainments – have started to shift the park’s target market away from purely thrillseekers and towards families with older children. With this in mind, the existing development plan, which called for a Rollercoaster similar in scale to The Swarm, has been revised. It is expected that this new ride will not feature such a heavy reliance on the ride hardware but instead focus on theming and storytelling for impact.
Do Merlin seriously believe building high-thrill coasters is a poor business model? Merlin just doesn't realise that attendance is not solely driven by 'big new attractions' - most of it is based on previous visits, and for that reason, it is much more important for a coaster to be exciting rather than marketable! Do Merlin know what a long-term investment is?
The ideal coaster, from a management perspective, needs to be:
- Enjoyable, thrilling and essentially moreish. Guests will actually come back to ride it...
-Unique to the UK and able to be sold to the public...without compromising the above.
-Able to maintain its ride experience and appeal with minimum expenditure.
If we go by that criteria, both Merlin coasters (since they bought Tussauds) were failures. Saw was very marketable - but is there anyone on this site who would come back with the purpose of re-riding it? Swarm only satisfies the third point.
It seems like Merlin just don't know their market anymore - Thorpe Park has always been, as they even said themselves, 'The Thrill capital of the UK', aka, pushing the boundaries of theme park engineering. It's designed for older children and above - that's their demographic, it's never going to change, and they just need to accept that. Tussauds catered for that Market perfectly.
It's all very well having a family attraction, but you build them
between bigger investments. The majority of customers don't give a stuff about 'the first winged coaster in the UK' or exactly how The Swarm has taken over the UK. Thorpe Park has the potential to be a more 'American style' park in the UK, but it just doesn't deliver with capital investments, or any investment to be honest.
SUGGESTION: No joke, but an RMC quite literally ticks all the boxes. A ride that's affordable, world-class and instantly marketable by just saying 'it's made of wood'. Yes, the public may think it'll keel over and collapse any moment, but that's exactly what'll make them come through the gates, back out, and back in again.
