OK, let me split this into two parts, as it’s a long post and I have two things I’d like to address separately.
Part 1 (Re: Nicky’s quote)
Firstly, I sincerely apologise if me saying that annoyed you. That wasn’t my intent, that was merely my opinion and what I felt would be the case based on what I know. I did not mean to annoy you, and if I did annoy you, I’ll shut up about it, as I can sense I’ve lost a hell of a lot of credibility in this thread…
Secondly, I’d just like to clarify that I wasn’t saying that your average Thorpe visitor would know or care about a B&M Hyper Coaster any more than they would an RMC. Why would they when the UK has neither and ride types/manufacturers aren’t exactly common knowledge outside of enthusiast circles? I wasn’t trying to suggest that a B&M Hyper would be any more known about or generate more excitement than an RMC, because I don’t think it would by any means. I’m not sure it would necessarily work the other way either, though; I’m not sure what would necessarily make an RMC more inherently appealing than a B&M Hyper in the eyes of the average visitor.
My suggestion was more that if a B&M Hyper were to be built, it would most likely claim the UK height record, which would be a pretty meaningful record and very easy to sell. “UK’s tallest coaster” is a very pedestrian record that I feel would really mean something to the average visitor, and be very easy to sell. An RMC, on the other hand, I feel would likely resort to a slightly more far-fetched record (think something along the lines of Wicker Man’s wood and fire claim). I’m not saying that they couldn’t make that a success (Wicker Man was a huge success!), nor am I suggesting that an RMC couldn’t break the UK height record (if we use RCDB as a metric, they would only need to go 8ft above RMC’s current tallest coaster; that’s very doable, in my opinion), but I’m not sure that Merlin would necessarily see the incentive to build big with an RMC, whereas I think you’d need to build big with a hyper to “get your money’s worth” so to speak. I am well aware that size is not everything, but I do think that a big, dominant ride like that would sell itself without too much heavy lifting.
Part 2: Why I’m predicting a B&M Hyper
In terms of why I’m predicting a B&M Hyper; many of you have asked, and I feel that I should provide my evidence. I’d just like to clarify that I am not simply bringing one into existence through mere will to see one get built; as much as I will admit that I would be very keen to see a B&M Hyper built at Thorpe, I certainly have my empirical evidence for believing that one could be coming based on what I’ve seen or heard, and also what I believe would make a lot of sense based on both what I would work and what the park has said in the past.
My evidence and reasoning is as follows:
- I have now read numerous reports from people claiming to be “in the know” and/or to have seen plans, both here and elsewhere on the internet (including from people I would class as very reliable), and all of them seem to be pointing towards some form of hyper for this project. I know that internet reports of this vein should be taken with a pinch of salt, but I’ve heard quite a number of reports now and they all point towards a very similar thing; as the saying goes, there’s no smoke without fire, and many rumours started this way and with this much traction ended up coming true.
- At an enthusiast event, the park said that after the failures of Swarm and DBGT, they wanted their next major investment to be “a reliable attraction that has a high throughput and will sell itself”. I feel that a B&M Hyper would tick those boxes very nicely, and while these criteria were admittedly spelled out in relation to a project planned for 2020 back in 2017, I’d wager that the same criteria may well still apply, as I’d imagine that Thorpe’s recent flops were still very much at the forefront of their minds when planning this investment. It’s also worth noting that the Thorpe Park engineers at this event stated that they “love working with B&M”, for what it’s worth. (Source: https://www.attractionsource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=858522&hilit=Project+2020#p858522)
- At the same enthusiast event, Thorpe Park teased their 2020 project with an image of the Meydan Bridge in Dubai, which as many pointed out at the time, closely resembles a set of large airtime hills similar to those seen on a B&M Hyper. I know it seems small, but cryptic little details like these can sometimes add up.
- It was indicated by Attraction Images in 2018 (usually quite reliable; for instance, he was the first one to report Valhalla’s 2020 closure, and while many criticised him for the prediction, he ended up being correct) that Thorpe had signed a B&M Hyper Coaster for their 2020 project: https://www.attractionsource.com/forum/viewtopic.php?p=875628&hilit=B&M+Hyper#p875628
- I know that this isn’t Project 2020, and also that Project 2020 never materialised, but given it was cancelled for unknown reasons and replaced with nothing, I certainly think that it’s a plausible possibility that the park could have pulled some of their ideas for Project 2020 and transplanted them into this project. It’s happened for plenty of rides before, so why couldn’t it have happened here? Especially given that the TTSP post I cited above said that Old Town/Logger’s Leap’s spot was one of the spots being looked at for Project 2020?
- The fact that the park is conducting a full consultation this early on for a rumoured 2024 project rings a few alarm bells for me. If they were building a similarly-sized coaster to any of their others, then surely a regular planning permit later on would have sufficed? Even Stealth never had a full consultation of this vein, which suggests to me that the park could be planning something big that might struggle to get planning permission in the regular way. If Thorpe/Merlin didn’t think they had to do a full consultation, why would they waste money on extra, unneeded planning costs? I know that Chessington did one, but Chessington has both substantially tighter planning regulations and substantially less accepting locals than Thorpe based on their past attempts to build stuff. I could be completely wrong here (Merlin could just want a more amicable relationship with their parks’ locals, for all I know), but I’ll admit that the choice of a full consultation does make me think that this won’t be your usual Thorpe coaster in terms of scale.
So, that’s why I think what I do. There are other things I could mention (the whole B&M deal rumour, for instance), but I purposely avoided some of them for fear of angering you and treading old ground.
I know that the evidence doesn’t look like especially
cold, hard evidence, so I apologise if my argument looks a little weak, but a fair amount of my evidence did come from the park themselves and things they’ve done, and let’s be honest, evidence for rumours concocted at this stage is mostly based on extrapolation and/or hearsay anyway. I just wanted to show that I have reasons for believing what I do, and that I’m not simply trying to bring a Thorpe B&M Hyper into existence based purely on my own preferences.
I think the important thing to stress here is that no one really knows anything until that consultation. Anything could happen on the 10th. As much as a B&M hyper is my personal prediction, I definitely don’t
know that one is coming, and I’ll happily be the first to admit that I was wrong if a hyper isn’t what Thorpe shows us on 10th December.
So, that’s my basic argument. If I’ve annoyed you, I sincerely apologise and I will happily shut up until the consultation. I know this thread hasn’t bought out the best side of me and I apologise for that.
