In recent news posted last week Merlin Entertainments reported a pre-tax loss of £492 million for 2024 which is a staggering amount as things keep going from bad to worse for the attractions operator.
To try and combat this issue Merlin are bringing IP’s on board and cutting back on costs at all of its major UK theme parks with such cuts as events and entertainment (as is the case with roaming actors at Alton Towers for example) and other bigger projects such as Project Horizon, Alton Tower’s indoor roller coaster plans shelved indefinitely not to mention the cancellation of the Galactica re-theme project that was pulled in Q4 of last year.
Many staff roles have been restructured across the board and in Alton Towers case many staff have now since moved on to other ventures with marketing and the entertainment teams taking a huge hit and the in-house creative team department has been scrapped altogether with many people losing their jobs.
Several Sea Life Centres in the UK are also expected to be sold or franchised and Merlin also offloaded all of its attractions in Blackpool recently with Madame Tussuads, The Dungeons, Sea Life and the Blackpool Tower all being handled by Blackpool Council now.
With the Universal UK project gathering steam and looking mere months away from breaking ground (land testing has already began) it’s not out of the realm of possibility that Merlin could sell one of its UK parks to try and focus on the more important properties it has within its portfolio and for me there’s only one park that should be on the chopping block, and that’s Alton Towers.
Alton Towers is a victim of its own success as for many years it has been the jewel in the crown of the Merlin portfolio and despite not being the most popular in terms of visitation (that goes to LEGOLAND Windsor) it is still the most profitable Merlin park but after years of neglect, lack of structured investment to pave the way for the future it feels as though that jewel in the crown is getting duller by the season.
We have reskins of old rides in Curse at Alton Manor, we have rides that have been closed for many years reopening such as Nemesis Sub Terra, we have Nemesis preserved for many more years to come with a revamp and the return of a Huss Top Spin to the park, similar to Ripsaw but with some extra theming and an extra row.
Yet all of these decisions don’t help the park in any way shape or form to bring in footfall.
The haunted house ride is still a haunted house ride, Nemesis Sub Terra most guests don’t even realise it closed for a long period of time, Nemesis has always been there and everyone thinks it’s just a repainted track (not realising the work that went into transforming it) and Toxicator has been hailed as ‘It’s just Ripsaw though isn’t it‘ on all public feedback forums.
With the removal of The Blade, The Dungeons and Favio’s Fabulous Fandango the park removed three rides and added Toxicator further reducing the ride line-up within the park and adding to already disastrous operations and long queue times further increasing negative reviews and on-park experience.
The park’s Intamin launch coaster Rita now has an uncertain future after weeks of downtime and that looks like the next ride on the chopping block for the Staffordshire park and with investment already being pulled (seemingly) from Alton Towers I can’t imagine there will be any replacement for it in the pipeline any time soon.
Universal will be posing a direct competition to southern Merlin theme parks and all focus and attention should be put on Thorpe Park, Chessington and LEGOLAND so that Universal can compliment them, drive footfall to them and allow the industry down south to thrive.
If Alton Towers is still held by Merlin when Universal opens that investment is never going to head up north, why would it? There will be a sole focus on keeping the parks down south as up to date and as fresh as possible just so they can feed off the scraps of footfall that Universal will be sending their way in addition to their own steady rate of guest attendance.
Alton Towers seems to be getting worse and worse by the season with many decisions out of the parks hands entirely and at this moment in time the kindest thing to do would be to let them go and into the hands of another park operator who can focus their time, effort and investment on the park to drag it out of the slums it currently finds itself in.
Investing in silly lighting packages that ruin classic rides (Hex) and making the park look nice at night is yet another pointless decision as the park hours rarely keep people in the park in the evening due to the limited opening hours so why invest so much money in making it look pretty for the small number of days people can actually see it and appreciate it?
There’s strange decision after strange decision coming from Towers and an entire restructuring is needed from management and beyond so please Merlin, for the future of my local park, do the kindest thing and cut them loose before it’s too late.
The magic of my childhood park is all but gone, but all hope is not lost and there’s a faint glimmer of hope that this park could be taken back to its glory days with the right focus and attention.
I hope one day to see it thrive once again, I really, really do.
