So as you can see I went to Alton Towers yesterday and it gave me a good idea for a blog! Linking in from last weeks blog on Halloween innovation, I thought I would link both Halloween, innovation and the theme park industry together. Over the past few years, major theme park chains within the UK have seen the impact on profits when it comes to hosting events themed around popular holidays. For example, Alton Towers hold an annual "scarefest", which offers " tons of terrific rides, blockbusting attractions, amazing live shows, and weird and wonderful costume characters". (Scarefest online accessed 07/10/11). This years event was arguably the most innovative they have had, with a larger selection of halloween-based attractions and shows, plus an increase in the number of days the event ran on. However, it was not just the increase in attractions and dates that made this year more innovative, the attractions themselves were, thanks in part due to the increased pressure on designers to produce attractions similiar to the ones Universal Studios or Disneyland have on offer. Therefore, the attractions themselves had much more elaborate set designs and even more innovative methods in scaring guests (hiding the actors in with the sets, hidden compartments).
However, halloween aside, Alton Towers has become more innovative in a number of different ways recently. They have introduced a system called "fast track", to combat queue time problems. By inserting your card into a machine near the ride, you are given an alloted time to return to the ride to skip the queue, reducing both queue times and the amount the park have to pay on refurnishing the queue lines due to bored guests graffiting them. As well as this, they have become more innovative in terms of reducing the costs of running their attractions. Recent rides such as Oblivion have been sponsored by major companies (Oblivion by Fanta, Duel by Kodak) and so this reduces the costs of running the attractions as these companies have agreed to subsidise the costs of this as long as they get their product promoted around the park.
Sorry for making this bried, like I mentioned earlier I've already posted one blog about halloween so didn't want this blog to become too "same-y". Next blog I'll be talking about innovation with home delivery services offered by major companies within the UK!
For the link to the scarefest website, click here.
Also, check out my friends innovation blog! Click here to view it!
Reference List
Alton Towers [online] http://www.altontowers.com/ accessed 7/11/11
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