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2025: General Discussion

The wristband is probably more expensive than a normal visit anyway so can’t see uptake being huge (famous last words) unless parents don’t want to ride inky pay for kids.

On the calendar, the event included the weekend so interesting it isn’t any more.
 
I think its a try at making it "rewind" to like it used to be..

I mean I'm a passholder, I wont be attending, so it doesnt affect me but I do think the token prices are way off what they should be..

who is going to attend on one of those days and say just go on Gold Rush at a cost of 5 tokens for £10? Then you fancy a go on the wave and thats another £10..for a few more pounds you can go on any other day and go on all rides in the park..

I hope its a success for the park...
 
I think its a try at making it "rewind" to like it used to be..
I do get that, but is making the park how it used to be really that positive in the first place? In the case of free entry, and a pay-per-ride system I would think not. When Drayton was a much smaller park, I can see how pay-per-ride would’ve been better - less queues, not everyone visiting the park has to pay for a ticket, etc. But today I just don’t think it works.

The park is definitely top 10 in the country, maybe even top 5 in terms of how many visitors they receive per year. Now, when people realise they can enter the park for free? It will be absolutely packed. Queues to buy a wristband. Even bigger queues to get onto rides. Huge queues to buy concessions.

Of course I could be completely wrong, but if it were me I would just leave these 2 days and visit on a regular admission day at the park, where it should be considerably much quieter.
 
From what I have seen, there are a lot of people disagreeing with the pricing... Especially for The Wave and Goldrush
I also noticed the website has changed to remove "expected busy day" on the two days of this event (which was on the calendar last week) so I feel like they aren't quite expecting as high a footfall as before they announced it potentially.

I feel a lot may come to walk around but not sure how many will take up the token idea as it doesn't quite work in my head either.

They hyped up the "Mystery" event a bit but this isn't really what people were expecting... It doesn't reward passholders either.
I'd have preferred "Free cake for every guest" on that set of days instead or something.
 
I think they hyped it and it has not stimulated the interest they anticipated. But as they say there is no such thing as bad publicity. I think that if they had thought it through gone back to the model where you can by say one token for £2,50 or 5 for £10. The event has to an extent alienated passholders but they know they will come back on different days.

I think the marketing is disappointing. The most powerful marketing was when they announced the events in quick succession. Announcing what the event is a few days before the event, a lot of people will have booked other things. Other theme parks have announced events for the whole year, not just a title. At the moment we have 80s party which we can only assume is May day and the Thomas 80 birthday for whitsun. What is the marketing team doing, they should be hyping these up surely. I think the park needs to get a new marketing team. Marketing has seen a sharp decline in quality.

They should be hyping the events for the whole year, people will book events later in the year now, and the bookings are made earlier in the year helps to plan staffing for the events surely. Late night riding is a big thing for a lot of people, so hype it up. They are doing more late night riding in the main season than most other parks.

This is a great park, I just hope they can keep up the momentum. I am already planning what I am doing during the summer months. I don't see any events at the Manor that appeal based on the information to date. I have been coming to the park for over 40 years, they need to capitalise on the entertainment offering when a lot of their competition (Merlin) are cutting back.
 
It won't be full anyway, if people are able to book a free ticket, a minority will have booked to give themselves an option of going and won't show up. There's a chance it could be half empty! I agree that spaces should have been reserved for pass-holders, they are more likely to turn up than a few who have provisionally booked a free ticket.
 
Drayton have now turned off comments it appears on the sold out posts.

It's ok to say pre-book, but if a few weeks ago you were told you didn't need to pre-book anymore, then suddenly you do again, if people have been away for Easter it would have been easy to miss it. Everyone knows the park will be open through Easter, so why would you check it's open?
 
Unfortunately the whole promotion was released a bit short notice.
The event T&C's / info does state that passholders also need to book for this date - however it ha been released very short notice and conflicts with the recent "Passholders no longer need to book" which has been poorly considered. It will cause issues on the day as there will be passholders who won't have seen the message (Even with posts on the day, they will still be missed)

I feel like the event as a whole has been a bit short notice/last minute which is unfortunate as it will cause a lot of grumbling on the day (As well as onlike)

Whilst I can see why they wanted to do it, it just hasn't appeared as smooth sailing as the idea was designed to be.
I do hope the event goes well for the park as it won't be pleasant on the staff otherwise. (And this isn't on the ride staff/general park staff to need to handle)
 
Who is going to collect the tokens? I think this will slow down operations even more.

I think they would have been better off doing a completely free day, with a draw to win a place.

I’m expecting disaster tomorrow - we will see!
I assume there will be a host stood at the front of each entrance - if its at the gate to enter each ride it will cause issues with kids not having enough tokens etc
(Either way its more staff or going to take longer for each ride to set up )
 
Plan for the worst and hope for the best.
It's a lot of extra work for the staff, seems very labour intensive and I, for one, wouldn't like to be customer facing for this. The staff at the sharp end were probably not expecting this and one has to hope they have been adequately trained / supported.

However - I think this does have the potential to detail something which is really missing in the Drayton Offering. The price of admission for those that don't want to do rides is pretty big. This does have the potential to bring grandparents and great grandparents to the party. And these folks are much more likely I would suggest to spend on ice creams and in the shops than others.
 
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