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Competition to help design Alton Tower's 2013 ride

Vote for he best Alton Coaster of all time?

Where is the Beast, 4 man bob, Mouse, Black Hole, Thunder Looper ?
 
Joey said:
The terms and conditions states "A place on the Design Council for the design of the new 2013 rollercoaster at the Alton Towers Resort. Prize includes involvement to be arranged by the promoter including discussions, focus groups and other activities deemed necessary by the promoter."
So basically, they'll make you do some questionnaires. Yes, they might get you in under the guise of a "focus group" but that'll be a glorified way of making you complete more questionnaires. All of the questionnaires will be aimed at capturing an impression of what the general public want. Therefore, I reckon Joey is spot on in saying that they're prob going to focus on a particular group/type of people (20 year old northern chavs, probably). You won't be asked anything about the ride in particular. It'll all be stuff about how long you spend in the pub, what newspaper you read, and whether you've ever been paragliding while on holiday in shagaloof. Or something.

Of course, I could be very wrong. Oh, and of course I'll be entering, just as soon as I figure out how to type 100 words without **** swearing.
 
I have entered. The chances of winning are slim, but nevertheless, it would be daft not to...
 
Whatever it is, it's all very curious..!

I think its positive what they are doing regardless. With the whole "greats" thing and the like. It seems like they are heading in the right direction more and more. I felt like the whole Rita and Spinball faze was the wrong direction, but there's something rather dark, gritty and site specific about what they are up to now that makes me excited. It's very British and very Alton Towersy.

I'm confident they have at least a partial interest in the enthusiast community, contrary to popular belief, and that opinion is from a number of supporting factors. For how much of an insignificant percentage we are of their audience, our views are actually being considered within reason.

EDIT: So who do you guys think will "win" the ride greats thing? Place your bets. I'm going witttttth... hm. Well It won't be Nemesis or Thirteen I don't think. Dunno. Rita or Air I recon.
 
It certainly is curious and for once, I agree that it is a very positive and it definitely seems as though they are taking a real interest in what the public think and also what they have already done that has been considered great etc. Definitely a step in the right direction.
 
I entered, and decided to be entirely truthful when filling out the "why we should choose you" section.

I was born in 2036 and I was the first person to successfully create a paradox-free time travel machine. With such power I decided to prevent the worst mistake in theme park history. You see, when Alton Towers opened their new rollercoaster (which was named 13-2) the public were disgusted and appalled at the absoloute monstrosity of a creation that had come to exist. The rollercoaster was a "World's First" as it was the first rollercoaster to include a section of trick-track that moved upwards. This one shocking mistake destroyed the theme park industry as we know it. If you choose me to help to design the new ride then you will be preventing the biggest mistake in theme park history. The decision lays in your hands.

But yeah, the winner will have no say at all except they might get to meet some important people.
 
^ Hahahahhaha. Love it. Mine was blatantly not as imaginative as that. That made me chuckle!
 
Thekingin64 said:
InvertingDropTowerconcept.jpg

Half of those seats are drawn like big misshapen dongs. :roll:

Anyways I can't enter this because I don't live in the UK. I don't know if I could feign residence by calling them up and calling them a bunch of tossers and poofs, thus asserting my working knowledge of Brit slang! Although I think I agree with Treeis; I couldn't handle the pressure of winning.

I'll stick to RCT. :p
 
Even though it might just be that you meet with some Alton Towers people (might even John Wardley?) and discuss the ride, it would still be very interesting! I would definitely have entered, if I were a UK resident that would be..

Joey said:
So who do you guys think will "win" the ride greats thing? Place your bets. I'm going witttttth... hm. Well It won't be Nemesis or Thirteen I don't think. Dunno. Rita or Air I recon.
Oblivion ftw!
 
If anyones curious It seems the order for voting is, Nemesis, Oblivion, Air and then Rita and Thirteen are level at the bottom, by quite abit too. Oblivion and Air are almost neck and neck and Nemesis is soaring ahead.

The ride teams have also made some videos for their rides.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2QQ9pZXy--E&feature=related[/youtube]
 
I reckon whoever wins should show up with plans of the Alton Woodie on that huge drafting paper. Just continually gesture to your plans for every question. :wink:
 
Maybe I'm being slightly cynical (it has been known), but this whole battle of the coasters bollocks just screams "WE'VE GOT NOTHING NEW THIS YEAR! WHAT/HOW CAN WE ADVERTISE!"
 
^It's not cynicism, it's the plain old truth... But at least they're putting in some effort into this ad campaign, rather than the crap PR we saw with Morwenna...

Still, they wouldn't NEED to do this if they put new things in...
 
^Exactly, I can't believe we're seeing an advertising campaign for the so-called 'UKs Number One Theme Park' advertsing previous installments through lack of anything new.

It's pretty pathetic. Oh well, least we can winge in 2013 when they install something and it's crap.
 
There is more to this than advertising the new ride and there is way more to this than a bored PR department wondering what to do with their time.

Was talking about this with people on Sunday whilst at Chessington, it really seems that the logic with this is pushing each ride to have a brand identity. They are trying to make the general public aware of the differences between the rides, not just their physical differences, but their thematic ones. Whether or not it will work, or is working, is beyond me. Nemesis is in the lead by a long way, and it's likely the majority of votes are from enthusiasts. Especially since you can vote more than once.

But the effort behind it is promising. It means they care about and think that the likes of Oblivion and Nemesis, in particular, are strong enough brands within themselves to get the public to recognise. It also means they may have a restored interest and confidence in doing that kind of thing again and again (as we are seeing with Thirteen, Raptor, Krake and now Swarm). Rides like Rita and the other examples around the parks where the names and themes were obscure and didn't fit, were attempts to be memorable by being quirky. It was a trend that at the time was becoming popular in all areas of popular culture, when random, unbranded, nonsense, generic imagery was cool. It was and still is particularly noticeable within illustration and the ultimate example is on t-shirts. Go into somewhere like Primark or even Top Man and look at the irrelevant crap on the t-shirts. This is cheap, simple and applies to a broad audience. But I think this age is starting to die down now, and people are beginning to take more value in effort and meaning again.

I think the reappearance of a Nemesis t-shirt this year is part of this revaluation of how the park can revitalise their existing rides, not just bring guests back with the new. I bet we see an improvement in merchandising for them all next year.

EDIT: As for nothing new this year, that's just because Dreamworks are dickheads and let them down after they'd been working on this years addition for months. At the time when I first heard about the Shrek stuff, I was dubious, but now I actually think it could have been awesome. Shame, but in the long run I hope it pays off. The next few years should be good.
 
gavin said:
Maybe I'm being slightly cynical (it has been known), but this whole battle of the coasters bollocks just screams "WE'VE GOT NOTHING NEW THIS YEAR! WHAT/HOW CAN WE ADVERTISE!"
It's the same advertising campaign that Mirabilandia had last year: Katun vs iSpeed. Maybe they where influenced by the Italians?
 
This would have been my dream. I already had ideas. I knew what people wanted (e.g Woodie, B&M Hyper Coaster). I typed in my age. "You have to be 18 or over"... NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
 
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