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Fairground Rides Vs Theme Park Flats

Fairground Rides Vs Theme Park Flats

  • Fairground Rides

    Votes: 0 0.0%

  • Theme Park Flats

    Votes: 1 100.0%
  • Total voters
    1
B

bezzzzzer

Hyper Poster
I would've chosen theme park flats anyday, until now. Oooo!

Last night I went on a Top Scan, at a bonfire night event in Nottingham, called Space Roller. My mates wanted to go on something, and this looked like the most decent flat there, but they wouldn't go on without me and I didn't want them to miss out so I thought "meh, I don't mind paying £4 this ocne even though I can go on Samurai whenever." But bugger me, it was incredible!

The setting lasted so long. We were watching around 10, and it did five spins of the arm and finished, because the queue was huge. But we went to the cash machine and got back half an hour later and there was no queue. We did a slow spin to start, then 6 or 7 rotations one way, then held at the top spinning round again, then about 8 or 9 rotations the other way. It was one of the most incredible ride experiences I have ever had, it completely blew me away. The speed was incredible, and it felt so much more forceful than anything I've ever experienced on Samurai.

So, as I'm sure any enthusiast with a student loan would, I went straight back on it again. The cycle wasn't as good, probably because it was the last ride, but I was thinking while I was on it, are these fairground rides maintained much better than theme park flats?

What made me think of this is that if, say, Samurai is down, Thorpe'll fix it, but with no immediate hurry concern because, at the end of the day, the guests can just go on all of the other rides. It's not really a huge loss.

I worked out last night that this Top Scan was doing a cycle every 3 minutes, including time for loading and unloading. So, with 30 seats, £4 each, we worked out that is a potential £2400 an hour, with a full load. The fairgound was open from 17:30 until 22:30, which meant, with consistant operation, this top scan could potentially make £12k just through one nights work.

My argument is, if their top scan goes down, they're loosing money. N with an income like that, it's essential they have this thing working, otherwise they'll loose money because guests won't be able to ride. So, surely to prevent this from happening, logic says take better care of the rides for more consistant ride operation? These evenings are vital for their income, and, especially at this time of year, they're few and far between. So these guys need to make the most of of this business as they can.

Then, of course, we have the issue of saftey, which strongly swings towards the 'Theme Park Flats' side. However, with that said, even though I was looking at the top scan cringing, no accident happened. But lifting the arm and having the ride ops jumping up to push the seats belts in was a bit too far I thought.

So what's your verdict?
 
Fairground rides are always set on the best settings compared to themepark flats so yeah fairground rides is my choice. :) I don't know what I'd class The Beast at Fantasy Island though cause it's in like an amusement park, not really a theme park, and The Beast is mostly on an intense setting from whenever I've been.
 
For the better ride, it's ALWAYS the traveling fair version.

The rides are run at the owners/operators discretion - hence the differing cycles depending on queue length, and differing cycles generally.

Generally though, they run on a much better setting, just because there's no great corporation issue involved. There's less fear of litigation too :
"I got hurt at your far, whiplash!"
"Which ride?"
"The spinny one with bright lights."
"Unless we have a name, we cannot help, as each ride is run independently".

At a park, it's much easier afterwards to make a claim, and the rides will always be run according to the manual, which will limit what the op can do - so a ride like Ripsaw will never be great, as part of the training will be "don't use manual settings and don't use cycle 2 or 4".

Safety wise it's a bit of an odd one. YES, it could be said that they're put together slapdash and that constant up and downs lead to mistakes. However, each ride gets a much more thorough going over each time it's assembled/disassembled than any theme park ride gets other than it's yearly maintenance session. So the chances are, potential issues are spotted sooner (I'm willing to bet a traveling version of Slammer and Rush would have 200% more uptime than the Thorpe versions, and there'd be no "ride'o'death" issues either).

So in all, I think that they're a better ride, and the safety issue probably is swings and roundabouts against static rides.

The biggest issue is cost per ride :(
 
fair ground rides, they just are better. ALL the flats in alton are crap, submission enterprise, they are just **** , yet I enjoy fairground rides. So fairground rides it is.
 
Theme Park flats. Park flats are set on a decent, sensible setting, Fairground flats have way too long cycles which make you want to run for the nearest toilet as you get off.
 
I prefer theme park flats.

Nothing, at all, makes me want to ride a spin and spew at a fair. They don't look as safe as theme park flats.

I prefer the feel of quality that theme park flats have.
 
From the flat's I've been on, its gonna be theme park flats.


Although I've had some welcoming experiences with fairground flats.
 
Well in all my time, I have never been to a fariground with any decent flats. They tend to only have small rides that consist in spaning in disorientating ways but I much prefer theme park flats that have more thrills e.g Rush, Malestrom, Acopalyse (None of which are at fairs).
 
Because of the whole safety thing at fairs, I tend to spend the whole ride worrying about whether it's gonna collapse, and this simply detracts from my enjoyment of it.

So it's theme park flats for me.
 
Our fair's are really crap in our area. The best we get are the Rock 'o' planes. Yeah, crap. So if I compare the fair rides we get in our area with park rides, I would say Park flats are much better.
 
Went to a fiar last night, and they had some decent rides there. They had lots of airtime, hangtime and bollocks crushing.

However, for flats, i'd say Theme Park. I feel loads safer there and they are usually more forceful and enjoyable, let alone comfortable.
 
Even though I am more nervous when riding them I prefer Fairground flat rides. It also depends on the type of fair you go to. Compare one of the large German fairs to a small local fair with maybe a few small flat rides. The scale and intensity are miles apart. But I usually find with the fairs the cycles are longer and more intense compared to theme park ones.
 
For the actual rides themselves, this goes to theme park flats anyday! Their rides are usually way more compact, way more intense, and generally have better settings, not to mention the lack of queue lines I find when I ride them.

As for safety and stuff, it's quite obvious that amusement park flats are better for that, however, I think fairground rides are safer than they once were.

I'd say MaXair and Shockwave are my two favourite flats, but aside from that nothing has been noteable other than some of the fairground rides I have been on. Even the drop towers at fairs are awesome compared to some of the huge drop towers in amusement parks.
 
For the ride experience you would have to say fairground rides, they are in general more intense than theme park ones. However after taking other things into accout such as the cost, theming, effects etc. I would say the theme park flats are better.
 
I'm not stupid, so I don't buy into "OMFG IT'S AT A FAIR IT WILL COLLAPSE AND WE WILL DIE!".

But, they are completely horrific and make me ill, whilst at a park, they're usually a bit tamer, so I can actually ride them.
 
Theme Park Flats.

I don't like being spun at stupid speeds for stupid amounts of time. I prefer the ride experience, atmosphere and satisfaction of a theme park flat.
 
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