Winter Wonderland - Hyde Park London

[maguire245]

[quote=""Woodpecker""][quote=""maguire245""]In all fairness the event really isn't for coaster enthusiasts, just travelling ride fans, don't expect to ride some fantastic coaster at a fair event, unless of course it was Olympia Looping attending, then you'd want to pay £5 - £10 for a go.. maybe not, who knows.[/quote]

Let's say you go to Alton Towers, you get 9 rides in your day and it costs you £35 to get in. £35/9 rides = £3.88 per ride. Nemesis alone deserves more than that! Then you go to Hyde Park and see a slow-moving medium-sized travelling coaster and the asking price is £10. You're going to stand there and wonder why it costs so much and how on earth it could possibly deliver an experience worthy of that amount of money.

It's not the quality of the rides at Hyde Park that is the problem, but the potential ratio of bang to buck.[/quote]
Why compare themeparks rides/prices with travelling fairs

You also missed my point entirely, coasters on a fair circuit will be nothing like what's in a themepark. Don't go and visit a travelling fair and expect something spectacular, because it doesn't happen.

Yes the prices are dear, but that is where they have to make their money by doing the rounds.

Themeparks / Fairs, not the same.

[Dylan]

I think at £10 a go though, these coasters are massively over-priced, regardless of whether they are on a travelling fair circuit or not.
Hopefully we will get some more reviews on here, with a breakdown of prices of a range of the rides at Hyde Park as I really want to get down there, but would like to know beforehand.

[maguire245]

[quote=""Dylan32""]I think at £10 a go though, these coasters are massively over-priced, regardless of whether they are on a travelling fair circuit or not.
Hopefully we will get some more reviews on here, with a breakdown of prices of a range of the rides at Hyde Park as I really want to get down there, but would like to know beforehand.[/quote]
You clearly didn't read all of what I have explained in the above ](*,)

[John]

[quote=""maguire245""]Why compare themeparks rides/prices with travelling fairs

You also missed my point entirely, coasters on a fair circuit will be nothing like what's in a themepark. Don't go and visit a travelling fair and expect something spectacular, because it doesn't happen.

Yes the prices are dear, but that is where they have to make their money by doing the rounds.

Themeparks / Fairs, not the same.[/quote]
They should be compared because they're in a very similar market, if not actually competing directly. They often have very similar rides (just look at thorpe park), and the experience is pretty similar. The differences arise mainly as fair rides also have to compete against other rides at the same fair, hence the shoutyness of the rides compared with park versions.

The easiest comparison is with amusement parks. Blackpool obviously don't go in for single ride pricing any more, but generally their rides were in the region of £3-5, with valhalla, infusion & PMBO at around £7 - and they inflated their prices to sell wristbands.

Charging £10 for any ride (reverse bungee excepted) is extortionate, and completely ridiculous. At goose fair even the boosters were in the range £6-8, with nothing else over a fiver. Clearly they don't have to charge stupid money for it to be viable, they're just ripping people off. £10 is the sort of price you might expect to see at a festival, because they have 50k+ people there and at least some of them will have more money than sense.

[Dylan]

[quote=""maguire245""][quote=""Dylan32""]I think at £10 a go though, these coasters are massively over-priced, regardless of whether they are on a travelling fair circuit or not.
Hopefully we will get some more reviews on here, with a breakdown of prices of a range of the rides at Hyde Park as I really want to get down there, but would like to know beforehand.[/quote]
You clearly didn't read all of what I have explained in the above ](*,)[/quote]

maguire245, I didn't quote your post with my reply, so I think my comment stands alone as my opinion (something which we are all entitled to according to you in another thread).
I think duckman's post pretty much sums everything up. £10 is too much for a single ride at a fair. The coasters in Vegas are not even that expensive (depending on the exchange rate of course).

[Anonymous]

Simple way to clear this up...

1. Think its too expensive?
2. Think the rides are not as good as theme park rides?
3. Being Ripped off?
4. £10 too much for a coaster?



THEN DONT GO!

[Craig]

Although there's much debate about ride prices still, sadly its just a case of supply and demand. People are more than willing to pay that much in London for the rides. And, as long as they've got people paying the price they're not going to go lower.

Goose has already been mentioned with its prices at £6-£8 with people willing to pay that. Take the fair further north to the likes of Hoppings or Hull and you're looking at an average of £3-£6. As with most things, its the further south you go the more it costs I'm afraid.

That said, I'd be quite happy just wandering around the place for the atmosphere. I did exactly the same last year a couple of times and thoroughly enjoyed it. I obviously did partake in eating a couple of bratwursts though too .

Besides, there's the rest of London to enjoy as well as Hyde Park!

[Anonymous]

Brett from the forum has just got back from Hyde Park and echos what Adz said to me yesterday.

Prices:-

£1 for x1 Token

Powertower2 is 6 Tokens = £6
€urocoaster is 5 Tokens = £5

Everything else is between 3-5 Tokens each

The ghost Train Spuk, when I rode it in its home country of Holland this year was £5 a go, so considering its come all this way (and to be honest you wont get a better example of a travelling ghost train) its good value.

The £10 rumour isnt true.

[Anonymous]

Yeh.

Just got back from hyde park. About 0.7mi from it now actually.

Will write up on it when i get back. But i'm knackered now and must sleep. 10am i have to be out tomorrow... pfft hotels...

[Dylan]

^^ Those prices seem good
Just need to organise a date to get down there now.

Look forward to your review tomorrow Brett.

[AstroDan]

I would still argue that 6 pounds for a drop tower is expensive! I still think 5 pounds for any ride is a lot. And goose fair rides were mainly 3 to 4 pounds to clarify. They should do £20 wristbands. To do all the main rides at wonderland I bet you're talking Alton Towers' gate price.

[Anonymous]

I think £6 for PowerTower2 is good, In Basel it was 8CHF (around £5) Bear in mind you get a 2-3 minute ride on it

Goose fair and indeed Hull the prices raised during the night, Bomber Mark 2 was at £7 a one point.

I do agree a wristband system should be in place though, but like Craig said. If people are paying it, then why bother?

[Craig]

I think at least with fairs its important to remember that in order to visit you're not paying a gate price for entry. You're getting the choice whether to ride individual rides or not. Yes it's expensive for the ride, but that's the wonder of supply and demand, people will pay that price. But, remember these aren't rides that travel the UK, they've come a hell of a long way at great cost to the UK from mainland Europe.

I'm not saying I like paying those prices, but I can see why they're being charged if I'm looking at the whole thing from a business point of view.

[John]

RE Bomber MK2: with boosters etc I'm willing to be flexible on price. They're low capacity so a higher price is justified. I paid £7 for it at Goose, but wouldn't pay that much for most (any?) other rides.

The prices being quoted now are much more reasonable, given the circumstances of coming over from the mainland. I'll allow a little leeway for London based price inflation too.

[Anonymous]

Its not your fault that the ride is low capacity and they have to hike the price up Duckers...

There is nothing to say that a ride on BM2 or a bungee is anywhere near as thrilling as a ride on any other flat with a higher capacity.

[John]

Well I'd never been on one so I didn't know that at the time!

Simple supply and demand though, there the most visible rides and have low capacity. Easy way to maximise takings is just price out as many as you need to run at full capacity without a queue!

[Woodpecker]

[quote=""kryn""]Brett from the forum has just got back from Hyde Park and echos what Adz said to me yesterday.
[...]
The £10 rumour isnt true.[/quote]
Then how come when I went on monday, it was £2 per token and 5 tokens for the Eurocoaster, thus £10 a ride? I have nothing to gain by spreading a rumour to scare people. This was 10am on a weekday! Honestly, if I'd had my camera I'd have taken a photo. Also, the Fair's website hompage says the tokens start at £2, here:

http://www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com ... tions.html

They have nothing to gain by misleading the public.
[quote=""maguire245""]You also missed my point entirely, coasters on a fair circuit will be nothing like what's in a themepark. Don't go and visit a travelling fair and expect something spectacular, because it doesn't happen.[/quote]
I expressly said that I DON'T go to a fair expecting a spectacular coaster. What I DO expect is the ticket prices to reflect the quality of the ride standing in front of me. I understood your post correctly; you did not understand mine.
[quote=""maguire245""]Yes the prices are dear, but that is where they have to make their money by doing the rounds.[/quote]
I accept this, but they also have to make sure they don't charge more than the public is willing to pay, and to do that they have to correctly balance the quality of the ride with the price of the ticket. If they charge too much, the patrons will walk off disappointed, tell all their friends, and that's several more tickets that won't get sold. This applies to theme park entry tickets too.

[Islander]

[quote=""Woodpecker""][quote=""kryn""]Brett from the forum has just got back from Hyde Park and echos what Adz said to me yesterday.
[...]
The £10 rumour isnt true.[/quote]
Then how come when I went on monday, it was £2 per token and 5 tokens for the Eurocoaster, thus £10 a ride? I have nothing to gain by spreading a rumour to scare people. This was 10am on a weekday! Honestly, if I'd had my camera I'd have taken a photo. Also, the Fair's website hompage says the tokens start at £2, here:

http://www.hydeparkwinterwonderland.com ... tions.html[/quote]
Just a thought, but are you sure that doesn't just mean that tokens must be bought in pairs? Or that the minimum purchase is two tokens (perhaps 'cause nothing costs less than two tokens)?

Only guesses, of course...

[AstroDan]

Oh well... If over an hour on minimum wage for a drop tower is reasonable then some people have more money than sense. A family of 4 would be 24 pounds. I'll be giving that a miss.

[Woodpecker]

[quote=""Islander""]Just a thought, but are you sure that doesn't just mean that tokens must be bought in pairs? Or that the minimum purchase is two tokens (perhaps 'cause nothing costs less than two tokens)?

Only guesses, of course...[/quote]

No, I'd never considered that. It's a possiblility though. We'll see what Brett says in his trip reports.