This event was very well handled and everyone I could see was having a great time. Ok, the parking and picking up at the end of the day wasnt great, but that is to be expected when the place is so busy.
Lets break the whole day down and see the highs and lows for me...:
Arrived at 9.35ish and the front entrance was empty. People obviously already had their park tickets and the turnstiles where open letting people in and reminding them that most rides would not open until just before 10am, but people could make their way to the rides and wait. I waited until the rest of the group turned up and towers street was getting fairly busy, but I think a lot of people were checking out the shops and booths.
The concert area was fenced off and there was frequent announcements that the whole of towers street, and arena area would close around 1pm to get ready for the show. There was also loads of staff around trying to help any guests with questions. As for people trying to grab money off you, other than the odd people selling drinks, there wasnt actually much. Picsolve were very, very calm as it was clearly too busy to go and take photos of everyone.
We went into towers family restaurant and it was fairly quiet in there as far as people go. Russell had a problem with getting over charged for something, but it was sorted out. We then headed off to Oblivion and heres where one fairly big problem was. They had to fence the arena and surrounding area off, I understand that, but with the skyride also out of action, this meant that people had to walk a lot to get on the rides. Maybe better layout should have been used to reduce walking for the guests until right before the event.
Oblivion didnt have much of a queue and we were on in 15mins max. We then walked over to Hex and it had about 10min queue as well. Rita and Th13teen were fairly busy so we passed on both of them, but yet again we expected this and it really didnt bother us too much. Both queues were around an hour.
A walk over to FV and we went on Nemesis and that was around 35mins. Single riders looked busy, but on Nemesis, the SRQ is not very well laid out and can get busy easily. We then headed over the Gloomy wood and realised they were just starting to clear towers street, making gloomy wood very busy.
Walked from there up to woodcutters and got served extremely quickly. Was actually shocked how quick our food was ready! Was great quality like normal and extremely tasty. Wasn't a bad price, but towards the upper limits I would normally pay.
We then headed to the concert knowing it would be getting busy soon. Luckily we managed to get an ok spot. Wasnt the best by far, but we kinda already knew that unless you were right at the front, you would only be able to see the screens, so in fairness, being able to see the stage up until McFly came on was actually really good.
The concert itself was awesome and after speaking to several people, despite JLS being the main act, McFly actually stole the show as they were just so amazing and they really knew how to get the crowd going. Also heres someone to look out for... Charlotte O'connor. What a singer! She was almost in tears with fear, as I assume this is the largest crowd she has ever played to. Everyone there wanted to go up and give her an hug as she was just so scared, but sounded amazing!
The end of the event was a bit poor and kinda spoiled it a bit. Waiting over 2hrs just to be picked up by my dad. I phoned him way before the event finished, yet it still took him about 45mins to get onto the pick up point and then over an hour to get back out. I kinda expected it to be busy, but not so busy just to pick people up. Maybe this is something they need to look at in future...
In general it was an awesome day out and I will pop a few of my fav photos on here shortly.
(Quick team request... Any chance of getting this moved to the trip review sub-forum, now the event has taken place?)
lol
