Leviathan - Operations and Soft Opening Complaints

[joz]

17 hours ago, Brad2912 said:

Having a A-frame with “technical rehearsal” on it that 99% of people wouldn’t have read or even understood would have changed nothing 

I'm all for soft openings (not passholder previews), but I don't think Brad's point can be over stated enough.

'Grrr the ride is closed!'

'Did you read the A frame'

'Oh OK I'm happy now!'

- No guest interaction ever.

[Dean Barnett]

It doesn't matter if they read it or not - they're not coming to the park expecting to be on the ride.

 

In reality people driving to the actual park will pass billboards advertising its open - all the way up the pacific highway.

[Rabbit2014]

1 hour ago, Rivals said:

On another note, the entire New Atlantis area will be closed today.

All Atlantis attractions have now been removed from maintenance page, anyone there able to confirm if they actually are open.

[New display name]

1 minute ago, joz said:

I'm all for soft openings (not passholder previews), but I don't think Brad's point can be over stated enough.

'Grrr the ride is closed!'

'Did you read the A frame'

'Oh OK I'm happy now!'

- No guest interaction ever.

Rivals A-frame worked a treat because MW never said the ride was open.  The 2 work together.     

[Slick]

Just now, Dean Barnett said:

It doesn't matter if they read it or not - they're not coming to the park expecting to be on the ride.

 

In reality people driving to the actual park will pass billboards advertising its open - all the way up the pacific highway.

Eh, others have already debunked the logic of this. Billboards don't go down at night when shops close just in case people get misled. People just aren't that dumb that you need to coddle them that much. Billboards drive awareness, not conversion, therefore literally no one makes major purchase decisions based on a billboard alone.

[Tricoart]

10 minutes ago, joz said:

I'm all for soft openings (not passholder previews), but I don't think Brad's point can be over stated enough.

'Grrr the ride is closed!'

'Did you read the A frame'

'Oh OK I'm happy now!'

- No guest interaction ever.

But, in the event that it is a soft opening/technical rehearsal/passholder preview, they're not being told that the ride is open and ready to ride. You either know it's open because you're in the circles that'd tell you, in which case you'd know the caveats of a soft opening, or you're at the park and see the A frame saying it's in technical rehearsal before it's already advertised opening day, so you know you're lucky to have caught it and have seen that it's not in it's final form, and that issues are to be expected.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Tricoart

[joz]

Again, the whole post started with... 'I'm all for soft openings...'

 

In other words I agree, but once the ride is open for the day, it's open, and people will absolutely piss and moan if it's unreliable or breaks down once they see it's open.

Edited December 5, 2022 by joz

[Tricoart]

Yes, the crux of this whole conversation is about how the opening has been mismanaged, and how it ideally shouldn't be fully open in it's current state (i.e. held a soft opening w/ grand opening near Boxing Day), as it has led to the aforementioned mass disappointment. Not that they should chuck up an A frame now, or that they should remove any billboards/advertisements.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Tricoart

[New display name]

1 minute ago, joz said:

Again, the whole post started with... 'I'm all for soft openings...'

 

In other words I agree, but once the ride is open, it's open, and people will absolutely piss and moan if it's unreliable or break down.

You can't have a A-frame up telling people it's a technical rehearsal when you have already told people it's open.

[Tricoart]

14 minutes ago, Rabbit2014 said:

All Atlantis attractions have now been removed from maintenance page, anyone there able to confirm if they actually are open.

Anyone there today to confirm if they're open/closed, or do we just assume the maintenance page is bugging out?

Edited December 5, 2022 by Tricoart

[joz]

I'm aware of what a soft opening is. My point is that if you do a soft open, and guests on that day see that the ride is open, from their point of view, that's it, it's open. They will not care about official opening dates or A frames, they will be pissed when the ride breaks down. Soft opening might placate a few, but the guests that people are acting like who this is all about, the casual day guest, won't be placated.

[Gazza]

17 minutes ago, Slick said:

Eh, others have already debunked the logic of this. Billboards don't go down at night when shops close just in case people get misled. People just aren't that dumb that you need to coddle them that much. Billboards drive awareness, not conversion, therefore literally no one makes major purchase decisions based on a billboard alone.

I dunno.

There's a difference between being totally literal and a reasonable assumption. (link)

Like when a new supermarket opens you understand that to mean its open for you during normal trading hours not open at that very second.

'

 

Re guests understanding of what a soft opening is on the day and how well they accept breakdowns, I'll leave that for those with frontline guest experience.

 

Edited December 5, 2022 by Gazza

[Tricoart]

6 minutes ago, joz said:

I'm aware of what a soft opening is. My point is that if you do a soft open, and guests on that day see that the ride is open, from their point of view, that's it, it's open. They will not care about official opening dates or A frames, they will be pissed when the ride breaks down. Soft opening might placate a few, but the guests that people are acting like who this is all about, the casual day guest, won't be placated.

Not the casual day guest, the holiday-goers and families who are taking trips to SW for the holidays as they're being bombarded with advertisements for 3 new, freshly open and ready-to-ride attractions. The casual day guest might see a soft-opened ride as open, barge past the A-frame, and get mad when it has a fault, but that's their individual fault for not reading the clear signs, and all an operator has to do is reaffirm what was already stated on said A-frame, and what most other guests already understand. But, again, as it stands families from across the country are making plans to/already holidaying on the Gold Coast, to ride 3 new family attractions that are as-of-yet not even known to be opening today. It's not the same.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Tricoart

[rappa]

The ride builder believed it to be ready. 
The train manufacturer believed it to be ready. 
The controls manufacturer believed it to be ready. 
The park projects team believed it to be ready. 
The park maintenance team believed it to be ready. 
The park operations team believed it to be ready. 
 

If all these experts didn’t foresee any problems with opening, the idea that some theme park forum members know better is laughable. 
It’s unfortunate there appear to be unforeseeable issues but thats what they are.  
 

VRTP doesn’t hate its customers as much as many here would like to suggest otherwise. 

[joz]

Just now, Tricoart said:

Not the casual day guest, the holiday-goers and families who are taking trips to SW for the holidays

How many of those do you think there are? If it's more than 2 I'd be totally shocked. The 'travelled for opening day' is a made up genre of a person that you just don't get. 

[Dean Barnett]

5 minutes ago, joz said:

I'm aware of what a soft opening is. My point is that if you do a soft open, and guests on that day see that the ride is open, from their point of view, that's it, it's open.

That isn't true... wasn't true with any coaster that I know of that has opened recently. People have zero expectations - the fact they got to ride it before is a huge + but you didn't get out of bed thinking you were getting on a new coaster on that day.

1 minute ago, rappa said:

The ride builder believed it to be ready. 
The train manufacturer believed it to be ready. 
The controls manufacturer believed it to be ready. 
The park projects team believed it to be ready. 
The park maintenance team believed it to be ready. 
The park operations team believed it to be ready. 

Do you know this is 100% true... or Village just set a date and just told them to deal with it.. which as been suggested elsewhere in this thread 

[Tricoart]

8 minutes ago, joz said:

How many of those do you think there are? If it's more than 2 I'd be totally shocked. The 'travelled for opening day' is a made up genre of a person that you just don't get. 

Not 'travelled for opening day', 'travelled for the holidays after being advertised new rides that are open'. My group bumped into at least 3 of those families, at Sea World Resort alone, after barely using anything the resort had to offer during our stay. And Bikash himself stated that multiple hotels around Sea World have been contacting them, praising them for a huge spike in room bookings that they're attributing to the New Atlantis opening. So that'd have to be 2 pretty damn large families, if so.

Edited December 5, 2022 by Tricoart

[joz]

Just now, Dean Barnett said:

People have zero expectations - the fact they got to ride it before is a huge

But what if they queued for an hour only to be turned away? Which is what people are saying happened. Would the A frame and opening date make the problem go away?

[Dean Barnett]

2 minutes ago, joz said:

But what if they queued for an hour only to be turned away?

Well I've addressed this before - opening the queue before the ride has been handed over is stupid. 

[Gazza]

^I disagree on that one because then you just get a crappy queue snaking on the midways out in the hot sun.

[joz]

1 minute ago, Tricoart said:

Not 'travelled for opening day', 'travelled for holidays after being advertised new rides that are open'. I met at least 3 of those families, at Sea World Resort alone, on Thursday.

What they spontaneously got in the car and drove up after seeing an ad? Also it is open, if they were there on opening day, and they wanted to, they would have got a ride. About 1000 other people did, many of which did so after closing as they ran it till everyone that wanted to ride, did ride.

 

3 minutes ago, Dean Barnett said:

Well I've addressed this before - opening the queue before the ride has been handed over is stupid.

I'd suggest you read all my comments before you reply to me specifically. I'm talking about people who see the ride open randomly, who then queue.

[New display name]

9 minutes ago, rappa said:

The train manufacturer believed it to be ready. 
 

If they believed that why were they all sitting in the control booth if they weren't needed?

10 minutes ago, rappa said:

VRTP doesn’t hate its customers as much as many here would like to suggest otherwise. 

Where did you get that from?

[Dean Barnett]

1 minute ago, Gazza said:

^I disagree on that one because then you just get a crappy queue snaking on the midways out in the hot sun.

"The ride is broken down for now - please enjoy other attractions in the park and check the app for when it opens"

[webslave]

Perhaps you might not book a trip and travel up between them announcing the date and opening day; but if you were already booked to be up there and were weighing up your options between VRTP and DW (as so many do) I'd suggest the opening of a brand new themed area with multiple rides is likely to tip the scales toward VRTP.  I don't think that's too hard to fathom.

[joz]

People will still queue. Maybe not as many, but I can guarantee people would still form a queue.