Half heartedly in the tradition of wartime radio comedy, It’s That (Time) Again: The updated park websites have started to go live in time for the beginning of the season.
Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s went online a few weeks ago, showing off their new logo. Some people have been quite critical, but I think it’s good to see Microsoft Wordart still being used so many years after it ceased to be cool.[/sarcasm]
Today saw the launch of Thorpe Park’s new site for 2006. The changes are not all that substantial, probably because last year’s site worked so well in the first place. The look has evolved slightly with extra bits of Flash animation dotted around. There’s the option for non-Flash version for those who don’t like animation and a low graphics version for people who, erm, are scared of pictures hung up in the air.
Last year’s site was a vast improvement over 2004’s. This year’s promises more of the same high quality and great features, with a more substantial customer reviews feature than last year (prepare for funky database driven antics). The only disappointment is they’re still using the crappy 2004 “scary” industrial ride descriptions on a few of the ride pages. If they get rid of the last remainders of the Liquorice website and brought back the Rangers, Thorpe’s marketing would be perfection itself. OK, maybe that’s going a little bit too far…
Over the last few years, Thorpe’s websites have been a good indicator of the season the park can expect. In the RMC days, the site was basic and so was the park. Along came Colossus in 2002 together with a very innovative website (who remembers the Virtual Ride?). 2003 kept the same great site with some extra improvements and Thorpe had another great season. 2004 was a disaster in terms of season and site. In 2005 the website returned to something approaching normality and so did the park. 2006’s site evolves the brilliant 2005 site into something even better with some new bits and bobs. If anything, the flash animation makes it look a little “busier”. So, using the accurate WSP (Website Season Predictor�), I predict this year’s season at Thorpe will be even better than last year’s, but perhaps a little more crowded.
I expect the Chessington site will be seeing some changes in the next few days. It will be interesting to see whether Drayton Manor and the smaller parks have anything planned online for this year too.
One of the highlights of closed season is always when the park’s new websites for the coming year are finally unveiled.
Last year was a huge disappointment as far as Thorpe Park’s website was concerned. Gone was the cool blue site from 2003, and in its place a dark grey design full of ridiculous ride descriptions (the tame family-friendly Ribena Rumba Rapids: “Sunken boulders and rapids jolt and jostle beleaguered victims. This white water experience lasts for 7 wet, wild, lurching minutes. It seems much, much longer”), hairy biker men and dodgy rock metal soundtracks. The launch heralded the beginning of Thorpe’s disasterous 2004 season blighted by sky-rocketing ticket prices, falling gate figures and cancelled events.
Today saw the unveiling of Thorpe’s site for 2005 (well, on the lesser known www.thorpe-park.com domain anyway). What an improvement!
Semantic have been put back in charge, following their one year absence when Liquorice built the site last year, which means the welcome return to the more traditional Thorpe blue colour scheme and the much-missed Thorpe Park TV.
Sadly, last year’s ride descriptions have made an unwelcome reappearance on the new site. However, the descriptions for Thorpe’s new rides - Slammer and Rush - whilst still hyping up the fear factor, seem much more “normal”. Apparently the decision to pass the sites back to Semantic was a bit last minute meaning there was not much time for them to get the new design ready, so hopefully the old descriptions are only temporary - well, you can hope!
Incidentally, the Twisted Pleasure slogan doesn’t appear anywhere I can find - maybe the marketing department have thrown their 2004 campaign hastily into reverse? No sign of Sensory Overload returning either though.
The other exciting thing for all Thorpe fanboys that arrives with the new site is the park’s new map. This year’s sees a slight modification - the same basic map graphic (with the addition of Slammer and Rush plus the removal of Eclipse, Model World and the waterbuses to be replaced with “Coming 2006 New Coaster” of course) but with ride logos rather than the ABC123 labelling system. Instead of the old box for each area, there are now just three defining “Extreme Thrills”, “Thilling and Fun” and “Young Thrillseekers” - yep, the old 5 level thrillometer seems to have been retired too.
Overall, the site is looking like a vast improvement over last year’s. Its a bit bare in places and a few things don’t work as they should, but to be fair it doesn’t appear to have been “officially” launched on the normal thorpepark.com and .co.uk domains yet. It can’t be too long before the excitement spills over once again with the launch of Semantic’s new Chessington site too.
[Blimey - have I really written this much over-analysing a bloody website?]