To think it is lazy business messaging to blame screen time

[LovelyBranches]

This morning I saw a BBC article where the head of Merlin Entertainment said that the biggest competition to people going to theme parks (Merlin own Legoland, Thorpe Park and Alton Towers) was people staying at home on their phone.

I feel like that’s just a really lazy business message. I went to Legoland on the weekend. It was for my son’s birthday and we’ve been there 3 times before. While I was there I noticed:

1. It’s gone noticeably downhill and had no investment in new rides. Many of the old rides were shut down.
2. The Halloween attractions that has been there every single time we’ve been there previously, wasn’t there
3. The cost of entry had gone up
4. The park looked dirty and shabby in parts.
5. It’s more expensive to stay in a hotel (which we needed to do)
6. There wasn’t as many staff there
7. Normally when you walk around Legoland you get freebies, that just wasn’t the same this year
8. The cost of living has gone up so much in recent years that it was more of a stretch to go to a theme park this year

So yes, screen time may be the easy thing to blame for absolutely everything these day.

However the reality is that these attractions are becoming less appealing because they are not being invested in or looked after despite being more expensive. Businesses like Merlin should be doing more to attract people rather than blaming screen time.

AIBU?

www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crl2kz6w3zyo.amp

YANBU. She picked an easy target. Theme parks in the UK are often overpriced and badly kept now. Her comment is quite tone deaf considering the cost of living crisis and impending possible tax rises in the next budget!

I can fully understand why families avoid them now.

They “only” made 2 billion last year? Oh dear.

The same is happening with lots of leisure activities so I don't think it's entirely cost of living related. Grassroots sport is also suffering and that's pretty much free.

I don't think she was complaining or "blaming" screen time, just recognising that it's a competitor and that it's her job to find a way to compete.

Yes, I think it's a relatively common thing

Any business in leisure or hospitality now sees it main competitor as "staying at home" with all of the entertainment options that people have there, I think? They will have obvious competitors i.e. theme parks.

To be honest, the Internet is their main competitor! The biggest challenge a lot of these places have is getting people to go out in the first place. Even people who've got the money may not want to spend it.

When my DC were the age they would have enjoyed Legoland, the main barrier was the cost.

I can see why a lot of places are expensive and not disputing that they need to cover costs but if you've only got a finite amount of money to spend then its out of reach.

Something that annoyed me when looking at booking an overnight stay in the merlin theme parks is that the hotel costs are a lot (i think the cheapest was £349 for a night) and then you had to separately book the park tickets. I'm sure that wasn't the case when we went a few years ago, 1 days ticket per person was included in the price, which made you feel like it was worth it.

Also once you get in everything is extortionate. I think the main thing putting people off is that the product has stayed mostly the same while the cost has increased. It's simply not a day out or treat that most families can easily afford.

We have a lot of wildlife parks near us which are a lot more reasonable (i understand it's a different activity all together) so when thinking of a day out we are probably more likely to go where we know we can have a nice day without worrying about the cost.

Cheek of it!!! It’s the bloody cost.

Having said that we did a night at Warwick castle hotel recently. Sunday night, just out of season, £110 for hotel room inc breakfast then my son and I took advantage of a parent and under-5 weekday ticket on the Monday and my husband got £15 discount on entry due to staying at the hotel. It felt worth it as you got a lot out of it for the cost- evening entertainment, big buffet breakfast, castle itself very good plus we did a few shows and ‘met’ Zog. Was a pretty packed day and night.

(we live in London but it’s a fairly cheap train route in advance) still a big outlay and a huge treat for us though, it was for his 4th birthday. Actually we were originally going to go to Lego land but I was put off by the reviews and the fact that it was coming in at 2x the cost of the above.

It’s not always just about the cost which you know is likely to be significant- it’s just that rarely do you feel like you feel like the price paid is WORTH it for the experience you receive in return.

The biggest barrier is cost. My Dd spends too much time on screens but would jump at a theme park trip over a day on her phone but with the cost of living crisis it is hard to find the money or justify spending £120+ on one day out.

Yes when we got passes for Legoland last year, I was disappointed by all the faded shabby displays, the shocking dangerous lack of landscaping (a thick bramble was within touching distance of a ride for small kids in Duplo Valley and so much was overgrown), the lack of much decor just random displays plonked down here and there, and the lack of things to do because half the rides, concessions and cafes were closed but there was zero info about this on the site or app until you actually turned up on the day. And on top of that adding tickets to the app for multiple visits with a pass was a total shitshow because it doesn’t organise them properly. We didn’t renew the passes. Now, we always decide between Legoland and driving two more hours to Paultons (Peppa Pig World) and we always drive the two hours extra because Paultons is so much better for little kids, for an identical price.

It’s expensive and just does not give good value for money. We were looking at going to a theme park this half term. You’ll pay £120 for a family to go to Chessington and spend the majority of the day standing in queues - quite often theme park rides are an hour (or more!) of queuing for a minute (or less) of ride time. She’s right that they are competing with ‘screen time’ - but it’s because they’re not really considering the experience of the customer who is going to spend most of their day standing in a line with nothing to do but chat to their friends/family (or play on their phone!) whilst paying a lot of money for the privilege. Might as well stay at home…
The other issue is the same as the issue we get in schools, though to a different degree, which is that kids aren’t that fussed about the ‘treat’ element of going to a theme park - it’s not like in the 90s and before, where kids saw a film every now and again, but otherwise were stuck with whatever was on TV or a book or maybe the one or two computer games they had bought for them for Christmas; who maybe had a day out a few times a year to somewhere exciting, but were otherwise just out in the street with their mates. It was easy to impress those kids with a few adrenaline-rush ride and some interesting ‘scenery’, but it’s not so easy to impress the kids who have access to whatever they want to watch/play whenever they like and many who get taken on days out centred around kids all the time - the constant dopamine hits mean that a queue for a short ride just isn’t really worth it. Obviously enough people think it is, or the queue wouldn’t exist, but if they want to entice more people through the gates then they’re going to have to give people more of an experience overall rather than continue to rely on the rides alone.

I went once (some years ago) and noticed:

They charge for the car park - in an out of town location!
There is very little shelter (it was a wet day).
There's surprisingly little Lego.

It's just a fairly crap theme park, isn't it?

I went when I was a kid in the 90’s- it was newly opened then and I thought it was amazing. We did the shows and the mining for gold and there was a lot of Lego! It’s sad to hear how much it’s gone downhill.

We're not going again because it was rubbish, not because of screens. It was very tired, with peeling paint and faded colours. The lego builds are impressive, but not worth paying theme park prices to see. The queues were long and it's not really a nice day out to queue all day and only do a handful of rides. The sky lion queue was 1 hr 40 mins!

As with pp, would rather go to Paultons Park, even though we have aged out of peppa pig interest now. It's a great little theme park.

If you want to see Lego one of the Lego shops would make more sense?

The one at Battersea Power Station is good and you could do one of the other activities there.