Alvoram

not what I expected, been listening to a lot more rock and pop this year than usual, surprised nothing features… really surprised Fred is top, listened to him much more last year I’d say. 🤷🏻‍♂️ last 6 month instafest just to prove D&B / EDM isn’t all I listen to 🙈😂

I enjoyed the Hop & Liquor in 2022, cheesy bangers late at night. Didn't seem the same this year in it's new home though. 😕

Hope the rumour was just that, a rumour. Sure is a stunning scene though. Not ventured out yet, but looking out of a very misty window at the shed roof and the top of the wall, looks like we got a good few inches in the end.

I love football, I love England and Derby... I've attended lots of England games, I had tickets to the Wembley games, including the semis and final, in 2021. But I really wouldn't want to see England games shown at Glastonbury. Too much of a lottery, if they won, atmosphere would be superd, but if they lost, sadly way too many fans let a sport affect their emotions, attitude and behaviour.

Update: This does seem like a decent snow storm. this was 12:52 when the gritter came past (I must remember to change the clocks on the CCTV!) And this is just recently, only one hour later. This is set to continue up to 5am!!!

Yeh, we've had clear blue skies all week pretty much, culminated in -5c temps last night... However tonight was overcast, so it is milder, and it's just started raining, so looks like we've escaped the white stuff. Never mind, it's snowing now, pretty heavily!

No, not a spot! Edited to add: To be fair though, the weather in Cumbria is something else... County has it's own climate separate from the rest of England.

I think she has her suspicions 😉 Though I swear I'm not that shallow... Spoke to some other members of our group today, turns out they're fans too! 🙂

Nah, she likes her too to be fair. She used to look a little like her when we were younger. (We've been together since we were 17-18! 2002) But I had a massive crush on Avril back then... She had more than one prime poster position on my wall. (So sad I know 🙈)

I saw the dates and ignored them, figured there was some secret code to them that I couldn't be bothered to decrypt.

Early Jan is a great time to go, Wintertraum is still on, but the crowds are gone and Ryanair flights are usually cheap. The Charles Lindbergh hotel package is great value for what you get. But if you do decide to go CL hotel, make sure you set an hour aside one evening to visit the 2 bars in both other hotels, as their gardens are lit up incredibly for Wintertraum.

Please make this happen... 👏👏👏 (Sorry Mrs Alvo 🙈🤣)

ohhh close, can see why you went with that It's Wintertraum, Phantasialand... My favourite Park in the world. 🙂 But have a great time on Munich / Olympia!

I can be an argumentative prick sometimes, sorry about that 😕 So I'll just reiterate my last paragraph, as I think that is the most important part. I don't necessarily think you're wrong in that they're wanting to increase their profits, but I wouldn't assume you were correct either, given the rise in costs for all businesses. There is absolutely no way for us to know, as we can't see podpads / GFL's detailed chart of accounts. Or to put it another way, I think you're right, but for all the reasons I've posted above, it's not a conclusion I'd be certain of, I have just enough doubt, or should I say just about enough reason to believe, their costs rising 'may' have warranted the hike in prices. Because we're on the verge of having to implement another price rise at our place, after a roughley 20% hike last year. (First since 2019, and it'll be single digit rise this time, 3 to 5%)

So it really is happening then... Coming to a Pyramid near you soon...

or 'thoosie' for short... 🤣 I'm not opposed to being called a 'goon,' that was common terminology around 10 years ago. BTW... I wonder if you can tell where my avatar photo was taken. (A very tough ask given how it's cropped.) I'll give you a clue, we only visit once a year, and always in winter. It's kind of on topic too, Glastonbury is, after all, a giant theme park without the rides. 🙂

Not angry in the slightest, but you don't seem to understand how margins are calculated, or the difference between costs and overheads. We'll ignore the fact that you're not factoring increased VAT liability into your increased turnover / revenue, and just focus on your core point. That increase in profits that you're highlighting there would usually cover the increase in overheads, that aren't normally calculated into a 'gross profit margin.' As well as unforeseen overheads. Gross profit is calculated using cost of sales, these are direct expenses of delivering a product or service, so usually materials or ingredients. Or in this case I would choose to include some traditional overheads too, like energy and ground rent. Things like, in this case, wages, podpads head office rent and expenses, insurance, business rates, waste disposal etc etc, all of the costs accrued by the business through a financial year that aren't directly attributable to the sale of one product or service. They are all overheads. They wouldn't be included in a GP calculation. Therefore that extra £130k would be expected to cover the increase to those items. Not necessarily an increase in revenue (I think you meant profit here.) To be clear, and as I said earlier, I don't necessarily think you're wrong in that they're wanting to increase their profits, but I wouldn't assume you were correct either, given the rise in costs for all businesses. There is absolutely no way for us to know, as we can't see podpads / GFL's detailed chart of accounts. (EDITED TO ADD: To be clear, I'm no accountant, I only have a very basic understanding of all this myself, but that basic understanding is enough to know that in the current climate, costs have been rising sharply, on and off, for 3 years, and I'm never surprised when I see any business put their prices up by 20% or more. 30% is on the higher end of that expectation though, I do have to admit.)

There's something about the way the company that do that show every year work with music. Setting the show to music, using other effects like lasers and fire, then nailing the timing of it all to the music, just makes the show so much better. I can't watch any other fireworks shows nowadays, nevermind watch other people's phone recordings haha. I need to just shut up really, it's getting harder and harder to get tickets each year as it is... 🤣

Yes, and I think music and theme park goonery go hand in hand... Although I do keep getting told I have ADHD, which apparently really shows as soon as somebody mentions theme parks. (And explains a lot of my school years.) 🤷‍♂️

A few places sell ice, including coop. Another option is taking spirits (in plastic bottles) and buying cold mixers from vendors or coop to keep costs down. Keeps the pack weight down too.

Oh I dunno about that, I go back and watch this a lot... Wait for the drop shortly after 00:50 (Bloody site's video uploady thing didn't work so had to add it to Youtube for you... And it's saying it'll take 30 mins to process it into HD) In my defence, I attend all 3 nights every single year, so standing and filming my favourite bits from the show on final night isn't too much of a loss. And I do only film my favourite bits, that I will rewatch from time to time.

Then camp in general, it's free. 🤷‍♂️ Of course their prices directly relate to their costs... In very simple terms, their pricing relates to their overheads, plus cost of sales, plus desired gross profit %, plus VAT. Not sure what you mean with regards to understanding the math or margin, it's quite easy to understand. If all or any of the values that make up that sum increase (including, to be fair to you, desired gross profit,) then the price goes up accordingly. Actually I think it's you that is missing some key calculations. For one, if your costs to deliver a product, that you charge £100 for, goes up from £50 to £70... You don't just whack £20 on the price, as you'd be eating the extra VAT expense. (A product you're selling for £100, that costs £50 to produce, including costs and overheads, nets you £33.33 net profit after VAT. If you were to put that up to £120 because your costs went up to £70, your profits just dropped to £30 after VAT.) Secondly, you'd be eating a drop in profit %. No business I know works in flat rates for profit, they usually calculate a desired profit %. So for example. Cost £50 + Desired GP £33.33 (40% GP Margin which you can calculate by adding 66.66% to base / cost) + VAT (20%) £16.66 = £100 Rounded Cost £70 + Desired GP £46.66 (40% GP Margin which you can calculate by adding 66.66% to base / cost) + VAT (20%) £23.32 = £140 Rounded Funny that? How a 40% rise in costs still led to a 40% rise in pricing, and yet the GP Margin remained the same at 40%. (Of course, a traditional business producing or reselling a physical product wouldn't include overheads in GP calculations, just cost of sales / production, and would instead opt to aim for a much higher GP margin to cover overheads. I did here because a) It's how I'd do it if I ran this sort of business, where the bulk of my costs were, what might traditionally be classed as, overheads. Actual cost of sales, in the traditional sense of the word, would be low, so not factoring overheads into your pricing properly could be dangerous. and b) it just makes the examples easier to understand without having to explain the difference between costs and overheads...🤣)

I don't use TS, I was always on TT until the change to Attraction Source, now I only use Coaster Force. I think there's only Matt N over on TS that knows what John told me, and I asked him not to say anything. He's a good kid (not so much a kid anymore haha) so it doesn't surprise me to know he kept his word. Plus, even if he had told anybody, it's still just the word of some goon. There was only me, John, and some Merlin / Towers handler looking after him that day, there to hear it. I forgot to mention John Burton's trolling too, or we assume trolling. Wouldn't be the first time he's done something everybody assumed was a wind up, because it was too obvious, only for it to turn out to be true. Imagine that, it is an RMC family coaster afterall... (I doubt it, the wind up was too obvious, even for JB. But on the other hand, it was an official Merlin Q&A video, and would they allow that kind of trolling in an official video? You never know, and we can hope.)

On the plus side though, it did seem to be available from more vendors than the £5 meal was in 2022... Or at least more visible.

I was one of the biggest doubters on Horizon being a coaster, as far as I know it was me that first picked up on the fact that the plans were a just copy and paste from Exodus, when excited folks spotted snippets of the plans referring to it as a coaster. I put that information out there and lots of influencers ran with it. But now the coaster is confirmed, I had it confirmed in person by John Wardley himself at the Nemesis farewell weekend in 2022. (Chatting with him, he also confirmed Horizon was the groundbreaking rollercoaster technology coming to Towers that he referred to in that famous Q&A session.) John also slipped up and referred to Project Horizon as "SW9" in an interview with Lift Hills & Thrills. (He absolutely approved of my hoodie, I never asked him, he never mentioned it, but you just know he did 😉 ) 2 years in a row for a high capex project at towers is strange, but it's been a strange 11 years since Smiler opening in 2013. The Smiler incident, then Covid and now the economic crisis have changed things massively. We've seen the Duel refit and Sub Terra this year, that level of investment alongside a big coaster build / retrack is also weird. Having said that Nemesis retrack is not an SW project either, despite the excitement around it, it's essentially just overdue upkeep and maintenance. SW9 was due this year, we have always gotten a secret weapon at least every 5 years. Obviously Covid pushed that back. My understanding is that the only reason Horizon hasn't started already is because they're waiting on the archeological survey, and the green light from that. My feelings are that Merlin recognise the desperate need for capacity at Towers, bought in the retro squad as a temporary measure, whilst they planned / moved forward / bought back all of these investments we're seeing now. You could well be right about the flats though, that's all still a bit of a 'he said she said.' I only have the word of people I trust on that, and no personal knowledge or solid information. Even the source of the original information has no solid info on dates. On your last point, you're absolutely right. The major projects, Horizon, and the retrack at least, would have been in the pipeline for years. As I mentioned above, I actually believe they've been delayed! However, covid led to massive capacity issues at Towers, which is why the retro squad was brought in in the first place. Those capacity issues initially centred around distancing and extra cleaning on rides etc, but quickly shifted to good old fashioned 'too many visitors in the park' due to revenge tourism. It's possible that some of these smaller projects, Sub Terra, new flats, etc, have been planned in the last 3 years to add capacity to the park and negate the need to rent crappy little fair rides every season. I fully expect Hex to be operating next year. (Who knows, maybe a Vekoma Madhouse is one of the flats purchased, nobody said they had to be new concepts, just new hardware.)