Loudon Castle shut down!

[sam]

Loudon castle has shut down I gather all ride's will be for sale. Will Dreamland get any back if they are for sale?

[vince69619]

Ok, I did query if this was confirmed anywhere, and the unofficial site does talk about this on the forum!

Vince.

[scouser andy]

http://www.thescottishsun.co.uk/scotsol ... z115asZqNt

here is a link to one of the local papers

[jakeo1]

i think it would be great to see dreamland get a grab at some of loudon parks rides if they are up for sale but i suppose they would have to be heritage related or the last of their kind which means i dont think we would be getting the looping star back or any other of their coasters
iam still in shock the park closed really.

[kevinashe]

the park had been donig crazy offers like buy a ticket and return as much as you want over the next 14 days,the latest was buy a ticket and return free again before the end of the season and if you cant use it please pass it onto a friend.

[vann98]

does anyone know if any of their rides are up for sale or if they are all going to another bembom property?

iam really surprised it closed down i thought it was going so strong and would be one of those parks which never close down. guess i was wrong there

[barcrest]

Is this a sign of things to come. I mean people have less money to spend and theme parks seem to be one of the places where people will cut back on visiting. When i was at the pleasure beach in august so in effect peak season it was not at all busy.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

But Dutch owner Henk Bembom said the 600-acre park near Galston, Ayrshire, "was no longer economically viable".
He blamed bad weather, a looming VAT increase and the rise in publicly-funded tourist attractions for his decision.

The bad weather seems a strange reason to give, the weather may not have been good this year but surely you would expect that some years in Scotland?


I think the VAT increase is probably the major factor here, I read that this will cost the average household £425 next year and those households will have to cut non-essentials, trips to theme parks being one of those.

[EAS]

It was a very long, harsh winter and a wet summer in Scotland. I think in general there is far less cash around.

Very sad news indeed.

PS I have posted more sad news re Hastings Pier arson attack on the Seaside Forum. Huge loss, the Hastings Pier Trust has worked so hard. Now this.

[Vince, Charlie and Sam]

Well, if he wants a UK based theme park in a relatively dry and warm part of the UK, then perhaps he should relocate to the south-east, somewhere like Margate for example.

[Xtremecoasters]

Very very sad news

I have not had the chance to visit this year due to spending a lot of time visiting parks in the USA as well as being down to Alton Towers, Thorpe Park etc. Would have gone for one final trip had I known the park was closing.

For any that have not seen it, here is the vid of my last trip to the park last year. Again, it was a rainy day, and again the place was empty:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSSxh67asqs

[Bob]

Is this a sign of things to come. I mean people have less money to spend and theme parks seem to be one of the places where people will cut back on visiting. When i was at the pleasure beach in august so in effect peak season it was not at all busy.

It is aixture of things I think. Money is tight so people cut back but the main thing is theme Parks are no longer a draw and people have grown tired of them. In theory they should benefit when money it tight as people tend to cut back on holidays abroad and tend to take short UK breaks.

They are a victim of the decling market for these sort of things. There are to many venues chasing to few customers. They will not be the last to go under.

[kevinashe]

i assume the rides will all go into the parkware pot and possibly could be leased to other parks.I also wonder how much life is in some as the pirate ship used to belch smoke everytime i was down and that was with a restricted load,and the horse carousel always seemed to struggle a bit (although its quite unique and i would like to see it restored)

[Xtremecoasters]

Is this a sign of things to come. I mean people have less money to spend and theme parks seem to be one of the places where people will cut back on visiting. When i was at the pleasure beach in august so in effect peak season it was not at all busy.

It is aixture of things I think. Money is tight so people cut back but the main thing is theme Parks are no longer a draw and people have grown tired of them. In theory they should benefit when money it tight as people tend to cut back on holidays abroad and tend to take short UK breaks.

They are a victim of the decling market for these sort of things. There are to many venues chasing to few customers. They will not be the last to go under.

Believe me, people are still visiting theme parks. Alton Towers and Thopre Park were packed to the point that I had to opt to purchase fast passes if I wanted to get on more than 4 rides between opening and closing each day. Its not like I even visited these parks at weekends. I always visit week days, and when all the kids are still at school.

Shortest coaster line at Thorpe was around 90 mins, and that was for Stealth (a 19 second ride running two cars). This was on a Wednesday in the middle of June!

Was at Disneyland in California 2 weeks ago. At a cost of around $110 for 1 days entry, you could not move in there. Same for Knotts Berry and Six Flags Magic Mountain. The economy in the USA is far worse than here, but people are still flooding to these places.

The point is, if a park has attractions that people want to go on, they will visit.

That's not to say that Loudoun was not a great park, but it was an aged park that could not really compete with the high technology thrills that people want today.

[barcrest]

Is this a sign of things to come. I mean people have less money to spend and theme parks seem to be one of the places where people will cut back on visiting. When i was at the pleasure beach in august so in effect peak season it was not at all busy.

It is aixture of things I think. Money is tight so people cut back but the main thing is theme Parks are no longer a draw and people have grown tired of them. In theory they should benefit when money it tight as people tend to cut back on holidays abroad and tend to take short UK breaks.

They are a victim of the decling market for these sort of things. There are to many venues chasing to few customers. They will not be the last to go under.

Believe me, people are still visiting theme parks. Alton Towers and Thopre Park were packed to the point that I had to opt to purchase fast passes if I wanted to get on more than 4 rides between opening and closing each day. Its not like I even visited these parks at weekends. I always visit week days, and when all the kids are still at school.

Shortest coaster line at Thorpe was around 90 mins, and that was for Stealth (a 19 second ride running two cars). This was on a Wednesday in the middle of June!

Was at Disneyland in California 2 weeks ago. At a cost of around $110 for 1 days entry, you could not move in there. Same for Knotts Berry and Six Flags Magic Mountain. The economy in the USA is far worse than here, but people are still flooding to these places.

The point is, if a park has attractions that people want to go on, they will visit.

That's not to say that Loudoun was not a great park, but it was an aged park that could not really compete with the high technology thrills that people want today.

Maybe this is why the pleasure beach was so quiet, i didn't have to wait longer than 10 minutes to get on anything. Well anything that was up and running.