Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

The Save Dreamland Campaign was launched by Joyland Books in January 2003 and is now supported by several thousand people. This is the place to discuss all aspects of saving Margate's famous amusement park and its iconic , Grade II listed Scenic Railway, Britain's oldest roller coaster.

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Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby porf » 16 Sep 2016, 13:26

From their twitter feed (@pinballparlour) it would appear that the vintage arcade machines are to be removed after the administrators invoked a contract clause to remove them.

Seems an odd idea to me, the vintage machines are one of the more popular photos to appear on social media and in turn promote the park.

The machines fit perfectly with the idea of a retro/vintage/heritage park.

With this on top of the Scenic's issue I wonder if it's time the Trust commented?
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Re: Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby smilerbaker » 16 Sep 2016, 15:20

its time someone did! its the end of the season, so cashflow now is going to be, tight, shall we say.

I can only see 2 reasons why they would do this,

new 'owner' is standing by and wants it vacant (unlikely)

its about to be folded, boarded up, and they are actually doing them a favour
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Re: Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby Bob » 16 Sep 2016, 17:52

smilerbaker wrote:its time someone did! its the end of the season, so cashflow now is going to be, tight, shall we say.

I can only see 2 reasons why they would do this,

new 'owner' is standing by and wants it vacant (unlikely)

its about to be folded, boarded up, and they are actually doing them a favour



The administrators have ruled out it being sold as a going concern. The only logic to this is they are clearing the site in preparation for selling off the assets. The only real asset being the lease. Up until the creditors meeting Dreamland had still been making a loss at best I would suspect that since then it may have broken even but with the high season now over it will be back to making a loss. Pretty much the only cash Dreamland had is the £600,000 it got from Arrow Grass and I suspect it may have burnt through most of that once that money has gone it will be forced to close unless it can find a mug yo lend it more money

The indication from the creditors meeting was that Dreamland would continue to trade until at least the end of the school holidays in the hope of generating some revenues for the creditors. I suspect this has not worked out to well

One hope is that the Council in return for a change of use for most of the site will ant a small fargrounf retained. It would probably only be the Senic and a few other rides
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Re: Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby kevin » 16 Sep 2016, 21:39

"Auditors question ‘long term viability’ of Dreamland amusement park in Margate after £1.2m overspend"

http://www.kentnews.co.uk/business/audi ... _1_4699043
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Re: Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby pinballparlour » 12 Oct 2016, 11:19

As one of the owners of the Vintage Arcade I can confirm that we were required to vacate the Park following Duff and Phelps' invoking a clause in our contract that stated "the contract may be terminated if one or the other of the parties becomes insolvent.
This clause was clearly inserted to offer protection to a solvent party (ie in this case - us) to be able to rid itself of a contract with an insolvent company(ie in this case Sands). Duff and Phelps have utilised that to get rid of us following a series of disagreements over the Summer. It has nothing to do with financial viability, just Ben Wiles flexing his muscle behind the laws of insolvency that seem to give the administrators the right to do what the hell they want, with no one having any right over their actions.
Briefly, they asked us to move to the new part of the buildings when they came on stream, promising us that if we did the interconnecting doors would be opened to create a proper through path to our area "within 2 weeks" (their promise!!) It took all summer and cost us thousands in lost revenue, which we complained about. We had to make threatening noises to get them to even begin to do the necessary works. Then after finally getting this done (which resulted in our turnover rising by 120%) they told us we had to move everything to make way for the building of Screamland. We took exception to this but reluctantly agreed, re-located our machines as requested, and were issued with the notice to quit the day after, and given 7 days to vacate.
D & P said over the phone that "we didn't fit in with their vision of Dreamlands future, but wouldn't put it in writing when asked. Their official reason for booting us off was that they "couldn't meet with the obligations required under the terms of the contract". Total hogwash as all we had was an area otherwise unused, and a few power sockets. We supplied the machines, manning, change machine, maintenance. all Sands/D&P had to do was to count the takings and retain their share.
This is the same company that has already billed almost £250,000 up to July!!
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Re: Vintage amusement machines forced out by administrators

Postby smilerbaker » 12 Oct 2016, 13:16

well I'd say you are best out of it, better then turning up one morning to find the doors locked and all your machines stuck inside
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