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Thorpe Park | Hyperia | Mack Hyper Coaster | 2024

Thorpe Park have fully confirmed the length of Hyperia, this length will make it the park’s longest coaster. Thorpe’s former longest was Colossus at 849.996m, Hyperia at 995.4m is 145.404m longer.
 
The artist revealing his work!

Thorpe Park on Instagram: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This fina

9,532 likes, 209 comments - thorpeparkofficial on March 7, 2024: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This final piece...
www.instagram.com

Even signs it at the end
 
spicy said:
The artist revealing his work!

Thorpe Park on Instagram: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This fina

9,532 likes, 209 comments - thorpeparkofficial on March 7, 2024: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This final piece...
www.instagram.com

Even signs it at the end
Click to expand...
I’m really pleased to hear him mention the ‘most weightless’ record… Time to actually get the UK industry thinking about airtime!!!
 
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spicy said:
The artist revealing his work!

Thorpe Park on Instagram: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This fina

9,532 likes, 209 comments - thorpeparkofficial on March 7, 2024: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This final piece...
www.instagram.com

Even signs it at the end
Click to expand...
Where was the spoiler warning please?
 
spicy said:
The artist revealing his work!

Thorpe Park on Instagram: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This fina

9,532 likes, 209 comments - thorpeparkofficial on March 7, 2024: "We’re thrilled to announce that yesterday, after months of construction and over 5,292 man hours to assemble to date, the team used a 500-tonne crane to lift the 92nd and final piece of Hyperia track into place!🎢 This final piece...
www.instagram.com

Even signs it at the end
Click to expand...
Artist.. Yeah right
 
As much respect and admiration as I have for John, it does seem like he's rather quickly becoming a poster boy for ALL the projects produced by the hundreds of MMM team members.

Of course many of us, me included will be looking on with a touch of jealousy for having these opportunities. Let's be frank, spending years designing what is objectively going to be an at least, top 3 coaster in the UK is a pretty awesome feat... but I do wonder (if at all) when will the candidness kick in? It would be really great to see some other team members championed for their often more significant contributions.
 
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toofpikk said:
As much respect and admiration as I have for John, it does seem like he's rather quickly becoming a poster boy for ALL the projects produced by the hundreds of MMM team members.
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I suppose this has pretty much always been the case. Before John Burton, John Wardley had the same role when it came to handling the PR side.

That said, I do agree it'd be nice to know more about the other people who've worked on these projects. That's one of the things I like about the documentaries from the 'Euro Theme Park Archive', he goes out of his way to track down many of the previously unknown people who made big impacts on the parks.

It's a shame that it's taken so long for someone to start documenting our classic attractions. Some of the people who worked on them have already passed away, like Keith Sparks, who had a massive impact on the European theme park industry in the early days and yet many enthusiasts today have probably never heard of him. ETPA is currently working on a book about Keith so hopefully that'll help to raise awareness of his work.
 
toofpikk said:
As much respect and admiration as I have for John, it does seem like he's rather quickly becoming a poster boy for ALL the projects produced by the hundreds of MMM team members.

Of course many of us, me included will be looking on with a touch of jealousy for having these opportunities. Let's be frank, spending years designing what is objectively going to be an at least, top 3 coaster in the UK is a pretty awesome feat... but I do wonder (if at all) when will the candidness kick in? It would be really great to see some other team members championed for their often more significant contributions.
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Is this not the same thing that Merlin/Tussauds did with Wardley back in the day though? He was turned into the poster boy, the mad creator designing insane rides, and created a brand of sorts.

Thorpe did something similar with Candy Holland when Saw opened; she was the 'creator' of the ride in press releases, building it up like it was all her brainchild. You could even say that's how they treated Derren Brown for Ghost Train.

No doubt things are different in the 15-30 years since then, but it seems to be a very common Merlin tactic to have a singular face for major projects.
 
^ John Wardley always comes across as an extremely humble guy. I know social media and every little detail of a theme park project being put online wasn't as prevelant during his time but coaster plans, images taken over fences etc were getting posted onto coaster forums and he never seemed to have any issue with it.

There's a fine line between being the poster boy and passing off other peoples work as mostly your own which he has to tread carefully and I think John Burtons infamous tweet referring to himself as an artist being disrespected and he will share his work when he is ready was very pretentious and didn't do himself any favours when treading that line.

Wish him all the best though he has got an incredible job most of us would love and if he personally designed that first drop then he is indeed an artist.
 
spicy said:
There's a fine line between being the poster boy and passing off other peoples work as mostly your own which he has to tread carefully and I think John Burtons infamous tweet referring to himself as an artist being disrespected and he will share his work when he is ready was very pretentious and didn't do himself any favours when treading that line.
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Yup that does sound a little pretentious but in fairness to him, it’s worth remembering that very few people come across ‘well’ on twitter. The sort of ‘posting’ it encourages is ‘black and white’ and emotive praising or whinging, in either case over-sharing. And once it’s up it’s up. I’m not immune - I’d be a right menace.

The noise is addictive. I actually found myself browsing twitter once when bored just to try and find opinions that would annoy me. I caught myself and thought… uh, wtf am I doing with my free time?!

If anyone finds themselves being bothered by (or otherwise forming an opinion of) anyone on twitter, I’d highly recommend logging out and embracing the sweet freedom of ‘not sharing’ and ‘not knowing / caring what people are thinking all the time’ \o/

It’s so… peaceful 😌
 
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When are people betting on this being open? Supposedly staff onsite have claimed the project is "still on track" for a Spring opening - that said, that's a pretty wide window and there looks to be quite some work left to go. Desperate to ride this thing ASAP, but equally I remember The Smiler's opening sufficiently well to be concerned by the thought of a rush job.
 
NemesisRider said:
When are people betting on this being open? Supposedly staff onsite have claimed the project is "still on track" for a Spring opening - that said, that's a pretty wide window and there looks to be quite some work left to go. Desperate to ride this thing ASAP, but equally I remember The Smiler's opening sufficiently well to be concerned by the thought of a rush job.
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I’m thinking May myself. On Thorpe Park’s own posted timelines, the ride should begin testing at the end of March (they recently stated that it would begin testing around 3 weeks after track completion, which happened on Wednesday 6th March). May would give them a good month or so to test it, as well as to build the queue, finish off the landscaping and such.
 
If I see a photo on here from today of Hyperia from the M25 M3 overbridge I'll be very cross. Slowing down from 70 to 40 to then lean over to take a photo on your phone is insane.

I really hope it wasn't anyone on here!!
 
Tonkso said:
If I see a photo on here from today of Hyperia from the M25 M3 overbridge I'll be very cross. Slowing down from 70 to 40 to then lean over to take a photo on your phone is insane.

I really hope it wasn't anyone on here!!
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I haven't seen the photo you're alluding to, but couldn't it easily have been taken by a passenger riding in the back seat? That's not unsafe, seeing as that person wouldn't be the one controlling the car.
 
Single occupant, I was behind him and moved to overtake. It's only as I passed them that I realised they were taking the photo.

Absolutely disgraceful driving. Despite what I said earlier, I can't imagine anyone on here is that stupid. Just shocked me to be honest, the utter disregard for safety on such a busy bit of road. I'm really excited for the ride, but I'm not going to do something dumb like that, and I trust that all of us here are the same.
 
Tonkso said:
Single occupant, I was behind him and moved to overtake. It's only as I passed them that I realised they were taking the photo.

Absolutely disgraceful driving. Despite what I said earlier, I can't imagine anyone on here is that stupid. Just shocked me to be honest, the utter disregard for safety on such a busy bit of road. I'm really excited for the ride, but I'm not going to do something dumb like that, and I trust that all of us here are the same.
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Ah, OK... that does sound rather unsafe. And quite possibly illegal given that you aren't allowed to use a mobile phone behind the wheel...
 
You'll have to forgive a bit of a link dump, but during a BTS tour I got to see a bit more of Hyperia and some fun facts...

Some views of the site.
SRQ is confirmed.

The ride will be complete in the next day or two, weather dependent, with trains arriving on site this week.

The exterior of the station building is complete. It was heavily suggested there will be some cool dispatch sequence in the station.

No on board audio

Hyperia is easily seen across the whole resort.

There will be a backstory to the ride. Not clear whether it's just a short piece they've written to appease geeks, or whether it will be conveyed in the area / queue line. It's fairly basic. I can't share what it is sadly, but yeah, it's a simple story. The ride doesn't need it anyways.

In terms of the viewing area. This was planned but has been cut because it was later realised that it would require a lot of fencing which would ultimately distract from the whole area and the view.

The ride's camera point will either be at the bottom of the first drop or prior to the splash effect.

One final thing. The early thoughts for Hyperia were coming together in April 2020. The ride was approved by the old Merlin exec (ie Nick Varney, etc). This means that Hyperia is a sort of hybrid of Merlin philosophies, old and new. Had it been a 'new Merlin' project, it's possible that things might have been a bit different, with more theming / styling present.
 
JoshC. said:
The ride will be complete in the next day or two, weather dependent, with trains arriving on site this week.

It was heavily suggested there will be some cool dispatch sequence in the station.
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That's great to hear about the imminent arrival of the trains and the suggested dispatch sequence. As you can see below Hyperia has also been confirmed to have a front row queue (as well as all the other info. I know not all of it is relevant to Hyperia but I thought you guys would find it interesting regardless.)

Screenshot 2024-03-10 211100.pngScreenshot 2024-03-10 211142.pngScreenshot 2024-03-10 211209.png
 
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