is chis available? Hi, I am going to London next week and I would like
to know how the madame tussauds corporation is doing...Why did they
close rock circus?
I would like to open a car racing themed theme park venue as a London
attraction. Why did the millenium dome fail?

I'll leave this to the appropriate people to answer officially, but
I'll pass on a few opinions as to the millennium dome.

Firstly, it didn't fail.

It was the highest attended tourist attraction of the year by a long
way. Many visitors spoke highly of it. Many went more than once. Under
almost any circumstances it would be termed a wild success.

However the government stuck it with entirely unreasonable targets
that it was never going to reach. Therefore it could be and was
branded a failure, through absolutely no fault of its own.

Poe

Really...What was the experience llike? did you go? was there a ticket
price? are there pictures of it somewhere? What was effective about
it/ what was the draw?

Hi Nomisi,

I didn't actually visit myself, though I do live in England. The
ticket price was £20 though this was probably discounted for school
trips and such like. I've read that a million people got in free.

Apparently, final attendance figures for the 2000 year were 6.5m of
which only 750,000 were foreign tourists. This suggests that one in
ten Britons attended during a single year. It was the top attraction
in the country that charged an admission fee, with the London Eye
following in second place with merely 3.3m visitors.

Daily Telegraph: Dome was the top attraction
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2002/01/09/nbul09.xml

It even competed well against free attractions, with only Blackpool
Pleasure Beach reaching more visitors at 6.8m. Note that the Dome
charged £20 for entry.

National Statistics: Visits to the Most Popular Tourist Attractions, 2000-2001
http://www.statistics.gov.uk/STATBASE/ssdataset.asp?vlnk=6491

All this would suggest a massive success. However as the government's
target for visitors started at 12 million, then dropped gradually to
10m and then to 7m, the 6.5m figure made it a failure. Also incredible
mismanagement by the government led to it costing such an obscene sum
that no amount of visitors could have made it break even.

The following Wikipedia article covers this reasonably well.

Wikipedia: Millennium Dome
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Dome

In fact the government only really succeeded with the London Eye,
which has become a world-renowned landmark. The Millennium Bridge
fared even less well than the Dome, having to be closed immediately
after it was opened.

According to the following BBC news story, most visitors were very
happy with the customer service they received at the Millennium Dome.

BBC News: Visitors hail Dome service
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/628256.stm

Note that this high rating dates from a mere month after opening,
which was when most teething troubles were apparent, some of which are
described below:

BBC News: Compensation for Dome debacle
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/599053.stm

I hope this is all of interest, though it hardly answers your question.

Poe

wow...poe ga...thx for all the gret info...wow what a head start...I
am leaving for London tomorrow and will read these on the plane...If
you have any more feedback re: successful or not succesful tourist
attractions in england..
I am open...
thx