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This is probably the testimony I've been most interested in reading about, and all I can say is wow. Now we see the real cause of the issue, not $25 an hour ride ops not pressing a button, what he have here is a fundamental failure of a person overseeing the park's rides. The head of engineering doesn't know how the rides work but is in the position to make judgment calls about them? If he doesn't know how the rides work then why on Earth would anyone have told him that there's a problem? Not like he can do anything with that info. He'd been at the park for 4 years, the fact he didn't know how to run the rides is either a lie to cover up the fact he knew it was fucked, or he is terrible at his job. What amazes me the most is he's still there. He's still not a qualified engineer. He still hasn't taken any steps to mitigate the fact he's not a qualified engineer. He seems like he thinks not knowing how to operate the rides is OK. Elsewhere in his testimony he says he wasn't sure who had the job of making sure the rides are safe. I'll give you a clue, Head of Engineering; its you. It's your department, you set the agenda. Your agenda didn't see you making the effort to get to know the rides you were managing. Had you have taken the smallest bit of interest you would have known the ride's control system was a mess. I have zero confidence in the safety of any rides he's in charge of, and to be honest I wouldn't trust him to change a tire on my car. He doesn't need to go because of PR, he needs to go because he's a danger to the community in his current role. I know on this forum we can get hung up on trivial stuff like 'the wall is ugly now the tree has been cut down' or 'drinks should be in meal deals' so important points can get lost. But here's the thing, this person was allowed to continue to be in a position of authority while having no idea about his area of responsibility and feeling no need the change that. Other staff have had problems with the computer systems and encountered 'push back' from Ardent about safety issues, but they were all people who legitimately tried to make it better before something happened. Right here is someone who straight up was the problem, and continues to be the problem. A bubble of pure incompetence at the top of the engineering food chain. I don't care who you are, you cannot fail that badly at a job and be given a second go at it.

You really can't compare the two. Cedar point works out to be about $110AUD at current exchange rates, for starters. Cedar Point has 17 operating coasters, compared to Movie World's 6. They had 3.6 million visitors in their 6 month season in 2017, an average of 19,000 people per day (based on 183 days). I cbf trying to locate MW's attendance (not on the wiki) but an article about a record attendance post-rivals opening cites 11,500 as a record for september attendance. Even if we assume that's an average for the whole year, it's half the attendance of CP, with less than half the big attractions to spread people around. It comes down to an economy of scale. With so few rides, and such slow operations, selling too many fasttracks would absolutely destroy their capacity. CP can afford to have many more fast passes sold, because they have more rides to spread the load around on. MW's pricepoint isn't just about making money. It used to be cheaper - and so many annual passholes complained when they lifted the price - because they would regularly buy the fasttrack (since admission was "free"), which made it harder for everyone else. Regular visitors aren't the market for fast track - it is targeted at people making a once in a lifetime (or at least a rare) visit to the park, who have limited time to spend in park and want to get everything done. If your price makes it viable for regular guests to buy every time, it's too cheap, which is why it was increased in the first place. I'd suggest the reduction is a recognition that they perhaps went too high, and so they're coming back down to see what impact it has on conversion. If they start selling out again, maybe this is too low. If they still have many available every day, then perhaps they can reduce it further. TL:DR - it's not a joke. its a clear example of responding to various market pressures whilst trying to find the best balance for your customers. Afterthought - @Richard can we add "passhole" to the forum dictionary (like SBNO) to define a passhole as "a self entitled annual passholder that thinks the park owes them some sort of special treatment just because they're an annual pass holder."

Why bunch all the screens into such a small corner? Look how much space there is! Spread them out a little. Also Jet Rescue's exit being awful does not excuse this. It's pretty poor. Sorry just trying to get back to normal by having a rage about something that doesn't really matter after raging about something that very much does.

In all honesty, you do a better job that all these apparent “court reporters” that I’m surprised the GC Bulletin don’t stalk this thread for their tweets...

Mr Timothy Tracker https://youtu.be/CPZqjmACQ4k

And now DW have a CEO who has never worked in a theme park. Ardent are incapable of learning from past failures.

Officially sacking @Jdude95 as our Official Court Reporter.... David Randall, the managing director of DRA Safety Specialists, told an inquest in to the disaster Dreamworld’s safety systems were not reassuring when he was first engaged by the business in 2013. He said he told the Ardent Leisure Board three years before the 2016 disaster that the company would be on perilous ground in the case of a tragedy. “As I said to the board at the time, if we had an accident we would not have had the body of evidence to demonstrate we had carried out due diligence,” he said. “There was a (safety) system in place but it wasn’t great. “There was a system but you could run a steamroller through it at that particular time.” He said there was a resistance to change, very poor safety system ideals and staff were concerned primarily with watching each other’s backs. He said many theme park rides had the same level of risk as commercial aircraft. “If we make a mistake there could be just as many fatalities as with an aircraft,” he said. UPDATE 11.15am: A SAFETY auditor engaged by Dreamworld three years before the Thunder River Rapids tragedy has told an inquest safety systems were so bad prior to his arrival he would not have let his own children go on the park’s rides. David Randall, the managing director of safety specialists DRA, told the inquest he had major concerns with Dreamworld’s systems when he first started working with the park on a safety audit in 2013 – three years before the 2016 disaster that claimed four lives. “Even though staff were competent … the rides weren’t maintained to a standard where I would place my own children on them – and I love my children,” he said. After initially receiving a score of just 41 per cent on a safety audit, Mr Randall said Dreamworld was making progress and was ‘committed to the process’ of improvement. UPDATE 10.50am: A SAFETY audit carried out at Dreamworld three years before the Thunder River Rapids tragedy found the park severely wanting. In the audit, carried out by leading firm DRA Safety Specialists, Dreamworld scored just 41.7 per cent. A ‘fully compliant’ business would require a score of 75 per cent. The audit concluded there was no evidence the rides had been inspected to comply with manufacturer’s requirements and there had been no formal risk management process applied. It also found little evidence of ride induction and several other forms of staff training including work at height and confined space training, while some records had been lost or thrown in the bin. The audit measured Dreamworld’s systems and procedures rather than physical inspections of actual rides.

Meanwhile our parks are winning prizes for designing a hat 😅

Here's some information that you may find useful: A list of all exhibitor press conferences (details exhibitor names mainly) Exhibitor product videos (only 12) IAAPA Attractions Expo press release detailing all (already announced) new products being exhibited

You definitely need to get back there, the twitter updates from the press aren't doing it at the moment.

Unrelated fun fact but Greg was the first person trained on Rivals so that he could also assist with staff training. It's a completely different ball game just down the road at DW. Also, update for everyone. I've been in and out of meetings this week so I haven't been able to make it much to the inquest but my week next week is looking more free so i'm hoping to be there for as much of it as I can.

If this was the case, why wouldn't he had clarified his position yesterday. The Coroner James McDougall even stopped the the questioning and said " I am puzzled to know why you didn’t know these things seeing you are general manager of engineering,” Mr Deaves said, “You don’t get out to drive them and operate them quite often, you rely on feedback for that". “If you were to ask me these questions on any device I would be giving a similar answer.” I understand Mr Deaves was only an administrator but, but, but & but how can an administrator make the correct calls if he doesn’t know what is required? How does Mr Deaves know the the feedback his getting is correct or google gaga?

Notice the sign referring to 'Planet Square'? Does this mean the area of the rollercoaster's outdoor portion is now called 'Planet Square'? I do agree the exit looks like a "waste of space" but like @AlexB said credit to them for at least theming the exit. They just need to justify the lack of earthquake damage but like @themagician suggested, that is an easy solution to make. Maybe to liven up the exit and reinforce the theme in the exit just a little bit more they could add TV screens showing a loop of TV coverage of Superman's rescue of the MRT train, timed so the critical part is shown when guests hop off the ride?: As the train leaves the station, the TV is covered with static. This lasts 60 seconds, at which point the train should launch. The static is then replaced with a 'breaking news' bulletin. It shows the hosts explaining the situation to the audience whilst showing 'live' footage of damage from the earthquake such as a burst water main near the entry of a subway and a collapsed road with 2 police cars in it (referring to events seen on the ride's indoor portion). This lasts 30 seconds. The news bulletin concludes with 'live' footage of Superman bringing an MRT train into another (presumably safe) MRT station. This last 20 seconds and imitates the rollercoaster's brake run and exit station arrival. Superman then does a quick interview for the TV channel before flying away. The TV channel also quickly interviews a passenger of the MRT train. This is all shown as guests leave the ride. The hosts then return the channel back to 'live' coverage of a baseball game held in another far-away city. The baseball game footage lasts however long it needs to. The TV loop then restarts when the ride leaves the main station causing a reference to the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake.