Leaderboard

The show was basically a sandwich, good stuff, bad stuff then good stuff. The one thing I didn't mind about it is that normies in Australia now know about both Action Park and Cedar Point

DW just shared this photo which would’ve been taken from this camera. I would assume that it’s capturing a time lapse too

I must say that the dark wall with the trees and what i think is spores looks like some sort of thing related to the show Stranger Things, Possibly something to do for this years halloween event? ,I doubt it though

My review - Ride Of Your Life was promoted as a behind the scenes look into the theme park industry but turned out, unsurprisingly for theme park enthusiasts who know Channel 7's reputation towards theme park news, as Ride For Your Life. First 15 minutes were great with a brief summary of roller coaster & theme park history but then Action Park (the infamous US amusement park) got a mention & it was all downhill from there. Completely biased towards the negative aspects of the theme park industry. Based on the comments above, it seems Natalie Barr's statement "You sell fear" (with emphasis on each word) is probably the words the general public think summed up the narrative the show is portraying. Ironic - given Channel 7 sold advertising time for & during this show which they told a biased 'fear theme parks' narrative during.

I’m at work so haven’t been able to watch it, I’ll get to it tomorrow, however it seems it is exactly what I thought it would be (and was 110% assured wouldn’t be the case)...

Come at me, I don’t care. But the housos and the slide incident part has me fuming. She’s out for a quick pay out and that’s it. Her daughter clearly didn’t follow the instructions which put her in danger of possible injury. Really shitty negative segment if you ask me.

Took some photos behind the walls at Trolls Village today. Is it just me or does the 'background' look 'new'? Anyone have any guesses as to what the theme could be? Could this be 'Winterville' for Winterfest?

Reality is my watching or not watching makes no difference to the ratinga, but I've been around too long to watch that sort of thing and I feel like the problem if I do. As a general rule, I try not to watch stuff which has an obvious bias to it, even if I agree with the bias.

@TimmyG There's a really strange undercurrent here of 'They are beating up the whole industry' and 'They should have gone harder on Village' which doesn't make sense given Village were specifically mentioned and praised for their safety standards in the TRRR report. You're kidding yourself if you think the coroner didn't know about what went on with GL, yet still praised them. Demanding blood in the media just comes across as very strange, particualy when it's pretty well reported here and elsewhere that the GL train in question had just been refurbished by S&S and was properly maintained to S&S standards. It's a design fault from the manufacturer, not anything the park did. If the report was about shoddy airline maintenance, you wouldn't be saying the media should focus on Lion Air because their 737 Max 8 crashed, and the reason you wouldn't is because it's totally unrelated to airline maintenance and has everything to do with a design flaw. Personally I didn't watch the report, fucked if I'm contributing to the ratings of that shite.

At first glance, I thought it was the background of a cold winter's night

Helicopters aren't exclusive to theme parks. It wouldn't have fitted the narrative. If they focussed on everyday items that don't exist outside theme parks, then their subject matter gets diluted. I can almost guarantee I can give you the winning lotto numbers, so to speak. That's a pretty bold claim bud. I'm not a big fan of some of his work, but the guy has been very successful in theme parks and entertainment. You're pretty narrow-sighted if you think he would have consented to an interview, on property, and allowed them to grill him. That doesn't mean that Village paid them off. If you've got anything beyond circumstantial evidence, i'd be interested in hearing it.

*opinion* The reality is mainstream media outlets such as channel 7 are always going to try create a storyline/angle that generates clicks and views. Thats the nature of their industry, and I fully understand why they need to do that to succeed. But surely, at a point, you've got to take a step back and ask yourself ''What the fuck are we actually doing?'' To market a product (the doco) as 'must watch' for families and an 'insight' into a relatively unseen industry and spit out that heinously bias tripe is just absolutely terrible. Unfortunately, and as we all know, freak accidents do happen at theme parks. They are incredibly sad, and i can't even begin to imagine how those affected feel and what they've been through. Incidents such as that of TRR and the Ghost train fire fall under this cloud, and i do believe it is important that we recognise the impact they've had both on the industry itself and the Australian people. In saying that though, blatant fear mongering and what in my opinion is abuse of the nature of these incidences for views is bang out of order. And just in case it wasn't obvious, i'd like to state that i'm in no way trying to detract or minimise the extent to which both accidents are utterly tragic and sorrowful in nature. For the most part, i thought the Action Park segment was fine. Realistically, that park was grossly mismanaged (even if the central theme of the park was seemingly unmitigated danger), and the crazy shit, for lack of better term, that happened there, was extremely influential on the industry as it quite literally set a benchmark for what safety standards are needed and what not to do. The TRRR segment was incredibly disappointing though imo. At a point, that is quite literally 5 years later, bringing up such a tragic event in a very biased and opinionative (rather than factual) manner doesn't seem to do anyone involved any sort of good. I did find it quite compelling to see who I Believe was a family member (mother?) of a few of the victims speak in the doco. The incident has left an unfathomable hole in her life that i couldn't relate to in the most primitive sense. If having her voice heard is something that aids in the healing process, if there could ever be one, i commend channel 7 for providing her with such a platform. It just seems a shame to me, by no fault of her own, that her genuine grief is seemingly exploited to construe that whole 'theme park is bad and super dangerous and they don't care' narrative rather than actually pay homage to such a terrible accident-4 people tragically losing their lives-and recognising the affect such incidences do have on people. If you're going to recount these things at a very public level, which i believe as a society is important, overdramatising and manipulating the nature of events to drive an exterior (and commercially motivated) narrative rather than memorialising those involved is just utterly immoral and putrid. The Fully 6 incident segment seemed a bit dodgy. It reeks of people attempting to milk a situation for a big payout. I'm no expert, but what I am is a 6'5 bloke who's ridden 'speed slides' similar to those involved. Seems hard to believe that someone of my stature can ride these slides, baring in mind i follow the *ride instructions*, and come off completely unscathed, yet someone half my size, who'd presumably travel with a lot less force and speed, comes out second best pool of water and walks away with horrific injuries. In saying that, if all was legit and she's genuinely done nothing wrong and had this accident, thats not good and a level of accountability has to fall on-get this-the manufacturer of the ride who designs how it runs and stipulates it's operating conditions. A little side note too, having kids chuck up gang signs on national telly never does your credibility a world of good. All in all, considering the doco promoted itself as an unprecedented look into an otherwise unseen industry, i was quite disappointed but not surprised to see it manifest into the shanty fear mongering campaign and misrepresentation of an already struggling industry in Australia that it was. Do a bit of proper journalism. Provide an objective and respectful representation of a topic. And-most importantly-just be better. 0/5 for immoral and improper journalism.

In my honest personal opinion it seemed like Natalie just wanted a to get on a plane and do the rounds then bag the shit out of DW just cause she was there reporting the incident when it happened. I can’t stop thinking they just wanted to put nails in the coffins of all the theme parks in Australia. After all the COVID crap and parks losing money, they’re all finally back on their feet and investing serious money, all for it to be potentially hurt by this rubbish negativity. That mole should be ashamed of herself. Go back to the morning show mate, you’re not 60 minutes material.

This reminds me of the simpsons episode titled “Homer Badman”… if you don’t know the episode, here’s a photo to remind you..

It would've been nice if they ended the show on a positive outlook into the future of our Australian parks. For example, the new upcoming attractions and seasonal events from both VRTP and Dreamworld... Instead of ending it on Natalie Barr contemplating her life after riding a rollercoaster and Grant Denyer talking about UFOs.

Just watched the programme and I'll say that it's pretty much what some of us were expecting. Deaths, more deaths, injuries, tears. But did they explain how the accidents/incidents occurred? Not at all. Just a whole lot of fingerpointing. The third party auditor was clearly used as a scapegoat for the 2016 DW tragedy, bloke explained that it was the safest ride in the park with no safety hazards or warnings detected, still got overshadowed by a family member of the victims. I'm not suggesting that Dreamworld had the greatest level of WHS considerations prior but still, some better contesting arguments could've been made. The WWW incident was just a money grab. The mother clearly knew that she could cash in and give her houso household an easy Maccas family feed off of the dollars. The Ghost Train fire. "The kids died!1! No we won't tell you what caused it because that woman at a competing news channel did it" was essentially what I'd summarise it as. In contrast however, the Big Dipper incident was somewhat fairly covered. The Ohio State Fair incident was also featured in a respectable light. Actual evidence was shown, and it was clearly the ride operator's fault for not providing the correct maintanence. Then they had the audiacity to not only parody the accidents mentioned, but pretty much contradict themselves by showing the last interview. The presentation with happy clown music and family-fair transitions really just ruined it. Obviously the woman interviewed (I can't remember her name regrettably) had been through some very traumatic amusement park occassions, and that's nothing against her. But it was the way they edited and presented it which annoyed me. Overall as someone who likes the theme park industry, though not having explicit knowledge about the history or rollercoaster factors in it, it was just an expected cash grab. I don't remember any VRTPs incidents being featured (GL, AA) so it was pretty much a straight rip into Dreamworld's reputation. Not surprising from a free-to-air TV channel. It's a hurtful bit of media which will probably hurt the chances for Aussie parks for many months to come - especially Dreamworld.

The track through the loop looks like it will be such a fun moment When it is such a nice day, the track colour is so vibrant And here is a look at the brake run

The brake run is installed. It’s just the reverse half pipe to go

Will most likely be the Big Top like previous years. Like the last 2 events there will be 3 scare mazes which can all fit inside the big top. If there were to be a different spot it would probably by the Hungry Horse. Mr Bowler was the theme from last year when he gained control of the worker's minds and turned them into puppets, so if he's using the same tactic you should probably watch out on the new job 😂 It looks like he's enlisted the help on 9 undead witches this year, so as much as it would be cool to see a backstory maze, the mazes are usually random themes that don't really tie in to the event theme. E.g: Last year the theme was the aforementioned Mr Bower, but the mazes wer Outback Butcher, Block 13 and DecayMart. That doesn't mean they won't do it this year, but it's decently unlikely. There's always one maze each year that blows you away and the others and just pretty good. Last year it was DecayMart and the year before it was Yokai. I really hope they bring back one of these cuz they were great. It looks like they're doing a theme of the number 13 for one of the mazes each year, like Block 13 and Ward 13, so we could expect another one of those. ONE LAST THING! Do not expect to get your socks blown off. It's a great event and the night rides are awesome, but unless you get scared really easily like me, it's not gonna be that scary. I would recommend going with all my being cuz it is SOOOOO much fun with mates, but it is definitely not as scary as they make it out to be. Sorry for the big post im very excited lol

They should probably give the garden a bit of a tidy up so you can actually see all the wonderful ‘theming’ Also, how long has the yellow/mustard villain that was above the archway been gone for?

I can 110% guarantee you are wrong.