Richard

I'd argue that Sea World caters for ~4-8 very well between Nickelodeon Land, Castaway Bay/Reef and the animal exhibits/shows. Of course then there's many other shortcomings there. And their IP isn't as, ahem, "hip". I'd also argue that $10 million spent at Movie World shoring up the 4-8 gap would be the best money they could spent. Had Doomsday been a few good family flat rides instead of one lacklustre thrill ride, this almost wouldn't be a discussion we'd be having. This is the inherent flaw in the annual pass model and why it's perhaps been so easy for Dreamworld to coast: they're never in danger of competing with themselves. Sea World focusing on younger kids and Movie World on teens has left both parks lacking. Even though "95 rides and attractions" is a solid selling point for annual passes, it doesn't translate as an experience for anyone other than tourists visiting all within a short period of time. It also highlights the dearth of family rides at all our parks. There's so little on offer anywhere that appeals to everyone.

I'll absolutely concede (and did in the article) that the sheer breadth of rides and hip IP in one place aimed at young children is unmatched. Quality and presentation is another matter, though hardly relevant to a four year old so long as they're on something that spins or hugging a character they recognise. When looked at through the prism of a two-park (DW/WWW) versus three/four-park (MW, SW, WNW + PC) annual pass I do firmly believe the offering for every age bracket doesn't stack up in quantity nor quality and at the end of the day, but of course there's a lot to be said for for the geographical/all-in-one convenience of Dreamworld. The main question is whether there's a sound business model for a theme park of the size of Dreamworld to only be pretty good with young kids' attractions. I think there's a misnomer that these are family attractions; in my view they appeal to young families and little else, and there's a reason you don't see Disney or other operators relying heavily on them... because they're not money spinners in the same way that true "3 to 93" family attractions are.

VRL was never $14.95... something's awry in those Google numbers. They were around $5 at the time of the incident. Ardent is a company that has sold every other asset and sunk everything into the high-growth Main Event. The market wrote off the entire value of Dreamworld when the incident occurred so there has been no need for the market to "punish" them every time they've released dismal trading updates. To put it another way, no one is invested in Ardent Leisure because they see Dreamworld in the company's future. Village on the other hand have their finger in many different under-baked pies and have a lot more opportunities to disappoint investors. They're hurting now because every division is struggling and they don't have the balance sheet to weather it.

If you want to go down this path of selling soundly performing parks then Sea World is far and away the better candidate for sale: it's in a bit of a predicament in terms of direction, faces something of a PR/image problem, it's geographically separated from the other parks and is surrounded by land that has been earmarked for development with no firm plan in place. Wet'n'Wild Gold Coast prints money. It's historically one of the best performing water parks in the world and seasonality aside it operates at a higher margin than any of the other Gold Coast parks. Certainly their stake in WnW Las Vegas will go given it's their lone USA park and their other remaining international operations are now essentially management deals without equity.

"You can't quote the post above" has never been a rule or convention we've encouraged. Quoting the post above is fine. Just use it selectively and don't quote excessively large blocks of text/images. In this case it's an entire topic devoted to random thoughts and there's hardly a flow of discussion. It makes logical sense in this context.

Good call... I dug through it all and $80 million was the estimate when it was announced, "125-130 million" was the expected cost in the FY2013 annual report. For what it's worth too, the first season had EBITDA of $14.5 million and profit before tax of $9.5 million. They sold $20-odd million worth of annual passes that first season, which was surely the biggest single mistake they made and a large piece of the puzzle for how we ended up with today's (rather predictable) announcement.

There is nothing fundamentally wrong with Wet'n'Wild Sydney. Village Roadshow simply aren't in a position to be able to invest the time, capital and corporate/cultural changes it requires. Across the board Village are in a dire situation and need to be shedding debt and loss-making ventures. For $40-odd million this is a fairly safe bet for any company with experience in the theme park industry. Parques Reunidos have expanded globally quite aggressively despite falling under the radar compared to say Merlin. It's really not as left-field as you'd think. And you'd have to imagine that they're one of a number of companies very closely watching Dreamworld and have been in discussion with Ardent at various times.

Like said, we don't want these sorts of open-ended "mega threads".

What marketing are you referring to that you like? Because there's not much of anything resembling a cohesive marketing strategy at play here. I don't think calling it a flying theatre helps them. It's still a term completely unknown to the wider population, and a "theatre" hardly conjures up imagery of an exciting ride. They're building a ride that no amount of photos, videos or descriptions will do justice to. For all of the great things you can say about this kind of attraction, Dreamworld have their work cut out for them in terms of selling the concept.

They're not looking. Ardent don't need a group CEO because they have no strategic requirements beyond keeping Dreamworld barely ticking along until they find a buyer, freeing them up to sell off the remaining Main Event in either an IPO or a private equity deal at a premium on the share price.

There's a Brooklyn Depot at South Bank too @AlexB. Alright food. Clever gimmick of hiring mostly young USA students/backpackers as wait staff so you get an authentic experience, albeit without the service quality that you only get from America's tipping culture.

@Skeeta, it would presumably have something to do with Brewster Inc. (operators of FlyOver Canada) registering Flyover in Australia a couple of weeks after this article was published. Methinks lawyers spoke to lawyers and kindly asked that Ardent Leisure yank their application rather than both companies going through a costly appeal/arbitration process that Ardent would certainly lose. I wouldn't necessarily rule out a licensing arrangement given Dreamworld's penchant for leaning on other brands.

Yeah the watering down of the new deli menu was a big step back. The sandwiches on offer like the Reuben were authentic and as good as you'd find at any bar or cafe serving this style of American food. The lazy answer is they didn't find much of an audience for this style of food in a theme park setting, but you also never see much of a crowd there ordering the usual fare of pies and premade wraps/sandwiches so you tend to wonder if the venue just doesn't get the foot traffic and promotion it should. I think ideally it should have been built as an extension of the coffee shop where it'd be a much better companion outlet than the pointless combination of a modern deli next to Ben & Jerry's. No objections to the prices VRTP charge for F&B generally speaking -- it should be premium prices -- but I think they are incredibly foolish to not be modernising their staples. They don't exist in a bubble and McDonalds are no longer the benchmark; every major shopping centre foodcourt offers ample high quality, modern and fresh fast food. The burgers on offer, even at seemingly premium outlets like Dockside Tavern run the gamut from average to embarassing. The business model for the parks relies on repeat visits; I suspect bean counters are happy so long as the key outlets are doing good business with little regard for the fact that other would-be major outlets are almost always shut, operate for reduced hours or simply under-perform. Someone probably met a KPI by shaving a few cents off the cost per serve with those cardboard fries. All the while there's countless TripAdvisor reviews urging people to steer clear of the food on offer. And then how many passholders quietly decide "never again" on a daily basis?

As good a time as any to wrap things up here. This thread has more than run its course. Feel free to carry on discussion at the below links: Gold Rush demolition: https://www.parkz.com.au/forums/topic/8186-gold-rush-demolition-at-dreamworld/ Dreamworld Corroboree works: https://www.parkz.com.au/forums/topic/8187-dreamworld-corroboree-stage-2/ Remember, no mega-topics. Don't be afraid to start a new topic to talk about new things major or minor!

To reiterate @Skeeta's point -- let's keep insults and personal remarks out of it. It's an interesting topic of discussion and one I'd like to see continue in a mature fashion. I am curious @iwerks, given your knowledge of the park and Perth in general. In what sense is Adventure World fundamentally different from the Gold Coast parks? What market conditions or other factors do you see allowing the park to maintain this pace of investment and development?

Perhaps the only truly interesting thing to come out today isn't the half-year results, but rather the separately announced appointment of a CEO for Main Event in the USA. What stands out is this long-term incentive as part of his contract: Whereas other executives at Ardent Leisure have long term incentives that are in the form of securities (or previously cash equivalent for US-based executives), Chris Morris has a cash incentive that is based on the value increase of Main Event should it either be sold or listed as a separate company in an IPO. In pure and simple terms, they now have a CEO of their USA operations whose long-term goal is to sell the business. Read into that and their commitment to Dreamworld however you want... (The other interesting part is that he comes from California Pizza Kitchen, who in my experience are about the only USA pizza chain that does a decent pizza.)

An investor asked that very question this morning and Gary Weiss's answer was that it's not a "top priority at the moment". They have a lot of things that aren't a top priority at the moment it seems...

Nothing really new about that. This inane written-by-committee "opinion piece" fails to capture anything resembling actual commitment, let alone excitement or passion about the future of the park.

A lease arrangement tied to ridership or overall attendance isn't that unheard of in the theme park industry. Do you think Movie World were paying the same amount for the rights to Shrek 4D as Universal Studios? Plenty of ways to make such an arrangement work for a single-price theme park. @Skeeta if there were a different simulator ride planned initially then it's quite possible that a deposit was paid before the i-Ride fell into their laps. If that's the case then it makes perfect sense to simply delay this project rather than scrap it completely.

Prior to the Dreamworld announcement, Brogent were the ones spending ~$30 million bringing the concept to Brisbane. Brogent have referred to Dreamworld as their 'operating partner'. Dreamworld have referred to Brogent as a 'core partner'. Brogent has leasing and profit share arrangements with some i-Ride operators around the world. This is almost certainly what they were planning for Brisbane when Dreamworld jumped in and ostensibly became the home for that project. It's unlikely Ardent are spending a whole lot of their own capital on this ride.

A really cursory search tells me that the total posts talking about Topgolf to date exceeds the total posts about every other non-theme park VRTP offering combined... ever. Granted it's more physically present than these other attractions and its initial construction got caught up in Rivalsmania, but I think the hype and interest it's garnered from enthusiasts is curiously different from every other non-park attraction before.

I think it's a genuine question and I don't see anyone saying that theme park fans or pages are wrong for being interested in this. I do think it's an interesting topic because even other nearby VRTP offerings like Paradise Country, Australian Outback Spectacular, Wet'n'Wild Buggy don't get much mention in this community. Granted Topgolf certainly has more of an appeal to this audience than PC or AOS, but things like WnW Buggy seem like they'd be a fit too. Or the indoor go-kart joint just across the road that has a zipline coaster for that matter. For what it's worth, the driving range at Victoria Park in Brisbane is modern, licensed, two levels and features (albeit unsophisticated) targets. They don't have the private booths or the technology which are obviously at the core of the social experience of Topgolf but I'd argue the fundamental concept (drinks and whacking balls at things with mates) isn't as novel as it might seem. Topgolf just package it into a very schmick experience. And it's American. Ignoring theme park fans for a second I do feel like there's a cultural trend at play where Australians visit America once and then return to brag about the things they did and tried before their mates. In the same way that decidedly average US fast food chains like Taco Bell or Carls Jr are taking off here, I feel like Topgolf is riding the current wave of anything American to some extent. That isn't to say it's not a valid reason to be excited about it, but it's undoubtedly part of the bigger picture. I'm looking forward to it because of how it aligns a number of my personal interests. Quality American food (hopefully), good beers (hopefully) and golf. Despite the proximity and ownership I don't see any inherent theme park connection. That said it's been covered on Parkz a bit and I certainly plan to do more. If group events were our thing I'd probably be more keen for an afternoon/evening at Topgolf (18+, first round on us, no one's driving home are the rules) than say a day at a park.

We cover all manner of stuff on this website that is utterly boring to 99% of the population. At the end of the day this is an article that was thrown together because it is something of minor consequence to talk about in an otherwise quiet week. It's a niche audience within a niche audience that would be into this and it's not a topic we'd make a habit of covering regularly so it was left at a level that would be interesting for anyone that willingly reads beyond the hyperlinks to the two websites. The payoff -- for you, me or this website -- just isn't there if we made this piece web design 101, compared with say roller coaster construction techniques for dummies. Be sure to do up a list of big, confusing words every time we cover something financial because we never explain things like EBITDA, the inner workings of the stock exchange or annual general meetings for the poor mums and dads.

That's entirely the point. We're backing this with our track record. Feel free to disagree, but like I said, I'm pretty confident that history will vindicate this one like it has so many times before. That's because your point is complete nonsense. A Google search for whiplash headrest yields countless diagrams of "incorrect" headrests placed at precisely the same point as the bar on the boats. Restraining the neck while allowing free rotation of the head is just poor design on a ride where collisions from behind are normal and riders will frequently move, and often suddenly contort themselves to avoid getting wet. What does it tell you beyond the fact that I have made a decision based on my personal experiences? I'm sure you wouldn't go back to a cafe that serves lousy coffee or a mechanic that leaves your brakes squeaking. Using industry knowledge and connections all around the world for the purposes of writing articles is a little different from a gut feeling that I choose to express in particularly measured terms.

I'll just give you a non-answer about how Sea World's lineup of kids' attractions is formidable between Nickelodeon Land, Castaway Bay and The Reef and that the overall presentation and quality is of a much higher standard.