DaptoFunlandGuy

What you describe makes it sound like they'll never leave the $99 price point. But price increases are inevitable. Scenario 1 Village: We're charging $99 for a yearly pass! Everyone: Sold! Scenario 2 Village: We're increasing the price of our yearly passes! Everyone: I AM OUTRAGED! Scenario 3 Village: We're keeping a $99 pass! Everyone: YAY! Village: but you get a little less. Everyone: Awww. Village: but you can get a little more if you pay a little extra! Everyone: Hmmm. I'll consider whether I value those extras for the extra cost, but I guess I can still pay what i've always paid for a YEARS worth of entertainment if I don't think the extras are worth it! I haven't attended fright nights in at least 4-5 years. I've been to white christmas once in the past 6 years. I went to the first Carnivale. So night events aren't really a big interest for me right now. But i'd still be spending $309 on the top tier in my previous post for the value and inclusions I mentioned earlier - even if I didn't go to night events. The point is, just because YOU don't think other people will see value in things, doesn't mean they don't. Because to you, I am 'other people' and I see value in it. Pre-2008, clearly that pricing model worked. 2008 was GFC time. The parks needed to drive visitation. But they waited too long in the race to the bottom that everyone got used to the idea and now they're stuck there. The only way to get out of the hole they've dug is to lift it up again despite whatever backlash they get, until people get used to the new normal. Do the bean counters rely on government grants to build infrastructure and attractions in all theme parks these days?

Good. I've said it before. Put simply, those who don't buy them will be offset by the increased price of those who do. But the tiered offerings mentioned above lessen the blow of that even further. Keep your $159 One Pass. Hell - keep charging less for Locals One Pass - just don't give away the gate with it. The base price for both chains should include entry to parks. nothing more. no night events. no discounts. no fastpasses or photopasses. Maybe even block them out for Peak periods (and then don't give in to the whingers who complain, like they did with the non-VIP-GOLD passes years back).... So, your average family can still have their average access to the parks. They just don't get the upper inclusions unless they value them - and the price difference should be competitive enough to encourage that. For example, if the next tier up includes White Christmas and Carnivale (or whatever the hell they're doing now) for an extra $50 - some people will see value in that. Charge another $50 to include Fright Nights and Spooky Nights. So now you've got another $100 just to attend the night events. Chuck in a free drink on the night to sweeten the deal. Make exclusive merch to encourage spending. Go up another $50 from there, and for that price, remove block out dates, and allow fastpass reservations on the app (1 ride at a time) - that's got you up to $309 for what is essentially a premium product. I'd pay that. For my whole family. And I know others that would too. There's probably quite a few people here that would as well. And the lower tiers with block out dates wouldn't be choking the parks during peak periods, making the holidaymakers and one-time visitors experiences even better. Bring it on.

Rest assured, everyone (including me) who has access to Nearmap have Nearmap Alerts set up for the parks. If there is an update, we know when it happens, and generally one of us uploads new captures within a day or so. Nearmap doesn't do monthly flyovers, and sometimes you only get one or two a year. We got an extra this year as I figure they probably had extra flights with the airspace so clear. You probably won't see another one for a little while. Please stop asking for nearmap updates!

https://youtu.be/celXMa80JtM

Speaking of projection mapping - whoever did Scooby needs to take a trip out to Longreach. Luminescent Longreach is bloody spectacular, and not a flat wall in sight!

something something over 10 years old something something overhaul something testing something something?

WWF is outback of movieworld. That's more outback than PC is (minus the water) - and PC is even further out back!

I've seen Rober's video, and its a great analysis. I find the word 'scam' to be a little distasteful in the scheme of what he explains, but his findings are accurate. If you go to play the carnival basketball game and expect to hit every shot like you do from the free throw line, you're not thinking clearly and need to have a lie down. When I said 'they aren't rigged', I didn't mean to imply there isn't any 'deception' as such - obviously if it were just an ordinary basketball hoop, then basketball masters would clean out the operators on every visit. Much like a casino, the odds are in favour of the house. What i meant by using the term 'rigged' is that they aren't 'impossible' to win. Things that require skill (like - get a ball to land in a barrel, basketball hoop, etc) can be done with the correct method (or luck). The unstable ladder is a great example of that. Then there are 'luck' based games - like laughing clowns, or landing a ring around the neck of a bottle, and that is hard, but it is doable. Then you have multiplayer games - like the water gun races, where there's always a winner based on the number of players essentially 'paying' for the prize each game. The only ones i'd steer clear of are those where the operator can truly manipulate the winners is things with electronic elements - such as the high-striker 'strongman' hammer, which can be digitally manipulated to adjust the strength required to win (and the heat of the day affects these too - it is better to play this during the day when the sun is on the air hose than at night when it is cold). That sort of game also has multiple start buttons for the operator so that they can reduce the strength required for a win for kids (or just not let anyone win until they want someone to). Back to the 'skill' based games, as I said, anyone can do it with the right method or lots of practice - which is why attendants will usually demonstrate how 'easy' it is to do it - because they have lots of practice. Watch these attendants very closely for the secret to how things are done, and you too can win. (ekka showies hate me, by the way)

Wonderbuzz is indeed an admin of the Wonderland History group. Any images out there tagged with a 'wonderbuzz' watermark are, for the most part, sourced from the Wonderland Park Archives (slides and negatives that the park itself held prior to closure) and most of these were rescued by Wonderbuzz who was a cast member to the end. Wonderbuzz, among his other talents, designed a lot of the merchandise in the later years, as well as the 'Marvel Dome' in the entry plaza. He also did a lot of the website images and graphics, which is why the watermark resembles the park logo so closely - he created them both. Wonderland looked pretty similar from the M7 to what it did from Wallgrove road prior to the M7 construction. You'd mainly see the bush beast above the trees, Probe, Demon and sometimes Zodiac. Likewise similar to what you saw from the M4, but at a different angle.

Agree with you @CaptainLazerGuns that they need to start lifting the price point, and leaving a 'basic' pass at the current pricing levels would reduce the ire they would receive, and then, slowly, removing the lower tiers, or lifting them up without giving away the gate. Our pass prices have been too low for too long that everyone just expects a years' entertainment for $100. Village could probably quite easily command $300+ a year with the current (and soon to be constructed) offerings. As has been said previously, Dreamworld would do well to (slightly) undercut that pricepoint. The practice of bargain-basement all-inclusive pass pricing, $100-200 for year-round access, with night events and photo passes and fast passes and discounts needs to stop.

...and all of this analysis assumes that things were built using particular specifications, when in actual fact the ride was built on the basis of 'copy that thing overseas by sight without technical specs, and make it work' - so pumps, drive motors, conveyor slats, chains, etc were all obtained or made based on what 'should do the job' and then when things didn't, they improvised - for example, by lightening the conveyor load by removing slats, instead of finding alternate, lighter slat options that would still keep the similar specs to the overseas models imitated. Rails in the station trough. rails pre-conveyor. shutdown of the turntable load system. The 'rats nest' of wiring under the operator's console is a testament to the bodgy, piecemeal job that it was.

A new, multi-million dollar piece of plant and equipment has been installed, and needs to be commissioned by the manufacturer before the purchaser can begin to operate it as part of their business. If this were the manufacturing industry, it'd be a no-brainer. While the leisure industry certainly doesn't appear as an 'essential service' - at the end of the day, its still an industry, has staff and customers wanting their product, and nobody, no matter the industry, would be happy at spending that sort of coin, having their sparkly new machine sit and rot because their industry wasn't deemed as important as another.

Oh FFS - I can't leave you lot alone for five minutes! Everything on the gold coast is a theme park. Everything in Perth is shit. Onwards, having just come from the outback, PC is definitely not themed to the outback.

Wonderland saw a lot of revenue from their skill games that were peppered throughout the park. By my recollection they had: 8 in Old Botany Bay 0 in Transylvania (they had an arcade and remote trucks) 2 in HBL 11 in Goldrush (plus arcade, shooting gallery and remote boats) If it's done tastefully, fits the local theme, i'm all for it. Dreamworld had skill games throughout Ocean Parade in the mid-2000's I think, and they looked temporary and tacky. The Movie World skill games fit the area decently - and if you don't want to play they don't impact your day. The one thing Wonderland did that MW doesn't is spruik\spiel regularly - cast members were trained how to use a microphone to encourage people to play - and in peak seasons, several games could draw quite the crowd with experienced operators running it. ...and inb4 everyone starts saying they're rigged - they aren't. There is a method to do some of them, and the others are just luck... but there are easier ones to win than others. (And some just take a lot of practice). I'm fine with Dreamworld bringing in skill games - especially to boost their per-cap revenues - but I do hope they do them properly.

Sorry - I've been travelling through the outback for the past two weeks. Rest assured we will resume our regularly scheduled programming on Monday.

the only reason you should have more than one is if you're going to have dual \ duelling tracks.

Nobody said anything about giving them a pass. My comments were directed at the disagreement of a persons opinion. It IS cool, by Australian standards. And Rappa agreed with that (moderately). Yes, the 'world class' moniker is ridiculous and laughable. And i'd love for our parks to put more effort into theming and immersion, but at the risk of this going off wildly into a debate over the minutiae of parks world wide, it is more expensive to do many of these things in Aus, AND there is less competition to do so. The local market has shown they don't care too much. While enthusiasts protested at the loss of truly amazing world class attractions like PASS, Bermuda and LTRR, the public in general have voted with their wallets and $99 passes, and at every price increase they see massive vitriol, compared to the $87 day ticket currently available for Phantasialand. At any rate - I don't disagree with you about the Aus level of park design being sub-par to the world - It's just that in my view, I can see how the average local doesn't know any better, and probably doesn't care.

Yes, because everyone ever has seen the photo of Mermaid Lagoon he referred to. Fuck, I didn’t even know what it looked like. So, while on face value, a comparison to a photo can be made, that is only if you know that a photo exists. The original comment was that it looked stunning. That was the opinion of the original poster based on THEIR KNOWLEDGE AND EXPERIENCE. Shutting their opinion down because you’ve seen better doesn’t invalidate their views. Now, perhaps a better way would have been to provide the photo that everyone else has apparently seen in the post - perhaps with slightly different wording - maybe something like And, as already mentioned, by Australian Standards, its pretty cool.

Probably scared them off for good.

Opinion is a relative thing. Not everyone has access to the wonders that are massively funded overseas parks. Adjust your expectations - by Australian standards, its pretty damn cool.

I think its safe to say that whatever happened around that funding, it isn't available anymore. No matter what they build, it will never be a 'new' wonderland - tastes and styles have changed, and any attempt to replicate what was won't be the same, so at most its going to be 'new' in name only - and to be honest, there are far better options for a new park to be themed and named without trying to piggyback onto a decades old concept. I think our best chance of a 'new' park in NSW is likely going to be coming from a larger chain - Palace, Six Flags, Cedar Fair, for example, and history has shown that long distance management doesn't seem to work too well for most of them (Palace being the exception). 'New Wonderland' is never going to happen.

I love that i'm not the only person who remembers this. Was it a theme park though? I thought his plan was to sink it into Sea World's lake?

There's more than one way to skin a cat. Sea World is in incredible mish mash of one way paths, choke points and pointless gates. They need to connect the dots and run a path down the eastern side. Turn the boat\truck parking into a photo opportunity - i'm sure many kids would love to stand in front of the 'truck' boat for a picture. And you don't need to remove all the other infrastructure - just a simple 4-ish metre wide pathway through the middle. Walking guests past long lengths of bare hoarding doesn't seem to be an issue at the Seal exhibit behind storm, so I don't see the issue - and if they need to close the pathway for a few minutes during the stunt show it wouldn't be a big deal. Plus, put some nice imagery, educational information about the animals etc, maybe install some seats on the far (road) side facing the lake with some speakers so if people have walked down that way and gotten held up by the show, they can sit and watch the show? I'm sure these people who are actually paid to run theme parks could improve on my spitballed, spur of the moment ideas - so its definitely doable.

Yeah, Just like the 'mark your carpark' function says (or at least used to say) that it was at Knott's. I'm thinking instead of removing and replacing the image they've just laid another image over the top without removing the old one.

High Five!