Mark Shaw

Thank you. I never really went anywhere.

Thank God! I am meeting the owner on Thursday so I'll find out.

Luna Park Melbourne has two issues. 1. It's a very small footprint that limits its possibilities. Nothing can be done about that. 2. The ownership/leadership is a combination of a trucking magnate and a labor trade union-based superfund (from memory, I think I have that right).

Go visit Adventure World if you want to see super-friendly team members.

confidential.

Tentative plans. Plans can always change though for many reasons.

Is there a park anywhere in Oz that looks as good as this?? Thanks for sharing the photos.

The Park needs more than a change of rides.

Great to see. All ships benefit from a rising tide (pardon the water pun!)

Total project, rounded up with marketing launch costs/management time costs factored in. Everything bar the kitchen sink pretty much.

Broadly speaking, the ride/slide component of the project usually turns out to be about 50% of the total project cost.

50% roughly

When we put the prices up at Adventure World we hardly got boo from anyone, because the quality is there. I'm pretty confident we could have pushed the prices even higher without much resistance. VFM is not about price, it's about the equation of $$ and what you get for it. There will always be cheap people. They can go to LP Melbourne.

The pricing could be supported if the product/experience was significantly improved but yes, fair comment. It amounts to the same thing really. The consumer does not want an average experience at an average price. The consumer wants awesome, magical experiences and is prepared to save up, omit to spend on other things, in order to pay for those experiences. There are thousands of case examples. Apple, Disney, Mercedez, Universal, blah blah blah. Why should Australia settle for average? There is a huge void here in quality currently. Quality also does not mean spending billions to achieve btw before people say the market cannot sustain big investments in Oz.

This is what's known as a "buying your way" into a market as distinct from "earning your way" into a market. I prefer the latter strategy. The latter strategy takes effort, balls, and drive. Discounting, how easy is that? It's like cost-cutting to drive short term profits. My 10-year-old could probably pull that strategy off.

Thanks heaps Iwerks. Very generous donation tonight to get me kick started. I actually spent Easter Monday evening volunteering with the Vinnies "Vannies" volunteers, making sure the homeless of Collingwood won't go hungry tonight. It was humbling and I was completely taken aback at how chipper and upbeat these unfortunate people were and how thankful, appreciative and polite, despite living in conditions most of us would think inconceivable. Even the smallest donations add up. Thank you.

Former VP of Park Operations for Hong Kong Disneyland, and current leader of Apex Parks and Entertainment Services, Noble Coker was good enough to give me an hour and half of his busy schedule to discuss all things customer experience on Friday. Noble spent 16 years with Disney, learning from Senior Managers who could still recall Walt Disney walking around the Parks. Noble had some fantastic insights to share that I shall be posting soon on my YouTube channel and from which some nuggets of Disney magic will be incorporated into my new book. Look out for Noble's response to my question, "tell us about your favourite Disney memory" I will post here next week. It was really quite a moving response. Thanks Noble, you are a true industry star and friend.

A $5m reduction in expenses means they either have a lot of fat in the operations or they are going to make the kind of cuts that lead to a further deterioration in the experience delivery. I suspect the latter. Ouch.

VRTP results a partly a benefit of better weather versus the same period last year. Just sayin.

Well said Slick. It's like when Disney used to bend down on his knees and get the designers to do the same. pointing out the view of the shop window thro the eyes of a 6 year old. When you get all the details right, people don't consciously notice, it just feels good on a subconscious level. If parks are supposed to provide fantasy and escapism from the real world, you can't have conduit pipe sticking out of the flower bed or dirty toilets/scraped paintwork.

News Flash! I have just been informed by the Park that they will double the size of the Water Park this winter ready for next Summer re-opening of the Water Park. Trading has been very strong this summer. GW is a work in progress, the guys know it but they are making great strides. At the rate they are going they will eclipse the others in time.

That is a fair point, however, another way of looking at things from a VRTP perspective would be that by removing the competition, your return on future investments would be more assured. It is hard to second guess on attractions investment 2 years out when you don't know what your competitor has up their sleeve". I'm a "build it and they will come glass half full" guy though and not everyone who controls the purse is.

Merlin would not be a bad outcome. They know what they are doing, have a strong reputation and bucket loads of cash to splash. The downside from what I know of my old company from colleagues either still working there or those that have recently left is that Merlin is not the company it once was. It is a huge global business that has seen rapid growth and that usually means a dilution of quality.... somewhere, and Oz is a long way from Poole, Dorset. Dreamworld is a fantastic name for a theme park but sadly the dream has turned into a really horrible nightmare, not only because of the incident itself but the handling of it and the subsequent inquest and it would take a miracle to rescue the brand, regardless of a change in ownership (slightly helpful possibly). A name change would not make a lot of difference and people would see straight through it. To make this work someone needs to make Dreamworld appealing again in such a way that helps move everyone on from the tragedy and that would take a world first and brilliantly executed $50m+ attraction launch as phase 1. That would be a gamble for an already bruised Ardent. I was not around during the period but it seems it took Luna Park Sydney decades to recover from the Ghost Train fire tragedy but it did...finally. The question is does anyone have the metal to take it on and see it through for the long term? I do hope so. Australia needs to buck its game up in the Theme Park sector for the greater benefit of the tourism community and economy. I find it frustrating that a country with such a great climate and reasonably strong tourism prospects (See Asia in particular who LOVE theme parks) does not have really great anchor tourism products other than the Opera House and amazing beaches/landscapes (and PLEASE, no one claim Flinders Street Railway station or anything in Melbourne has really strong tourism appeal to compete on a global scale? Maybe for sports tourists/nuts) The landscape in Australia is ripe right now for someone to be bold and build a fabulous theme park that would assist the resurrection of the entire industry. All ships benefit from a rising tide. Is that tide coming from the direction of the South China sea I wonder?

Thanks for the Dreamworld compliment. I'm actually English but more or less an Aussie these days!

Dear Parks friends On 21st June I shall be sleeping rough on a thin piece of cardboard on concrete in the cold of a Melbourne winters night to help eradicate homelessness in Australia. This will be my fourth consecutive Sleepout and I hope to pass the $40k mark with your kind donation. Over the years of my involvement, I have been made acutely aware of the harsh reality of being homeless and the myriad of complex life events that can lead to people just like you and me, finding themselves in this terrible situation, a situation that once in, many people find it hard to climb back out of and lead normal lives. No one grows up wanting to find themselves homeless, moreover, it is usually as a result of circumstances out of their control such as abusive home lives that lead to homelessness. Your donation can assist Vinnies to provide shelter, food, blankets, and services to help people get back on their feet. Any size of donation is warmly appreciated and gets put to use immediately by the fantastic people at Vinnies. You can donate at https://www.ceosleepout.org.au/fundraisers/mark-shaw/perth and remember it is tax deductible! Many of you (@iwerks) have supported me before and I want to thank everyone in advance for your kind donations. My lifetime goal is to get to $200k with a hope that alongside many others, we can really make a dent in this avoidable issue. Mark