Levithian

You can't easily put a flat ride in there short term. There is a massive cavern under the platform. The mast for the ride is set down on top of concrete footings over 8m deep, but all around it is open space to allow the platform to retract. It would be like digging out the bottom carpark of an apartment block. There will be a fair bit of earth works going on to remove and you'll just be left with a big hole you need to compact and pave over. If you are going to replace it, replace it.

You drastically overestimate the turnover these parks have in Australia and the capital they have to spend with a view for actually seeing a return. They might be owned by an investment capital firm with big pockets, but no park in Australia is big enough to see 15-20 million dollar capex every year. Its 100% why you see targeted, staggered spending, especially when you own more than one property. The other side of it is, you are still seeing effects of new ride installations even years after their opening. Nobody wants to spend money until the figures start to show they HAVE to. To be honest, i wish village would put money back into their park presentation and the visuals and themeing of their existing rides, even start thinking about their guest comfort in the blazing hot sun before they start investing in another ride let alone a whole new themed precinct. In short. You know what makes guests happier? Air conditioning. Bonus points if you even attempt to provide them with something to keep them amused while they are standing in queue lines.

They needed to fill more of a gap in the tween demographic without building rides adults couldnt or wouldnt go on. With that regard, they pretty much nailed it. Helps to fill a void between kids flat rides and the extremes of thrill rides. Even scooby doo was too frightening for miss 12 to go on when it was open, but she was bored with road runner, so i think this is great. Pretty much all the rides have ammended safety devices and additional control proceedures that the ride manufacturers deemed unnecessary. Its the biggest stumbling block when it comes to throughput, ride capacity vs actual capacity. Unless safety policies and proceedures drastically changed at village roadshow, nothing is going to even go close to approaching their actual capacity. Could things be improved? Especially with regards to their queue management? Hell yes. But you arent going to shave minutes off dispatches while the above is still the biggest influence.

New coasters? Are you kidding? If you think they are going to spend another 40-50 million having just completed WoZ, i think youre in for real disappointment. Its not like movieworld to do any serious maintenance work without the whole thing screened off. If they were actually dismantling the ride id have expected the precinct to be completely closed off at the gates and temp fencing errected around the western side entrance like they usually do with annual maintenance. Theres no road access to the area at all, its hemmed in on all sides, so it makes things difficult. Id be expecting them to knock down the poison ivy wall to provide back of house access between the pump house (killer croc) and scooby. They need to put a real show back in the showstage and absorb 1200 people, at least twice a day for anything up to an hour. Thats what they need to do. A 20 min or 30 minute show used to be stretched out with pre show, plus doors were open early to allow people to get out of the sun and into the air con to cool off in the middle of the day. With the price of drinks and snacks these days, surely the show would pay for itself in the number of carts you can jam in the entrance alone.

Its turner. And village dont have any ties to warner bros anymore, not even as a film distributor, so they pay for everything. You dont get all your characters in a packaged deal. You generally have contracts and agreements for everyone you licence. Usually image rights and the ability to have the characters in your park can be seperate from merchandising rights too. So agreements might end/come up for renewal at different times for different characters (or groups of) vs a blanket agreement to use any of a studios IP.

Wasnt the spend the combined total across parks? Where did the 100 million figure actually come from? They had always been planning to remove arkham, long before it eventually went sbno. Its fate was pretty much sealed after the turnaround following the dreamworld accident and govco introduced new guidelines. They just intended to continue running it longer than they did rather than sitting. Back when they were announcing planned spends during/after covid, it was to incorporate a new precinct.

You have to act on it though, having planning approval doesnt last for ever, it lapses if you dont continue the process and you have to reapply. You are 100% right. While they have made some improvments visually to parts of the park, replacing obviously run down and rotted out parts of buildings, the quality as a whole just isnt there. For my money, what really underlined they werent concerned with looks was when they started replacing hand drawn/painted signs and murals with decals and screen printed nonsense. To me, thats management saying we dont care for quality, what it used to look like or what it will look like in the future. I could understand temporary measures, but to permanently replace things like detailed, sculptured signage with things stuck/printed on sheets of ACP.... thats really just naff. Once upon a time there used to be a great manager at village who had the attitude you cant add or remove anything that would devalue the park or the guest experience. Sure could use a little or that sentiment right now. Edit: people shouldnt be quick to blame equity partners either. The management teams largely went unchanged. While the partners obviously ultimately have control over operations and the business direction, the management team still run the park. Their attitudes, their reporting and decisions they make, its what youre seeing directly represented. Even when roughly half the operations and senior management team split, left or retired prior to the aquisition, it was more of the same and business as usual.

Doomsday was a pile of crap from day one. It wasnt forced upon them. Very big difference. They also spent almost zero money (and time) in maintaining the precinct which was a shame. Its what you get when an upper level management culture doesnt seem to care how bad things look. Trees growing out of buildings anyone? They did. It got a whole new site/sound control system and audio upgrade with a qsys core. Very good quality, everything can be managed remotely. Problem? You have to put money into everything else too. There are some tallented people working behind the scenes who actually give a damn, but they are up against it getting budgets approved. Not just talking cap ex stuff, but the manpower required to repair and maintain things too. Eventually the system grinds them into submission and they either give up, or give up and quit. Want a great example of this? Look at justice league. Multiple system upgrades over the years so the technology actually running everything experienced forced upgrades, but little spent elsewhere to correct or update the sound and lighting. All the money they spent to only do half of the works. When it comes to visuals, theming and effects, they always seem to be the first things cut from the budget even though the ride was fully costed and the spend approved. Its like having an F1 engine sitting in your grandmas old 1978 toyota crown. Completely under utilised and in desperate need of a transplant. It drives, steers and brakes, so thats all that matters. Only gets attention when it cant do the weekly shopping trip. Then its like the world is ending because its unreliable and finally broken down for good. No shit? Youve neglected repairs and upgrades for years. The tyres are shot, only one headlight works, theres no seatbelts and it only has 2 gears working in the transmission. Are you really surprised when you get a bill to overhaul and restore everything that makes you consider buying a new car, even though the engine under the bonnet is worth an average house in the suburbs? Why did you spend all that money on a new engine if you were only going to do half the job? Ohh, just spend the absolute minimum to get it physically driving again? we promise to look at everything else "next financial year"? Speak to us then as we may just scrap the whole thing or shutter it and pretend it doesnt exist when we change our minds next week.

Thats a valid feeling, but its in the minority. Its still an excellent ride that should stay open, it just deserves a bit of attention...

I remember reading this too but this article (with info from the lawsuit), claims she was unemployed at the time.

You could work out the risk for yourself and openly discuss anything you think might be an issue or a concern. It has everything to do with the fact that employees (even past ones) are not supposed to share anything from back of house, full stop. They sign media policies and disclosure agreements. You can see anyone who does tread a fine line between ok and giving away too much that might raise the ire of the parks or management. Often this information is shared with people who want to respect the source and the trust placed in them to keep certain details private. Its pretty much how any info makes its way out from behind the scenes. So coming out and detailing in full why things are as they are, or why they do what they do probably isn't going to happen. Not unless its obviously been outed by someone else and its no longer confidential. You have to appreciate there is a difference between discussing the impending debut of a new churro cart vs things surrounding operational procedures, safety or incidents that may have a legal responsibility attached (on both sides). Sometimes you just have to settle with what people are prepared to talk about, and hopefully there is enough info in their posts to understand the person is probably telling the truth. Or you don't. But its probably not going to change their feelings on the matter.

This is starting to get into its own thread territory. Look, i dont feel comfortable talking about all the details. Obviously you dont believe me when i say it was a serious issue that put the continued operation of the ride at risk. As to why so long in operation? Why only now? Thats the point of risk assessments and investigations. Sometimes something happens externally (like incidents on similar rides) and forces greater scruitiny and a focus on risk based on worse case scenarios. It had nothing to do with the new boats or wanting to change the speed of the ride or anything of the sort. Long story short, the water levels were too high/troughs too deep. There was an unacceptable risk found, thoroughly investigated, the safety teams responded as they should have and modifications were made to the depths of the troughs to mitigate the risk. They did everything they should have, credit to the park and the team, it's results allowed continued operation of the ride. I can tell you 100% it would not be in operation today if this process and result had not been completed. Do you understand enough of what i said above to leave it at that, or is this going to be a continued issue? FYI, contrary to what you might think, the water levels were actually raised in the majority of the ride, not lowered. What you are feeling is new concrete ramps and infill panels raising sections of the trough floors. The replacement boats were actually more than 100kg lighter than the old ones and are every bit as boyant. If wild west falls was demolished you would never get another ride like it again. Thats the simple reality. Its nowhere near in the budget for developing another flume as big and as detailed as west is. For all its faults and neglect, its a big, expensive ride. Anything else you think is the problem you want to raise? If you doubt what im saying, go back and look at shutdown photos posted here. Pay close attention to runout 2 (the final drop) and the throughs ahead. Youll see exactly what im talking about and should be able to put 2 + 2 together and work out what the issue might be and why it required these modifications. There are very little complaints from guest about the roughness of the ride following the modifications, so im going out on a limb by saying the majority of people either never noticed or werent phased much by the changes and would still rather the ride stayed open.

Maybe the difference is if it's original works vs a painting of a real landscape. If its all an artwork with no real locations in it, you can copyright the whole artwork, designs, colours, etc. Otherwise, you can still trademark the artwork itself to protect against reproduction, but you can't trademark the real area like buildings, etc. So, if you took the same artwork of the original emerald city and used it as the front for the ride, it's not a real place, so the artwork and design is probably copyrighted and can't just be reproduced. I think this was the issue with the movie disney made? They had to tread a real fine line between anything that looked like the 1939 movie. You're still floating for the most part, just you might feel the bottom sometimes. You know what really removes the immersion? The ride being closed for good because there are safety concerns. Which do you want? live with the changes or have no ride at all? The answer is yes. Have you seen it/ridden it? Its not really themed as well as west and overall it is a smaller ride, but the same thing seems to have happened. I know their boats aren't as big so it might not work, but one thing that would have been amazing is to swap the chain drive of west for lift conveyors used in rio bravo.

Its on a turntable and designed to rotate across an arc as it turns. The cable is on a pulley system and a pneumatic cylinder used to pull the cable a few inches and release it. So the arm of the crane would swing from side to side and the bucket hanging would raise a few inches and drop to give it some movement. The problem you have is some of the best effects are physical/practical. When something wears out or breaks, the whole thing sits and the rest of its mechanical components turn to shit due to lack of use. Instead of fixing it and putting back in service, it just becomes another item in the too hard basket. As far as the water level changes and the speed/roughness now. Unfortunately, it really is a case of without the changes the ride probably wouldnt be in operation today. It was that serious.

Did the land surveyors sign in the harbour sway when you floated past? Did the drag line crane and shovel move over as you passed under before the first lift?

Someone got some pretty poor legal advice. It's not like the USA where people/companies can be held accountable in a civil suit. The operator has liability insurance and they'd make a claim anytime someone tried to sue them, what do the lawyers think will happen when the operators insurance company is engaged and there has been an investigation that found no negligence or responsibility was found? Hell, even if she somehow won, aren't the liability payouts for a whole bunch of different damages capped now? I thought they were introduced due in part because of how the potential for massive payouts like often experienced in the US was driving up insurance premiums in the country so much that businesses were folding because they couldn't pay it. Government had to step in and cap payment figures for different damages to avoid multi million dollar lawsuits.

Unless it has drastically changed in the last few years, none of them use awards. They literally don't mean anything when you draw up an enterprise bargaining agreement. Because it's approved by fairwork it allows you to overwrite any state and federal awards, including things like minimum wages. The reason they don't pay penalty rates for weekend work is the loading is supposed to be built into the base rate. Because the park is open year round, the ordinary hours include weekend work. It's not considered unusual or outside of the scope for the position, so it's not expected you earn penalty rates. Work overtime? that's different. Work events outside of park hours? again, different. In a just world these sorts of things are supposed to be accounted for in the base rate that everyone gets. Everyone is supposed to be paid a little more per hour for sacrificing their time because it's understood that the business operates 7 days a week. It's supposed to all even out in the end with employees working day shifts earning more than they would normally, so when you rotate through to weekend work and earn less its supposed to be balanced. Im reality, none of that happens. Fairwork aren't even supposed to approve any agreement that means an employee is worse off. Just what they define as worse off? worse off than their current agreement? or worse off than the federal minimum? because service staff at theme parks certainly get short changed all round. Stupid thing is they have a lot of power in numbers if they were to band together and issue demands and threaten affirmative action, but history has showed companies have basically bought them off with trivial things (how about lollies and a free bbq day to say thanks?) to get them to agree to new agreements when it comes time to vote. I don't know if they have managed to force changes, but different departments at both companies were trying to break away from the all encompassing eba's because this was happening. New and seasonal service staff were voting on agreements while the long term rostered departments were basically being lumped in with young kids that have never heard of an agreement before, let alone know what their employee rights should be. The only reason why affirmative action hasn't happened in recent memory is because there is very little union membership within employees at either companies anymore.

Because the work culture is toxic, it's a lot about groups within groups, and if you don't fit in or aren't considered "a team player" you get ostracised regardless of your work ethic or how you do your job. Throw in a shoddy EBA that allows them to pay staff drastically less than the actual minimum wage, what do you end up with? Trouble retaining employees. Especially ones that matter. IE, the ones that actually keep the place running.

Elements to a film that is within the public domain are not automatically released when the film copyright expires though. If there have been changes, if character likeness has been reproduced and utilised elsewhere since, copyrights can still exist protecting use of characters and other IP. This goes double for if the original story or character development was from literature or a stage play. Even though the film might lapse, the characters and story may still be copyrighted. Once the film lapses they could revert to their original sources copyright. You could change the likeness of a character and use it in an adaptation, the copyright would cover the likeness used in you adaptation if it was something specific enough. I think something like this happens with the wicked witch of the west. Shes presented differently to Baum's books and her known likeness is copyrighted externally to the source. I dont think it matters if something has entered the public domain in Australia if it still holds existing copyrights in another country. Theres an international accord a lot of countries signed up to, so im pretty sure those are still valid here. The original works may have lapsed and someone could use their likeness and character in a new adapation within Australia, but if the movie still holds copyright with turner, given it departs from the source by quite a lot, you can probably assume that everything specific to their movie adaptation is still copyrighted. Character likeness, names for characters, cities/locations, even visuals of the sets. The US copyright is essentially still valid here too because of the accord. Use any of their character names, location names, image likeness for set designs and characters, you are going to be using it under an IP rights agreement.

To be fare to www, the changes to the pace of the ride and the water levels were in response to the depths and the worry someone could drown if a boat was to be sunk. Wasn't from them, but internally. The station change is an absolute disaster. I wonder if they ever got it to run smoothly. Heres a good recent video. Can really see how much faster the boats travel through the troughs. It points out how little themeing elements are working. Even simple things like lighting (ambient light bleeding in is bad) levels messing up the few effects that work. Its such a shame because I know there have been a number of staff who have really wanted to make a go at fixing these things and bringing them back to a high standard and it always ends the same. Either wont spend enough money, wont dedicate enough time/labour, or won't dedicate enough support to keep the effects repaired/running when they are fixed. Its death by a thousand cuts everywhere you look and the only concerns are if the ride is physically running. The video above doesnt have one single basic effect working in the ghost town. Not even the population sign or the shot up water tank. What a waste of a ride. Especially since the site/sound system got a major upgrade too. Has the potential to do a lot with it given the control system that went in. Just have to try and convince the people that matter to approve budgets to actually get things returned to full/proper operation. You would have been working there when the attitude was still if it's part of the ride, we have to return it to service and repair/maintain it. We cant just let it sit out of service. You can say that about a lot of the park now. Must be frustrating for staff that actually care about the place looking its best.

Not a lot of chance of that now after modifications. Such a large volume of water running through the reverse element and past the geysers, it draws boats into the trough pretty quickly. Have you seen how deep the water is there now? Right up to the end of the overflow pool each side of the runout. Can only just see the top of the rail of the runout itself.

I can remember when they were mandatory daily, as in a requirement to ensure things sounded and felt ok. Vastly different management culture now. Its not permitted to allow joy rides. Biggest opportunity staff often have to ride is when they put the call out for needing weighted trains during testing. If operations could free up the staff, it was easier than loading seats with dummies and water. Good luck with the west checks. How much of the themed elements were repaired even when they were reported daily? Some things were out of service for years. 😂

And to think back at who was promoted ahead of Greg Yong, spurring his departure.....

It's company practice that joy rides are not allowed to happen. Not even for maintenance staff. Risk termination even if you do this without a valid reason for performing a ride check. The execs riding should have been handled during testing, but village are famous for bringing forward deadlines instead of following through with proper testing processes. Rather open earlier than intended or before everything has been really put through its paces, then have it break down with guests aboard, followed by an often lengthy "unscheduled maintenance" period for a brand new ride. You know, it really puts the shine on your new investment. The general public love turning up after reading opening announcements and seeing commercials only to find the new ride is broken. Really makes it seem like they known what they are doing and doesn't question the safety of their rides at all.

The longer shutdown time that crops up for superman sometimes is usually due to a rope change for the winch/catch car and/or hydraulic hoses for the power/drive unit. They aren't done yearly and it's usually staggered as it's preventative maintenance vs required annual maintenance. Same with Batwing. Periodic rope changes add additional time to the yearly maintenance schedule.