On 9/1/2026 at 1:09 PM, Levithian said:

I can guarantee you, multiple buildings utilise particle and thermal detectors. It is commonplace during events that fill main street with fog or haze to switch a number of zones over to thermal detectors only to avoid false alarms.

When they do that, they also roster some operations staff to continuously walk through the park looking for fires. There's a few specific locations that are usually checked, so I assume those are places without thermal detectors.

Pretty good effort for fog / haze to make it inside air conditioned buildings !

On 10/01/2026 at 12:46 PM, mba2012 said:

When they do that, they also roster some operations staff to continuously walk through the park looking for fires. There's a few specific locations that are usually checked, so I assume those are places without thermal detectors.

What happens is the system isn't actually disabled and continues to monitor the building as intended, so it will beep at you and warn you of the isolations.

You start by isolating the main system panel from connecting outside of the park in case you trigger an alarm, theres actually a usb encryption key for this. Then you isolate the building (zone) you want to access the panel on, then on the fire panel at the intended building you can isolate as many (or as little) detectors as you want. You leave them isolated, switch the panel back over and leave it isolated within the system. It's online and functioning with only your intended sensors isolated, so any of those triggers will remain local instead of being broadcast and ending up with firetrucks arriving within minutes. Everything else in the system works as normal and will trigger a fire alarm and have the services called, so no risk to patrons at all by doing this :)

On 11/01/2026 at 7:21 AM, Dean Barnett said:

Pretty good effort for fog / haze to make it inside air conditioned buildings !

None of the buildings are sealed and it's not like it's pressurised, it wafts in everywhere as the buildings are essentially the same sheds as the studio sound stages, so the eaves are open. Even ones like Roxy with air conditioned entry foyer could be triggered by drift. Stars, dc shop, superman, roxy, ricks, daily planet, gotham, scooby. Even JL, driving school and show stage depending on the events. Pretty normal process to avoid HUGE disruption to your event, plus the call out fee the fire service charges. When they are alerted, they don't just turn up and you tell them everything is ok and they go home. They want to do their own inspections before giving the all clear and you can silence the alarms, while you hope none of your guests were injured while the park was evacuated.

Edited January 12Jan 12 by Levithian

circling back to the topic at hand though - Haze\Fog in scooby. Seems too convenient a cop out to say 'we can't do that because of fire safety' and sacrifice show when it most likely could be achieved by way of different equipment \ additional expense.

It's because hazers produce MUCH smaller, particles that don't really disperse like smoke/fog does, it doesn't result in clouds of smoke, more like a mist that hangs around. It's why its good for laser effects. They normally do this by using an atomiser instead of a heating coil and air pump like smoke machines.

It really plays havoc with smoke detectors though. The hazer fluid was oil based too which used to leave residues on things that were probably found to be flammable or pose some sort of respiratory risk too.

As I said earlier, a lot has changed in the years since being removed though. Water based fluids, dry ice or co2 based machines produce atmospheric effects these days with basically no fire risk. Lots of alternatives don't have the spread/capacity/volume though and things like the scooby high zone is a VERY BIG SHED. Problem often comes down to coverage and cost because of it, especially in the case of co2 machines. Gas usage really drives the operating cost up and im just not sure it's something they are prepared to spend big on.

The same thing could be said for wild west falls. You could return the dynamite fuses and explosive effects to lift 2 and the top turntable with modern systems, but when you combine ultra high levels of safety + effects, you really need to spend some decent money on the units to even remotely approach the same effect as real flame/sparks. If you cheap out, it looks like crap.

100% saying it can be done, I'm just not sure there is enough care from upper levels of management when it comes to visuals and theming. Talented staff have come and gone over the last 15-20 years that tried to push the issue, but it's never really gone very far anywhere within the parks. They really should still have electronics and electrical techs specifically dedicated to maintaining theme elements everywhere, thats what AV was for, but it all tends to get lobbed in with Electricians these days. It's not a very high priority if it's not something critical that's stops ride operating or some service/function within a building failing.

Spending adequate amounts of money basically fixes 99% of your problems though......

Edited January 12Jan 12 by Levithian

2 hours ago, Levithian said:

It's because hazers produce MUCH smaller, particles that don't really disperse like smoke/fog does, it doesn't result in clouds of smoke, more like a mist that hangs around. It's why its good for laser effects. They normally do this by using an atomiser instead of a heating coil and air pump like smoke machines.

It really plays havoc with smoke detectors though. The hazer fluid was oil based too which used to leave residues on things that were probably found to be flammable or pose some sort of respiratory risk too.

As I said earlier, a lot has changed in the years since being removed though. Water based fluids, dry ice or co2 based machines produce atmospheric effects these days with basically no fire risk. Lots of alternatives don't have the spread/capacity/volume though and things like the scooby high zone is a VERY BIG SHED. Problem often comes down to coverage and cost because of it, especially in the case of co2 machines. Gas usage really drives the operating cost up and im just not sure it's something they are prepared to spend big on.

The same thing could be said for wild west falls. You could return the dynamite fuses and explosive effects to lift 2 and the top turntable with modern systems, but when you combine ultra high levels of safety + effects, you really need to spend some decent money on the units to even remotely approach the same effect as real flame/sparks. If you cheap out, it looks like crap.

100% saying it can be done, I'm just not sure there is enough care from upper levels of management when it comes to visuals and theming. Talented staff have come and gone over the last 15-20 years that tried to push the issue, but it's never really gone very far anywhere within the parks. They really should still have electronics and electrical techs specifically dedicated to maintaining theme elements everywhere, thats what AV was for, but it all tends to get lobbed in with Electricians these days. It's not a very high priority if it's not something critical that's stops ride operating or some service/function within a building failing.

Spending adequate amounts of money basically fixes 99% of your problems though......

So TL:DR -

3 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

it most likely could be achieved by way of different equipment \ additional expense.

Yeah, but you are just repeating stuff I said last month, and probably the month before that too.

Fundamentally, the problem is upper management don't see things like this as enough of an issue and this sentiment is represented in other places around the park too. Until you somehow manage to change these feelings (or lack of), it's always just going to be more of the same experienced over the last 10-15 years really.

I.E. who cares how anything looks? the gates are open, the rides are running, what more do they want?!

Throwing money at the problem is really only a band aid if it doesn't come with a long term vision that actually doesn't just end up back in the same position 2 or 3 years down the track. It needs capital for staff + expenditure, but it needs a yearly budget that isn't going to get messed with. It probably should go back to having parks presentation department where everything to do with the visuals of the parks is maintained.

If there ever was a company (division) in desperate need of a leadership change and some refreshing ideas, it's this one. Still feel they really dropped the ball by pushing Greg to the outer.

Edited January 12Jan 12 by Levithian

14 hours ago, Levithian said:

Yeah, but you are just repeating stuff I said last month, and probably the month before that too.

To be fair, a lot of us have been saying the same things for years. nothing is going to change.

Literally just what I said above. 🤨

An awful lot of arms length knowledge on how atmospheric effects work in this thread.

1) Dry Ice machines can never produce atmospheric haze type effects for use with lasers. They are inherently expensive and hazardous to operate (you are putting pellets of solid CO2 into boiling water) and all your get is low hanging vapour that sits on the ground and then vanishes - totally impractical for something like Scooby.

2) Most all water based ‘hazers’ are neither of those two things.

They use glycol and water mixture, so when they say ‘water based’ they mean not oil basically.

They then use a traditional smoke machine style pressure pump and heating block to produce smoke and then combine it with a fan to make the ‘haze’.

The cons are more cloud like haze that will set off any sort of detection system based on particles, and they tend to use a lot of fluid which is expensive (think $400+ for one 25L bottle).

3) People have a a misinformed idea that Oil Based Hazers = mess and CO2 powered hazers = expensive to operate.

They are both inaccurate.

The indisputable best haze system on the market is from a Canadian company and uses both Mineral Oil based fluid, and CO2. It uses their proprietary tech to break down the mineral oil under heat and pressure into tiny micro controls particles which result in an extremely fine, dry haze that leaves no residue, lasts for hours and uses very very little fluid.

Rather than a pump it uses pressurized CO2 to push the fluid through the system, and tiny amounts of that to.

Its both cheap to operate, works great, is reliable and in many cases won’t even set off particle detectors it’s so fine.

So you then probably ask, “why doesn’t everyone use it?” Most simply because of scare opinion that Oil = Bad so they don’t even try.

But in fact Village themselves use the same system at the Outback Spectacular show, uses so little consumables it uses maybe 2.5L of fluid a fortnight and runs off the waste CO2 gas from their low fog system.

So it’s not about amazing detectors, or being too cheap or any of that. It’s about perception by the powers that allow these things or not. And if the risk analysis won’t allow something then no amount of ‘passion’ or ‘attitude’ is going to change anything. It’s perception at that level that requires altering and that’s much harder than buying a fancy purple haze machine

Nobody said it came in purple! /s

That didn't take long, back to a familiar sight...

Well I'm Currently here, and it Opened again later in the Afternoon (Around 2:40) and I've been told that it was Closed all day yesterday.

16 hours ago, TV15 said:

That didn't take long, back to a familiar sight...

Hard to believe, but ride reliability at MW over the last few months has actually been really good. Hopefully it’s a sign they’ve finally turned the page.

1 minute ago, New display name said:

Hard to believe, but ride reliability at MW over the last few months has actually been really good. Hopefully it’s a sign they’ve finally turned the page.

It says it'll be back up today, I suppose we'll know soon.

They've certainly turned a page with their maintenance closures, no more 3 month closures for the headlining attractions! Rivals reopens on Monday, only being closed for 28 days.

Rivels is the only attraction that has had its maintenance period reduced.

yeah I don't think it's fair to start 'pooh-poohing' Village just because a ride (let's face it, it's a new ride) goes down for 48 hours in its first few months of operation.

Most new rides go down after their first peak period for a full check over to ensure everything is wearing in as it should be. Or they could have decided to change out running wheels to a different material and decided to close it for a day to get it all done and tested instead of doing it piecemeal.

Literally anything could have closed it for two days. I haven't been 'Team Village' for a while now but let's leave the pitchforks alone a little longer?