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Roller-Coaster.com.au Forums celebrate five years

Richard

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Richard

Richard

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Today marks the fifth anniversary of these forums, Australia's oldest and largest theme park community. Of course this community started out as Total Thrills back in June 2002. It originally dates back to February 2002, but the forums you see today date back to June. Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster had only just opened, Wonderland Sydney still had a future and Nickelodeon Central was only starting construction. In March 2004 we relaunched as Roller-Coaster.com.au but retaining the exact same forums. We have grown to well over a thousand members (if only all of them were active) and the site is frequented by the management teams of theme parks all around Australia. Unfortunately we couldn't do anything major to celebrate the occasion as I had originally intended, but rest assured there are huge changes to come in the near future. Thanks to everyone who has been a part of this community over the past five years, and I hope we can all stick around for another five years.

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GoGoBoy Experienced

GoGoBoy

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Richard - a big thanks to you for creating and maintaining such a great site that has allowed us all to share our common interest. The fact that we are all now so in touch with what's going on in the Aussie theme park industry is fantastic. If I could actually add up the amount of time I've spent on these forums over the last 4 years since I joined it'd be just plain scary. Happy birthday R-C and keep up the great work!

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WalleyWorld Community Regular

WalleyWorld

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I only joined as a member at the start of 2006, but I can remember the starting out of this website. It's come along way scince it's early days in 2002, and is still improving every day. I remember finding this site on google around 4 years ago, and it was just a small message board with one page full of pictures. Oh, and there was the video page. I remember the video page was the reason I visited the website becuase it was the only place I could find videos of Australian rides and coasters :P . The other themepark related website I visited was Theme Park Review, but they didn't have forums, and nor did they have videos of Australian themeparks (at that point of time). So for an Australian coaster fan site, R-C.com.au, was doing pretty damn well. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY R-C.com.au!!!!!!! Gee, it brings back good memories. CoAsTeRbOy8

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T-bone Experienced

T-bone

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Wow, 5 years already, congrats on the 5 years of service Richard. If only I could say that I will be around (that being my thrill related website) for another 4 years. I remember when I joined, I was searching for Wonderland Sydney pics (just after the parks closure announcement). I found this great site called total thrills, and I was impressed. Just looking at the photographs of Luna Park, Ekka and wonderland made me interested. Only days after finding total thrills, I saw an advertisment for this new website which had just entered beta called Roller-Coaster.com.au, well then the rest is history. Again, thanks for setting the high standard rich, it has been a good 3 years for myself.

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Dylaan Contributor

Dylaan

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Nooooo! There's no party smilies!?! :( A huge overhaul or something for the 5th birthday would've been cool, but hey, sometimes I guess we've all got other things to do. :P To tell the truth I found this site pretty much by accident when I was looking up Mach 5 at Wet'N'Wild a few weeks before the school trip. I wasn't even a park freak then! :P Unfortunately I'm too lazy to include a seizure inducing Happy Birthday message so I guess this will have to do! :D

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Gazza Veteran

Gazza

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Congratulations Richo! I first came here when I stumbled across Orphan Rocker on rcdb, and a Google search of that led me to the Total Thrills forums, my interest in theme parks had sort of waned a bit, but the presence of an Australian focused site was a breath of fresh air. Now, if you guys want to see how this place started out, have a look at http://web.archive.org/web/20020602133458/...talthrills.com/

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Richard

Richard

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That link there would be the original Total Thrills, where theme parks were only a small component of the entire site. About a fortnight after that archive I switched hosts and lost all the existing data in the process, which led to the creation of the theme park focused Total Thrills Forums that we're still using today. The original Total Thrills site as it was pre-R-C.com.au is actually still online. I'll put the link up when I can find it for anyone interested in taking a trip back. It took us a year to reach the 1,000 post mark. These days we average between 500-2,500 posts per month.

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Swanny Explorer

Swanny

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I'd like to congratulate and thank Richard for all his hard work and effort, which has really paid off. This is an absolutely fantastic site. When I first found this site in a google search about halfway through last year, I thought it was really cool. I stumbled upon it again in about September and joined as a member. It was great to finally find people that actually enjoyed theme parks like I do. Not just the rides, but all about things like theming, how the rides work, when new rides were opening and all that jazz (hope that didn't sound too nerdish :P.) So I'd just like to thank the great community here as well. Happy Birthday R-C.com.au, keep up the good work Richard.

Edited by Swanny
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Richard

Richard

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We were featured on Brisbane radio station 4BC on Saturday night. Not only was it our fifth birthday, but June 16 also marked the 123rd anniversary of the first roller coaster in the United States at Coney Island. I did an interview with the presenter talking about the impact that the first roller coasters had on the world and how they developed from the early switchback railways designed to trapsort coal to become the first thrill rides, the importance of John Miller's contributions to roller coaster design, as well as the usual stuff about Kingda Ka etc. and what the future holds.

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Gazza Veteran

Gazza

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We were featured on Brisbane radio station 4BC on Saturday night. Not only was it our fifth birthday, but June 16 also marked the 123rd anniversary of the first roller coaster in the United States at Coney Island. I did an interview with the presenter talking about the impact that the first roller coasters had on the world and how they developed from the early switchback railways designed to trapsort coal to become the first thrill rides, the importance of John Miller's contributions to roller coaster design, as well as the usual stuff about Kingda Ka etc. and what the future holds.
It would pay to stop skim reading stuff. Edited by Gazza
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Gazza Veteran

Gazza

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My bad. Sorry, Trying to get this interview set-up. :) Other things on my mind.
In case ash was a bit to subtle, it just like to point out that on his website he plans to have an interview with the owners of Jamberoo. Has everybody got that? Yes, ash is having an interview with the owners of Jamberoo. You should show a bit of understanding, organising interviews with the owners of Jamberoo is distracting, it can cause distracted posting and uncontrollable plugging. Just to make sure everybody is clear on this ASH IS INTERVIEWING THE OWNERS OF JAMBEROO! Also, to rub it in peoples faces that ash is having an actual interview, with the owners of Jamberoo of course, I might post a few smilies to show his smugness :):D:P;):) :) :) :) Edited by Gazza
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DaptoFunlandGuy Veteran

DaptoFunlandGuy

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Well, Jamberoo is no LPS, it certainly isn't DW, and definitely isn't WVTP. I have interviewed Dax Eddy in the past, as well as spent a full day shooting the park. The story and subsequent photography sold, and then was promptly squashed by the purchaser for reasons unbeknownst to me. I have copies of the 10 year plan, with full details on placement, layout and schematics.

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