WVTP Changes

[Gazza]

Topic has been split off...Speculation and news on MW's 2009 attraction can be found here.

Certainly something like scooby doo fog that adds so much to the ride experience, and it's not like the public don't notice these things either.

To be honest, it really does go against the whole notion of what the park is about....What is a movie related theme park without special effects in the major attractions? Edited March 16, 2009 by Gazza

[kieron5379]

I wasn't going to say anything but i have to say when i went to WnW about a week ago, i found it quite annoying that on mammoth falls, kamikaze and the tube side at mach 5, there was only one slide running. Only the one middle slide of the 3 speed slides were working. Surfrider opened at 1pm and closed its line at about 4. I love slides and going on them, but a wait of 45mins to get on kamikaze is slightly ridiculous when they onle have one side going. I spent most of my day going around calypso bay only because it was the one area where there wasn't a big line waiting to get on. I think if WVTP is going to sell these Q150 passes, then they have to be able to have to be willing to run the parks with the number of staff that would usually be required with the sheer volume of people coming in. Just because someone can return multiple times on their Q150 pass, doesn't mean that they aren't going to be annoyed that after an hour, they've only been on one ride. Shame on WVTP for thinking that because Q150 pass holders are locals, that they don' have to give them the full experience of the park. On a side note: I don't have a Q150 pass, so I'm not a regular visitor to the parks. I paid my admission and was bitterly disappointed. I don't know how anybody can defend WVTP for their distinct lack of effort.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Definitely saw this coming. March 3 in the Wet and Wild peak season thread

Honestly I think the Q150 passes might not make too much of a difference to overal budgetary figures, unless they cut back on everything - such as dive in movies and the like. /............................../ The reality of this will result in an overall negative opinion of the parks by the park-goers. They are not going to remember that they got a solid 120+ days worth of entry into all 3 parks for the cost of a single day entry... they will only remember how long the queues are, how long they waited, and how poorly managed the day was.

Look, I'm all for the park doing what it needs to survive. I do not want to see any park go the way of wonderland. But compromising the guest experience isn't satisfactory. Fewer staff? Sure Close an attraction, close an outlet... sure. Late-start attractions and outlets - its been done. Wonderland never used to open Goldrush until 11am, and that was two huge capacity attractions, and another few old favourites. I agree with the statement that a movie themed park shouldn't have turned off the special effects. They tried skimping on the fog in scooby by using mist, but it just didn't cut it. They've revamped the whole ride, and now they're going to turn it off. And as far as the gatekeeper at superman - - The gatekeeper is supposed to be there to prevent loose articles making it onto the ride, to preserve guest safety (ok so we know its a money making excercise with the lockers, but they say it is safety) and removing the gatekeeper means you then need to task the loaders to checking for loose items... We're going to give people, whose job it is to ensure guest safety another task to occupy their minds while they check the harnesses? not good. Closing batman adventure is sad, since it is the first attraction in the gate, and a lot of the parks theming is built on Gotham, however it is an attraction that requires many staff, and is not quite as popular as it used to be. It still gets the queues, but this is mainly because, like scooby, everyone can ride (almost). We really shouldn't have expected any better to be honest. let's look at the facts:

1. WWF experiences fire - attraction rebuilt "bare bones" without the original premium theming
2. Scooby fog is costly... change to mist to reduce costs
3. Lethal Weapon store "being refurbished" - put up an LCD clock and tell riders to remember their times... don't even show them a preview screen, incase someone takes a photo of the screen...
4. shops begin opening later... which everybody discusses and says "thats ok, if they can save some money there, it will give them money for other things

End result - we have shown them that it is ok to deliver substandard products. Shops and attractions now open even later, some cycle on and off during the day, theming is laid to waste, and not repaired to its original. Its been hinted at already - but for the first time, I am starting to consider whether WVTP are going down the road of Stephen Gregg and Dreamworld. I really hope that it is not, but its starting to look that way. If the park is going to cut back on staffing, attraction and outlet hours, open later, close earlier, not deliver the full guest experience, then I would want to see a drop in gate prices, and a drop in annual pass prices quick smart.... I know they need the money, but if they don't drop the prices.... will people still pay?

[rival81]

I think people will still pay so long as thrilling rides are added on a regular basis. One per year is not too unreasonable i wouldn't think.

[S.W24]

The point in the matter is as mentioned WVTP really isn't doing any better in there sales than they did this time last year. Everyone reckons they are, but they're not. These Q150 passes are only creating a once off admission. There may be heaps of people in the park but how many are actual one day admission payers? Slim to none. A lot of people would be surprised as to how many people are actually paying to get into the park, all you have to do is look at the ticket booth line and the turnstile line at 9:30 each morning, there is no one at the ticket booth line. The booths don't open till 10 so you can't say that they have already bought there tickets. The only good thing about all this is that for the parks quarterly report in July will be the in park sales increase. I really don't even think that will be up as much as a lot of people think, so many people in these times opt for a pre made lunch from home. I say give it time and so many Shows and entertainment staff will get the cut and we will only see the occasional character. S&E staff don't start till later now anyway with the cut of the rope drop performance. It will be interesting to see how the future pans out.

Edited March 17, 2009 by Gazza
Please slow down a bit, and start using punctuation to make your posts easier to read.

[T-bone]

I've had some deep discussions with a couple of people about this issue, and I completely agree with everything that Alexb has said, and the thing is this is all happening as Dreamworld is starting to improve from the Greggs years (trust me, it is). And I've just got to say, after my previous visit to Movie World, I am very reluctant to go back to the park simply because the "That'll do, they wont notice, they'll still pay for a watered down product" attitude seems to be amongst managment, which simply makes me feel angry and Robbed of a full guest experience. Sure the park was busy, and no-one can predict the future, but they would have some sort of idea of what to expect, but it's not just the reduced capacity operations, to me it's also the decreased budgets for their new attractions. Come-on, let's face it, Spaceshot was not how we were expecting it to turn out, Superman could have been so much better, and Stunt Driver is one of the most corniest productions ever (with the exception of the driving, some nice driving skills there by the Hell Drivers). I'm not sure about others though, but the staff (not all, but a majority) are very rude, and in some cases extremely cocky, which in my opinion is an attitude which at the moment seems to be floating right upto the managment of the parks. And let me say I was able to spend 3 full days at Dreamworld with little time spent in queues, and had a much more enjoyable time at the park. The staff were great, the atmosphere was great, the characters were great, the rides (including motocoaster) were excellent, and the park was looking it's best it has in a loooong time. Having said all of that, I'm not saying Movie World is a crappy park, because it's not. The rides (with the exception of a few) are pretty good, but they aren't really excellent, and I can't see them becoming excellent anytime soon, what I can see is the park following it's current trend and becoming blander everytime a new attraction is opened.

[nev]

There's an interesting thing in all this "economic crisis" talk. If you look across the rest of Australia and indeed the world, the entertainment industry is absolutely booming. Last week, a record number of shows began the new season on Broadway, and a record number of shows lasted the whole way through last season. Closer to home, there are currently more theatrical tours underway than there have been in the last ten years. Holiday makers are choosing to stay in Australia more and more, and while airlines like Qantas are reporting up to 20% declines in traffic to the USA and UK - especially in the upper classes - domestic seat sales are still just as popular with more people holidaying and traveling locally. There are an unusally high number of international bands touring at the moment - to have Kings of Leon, Coldplay and the Killers all in Australia at once is pretty unusual, but shows are selling out around the country in record times. I love how the parks are jumping on the economic crisis bandwagon - just like Dreamworld tried to pin a downturn in visitors on SARS a few years ago. I really fail to see how what is (currently) affecting the very highest tiers of employment (finance) and the very lowest tiers (manufacturing workers) can be used as an excuse to account for lack of spending. And in addition to this - we're not talking about new ride purchases here, which I can understand might be hard to justify this year with the value of the dollar - we're talking about day-to-day operational expenses which should be already budgeted and planned for on a long term basis and shouldn't just be affected by a six month turnaround in the global economy. If anything, surely the parks can expect higher visitor numbers as people choose to holiday within Australia and look for cheaper alternatives to going overseas. Cutting back a performer here and there, and budging shop opening times by an hour either way is a sign of management being frugal and trying to save pennies. How can they justify cutting shifts of people back by a few hours when they are at the same time planning to expand and redevelop other attractions? (not going to elaborate on that) What we have here in my opinion is exactly the same as Dreamworld - an excuse to cut back on staff to save a few dollars which can conveniently be blamed on the economic crisis. AlexB I really do agree with you; it's time to stop making excuses and looking for scapegoats to try and uphold the once superior position of WVTP over Dreamworld. It's going to be a long time before they sink to that level, but I think the beginnings of the roll downhill have already been visible for years....

[cadboy]

Well I agree with everything expressed above. It it sad but can't be denied. It seems the bar has suddenly been dropped over at WVTP and might be a long time coming before it rises again. Running rides without effects really annoys me. I mean for Scooby, half the reason we love the ride is for the superb themeing it used to be famous for. With half the effects off in the disco and scrap on the final drop the whole ride seems like a waste of potential. What happened to all the great things happening to the ride, fixed this fixed that. It only seems to be getting worse. I rode it way back in Christmas 2006, after the ride I got off thinking that is one of the best themed rides in Australia and also one of my favorites. The disco room was filled with fog; lasers were going crazy and the final drop well hidden. It all contributed so much to the experience. I wonder if I would get off thinking the same thing if I rode now. Movieworld's reputation is on a fine thread right now. If they keep downgrading customer experience, ride quality and theming they are just undoing all the great work WV has worked so hard at in the last decades. They have built up a great reputation and earned the top spots for theme parks in Australia, don't go and undo the work you have already achieved. I hope our parks come out stronger and better equipped from this crisis we are facing not make the mistake of sacrificing everything for the big dollar and forgetting about the fundamentals of running a business and a successful company. Please don't let 2009 be the year we remember as the time when WVTP took a nose dive. Tarnishing their reputation and sinking to the depths where DW seems to be climbing from. Rant over Cheers,

[S.W24]

As much as I'm a major fan of all of WVTP parks all of the above as said before it cannot be denied. As a lot of people have said though this is being used as a excuse, the financial crisis is being used as a excuse by our parks to make any penny stay in the bank. As for scooby that seems to be the main thing people are bringing up when it comes down to rides being cut back on SFX may i add the fact that no other attractions in the park have had any changes to there operations when it comes to the guest experience, Superman if you ask me had a upgrade this year with more things added to the ride like more lighting everything has been fixed and is going. WWF no down grades since the accident, more has been added since Christmas and many others have realized this also with the adding of fog/mist that travels down the ghost town now along with the fog coming from the Indian tee pee's. Lets not forget to mention the fact that during lethal weapons down time china town is getting a little TLC a touch up and work done on the area to bring it back to its original state. Also the facades near the show stage are also at the moment undergoing work with new timber slates and a fresh coat of paint. In early/mid Feb Dirty Harry's Bar facades that face Scooby were given a new look and a fresh coat of paint. Plus there is so much more when it comes to the park being worked on this year to come. So no one can say the park is dropping in experience if anything they are making the park better and we all decide not to acknowledge it because hours are cut back shop hours are cut back and one of our rides undergoes a operational time table. As for Scooby i would like to clear this issue up this year new lights were added to the ride in total creating for a much better dark ride section all effects are working and have been all year. As for the main room all lighting effects and lasers are working also we cannot forget the addition of the spider added late last year. As for fog, Fog machines are located at opposite ends of each other with a total of two they are both set on a timer and are located under both of the lasers at the north end and the south of the warehouse. The chances are there will be points during the day were you could be on the ride when fog is about to go off meaning the room will not have huge amounts of fog still enough the be able to see the lasers but not to a huge extent. I know for a fact a lot of guest went on a 2nd time and enjoyed it more because fog had just gone off before they entered the room. After saying all that no one can sit there and say that WVTP is doing nothing to create a better experience or day experience for guests. having gone to the park on Thursday last week as a guest i was actually very happy with all the work going on in the park also very happy with all the flags on main street which had been replaced just recently and the trees are growing quiet well. Those who saw the Getaway shoot I'm not sure if you all agree but the look down main street shot actually looked very nice.

Edited March 17, 2009 by klassen24

[Gazza]

Just a quick point I'd like to bring up, with the shop trading hours, they open later, however at the end of the day they actually stay open for as long as they need to, instead of closing right on 5pm.

[Original]

The thing is, we think that they are taking a nose-dive in lack of theming and cut backs. But general public won't, fair enough about long lines. But theming, character's, and all that stuff the general public don't see or care. Dreamworld customer's didn't see how bad or ugly it was becoming they just saw rides and that's all they cared about. Unfortunatly I think that's what there doing. Hoping the general public won't see and the truth is they probably won't and will therefore continue what they are doing. Depressing I know, but they can get away with it. Look at the chain stores, they gained market control, stopped doing refurbs, quality in fresh foods went down and slowly prices went up. But the general public didn't notice and therefore they could continue to do it and get away with what they were doing.

[S.W24]

Original that is true but i see it that all the parks including DW are still getting better not dropping when i went to DW back a month ago after 3 years i was very amazed as to how good it actually was compared to what i had heard on here and my own opinion. I still get told all the time by people though that when it comes to movie world they said they preferred it because of the atmosphere of the park my cousin and a close friend both said the same thing in say they could just walk around all day and still enjoy it. A WVTP survey from last year showed that Movie World was the most preferred park with most saying 82% they enjoyed the overall atmosphere better than any other theme park in Australia. This survey done in park and was monitored and made by a company called Gap Buster.

[Flea]

Just a quick point I'd like to bring up, with the shop trading hours, they open later, however at the end of the day they actually stay open for as long as they need to, instead of closing right on 5pm.

But when does employee pay stop? I know many shops will stay open past their scheduled closing time to scrape in as much money as possible BUT they will stop paying employees at 5pm.

[Gazza]

^Employee pay just goes by when you clock in and out....You aren't expected to work without pay.

[DonjaiInLA]

82% they enjoyed the overall atmosphere better than any other theme park in Australia. This survey done in park and was monitored and made by a company called Gap Buster.

That is a biased survey to the extreme! Continuing with the chain store bashing; I'm sure 82% of people shopping in Woolworths will say that the atmosphere is much better than Coles. While 82% of people shopping in Coles think the opposite. Also, I think you'll find that perhaps unlike Movieworld and Dreamworld, the quality of fresh food in the big stores has increased alot and almost all Woolworths have been refurbished, with coles following suit.

[mickey_079]

Sorry I know this is late but Spotty you are an absolute liar. Scooby never had more than a 30 minute wait on Sunday, it was running excellent with no break downs. Superman broke down for a good three hours however. Another cut back, majority of employee's now are not given shifts longer than 3 to 4 hours, in saying this, some employee's already worked that amount of hours a day but those who worked longer no longer do so any more. That statement could be incorrect, it was just something I over heard a few staff discussing. To answer your question about the event cerberus I bumped into two family friends who work there, a waitress and cleaner whom both were working at the function that night. I must say on my visit to Dreamworld I was very pleased And to top off the visit I never waited longer than 10 minutes for a ride, including Cyclone and Giant Drop with only one side going. Just to add to, how long has Corkscrew had an on-ride photo camera's?

Edited March 17, 2009 by mickey_079

[Lotl_90]

The point in the matter is as mentioned WVTP really isn't doing any better in there sales than they did this time last year. Everyone reckons they are, but they're not. These Q150 passes are only creating a once off admission. There may be heaps of people in the park but how many are actual one day admission payers? Slim to none. A lot of people would be surprised as to how many people are actually paying to get into the park, all you have to do is look at the ticket booth line and the turnstile line at 9:30 each morning, there is no one at the ticket booth line. The booths don't open till 10 so you can't say that they have already bought there tickets. The only good thing about all this is that for the parks quarterly report in July will be the in park sales increase. I really don't even think that will be up as much as a lot of people think, so many people in these times opt for a pre made lunch from home.

Even though they arent making much more from admissions, and they are screwing over their per cap sales figures by having more people come through the gate, If each of those people coming through was to spend even an extra $4 on a drink, or buy the occaisonal photo or snack throughout the day, thats still $4, or $15 or whatever, that the park didnt have in the first place. It may not seem like much, but all those little sales still make a difference after a while.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

As for Scooby i would like to clear this issue up this year new lights were added to the ride in total creating for a much better dark ride section all effects are working and have been all year. As for the main room all lighting effects and lasers are working also we cannot forget the addition of the spider added late last year.

It's been mentioned already, but since you feel scooby is doing so well Klassen, can you explain why the dark ride section has gone from an immersive, all-round, in your face sound experience, to ONE (or one bank in the same position) of speakers? It is so quiet, I can hear the braking systems engaging as I go around. I could hear the gentle hum\hiss of the fogger just as we rounded that low end corner near the laser (lift end). Lighting and effects are one issue - they have consumable items that wear out over time, but there is ABSOLUTELY no reason for the sound to be below par. The consumable items for the sound system have extremely long lives, and are extremely cheap to replace. What gives?

Just a quick point I'd like to bring up, with the shop trading hours, they open later, however at the end of the day they actually stay open for as long as they need to, instead of closing right on 5pm.

Of course Gazza, and this has always been the case. Simple fact is - the end of the day is where you make your money. People will hold off buying during the day to save carrying it, but merchandise and skill games alike, when you are exiting the park, that is when people spend the money. So long as there are guests in the shops, OF COURSE they will keep them open. Any park who closes their merchandise areas at the scheduled park closing time is pure psychotic. I've never seen any park close their merch areas on closing time. Wonderland and Dreamworld are perfect examples of this, in that you exit THROUGH a retail area. Close the rides, they've done their duty, and no point operating them, because they're costing you money, but for the sake of electricity for the cash registers and wages for the staff, you're making big money.

Another cut back, majority of employee's now are not given shifts longer than 3 to 4 hours, in saying this, some employee's already worked that amount of hours a day but those who worked longer no longer do so any more.

Of course, because under industrial relations rules (and it should be four hours by the way, not even a casual can be rostered to work three), between 4 and 5 hours, no lunch break is required - so start em late, finish em early, and then you don't need to have extra staff to relieve them for their lunch break. quite simple really. Edit: (thats what I get for making long posts) - Lotl, Sure, they're making an extra $4 or $15 in their FB and merch areas, but that guest has just paid $15 to experience all the rides, shows and attractions that a normal $70 gate paying guest would. The Q150 masks the effect, but basically, you have thousands of people entering the gates, riding the rides, cycling them much more than would be normal on a quiet, off peak day. The park made an extra $15, but it cost them thousands in operational costs for attractions running at peak capacity in off peak seasons. Example: Pirate ship at sea world (and I pick this because it is usually always a walk on, except in serious peak season). Say in normal off peak, the ship cycles once every 10 minutes at a cost of $50 per cycle. Thats $300 per hour in off peak season, or $2100 for the day. Now add on the extra Q150 guests. Averaging the guest load out over the park, lets say that the cycle is now full, and therefore, a queue forms. As soon as the last guests are off, the next cycle begins to load. This includes those re-riders who rode last time and re-queued, making the queue longer. The ship is now cycling every 3 minutes and 20 seconds. This triples the cyclic cost, so you're now attracting $900 per hour, or $6300 per day. $4200 extra. Now if an average off peak day is 3300 guests, so with triple the numbers, we're talking an extra 6600 guests, they paid, on average $60 for their Q150 ticket (adults \ kids), so we've got an extra $396,000 in the bank. Over 120 days of the Q150 (Mar-Jun), this gives you $3300 per day to allow for the extra cycling of ALL of your attractions - as you can see - we can't even cover the pirate ship. Even if we allow the extra $10 or so average spend per person, those extra people are only giving you another $66,000. Out of that, you are likely to have, on average, a 20% margin in the product (some higher, some lower), so out of that 66,000, you've only got $13,200... so for the day, $16,500 extra to cover the additional load on all attractions - extra staff, extra maintenance, extra power, extra wear and tear, and therefore extra consumables. For Sea World, who only have 7 "rides" (lets not even count the extra shows etc they're all hosting), this gives you $2357 per ride per day. Larger rides cost that much to operate per HOUR I think it is obvious that the Q150 pass, while a great idea in concept, is actually putting a strain on WVTP, and this is the main reason we are seeing all these cutbacks across the board - because, as you can see above, they aren't really making more money, no matter how much merchanise is sold. And as I said a while back, even if they do make a substantial amount of money from each guest buying merchanise or FB, lets remember that they won't spend that sort of money EVERY time they visit - and they've got 120 days to keep coming back, and increasing the workload on those costly attractions. Edited March 17, 2009 by AlexB

[Richard]

The maths associated with trying to extrapolate a single weekend's attendance figures across the entire six month period and then working back from there to work out the profitability is a bit dodgy to say the least. It's been a while now, but last time Sea World had a $99 annual pass sale a few years back, I recall a figure of something like 100,000 sales. Given the price, value for money and marketing blitz associated with the latest deal it's not out of the realm of possibilities that they've tripled that figure. If total revenue directly associated with this campaign (incl. in-park spending by participants) is anything less than $30 million I'd be very surprised. Even then it's next to impossible to break that down on a per-park or per-attraction level. That said, it's unquestionable that it'll bolster their half-yearly earnings like nothing we've ever seen. Most of those saying that WVTP haven't made huge amounts off this latest deal seem to assume that the majority of buyers are those that obsessively scrimp and save. I guarantee you there will be a significant percentage of buyers who don't even visit all three parks once. Probably the bulk will make a combined total of half a dozen visits to any of the parks. Yeah there's going to be families that retreat to the boot of the car or the nearest Maccas come lunchtime, but they will be in the minority. You'll surely find a substantial number of families forking over a good $50+ on each visit, mostly in high margin food outlets. There's not a doubt in my mind that in-park spending alone will more than offset the costs of dealing with the additional capacity required -- with or without cutbacks. I can guarantee you that WVTP wouldn't even have started playing this game if there was the slightest possibility they didn't. What we're dealing with here with mention of attraction and retail cutbacks is something that started well before this 6-month pass appeared, and I think it's just a bit too convenient to assume it's caused by either excess low/no-margin visitors, or any purported financial crisis.

[pin142]

Sorry I know this is late but Spotty you are an absolute liar. Scooby never had more than a 30 minute wait on Sunday

I was there on Sunday and at one point when I went past the approximate queue time was 60 minutes.

[Spotty]

Mickey_079 is there any reason for calling me a liar that relates to this thread? I was there on Sunday with several people, and as stated the line at several times during the day stated that the lines were "approximately 45 minute waits" or more. Weather or not that was the Actual wait or not is a different story, but that is what the sign stated. When I lined up for it, the line said it was a "Approximately 30 minute wait" but only waited around 20 minutes in total. I did head over to KFC for lunch at around 1pm, so that might have been when Superman broke down according to you. But from around 11am - 1pm and 1:45pm - 4pm I did not see the ride break down at all. So please in the future before calling me a liar, can you make sure you have got the full story? I am not trying to sound rude but I don't appreciate being called a liar in public when I know that I wasn't lying.

[mickey_079]

I got on superman at 10, rode it 4 times and finished riding it at 11. I went in line for Batwing and noticed superman was NOT going. After my ride I walked over noticed people were being turned away. The next time I saw a train go was at about 12:30 and then saw a whole lot of people running to that end of the park. Those times are just estimates.

[Spotty]

Well I didn't arrive in the park until 11am and went over to the lockers near Ricks. So if it did break down at around 11am I wasn't aware of it. I did however get on Superman at around about 11:30 - 11:45 though. I cant remember my every move exactly though. So I am sorry if I came across as rude or anything, but considering we were at different places at different times it is more than possible that it did happen.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Richard, don't get me wrong, but I wasn't trying to show accurate figures of any sort, just hypothetical scenarios to provoke discussion. I'm sure their income will be bolstered at the end of the financial year, my comments were mainly to go over how much of that extra income will be chewed up by increased maintenance, etc. And certainly agree with you that a large number of people will spend whilst in the park, I disagree that there will only be a minority who do not. A family of 4 or 5 going to a park once a week using the Q150 is not going to spend $100 PER WEEK on a single meal. between $15-$20 per meal at most food outlets is not something a regular visitor can afford every single week. The fact that the passes are unlimited entry relieves the restriction that they cannot "come back later". A lot of people who bought these passes are people who would not have otherwise gone to the park, and for that family of 5 who has just forked out maybe $350 to buy those tickets in the first place, isn't about to spend another $400 per month on food items... they bought the passes because they were a cheap idea for entertainment for a few months. Of course, my figures will be WAY out, but the example is still sound and true. My figures were exaggerated slightly for effect, but the logic is still there - any machinery that works more than usual will require more maintenance than usual. It will consume more power, and other consumables such as grease or lubricants. The costs on running an attraction at what can be considered peak attendance during periods where it is usually lower usage will have an impact on the pocket. Yes, they have sold more tickets than they would have without the pass, but I just don't think this is going to see them dramatically spike in profits for this fiscal year - moreover they will stay steady in comparison to the previous years, where other attractions that do not offer this great deal might decline.

[Dylaan]

Just a side note, NBN seemed to be televising from Movie World tonight... (A 'ball' of sorts, I've forgotten already) The square was completely dressed up for the event and I didn't even recognise it until they flashed up the logo on the big screen! Surely there would be a fair bit of cash in an event like this?