White Christmas 2011

[westical]

Mine -

• [*]Green Lantern looks like it needs another week yet, and this weather isn't helping. [*]Superman Escape is twice as good at night, and while I understand why they don't always do it, having both trains running sure helped queue times. The lights on the police car weren't on though. And still no Superman projection that I could see. [*]Lethal Weapon was a walk on (as per usual). Some people were riding multiple times in a row, with the current head bashing train once is enough for me... [*]I don't remember fog at the last drop in Scooby. They really need to update the queue video though, AOL? [*]The lights looked fantastic, especially when they sync with music. Should have used the "snow" more though. [*]Yes the parade was small, but the new floats (well, new to me) looked great. Guess it's hard to justify too many floats when it's just for one week a year. [*]Ice skating looked dodgy for the above reasons but was popular. [*]Characters in the Looney Tunes show were Bugs, Daffy, Elmer, Tweety, Pepe Le Pew, Sylvester, Granny and Tas Devil. Why aren't some of these in the park more often... And best place to sit is, umm, the middle? [*]Not everyone was wearing wristbands, hopefully they were just too cool to wear them rather than freeloading. [*]Three hours is not long enough.

Edited December 11, 2011 by westical

[Park Addict 93]

My highlight of the nights (have been to both public evenings so far) are Superman in the dark and the lights before and after the Christmas Parade synchronised to music. The biggest disappointment was the Kwazy Christmas shows, whilst I am not the intended audience I saw many families leaving and on the second night a carol was cut certainly a step down from Looney Tunes on Ice last year. For those not allergic to Facebook theme park pages, have uploaded many photos here.

Edited December 12, 2011 by Jordan M

[MaxxTheMonster]

Saw the tv ad this morning for the Summer Pass and have a few friends heading to MW on New Years Day. Add on the wife being pregnant and wanting to stay cool this summer I decided to look into this pass just for the couple of months to find: Summer Pass $89.99 Unlimited entry to the Big 3 Parks - Warner Bros. Movie World, Sea World and Wet'n'Wild Water World - until 29 February 2012. You must be a Queensland resident or resident of Northern NSW postcodes 2450 - 2490 to be eligible for this offer, you must present photographic proof of residency. Movie World's White Christmas is SOLD OUT. Should they perhaps be stating on their tv ad that White Christmas has sold out? Or is this another one of those "VIP will get free entry" when selling the passes but down the track "$10 charge for VIP pass holders?"

[themeparknut2011]

I think the main problem with buying tickets for White Christmas this year, is that last night was the last night. I believe they sold out both Saturday and Sunday night, so this extra perk would have been no use to you unless you had the passes on Friday. To be fair to Movie World, the original Gold VIP passes came with free entry to White Christmas, the regular VIP passes did not. That is what the $10 offer was about. I believe the summer passes included entry as well. The only stipulation on this was that you had to book, because many of the nights sold out. I completely agree that they should change their ad! It bugged me all weekend.

[MaxxTheMonster]

The vip $10 thing makes sense now. Not interested in the White Christmas. More just the fact the ad says one thing and the website says another.

Edited December 19, 2011 by Wyncenuros

[Spotty]

Also, you are able to upgrade the "Locals Summer Pass" at the gate for 20 dollars for entry up until the 30th of June. They probably offered the 10 dollar White Christmas tickets for VIP pass holders so they could get the numbers because they might have been lacking (50 dollars at the gate is a bit much honestly... considering fright nights was only 40) But when they did this they got more demand than anticipated.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I went on sunday night. As for the advertising - sometimes it's hard to update television advertising the moment the tickets sell out as the clip would have been produced weeks ago, and submitted to the station. Stations may sometimes charge to make changes after the spot is sold. Anyone in their right mind should not turn up at the gate expecting to buy without confirming on 133 FUN or the website first. As for the event - I had the opportunity to fill out a guest survey on my way out. Good points: The park and the entertainment were well done and at the standard i've come to expect from Movieworld. Well done to those technical persons behind the scenes who orchestrated these parts of the park. I'd seen the lights previously during my corporate christmas party, but seeing the extra touches put around the place, and in the other areas (wild west and wb kids) was also nice to see. Some very nice lights that i may have to invest in myself - also good to see moving heads mounted on the poles for the roof now. The truss was a great idea, but the pole-mounted fixtures look more permanent, integrated, and less "in your face". Bad Points: Kwazy Christmas was a nice concept, and great to see Pepe, Granny and other characters dusted off from the archives who do not make regular appearances. I did see some families walking out part-way through, but in my opinion, the 7:10 show was poorly organised. A lot of the usher staff had to rush over from main street's lighting ceremony to open the doors, and the show stage wasn't even half full when the lights dimmed and the show started. The first 10 minutes we had people shuffling along the front aisleway until the ushers eventually roped it off and directed people up the back. This was made worse by the characters inviting kids to come down the front of the stage to dance - further bottlenecking the aisleway. My biggest disappointment of the night - the park was way oversold. There were way too many guests in the park for that event. All rides had minimum 40 minute queues every time i looked. After seeing some entertainment and grabbing a bite to eat, we decided to ride lethal as it usually had the shortest queue - unfortunately the queue was all the way back into the 'new' queuehouse at the bottom of the ramp and we decided to ditch it. It shouldn't have been advertised as Ice Skating if it wasn't ICE. It was last year so the expectation of a repeat was high. So for the night - Show count - 1 Ride count - 0 F&B count - 1 Ambience of the park 9/10. Now that the rant is out of the way, it wouldn't be appropriate to whinge and leave it at that - so here's my suggestion for fixing the problems: 1) Cap attendance at a lower figure than it was on sunday night. If you have to increase the ticket price - then do it, it's obviously popular 2) When you sell a premium product (such as VIP gold) try to make the purchasers of that product feel a little more special on the night (such as 'front of the line' on an alternating attraction throughout the night?) - Now before I get people arguing that VIP gold already receive benefits \ got the entry to the event free - I want to add that it wasn't free, that was the incentive to pay the extra money. It was also paid for more than half a year in advance - thereby giving the park firm numbers to rely on for the event. Besides - the other 'benefits' a Gold VIP member gets aren't really more than the old monthly MyFun special vouchers online... and usually involve upgraded purchases, rather than anything cheaper, or free. 3) operations staff to run at the maximum. Merchandise staff (cheap flashy crap) reduced. You're still going to sell cheap flashy crap to everyone in the park - but you'll cut your staff costs. 4) more entertainment, more spaced out. The main reason for the issue with the 7:10 Kwazy Christmas show is that the lighting ceremony and frosty the snowman show ran pretty well back-to-back. Space it out - you've got all night! 4a) SOMETHING in the HWSD arena would have soaked more people up too. Two shows for the night wouldn't be bad - circus of the damned or Showtime FMX style shows (appropriately themed of course) would work well - hey - why not bring santa in on the back of a Lancer (On Dasher, on Lancer...?) Overall the park needed something that was time consuming, enjoyable and worthwhile that was lacking. I've never seen someone walk out of the Dolphin show at sea world, or HWSD at movie world - but i've seen people walk out of the show stage! I realise that every single thing i've said either increases costs or reduces profits - but the events need to be enjoyable by all, or people won't go next year. the one idea I had was for the park to do something more regularly - like Screamworld - so that the 'holiday' events aren't as packed. There are some people who go just to ride rides in the dark - and i'm sure people would take the opportunity to go on a "standard" night event to do that, which would lessen the strain on the holiday events, and provide a regular "after hours" income stream. I'm not saying do it 5 times per month - but whats wrong with once a month? once every two months? you can leave the lights on the buildings (maybe change colours once in a while), and logistically, it's less to organise as the majority of the night-time equipment is permanently installed. Who remembers Wonderland's 5 after 5? $5 after 5pm is too cheap for our parks these days, but what about a regular $24.95 night-time entry ticket? Day-ticket holders get to stay in the park, but cheaper entry for after hours? Wet N Wild can do it in the summer for the dive-in movies, why not movieworld? Neighbours? not an excuse... so.... rant over, suggestions kind of over - i'll leave it to the board for debate...

[Gazza]

^It wasn't ice skating last year. It was the exact same plastic rink wrapped around that small green fountain.

[Randy23]

It was a wax based hehe! But a rip off!

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Ah ok - i thought it was ice like they did in Brisbane's King George Square...

[MaxxTheMonster]

1) Cap attendance at a lower figure than it was on sunday night. If you have to increase the ticket price - then do it, it's obviously popular

But this has been an issue for their night events ever since their first Halloween fright night. It appears this is one of the moments where revenue will win out.

[pin142]

I see it coming back to the point of being there for the atmosphere of the night and uniqueness it has than the rides. I know I went to Halloween and White Christmas for the things that are only available on those nights and not the rides that I can ride any day. Sure it may be different riding them at night but that shouldn't be the main reason people are going to these events.

[Gazza]

Just wanted to say I agree with what AlexB said about more evenings. Year round, mabye not, but what about an event called "Summer Sunsets" or something. They would be perfect for that period of the year with the regular insane 12000-14000 attendance days. Doesn't even have to have too much in terms of special things as you would for Christmas/Haloween...maybe just a bit of summery live music under the big screen? Just something to spread the load on the park a little bit and a chance to visit when the sun isn't beating down.

Edited December 21, 2011 by Gazza

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Year round, mabye not, but what about an event called "Summer Sunsets" or something. They would be perfect for that period of the year with the regular insane 12000-14000 attendance days. Doesn't even have to have too much in terms of special things as you would for Christmas/Haloween...maybe just a bit of summery live music under the big screen? Just something to spread the load on the park a little bit and a chance to visit when the sun isn't beating down.

This is my point exactly - I went to both Hallowe'en and White Christmas (and Corporate White Christmas where only Superman and Batwing were open). I didn't intend on doing 'lots of rides' but i wouldn't have minded going on one or two without spending the entire night in a queue. The corporate party was obviously very different - but for $150, it was a 4 hour open bar, 1 hour operation of Superman and Batwing, and a Buffet dinner (which included seafood). Now if you cut out alcohol (well... the free stuff anyway), the 'free' food etc - that would have been approx 300-400 people. Superman still had a 30 odd minute queue (one train and skeleton staff) and batwing a 5 minute queue (it took that long for the two staff members to cycle). Now - increase it to say - 5000 people. You can still sell food and drink (go adult and have a 'licensed' section like club blood) and you could easily charge $75-$100 for the night, without much in the way of entertainment, and still turn a profit - if I knew attendance was capped to 5000, and ALL rides would be operating... I would go. I'm sure a lot of others would too - sell it as exclusive events, tie it in with movie premiere or special performances, and you're on a winner. Having said that - if you don't want to cap attendance, do pre-book-only events throughout the year. I'm in agreeance with everything Gazza said, except the 'year round' bit. Once every two months, (or every month) one-night-only events... and to save the Marketing department from the trouble - here are my suggestions (with some already put forward \ already running)

• [*]January - Summer Sunsets (multi-night event) [*]February - Candlelight Thrills (Valentines Day) [*]March - Rise of the DC Heroes (DC Comics) [*]April - Bugs' Easter Eggstravaganza [*]May - Mum's Night Out (Mother's Day) [*]June - Winter Wonderland [*]July - Christmas in July [*]August - Boogie Nights (guest Djs - make it a big dance party style event) [*]September - Spring Fling [*]October - Hallowe'en Fright Nights (Multi Night Event) (The gold coast 600 is also on at this time - 19-21 october) [*]November - A night that stops a nation (play on melbourne cup) [*]December - White Christmas.

[Gazza]

August - Boogie Nights

Bit of a risque name?

[Reanimated35]

Bit of a risque name?

Keep it themepark themed. "Bogie Nights"

[T-bone]

Keep it themepark themed. "Bogan Nights"

Fixed! Edited December 21, 2011 by T-bone

[rappa]

Boogie Nights... movie themed so sounds ok to me

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

^^^ My thoughts exactly... hang on - someone better check whether its a WB release!

[strop]

Boogie Nights... movie themed so sounds ok to me

Yeah, but how long would the queue be for the Rollergirl ride?

[Gazza]

^And when you go to the urinals in the park toilets on the night, do you have to say -"I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a star, I'm a big bright shining star"?

[strop]

No, but what you see in the urinals depends on whether you are willing to pay 5 bucks or 10.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Ok - so cancel the August night-time event.