Why Australia has such horrible thrill rides?

[qldtaw]

The cost of construction is also different between Australia and the USA.

The Theme Park industry is much larger in the US and so they have more demand for rides and attractions which makes it more affordable for attraction companies to operate in that country.

We are buying a very small amount of attractions in a year, just look at Six Flags they alone has bought as many new rides for their parks as all of our parks combined this year.

There is also an enormous cost in getting any attractions to us from over seas because very little is fabricated in Australia.

Australia is geographically very far away from the vast majority of locations where goods are produced.

Hence why we typically pay so much more for things here.

The usual price you expect to pay for a t-shirt in Australia is $49.95 (Think Industrie) a comparative brand in the US lets say Hollister you pay about $29.95.

The same for video games, new release here is $99.95, new release in the US is $59.95.

The same basic logic can be applied to roller coasters.

In the US you get more for your money.

So its not that we cant afford big attractions our parks spend big dollars to a similar value, we just need to spend a lot more to get larger attractions.

Our 'Maverick' is the Storm coaster.

We spent $20 million dollars (Some cost was saved due to the existing building as well) on Storm however for only $1 million more Cedar Point built Maverick.

Maverick as a total investment is of a much higher value. They got a lot more for their money.

To start with it is over a much larger area with a lot of landscaping and the coaster is a unique model not standard like Storm.

[pin142]

The same for video games, new release here is $99.95, new release in the US is $59.95.

Poor comparison given the fact that a number of times a game has appeared on Steam for the $60 then suddenly jumped to $100 over night. Also comparing video game pricing to the price of a ride just doesn't work as you can't import a coaster from overseas through Amazon or another seller at a cheaper price than locally so our parks only really have one channel to go through to get a ride, the manufacturer.

[Gazza]

Ok, a few key points,

-Whilst a lot of the Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks only seemingly get a a few more visitors per year, (Sayt 2.5 million versus our 1.5 million) they frequently do this in a core daily operating season of 3-4 months, with a shoulder season of weekend operation a couple of months either side of this. In short, daily attendance is much higher.

-Based on my recent trip to several large regional US theme parks they very do much draw most of their visitation from locals in the immediate catchment area. For example at Cedar Point it was a sea of Ohio number plates in the car park, and a sea of visitors wearing Ohio State Football shirts and caps.

Or consider Six Flags Great Adventure…The park is the main one for NYC, which has 19.9 million alone, plus 6.6 million in Philadelphia (Park is between the two)

Getting back to Cedar Point, Ohio has 11 mil, plus 9 mil in neighbouring Michigan.

Australian theme parks basically have a fixed market of 22 million visitors and only 3 mil live close to the Gold Coast ones. International visitors don’t really add much, except for say kiwis and those Chinese tour groups.

-The ‘Australia Tax’ and the higher cost of building stuff and dealing with northern hemisphere based ride manufacturers does make it particularly expensive to do the really large rides. This isn't just thrill rides, look at the cost of any sort of building or piece of civil works.

Blue streak was only 200,000 USD.

Yeah but it was built in 1964 so obviously it was way cheaper back then.

Just the same as Corkscrew/Sea Viper was only 1-2 million back in 1982

Read this Tim Dasco http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inflation

Edited September 8, 2014 by Gazza

[Tim Dasco]

Yeah i know that but they would not have gone up that much. Some of them should still be affordable today.

[Gazza]

Fine then, find me a roller coaster built in the last few years for 200,000 USD equivalent since you are clearly the one in the know about construction cost escalation.

[Tim Dasco]

I said the cost would be more now but wouldn't the Gold Coast be able to get a coaster under 12 Million USD that is good quality.

[iwerks]

China apparently has lots.. whether you would actually want to ride them.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Amusement-park-ride-roller-coaster_1761263168.html?s=p

[Brad2912]

I said the cost would be more now but wouldn't the Gold Coast be able to get a coaster under 12 Million USD that is good quality.

What do u classify as good quality??

Scooby Doo cost $12m approx over 10 years ago. Cost of materials, construction, shipping is even more now than it was then (inflation, taxes etc) so building an identical replica to Scooby would probably now cost you more than $12m (assuming like for like construction)

Edited September 8, 2014 by Brad2912

[Gazza]

We already know what sort of coasters can be done in Aus around $12 Million....Scooby, Motocoaster, Abyss....presumably Jet Rescue would be in the same range too?

Side point...why are people complaining about lack of big coasters, then are holding up Abyss as an example? I mean Eurofighters are 'good', and I've done Saw which is about as close to a clone of Abyss as you're gonna get, but they aren't exactly world beating rides, just more or less middle of the road.

[AllegroCrab]

China apparently has lots.. whether you would actually want to ride them.

http://www.alibaba.com/product-detail/Amusement-park-ride-roller-coaster_1761263168.html?s=p

Packaging & Delivery Packaging Detail: standard package (plastic package inside and wooden carton outside)(packing in according to customer's needs). Delivery Detail: within 20 days for roller coaster after 30% deposit

Gosh, That's convenient...

Is everyone willing to chip in a few hundred $$$? We can buy this for ourselves.

[iwerks]

And we could call it the Cork Viper. Order now and we could have it up by Christmas.

[zacsta_1997]

Well I think Dreamworld has really picked up their game with refurbishing the Wipeout, replacing Reef Diver with Tail Spin and giving multiple rides a touch up. We may even see a proper ride / coaster, the way Dreamworld is going. Dreamworld has really taken a good turn.!!!

[XxMrYoshixX]

Well I think Dreamworld has really picked up their game with refurbishing the Wipeout, replacing Reef Diver with Tail Spin and giving multiple rides a touch up. We may even see a proper ride / coaster, the way Dreamworld is going. Dreamworld has really taken a good turn.!!!

As long as they get rid of the eureka ride.

And we could call it the Cork Viper. Order now and we could have it up by Christmas.

I looked at the ride and it's a Chinese knockoff Loop Screw. Buy it, get Arrow trains and your done!

[pin142]

I'll just get on the phone to arrow now...

[themeparklover]

It's not our fault for having "bad thrill rides''. I know the US have really awesome roller coasters, but the US has a much bigger population than us. We can't afford these new and innovative thrill rides because of our population. But other than that, many tourists come to visit our theme parks and they think it's great so we have pretty good rides.

[ChrisMason]

i wouldn't say our thrill rides are bad the gp seem to love them, its just some enthusiasts and regular visitors who travel to the US or overseas that seem to label them as bad, TOT was a world record holder back in the day and Giant drop held its world record until lex luthor opened in 2012

Edited September 15, 2014 by ChrisMason