Heard an ad on the radio over the weekend promoting the opening day, and explaining how it works. Was quite good.

THE builder of the Gold Coast’s latest theme park attraction has told subbies they may only be paid half of their contracts after a financial dispute.

Directors from the Brisbane-based construction company Astute Projects Pty Ltd have sent a letter out where they forecast “we can return between 50-60 cents in the dollar to subcontractors” at the $35 million Topgolf project at Oxenford.

The payment dispute, which is being monitored by the Queensland Building and Construction Commission, does not involve Village Roadshow or the US-based Top Golf.

 

NO Gold Coast Bulletin!  TG is not a theme park attraction. 

Courier Mail thinks the same

They should learn the meaning of "Theme Park" and "Tourist Attraction".

Doesn't sound like something that should be beyond the grasp of a journalist!

Why is this in the Theme Park Discussion forum then?

 

Quote

theme

verb

give a particular theme or setting to (a leisure venue, event, etc.).

1. "the amusement park will be themed as a Caribbean pirate stronghold"

Quote

park

noun

1. 1.

   a large public garden or area of land used for recreation.

   "a walk round the park"
2. 2.

   an area devoted to a specified purpose.

   "an industrial park"

Quote

theme park

noun

an amusement park with a unifying setting or idea.

By the book, I guess you could say it was - purists amongst us would disagree (and I would be one of them - AW anyone?) but I truly feel that the term has been watered down over time.

Yes, in isolation, and by the book definitions, it's not much of a stretch to say it fits the bill...

 

It is a leisure venue, and it has a particular "theme" (golf), it is a large area of land used for recreation, devoted to a specific purpose,  which makes it a "park" - so the unified setting or idea is the golf theme, set in a park... anyone who considers AW to fit the bill must surely agree that TG fits it too...

Whilst we're all debating that, i'm going to head down the road to that bowling theme park called Zone...

 

 

6 hours ago, AlexB said:

..anyone who considers AW to fit the bill must surely agree that TG fits it too...

Whilst we're all debating that, i'm going to head down the road to that bowling theme park called Zone...

 

Yeah, nope. It’s a theme park because it’s on the east coast of Australia, just like the Ekka and the Sydney Showgrounds. 😜

2 minutes ago, iwerks said:

Yeah, nope. It’s a theme park because it’s on the east coast of Australia, just like the Ekka and the Sydney Showgrounds. 😜

Nah didn't you hear Abyss, Kraken and Goliath are trailer mounted and are off to a new fair this week. Considering AW is a fun fair. 😜

Oh, yeah, @Tim Dasco I totally forgot!

I realise there's some distance there, but surely you can see that tongue in my cheek?

Good news, MW have got rid of the Topgolf sign outside the entrance and have gone to these efforts

I'm pretty sure construction was completed a while back now... are you sure this belongs here?

https://www.parkz.com.au/forums/topic/6679-read-this-parkz-policies-guidelines/?do=findComment&comment=135700

Quote

As a really simple set of guidelines:

1. Don't be afraid to start a new topic.
2. ...
3. If it hasn't been talked about before and isn't related to what's already being discussed it should be in its own topic, even if it's a fairly minor thing.
4. ...
5. ...
6. ...
7. When construction ends on a project, and you wish to share a review, thoughts etc., start a new topic for this purpose.

Do we think TG is performing as well as they hoped? Are they improving this for aesthetics, or is it trying to drive visitation?

Thanks for the update mate - i think it looks really good!

They're a really nice touch when you drive into Movie World, good stuff.

From the earnings report, it's doing fine, just not where they want it to be. I'd say it's a cultural difference - with wait-staff, the US has a tipping culture, thus, waiters have a personal incentive to make sure you have drinks, food and are enjoying yourself at all times. In Australia, simply aren't as motivated simply because we have pretty good minimum wages and barely any tipping culture and thus just not as motivated. That's gonna hurt the bottom line when so much of your business is F&B based - every visit i've had to Top Golf so far staff are pretty difficult to find compared to having staff like US Top Golfs who will pop by every 10 minutes to see how you're going.

Not all doom and gloom though - in the earnings call they said they were aware of it and were looking into it, so I have high hopes they'll figure it out.

Edited February 25, 20196 yr by Slick

My first visit to TG (in its first few weeks) was pretty good - but it has dropped off severely. Its clear staff just don't care.

At the very least, they need a button (where the environmental buttons are) or a soft button on the touch screens that calls for service - and similar to the 'bussing' function - should change the colour of the bay number on the roof behind it, or make it flash, to draw the attention of the service staff.

In addition to speeding up service to guests, it would also provide reporting data for the company to see whether their staff are meeting KPIs on guest satisfaction as the time between being called, and the call being answered would be recorded.

I think as soon as you sit down at TG people feel like the clock is ticking and people dont want to chill and buy food. An offer like '3rd hour free' would help to that end. I think a lot of people would take it up and if know upfront you'll be there for 3 hours you'd be more happy to order food.

Skip to about the 10 minute mark for the Topgolf experience. They do say how they are offered to sit down in the booth and order some food and drinks before game play even begins, which I think is great and should be what they do here. Just adds to the experience. I would understand them not doing this during a peak period, but on a slower/quieter day I definitely think they should

13 hours ago, joz said:

I think as soon as you sit down at TG people feel like the clock is ticking and people dont want to chill and buy food. An offer like '3rd hour free' would help to that end. I think a lot of people would take it up and if know upfront you'll be there for 3 hours you'd be more happy to order food.

I just think the model is bogus. The time limit means the more people you bring, the less play you get - so if you really wanted to give it a good crack, you wouldn't bring a lot of people with you - which = less F&B spend.

I think their concern is that if they don't have a time limit, you'll park there all day, making it hard for them to turn over the bays. i think if they were more reasonable and allowed say - 15 minutes or 20 balls per player - a group of 4 would get an hour to roll through the game (which i think is reasonable) but a group of 6 would get 90 minutes. Likewise a group of 2 would get only half an hour...

You could still pay for additional time if you wanted to go slower, or pay for an additional game to get the same block of time as above. I guess that does complicate things more - but i'd love to see them run on a service model the same as a bowling alley where you pay per game, rather than per hour

(although, at the end of the day, at least when you're paying by the hour, Village is letting you know you're getting screwed).

On Wednesday’s they are doing uni nights and any students can play from 6 until 9 for only $25 per person, and they get discounts on F&B, which I think is an awesome deal. 3 hours for $25 is awesome 

10 minutes ago, themagician said:

On Wednesday’s they are doing uni nights and any students can play from 6 until 9 for only $25 per person

Back in the uni days $25.00 would feed me for a fortnight.  😂

Plus that's a big fuck you to anyone who isn't a student. Don't they realise that non-students tend to have more money?

It's a classic move out of the Australian Hospo Playbook.  The next one is hospo night.

There's the potential for TG to be smart with their offers - i.e. if a group is spending up big on F&B, offer them heavily discounted rates to keep the party going for another hour. I think the time-based pricing probably does discourage people from slowing down to eat and drink, especially the $90/hr on weekends.

27 minutes ago, AlexB said:

Don't they realise that non-students tend to have more money?

Isn't that precisely the point? Non-students have more money and therefore can afford to visit at more appropriate times rather than on a Wednesday night.

5 minutes ago, Richard said:

Isn't that precisely the point? Non-students have more money and therefore can afford to visit at more appropriate times rather than on a Wednesday night.

Sorry - I can see how what i've written doesn't explain myself well. I guess what I meant is - they're offering a discounted rate to people that don't have a lot of money (comparatively) - which I concede means they might attract some money from people who wouldn't have chosen to spend it there normally (which is fair enough) - on the other hand, perhaps they'd encourage bigger wallets to attend the venue by offering a lower price for the game, and while there, and enjoying themselves, the bigger wallets might spend more on discretionary items like F&B.

If it were a 'happy hour' style promo (like Cinemas that have cheap tuesday) they could offer the same rate to everyone on those quiet nights to bring more money in, and i'm sure they're make more money that way than by just limiting it to students.