Movie World Hypercoaster - colour, theme and announcement speculation

[jjuttp]

1 hour ago, Theme Park Girl said:

 given it seems to be a chameleon colour of some sort which appears differently to the eye based on its environment. 

So it's Uluru: The Coaster? Not sure if Disney will take a bite at the park, but there's always the Ayers Rock'n'Rollercoaster option.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

At the risk of triggering off another round of debate, the only thing that interests me here is:

• people suggested wonderwoman
• people shot down wonderwoman as a suggestion because she has nothing to do with pink\purple\fuschia\magenta\whatever
• merchandise for the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman goes on sale, which includes a tie-dye shirt with a fairly close match to the colour scheme of the coaster in it.

If there is anything to the rumour that it was originally suicide squad, and they decided to change it, the colour wouldn't exactly fit, but tying merch in to it with similar colour schemes is a good way to validate it...

[Lightning]

35 minutes ago, AlexB said:

At the risk of triggering off another round of debate, the only thing that interests me here is:

• people suggested wonderwoman
• people shot down wonderwoman as a suggestion because she has nothing to do with pink\purple\fuschia\magenta\whatever
• merchandise for the 75th anniversary of Wonder Woman goes on sale, which includes a tie-dye shirt with a fairly close match to the colour scheme of the coaster in it.

If there is anything to the rumour that it was originally suicide squad, and they decided to change it, the colour wouldn't exactly fit, but tying merch in to it with similar colour schemes is a good way to validate it...

I also noticed that the merchandise post was removed, maybe this was a request from MW? 

[themagician]

Just out of curiosity, and based off similar coasters around the world, when this scale of coaster goes into maintence, generally would it be for a lot longer period of time, because it's such a large coaster, or it generally isn't much different to any of coasters. I know there are a number of things which would impact on how long it goes into maintenance, but was just curious.

[Brad2912]

Good points @AlexB

they all sound feasible, I just struggle to see how anyone at VTP thought a Coaster themed to suicide squad was ever going to be easy to market. Too many negative connotations to the word Suicide, it just doesn't fit the theme of 'fun' which is what theme parks are about. 

Also, MW's take on the DC properties has always been based on the comic iterations as opposed to the cinematic universe, and the colour scheme for SS of the vibrant purple/magenta/whatever is only tied to the cinematic version of SS, the comics doesn't have colouring in its logo/themes. 

As for production of merch to validate a poor colour choice/theme on a coaster, it would be laughable if true, but so is the handling of the marketing of this Coaster, so I wouldn't put it past them..

 

[wikiverse]

@Brad2912  The marketing for this coaster won't start at least until after the Mid-year school holidays.

The speculation about theming is what will get people talking, and the more of the coaster that is built, the more the media will start to speculate and talk about the ride.  They will essentially get free advertising and exposure from media outlets this way.

The less information they give about the ride, the more people will be interested in it.  I wouldn't expect any official advertising to commence until 6-8 weeks before opening.

[Santa07]

4 minutes ago, wikiverse said:

@Brad2912  The marketing for this coaster won't start at least until after the Mid-year school holidays.

The less information they give about the ride, the more people will be interested in it.  I wouldn't expect any official advertising to commence until 6-8 weeks before opening.

Nope, I completely disagree. The less information they give, the less people will know about it. Unless they've driven past MW in the past month, they probably have no clue the thing exists. People have made their end of year holiday plans by now and if they had announced the coaster a few months ago they would've attracted the attention of those interstate or overseas, but since they haven't very few of them actually know it exists.

[mission]

9 minutes ago, Santa07 said:

People have made their end of year holiday plans by now and if they had announced the coaster a few months ago they would've attracted the attention of those interstate or overseas,

It's going to be there for 30 years.

While I get what you mean, I'm sure the planning of this attraction has taken things like this into account.  

 

I don't get why people are saying MW is doing such a bad job (or not doing anything at all) of marketing it, unless of course the people saying that are experts in marketing theme park attractions so they actually have some credence to their comments.

Edited May 19, 2017 by mission

[Cactus_Matt]

While I disagree with how MW have marketed their coaster so far, I suppose there's some ways I can understand why they haven't. As far as online or television marketing, when it comes to something of this tremendous size and aesthetic quality, sometimes words aren't enough. Just giving it a name and saying it'll be 2xx feet high (or 6x meters) isn't as impressive as having a completed track or even just completed lift hill and first drop to show off. That's the only reason I can see for having taken this long to formally announce the coaster, name and layout.

Either that or they're still deciding what to call it.  

[Santa07]

@mission that's true, but in the case of international visitors they might not come back for 30 years (that said I would think the coaster would stay for longer than 30 years). I'm not a marketing expert but I just don't agree with the way VR has been going about their marketing.

 

[Slick]

26 minutes ago, mission said:

It's going to be there for 30 years.

While I get what you mean, I'm sure the planning of this attraction has taken things like this into account.  

 

I don't get why people are saying MW is doing such a bad job (or not doing anything at all) of marketing it, unless of course the people saying that are experts in marketing theme park attractions so they actually have some credence to their comments.

I was going to save this for an article, but I see an opportunity here to debunk the "why does everyone hate on MW" train that goes round so often here, so here goes: I actually went to the effort of sifting through the last decade's worth of major hyper roller-coaster announcements, comparing the time between the announcement and the open date. Want to know what I found? Since 2008, between announcement to open, there's typically a 9.4 month mean or 8 month median average, and that number has increased right up to 14-18 months (Mako & Karnan respectively) in two recent instances where social media has become important in creating hype and marketing for these kinds of attractions. 

That means, as we stand here right now, today, as each second passes, even if they announced the coaster right now, they would be going against every single global trend for successfully marketing a major project like this in the theme park industry for the last decade. If they open in September (and by all bets, they still will be) that'll mean that there's less than four months between announcement to open IF they announced today. That's an worryingly small amount of time to get the word out about a project this big. It's such a small amount of time, in terms of collecting the data above, it would be considered an anomaly and not counted in the overall dataset.

Now, this is not me hating on Movie World, nor is this me hopping on the Movie World hate train. Most folks know I love the crapper out of the park, and there's some incredible folks working in there to whom I have much respect for. I also want to see Movie World get the amount of success it deserves for putting itself on the line and building such a behemoth of a project, and from a marketing perspective, this isn't a case of nitpicking personal taste in terms of art direction or style in a TVC, this is me identifying something that worries me in light of wanting the best for the park and its team, something that I hope they identify promptly.To simplify, no one hates Movie Worlds at all or thinks they're doing a bad job, it's just that we want to tell everyone about it, ideally, we should've known four months ago, the CEO wanted to tell us four months ago, and we still don't know, and as someone who's passionate about Movie World and wants to get the word out and support them, it's really frustrating.

[Santa07]

I guess not marketing it much means shorter queues for us on opening day 😉

[Cactus_Matt]

@Slick That's the best thing I've read all day on here (not that's hard given the current state of conversation).

[wikiverse]

@Santa07 VRTP don't advertise individual rides internationally.  A 6-8 week local/national campaign will be enough to get the word out locally with an imminent opening date.

Also,

14 minutes ago, Slick said:

Since 2008, between announcement to open, there's typically a 9.4 month mean or 8 month median average, and that number has increased right up to 14-18 months (Mako & Karnan respectively) in two recent instances where social media has become important in creating hype and marketing for these kinds of attractions. 

That means, as we stand here right now, today, as each second passes, even if they announced the coaster right now, they would be going against every single global trend for successfully marketing a major project like this in the theme park industry for the last decade.

A lot of those parks only open seasonally and close during the winter, so it is an entirely different situation.

Movieworld will be at capacity during the September school holidays when this ride opens with locals and international guests, even if they do a 6-8 week run in the lead up to Opening day.

Opening day media coverage will see the coaster featured on the front page of every news site in the country, along with morning TV shows (Today/Sunrise) broadcasting live from the park.

If the ride is themed to Wonder Woman as people are speculating, then the earliest they would start an advertising campaign would be the same week that the movie launched in cinemas - booking screen time before every screening of that movie across the country.

There is no advantage for MW to make announcements and advertise this early.  This coaster will not me a determining factor in Family Holiday plans to the GC, or to MW for interstate or international guests.

Edited May 19, 2017 by wikiverse
spelling

[xRazzBerryx]

17 minutes ago, Slick said:

I actually went to the effort of sifting through the last decade's worth of major hyper roller-coaster announcements, comparing the time between the announcement and the open date. 

Did you happen to find out if the other parks did little teasers leading up to the big announcement, or just dropped everything in one big announcement? 

[Slick]

4 hours ago, wikiverse said:

@Santa07 VRTP don't advertise individual rides internationally.  A 6-8 week local/national campaign will be enough to get the word out locally with an imminent opening date.

You're totally, 100% wrong, and I use the word "wrong" sparingly in my life and what I post. You don't spend this country's biggest ever capex on a single ride for the locals only. They're not going to advertise to internationals, but if you spent just five minutes Googling (which wouldn't even be a tenth of the time I spent researching data the other day, let alone the time i've spent creating marketing materials for parks for globally) you'd find hat a fair chunk of the attendance is interstate, and that audience needs months & months of massaging if you want your first few months to meet budget for something this major. This is why everyone else in the world does exactly this when opening a ride.

4 hours ago, wikiverse said:

 

There is no advantage for MW to make announcements and advertise this early.  This coaster will not me a determining factor in Family Holiday plans to the GC, or to MW for interstate or international guests.

Oh sorry, let me take all my research & data and throw it in the bin.

4 hours ago, xRazzBerryx said:

Did you happen to find out if the other parks did little teasers leading up to the big announcement, or just dropped everything in one big announcement? 

The objective of what I was aiming to find was the time between making an official announcement, and officially opening the ride.

[wikiverse]

@Slick People planning a family trip to the Gold Coast would be planning a trip to the GC.  Not a trip to ride on one specific rollercoaster at Movieworld.

For those people already planning a trip to the GC, the coaster might be a determining factor as to whether they choose to make a trip to MW over another park (or any park) - but that decision will more likely be driven by a local & national campaign within 6-8 weeks of the launch.

VRTP know exactly when and where people purchase tickets to their park, and how soon after those tickets are used to gain entry.  If people aren't purchasing tickets to MW until after they arrive at the GC, then concentrating the majority of their marketing spend on a local campaign will yield a better result than a national campaign 4 months out from the coaster opening.

There is no advantage to MW to start spending money to advertise this early, or to put a stop to all the rumor and speculation that is happening by giving people answers.

MW will likely push an intense campaign immediately prior to opening, ramp up into Fright Nights advertising featuring the coaster, and then transition into a summer holiday campaign...  All of this at a time when they can actually leverage the ride because it is open.

Otherwise they're just shooting themselves in the foot because people will defer their planned MW visit until the new coaster opens and attendance will be lower during the Winter school holidays.  If (as you say) people are planning trips to the GC because of MW, they too will defer their holiday until September holidays when the ride opens - which will cause a lot of short-term pain for MW.

Many European and US parks don't have to worry about lagging winter sales prior to a new coaster opening because they are closed over winter, so they have nothing to lose and everything to gain by marketing as early as possible.

[Brad2912]

Sorry @wikiverse but I pretty much categorically disagree with everything you've said. 

I would outline how and why but @Slick has done a good job of saying what I would have (well a better job actually). 

All I will mention is I don't know many people who plan interstate holidays only 6 weeks out. Most in any type of semi-serious role would need to book annual leave further out than that, especially given its school holidays (most school holiday leave where I work is requested 9-12 months out).

[red dragin]

When do they need to sell VIP annual pass renewals from? My thought is that is what they are waiting on. Even then we may not get a theme. 

Interstate visitors are either coming or not, one new ride probably won't sway the GP. You have to look at it from their perspective, not an enthusiasts one. 

Also the later, the less referral to the Dreamworld tragedy by the media. 

[wikiverse]

@Brad2912

It doesn't matter when people make their decision to visit the GC, it matters when they make their decision to purchase Movieworld tickets.  These are not the same thing.

Most people going on holiday don't purchase their MW tickets before they leave their home.  They do it at the hotel, or at the MW front gate, or online after they arrive.

Also, if what you're saying is correct and MW is the determining factor in deciding a trip to the GC from interstate, then from MW's perspective it doesn't matter if they advertise now or later.  If the leave is requested 9-12 months out, then advertising to those people now won't net a return until at least Easter holidays next year.

If the coaster is a determining factor for interstate visitors, it doesn't really matter if they come in September or Summer or Easter.  MW will get the same result from marketing 6-8 weeks out from opening.

[Brad2912]

Rightio... here we go again... for the dude in the back who wasn't Paying attention....

when you are investing X amount of dollars in an attraction/project/product, the number one focus is ROI, and not far off that is the breakeven time line (i.e. When the project/product will have created enough revenue to have paid for itself). 

So YES, whether people/families/groups/tours come in September/October as opposed to next Easter is a MASSIVE deal, especially in the current negative climate the parks are operating in. That's 6 months of positive reviews, word of mouth, personally referrals, VIP pass sales, Tour bookings, return visits that you are missing out on. 

Edited May 19, 2017 by Brad2912

[Slick]

16 minutes ago, red dragin said:

When do they need to sell VIP annual pass renewals from?

March.

16 minutes ago, red dragin said:

one new ride probably won't sway the GP.

Yes, yes it will.

24 minutes ago, wikiverse said:

@Slick People planning a family trip to the Gold Coast would be planning a trip to the GC.  Not a trip to ride on one specific rollercoaster at Movieworld.

Until the ride is announced, at which point, they'll be doing exactly that.

24 minutes ago, wikiverse said:

@Slick

There is no advantage to MW to start spending money to advertise this early

Look, whatever, you go believe whatever you want to believe, you're just factually incorrect, that's all.

[red dragin]

^ I've stalked this site for many years and wasn't aware of @Slick background, and nor is it any of our business. But his opinion is one I value around here. 

I'm working on the assumption that the gif isn't directed at myself, as I was just putting out my opinion, not stating fact.

[Slick]

Just now, red dragin said:

^ I've stalked this site for many years and wasn't aware of @Slick background, and nor is it any of our business. But his opinion is one I value around here. 

I'm working on the assumption that the gif isn't directed at myself, as I was just putting out my opinion, not stating fact.

I may have snipped my post so that first bit you said doesn't make sense, so, to re-clarify: if you've been at a park in the last year or watched a park video, you've probably heard my voice at least twice (sorry about that, btw).

GIF not directed at you, directed at @wikiverse actually, but if I hurt anyone's feelings, here's one way to go about fixing that. Alternatively, here's another.

[red dragin]

Apology accepted (about the voice)