Sometimes when I tell friends and family about my interest in coasters, I get the feeling my hobby is dismissed as low-brow, childish stuff. Not eveyone reacts like that of course, in fact, many other friends or family seem geniunely warm and supportive about my enthusiasm. I was curious to know your experience on how friends and social circles perceive being a coasterfan. Is the hobby seen in a stereotypical, "nerdy" and even obsessive unhealthy light, or treated in a more favourable and respectable way?

Also, do parks in Australia (or wherever you live) acknowledge the coasterfan community and gives some it winks from time to time?


Just wanted to ask those meta questions out of curiosity!


 

Are {any niche subculture} being frowned upon?

By some people, yes, by some people, no. 

15 minutes ago, Coaster Hipster said:

Also, do parks in Australia (or wherever you live) acknowledge the coasterfan community and gives some it winks from time to time?

Have you not read Parkz before? 

Edited September 11, 20179 yr by Reanimated35

To be entirely honest, I'm still quite new to the site and do not follow all its publications. So I probably missed a lot of interactions and stuff going on here. Oops :s

i keep my enthusiasm to myself and here. My family don't really need to know what I do online 

My opinion is that primarily through a lack of competition or incentive, our parks, by far and large haven't really needed to or warranted supporting their enthusiast/loyalist community.

However, the US theme parks are a hugely different situation entirely. My belief is because there's more competition at every level for them, there's an incentive over there to be above the curve in their marketing tactics and as such find it super important to really reach out to their most loyal customers. And let me tell you, every marketer ever knows that book 1, chapter 1, page 1 is all about engaging your brand's most loyal customers (here's just two from a sea of thousands of articles explaining just that) and ultimately that's where i'd like to see our parks in the future as a collective.

US theme parks do regular Extended Ride Time (ERT) Events, behind the scenes walkthroughs designed specifically for our sort of crowd, do Q&A's with their design teams & most important of all, work with the key influencers/sites to ensure the right message has been delivered and the best possible content is being made to build their followings. That is where we should be in Australia in 2017. Every other niche group in any other industry will get this sort of stuff (especially in Australia), whether it's cars, photography, trains, drones, architecture, civil engineering etc. etc. etc.,  and yet here I am with OurWorlds, pounding away at emails just trying to get point of view video on Rivals that I know will generate heaps of great, free publicity for Movie World, and I gotta say, i'm still hitting a brick wall. And it's not like i'm not known for point of video footage either, i'd like to think that despite whatever critical opinion I may have at any given time that may off-put some execs, by and large the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I personally pour into real, honest, quality content (content that in the particular case of the Rivals HyperCoaster, gets used in their shareholder reports, no less) is worth at least a g'day. And this makes it really hard for me, because to make good content, it's a two-way street, because i'm certainly not going to pull a Robb Alvey and start sneaking cameras onto rides either and put content out there that suggests breaking the park's rules is okay.

Like seriously, I have literally been served a lobster lunch in return for my roller-coaster videos.

And yeah, granted, there's more then a few numpties who call themselves enthusiasts, and I think that's also par for the course in any group. I certainly don't think same sex marriage is anything but a must in this country, and that's despite a very few super-leftie, hippie marxist types making it hard for there to be a rational, calm discussion about it with those who may have concerns. So in my mind, just because @Andrewh did the wrong thing a while back and jumped into a closed off part of Dreamworld, doesn't then mean that we're all a bunch of crazies who just want a scoop. Nah, I actually think by and large we're all pretty well rounded folk who enjoy a beer and a laugh at our favourite places, and if they followed in the steps of their global counterparts on proven methods to make these prime digital audiences work to their advantage, they would be saving literally hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in ad-buys alone.

As for outside of the parks, the reception is always pretty interesting. For me, my DNA is pretty entrenched in theme parks so most people know that it comes with the package. When my father passed when I was a wee lad, theme parks were a literal escape into another world. When I would go to theme parks, I'd take hundreds of pictures on every trip and unbeknownst to me at the time, I was actually refining a skill i'd use later in my professional career. So I owe a lot to theme parks, but in saying that, I try to keep it pretty chill. Just like people don't want to know the psi of your fully sick turbo, people don't want know how the LSM's on Tower of Terror's launch work. Some people will ride kiddie coasters and chase credits so they can say "I did 6000 coasters!", and that's cool too, to each their own. These days theme parks for me are all about great experiences, and when it comes to travelling, they're a great waypoint to craft an adventure from, but they're not the only reason to travel abroad either.

Just as an aside, I say all of this with no animosity - i'm a frank, honest guy these days and given my own personal passion for these places, really all of this comes from a place of wanting to see the parks succeed and really grow in the future.

 

I'm just a low-grade enthusiast.  I love the parks, and the rides, and by just hanging around here, feel like I'm slightly more in-the-know , but I don't really care for the technical specifications at all.  There's other interest groups I'd spend similar amounts of time looking at, relating to beauty, or renovations, or music, etc.  

1 hour ago, Slick said:

US theme parks do regular Extended Ride Time (ERT) Events, behind the scenes walkthroughs designed specifically for our sort of crowd, do Q&A's with their design teams & most important of all, work with the key influencers/sites to ensure the right message has been delivered and the best possible content is being made to build their followings. That is where we should be in Australia in 2017.

I mean, MW did introduce the Backstage tour in 2017 and when Mark managed Adventure World he personally joined these forums and took feedback from people on these forums and resolved the problems that people here raised.

The top execs at most of our parks also lurk around these forums.

There is slightly more interaction between the parks and the Parkz users as of 2017, but we don't get as much as the US; simply because we are a tiny community when compared to the US which is noticeably much larger. The American Coaster Enthusiasts, for one, has over 5,000 members; by comparison there are only about 100 regular posters on this board, however that number has grown in recent years. 

We're not getting ERT events any time soon; not until our community grows large enough to warrant such things.

For starters, VRTP should stop their tradition of closing rides for maintenance and subsequently shutting them down permanently. They are the only theme park company that closes rides in this manner; and they have already proven they can close rides permanently ahead of time with Batman Adventure, so why don't they do this to any future attractions as well. They've closed Bermuda, Vikings, Corkscrew and Looney Tunes in this manner. I don't want to see another ride fall to this trap.

Remember we did have a Dreamworld Exec on the boards answering questions a while ago.

I'd just like to add to this thread. I find most of these replies highly relatable. When I talk about coasters/rides and parks around the world in general, some of my mates get quite frustrated and think I'm obsessed. I'll admit I am. I do have a few mates that are actually supportive and are also enthusiasts themselves. Its really ineteresting to come on Parkz and catch up with theme park news of AUS & Overseas. I really love Parkz because of the construction threads, they always give me something to look forward to and for once, enjoy reading.

'Roller coaster enthusiast' is like the least embarrassing amongst my various obsessive interests. Also, I have no friends so it doesn't really matter anyway, lol.

I wouldn't call myself a "Roller Coaster Enthusiast", probably more so a "Park Enthusiast".

I'm up at the Gold Coast for work and said to my boss "I might stop by the parks whilst I'm up there" and I got the same response I get from most people "Really? Those parks are for kids!". I hate that response with a passion.

Thankfully my family, friends and partner are all incredibly supportive of my stupidly expensive hobby of travelling the world visiting parks.

19 hours ago, Tim Dasco said:

Remember we did have a Dreamworld Exec on the boards answering questions a while ago.

Was it an exec or was that @The Original Belinda Brown? It's a real shame she left. 

5 hours ago, CaptainLazerGuns said:

I'm up at the Gold Coast for work and said to my boss "I might stop by the parks whilst I'm up there" and I got the same response I get from most people "Really? Those parks are for kids!". I hate that response with a passion.
 

Whenever I get this response, I normally mention that there's a 200ft tall coaster about to open and their opinion of the parks change pretty quickly.