Curious Adelaide: What Happened to Dazzleland?

[DJKostya]

This is an interesting article that appeared on the Adelaide version of the ABC News website series Curious Adelaide (Or Curious whatever city you are in). It's about the construction and then closure of the Dazzleland "theme park" in the Myer centre. Quite an interesting read.

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-10-20/curious-adelaide-what-happened-to-dazzeland/9038188

(No paywall to read)

[diesal11]

It died because it was a poorly executed novelty which wore off quick. The noise of Dazzleland drive shoppers out just as quickly. So it was binned.

Also, people shop horizontally, not vertically. They still struggle to get people onto anything past the first floor. The article mentions the 4th and 5th floors are currently closed, but even the 3rd floor is full of a VFX School & Gym. So it's really only the Underground, Ground and first two floors in use by shops these days. I think Myer still goes to the 4th floor maybe?

I have some very fond memories of Dazzleland as The "Jazz Junction" was my first Rollercoaster. But after the launch hype I don't remember Dazzleland being anything spectacular. Bit of a shame really.

[Guest 239]

This is my first time seeing anything about Dazzleland. Very interesting read, cheers for sending it our way!

[Locke]

Dazzleland was lame and the whole Myer Centre in Adelaide was such an epically dumb idea. How much did it cost back then, I've heard the actual figure was 1 billion, so like 2 billion probably in today's money. It's worth a fraction of that now.

You could build a major, major park for that, heck you could build Movie World, Sea World and Dream World for that.

It's these sort of dumb ideas that set Adelaide back, just throwing money away.

Edited October 20, 2017 by Locke

[liz.wis]

It looks quite a bit like Tops.  

[pushbutton]

It was almost an exact copy of Topz, as you'd expect (both Myer Centres were under the same management back then).

I still remember the announcement on Channel 7 news about the "Permanent, free lego exhibition". It was not all that big, but it was a very good lego exhibition which changed ever few months. Only problem was they introduced a fee for it after a while (so it was no longer free) then people stopped going to it and it closed down (so it was no longer permanent)!

I remember they tried keeping Dazzleland open till about 8 or 9pm after the shops had closed, but apart from Friday nights and school holidays hardly anyone went.

The prices for all the rides seemed too high to me, and there was no pass that I was aware of which would have given you free access for an extended period like we have at the Gold Coast theme parks.

On top of everything else, this all took place in the middle of "The recession we had to have"!

Levels 4 and 5 stood vacant except for a gym (where the "Permanent, free lego exhibition had been) for well over a decade until a couple of years ago, and have now been completely gutted. The escalators have even been removed to those levels. Level 5 of Myer has also been closed off.

Only positive thing is the remainder of the centre, and Myer has recently been completely refurbished, and I have to say now looks better than it ever did before (and yes, much better than the Myer Centre Brisbane)!

Several ideas have been put forward to find alternative uses for the top levels over the years. None have so far come to fruition.

[XxMrYoshixX]

Those Zamperla coasters built in shopping centres must be quite common - there is a coaster I visited when I was in Hong Kong a couple weeks ago that is very similar to the coaster built at Jazzland and Tops. The ride closed about 10 years ago but the track is still there. To be honest, the Myer Centre is a poorly designed mall - an example of a theme park inside a mall that has thrived is Nickelodeon Universe in the Mall of America, and that was built outwards, not upwards like Myer Centre was. How the operating companies were able to forsee people coming to their poorly located amusement areas in the long term is anyone's guess, I'm surprised both Jazzland and Tops were able to survive as long as they did.

[Aw hype]

looking at this now, the fact that they managed to spend $1 billion (in 1991 money) to produce that complex is astounding. They must've gold plated railings or something. I remember going there a couple of years ago, and whilst it looked pretty flash and clean on the inside, it was bare empty on all floors, and there were lots of vacant plots dotted arounnd the place (i was unaware of the history of the centre at the time). As the article says though, the developers had their target demographic right: teens. The only problem teens aren't really into adrenaline reducing zamperla powered coasters and bumper boats. Nevertheless, still a shame to lose another Australian park, however stupid its conception and construction was, but i do wonder what that bloke did with the coaster and the other stuff he bought? The Rcdb listing implies death by junkyard...