The New Atlantis - Construction Updates

[Rivals]

31 minutes ago, themagician said:

I’d say the horrible weather we had for a few months didn’t help 

when it’s coming to both attractions being nearly 2+ years late with many promised opening dates, a month or two of bad weather shouldn’t affect it that bad especially when many other attractions have been constructed and opened during the same time frame. 

 

they should’ve just done what the sea world parks had to do, announce they were pushing the rides back but not announce the opening date, so when they had to push it back from 2021 - 2022, it wasn’t that big of a deal as when there is opening dates set, cause as soon as an opening date is announced, it looks like the rides ready to go and people start buying passes. I mean a 3rd of September opening date is still being advertised on social media ads and telling people to buy there passes for it, there isn’t really any excuse for simply false advertising and wasting peoples money at this point.

Edited June 10, 2022 by Rivals

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 10/06/2022 at 10:15 AM, aaronm said:

I'm not making excuses for Village, clearly the whole area has taken much longer than expected. And it's anyone's guess why Trident has taken so long to get going, this should have been the easiest of all the attractions to complete. But delays are common at the moment - for those seasonal US parks anything opening after Memorial Day usually indicates a missed schedule, and Atlantis still hasn't been under construction for as long as the Tron clone in Florida!

The Florida Tron was shuttered during covid. I don't know if there was official Disney announcement on it, but every Vlogger I know that follows the florida parks was reporting on it at the time - they literally boarded up the holes where the track exited the building.

So whether the park announced it or not, it was VERY common knowledge that Disney had paused construction deliberately and intentionally during the worst of the Florida covid restrictions.

Village may have strategically delayed their attraction, or it may have been shipping delays, or labour delays, or the fact that Aries was in the second phase and Jupiter was rising.

The issue for Village is all they've done is move the date whenever the date has gotten too close. It feels like a teenager after school holidays who keeps pressing the snooze button not realising they should have gotten out of bed 18 months ago... and we all keep giving these analogies because the park created a vacuum which the public are only happy to wildly and inaccurately fill. 

There is no PR catch 22 at this point - when you're this far beyond your original launch date - the best thing you can do is just be honest. You'll get the acceptance of adults and the sulking children won't accept it no matter what you say so they don't really matter. But honesty is the way to win the PR campaign, not silly tricks like promoting your brand new roller coaster and themed land as a reason to buy season passes, only to delay the entire land's opening beyond the expiry of those passes.

[Slick]

2 hours ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

There is no PR catch 22 at this point - when you're this far beyond your original launch date - the best thing you can do is just be honest.

I can appreciate the want for it to be a black and white issue, and I think from a comms background perspective the reality is the situation is much more nuanced/shades of grey.

Hypothetically, let's say the Easter to September delay was caused by shipping. When looking at the project's new timeline, how much slack in the timeline do you decide is enough slack to negate the potential fallout risk from the date being pushed back further by the potential of further shipping delays? At what % of risk do you maybe consider that the likelihood of further delays means you keep the updated communications to a minimum to avoid continued brand damage because perceptually it might look like your brand is incompetent?

And adding to that, what's the actual objective from a comms perspective - is it to be as honest and transparent as possible because on a personal level that's the moral thing to do, or is it actually to sell tickets? And if the latter is the guiding star, doesn't being honest above all else become misaligned with the group's greater goals if there are unavoidable, external factors you can't mitigate that are causing brand damage?

[Naazon]

35 minutes ago, Slick said:

Hypothetically, let's say the Easter to September delay was caused by shipping. When looking at the project's new timeline, how much slack in the timeline do you decide is enough slack to negate the potential fallout risk from the date being pushed back further by the potential of further shipping delays?

You also run into a delay dominos effect, overseas manufacturing delay, shipping container delay, port delay, shipping delay, then covid wave, then customs delay, labour delay. There seems to be a lot of instability in the construction world.

 

Not saying what they have done is right, but "covid" isnt just "covid" 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

57 minutes ago, Slick said:

I can appreciate the want for it to be a black and white issue, and I think from a comms background perspective the reality is the situation is much more nuanced/shades of grey.

Hypothetically, let's say the Easter to September delay was caused by shipping. When looking at the project's new timeline, how much slack in the timeline do you decide is enough slack to negate the potential fallout risk from the date being pushed back further by the potential of further shipping delays? At what % of risk do you maybe consider that the likelihood of further delays means you keep the updated communications to a minimum to avoid continued brand damage because perceptually it might look like your brand is incompetent?

And adding to that, what's the actual objective from a comms perspective - is it to be as honest and transparent as possible because on a personal level that's the moral thing to do, or is it actually to sell tickets? And if the latter is the guiding star, doesn't being honest above all else become misaligned with the group's greater goals if there are unavoidable, external factors you can't mitigate that are causing brand damage?

No, you stop putting dates on it, period, until it is FIRM.

And if you prioritise selling tickets on a misleading premise, it ends up being 'once bitten, twice shy' and that strategy doesn't fool the smart consumer more than once - long term marketing tends to prefer to maintain integrity than to mislead the consumer to make a quick buck.

[Slick]

1 minute ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

until it is FIRM.

Define FIRM - is that when the project's earned value exceeds a particular milestone? Or is it when every single risk is eliminated? Or is it just some risks that can be easily mitigated? (And in the case of Aussie World, is WorkSafe requests defined as an unforeseen risk? Or should they have budgeted those delays into the slack of their project and have a FIRM date built upon that?)

What if a shipping container goes missing that was 100% FIRM to arrive six months in in to the project and would take 18 months to re-deliver because of global supply shortages? Do you account for that potential risk? What if that shipping container had arrived and it had the train in it, and because every single part was here and looked to be in order you felt as though it was FIRM enough in the project timeline to announce a date, but then there was an unforeseen issue with the train and it would take six months to remedy because of the speed of shipping from the US to AU?

I think what i'm trying to demonstrate is that there's no such thing as FIRM for any engineering project, especially with our current mix of global influences constraining supply as @Naazon touched on.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

I think you're finally catching on - so by this point, you stop putting dates on it because the constant moving of the goalposts is damaging your reputation with the paying public and you're pissing more people off with every missed deadline so at some fucking point you just say 'coming soon' instead of constantly updating the signage. 

They're still running ads that say September 3 (couldn't withdraw the ad quick enough) and people are probably booking now (if not already) for their september holidays and they're seeing ads that have another date on them. 

Be honest with people. tell them your woes. admit your mistakes. Don't stick your fingers in your ears and pretend like nothing is happening because the PR train has already left the station and you can't be bothered to catch it.

[Slick]

8 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

They're still running ads that say September 3

I haven't personally seen this, but it'd be a huge mistake if so. Having said that, i'd imagine it isn't an intentional deception either. Feel free to post the errors here so, like Dreamworld has done with the Giant Drop thread, they can fix it up.

10 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

you just say 'coming soon' instead of constantly updating the signage. 

🍻

[themagician]

Trident update 

[Rivals]

3 weeks after the opening dates have been removed off the website they are still promoting their passes with the promise of a 3rd of September opening date for both attractions. what a shame

[Tricoart]

On 28/06/2022 at 1:45 AM, Rivals said:

they are still promoting their passes with the promise of a 3rd of September opening date for both attractions

The ad is recent, and being pushed out all over the internet, so I think (or moreso hope) that it's the final opening date for at least Leviathan. The website has said Trident's opening'll be in October since before the ad though, so it could be the case that they're just slow to update the website, or the ad was incorrect before it even began it's campaign.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

15 hours ago, Tricoart said:

The ad is recent, and being pushed out all over the internet, so I think (or moreso hope) that it's the final opening date for at least Leviathan. The website has said Trident's opening'll be in October since before the ad though, so it could be the case that they're just slow to update the website, or the ad was incorrect before it even began it's campaign.

The website had september 3 for both attractions since early june. If you check the Leviathan (Sea World) - Wikipedia article you can see that the opening dates listed for both attractions have changed numerous times, and even the wiki says two different opening dates on the same page. 

On 08/06/2022 at 9:06 PM, themagician said:

The September 3 date has been removed. Leviathan is now opening sometime this September and trident is delayed to October.

 

[rappa]

The ads are running everywhere. 
Who says it’s not opening Sep 3 just because the website doesn’t specifically say so?

[Rivals]

26 minutes ago, rappa said:

The ads are running everywhere. 
Who says it’s not opening Sep 3 just because the website doesn’t specifically say so?

why would they go out of their way to remove the opening date just to release a new ad campaign the same week promoting the opening date that was just recently removed? they would’ve just left it if that’s 100% the opening date.

[rappa]

Why would they continue to run an Ad campaign with a specific date if they had no intention of opening on that date?

[Rivals]

2 hours ago, rappa said:

Why would they continue to run an Ad campaign with a specific date if they had no intention of opening on that date?

they’ve done it before by saying “coming these holidays, buy your tickets now” even after the changed it to a different set of holidays on the website. If September 3rd really was still the opening date why would they change it on the website, where people go to check out what the new rides are / buy tickets after seeing the advertisement saying they will be a open on a specific date.

Edited June 30, 2022 by Rivals

[rappa]

Guess we’ll see on Sep 3rd

[New display name]

At this point, sometime this year would be good.

[Tricoart]

So long as it opens in the 21st century.

[Spotty]

On 2/7/2022 at 12:19 AM, Tricoart said:

So long as it opens in the 21st century.

Covid might delay that

[Rivals]

On 2/7/2022 at 12:19 AM, Tricoart said:

So long as it opens in the 21st century.

when they said ‘September 3rd’, they probably meant September 3rd 2031, just before the olympic start in Brisbane. hopefully covid doesn’t delay this🤞🏼

Edited July 4, 2022 by Rivals

[Ogre]

We'll probably see Mission Ferrari open before Leviathan 😋

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

13 hours ago, Spotty said:

Covid might delay that

Don't forget the collapse of Ansett.

[jjuttp]

16 hours ago, Ogre said:

We'll probably see Mission Ferrari open before Leviathan 😋

More chance of Orphan Rocker opening than MF.

[Slick]

@Tricoartif you could upload those images as JPG's that'd be brilliant.