COVID-19 & Theme Park Closures

[Slick]

I've put together a quick consolidated knowledge-base for guests & members to stay up to date with the latest COVID-19 related impacts to the country's major theme parks & water parks. This initial post will be updated periodically.

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Timeline for parks to re-open (last updated, 16th June, 2020 @ 9:58pm)

On the 8th May, prime minister Scott Morrison announced the easing of COVID-19 related restrictions in Australia, which included amusement parks as a part of stage 2 of 3 of the easing plan. At present, this plan is being implemented at the state level, and as such, each state is progressing with this plan on a different timeline based on a myriad of factors, including (but not limited to) active cases of COVID-19 and the rate of infection in the community.

However, as of the 13th May, it's been noted in the media that many larger businesses (including our theme parks) may not re-open during stage 2 due to the 20-person limit that was outlined in the plan, making it fiscally impossible to operate during stage 2 or even into stage 3. In a previous thread, it was noted that some larger venues (like our theme parks) may be exempt from this 20-person limit subject to a COVID-Safe plan approved by the government. This however has yet to be clarified upon by the government, and as such, there is no confirmed timeline or date that are our parks will re-open on at this stage.

Amusement parks (in particular Gold Coast theme parks) are working with the government to develop and approve COVID Safe plans to re-open for September School Holidays. Village Roadshow Theme Parks hope to re-open Sea World first in early July, followed by Warner Bros. Movie World & Wet 'n' Wild in time for September school holidays.  

Village Roadshow Theme Parks have announced re-opening dates for their parks.

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Below is an updated list of major parks and their current state of re-opening. I'll continue to update with links and updates from the discussion. (last updated, 16th June, 2020 @ 9:58pm)

Queensland

• Dreamworld: Closed
• WhiteWater World: Closed
• Warner Bros. Movie World: Re-opens 15th July
• Sea World: Re-opens 26th June
• Wet 'n' Wild Gold Coast: Re-opens 15th July
• Paradise Country: Re-opens 26th June
• Australian Outback Spectacular: Re-opens 3rd July
• Top Golf - Open
• Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary - Re-opens 26th June
• Australia Zoo - Open

New South Wales

• Luna Park Sydney: Closed
• Raging Waters: Closed

Victoria

• Funfields: Closed
• Luna Park Melbourne: Closed

Western Australia

• Adventure World: Closed

Sidenote: a reminder to all to keep this apolitical. Parkz is about having fun, not doxxing those you disagree with. If you're not sure about what's allowed to be posted, our community guidelines are a great read if you're bored during lockdown.

Edited June 16, 2020 by Slick

[Tim Dasco]

To be fair all of the seasonal parks in Australia Would have now closed for their off season. 

[Smol bean]

I bet most parks here won’t open till Christmas 

when everything is much more relaxed when it comes to restrictions 

[New display name]

9 hours ago, Slick said:

Sidenote: a reminder to all to keep this apolitical. Parkz is about having fun, not doxxing those you disagree with. If you're not sure about what's allowed to be posted, our community guidelines are a great read if you're bored during lockdown.

The topic I can't get into anymore had some of my best work to date.  Unless something went down in the 5mins I wasn't online I didn't see one post of someone doxxing another.  I think Parkz got the call and put Village ahead of us because it would have been easier to hide the one doxxing post.

 

@Richard This is shit if the is the new Parkz precedent being set.  Why would anybody want to contribute here if a couple has a lovers tiff and the whole topic is removed.

 

For example,  @themagician @Brad2912 & @pushbutton have a ten page discussion on is SDMC scary & @AlexB and I come along and hijack the conversation with a lovers tiff.  Instead of hiding our verbal dribble Parkz thinks @themagician @Brad2912 & @pushbutton contribution isn't important and removes the whole topic.  If that isn't the biggest we don't give a shit about @themagician @Brad2912 & @pushbutton then I don't know what is.

@Gazza was in the topic yesterday and could have put a stop to it at anytime.   

I have no problems with Parkz hiding comments or closing topics but to shit on other people is disrespectful.

 

Parkz made it loud & clear that any person in that conversation that wasn't part of the tiff, contribution isn't important.

Edited May 13, 2020 by Skeeta

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Agree - whether it is true or not, the disappearance of the entire discussion (which would be great to reflect on for certain dates and timelines later on) smacks of censorship to appease park management.

If we can't criticise or hold to account the very people who are in charge of our parks, will this forum turn into a bunch of yes-men administering some sort of unofficial fan club?

[Park Addict 93]

I think the comments containing personal attacks (even if directed at public figures) or unfounded accusations should be removed, and any subsequent replies to those comments (sorry @Skeeta ).

But have to agree overall the thread should remain, a lot of members contributed.

[New display name]

12 minutes ago, Jordan M. said:

I think the comments containing personal attacks (even if directed at public figures) or unfounded accusations should be removed, and any subsequent replies to those comments (sorry @Skeeta ).

But have to agree overall the thread should remain, a lot of members contributed.

I have no issues with anything breaching Parkz guidelines being removed.

Edited May 14, 2020 by Skeeta

[T-bone]

I think it's a shame the previous discussion was removed, there were some great points about the situation and the response from our operators from the likes of @CaptainLazerGuns and others. 
I don't recall any unfound accusations being made in it, but even then, a decent public figure should be able to withstand a personal attack (ie calling someone a wanker), thats one of the things about being a public figure, not everyone is going to love you. You can't sue someone because they don't agree with what you say.

[New display name]

4 minutes ago, T-bone said:

I think it's a shame the previous discussion was removed, there were some great points about the situation and the response from our operators from the likes of @CaptainLazerGuns and others. 
I don't recall any unfound accusations being made in it, but even then, a decent public figure should be able to withstand a personal attack (ie calling someone a wanker), thats one of the things about being a public figure, not everyone is going to love you. You can't sue someone because they don't agree with what you say.

@CaptainLazerGuns had some great points and it's a shame Parkz didn't think so.

[Park Addict 93]

15 minutes ago, T-bone said:

I don't recall any unfound accusations being made in it, but even then, a decent public figure should be able to withstand a personal attack (ie calling someone a wanker), thats one of the things about being a public figure, not everyone is going to love you. You can't sue someone because they don't agree with what you say.

There is a difference between calling someone a wanker and saying "I disagree with that statement because X, Y and Z". I would think that the first would be against Parkz Guidelines "A friendly and helpful attitude is expected at all times." . I don't disagree that people are free to write what they wish but it doesn't mean you should.

Regardless of the relationship Parkz has with VRTP is it really that hard to show respect?

Edited May 14, 2020 by Jordan M.

[New display name]

20 minutes ago, T-bone said:

I don't recall any unfound accusations being made in it, but even then, a decent public figure should be able to withstand a personal attack (ie calling someone a wanker), thats one of the things about being a public figure, not everyone is going to love you. You can't sue someone because they don't agree with what you say.

If I unleashed a tirade of personal attacks on TPSN it would be overlooked and I’ve never had a comment hidden when I made personal attacks on Ash.

I wonder why MW is off limits?

 

[rappa]

Let's all take a step back from our own personally created narratives for a moment here and look at things from the outside...

The nonsense back and forth previous thread really did little more than embarrass both Parkz and honestly also to some extent the people posting.

I have no doubt in my mind that the COO of VRTP couldn't give two shits what names some people on a forum call him, and certainly not enough to the extent anyone would contact us to remove the posts. 

The very boring truth of the matter is that all of the Admins felt it was a complete rubbish thread and it would be sad if anyone from management of any park did read it and took that as a reflection of the maturity of the enthusiast community as a whole.

Edited May 14, 2020 by djrappa

[themagician]

I definitely don’t think an entire forum should be removed because of some unnecessary/off topic comments. There were some great discussions and information posted in that forum, that could be useful to look back on or compare how are parks handle reopening

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Seriously - I loved the 'small guy in a big town' success story, working as a waiter in SWR, working up the ranks to get to the position of top dog. I had a lot of respect for someone who can achieve that. But the higher he rose, the more public his profile, and that's where things started to go awry...

Genuine public comments from people commenting on media articles about Sea World's new attractions, and seeing him berate them for what is in essence, their own opinion. Most of them probably don't realise what role he has within the organisation.

The latest articles, where he is quoted saying they needed 5,000 to be profitable, and that they government should be letting larger companies have more people in the parks just shows, in my opinion, the words and actions appear to be someone who cares more about profits than their guests.

Now i'm not saying that's who he is, i'm just saying thats the appearance that his words and actions are giving. And if I may quote a forum moderator - some media training could probably help with that. If he just ignored the haters, and set about proving them wrong, instead of acting the blowhard and the bully, he could probably change many people's negative opinions and earn the respect you suggest.

As has been said (in a now invisible thread) - our parks should be leading the way in showing other businesses what steps they can take to increase the capacity limits by ensuring certain protections are put into place. Now is a time to show how much you care for your guests - not to criticise your customers and  show contempt for the actions of a government that are on par or better than most governments management plans around the world.

Thank god we aren't in Italy, South Korea, China, or the United States, and we've kept the infection rates low. That, and our isolated borders mean we should be able to confidently reopen, and STAY open without having a second wave like many places around the world are starting to see. Again, to quote another - god forbid pressure on state or federal governments gets our parks exempted from the rules everyone else is following only to have a massive explosion in infections shut them down again and shatter whatever post-TRRR community confidence they hold.

[rappa]

So, I'm not sure what is so hard to understand. We removed a thread because of the nonsense it contained, and then above is a bunch more of the same. This is a forum for discussing THEME PARKS, not personal grudges with people.

How you feel about a particular persons personality is totally irrelevant to the running of a theme park and it's very obvious that a select few members here have a personal issue with one person. That's ok, we all have our issues with people, and some in park management. But this is not the place for it.

If you want an example of what is acceptable discussion, read the post above. AlexB makes comment on the management of the parks and perception in the media without hurling personal insults.

As for the hours of time wasted in people's posts being removed, well please blame your fellow members for turning the thread into a shit storm and not us. Do you realise how long it takes to sift through and weed out every single post one at a time? 
We may very well go through and put back some of the posts that were valuable, but that takes time, and the important thing to do was to quickly end the slinging that was going on in the other thread. Unfortunately there was some collateral damage, but sometimes that can't be avoided.

[Jobe]

Quote

8 minutes ago, djrappa said:

If you want to have a long winded slinging match about your gripes with particular people, regardless of how founded or unfounded they are we have a place for that, please take the discussion to the Chit Chat forum.

 

I agree with your points DJ, but wouldnt it have been easier to remove the posts that caused the issue and simply place them in the Chit Chat forum in the first place? That way the members who posted the original comments can see where the posts have gone to with out simply removing it, therefore nullifying some of the angst of just deleting at all? 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 minute ago, djrappa said:

How you feel about a particular persons personality is totally irrelevant to the running of a theme park

On the contrary - take a look at opinions shared about Pressler, Eisner et al.

Enthusiasts and fans alike have oft criticised the people that lead the organisation responsible for their passion and pasttimes. It's not about personality, its about actions. And the actions of park executives, how they respond, react and handle a health crisis affecting their industry is extremely relevant to the running of a theme park.

But, since the updated Parkz terms and conditions say you can do whatever you want to (and really, that's always been the case - its a public forum but its privately owned) we can't really complain.

 

The issue I take with these actions (and yes, I understand there's a lot of time involved in moderating and administering such a large community) is that, just like last time when you shut down off topic or chit chat or whatever else forum it was, we all took issue, and voiced our dislike for those actions, and the biggest issue taken was that these steps were taken without any form of explanation. Now, acknowledging that which I said above - its a private site and you guys can do whatever you please - communicating the position you're taking up front, instead of after everyone has had a whinge is a great way for people to stay on side and support what you're doing - to make life easier for you.

As you've said "above is more of the same"... because you created a vacuum, didn't explain the issues as to why, and didn't leave anything to fill it with (Slicks "timeline" didn't really fit the bill)...

why does that sound familiar?

On 11/03/2020 at 12:11 PM, AlexB said:

anyway, my main point was that you guys were locking threads with poor explanations, and doing it more than once without a better explanation was only going to lead to history repeating.

Well colour me psychic...

 

[rappa]

I don't really understand...

You're saying we take action without communicating up front. Are you suggesting we should post in a thread saying "hey please don't carry on with nonsense about a COO or we'll delete it" so that if people do that, and we delete it then it's up front? I mean how does that work?

We deleted it, then just this morning I posted above why. Not really understanding this particular grievance here. If it's that it was deleted first and the explanation came later then the simple fact of the matter is it was deleted in the middle of the night, and then this morning one of us actually had time to write an explanation. As I alluded to earlier, all of us have jobs (and shock horror, lives) so aren't sitting in front of Parkz for 12 hours a day or more.

 

Quote

On the contrary - take a look at opinions shared about Pressler, Eisner et al.

And again disagree. Your post above talks about someones actions in running the park. That is very different to calling them a wanker because you didn't like what they said to you one time.

 

Not sure if everyone else has the same, maybe they don't but I certainly have a 'FFS Filter' in my brain. When you read like 10 posts and your reaction is just 'For F** Sake look at this rubbish, it doesn't need to be here' that's when it's time to moderate.
To be very open and honest the mod team had a brief discussion about the thread in question over whether it should be edited through, or just deleted without a trace, or hand picked into a new thread. We all decided that it was late and it was way too much effort to edit something that would likely then result in more carry ono about that. So in the end a new thread was created. The end result was the same so guess it's just not possible to win in this scenario.

 

You'll see that Richard reaffirms my story from above as to why we arrived at the conclusion we did about the thread.

Edited May 14, 2020 by djrappa

[Richard]

Just to clarify @Jobe, this personal gripe several members have doesn't belong in Chit Chat -- or on Parkz anywhere.

As @djrappa said we may go through and clean up the removed thread when one of us gets a chance, but there were several pages of insults and conjecture that far cross the line of rigourous debate and the best course of action in the middle of the night was to simply remove the entire topic.

22 minutes ago, AlexB said:

But, since the updated Parkz terms and conditions say you can do whatever you want to (and really, that's always been the case - its a public forum but its privately owned) we can't really complain.

The point you reference has been there many years verbatim and you'll have agreed to it in the past when we've updated the T&Cs. The only change to the terms and conditions was this one sentence: You may not dox or share another person's personal or private information on Parkz.

[Jobe]

2 minutes ago, Richard said:

Just to clarify @Jobe, this personal gripe several members have doesn't belong in Chit Chat -- or on Parkz anywhere.

Cheers Richard. Appreciate the clarification.

[T-bone]

Removed

Edited May 14, 2020 by T-bone
I said so

[TomiJ]

So my post got removed for telling a forum member to f*** off (which I expected). But why is this post from April not removed:

Sooo..... Can I say fuck you instead of fuck off next time. I'm just looking for some consistency. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by TomiJ

[Smol bean]

Why’s everyone fighting over a removed forum this was about park reopening updates. not attacking others and letting out your personal grudges

[rappa]

19 minutes ago, TomiJ said:

So my post got removed for telling a forum member to f*** off (which I expected). But why is this post from April not removed:

Sooo..... Can I say fuck you instead of fuck off next time. I'm just looking for some consistency. 

Tempted to delete this post for being so silly but seems some things need to be very clearly spelled out.

Typically we try to take a hands off approach to moderating and let people be adults. So if one person be's stupid and swears at another one it'll likely get a pass. Believe it or not mods don't read every single post, and if it's rubbish for a few posts they likely get a scroll by.

But if there is this sort of thing buried in amongst a bunch of other terrible stuff yes of course it'll get removed. I mean the fact that this sort of thing needs to be explained to satisfy a question like this is why whole threads end up getting deleted because it's just too much effort to deal with this kind of nonsense. 

Edited May 14, 2020 by djrappa

[Park Addict 93]

https://www.couriermail.com.au/news/queensland/gold-coast-tourism-bosses-plead-for-extended-jobkeeper-payments/news-story/e028ec986bdbc4d713e6c86558b7f183

Quote

QUEENSLAND tourism heavyweights are pleading with the Federal Government to extend JobKeeper payments beyond September, warning that thousands of jobs are on the line including at major theme parks.

The $130 billion JobKeeper initiative, introduced to save jobs in the face of the crippling coronavirus crisis, is due to expire on September 27.

But tourism bosses say the industry has been ‘decimated’ and the $1500-a-fortnight subsidies must be ongoing if many businesses are to survive.

Clark Kirby, CEO of Village Roadshow which owns Sea World, Movie World and Wet ‘n’ Wild theme parks, said it was ‘crucial’ that JobKeeper was extended.

The State Government has announced that theme parks can reopen from June 12 but only for up to 20 people unless they have an approved COVID-19 ‘safe plan’.

Mr Kirby said there was no ‘no clarity’ around when the theme parks could fully reopen, leaving the businesses and staff in limbo.

“Our team members are our family,” he said.

“My number one priority is keeping team members on the books so we can get back to business as soon as possible. JobKeeper allows us to do that.

“That’s why it’s crucial that this policy is extended until the Federal Government can give us certainty.

“We need thousands of workers, many with unique skill sets to open our doors every day. It’s important that we retain these team members.”

Queensland Tourism Industry Council boss Daniel Gschwind said tourism supported one in 10 Queensland jobs and the industry was ‘crying out’ for continued JobKeeper support.

“Our industry has been decimated by COVID-19 - things won’t be back to normal for years,” he said.

“The Federal Government must take action to save thousands of Queenslanders from losing their jobs and to save these companies from going under.

The JobKeeper is a good policy but it’s totally wasted if the government is just going to allow these workers to be sacked.”