mnemo

Happened to hear on the radio (C91.3) of a DA for a 'Theme' park proposed in Camden.NSW... anyone got a clue if this is legit?..

C'mon ppl.. there are a million memories to be shared here.. Does anyone remember the 2nd (or was it 3rd?? ....anyone remember the first??!! anyway..) Dinosaur exhibit/thingy in HB theatre? We actually got to do some serious damage - in the name of entertainment, of course! - to a dead air-o-plane!. Inc. blow-torching a skeleton to make him look like a crisp pilot. and... I've never eaten a meat pie since I found out the best way to make a fake bubbling 'tar-pit' is to use the same chemical thats used in gravy.. that stuff lasted 2 months in that tub. ... i kinda recall the first exhibit/thingy/fiasco was happily lounged in Picnic Grove.. when it was Picnic Grove.. before many a rename. or try this.. True or False?... A little known reason the Putt-Putt Course got a gig in AWL was the CEO had a bet with his 2IC he was a better golfer? The max. speed of a Dodgem car is proportional to the alcohol intake of a Rides Mech. at the christmas party? pls..chip in..

Hey... shoes?? geez. .. This thread "was" dedicated to fond memories...... .. as in..... The day Scooby Doo lost his head into the Lake.. during a one-off HB dance rep on the Wharf stage... much horrified kids.. mortified Stage Manager.. .. bemused Audio guy tho.. wonder if they sold the park inc. head.. sunk. OK .. I can't remember the gig.. or who played.. but basically the entire Lighting Rig blew into the Lake.. again off the Wharf .. mortified Contractor this time.. lots of hair-dryers and angst behind admin... AWL closed the Front Gate.... no more allowed in !! Has a QLD park been that full??!!! Thats one for Richard methinks... I'll check with my other-half... she was posted outside the Ticket Gates.. Marketing nightmare.. but thats why they get paid the big bucks.....heheh..(if ure wondering why i don't just ask her.. check the time i posted this thang) During a Pirate Stunt Show a female acro lost her grip doing a 'giant' and managed to punch a 50c size hole into her skull.. followed by a pat on the head by a compatriot who apparently sez "C'mon.. the show must go on..!" ... ?? Does anyone remember those Pirate Shows??. geez if anything established AWL as a "Park" it was the Stunt shows.. and of course the Gymnasts and Acrobats were shy/retiring types by nature.. pfft .. yup .. ask Shaz about the sunbathing sessions behind admin .. Altho no comparison to the bronzed Audio lads of course.. but we had morals.. and wives..... .. OK ..... Add more memories.. no shoes RN P.S. Late thought... not relevant tho....the night ... at a 'get to know the management' BBQ my 2nd in charge stole the CEO's Dimple Scotch.. wtg Rob

Just thought I'd start a thread for weird memories.. purely indulgent.. but who gives a hey.. ...the launch/media night of "Action Man".. anyone there will agree.. how the Marketing Dept kept that out of the papers I'll never know.. just proved the size/length of u're hose does matter... Great ending tho.. pity it wasn't actually scripted.. .. Good old Oh'Garth'rum. (yeah u tell me how to spell it) the epitomy of "somethings coming" culminating in "oh crap something went wrong" type of incident .. again.. some'things' caught fire.. the audience thought it was great!!.. Fire on the Hill!! Fire on the Hill.!!!..pity the fire didn't go as far as Gold Nugget Theatre.. what? personal preference.. so sue me! Anyone remember the opening of 'The Beach'??.. pools were half full.. 90% mud... Yeah Mick P. Someone remembers.. u sod.. lolnot Security Lads .. Honourable Mention.. deciding to test the Jets Ski's..at midnight..pity Lakeside was in the way.. should I mention Hovercrafts??.. naaah.. and.. who was pulled over in the Flinstones Mobile.. on the M4 !!.. legends!!! aah yes.. the day we welcomed our 1 millionth visitor.. we flattened the whole 'lucky' family in front of Chan's 7, 9 and 10.. Who said confetti bombs don't hurt..?? again.. kudo's to the Marketing dudes.. I could list a thousand successful moments.. but the F'ups seem funnier..? just me???

Found this li'l gem while trawling... www.rideaccidents.com hmmm.. check it out.

Cheers Slick...!

hmmm...... Pattie.. if u were sentient i'd comment.. . . . . ah f**k it i will.. against all my internal organs sayings "don't .. just watch and laugh.. " Pattie.. boy.. geez.. . tha's ok.... I will happily park my li'l 'ol directors chair on the grass and rem-Oh-niss to my hearts content!!.. 'She'.. AWL.. was the best thing that ever happened to me.. and yup.. I accept the inference.. because inanimates have personalities .. (keep up here bud..) Some things take on an existence by their very nature.. "AWL" HAD A SOUL! ... and basically I like to think a lotta of it was mine... so please.. don't bother bud.. I will have a excellent time..

It's apparent to me theres a lotta folk who loved this Park nearly as much as I did.. Anyone care to join me on the corner of Wallgrove Rd and whooosh!.. for a evening of remembrance? ...... say April latish... It shouldn't go unnoticed.

BACK UP ASSHOLES!!.. who gives a rats who spelt what wrong.. or quoted **** from bricks??.. geezus.. I joined here to parley about Theme Parks.. not witness banter irrelevant!!.. chill

SP7Queen... "i had a thing for one of the audio guys for a while, but alas, he was with a balloon girl." Hehe.. that woulda been Dan.. he married her. They split a few years ago. You want me to call him for ya??

(sigh)...yup.. twas my fav place... didn't seem like a job.. and all I wanted to be was the weird old dude from the audio dept. in 2040..... ah well... maybe Disney will see the light and come down-under!! Cheers queenie.. RN

Okies.. u ask .. i try.. 1).. there were 5 electrics/hydraulics control bays in the control room opposite our audio gear.. name and model i have no idea.. sorry. They took up the entire wall which I'm guessing was about 8 or 9m long. The front panel controls showed stuff like current draw and analysed the motor temps and revs and stuff.. (jeez i'm techo huh?!) I do remember there was trouble with this when the first motors were installed.. they were tripping the breakers due to excessive amps and a new set of motors was installed. 2).. it was tiring.. completely energy zapping!.. there were 7 ladders with resting platforms in between.. ( they shoulda put a lift in.. but hey!.. ) Each ladder had a fall arrest system and all climbers wore slings and the usual saftey gear. I remember a particular guy from maintenence who could get to the top in some ridiculous 2 or 3 minutes.. i'm sure he was part monkey but always got the breakdown calls 3).. the 'Hat' had was a beautiful fibre-glass monstrosity that I reckon DWF designed outta some Trekkie dream he had the night before... This sat above the central 'tube' framework and covered the motors and electronics, and as well supported the theming aspects AND the most coolest bit of the ride! ( hey I'm not biased!!) anyways.. There were three work platforms extending out between each carraige to the rim. We mounted our speakers to the guard rails - pointing in at the carraiges. ( astro ! heres your answer ! ) The monitors were mounted on a rolling rail that encircled the inside rim. By unlocking positioning pins we could roll the whole set of monitors around until the offending unit was above a platform and yibbada u could get the thang out and into a sling for a gentle descent to earth.... Except!! some genius who shall remain un-pointed at.. (sigh).. forgot to allow for the roll on the signal feed cables.. which meant someone had to climb out around the rim of the hat and disconnect the DA before rolling the monitors around. Sounds ok except there were no safety cables around the rim. I think OH&S woulda had a field day with me in them days 4).. if I remember correctly they were vertical.. and bloody noisy as well. 5).. not that i remember, coulda been, don't know.. u got me there. 6).. there was half a doz skimpy flood lights that would light up the inside of the hat.. the effects lighting was kept simple .. like REALLY simple ... we had 2 rotating beacons mounted on each bank of monitors! I don't think people were looking at the lights at that moment 7).. yup.. that simple.. I recall there was a barrel-bolt style latch to stop intruders from getting at you while you were up there.. strangely.. I was never intruded upon once... 8).. they were via contact closures. actually the only PC interfaced to the ride PLC was the Launch Pad/Tower.. the tunnels ran constantly and the Evac room (originally) was triggered by the Op. The Launch sequence was actually triggered by the Evac door opening and then sensors on the tower gave us the trigger for the Countdown sequence. btw.. there was also a hatch above the motors that allowed you to get up onto the top of the hat. Man oh man the view was INCREDIBLE!! Pretty much 360 Sydney.... Howard and Sons mounted their fireworks canisters up there for the Grand Opening Spectacular. And yup..not surprisingly... left them there... hmmm. that reminds of the Laservision lads.. but thats another story...... anyways ...hope this helps.. & i gotta say.... its been fun remembering all this stuff!! Cheers RN

Hey wonderland_sydney.. would love to help .. I'll hustle around the old workmates and see what they've got.. unfortunatley I don't have a great deal of stuff due to the quick exit I made when I left. Can provide plenty of inside knowledge however so feel free to send any questions my way.. I'll answer what I can.. also.. Any plans on including a look at the entertainment side of AWL in the site? Most of my years at AWL were involved in the production side of the shows and events that we held around the place... eg the Dinosaur exhibit we built in HB theatre, Halloween etc Cheers RN

Been thumbing slowly thru the various topics and arrived at this one and HAD to add my 2 cents to this. SP7 was my first foray into ride theming and along with David Ward-Fear and Roger Cameron we were put in charge of the design and construct for the queue entry, launch pad and top-of-ride special effects. David and I came up with the storyline for the entrance over coffee in the AWL canteen (anyone remember Cheryl?) one morning and once the marketting dept got hold of it and then Seven got involved it grew to bigger than Ben wos'name very quickly.... A few bits of triv... .. the storyline that evolved (after being belted around by various boffins on the project) involved three seperate 'news' items being transmitted in the three tunnels as you entered. Tunnel 1 was a 'breaking news' item about the SP7 being compromised.. Tun 2 was a more urgent transmission about the 'invasion'... and Tun 3 was a desperate warning to evacuate the Probe and the only way to do that was via the escape pad. The riders were then rushed into an 'Evac' area where a video instructed them on how to evacuate (this sound familiar Qld parkies??) and from then on the riders where scrambled into the launch area and off they went.... All of this was scuttled when the queue lines started extending down into Transylvania and unfortunately the whole 'evac' experience was scrapped in favour of bums on seats. Couple of audio bits... .. The rides A/V system was controlled by 5 PC's , 3 for the tunnels, 1 'Evac' room and 1 the Launch Pad/Tower. .. there were 2 12:8 Mixing consoles routing the audio. The Tunnels, Evac and Tower were run stereo while the Launch Pad had 12 Martin EC10's circling the room in a 6 stereo pair config plus 4 Martin Subs in the corners. We could crank about 115 dB outta this system at full kick.. (sigh) .. only did it once .. we had 16 monitors ground level, 12 monitors in the tower (and weren't THEY fun to repair!) .. the Launch Pad A/V was a custom designed by a mob that I can't remember.. except that the guys name was Thaddeus.. with a name like that he was destined to be a geek..sorry Thad if your out there.. ...i digress.. the cool bit about Thads program was we could time the Midi triggers that ran the audio track and the Lighting control with the sensors on the ride.. as in when the evac doors opened the 'show' kicked off and ran at ground level until the carraiges left the pad.. then the show switched to the tower. One feature that was quickly - and in my li'l ol' opinion - harshly removed from the system was a random timer that I requested on the Tower 'Countdown' sequence. Basically it selected when the sequence would begin - meaning sometimes the release happened at '0'.. sometimes at plus 2 secs.. or even minus 2! or 3.... this was fun I thought! but apparently the paying public wanted more control over their bowel movements.. wimps! Things I personally saw fall into the Launch pad... .. A camera.. multiple thongs/shoes... a variety of hats and sunnies and .. get this one.. (never made the news but shoulda) a 4 foot piece of 6x2 timber. Luckily it was at ride-check and no-one got hurt.. but whoa!! Anyway enuff from me.. I'm gonna go read some more of Daniels posts.. they're fun! !!!.. i nearly forgot!!.. there was a worlds first on the Probe - the Neon around the Launch Pad. This stuff was specially built for us and we called it 'Crackle' Neon.. imagine a really fat stick of neon wound into a spiral.. and then filled with broken chunks of like windshield glass... then filled with whatever they fill neon with (don't say it!) and voila! we had 'Crackle!.. great effect but ferociously expensive!..... i'm going now. Cheers RN

Hello to all, and yes I've just discovered this forum... good to see there are others with 'Wallyworld' still in their hearts. My history with AWL began from the beginning of the second season ( I think about Aug/Sept ). In those days we had an 8 week 'maintenance' break during winter to run around and spruce up the place. I was in the Audio Dept... up until early 2000 ( the Olympics seemed a much better idea to work for than sunway .. PUHtoooieee!!! ) Unfortunately I left in fairly... no VERY... angry circumstances due the treatment of the staff at the time. The rapid exit from my office means I really only have a pile of pleasant memories to rely on. Altho.. one thing I do have is the original master tape of the 'theme' music for Transylvania.... unfortunately its on cassette!!.. It's a hoot to listen to, must get around to digitizing it. One day.... btw .. Love the memorial site too.. I have a head full of anecdotal stuff about the insides of the Park.. the rides and shows and audio equipment. I would love to contribute... or tell stories.. yarn, rant, banter and maybe one day... when drunk and depressed, I'll make up a whole tirade of expletives about the sunway years.... Cheers RN