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Last September, I was in Berlin for this year's Euro Attractions Show as a reporter for French website CoastersWorld. As part of my coverage, I made several interviews with representatives of coaster manufacturers. Here are the first two of these! First, James Swinden of Great Coasters International gives his insight into his company's way of building wooden coasters. I really appreciated his sincere passion for his job, and for a professional still very early in his career, his answers were very articulate and accurate! Second, Sascha Czibulka, Vice-President of Intamin, gave me a 16-minute long interview that really exceeded my expectations! His answers were superb, detailed and very informative His account of how the hydraulic launch system had been created for Knott's Berry Farm was particularly valuable. Really talented senior executive who knows his work very well. If you're interested, there's some more to come: - Maximilian Roeser of MACK Rides talks about the manufacturer's lastest coasters, including DC Rivals! - Chuck Bingham of Martin & Vleminckx discusses the challenges and rewards of building wooden coasters in China. - Chad Miller of The Gravity Group tells us the story of how he became a coaster engineer, and the most important aspects of a woodie according to him. (hint: airtime!) - Peter van Bilsen gives the reasons behind Vekoma's remarkable comeback. I want to thank all people involved in these interviews. The interviewees of course, but also all of my CoastersWorld mates for their precious help in the making of these videos. This was a wonderful experience meeting and interviewing all these professionals, and I hope you'll like the resulting interviews

It's a shame MW doesn't seem to advertise properly what is such a remarkable product. From the shaky POV to the uninspiring ads in trains... there was potential for so much more! Not only DC Rivals seems to be a really exciting coaster, it's also one of the most appealing and photogenic I've ever seen. I mean, why bother using this landmark Joker head at the top of the lift hill if you're barely advertising it afterwards? I'm sure the coaster will be a tremendous success nevertheless, but it will be despite this lacklustre marketing campaign

So here's some pictures of the work in Ocean Parade which is under construction RHLR And that track

If I was the boss of MW's marketing department I would have even gone as far as changing the MW logo to incorporate DC Rival's first drop into it, at least for the first few years of the coaster's operation. The coaster is so major it should be a park-wide takeover type of thing, not just treated as another small addition. Everybody needs to know about it.

At the park now and absolutely LOVE the new upcharge attraction $20 for 15 minute tinny hire on the river, including high-vis shirt hire! Half price discount if you take a net and remove some algae while you are out there And the kangaroos and emu’s have recently been replaced with.. bobcats..

Anyone care to not be a do gooder and link the video of the abandoned park?

ardent really needs to go they don't GAS anymore if they are going to sell the park to someone who cares and will bring it back to life than they better do it now while they still can.

Remember when you used to go to DW and you wanted to take photos of rides or scenery etc and used to get frustrated because people kept walking in front of you just as you were about to take the ‘moneyshot’... ... these days you purposely wait for someone to walk into frame and then take the shot to prove you ain’t the only person in the park....

They stated October in their late-August investor presentation as well. The odd thing is that it was pretty clear in August/September that this was never going to happen yet all formal mentions of the attraction around this time said the same.

Sunway is the operator of that park but what they are best known for and what stellaclose was likely getting at is they were the ones who purchased and then closed wonderland sydney after running it into the ground through their poor management and lack of investing in new attractions.

Just no Its a damn carousel, excuses need to stop being made for their aging, poorly maintained piles of crap rides just sitting idle because of this or that. 1) the gearbox shouldn't break 2) if it does, get it sorted and reopen. Closed for months for a damn kiddy ride. Ffs

Approval has now been granted for the 5 new flat rides.

I understand its probably just a temp attraction, but man that corner of the park is just a hodge podge of a mess, and has been for too long now. It's time to wipe out Evilution, the Arcade, and what remains of the Thunderbolt station and do something clean and fresh there. Heck since they want to be all about experiences and family, lets expand the Dreamworks footprint and put in a Dreamworks dark ride.

It’s all good. We visited every park on the GC this week and the only coasters I couldn’t go on (that were open) were rivals, Scooby and escape from Madagascar so I definitely got a few thrill rides in. At Dreamworld the claw and giant drop I didn’t fit and doomsday and batwing at movie world. Everything else was fine! will probably go back again in a few years, maybe next time!

I nodded so hard while reading Alex’s post above that I got a neck cramp. So, so true. Movie World’s marketing department needs a massive shake-up in my opinion. VRTP marketing needs to go back to the good old days. Back then, the whole country knew when a new attraction had opened.

So at this point I am actually thinking Dreamworld should realistically consider moving to weekend only and school holiday opening. Keep white water world open mid week, and use the side entrance to bring the tour groups in to get their Koala photos (if these haven't all moved on to Paradise Country and Currumbin). I get the opening every day to reinforce the impression of being open for business but they aren't, half of the park is closed anyway. Reduce the overheads of having casual staff working weekdays with no guests. Your holiday makers will visit the Village parks and still visit on the weekend anyway, and your locals aren't making you any money mid week anyhow. That would free up staff and money to get these refurbs done quicker or more stuff open. And on that note, why take their time with log ride? Throw some money at it right now and fast track the rebuild. It's the same cost anyway as dragging it out and just makes for a better image overall.

The fact of the matter is, we're well over a month into operation and the park still hasn't shot any non-CGI photography to show off their incredible new roller-coaster. My European counterpart takes incredible photos like this when rides open: Yeah, so if those images don't demonstrate how out of touch their marketing strategy in a world of social influencers and digital advertising, I don't know what does. They have one super photoshopped hero image that tells audiences nothing other then "here's how good our art department is at putting faces in a fake train." But I digress... in regards to this train... "GREATEST THEME PARK ATTRACTION" - like, huh, what? How are you conveying anything more then a dreary PR by-line that no one will actually connect with? It's a fucking massive roller-coaster, just call it for what it is and get people's attention already. "Australia's biggest & best roller-coaster" is a basic start & far more interesting as a simple by-line then something over-workshopped like "greatest theme park attraction in Australia." Furthering this, beyond the dregs of radio hosts with little to no actual online following, where's the social engagement? The best has been a dreary vibrating clip of V8 drivers on it that had criminally bad audio and rigging. Like honestly, why is Clark Kirby letting such out of touch and outdated advertising in a totally evolved landscape is kind of beyond me - having white outlines of the roller-coaster on print artwork in a train does nothing for the general public to convey how shit hot this ride is and to me it's just there to service who-ever's job it was to create the graphics in the first place and nothing more. They should take a leaf out of literally any other park globally. They were nine months behind the global industry median average for marketing an attraction of this magnitude. There should've been construction updates, hype videos, public events, competitions, social influence engagement, ERTs - it makes me so resigned and cynical that they botched it so badly that i'd almost draft up a creative brief just to illustrate the point for those who aren't in the industry to understand just how much potential money they've lost. It's no coincidence brands like Kmart have made such a resurgence into Australian culture and consumer mindsets over the last few years, they turfed their marketing departments and ad agencies for teams of folks who get how to engage with their loyalist followings - going so far as to fly admins of Mum-friendly facebook groups to influence hundreds of thousands of other mums. In 2017, that's where you should be starting your efforts as a head of a brand's marketing efforts, not by slapping stickers on freaking trains that have literally no substance or no actual graphics that show how impressive the ride's sheer size is in the flesh. It's just really simple at the end of the day - TVC's by themselves do not work, and resisting digital does and will hurt your brand, and it's hurting all of Village's brands right now. Their main piece of advertising has maybe five seconds of non-CGI vision, so it's no wonder when I travel to Sydney literally no one has any idea of DC Rivals HyperCoaster. None of this shit connects with real people because none of it is even real to start with. It's a waste of space and money, and to be really blunt, the cost to make, print and run that ad-spot on the train could've paid for a creative like myself to shoot that ride for three days and deliver digital content that would be seen by 40x more people.

Mate if history serves us well it'll be gaffa-taped poorly to the pumpkin and vibrate through the entire video.

Thanks for the update @Luke. I visited about a week ago and notiice those Flinstone looking awnings have gone up since. For a kid's splash zone I think it will be pretty impressive. We always knew it wasn't going to be anything more than something minor and besides, SW is finally going to get that Fountain everyone's been banging on about🤣

Is anyone actually excited for this new addition to Seaworld? Is this truly the best use of a nice flat plot of land? Is a splash zone something that Seaworld is in dire need of at this point? I really am stumped that this project got the go ahead....seaworld is in a dire need of a new major attraction or even a new themed area with 1 or 2 dry rides. Am I the only one who is thinking this?