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I attended a preview event of TopGolf today and I must say, I’m darn impressed with the facility, Just some points I took away with from today - The inside section of building when you first walk in is very modern looking and has a shop inside selling all sorts of TopGolf merchandise, I believe this is where you book the bays as well at but I didn’t really get the chance to have a full proper look as we were quickly taken up to the ‘Top Bay’ (No pictures of this) - We were playing from the Top Bay section of the facility, Each bay has function to control mist, fans and heat. You can also have the ability to change the TV channel that your bay is playing as well. - Our game lasted for approximately one hour before we were whisked away before workers could make the final touches for tomorrow’s grand opening, we were greeted by the TopGolf CEO during this event as well who thanked us for coming along. We were offered samples of the food as well and I was pleased with the food offerings they have to offer I had a ball with TopGolf, (no pun intended) I’ve never played golf till today and I’m happy to report this is something I will be definitely be going to a lot. I strongly encourage all of you guys to come and visit this spectacular venue when it opens, I’m really glad we have this venue right next door to our parks, it brings a Citywalk/DisneySprings vibe. So guys, do yourself a favour, and get to TopGolf (when it opens tomorrow of course), it’s definitely something you’ll come back to do over and over again!

There's some fantastic posts in this topic! Cheers to all that have contributed. I agree with many of the posts, as I too have the same thoughts about MW and the GC parks. The GC park's themed entertainment offering has stagnated for many years. Yes we have better mechanical rides then we did 10 years ago, but the themeing, customer service, overall showmanship, merch and shows are all at the same standard (if not a worse) than 10 years ago. I think this feeling of 'our parks are mediocre' is further exacerbated by seeing the current standard of themeparks overseas; which is constantly getting better and better, and is currently at such a high standard.

Replacing the current ice themed frozen coke stand

This part is now no longer fenced off and has got a handicap ramp. If anyone is intrested

Extra 10% discount until end of June on Groupon. Code PARK10. That enables you to get a ticket to AOS from about $62.

Nah didn't you hear Abyss, Kraken and Goliath are trailer mounted and are off to a new fair this week. Considering AW is a fun fair. 😜

Yeah, nope. It’s a theme park because it’s on the east coast of Australia, just like the Ekka and the Sydney Showgrounds. 😜

Why is this in the Theme Park Discussion forum then?

Thanks Push that is great value when you consider full dinner and drinks are also included. That PARK10 Code also applies to the Annual Pass program. I got one this way for my Sister when she moved up recently. The last time I saw AOS was at the Media Launch way back in 2006.. I guess it's time to go back again😂

From an Australian point of view, Top Golf is a totally new leisure activity, tying the marketing to the theme parks would just hold it back. Top Golf isn't a theme park nor should it be marketed as a something to experience with the theme parks. Also for most people, nothing on it's own is the motivator when it comes to travel, tourism is a 'critical mass' sort of thing. People don't travel to the Gold Coast for just the theme parks or the beach or the nightlife or Outback Spectacular or the shopping or any of the other attractions dotted through Surfers, they travel for all of it. Top Golf is something else to add on to the pile of 'Well I've wanted to go for ages and now I want to go more', tying it to just one thing would be foolish. The other thing is that it's much harder for people to alter their plans once they get here and its harder to get your message out. Once people get to the Gold Coast many often already know how they're spending their time so it's a tougher ask getting them to change their plans. It's also made more difficult because when you go to the brochure stand at the hotel Top Golf becomes just another thing to do in a sea of things to do. Now obviously this doesn't mean no one is flexible with their plans or it's not worth advertising on the Coast, but the point is that it's worth marketing at all points along the way, from day dreaming about places to visit to planning to 'what shall I do tonight?'. Top Golf absolutely should get it's own unique advertising everywhere, leave it to Gold Coast tourism to include Top Golf in compilations of the whole destination.

I've been keeping up to date with this thread, and while I have detailed thoughts on a lot of it, what I find interesting is how many people think this stuff is new. Maybe it's the fact that Movie World opened 2 new rides in 2 years that blinded everyone from the true state of the park. The irony is that I think the park is looking either as good or better than it has for years, it's just that people have taken their blinders off. I also understand the reality that they have implemented a new ticketing strategy with a long term focus which will cost them in the short term, at the exact same time as rest of the group has had an awful year. That's why you're getting community month being extended and half baked stuff like afterglow and cost cutting, but even with the cost cutting its better now in terms of having outlets open than I've ever seen it. That doesn't mean I think everything is great, but I think it's as good as we can reasonably expect from Village. People in management don't understand theme parks, they understand the Village way of doing things. Here's an example of the sort of thing I mean; there is a policy in place that if f&b staff eat left over food it's theft and staff caught doing it will be dismissed. You have to be a special kind of asshole to think that way as you ask kids on $20 an hour to throw out hundreds of dollars worth of food. So the people who are successful in the department are special kinds of assholes, and stupid policy lives on. There are nice supervisors by the way who allow it, but it's understood that it's the manager being nice, not the company, and the nice ones (overall) tend to get weeded out before progressing further. A friend of mine recently got a job in marketing doing social media. They studied social media and know the parks intimately. Instead of using that knowledge and creating engaging content they were locked in an office and were asked to scroll instagram to find photos guests had taken. This is why you get the inane unengaging crap that Village post on social media all the time. Of course the people who know how crap what they're doing leave and the people who think the social media presence is fine persist into management. At village, with a couple exceptions, mediocrity rises to the top. I think Clarke is good for the parks but the culture he inherited is one that will need work and it's really hard to do when there's no money. What's interesting to me is that the low level staff who are good like him and feel they could go to him with a problem. People with crappy attitudes complain because they have to stay at work longer. I think it'll take a while and a management clean out to fix things, after all things are pretty mediocre at Movie World, and that's where all the management is based and trying the hardest. Have you been to any other VRTP parks lately to see how they're doing? Spoiler alert, not as good as MW.

Whoever mentioned uniforms is bang on. That Village branding should NEVER have entered the public facing aspect of the parks. Disney tried creating a "Disney Parks" brand an ditching all park specific stuff and it backfired terribly and ultimately reversed it all. Why the GC parks repeat mistakes of other operators years after they were shown to be awful and expect different is baffling... All those "Village" corporate type uniforms are management types getting off on being some of some big corporate entity and completely detrimental to placemaking and magic, just awful. I can't say enough horrid things about those rank uniforms, multi park merch, and '4 park' name badges. What I do hope is all of this left along with Tim Fisher and change is in the works, I hear so many good 'JSM Style' comments about Kirby that we can only hope.

And I think ‘the show’ aspect began to be lost when uniforms changed. It’s great that some of the rides have unique uniforms still, but the uniforms for the ticketing, retail and some rides have lost a bit of magic. Even if it was just the ticketing staff at the front of the park who had unique uniforms it would add to the apparent movie magic (which in many cases has been lost).

Movie World have definitely lost 'the show' aspect of their staff. Above all else - this is what they need to work on improving. We can worry about shitty burgers later.

MW loading and efficient can never be placed in the same thesaurus, let alone sentence...

You cant make morale and happiness with money... its not about wages. The village parks used to have as much fun and social recreation behind the scenes as front of house back hen John Menzies ran the place. The staff would have industry deals at venues all over town. There would be catered (with alcohol) after hours parties for staff almost monthly, and un official organised gatherings in town even more frequently. Then there was the famous annual Warner Village ball which saw all staff (1000s) treated to a sit down formal dinner, unlimited drinks and festivities all night, and handing out of employee of the year awards. Many staff lived for this annual party which was renowned for being one of the best on the coast. All these things made the place more than just a workplace. When Tim Fisher came in, all that stopped, there is no such thing a ball or a Christmas Party anymore, any staff function is held on site and is about as exciting as you can imagine from say a Trivia Night with free Soft Drink! WOO With so many companies being all about employee benefits to retain good staff these days, it's safe to say Village are as behind in staff relations as Dreamworld are in strategic direction. It's people that make your business, end of story.

I do not for one minute think that Mickey D was nitpicking at all in regards to the behaviour and mannerisms of Movieworld's staff that he observed. Theme parks are a service industry. We expect and should get excellent customer service ACROSS all facets of the park. This includes all team members whether they are ride operators or ticket attendants. Imagine if we went to a Disney park and experienced this type of attitude and poor service. It would be a major talking point. We hold Disney as being the best that theme parks can offer ( and whilst I am certainly not holding Movieworld to a Disney standard) it is reasonable to expect a certain level of attentiveness , enthusiasm and professionalism from our own indigenous parks. Simple customer service should be the minimum to expect. I am sure that Mark Shaw, given his own unique perspectives on the industry, would agree on the importance of customer service and professionalism in your job at all times. Seriously a no brainer for mine.