Richard

I started to write a reply here and it ended up as an article, but just to quickly clarify, that's revenue down 63%, not profits. Revenue of $3.66 million is certainly an overall loss for the month; recall that the November figure was around $4 million in operating costs while the park was closed.

They've never not played it conservatively. There just isn't the culture at Ardent Leisure to spend big on major rides; to give it some perspective their largest investment in a standalone ride is Motocoaster, as laughable as that sounds. These days in particular Dreamworld is a cash cow that they use to fund Main Event expansion. How do you justify $10-20 million on a new ride that may see a 10-15% return when that same capital can go towards several new Main Event centres in the USA that bring 30% annual return? My view is it's unlikely that Dreamworld will turn a profit this financial year and the next few years will be tough. Merlin don't expect Alton Towers to be back to normal until the 2018 season; that's three years of poor trading after their non-fatal incident. It's going to be a long haul for Ardent and it's not just the (hypothetical) $50 million in profits that theyrre losing, it's the multiplier effect of not being able to reinvest a large portion of that into other higher return businesses. There's no real secret that selling the park has been on the agenda. To me the only CapEx we'll see in the near future will be things that can't be avoided because a contract exists or it's crucial to the business, things that have a high return, or things that will improve the saleability or value of the park.

Reminds me of my Extreme World pitch in that it combines the natural allure of a major theme major in a growing residential area with the company's local entertainment skillset. There's a lot the company does really well in family entertainment that just hasn't been applied to Dreamworld. I guess my only issue with the idea is that I don't see Ardent / Main Event as owners of the property much beyond the next few years.

Nope... as per our guidelines we don't want these 'mega-threads' anymore. We'll be winding down as many of the 2016 ones we can in the near future. Feel free to start a new thread on any specific Dreamworld topic you want.

The point @Bush Beast Forever was making is that the R&D costs associated with launching a new ride style would likely not be realised until a certain number of installations were made. The break-even point for Arrow Dynamics' Mad Mouse coaster was apparently ten installations; they only made four. In all likelihood Vekoma never broke even on the Waikiki Wave ride. Not sure this says anything about the quality of the ride so much as Vekoma's failings in trying to enter the flat ride market, and Huss's strengths particularly in the European travelling ride market. Certainly the reputation Huss has doesn't exactly speak much for them being a victor in any sense.

Well at least they're consistent. They removed most of the bar/service area at Dockside Tavern and replaced it with an area to queue to make up for the slower service. Removing most of the rides and making the few remaining queues slightly more comfortable is a brilliant long-term strategy.

Is it the old urban legend about the young kid that went missing at (insert marine park/zoo/aquarium) for a few hours, turned up soaking wet but was spooked and wouldn't say a word about what happened on the drive home. Then was found later that night playing with a penguin in their bedroom that they'd put in their backpack?

Pretty simple to set up a Google Alert for Gold Coast related theme park news. The Viking's Revenge closure thread has been going for weeks but this didn't become a mainstream story until we published our article on the topic.

Everyone: feel free to debate and discuss this based on the facts/opinions presented. If you want to just post hysterical "TROLL!!!" crap then hold off on clicking the submit button and save us having to delete your posts.

Same difference. I was going to say precinct but left it as ride given that's what we're talking about here. There's no logical way of justifying DC Super-Villains' location thematically. Makes sense from a rejuvenation and crowd management perspective of course but it hardly sets the standard for strict adherence to themed areas. Nonetheless... the likelihood of a non-DC ride in the main DC area of the park in 2017? Slim-to-none.

Logically you also wouldn't build a DC themed ride sandwiched between Scooby-Doo and the wild west... at the opposite end of the park to all the other DC rides.

Oh the conflict this would create for today's PC brigade. On one hand you're taking the progressive step of naming a major attraction after a female superhero. On the other hand, you're objectifying women by taking a ride on Wonder Woman.

Was this something I missed at the time? I haven't read anything suggesting this. The only quote I could find even vaguely on the results of the re-enactment appears to suggest the opposite: https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2016/nov/01/dreamworld-deaths-coroner-sees-re-enactment-of-fatal-ride I don't think there's any doubt that design, modification, maintenance and operational issues were the cause here. While the consensus here seems to be that it was a freak accident, I'd lean to it being a perfect storm of issues and entirely preventable were the ride properly designed and operated. That it passed its certification isn't a vindication of Dreamworld; it's an indictment of the inspection and certification process.

Locking this because as some have pointed out, we have a purpose-built review system on this site for this purpose. We don't really need things to get out of control like this. To reiterate our policy, we actively encourage new and different topics.

Source? It's an interesting one. $16 million for Tower of Terror isn't disputed, but Dreamworld cited the figure of $12 million for Giant Drop in their press releases for the ride. I am however absolutely certain that Giant Drop only cost around $4 million to build as the bulk of the structural work was completed for Tower of Terror. I believe $12 million was the figure for if they built Giant Drop as a standalone attraction. For whatever reason Dreamworld went with this inflated figure in their promotion for the ride.

I can't see any reason that they won't be able to bounce back over time, but the damage has already been done this financial year. I think they will struggle with the holidaymaker crowd this summer, with or without those inevitable news stories of crowds swarming and interviews with Barry from Arundel who reckons that nah it's all good, love bringin' the family here aye. The sooner it's business as usual, the better. The return to normalcy will absolutely help sway tourists back towards the park, but it's hard to see any way that the overwhelming trend for the summer won't be one of Dreamworld avoidance from cashed up tourists. No shortage of other things to do on the Gold Coast, including visit three other theme parks without a tattered reputation.

Local passholders will come back pretty quickly and in solid numbers. An influx of locals who have already paid for their tickets will do very little to help Dreamworld. Asian tourists will be back for their obligatory koala photo. This is decent, high margin business because they just churn through them by the literal busload. It's the interstate and NZ tourists who are most likely to reconsider their plans, and this is where Dreamworld will hurt most. If this market drops off significantly it doesn't really matter what the other segments do: this is their profit margins gone.

There is a growing trend towards mega-threads relating to parks which we want to address to try and curb. Threads should wherever possible be devoted to a single project/topic/debate/discussion. All-encompassing threads like "<Theme Park Name> Updates" really become unmanageable after a while. Ideally we'll like to see the current crop of these threads slowly become replaced. Though it's a fairly easy way to share thoughts, content or information, they're really not a useful way to function long-term and makes it really hard for anyone who doesn't follow the forums on a regular basis, which is the vast majority of the Parkz audience. Threads will always veer off-course from time to time. This is fine. If it veers too much off the original topic we'll split it off into its own thread. As a really simple set of guidelines: Don't be afraid to start a new topic. Don't chastise others for starting a new topic... if it's a duplicate just let us know. If it hasn't been talked about before and isn't related to what's already being discussed it should be in its own topic, even if it's a fairly minor thing. Tag the new topic with the park's name and anything else relevant, which gives great sorting/filtering abilities. If it's really minor, or just a funny observation or side comment then sure, post it in an existing topic relating to that park/ride/etc. Else the Chit Chat forum is the place for unrelated ‘nonsense’. Don't start an open-ended or vague topic like "<Theme Park Name> Updates". When construction ends on a project, and you wish to share a review, thoughts etc., start a new topic for this purpose. At the end of the day, even if it's a somewhat boring topic ("Sea World replacing a foot bridge!"), it makes more sense to have it off in a thread of its own that only gets a few posts, rather than mixed in with half a dozen other concurrent topics in one mega-thread.

Hard to imagine there'd be anyone internally at Dreamworld that would be advocating for the resurrection of this ride. It's every bit as DIY as Thunder River Rapids and it seems apparent that it's these vintage Gold Coast rides that would be under the most scrutiny right now. Viking's Revenge looks to be facing closure and I'd expect Rocky Hollow to have a similar fate. Insurance for any ride not engineered by a major manufacturer in the last 20-odd years is probably going to become very expensive all of a sudden.

Rides are installed if and when there's a sound business case for them. They're not counting coins each day and then finally saying "Hey, we can get a B&M now!" Logically, more locker revenue would probably lead to more lockers.

It will come out that the ride is flawed in its design and this directly contributed to the incident. There is no way was ever reopening once the cause was determined and I have no doubts that experts had it 90% figured out within hours. Retrofitting with new technology to address its design flaws is an interesting idea but when you consider the stigma the ride will carry with it forever, where's the possible return on this kind of huge investment? I'm not speculating on what specific confluence of events led to the incident, but this decision and the announcement today is not driven by respect for the victims or relenting to negative coverage in the media. It's a decision based on the business case for the ride and Dreamworld as a whole. Ardent and Dreamworld are one in the same since this incident took place. The company as a whole would be using every internal and external resource at their disposal when making these decisions; it's pretty pointless to point the finger at one level of the organisation as a scapegoat.

That's precisely what I was suggesting... that they need three trains so that there's always two available. Currently the ride cannot physically run a second train much of the year because of maintenance schedules, even though it really should. Actually running three trains on the ride with the necessary adjustments to the blocking would presumably be possible, but it's hard to see a capacity increase. You'd need to see some serious changes to the queue/station and load procedures to get dispatch times anywhere near where they'd need to be for smooth three train operation. I'd expect to see the same with the new coaster... a ride designed to operate with two trains but three on hand. @YLFATEEKS 5.5 cars per train sounds like a nice, safe bet... right in the middle.

I would expect to see three trains so that there are two trains available to operate at all times. I don't see it being designed to actually operate three trains, purely because there's no way operations here would be able to keep up with dispatch times to make this worthwhile. We're at a point now with memberships/VIP passes that there is no longer an off-peak season where it's acceptable to operate with one train. With figures like $30 million being thrown around, then the expectation is obviously that this coaster will be a huge driver of attendance in order to justify that kind of expense. If you're confident in its strength as a drawcard, then you have to be planning to be able to operate at capacity year-round. For what it's worth, Superman Escape is desperately overdue for a third train as well to allow it to mostly operate with two, as is Arkham Asylum for a second.

If people really want to fake their count then go for it. It happens just about every time we add a new attraction to the database. At the end of the day there's so many scenarios where someone can legitimately check off "under construction" attractions (refurbishments, relocations, staff/public previews etc.) that it's easiest that we don't complicate things.

A few clarifications to the article in terms of various values. Of interest is the added Credit Suisse estimates of $9 and $14m EBITDA for the coming financial years. That's would be a $50m loss to Ardent Leisure against if this incident hadn't occurred. The thoughts of Ardent Leisure 'doubling down' on this loss to properly redevelop and revitalise that whole section of the park is almost illogical from a financial view. @YLFATEEKS Ardent Leisure's carrying value for Dreamworld's land and assets is $235m. I've updated the article to reflect these figures. If we're picking and choosing potential buyers, Merlin strikes me as a more likely candidate. They have a presence in Australia and a long history of acquisition. Is Dreamworld the sort of asset that Wanda would want to work with when their current modus operandi is to build from scratch?