Richard

The problem is I don't think the majority of people who have purchased this pass will be visiting every week. Yeah there will be a good number of these people, but I'd honestly be surprised if the average number of visits per pass at the end of this was above five or six. Many of the buyers will those who were planning a single visit but saw this option and figured whether they use it again or not they'll still be in the same position cost-wise. If they find the time down the track they'd use it again but aren't fussed either way. There will also be those who were maybe planning an Easter or weekend mini-holiday and will use it a few times over a concentrated period but not after. I think the majority will be buyers who simply plan on visiting maybe a park a month... whenever they find time between other commitments. All of these groups, and a few others I didn't mention, you'll find will vastly outnumber those die-hard customers out to squeeze every ounce of value out of the pass by visiting every week. And they'd all be likely to spend $50-60 on a meal during their visit. You're right that we probably won't see any major spikes in profit from WVTP as a result, but I think they'll do alright considering at 6pm every night people are told they have no money to spend, and from all acounts Dreamworld is set to have a pretty average half-year.

The maths associated with trying to extrapolate a single weekend's attendance figures across the entire six month period and then working back from there to work out the profitability is a bit dodgy to say the least. It's been a while now, but last time Sea World had a $99 annual pass sale a few years back, I recall a figure of something like 100,000 sales. Given the price, value for money and marketing blitz associated with the latest deal it's not out of the realm of possibilities that they've tripled that figure. If total revenue directly associated with this campaign (incl. in-park spending by participants) is anything less than $30 million I'd be very surprised. Even then it's next to impossible to break that down on a per-park or per-attraction level. That said, it's unquestionable that it'll bolster their half-yearly earnings like nothing we've ever seen. Most of those saying that WVTP haven't made huge amounts off this latest deal seem to assume that the majority of buyers are those that obsessively scrimp and save. I guarantee you there will be a significant percentage of buyers who don't even visit all three parks once. Probably the bulk will make a combined total of half a dozen visits to any of the parks. Yeah there's going to be families that retreat to the boot of the car or the nearest Maccas come lunchtime, but they will be in the minority. You'll surely find a substantial number of families forking over a good $50+ on each visit, mostly in high margin food outlets. There's not a doubt in my mind that in-park spending alone will more than offset the costs of dealing with the additional capacity required -- with or without cutbacks. I can guarantee you that WVTP wouldn't even have started playing this game if there was the slightest possibility they didn't. What we're dealing with here with mention of attraction and retail cutbacks is something that started well before this 6-month pass appeared, and I think it's just a bit too convenient to assume it's caused by either excess low/no-margin visitors, or any purported financial crisis.

Not quite that fancy yet. Colocation is just a term for when a server is owned by one party (i.e. us) and stored in a rented space in another party's data centre. This is as opposed to either running a server from your own Internet connection, or renting a server within a data centre. We've got two servers in the new centre, but they're running independently of one another. Sometime down the track I would like some sort of redudancy; ideally the way to go would be to have the site mirrored in the US, both so that when we have that occasional inevitable downtime, but more importantly, so that international visitors can access the site at the sort of speeds we're accustomed to. Also for anyone interested, as far as data redundancy goes, the server automatically backs itself up daily, and the server's HDDs are in RAID configuration to safeguard against disc failures.

The server is colocated in the Pegasus data centre, moved from the PIPE centre where we'd been for several years.

Can't say I do have any photos, but the server looks roughly like this: http://www1.ap.dell.com/content/products/p...;l=en&s=bsd Just picture it in a rack with about a hundred others like it, in a room with about fifty racks and that's where it lives.

That will likely be a DNS propogation issue with your ISP. Each ISP takes a bit of time to update their records and yours may not yet have the most up to date. You might find accessing the site from http://www.parkz.org/ works in the meantime.

Yeah we've moved from a datacentre in Creek St. to one in Wharf St. in the city. We were down for longer than expected because a bunch of unanticipated things went wrong at just about every level of the move. All good now though...

Just a quick (albeit late) notice to let everyone know that this afternoon we're moving the Parkz server across town to a new datacentre and as such there will be a period of downtime. Hopefully everything will be up and running again later this afternoon or evening.

What I said was that many specific elements of the storyline were left out of both the soundtrack as well as the visual aspects of the ride. It just jumps ahead at various points without explanation. Obviously if it were explained in either the song or visual elements then everything would be fine, as is the case at WDW.

Obviously it's not difficult to get a cursory feel for the story from the attraction, especially given that it is as Nev said, formulaic Disney storytelling. My point was that as far as attraction storytelling go, Disneyland's Splash Mountain is far from Disney's best work. By comparison the storyline on the WDW Splash Mountain is immediately recognisable and, despite being debatably the lesser ride of the two, really highlights the Disneyland version's shortcomings. The feeling I had coming off WDW's was an overwhelming "Ohhh, so THAT'S what they were getting at with Disneyland's". Looking through the lyrics you posted, I can kind of remember where the problems were for Disneyland's. Yeah the lyrics tell a story, but it's not the whole story, obviously intended to accompany a more in-depth visual story. Granted it's been several years since I rode it, but I recall that a lot of the vague turning points in the story told by the lyrics were simply unexplained visually. For instance I seem to remember there being no explanation for Brer Rabbit's capture, among other things.

I would have to say that despite its qualities as a ride, the storyline of the Disneyland Splash Mountain is anything but clear. It wasn't until I rode Walt Disney World's version that the scenes and song elements actually came together as a cohesive story. I'm sure seeing Songs of the South helps but Disney all but denies this film exists these days, owing to its racist/slavery elements.

I never said it was rejected due to their lack of expertise in this field. Basically all I said is that their plan means that other more experienced companies will be less likely to invest in the area, resulting in a centre that doesn't meet the needs of the community in the best possible way. I know that this area has always been earmarked for a town centre -- the train station was built where it was with this development in mind. That still doesn't make Macquarie Leisure's plan ideal or adequate.

The only issue I have is with the fact that Dreamworld and Lo-Q choose to misleadingly advertise the system as not being queue jumping. Whether you're a supporter of Q4U or not (I personally am) doesn't change that this is deliberately skewing the truth so as to minimise potential upset from non-Q4U buyers. That to me is an issue worth discussing.

This article is not about the issue of whether QBot is a valid addition to a theme park. If you read it, then you'll see that the sole purpose of this article is to address the specific claims by its inventors and Dreamworld (along with other parks using it) that QBot is not queue jumping.

Thanks for those corrections regarding the functionality of QBot, Lotl_90. I've fixed the article to clear these minor matters up.

Word at the end of today was that because of the ongoing work there won't be a soft opening. Your earliest chance to ride will be Boxing Day.

True that they've done a reasonable job of explaining it on the website. And I will say that the pricing is actually surprisingly reasonable for Dreamworld. I've never been against the concept, and as I've said I'm not adverse to paying more if it means a better experience. Hell, if I were to have a judgement lapse and somehow end up spending a day at Dreamworld I'd probably sign up for Q4U. My gripe (again) is that it's totally unsuited to a park like Dreamworld where rides just don't have the capacity. The only problem is that they are justifying it to non-buyers using a totally false premise. They claim that other guests do not queue longer. Only if the buyer queues for absolutely nothing while they are virtually queuing for something -- be that another ride or a meal -- is this actually true. The fact is that at a theme park the chance that someone would lock in a ride with the Lo-Q device and not do anything else the park has on offer is pretty low. And every time they enter such a queue they are effectively jumping the queue; whether you see it as them linejumping at the Lo-Q ride or at the second ride they're queuing for doesn't matter, but there's no question that they are taking away from other guests.

Subscriber series: Disneyland Click here to view this video...

Your numbers are bogus. You're assuming that, despite the fact that this is a product marketed exclusively at people who intend to ride a lot of rides in their day but don't want to be caught up in queues, these people will not be likely to want to use it to the fullest extent. I don't know what you think the average visitor to Dreamworld will be doing for the 6-odd hours you estimate they won't be spending "virtual queuing", but I can assure you they're not going to be flocking to the handful of non-Q-bot rides that remain, most of which are dated carnival rides, toddler rides or transport rides. There's about an hour's entertainment in the various animal exhibits and that's pretty much Dreamworld. I gather that you are under the impression that everyone here is just season pass holders or enthusiasts complaining because they feel it threatens their visiting habbits. I can't speak for anyone else, but I will say is that I'm neither. The only reason I'm against this idea because I have never come across a park anywhere in the world which runs rides as poorly as Dreamworld. And here they feel that they can use their dreadful operations as an excuse to charge people extra if they don't want to spend 90% of their day queuing.

Chicken jokes and his niceness aside, this move typifies the sort of management and vision we have come to expect from Macquarie Leisure. Now granted it's too early to make any real judgement, but the fact is you don't hire someone with this skillset to grow Dreamworld into a world-class theme park. You look at the management team at any theme park in the world -- even smaller ones -- and you will find that they come either from within the park or from other parks. This indicates that the skillset needed to manage theme parks is highly specialised. The fact that Dreamworld has continued to completely dillute their product over recent years through brand affiliations, cutbacks in quality and short-term vision when it comes to new major attractions, suggests that there is no interest at all for them to run Dreamworld the same way as almost every other successful theme park out there. An appointment like this only strengthens this argument. The question also needs to be asked; why does the park have such a high turnover rate? How can any level of long term growth be achieved with CEOs staying onboard for only a few years before moving on. Whether it's a sign of the kind of environment that exists, or just purely coincidental that all of the park's CEOs have had such a short run I don't know but it is very interesting to me.

Yeah I don't know what world you live in where the average guest visits a theme park with the intention of riding maybe 3-4 major rides in that day. Considering that aside from the eight rides mentioned to include the system, Dreamworld only has about half a dozen other rides (including transport rides but excluding the smaller children's rides), there's simply no way this device would ever be marketed as a good way to ride only half the rides in the park that are worth riding. Now, the biggest argument pro Q-bot it seems to be that it doesn't allow for queue jumping but allows people to queue outside of the confines of the normal queue. Consider this situation: two attractions with a one hour queue. Q-bot holder reserves his place in the queue for Ride A, and then goes off the normal queue for Ride B. After one hour he rides Ride B and then gets his notification to head back to Ride A. He goes straight to the ride and hops right on. He has waited only one hour whereas any other person has had to wait two hours for the same experience. Really fair. Assuming an average of four people per device with 130 sold, I guess that'd make my 1,000 per day estimate off by a tad. So instead of 50% of the capacity going to Q-bot we have 25%. Still a ridiculous level of allocation for a premium product at a park that needs everything it can get thanks to its dreadful ride capacities.

But there always needs to be a physical cap on sales or no system works. They're selling a premium service and if too many people subscribe to it then it loses its purpose because the rides in question can't handle the numbers. Sorry I didn't finish my thought here. When you're entertaining 100 million plus guests a year, a few rogue FastPasses being sold on eBay are not an issue because enforcing it would be both too costly and ultimately a negative experience for the guest, for a minuscule fraction of guests would be abusing the system. If Disney had a system like Lo-Q's then you can bet that through the sheer numbers passing through the gates that there'd be people working very hard at hacking the system too. Two tangible commodities. The most important product a theme park sells and a guest buys is experience. The option of spending more to improve your experience is not a new thing and theme parks including Dreamworld have been doing it for years through various upcharge attractions. However in the very specific context of such a system at Dreamworld, there are two things that need to be done: satisfying all guests who have paid their entry fee, and also satisfying those who have paid extra. Through Dreamworld's own brand of operational inefficiency, there is simply no way that Lo-Q can satisfy both groups. If they allocate enough capacity to Lo-Q holders to absorb the number that needs to for it to be considered a good experience then it'll leave queues exceptionally long for normal park-goers. If they gear it towards normal park-goers then they won't be moving enough Lo-Q holders through and the item becomes a waste of money because they won't be able to get in the 8 rides they expected when they purchased the system. But that is precisely it. No one here is or should be arguing this in terms of how it integrates at a hypothetical park. We're talking about how it works at Dreamworld. Dreamworld is a park that has dreadful operations. Trying to absorb 1,000 each hour who expect to be able to go on a ride because they've paid a premium when the rides in question have a combined capacity of only 2,000 will be incredibly detrimental to the other 9,000 people who also want to experience these attractions and have paid their $70-odd to do so. But you see for Dreamworld to be able to successfully market and sell this, then there needs to be a benefit to guests. If they're not getting on a measly 8 rides in a day with the device then it won't be seen as value. For each guest holding the device to get on these 8 rides in an 8 hour day, it is a fact that 50% of each ride's capacity needs to be allocated to FastPass.

I was working on a bit of an editorial for this that covers much the same ground as what I'm saying below but thought that I'd throw a post up here because I think there's a few points that haven't yet been raised... might still finish up the article as it's an interesting subject I think. 1) Limiting numbers is a crucial component to either system. 2) Is that really a setback? How does a ride failing not screw over Lo-Q users too, just the same as it does normal guests. A ridiculous looking buzzing thing around your neck isn't going to make a breakdown any more enjoyable. 3) We are talking about parks here that move vastly huge amounts of people. Dreamworld cannot be directly compared to parks like Legoland because of the seaonal differences. Yes Dreamworld 1.5 million vs. Legoland 1.7 million but that's with half the length of season. For an effective comparison it's more like Dreamworld 750,000 vs. Legoland 1.7 million. 4) Yeah see now that's a sales pitch from Lo-Q. I guarantee you that with the 100 million plus that Disney parks around the world see through their gates each year, they could care less about In regards to the cost beenfit of it being free, Disney are selling an experience. They offer FastPass not so that they can secretly tack a few extra bucks onto the ticket fee, but because by offering it as a part of the standard package they are creating a tangible and very effective benefit to their product. Evidently you're not overly familiar with Dreamworld, so here's a few interesting items. A good solid peak day's attendance is around 10,000 people. The park has what they call the "Big 6" thrill rides, which we can expect to have Lo-Q installed. Add also perhaps Runaway Reptar, their children's coaster. Firstly, let's assume Dreamworld's goal from this is a $2 increase in per capita spending which I would say is in line with the typical goals of Macquarie Leisure, the park's owners. On a day with 10,000 guests, that's $20,000 increase in revenue. At a modest $20 a piece that means they want to sell 1,000 a day. Now, here's probably where your comparisons to parks like Legoland fall flat. There is not a single ride at Dreamworld which operates at more than about 400 people per hour. I suspect I'm being generous with the below estimates; Dreamworld is known for its somewhat unique lack of operational efficiency: Cyclone: 200pph (one dispatch every 7 minutes) The Claw: 400pph (one cycle every 5 minutes) Mick Doohan's Motocoaster: 300pph (one dispatch every 3 minutes) Tower of Terror: 200pph (one dispatch every 4 minutes) Giant Drop: 200pph (both sides cycling every 5 minutes) Wipeout: 300pph (one cycle every 8 minutes) Reptar: 200pph (one dispatch every 5 minutes) Total hourly capacity of rides with Lo-Q: 1,800. I'll even be generous and say 2,000 as I'm sure a water ride (or two) would be thrown in. For this to be remotely good value and a positive experience for buyers, we can expect that every visitor would want to get on each Lo-Q ride once during their day. We'll say 8 rides. Over the course of a 8 hour day at the park (summer extended hours), that means they need to be doing one ride each hour. OK, we now have exactly half the hourly capacity of each major ride in the park being dedicated to Lo-Q holders. Any less and people will leave unsatisfied and the product is essentially a ripoff. So we have rides like Motocoaster absorbing around 150 people every hour because the other 150 are those who've paid a bit extra. Here's the fun part. Motocoaster can now only absorb around 13% of the total "normal" guests, compared with 24% before Lo-Q is introduced. If anyone can explain conclusively how this isn't negatively impacting "normal" park-goers -- WHO HAVE ALREADY PAID $70-odd TO ENTER THE PARK!! -- then I'll gladly shout them and their family/friends Lo-Q for the day. Anyone that honestly can't see this being an almighty disaster is kidding themselves. These things work at parks with twice the annual attendance and half the operating season because these parks have the depth in their attraction lineup to be able to absorb many times the amount of guests Dreamworld possibly can. Hell, if this were Movie World we were talking about I'd probably be singing a different tune because at least they have a good number of high capacity attractions that are consistently operated in an efficient manner throughout the peak season (oh, and because I'm biased, hate Dreamworld blah blah blah) that could absorb a decent number of Lo-Q buyers without significantly impacting normal guests. I'm all for things like FlowRider and the V8 Playstation simulator thingy because these upcharges are for those who want to spend the extra money for the added experience. I myself aren't impartial to spending a bit extra every now and again on something a bit different. But these things don't subtract from a normal day at the park. At the end of the day, within the context of a park like Dreamworld, there is simply no realistic way in which the Lo-Q system can be effectively integrated. It won't affect me given it's been about five years since I spent a day at Dreamworld and I'm in no hurry to get back. But that doesn't mean it's not an utterly ridiculous idea.

The only problem with that explanation is that were it the case, the cutbacks would extend to frontline employees as well, not just management, where the cuts have been made exclusively. If the so-called financial crisis were having any immediate impact on our parks, then the results would take the form of decreased attendance and/or per capita spending, to which the solution is cutting back normal employees. Rather we have a situation where a new COO has come on board and is in the process of making extensive changes to the management structuring as part of his strategy for the company. Now, I definitely have my doubts about it all -- in particular the kind of strategic vision it indicates -- and it's definitely dreadful timing, but I'll wait and let the results in terms of financial success and the quality of the product speak for themselves down the track. Putting this down to a financial crisis is just a cop-out when you look at exactly where within the organisation these firings have taken place. In the past few years our parks (not just WVTP) have given us: 2000 Olympics, Ansett collapse, 9/11, SARS, bird flu, drought and rain and a host of others as reasons for cutbacks, redundancies and poor performance.

Introducing ParkzTV Probably the question I get asked most is when is the Videos page coming back? As most of you will have seen, yesterday a new video player system in a condensed form was introduced to display some Hollywood Stunt Driver footage. In the process of this I came up with the design for a video platform and style that I feel is consistent with the site's overall image. As such, in the near future we will launch ParkzTV, our portal for theme park videos. It will be a staff-driven feature (though we may accept user submissions down the track, it won't be an automated process like galleries), made up of high quality widescreen productions. As technology progresses, HD productions definitely aren't out of the question. To give you an idea of quality, yesterday's Hollywood Stunt Driver footage will be the resolution offered initially, but in terms of picture quality you can expect much crisper images as that footage went through quite a process. Normally we'll be working with raw footage so less is lost along the way. Much like the video system on Roller-Coaster.com.au, it'll be Flash-based so all you'll need is the latest version of Adobe Flash Player. For subscribers wondering about the (ridiculously) delayed DVD, I think with the system here we have an opportunity to finally get it out there. The DVD was actually finished a long time ago but was lost in a harddrive failure so I ended up having to re-render the entire film and then redo all the menus etc. which is a very cumbersome procedure. With ParkzTV I'll be able to roll out segments every few weeks and make them available to subscribers to view first for a period of say 2-4 weeks. If any subscribers do want a hard copy of the DVD then we'll be able to arrange that down the track but it'll be after the footage goes live on ParkzTV. Unlike Roller-Coaster.com.au's system, with the exception of subscriber-designated videos (such as in cases as above, plus occasionally where we've got footage which for one reason or another we can't release to the general public), all videos will be available for viewing to all users. Whether it requires a login or not will depend how we go down the track with bandwidth. I'm not entirely sure when it'll be completed and unveiled as this time of year can be a bit hectic but if all goes well it won't be more than a few weeks away.