Slick

Let's gooooo Vekoma Madhouse.

There's a lot you can fit in that space, including an additional gate or two. That's without considering the multitude of ways you could integrate a premium hotel into a space like they did with the Miracosta at DisneySea. Seems crazy to me that the Disneyland Hotel is still standing and something like this hasn't been developed already.

Commercial airports (including a surrounding of 2-5km plus additional clearances for approach) are do not fly zones, private helipads and airports operate under a general proviso that you use caution and don't fly near the approach, pad or runway during operating hours and that you land immediately if you see an aircraft/helicopter in the sky. While you can fly 30m above private property, 99% of the time under a recreational license you can't fly over people, crowds, large stadiums, events etc. or fly in a way that is un-safe or dangerous to those around the drone. With all of that in mind - given the amount of helicopter traffic in the broadwater and around the spit when he would've flown his drone combined with the flight paths he took it's definitely dodgy. TLDR; don't go out and buy a second hand DJI drone, fly it recklessly around a park and ruin it for everyone so you can get a hundred views on YouTube.

The letters are metal plates on the tower so there'd be a bit of work to go the whole hog of actually removing them considering they're behind the Giant Drop ride system/track.

They should’ve 18 months ago when it closed.

That last article was a brilliant read. Must have a watch of that Exposed shot now.

How to spot a new Dreamworld employee. 😄

Agreed - I think the area looks bloody brilliant, but those kinects and the ride just didn't pull through in the end. That and it's in the wrong area of the park. If the ride's cactus, i'd move a lot of theming (like the fantastic fibreglass villains and the well received effects like the water fountains) over to the Superman court-yard and the space outside Justice League. That leaves a nice big open space to pop in a better ride system that better fits the Wild West end of town.

At what point do you write off that whole ride and themed area? It's a lot like metre maids in 2021 - beautiful, useless and sticks out like a sore thumb.

Especially now that Joe Rohdes is head of experience at Virgin. 😂

Who would've thought Jamberoo was going to be Australia's best themed waterpark?

Define near clone - they're similar in that they have a lift hill, they go up and down and are made by Mack but that's about it. Reminds of this clip. 😂 I've thought this for a while. Refurbishing Dreamworld like they did for Cypress Gardens and turning it into a Legoland would be brilliant. Keep the waterpark as is, spin the animals off into a third gate and you're onto a winner... maybe.

This is a really great thought. What IP alternatives are even out there these days? It seems like most kid’s characters are owned by either Universal, Disney, or they’re over at Village.

Agreed - I think having a chunk hang out over the water would be awesome. As for log flumes, both Rocky Hollow & Vikings were made in-house and had their own sets of unique problems, and I'd say it's fair to assume both parks didn't want to take on that responsibility. On the other hand, Aussie World's log flume is going strong (which is made by I think Reverchon or Fabbri, not sure, but a reputable enough OEM none the less.) For the million or so it'd take for Intamin to refurbish either one is a steal and is something that should've been looked into years ago, but maybe that's just me spiralling this off-topic now. 😅

I'm interested to hear what you all think what's next for Dreamworld after Steel Taipan open and how the future may look for Dreamworld in the coming years. Do you think Ardent will continue to own it for the foreseeable future? What do you think needs work next (refurbishment/improvement wise) and what do you think the park should be adding in order to return to its former glory? Adding to that, do you think Steel Taipan is enough by itself to return the park to profitability? And if not, why?

Yeah you'd definitely be starting that area from scratch, which I think would be the way to go anyway if you wanted to re-theme the area and open it up a bit more. As for Dreamworld, they're the two biggest plots of land left so both work for sure. There's also basing it in the former space of Blue Lagoon, although personally i'd love to see something like a custom RMC woodie start from there and use the land parcel north to essentially leave the park and go on a journey much like Rivals does. I also reckon the island is better served with a few open family rides (Mack splash barrels, Vekoma floating island, some new animal enclosures like otters etc.) so my vote is for the Log Ride space. Then again I feel like Log Ride should just be refurbished, thematically plussed and put back into service.... I've done a crude Photoshop to show how little land this takes up (and yep, I matched the scales to check, it's surprisingly small).

From a quick Google that thing looks badass. I genuinely wouldn’t be mad at all if movie world (or even dreamworld) picked that up. I guarantee 99% of guest feedback would be “this is so smooth compared to lethal weapon and it was way funner!” Update - just did a quick Google and it seems like it would fit in that site really well. Little skinnier and longer but then might give more room to open up the space between Arkham and West for more attractions.

What on earth is the story behind that coaster?

There was also the pissing contest for for years and years as to a) whether or not you measure the ride structure or how high the ride itself goes record (which would give the "tallest" record to Six Flags since they launched theirs off a hill and had a taller structure to compensate) and b) if it was a roller-coaster at all to begin with. I've always maintained if it quacks like a duck and looks like a duck then it's probably a duck. Ergo, it looks like a roller-coaster, sounds like a roller-coater and moves under its own gravity at some point, therefore, it's a coaster. His videos are fine. Not the biggest fan after he ripped off articles I wrote and recited them verbatim but such is life, right? Also, super nerdy fun fact - you'll note the perspex on the front has no frame around it during it's first few years of operation, as spotted in the video. A frame was later added to re-inforce it against bird strikes.

Broadly speaking, I'm very cautiously optimistic about the Olympics coming to Brisbane in general. The IOC are moving away from a host-city to a host-region model as part of their "2020 remodelling" strategy after the viability of the Olympics came into question. The government seems to think the games will pay for themselves, but that's also something that's been heard all before. If a developer were to time it right, there's a great opportunity to strike with a Brisbane or Sunshine coast based theme park that has the potential to really leverage the Olympics for long term exposure, but beyond that I don't see the Olympics moving the needle enough for specific tourism operators to benefit wildly after the games are over. Like @Gazzasaid, with the Commonwealth Games, the messaging was so strong about transport and roads being congested that everyone avoided the Comm Games like the plague and the polar opposite happened.

I'm sure they could do a 4x3x4x3 configuration too, choose between crazy seats or normal seats.

For sure, I think if you kept an eye on your data you'd find the sweet spot between devaluing your product and driving revenue, which is the key.

Jesus it's a good looking coaster.

Looking forward to seeing track go up in the next month. 🍻

In my mind the whole FastTrack thing is just Village leaving money on the table. By having the app and having one source of truth (Accesso) for the majority of the guest experience, they'd be pulling in crazy data on consumer behaviour that they're clearly not leveraging to maximise daily revenue. They would know age, gender, party size, geolocations throughout the day, purchase behaviour, visit behaviour, app access behaviour pre-visit etc. etc. and a bunch of other data points that they could use to create subsets of customers (enthusiasts, families, couples to name some basic level ones) that they could target with specialised offers. If the Rivals backwards seats haven't sold well, why not create a trigger that at 2pm you send an offer to enthusiasts in-park for a $5 backwards seat they could redeem via Apple Pay/Google-Pay in-app? I'm guessing this is why BGH Capital want to invest so much effort into theme parks, there's easily a few million left on the table every year just by having a comms strategy that refuses to get with the times.