Slick

Oh, this I can get behind.

My opinion is that primarily through a lack of competition or incentive, our parks, by far and large haven't really needed to or warranted supporting their enthusiast/loyalist community. However, the US theme parks are a hugely different situation entirely. My belief is because there's more competition at every level for them, there's an incentive over there to be above the curve in their marketing tactics and as such find it super important to really reach out to their most loyal customers. And let me tell you, every marketer ever knows that book 1, chapter 1, page 1 is all about engaging your brand's most loyal customers (here's just two from a sea of thousands of articles explaining just that) and ultimately that's where i'd like to see our parks in the future as a collective. US theme parks do regular Extended Ride Time (ERT) Events, behind the scenes walkthroughs designed specifically for our sort of crowd, do Q&A's with their design teams & most important of all, work with the key influencers/sites to ensure the right message has been delivered and the best possible content is being made to build their followings. That is where we should be in Australia in 2017. Every other niche group in any other industry will get this sort of stuff (especially in Australia), whether it's cars, photography, trains, drones, architecture, civil engineering etc. etc. etc., and yet here I am with OurWorlds, pounding away at emails just trying to get point of view video on Rivals that I know will generate heaps of great, free publicity for Movie World, and I gotta say, i'm still hitting a brick wall. And it's not like i'm not known for point of video footage either, i'd like to think that despite whatever critical opinion I may have at any given time that may off-put some execs, by and large the hundreds, if not thousands of hours I personally pour into real, honest, quality content (content that in the particular case of the Rivals HyperCoaster, gets used in their shareholder reports, no less) is worth at least a g'day. And this makes it really hard for me, because to make good content, it's a two-way street, because i'm certainly not going to pull a Robb Alvey and start sneaking cameras onto rides either and put content out there that suggests breaking the park's rules is okay. Like seriously, I have literally been served a lobster lunch in return for my roller-coaster videos. And yeah, granted, there's more then a few numpties who call themselves enthusiasts, and I think that's also par for the course in any group. I certainly don't think same sex marriage is anything but a must in this country, and that's despite a very few super-leftie, hippie marxist types making it hard for there to be a rational, calm discussion about it with those who may have concerns. So in my mind, just because @Andrewh did the wrong thing a while back and jumped into a closed off part of Dreamworld, doesn't then mean that we're all a bunch of crazies who just want a scoop. Nah, I actually think by and large we're all pretty well rounded folk who enjoy a beer and a laugh at our favourite places, and if they followed in the steps of their global counterparts on proven methods to make these prime digital audiences work to their advantage, they would be saving literally hundreds of thousands of dollars every year in ad-buys alone. As for outside of the parks, the reception is always pretty interesting. For me, my DNA is pretty entrenched in theme parks so most people know that it comes with the package. When my father passed when I was a wee lad, theme parks were a literal escape into another world. When I would go to theme parks, I'd take hundreds of pictures on every trip and unbeknownst to me at the time, I was actually refining a skill i'd use later in my professional career. So I owe a lot to theme parks, but in saying that, I try to keep it pretty chill. Just like people don't want to know the psi of your fully sick turbo, people don't want know how the LSM's on Tower of Terror's launch work. Some people will ride kiddie coasters and chase credits so they can say "I did 6000 coasters!", and that's cool too, to each their own. These days theme parks for me are all about great experiences, and when it comes to travelling, they're a great waypoint to craft an adventure from, but they're not the only reason to travel abroad either. Just as an aside, I say all of this with no animosity - i'm a frank, honest guy these days and given my own personal passion for these places, really all of this comes from a place of wanting to see the parks succeed and really grow in the future.

Colour grade's a bit off. No but seriously, pretty #slick TVC.

I love watching YouTube theme park videos. 99% chance someone's stolen my shit somehow.

Not noted + unexpected news from you.

Cheers for that, that's what I wanted to know. Little unfortunate but realistically & optimistically that'll mean more up-time come Fright Nights and Summer.

Doing things like that has the potential to massively backfire too, because despite this possibly being one of the most well paced, relentless coasters on the planet, Joe Blogs who's considering a season pass will watch the animation, then watch either Richard's or OurWorld's clips, notice the speed difference and presume it's slow in real life. Realistically, the best thing then to do would be to get the best independent voices in the biz to create content that sways the general public & generate genuine, credible hype (because OurWorlds isn't known for POVs/videos and Parkz isn't known for great written pieces).

That's a lot of rides closed. What's the story there? Just a lot of coincidental maintenance?

Also worth noting The Bachelor was at Movie World on last night's episode.

Saying things like that is how you get posts reported on a theme park enthusiast site.

@Gazza I feel like this is only happening now because you couldn't get Rivals to be your 400th coaster.

Pre October 2017 - "Dreamworld will be fine without spending big on a coaster." Post Summer Holidays - "Jesus, Dreamworld need something decent to compete with Rivals." Feel free to quote me at the end of January 2018.

40 years, so enjoy Sea World while you still can.

Just FYI, Sea World's on a 99 year land-lease with the government so TLDR; nothing to be scared about.

How I feel about the community sometimes.

OurAusworlds. Cool.

As far as non-enthusiast people go, i'm very confident this'll go gangbusters, the point I was trying to make was just that had it been built by anywhere else by anyone else I don't think there'd be a thread with as much hype.

Cool stuff. Happy to see Conjuring make a return - what's everyone else most excited for this year?

Serious question, if this wasn't being built by Village Roadshow Theme Parks, would enthusiasts care as much as they do currently about Top Golf? I feel like outside of maybe half a dozen blokes here, this isn't exactly something enthusiasts would go for.

THIS IS HOW MUCH OUR PARKS SHOULD BE CHARGING ON THE GOLD COAST.

Alright, let's get this thread back on topic here. Firstly, g'day @YaBoySlam & welcome to Parkz. Please don't let other members put you off from posting or contributing. As other members have "alluded", B&M haven't reached Australia for a myriad of reasons, but that's not necessarily a bad thing - B&M aren't the necessarily the pinnacle of coaster design & manufacturing like they were in the 90's, in recent years both Intamin & Mack have made unprecedented strides in creating more competitive products than B&M, and I have a lot of confidence that the DC Rivals HyperCoaster will happily be exactly that. As for Dreamworld, i've written about what they could buy at length already. I'd personally love to see them upgrade the Giant Drop in the short term and do something major with a company like RMC in the long term. Not sure who they are? I've thrown a clip down below. It's competitive against Rivals at Movie World and can hold its own, these things just haul ass. As for the rest of you, we were all new here once, so show a little compassion instead of being a dick to new members, yeah? What this place should encourage is funny, intelligent and honest discussion about a hobby we all share, not elitism. So the next time someone asks something you might find silly, be a good sport and point them in the right direction. It's how we build a community of like-minded individuals.

Cue the theme park nerd frenzy who read just the title and not the whole article in 3,2...

There's a tiny bit of footage in the update I just whacked together, but it's honestly fine. @Richard will write something a little more in-depth about it later today, but let's keep in mind this is still Mack's coaster, not Movie World's (yet), and until its handed over, and given the fact that the mounting points were hiding in plain sight, the most logical and likely solution is that it's now being refined to the intended experience & design they want. From what i've seen, the time of day and the warmth of the bogeys plays more of a part in speed and experience anyway. TLDR, it's far wiser to make sure the train definitely makes it through the course and refine the speed to optimise the experience than to build it without tolerances & have a train not come back at all in the first place.

Both of your posts I agree with 100% - parks in general, be it here or abroad should never be given a free pass because they're building something shiny and new. It never pans out long term & Six Flags Magic Mountain has been a shining example of this over the years, amongst dozens of others. To be fair, I don't recall Movie World touting toilet refurbishments or other minor renos as great new guest experiences on social and I think it's fine if they do something new like the Main Street Deli it's worth some marketing attention, but you're right, painting things and maintaining an expectation set by your guests shouldn't be worthy of undue praise, especially when it's just simply doing the right thing. TLDR, I don't get praised for not cheating on my girlfriend, so we shouldn't be so quick to praise theme parks for doing the right thing either.