Slick

Here's hoping they're just throwing everything at Rivals right now and it's a case of "i'm sure people will happily wait for a ride not many people care about so we can get the country's best ever ride up and running."

I get we're on an enthusiast forum, and these things should be discussed, and most of the time I say go for it, but sometimes it goes a little cray-cray in here with the kool-aid and the extreme reactions on the tiniest things. I use the Bunnings method, that is, if Bunnings were renovating toilets would it get the same crazy reporting from theme park nerds when Movie World reno'd their toilets early this year? Probably not, and sometimes it's healthy just to take a step back you know? It's fun to talk about these things, it's also important to keep reality in check too and not blast a whole project down & not be otherwise positive and excited because of a small decision that was probably, highly likely rooted in logic & in reality, really doesn't impact the overall experience as much as we thing it does. (Because that's never happened on Parkz by a community member ever, right?) FYI, none of that is directed at you @AlexB, i'm sure you'll get i'm talking in generalities here.

Nah i'm calling it, it's the literal and figurative height of overthinking things because nothing else news-worthy is happening at the moment. Fox News would be proud. Let's dial it back here for a second. They're installing a cool joker face atop a hypercoaster. That in itself is unique and pretty cool. Let's all have a beer and not be unappreciative theme park nerds for a change and just take solace in the fact that we're being gifted cool shit to ride. Or not, continue to be petty and have the parks alienate us more because we're a bunch of beer-less nit-pickters who, when given good things, continue to find fault.

I've heard the number one complaint about Green Lantern is that you can't see the logo on the side when you're on the ride. #truestory #ormaybepeopleoverthinkthesethings

Just going to weigh in, it's all a bunch of reactionary baloney. If it wasn't, they'd be speaking to industry bodies & awaiting the country's most pivotal inquiry ever in regards to ride safety, neither of which is happening. Our most modern rides out there are built in and for a litigious world in the same way modern aircraft are. Older rides like Thunder River Rapids or older carnival rides weren't built in that world & moving forward, should 100% adhere to an updated minimum standard for design, engineering, practices & redundancies based off the findings from the coronial inquiry and a few other recent incidents that have happened globally. Anything more is a knee-jerk, anything less is stupidity.

It’s neat that these are on the regular again and have a rotating theme to keep it fresh. I think it’s what was needed because a few years back the scream world idea was starting to become stale, especially given how much attention village was throwing at their night events. FYI, Dreamworld’s Snapchat is @dreamworldau. You’re welcome.

Done. Good on them, looks like it’s going to be a great addition. I love me a good underdog story and no one deserves praise more than what these guys have done in the last few years.

Seen any cool theme park or coaster related content that you find inspiring? The kind of stuff that wows you or what you'd maybe share with friends and family. Not so much the rides themselves, but rather the way they've been filmed/photographed/written about. Whether it's an interesting POV, a documentary or a well-written article. Myself and @Richard are always on the lookout for ways to capture theme parks online, so it'll help us too. By all means, just chuck in your favourite videos, pictures, articles, whatever and tell us why. TLDR, what's your favourite theme park content? This POV of Baron 1898 is by far one of my all time favourites, it's really well shot: I've also really dug the construction updates Busch Gardens Tampa have made for Cobra's Curse and Falcon's Fury. Really transparent, really cool behind the scenes insight. Also a shoutout to a new mate of mine Julian who shoots some incredible stuff in Europe:

I appreciate they're laying turf underneath this and making it super presentable. And hey, if there's any leaves or debris on the grass there's so many rakes ready to go around the site...

This is how i'd do it.

Potato photos ftw.

You know, considering how many Parkz members have media passes to the Ekka, you'd think we would've seen some content by now... #potcallingthekettleblack

I will 100% guarantee they've just peeled off the last print in the last few hours and that's the surface underneath the guys will use to bond the new print to.

The thing is, after a huge retail bricks & mortar downturn at the start of the decade, major shopping centres have been punching back (and have been hugely successful) with new fit-outs that are very high-end, introducing new food & entertainment precincts and shifting brands like Westfield & Pac Fair away from shopping brands and turning them into lifestyle brands. The parks already have the keys to the castle, figuratively speaking. They have a captive audience who are super passionate (certainly way more passionate about parks than people are about shopping centres) about these psuedo-lifestyle brands that have been around for decades. They just need to spend the money to create a comparable product that's seen outside of the theme park industry, and people will rock up in droves. Disney certainly get this more then anyone, hence why they've got a bajillion food options at their parks (they even posted a video on Facebook today about cool foods at Disneyland for under $5 and there's tons of options) & position themselves as much as a lifestyle brand as much as possible (don't forget, lifestyle brands say way more merch, too.) This is the secret sauce for Top Golf. It taps into the booming Gen-X/Y leisure scene and has all the trimmings of a quality experience that could stand on its own two feet. So that being said, take the new areas of Pac Fair & Westfield Chermside and rip the best parts of them to get passholders spending more. That area outside of Dreamworld Parkway / Lego Store could be so brilliant with a classy retro fit-out, heaps of licensed drink & unique food, plenty of shade and places to relax and of course extended trade. Money spent on getting you through the gates might just get you to break even. The real money is in hotels & resorts (hence why Wanda Group is bailing from parks and focussing on hotels), unique premium experiences, pre & post dining and entertainment areas (Universal Citywalk) and of course, in-park food & merch. This is why Disney spends so much time getting Merch right and goes as far as to literally pump the scent of Churros down their Main Streets.

Get ready for the motherload, folks. For more boring captions under photos, as always, you can hit the link.

Thanks for posting @Adventures With JWorld - it's looking great. Looks like they're keeping with atomiq's design guide in regards to paint paths and colours.

It's also worth noting that building is far different from operating or branding. In a lot of cases (like Village's foray into trying to building a park in China) investment/capital firms will pay for the initial build and companies like Six Flags will oversee operations.

They're doing fine now. Bankruptcy is almost a completely different thing in the states. Filing for chapter 11 over there gives businesses an opportunity to restructure various facets of the business to maintain operation, where-as here going bankrupt basically means closing the doors ala Wow Sight & Sound. With all that said, most people who have been here longer than six months knows that the "OMGZ DISNEY IZ COMINGS" thing comes and goes all too often, and I think all the mods, myself included, have banged our collective heads against the wall in trying to explain why again and again, that a "Magic Kingdom" style Disney park is not coming here for a long, long time. It's not the most profitable industry unless you're Disney or Universal and have crazy-good vertical integration of your core product. However, in the next few years with upturn in tourism, exposure from the games and the dollar settling in to a routine, I think we'll definitely continue to see more investment in the area. I don't think it's unreasonable to see someone like Merlin build a Legoland here in the next decade. Ultimately there's a reason why we really only have two major theme parks on the Gold Coast. Anyone, like that mob who wanted to build in Nerang, who say they'll throw around hundreds of millions of dollars to build a theme park here, are either misinformed or lying to get the land. To put it real simply, even the smallest Disney park (Hong Kong) peaks at about 35,000 guests per day, meaning we'd have to basically triple our current theme park tourism throughput on the Gold Coast to support what Disney would describe as their biggest failure in the chain. Looking at the most successful Disney parks (Magic Kingdom / DisneySea), we're talking somewhere around a tenfold increase in tourism to support a park that big, and that's without considering the neighbouring parks, resorts etc. etc. etc.

This guy gets it.

Just following this up, Dreamworld's posted a bunch of videos recently, but this one's my favourite: No doubt there'll probably be a recap video from the night. I heard Guy Sebastian's acoustic set was lit.

Here's a link if you'd like to try this on your fence at home. Seriously, sweet baby jesus, I just realised these aren't being spaced out. In spite of probably creating another drama & being super unpopular with superiors at Village, i'm going to keep my integrity to be honest and say it's super garish and tacky having so many Village logos whacked on the front of the park like this. I actually dig the Village logo, and the history and the brand as a whole, but c'mon, no one else in the entire industry takes it to this level. People would be pretty cranky if the Tower of Terror had an Ardent logo at the top of the tower, same goes if Universal had giant Viacom/Comcast branding on the sheets of all the beds in their resorts. I'm all for Village, an Australian company, being proud of their accomplishments, and I really like the little nods they have like above the front doors at AOS. It's nuanced while showing pride in their work. This though is akin to trying to force & co-erce corporate branding where it doesn't belong and drowning Movie World's brand equity in the process to achieve it. The majority of them should be Movie World logos, not Village logos. It's Movie World, not Village Roadshow Theme Parks Oxenford Precinct featuring Warner Bros Intellectual Property and new DC Rivals HyperCoaster land.

To be fair the sign out the front has said that since Boxing Day last year.

Reckon they got a deal from Bunnings when they buy bulk rakes for the fence toppers?

The amount of factual, grammatical & punctual errors in that GCB hurt my soul, and i've written a lot of average shit online in my day.

Cool shot! Do you have the original link? Looks like a 360 photo or something that might be fun to checkout.