How to fix Dreamworld

[Baconjack]

Beware of the big length, but this would be an ultra-long term plan if I had the budget of Chinese theme park companies. My idea is that Dreamworld would engage in banking on the recognition of the park's history and reintroducing former rides that were popular with guests, as well as introduce new flashy rides that aren't seen anywhere else in Australia. Most of the actual theme park section, especially the thrill would need to be wiped clean and totally replaced. Tiger Island, Corroberee and WWW are mostly left untouched with a few cosmetic upgrades. There isn't exactly much worth saving beyond those at this point.

Things I'd change right away (short term)

1. Change to seasonal operation. This is done in a similar manner to Adventure World as theme parks usually don't perform well in the winter months. This allows the park to make additions and changes in the winter months.
2. Lower ticket price to make DW a more cost effective alternative to MW.
3. Rocky Hollow is rid of its stupid modifications and replaced with seatbelts like every other log flume ride.

Areas I'd work on in the medium term (1-3 years):

1. Wipeout replaced with ABC Rides Torbillon. Identical name and identical theming to the original, promoted as a next generation retro revival. This is because Wipeout is one of the more iconic and popular attractions Dreamworld had and keeping the Wipeout name will draw the attention of guests. Having a flashy ride like this will also grab plenty of press and public attention due to its unusual nature. 
2. The former Thunderbolt site that was to be replaced with the lazy river is replaced with an RMC Raptor, named Thunderbolt after the original. This allows the park to retire TOT and having both of this happen in the same time distracts guests from TOT being closed as there is a new coaster in the park to ride instead.
3. Tower of Terror is closed, and Giant Drop is converted to a Falcon's Fury gondola. Ripping down the TOT will free up space for another family ride in Dreamworks Experience.

Areas I'd work on in the long term (3+ years)

1. Hot Wheels Sidewinder replaced with a waterslide tower. WWW don't have a Boomerango or a Six Flags-style King Cobra waterslide so maybe it's time to get one of those. This essentially completes WWW. If you want to do a direct coaster trade, an S&S 4D Free Spin would be nice, but HWSW's plot is better for a WWW expansion.
2. Dreamworks is expanded. The arcade and Kevil Hill are demolished and replaced with a Croods or How to Train Your Dragon area, including a couple extra family flat rides.
3. Gold Rush is fully rebuilt with the same theme in mind. Plans for the ampitheatre would be scrapped. A dark ride and a new family flat would be built in this development. Buzzsaw is kept and refurbished a la Wipeout and given proper theming. Gold Rush's initial expansion is targeted as a family thrill area, a step up from Dreamworks but not as intense as the rides in Ocean Parade, that is until...
4. Tower of Terror ultimately replaced by a new marquee roller coaster in Gold Rush and covering up to Blue Lagoon. A Mack multilaunch or Gerstlauer Infinity Coaster would be nice for this area. If you want to really go off the shelf with this, a clone of Smiler would be a cool addition. 

 

Edited March 25, 2019 by Baconjack

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

There's some decent concepts in there... just a couple things:

10 hours ago, Baconjack said:

My idea is that Dreamworld would engage in banking on the recognition of the park's history and reintroducing former rides that were popular with guests, as well as introduce new flashy rides that aren't seen anywhere else in Australia. Most of the actual theme park section, especially the thrill would need to be wiped clean and totally replaced. 

Most of the actual theme park section still plays a big part in Dreamworld's history - wiping it clean isn't exactly recognising the park's history. Demolishing much of the existing park is costly, and ultimately, not likely to be something any theme park operator would do. If they're "wiping the theme park clean" it means they're building a housing estate.

10 hours ago, Baconjack said:

WWW are mostly left untouched with a few cosmetic upgrades.

WWW is extremely under-developed. It has always suffered from being the "little kid" on campus. WNW's slogan "biggest and best" still shits all over it. Ultimately, while their slides are more modern overall, the park was never proposed to remain in "stage one" state this long - even with a couple of additions. WWW still needs love. Don't be a hater.

10 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Things I'd change right away (short term)

All things that have been said already, and in my opinion, very sensible short term ideas. I'm not sure how many flumes i've ridden that have seatbelts though...?

10 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Areas I'd work on in the medium term (1-3 years):

All good ideas, although I do feel the Tbolt site should be utilised for a WWW expansion - perhaps, with appropriate envelope management, one could run a suitable coaster over-top of the lazy river in a way you could guarantee the envelope separation, but still having that roaring closeness that would up the thrill factor for both attractions...?

As for Dreamworks - even if you take ToT out, Dreamworks is landlocked along that boundary. KFP land, all the way to Escape from Madagascar and the stage. You could direct traffic through Po's garden - but its a tight corridor, and then you'd have to have an entirely new dreamworks theme as it'd clearly be separated from the rest of that area.

10 hours ago, Baconjack said:

Areas I'd work on in the long term (3+ years)

If a new slide tower replaces HWSW, and that completes WWW, you might as well rip it all out on day one. I'll assume you mean completed "for now" but that's still more than 3 years away, and the park has languished for a decade already.

I'm not a big fan of the HTTYD theme, and i think it's been discussed on Parkz before that it possibly wouldn't stand the test of time.

I think "Rebuilding gold rush" is a mistake, and will only serve to conjure memories of the incident. Likewise, installing a smiler clone would give the media a field day drawing comparisons between this installation and the original, and the accident that occurred. Although the investigation proved the ride systems weren't faulty, the headline "killer theme park installs new ride with history of amputations" isn't a good headline.

 

[New display name]

11 hours ago, Baconjack said:

1. Change to seasonal operation.

 

Gold Coast is open 365 days of the year and closing DW during the off season would only be a gift to MW.

Seasonal operations already occur at DW in the reduction in operational times of attractions.

 

 

[joz]

Yeah I don't understand calls for seasonal operation. DW historically runs at a profit in winter. You fix the park you fix the need for an off season.

 

I also don't fully understand people who want to hang on to relics from the past (Reviving the Gold Rush theme, really?), spend multi millions on new stuff AND make DW a discount option. Discounting prices is something you do NOW to get through the short term when you've got nothing to advertise. It isn't something you do when you have a full strength park that's just had 2 or more of the Gold Coast's best new rides added to it.

Edited March 26, 2019 by joz

[Slick]

This fanfic sure is interesting.

Whether we're talking pie in the sky dreams or fiscally realistic strategies, there's two things the park needs to do:

1) Build a big f*cking coaster.
2) Change the narrative.

In regards to the first one - there's just no way Dreamworld exists without a rival to rival Rivals. Find me a park that's bounced back from a poor start or a tragedy without a roller-coaster and i'll eat my hat. Just look at Wipeout's closure - it effectively wiped off hundreds of millions of dollars from the company's share value, and yet a replacement Zamperla clone is 8 million in change to install. The lesson here? Never, ever question the power of a good thrill ride and what it does for theme park brands. It doesn't matter if you're a regional park like Six Flags Great Adventure or Alton Towers, or a major player like Hong Kong Disneyland, if you don't build it they won't come. Movie World proved that the crowd exists and people will pay for it. No roller-coaster, no Dreamworld.

In regards to the second point - I reckon the park will probably need new owners with fresh faces for the simple fact that as @joz mentioned earlier you need to draw that line in the sand between old and new with the public in order to get them to trust the brand again. Whatever the plan is, the park needs to get real honest, real humble and real transparent to win people back.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Slick

[pushbutton]

It also needs a plan, and to tell the public what the plan is! 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

4 minutes ago, pushbutton said:

It also needs a plan, and to tell the public what the plan is! 

Surprise surprise - i disagree.

The park needs to stop telling people what their plan is, and put their money where their mouth is.

• reopen eureka mine ride
• wipeout has 10 more years
• adventure river with wildlife right beside you
• VR on MDMC
• Sky Voyager opens this summer.

What do all of these things have in common?

Stop fucking talking about it and JUST START DOING IT.

[StingRay]

Just now, AlexB said:

Stop fucking talking about it and JUST START DOING IT.

 

Straight to the point. I agree less talking and more action is required.

[joz]

Thing is if your plan involves removing Tot, you need to explain that something better is coming and be specific. If you close that ride without concept art of a kick ass new coaster the public will keep saying 'They have no idea, fuck DW'. Look at what's happened with Wipeout. Even if a tour billion goes into Wipeout's spot a lot of the PR damage is done and it will seem reactionary rather than proactive and positive.

[Baconjack]

What I meant with wiped clean, is that the majority of thrill rides at Dreamworld need replacements in the next 10 years. About 50-60% of Dreamworld's rides will have reached or will be near end-of-life and need to be replaced in 10 years. My plan includes replacements for half of the park's thrill rides that will reach the end of their useful lives in the next five years, which have been accelerated by the fact that Ardent hasn't maintained these rides to industry standards over a long period of time leaving them unreliable and more expensive to maintain.

Also when I was talking about a Gold Rush rebuild, I wasn't referring to a carbon copy of what was there. Gold Rush as a theme is a good theming concept for a theme park (and I do understand how it can have bad connotations with TRRR), but I'd like to see the theme taken from a different angle so it isn't similar to the old area that was there. Or you could build an Old West area, but DW will have to one-up MW if they tried that.

I also thought HWSW's site was more appropriate for a WWW expansion than Thunderbolt's site, considering how it is adjacent to the park and could fit another slide tower within close proximity to the other towers, rather than out the back where nobody goes anyway. I do consider WWW to be the better park than WnW GC. The only thing it lacks is a lazy river and a second thrill slide tower which they can probably cram into HWSW's spot. Again, I don't know too much about water parks, but there isn't much more WnW has that WWW doesn't. A proper Aqualoop? WWW already has Wedgie (that cuts people's backs and kind of sucks). Dunno much else.

As mentioned previously, lowering prices would be a short term solution to get guests through the door. In the long term when all the rides are built, the prices go up again, but try to compete with VRTP for price.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Baconjack

[pushbutton]

14 minutes ago, joz said:

Thing is if your plan involves removing Tot, you need to explain that something better is coming and be specific. If you close that ride without concept art of a kick ass new coaster the public will keep saying 'They have no idea, fuck DW'. Look at what's happened with Wipeout. Even if a tour billion goes into Wipeout's spot a lot of the PR damage is done and it will seem reactionary rather than proactive and positive.

You should see the benches they're putting there. Maybe not quite a tour billion  (or maybe it is as I never learnt the number tour at my primary school), but I had a sneak preview last weekend at my local Bunnings, and man are those benches or what!

I think we'll all be very impressed. 

One day. 

 

Not necessarily at Dreamworld though. 

Edited March 26, 2019 by pushbutton

[Archer]

Ardent is preparing the park for sale as they have already said they are spending no more money.

Housing estates by 2023.

 

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

I don't understand the logic. We cancel all plans for new rides and attractions which would have introduced a WWW expansion, dark ride, ampitheatre and lazy river because customers aren't returning as anticipated. Why did we anticipate that customers would return? Because of SV, which hasn't opened...

Seriously what have we gained and lost at Dreamworld since the incident.

Lost -

Thunder River Rapids (Great famiy ride with decent theming) + The whole goldrush area

Wipeout (Staple of the park, iconic)

Dreamworld Cinema (meh)

Park atmosphere and crowds

Kevil Hill (good scare maze)

Gained -

Trolls Village (good addition)

Corroboree and Tiger Island minor expansions

....

I think that tells the whole story. Customers aren't going to return because you installed one new family ride. You take away a big thrill ride, a major family ride and a scare maze and respond with one new ride which can't live up to the experience given by TRR and is merely a marketing nightmare for the park. They've blown there budget on it, defect after defect. They either -

a) Spend big, you've got a new family ride now you need a new thrill ride right now than more down the line as you retire others.

b) Cost cut and drag yourself to the finish line, that being giving up on the park and selling it off.

edit - I'm glad the WWW expansion and dark ride were cancelled however because that is certainly not what DW needs.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Gold Coast Amusement Force

[Slick]

8 minutes ago, Gold Coast Amusement Force said:

Because of SV

Yes.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Slick

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

5 minutes ago, Slick said:

Yes.

Point being the reason the plans were cancelled was because of customers not returning as anticipated but the anticipated amount of customer to Dreamworld factored in that SV was open, which it isn't and might not be for a while.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Gold Coast Amusement Force

[Slick]

Which is probably a good thing, because being really frank, building an amphitheatre when you already have one is about the biggest waste of money I think i've ever seen Dreamworld attempt so far.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Slick

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

15 minutes ago, Slick said:

Which is probably a good thing, because being really frank, building an amphitheatre when you already have one is about the biggest waste of money I think i've ever seen Dreamworld attempt so far.

 

32 minutes ago, Gold Coast Amusement Force said:

edit - I'm glad the WWW expansion and dark ride were cancelled however because that is certainly not what DW needs.

 

The biggest waste of money has to be refurbishing wipeout just to have it stay open for one more year.

[pushbutton]

27 minutes ago, Slick said:

Yes.

Maybe the plan was people would see the signs all around the M1 inferring SkyVoyager was open and they'd all rush to buy annual passes (sorry, I mean "NEW Annual Passes"), then Dreamworld would use all the extra income to pay for SkyVoyager. 

Obviously as the money didn't come through as expected, they were unable to do so, which might be why it's not open! 😆

Edited March 26, 2019 by pushbutton

[pin142]

Giga coaster would be the only way I'd see them successfully announcing the closure of tower. It needs to be tall and fast when it comes to a replacement. A hyper-coaster would have people comparing it to rivals.

[Gold Coast Amusement Force]

Tower of terror closing would be a massive blow for Dreamworld. I don’t even think a big scale coaster could replace it. It would help, but tower of terror is such an iconic and unique ride.

[RossL]

18 minutes ago, pin142 said:

Giga coaster would be the only way I'd see them successfully announcing the closure of tower. It needs to be tall and fast when it comes to a replacement. A hyper-coaster would have people comparing it to rivals.

So build a giga.  Just start building and tell the world that they're building something big.  Nobody will then care if they close ToT.

Build first, scrap later.

[Baconjack]

7 minutes ago, RossL said:

So build a giga.  Just start building and tell the world that they're building something big.  Nobody will then care if they close ToT.

Build first, scrap later.

Exactly. Give the public a new ride that distracts them from a ride that closes their doors. Our parks should attempt at planning attractions to replace others, that way, it isn't such a blow to the park. Did anyone really care when BATR2 closed? No, because GL distracted them from that. Corkscrew? Storm Coaster. Bounty's Revenge? Kraken. Turbo Mountain? Inferno. And that's about all I can think of for Australian theme parks.

TOT's inevitable closure is a PR disaster waiting to happen. I don't see any other scenario happening. That will be where Longhurst's empire starts to crumble down.

Edited March 26, 2019 by Baconjack

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

14 hours ago, joz said:

Thing is if your plan involves removing Tot, you need to explain that something better is coming and be specific. If you close that ride without concept art of a kick ass new coaster the public will keep saying 'They have no idea, fuck DW'. Look at what's happened with Wipeout. Even if a tour billion goes into Wipeout's spot a lot of the PR damage is done and it will seem reactionary rather than proactive and positive.

In the current "make an announcement, but it's ok to change your mind later about it" environment, here's how that should go down.

1. plan for new giga coaster (or similar)
2. determine demolition timeline needed for ToT
3. order new giga coaster, and ensure financing arrangements are taken care of
4. Announce new ride, and demolition of TOT same day. Announce closing date of ToT within ~few weeks.
5. Make big noise about one last ride. Maybe run a competition on a radio station for people to win seats on the last ride ever.
6. give them some sort of one of a kind or limited edition souvenir from the ride
7. close the ride
8. immediately begin demolition
9. if you've timed it right, you can also begin surveying the site for the new coaster (and you should have been surveying the other non TOT parts of the ride path already
10. If you've timed it right, ride parts should begin arriving in the carpark.
11. Once demolition is complete, start construction.

THAT is how you replace a ride. (and i hope Movie World and Sea World are watching this too.

[New display name]

12 hours ago, RossL said:

So build a giga. 

Considering the first Giga coaster was built in 2000 and 19 years latter there is only 6 running in the world,  I don't think theme parks are interested in building them.

 

 

[joz]

On 21/03/2019 at 7:07 PM, joz said:

Secondly, make a list of what needs to go, and make replacement plans. Once the plans are somewhat settled, advertise the last day of operations for whatever it is you're closing. On the last day announce what the replacements are to be, complete with concept art both in park and to the media. Build hype for the future.

 

27 minutes ago, AlexB said:

In the current "make an announcement, but it's ok to change your mind later about it" environment, here's how that should go down.

1. plan for new giga coaster (or similar)
2. determine demolition timeline needed for ToT
3. order new giga coaster, and ensure financing arrangements are taken care of
4. Announce new ride, and demolition of TOT same day. Announce closing date of ToT within ~few weeks.
5. Make big noise about one last ride. Maybe run a competition on a radio station for people to win seats on the last ride ever.
6. give them some sort of one of a kind or limited edition souvenir from the ride
7. close the ride
8. immediately begin demolition
9. if you've timed it right, you can also begin surveying the site for the new coaster (and you should have been surveying the other non TOT parts of the ride path already
10. If you've timed it right, ride parts should begin arriving in the carpark.
11. Once demolition is complete, start construction.

THAT is how you replace a ride. (and i hope Movie World and Sea World are watching this too.

Yep got it.