Parks like Movie World a massive asset for city
ACOUPLE of weeks ago I was on a roller coaster that stopped unexpectedly at Movie World. I was in a carriage with my 11-year-old daughter, a friend, and his five-year-old son.
We were up there for at least five minutes, probably more, before being evacuated.
And it was about the least frightening thing that’s happened to me in my life.
It was a side of our theme parks most don’t get to see – what happens when safety precautions kick in.
In our case, we were enjoying a spin on the wildly entertaining Scooby Doo Spooky Coaster when our carriage eased to a halt.
For those who haven’t had the pleasure, the Scooby Doo coaster is in indoor ride that hurls you fast around a twisting track in near absolute darkness as the rambunctious theme tune to the popular show plays in the background.
It’s an absolute hoot, a Movie World favourite that always draws long lines.
As we spun through the main section of the ride our carriage slowed. The music stopped playing. The lights went up. And an impressive scene unfolded.
Our carriage had parked itself at a walkway leading to an emergency exit, not normally visible in the dark. We watched as carriages behind us arrived, and each slowed to a perfect halt beside their own individual walkway and exit.
It was precision engineering the Germans would be proud of.
After a couple of minutes, a member of staff appeared at each exit, ready to release riders one by one and lead them to the exit.
The staff member who assisted us apologised as she introduced herself – for being nervous. She was shaking a little. It was, she confessed, her “first evac”.
She need not have worried. If she was nervous, she was the only one. The engineering marvel that unfolded and professionalism of the clearly well-trained employees, firsttimers or not, had everyone perfectly at ease.
It was a world away from the truly shocking tale of missed warnings and faulty pumps being told 15km away in the Southport Coroners Court this week. Although unrelated, the publicity from the tragic accident that took four lives at Dreamworld in October 2016 had a negative impact on all our theme parks.
There is a fear that a similar downturn may happen again after this week’s proceedings.
But there is an enormous gulf between the practices that allegedly contributed to the accident in 2016 and what I recently witnessed.
When rides stop, people sometimes start taking pictures on their phones and spreading alarmist messages online. Sometimes TV news even jumps on the bandwagon.
To do so is wrong and misleading.
Controlled stops like the one I encountered are an indication of safety mechanisms operating exactly as they should.
Remember, as we have learnt this week, one of the factors that caused the Dreamworld tragedy was that it did not have an automatic stopping mechanism.
Yet since 2016, every time a minor event occurs at a Gold Coast park, it is sensationalised into a drama it is not.
It is damaging and wrong, not least because our theme parks do more for Gold Coast tourism than any other business and deserve our support.
They are a huge source of employment on the northern Gold Coast.
Movie World in particular continues to invest tens of millions into our economy, opening both the magnificent DC Rivals Hypercoaster and the innovative TopGolf attraction at a combined cost of $65 million in the past nine months alone.
We’ve heard a lot recently about the potential of a socalled “Global Tourism Hub” or “Integrated Resort Development” to deliver a major attraction to the city. To do so, such a development would be backed by a casino and God knows how many poker machines.
Yet we already have the finest tourist attractions in the country sitting just off the M1 at Oxenford, and all built without a single familydestroying poker machine being installed.
The theme parks have also received precious little marketing backing, featuring little in recent Gold Coast Tourism campaigns despite their obvious need of support in the past two years.
And yet, at Oxenford, the investment has continued apace.
The inquest taking place in the Southport Coroners Court this week has torn the scab off a wound that is still very raw.
The details aired so far have been highly distressing. It is hard to imagine how the pain of the victims’ families attending proceedings could be made more intense. But allegations of missed warnings and bad practices dating back years will surely have done just that.
The resulting publicity means the Gold Coast’s hardwon reputation as the nation’s premier tourist destination may take another hit, leading to a fall in numbers at all our theme parks, as in 2016.
That is something we should work to avoid because the reality is that places like Movie World are among this city’s greatest assets and incredibly well run – as I recently so clearly witnessed.