BREAKING NEWS: Warner Village to buy Aussie World

Aussie World, Queensland, Australia
Hurricane
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BREAKING NEWS: Warner Village to buy Aussie World

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Village Roadshow Limited (ASX: VRL) announced that it had today entered into a conditional agreement to acquire "Aussie World" on the Sunshine Coast in Queensland.

Aussie World is situated on 24 hectares of freehold property on the Bruce Highway and operates the Ettamogah Pub, a ride park and various retail outlets.

VRL Chairman John Kirby said: "Our plan is to lodge a Development Application for a world class Wet 'n' Wild style water park bringing our uniquely successful formula to the Sunshine Coast area which will also complement the existing Ettamogah Pub.”

“Our vision is to construct a Water Park on the property which will provide the Sunshine Coast residents and tourists with the latest water based rides and attractions. The park will feature 10 state of the art rides including an uphill water coaster and the highly successful Tornado Bowl Slide. This will be an exciting new development and a major
tourist attraction for the area. VRL intends to offer the existing staff at Aussie World the opportunity to continue their employment under the new management."

The total cost of the acquisition of Aussie World and the development of the water park will be in the range of approximately $60 million to $70 million. The contract allows Village Roadshow to acquire Aussie World after Village Roadshow completes planning for the new water park, expected to be during 2009. This will allow the new water park to be operational as early as September 2009.
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benclare
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Post by benclare »

Sounds great, especially the water coaster. I just hope the existing rides remain in the park.

Thanks for the info Hurricane. :)
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Post by Hurricane »

No problem, I would think all the rides will be kept.
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Post by Mattie »

Very interesting - seeing another major water park is planned to be built 5 minutes away, heading towards Caloundra.

Adventura Waterpark are awaiting Development Approval from council. More info on Adventura is available at http://www.adventura.com.au/Waterpark/

I would really question whether or not they would keep the existing rides, especially if they are planning on building a water park. However, they do have a fair amount of land available for them to build new rides/attractions.

Can South East Queensland sustain having four major water parks (this includes the two planned for the sunshine coast)? If they did not all copy the same attractions and offered variations, possibly. Otherwise what will draw the people in if you can ride the same rides elsewhere.
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Post by Hurricane »

Mmm... thats what I was thinking. And I would presume they would keep all the rides. I mean they did say to expand the park, and wouldn't demolishing the rides + infrastructure be very expensive anyway?
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Post by Top Gunner14 »

Wow, thisis very interesting. I do hope they keep some of their rides there now like the Mozzie Muster, Spider, Pirate and others. Sounds like it's going to be a good expansion and another great hit for Queensland
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Post by Hurricane »

Apparently all the rides will be sold off / scrapped as it is due to be fully converted into a waterpark. The only thing to remain is apparently the Ettamogah Pub
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Post by Top Gunner14 »

Geez, thats a real shame. Do you think there's a chance another park, showmen could buy them?
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Post by benclare »

We'll probably see another Wild Mouse travelling the country, assuming it doesn't get sold overseas.

A huge disappointment about Warner Village getting rid of the rides; I am not a huge fan of water parks so I'm a bit biased I guess but I wouldn't be making a special trip to the Sunshine Coast to visit the new place as I would with the current attractions. :(
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Post by tooheyzz »

I think there making a huge mistake waterparks are getting more and more common with some council putting them all the way up the coast admittedly not as flash as this one will be
also i reckon travelers with kids would more likely stop on the way past for a hour or 2 for the amusement ride park rather than a waterpark guess time will tell
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Post by Zamperla »

I would be very surprised if the existing park is demolished as it is compact and extremely well presented in its current form, and would be a very viable operation with the economies of scale that WB could bring to it (marketing, HR, future investment) - Hurricane, was this from a reliable source?

On the downside, the park will lose many of the qualities that made it a refreshing break from the McTheme Parks closer to Brisbane.

The accuisition makes business sense, I am not so certain about the waterpark plans however. QLD is indeed becoming a saturated market (pun intended)
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Post by princess »

I feel very sorry for the other consortium, who had been battling council for two years to get approval, they get approval, then whamo someone comes in and undermines all their work for the last two years, not to mention the money that it takes to get approvals through council. So now one will have to have and edge over the other one, will it be a waterpark with rides, or a waterpark without rides, which will people be drawn to, Aussie world already have the edge with their rides, they would be silly to loose that draw card, as that will be the edge over the other park, imo.
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Post by Mattie »

I have the feeling they will not keep the existing rides. Look at the size of the company, scrapping the old attractions would be peanuts to them.

The existing rides take up valuable land on the bottom of a small mountain, which could be utilised for pools at the bottom of slides. I think we can kiss Australia's old ride history away.

Its sad really, but I guess WVTP have it easy as the land is already zoned tourism and they do not need to go through the long winded Material Change of Use process. The jokes on us.

Have any theme park rides ever became heritage listed?
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Post by Hurricane »

I Know scenic railway at LPM is heritage listed. And the source I have is a rather reliable one.
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Post by katestow77 »

well i think it sux no 2 ways about it y don they just get lost or go to adventura theme park less then 10 mins away from Aussie world they have enough money to do so many things so y ruin a small Aussie icon like Aussie world by destroying it with water ? y cant just add to it and keep the rides that are already there. i mean this is obviously a saw point for me ive been going to Aussie world since it first opened and i remember the luge now that was fun.

all those things aside wvtp have more money than they can poke a stick at. they have so many great parks as it is.

i understand they want to put there name up on the sunny coast but either keep Aussie world the way it is and add to it with a few water rides or go to adventura world which is 10x bigger than Aussie world and that way they can make there wet n wild on the s.c. there.
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Post by princess »

The sunshine coast, in the next ten years is due to have a huge influx of people moving there, at the moment its population is much lower than the Gold Coast, so the infrastructure is now being put in place for the future, new shopping centres, development etc, so clearly Warner Brothers is just getting in on the act, maybe in ten years time, the Sunshine coast could handle two water parks, but one still needs an edge.

Has anyone asked us what our opinion is lol :lol:
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Post by tooheyzz »

Will be a shame to see there rides go if there is what they plan to do

Keeping the existing park and adding to it might just give to the edge or maybe have a dual park Amusement ride and a Seperate Waterpark

I guess there are advantages in building on the existing park
less hassles with the council and the infastructure is already there in regard to access from the highway
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Post by katestow77 »

does any one know when we might get asked by wvtp or even caloundra city council what we think or how we feel i can understand that they dont have to ask but im shaw that we are not the only people who feel so strongly about this either 1 way (keep and to aussie world) OR the other (flatten it). i also understand that it affects the nambour show as there are rides just 20 mins away that are in the similar theme (amusement rides). but aussie world is just starting to get bigger with there current rides how different would it be to have a theme park that has both water and rides in 1 actual park. the other problem with wvtp taking over aussie world is that the prices will go threw the roof. maybe im not the only that sees things this way what do others think about it. :?:

cheers kate
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Post by princess »

Funny Kate, just last week I was remembering when there were no theme parks in Australia and thinking back to the time when all the showies were very concerned about what the parks would do to their shows in Australia, Not sure what effect this has had over the years to shows, I dont think we have as many carnivals as we used to, but that could be councils have objected to them, as far as Nambour show goes, has having aussie world just down the road for sometime now affected Nambour show.
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Post by katestow77 »

hi guys

i went to Aussie world today and i must admit after paying $25p.p entry fee at 2.30pm to get in i was all hyped up and rearing to let loose on the rides. hmm ok our 1st ride was the wild mouse and it felt like i was gunna leave the tracks on more than one occasion. our next ride was the octopus its a 5 arm 4 car per arm octopus in thought it was a Schwarzkopf Monster II but this particular model only has 4 cars on the arms. in general i thought the ride was good for a change. the only thing i didnt like about it was it came to a grinding holt. the next ride was the mozzi musta it was preety good except it made one of the boys feel sick funnily enough he is an operator of the octopus. :lol: :lol: the next ride was the pirate ship thing that i think came from TOPS brisbane. it still hasnt lost its charm. we then lined up for the rock n roll rebel ( 20 mins ) we had to wait till 1 of the guys who was with us opened the door and there was no 1 in there i was not at all impressed. we had to wait for 1 and then after waiting we had to go and look for an operator for 2 after we had found an opereator i kinda gave the guy a piece of my mind i was really pist. we had been at the park for an hour and almost every ride we had to wait or find an operator. the guy replyed to us with well u only have another 20 mins left till the park closed which at this time was about 4ish i back chated him as did most of our group i said that we had paid till 5pm which is what time the place closed and that expected to be able to go on the rides and not have to wait 20 freaking mins and still have to look for an operator. we also went on the dodgems they were so rough that is wa unbelivable they made us wear seat belts over our arms and heads they were so tight it felt it was choking me 1 of the other boys who is a big lad also said it was so tight that it felt like he couldnt breath. i didnt even last 5 mins on them they were so rough every corner they grinded. we went back on the occy a few more times but we were only allowed in the orange cars we first thought its cause they were at the front but when we asked to go a different colour we were refused and asked to leave the ride hmm i think i ticked the guy off when we gave him a mouthful. we went on the simulator and all i can say is that ive had better rides even as recent as last weekend at the lowood show. we ended the day with a nice calm spin in the ferris wheel when we asked as to how many times we went around we were told 3 times and that was it. ok then we had to lineup again to get in the same carrage.???? i have no idea why we werent allowed to just stay on its not like there was a line up or even a change of operator???? i also was told that all the rides are for sale if we are interested as the management could confirm that wvtp were demolishing or selling the rides off. and it would become a water park. i have some photos off what will be a defunct park.
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Post by tooheyzz »

Well sounds like the management have come to the conclusion the parks sold so why bother
I suspect this will be a the start of a downward spiral where they'll just let everything go including short staffing the park
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Post by princess »

Yep sounds exactly like what they are doing, this is what happened to another park that is now long gone.
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Post by katestow77 »

uno i think the thing that pists me off soooooo much was this guys attitude was the fact that he just didnt give a sh** and also the fact that he was like well the park is closing in 20 mins and he said that to us at 4pm and the fact that we still had to pay full price just to get in when at 30pm we had to go and lok for operators.... grrr . well for a park that i used to love alot i have certainly changed my tune with some staff being really good about the fact that we were showies and were heaps interested in the rides and the way they worked and looked. compared to the 330 pm itesh isnt that wat the contentenatial add says lol n e ways i cant wait to see the end of this park its gone from hell yea its well worth the money to i dont freaking think so :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol: n e ways its will be god to have some fresh blood on the coast bring on WVTP
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Post by tooheyzz »

katestow77 maybe you should complain to WVTP as they surely have paid quite a bit for the goodwill of this park and Aussie World doesn't seem to be keeping up their end of the deal....If this park get a bad name there surely gonna be some people who will never return under new management or not and god forbid some might get hurt if they are letting there maintenance slide the same way
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Post by Mattie »

katestow, doesnt sound like you had a good time. That is a shame. I have been to Aussie World plenty of times and they service has been terrific. I guess the staff have changed their ways as they will be out of a job soon.

In response to your previous question relating to community consultation. You will probably find out that this will not exist. As the land is already deemed to have amusement rides, if WVTP go to build something new, the Development Application process does not state that they need to undergo community consultation. However, the Sunshine Coast Regional Council has the ultimate say and may force WVTP to do some consultation.
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