Volume 3, No. 2. January 24, 2002
New Arrivals
It’s a tweener area!
Dreamworld
in Gold Coast, Australia, announces the arrival of Nickelodeon Central, December
26, 2002. Measurements: 2.5 hectares (6 acres), 16 attractions including a new
roller coaster (18 meters/59 feet high, 35 kph/22 mph), an interactive foam
ball factory (20,000 foam balls, 28 vacuums and air cannons) and live show (using
10 liters/10.5 quarts of slime). Delivered by Prominent Technology, SCS Interactive
and Vekoma.
For the opening of anything Nickelodeon, slime is usually involved. When you
are opening the first-ever Nickelodeon Central area outside the United States,
you reserve your sliming for the truly special players.
“Being slimed is an honor,” said Dreamworld CEO Tony Braxton-Smith,
who got a dousing at a special opening event December 21 while the Queensland
Premier Peter Beattie slimed an 11-year-old Nickelodeon fan. Considering that
no less celebrities than Tom Cruise and Pink have been slimed in the past, Braxton-Smith
felt he was on the right side of the bucket. “Without being disrespectful,
it’s like being baptized,” he said. “You have to wash it off
you, but, yeah, it’s a refreshing experience.”
But, then, so is his park’s new family-themed area. It features a new Vekoma
Runaway Reptar junior suspended roller coaster, new SCS Foam Factory,
new “Slime Bowl” theater and several old rides re-themed, like the
Red Baron planes becoming Dora the Explorer Seaplanes and the Himalaya
located inside a 20-meter-high (66-foot) mountain transforming into the Angry
Beavers Spooty Spin (“Spooty means ‘hip’ in Beaver language,”
Braxton-Smith explained). The new section is intended to turn the tide of families
gravitating to cartoon-themed kiddie areas in other Gold Coast theme parks,
and in its first weeks of operation, Nickelodeon Central has done just that,
Braxton-Smith said.
“We’ve had a strong and positive response from the family market,”
he said. He also was amazed to see how the new area has increased capacity of
the park, which reached 8,500 one day, about 2,000 over what had always been
considered capacity. “Six and a half thousand used to be tough,” Braxton-Smith
said. “When we had 8 1/2 thousand, it was busy but wasn’t that tight.
We went from being a four-cylinder park to a six-cylinder.”
He got a preview taste of how well his new section might do when his park hosted
the Rug Rats for an Easter event last spring. “The effect on our gate was
quite dramatic.” Equally so was the effect on the gate the day after Christmas
when, after some preview operations, Dreamworld allowed the general public into
Nick Central for the first time. About 300 people were waiting for the park’s
gates to open that morning, and they made a beeline to Nick Central, Braxton-Smith
said.
“It changed the traffic pattern in the park, really has changed the way
the park works, taking weight off the ride queues,” he said. “The
whole park is now working a lot better.”
©2002, Minton Enterprises
LLC
All rights reserved