Sydney’s newest leisure attraction offers world class water rides and has 10 per cent of the population living within a 20-minute drive time. Julie Cramer finds out more about the thrills in store for visitors
By Julie Cramer | Published in Attractions Management 2014 issue 2
Proslide’s Bombora drops riders 15m before they surf up the face of a monster wave
Not since the opening of the Olympic stadium in 1999 has there been such an exciting, large-scale leisure development to service the Sydney metropolitan area, according to Chris Warhurst, general manager of the new Wet ‘n’ Wild waterpark in Sydney.
Opened in December 2013 in Prospect, the new leisure development took 12 months to construct and lays claim to being the world’s biggest waterpark, with more than 42 rides and attractions. “We have the world’s first combination aqua loop and mat racer tower, the world’s tallest Double SkyCoaster (a daring 250ft dry ride tower) and one of the world’s largest surf wave pools,” says Warhurst.
“When you’re travelling at 120km an hour on our SkyCoaster – which at 75m is 10m higher than the sails on the Sydney Opera House – falling to earth and pulling 3Gs, you really know you’re alive. It’s terrifyingly wonderful,” he adds.
Impressive numbers The waterpark, which cost AUS$135m (US$125m, E90.4m, £74.4m) to construct, is expecting to attract up to one million visitors per full season (from September to April each year) and judging by the numbers that have raced through its doors since last December, it’s well on target to achieve this. “The park is built to handle between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors a day and we’ve certainly been seeing those numbers since we launched,” says Warhurst. “We opened on December 12th and by December 19th we’d sold 180,000 season passes.”
The park’s location in the most densely populated metropolitan area of Australia (25km from CBD – Sydney central business district) is helping to feed those numbers, although Warhurst’s hoping to put the park on the interstate and international tourist map as well – with an expectation that around 20 per cent of visitors will come from this segment.
He says: “We’re just 10 minutes away from the Olympic site and 2.5 million Australians live within a 20-minute drive of our park. With a national population of 25 million, that’s one in 10 Australians who can easily access the park.
‘We’ve designed the park to attract Sydney’s different market segments, but we’ve also had visitors from as far afield as the UK and South America.
“The traditional tourist pathway in Sydney is the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, but there’s no reason why Wet ‘n’ Wild can’t also be on that map. We’re just 35 minutes from Sydney Airport’s international terminal.”
Ride selection Once through the doors, it’s unlikely that visitors will be disappointed with the array of wet attractions on offer. The park’s owners, Village Roadshow, awarded equal mega tower contracts to waterpark suppliers Whitewater West and ProSlide, with both companies supplying two main complexes each and ProSlide also supplying all 10 rides in the Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior area.
The first complex from WhiteWater West is the “world-first” Whizzard Twist™ (H2Go Racers), which takes eight mat-racer AquaTubes and winds them around each other, propelling riders into a race to the finish line. This ride is accompanied by four duelling AquaLoops™ (360Rush) for side-by-side entertainment. The second complex offers riders a multitude of experiences in a thrilling eight waterslide complex that features four MasterBlasters, called The Breakers, and Australia’s first Rattler™ named the Typhoon.
From Proslide, the park installations include the T5, the first and only dark Tornado 60 in Australia, and the Bombora: TornadoWave, which Warhurst says is “arguably the most popular attraction in the park with the longest hang time and most zero Gs”. Hybrid rides include the Double Bowlseye, featuring two BehemothBowl’s – the first attraction of its kind in the Asia Pacific region – and the Tantrum, which features three Tornado 24 funnels.
Proslide’s rides for the Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior area are pint-sized versions of the park’s iconic rides. Warhurst says these include the “worlds first” Kidz Bowl, Australia’s first Kidz Tornado 24, a four-lane Kidz ProRacer, three Kidz Pipelines, three Kidz Twisters and a Kidz MiniRiver.
New waves Village Roadshow chose Australian wave technology company LatiTube for the construction of one of its wave rides. At 15m (50ft)-long with a 3m (10ft) curling barrel, it represents another world first, according to Warhurst.
“The design of the LatiTube allows for the ride surface to change according to a person’s ability, because the surface flexes up and down – a three-year-old can boogie board and a pro-surfer can get tubed on the very same wave. It also has an enormous throughput,” he says.
The waterpark also boasts Australia’s biggest wave pool (by Murphy’s Waves) at 8,500sq m (91,490sq ft), which offers guests a 2.3m (7.5ft) wave length. Warhurst says: “There are no sharks and no rip tides. We like to call it ‘a beach within reach’, as people living in the western suburbs don’t have easy access to the beach.”
With this lack of access in mind, Warhurst says they’ve been working hard to develop its community links, so that youngsters nearby can use it on a regular basis, rather than as an occasional treat, and get to enjoy a beach lifestyle.
“There’s a big surf lifesaving movement in Australia, with children’s after-school and weekend clubs called Nippers. So we approached the organisation and gained permission to create an official Nippers club at Wet ‘n’ Wild.
“We now have more than 400 children enrolled and it’s created a great community around the park, which of course brings both our business and the guests great benefits,” says Warhurst.
Sustainable practices Another particular feature of the waterpark is that it’s been designed for optimum staffing levels to keep operating costs down. Warhurst says: “Australia has a very high labour rate when compared to countries like the UK and US. We worked with the designers to ensure that rides could have the maximum throughput using minimum staffing levels, without any compromises on safety of course.”
Currently the park employs 450 staff on a seasonal basis, which includes 92 lifeguards and aquatic attendants.
Sustainability best practices have been applied both in construction and operations. All rainwater across the site is harvested and retained irrigation and general wash down. Neptune Benson supplied the filtration technology, which when used with perlite media saves more than 6.5 million litres per season compared to traditional sand filters.
Wet ‘n’ Wild’s user experience has been further enhanced with the use of waterproof RFID wristbands. Guests receive them on entry – either as temporary bands for day admissions or more robust silicon bands for the season pass holders.
The MyBand wristbands, using technology from Omni software, can be used to access the park, use lockers for a fee and make purchases from the catering and retail areas – dispensing of the guests’ need to carry around credit cards, cash or tickets. Guests can manage their Myband account online, link in park photography to their social media accounts and easily pre-book experiences or cabanas or lockers for their next visit.
For a VIP experience, a certain number of higher-priced Fast Pass wristbands are on sale each day giving the user quicker, no-queue access to most of the slides and rides. At a cost of AUS$50 (US$46, E33.50, £27.55) on top of entry price, it’s a premium offer that produces healthy returns for the business.
For greater comfort and luxury still, 50 exclusive cabanas are available throughout the waterpark on an all-day hire basis. Visitors can choose from a beach view cabana, a family cabana or a VIP cabana. The VIP offer includes a lounge with a television and stocked refrigerator, and access to a shared cabana concierge.
Covering a total area of 60 acres, Warhurst says there’s plenty of scope for expansion at the site, and there are already various planning permissions in place for new developments – giving Wet ‘n’ Wild’s domestic and overseas visitors even more reasons to come back.
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2014 issue 2
Editor's letter: The New Philanthropists
Tech is hot and as the growing number of tech millionaires
turn their thoughts to philanthropy, tech-related
attactions will prosper
Profile: Mario Mamon
The current chair of IAAPA talks about
his role with the organisation, doubling
the size of family theme park Enchanted
Kingdom in the Philippines and the
devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan
Museums: MOHAI
MOHAI's executive director,
Leonard Garfield, talks about
the Seattle museum's new Bezos
Center for Innovation, named after
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
Science centres: Appliance of science
Andreas Waschk and Mike Boris
explain how they made Blueprint
Entertainment into Europe's largest
private science centre operator
Museums: Olympic Movement
Director Francis Gabet describes how
The Olympic Museum's extensive
refurbishment reflects the excitement
and diveristy of the modern Games
Planetariums: Starry skies
The newly upgraded Fiske Planetarium in
Boulder, Colorado now boasts the highest
specification full dome theatre in the US.
Director Douglas Duncan tells us more
Museums: Beautiful minds
The founders of MoMath, the New York
Museum of Mathematics, tell us how
they're on a mission to get ordinary
people to fall in love with maths
World expos: Brave new world
Christian Lachel considers how world
expos can raise global awareness
about what matters for the planet
3D/4D/5D: IMERSA
A review of the fifth annual IMERSA
conference held in Denver, Colorado
Advertisement feature: EAS 2014
The exhibitors reveal what they’ll be showcasing at EAS in
September and what the hot topics of conversation will be
Waterparks: Wet'n'Wild
Wet'n'Wild Sydney has welcomed
a million visitors through its gates
since opening in December. Managing
director Chris Warhurst tells us why
Ticketing: Convenience store
Gateway's Liesel Tarquini explains
how mobile web stores can help
generate additional revenue
for attractions operators
Village Roadshow Theme Parks (VRTP) is a wholly-owned division of Village Roadshow, which is Australia’s largest theme park operator. The company has its headquarters on the Gold Coast, Australia’s holiday playground, where it operates Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World, Wet’n’Wild Water World, Paradise Country and Australian Outback Spectacular.
The group also owns Sea World Resort & Water Park, a 405-room hotel adjacent to Sea World. Collectively, Village Roadshow’s leisure and theme parks attract around five million guests per year – with its latest site, Wet ‘n’ Wild Sydney, looking likely to significantly boost those numbers.
Overseas, the company has a majority ownership in Wet ‘n’ Wild Las Vegas, but recently divested of its Wet ‘n’ Wild parks in Hawaii and Phoenix to raise capital for expansion in the UK, US and Australia.
In partnership with Guangzhou R&F properties, Village Roadshow’s currently designing, constructing and managing a large marine park on Hainan Island in China, scheduled to open in January 2015.
The Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior Area features pint-sized versions of the park’s iconic rides
WhiteWater West’s 91m-long, two-person ride Typhoon is Australia’s first Rattler ride
COMPANY PROFILES
Taylor Made Designs
Founded in 1993, Taylor Made
Designs supply corporate clothing
and brand-enhancing merchandise
to [more...]
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
Sydney’s newest leisure attraction offers world class water rides and has 10 per cent of the population living within a 20-minute drive time. Julie Cramer finds out more about the thrills in store for visitors
By Julie Cramer | Published in Attractions Management 2014 issue 2
Proslide’s Bombora drops riders 15m before they surf up the face of a monster wave
Not since the opening of the Olympic stadium in 1999 has there been such an exciting, large-scale leisure development to service the Sydney metropolitan area, according to Chris Warhurst, general manager of the new Wet ‘n’ Wild waterpark in Sydney.
Opened in December 2013 in Prospect, the new leisure development took 12 months to construct and lays claim to being the world’s biggest waterpark, with more than 42 rides and attractions. “We have the world’s first combination aqua loop and mat racer tower, the world’s tallest Double SkyCoaster (a daring 250ft dry ride tower) and one of the world’s largest surf wave pools,” says Warhurst.
“When you’re travelling at 120km an hour on our SkyCoaster – which at 75m is 10m higher than the sails on the Sydney Opera House – falling to earth and pulling 3Gs, you really know you’re alive. It’s terrifyingly wonderful,” he adds.
Impressive numbers The waterpark, which cost AUS$135m (US$125m, E90.4m, £74.4m) to construct, is expecting to attract up to one million visitors per full season (from September to April each year) and judging by the numbers that have raced through its doors since last December, it’s well on target to achieve this. “The park is built to handle between 15,000 and 20,000 visitors a day and we’ve certainly been seeing those numbers since we launched,” says Warhurst. “We opened on December 12th and by December 19th we’d sold 180,000 season passes.”
The park’s location in the most densely populated metropolitan area of Australia (25km from CBD – Sydney central business district) is helping to feed those numbers, although Warhurst’s hoping to put the park on the interstate and international tourist map as well – with an expectation that around 20 per cent of visitors will come from this segment.
He says: “We’re just 10 minutes away from the Olympic site and 2.5 million Australians live within a 20-minute drive of our park. With a national population of 25 million, that’s one in 10 Australians who can easily access the park.
‘We’ve designed the park to attract Sydney’s different market segments, but we’ve also had visitors from as far afield as the UK and South America.
“The traditional tourist pathway in Sydney is the Opera House and the Harbour Bridge, but there’s no reason why Wet ‘n’ Wild can’t also be on that map. We’re just 35 minutes from Sydney Airport’s international terminal.”
Ride selection Once through the doors, it’s unlikely that visitors will be disappointed with the array of wet attractions on offer. The park’s owners, Village Roadshow, awarded equal mega tower contracts to waterpark suppliers Whitewater West and ProSlide, with both companies supplying two main complexes each and ProSlide also supplying all 10 rides in the Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior area.
The first complex from WhiteWater West is the “world-first” Whizzard Twist™ (H2Go Racers), which takes eight mat-racer AquaTubes and winds them around each other, propelling riders into a race to the finish line. This ride is accompanied by four duelling AquaLoops™ (360Rush) for side-by-side entertainment. The second complex offers riders a multitude of experiences in a thrilling eight waterslide complex that features four MasterBlasters, called The Breakers, and Australia’s first Rattler™ named the Typhoon.
From Proslide, the park installations include the T5, the first and only dark Tornado 60 in Australia, and the Bombora: TornadoWave, which Warhurst says is “arguably the most popular attraction in the park with the longest hang time and most zero Gs”. Hybrid rides include the Double Bowlseye, featuring two BehemothBowl’s – the first attraction of its kind in the Asia Pacific region – and the Tantrum, which features three Tornado 24 funnels.
Proslide’s rides for the Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior area are pint-sized versions of the park’s iconic rides. Warhurst says these include the “worlds first” Kidz Bowl, Australia’s first Kidz Tornado 24, a four-lane Kidz ProRacer, three Kidz Pipelines, three Kidz Twisters and a Kidz MiniRiver.
New waves Village Roadshow chose Australian wave technology company LatiTube for the construction of one of its wave rides. At 15m (50ft)-long with a 3m (10ft) curling barrel, it represents another world first, according to Warhurst.
“The design of the LatiTube allows for the ride surface to change according to a person’s ability, because the surface flexes up and down – a three-year-old can boogie board and a pro-surfer can get tubed on the very same wave. It also has an enormous throughput,” he says.
The waterpark also boasts Australia’s biggest wave pool (by Murphy’s Waves) at 8,500sq m (91,490sq ft), which offers guests a 2.3m (7.5ft) wave length. Warhurst says: “There are no sharks and no rip tides. We like to call it ‘a beach within reach’, as people living in the western suburbs don’t have easy access to the beach.”
With this lack of access in mind, Warhurst says they’ve been working hard to develop its community links, so that youngsters nearby can use it on a regular basis, rather than as an occasional treat, and get to enjoy a beach lifestyle.
“There’s a big surf lifesaving movement in Australia, with children’s after-school and weekend clubs called Nippers. So we approached the organisation and gained permission to create an official Nippers club at Wet ‘n’ Wild.
“We now have more than 400 children enrolled and it’s created a great community around the park, which of course brings both our business and the guests great benefits,” says Warhurst.
Sustainable practices Another particular feature of the waterpark is that it’s been designed for optimum staffing levels to keep operating costs down. Warhurst says: “Australia has a very high labour rate when compared to countries like the UK and US. We worked with the designers to ensure that rides could have the maximum throughput using minimum staffing levels, without any compromises on safety of course.”
Currently the park employs 450 staff on a seasonal basis, which includes 92 lifeguards and aquatic attendants.
Sustainability best practices have been applied both in construction and operations. All rainwater across the site is harvested and retained irrigation and general wash down. Neptune Benson supplied the filtration technology, which when used with perlite media saves more than 6.5 million litres per season compared to traditional sand filters.
Wet ‘n’ Wild’s user experience has been further enhanced with the use of waterproof RFID wristbands. Guests receive them on entry – either as temporary bands for day admissions or more robust silicon bands for the season pass holders.
The MyBand wristbands, using technology from Omni software, can be used to access the park, use lockers for a fee and make purchases from the catering and retail areas – dispensing of the guests’ need to carry around credit cards, cash or tickets. Guests can manage their Myband account online, link in park photography to their social media accounts and easily pre-book experiences or cabanas or lockers for their next visit.
For a VIP experience, a certain number of higher-priced Fast Pass wristbands are on sale each day giving the user quicker, no-queue access to most of the slides and rides. At a cost of AUS$50 (US$46, E33.50, £27.55) on top of entry price, it’s a premium offer that produces healthy returns for the business.
For greater comfort and luxury still, 50 exclusive cabanas are available throughout the waterpark on an all-day hire basis. Visitors can choose from a beach view cabana, a family cabana or a VIP cabana. The VIP offer includes a lounge with a television and stocked refrigerator, and access to a shared cabana concierge.
Covering a total area of 60 acres, Warhurst says there’s plenty of scope for expansion at the site, and there are already various planning permissions in place for new developments – giving Wet ‘n’ Wild’s domestic and overseas visitors even more reasons to come back.
Read more from this issue of Attractions Management magazine
View contents of Attractions Management 2014 issue 2
Editor's letter: The New Philanthropists
Tech is hot and as the growing number of tech millionaires
turn their thoughts to philanthropy, tech-related
attactions will prosper
Profile: Mario Mamon
The current chair of IAAPA talks about
his role with the organisation, doubling
the size of family theme park Enchanted
Kingdom in the Philippines and the
devastation of Super Typhoon Haiyan
Museums: MOHAI
MOHAI's executive director,
Leonard Garfield, talks about
the Seattle museum's new Bezos
Center for Innovation, named after
Amazon founder Jeff Bezos
Science centres: Appliance of science
Andreas Waschk and Mike Boris
explain how they made Blueprint
Entertainment into Europe's largest
private science centre operator
Museums: Olympic Movement
Director Francis Gabet describes how
The Olympic Museum's extensive
refurbishment reflects the excitement
and diveristy of the modern Games
Planetariums: Starry skies
The newly upgraded Fiske Planetarium in
Boulder, Colorado now boasts the highest
specification full dome theatre in the US.
Director Douglas Duncan tells us more
Museums: Beautiful minds
The founders of MoMath, the New York
Museum of Mathematics, tell us how
they're on a mission to get ordinary
people to fall in love with maths
World expos: Brave new world
Christian Lachel considers how world
expos can raise global awareness
about what matters for the planet
3D/4D/5D: IMERSA
A review of the fifth annual IMERSA
conference held in Denver, Colorado
Advertisement feature: EAS 2014
The exhibitors reveal what they’ll be showcasing at EAS in
September and what the hot topics of conversation will be
Waterparks: Wet'n'Wild
Wet'n'Wild Sydney has welcomed
a million visitors through its gates
since opening in December. Managing
director Chris Warhurst tells us why
Ticketing: Convenience store
Gateway's Liesel Tarquini explains
how mobile web stores can help
generate additional revenue
for attractions operators
Village Roadshow Theme Parks (VRTP) is a wholly-owned division of Village Roadshow, which is Australia’s largest theme park operator. The company has its headquarters on the Gold Coast, Australia’s holiday playground, where it operates Warner Bros Movie World, Sea World, Wet’n’Wild Water World, Paradise Country and Australian Outback Spectacular.
The group also owns Sea World Resort & Water Park, a 405-room hotel adjacent to Sea World. Collectively, Village Roadshow’s leisure and theme parks attract around five million guests per year – with its latest site, Wet ‘n’ Wild Sydney, looking likely to significantly boost those numbers.
Overseas, the company has a majority ownership in Wet ‘n’ Wild Las Vegas, but recently divested of its Wet ‘n’ Wild parks in Hawaii and Phoenix to raise capital for expansion in the UK, US and Australia.
In partnership with Guangzhou R&F properties, Village Roadshow’s currently designing, constructing and managing a large marine park on Hainan Island in China, scheduled to open in January 2015.
The Wet ‘n’ Wild Junior Area features pint-sized versions of the park’s iconic rides
WhiteWater West’s 91m-long, two-person ride Typhoon is Australia’s first Rattler ride
The Toverland theme park in the Netherlands has announced a €98m expansion programme
that will add a resort, new attractions and staff facilities as it pursues plans to become a multi-
day destination.
Hotel de France, located on the British Isle of Jersey, has created a wellness retreat package
that includes a hot yoga session that will take place in Jersey Zoo’s butterfly sanctuary.
A new immersive attraction designed to transport visitors into the final hours of ancient Pompeii
is preparing to open near the world-famous archaeological site in southern Italy.
Experience design company, BRC Imagination Arts, has completed a transition that sees founder
Bob Rogers pass ownership of the business to four long-serving senior executives, while
remaining actively involved with the company.
Movie Park Germany has opened a new Paramount Pictures-themed attraction as part of its 30th
anniversary celebrations, using immersive storytelling and adaptive reuse to reinforce the park’s
longstanding “Hollywood in Germany” positioning.
Therme Manchester’s 28-acre development, which will include interconnected glass pavilions
that measure 65,000sq m, will be the largest bathing and wellbeing attraction in the world once
complete, according to prof David Russell, CEO of Therme UK.
Efteling has opened Hooghmoed, a new family drop tower designed to broaden the appeal of its
recently launched Sirene Island themed area and introduce younger visitors to thrill attractions.
A proposed Puy du Fou development near Bicester and Universal Destinations and Experiences’
planned resort in Bedford are emerging as part of a wider transformation of the Oxford–
Cambridge Growth Corridor into a major centre for UK leisure and tourism inv
Shedd Aquarium has opened the Immersion Theater developed in partnership with SimEx-
Iwerks, as part of a wider strategy to enhance the guest experience and create additional
revenue opportunities.
The UK government has announced a temporary reduction in VAT on visitor attractions and
children’s meals as part of a summer cost-of-living support package designed to stimulate the
visitor economy and encourage family days out.
+ More news
COMPANY PROFILES
Taylor Made Designs Founded in 1993, Taylor Made
Designs supply corporate clothing
and brand-enhancing merchandise
to [more...]
An opportunity to reimagine one of the UK’s most recognisable towers has been formally
opened by Rivington Hark, as St Johns Beacon invites operators and partners to shape its
next phase. [more...]
