ALANNAH KERR
Movie World ‘Fright Night’, is a night held on behalf of Halloween for Australians and tourists where halloween is taken to the next level of scary, involving mazes of zombies and other scary characters from movies like The Conjuring 2 and Friday the 13th.
Saturday 29 October, one of the last ‘Fright Nights’ held for Movie World in October this year, exactly four days after the freak accident at Dream World where four people were killed.
People all remembering in the back of their minds the tragedy that occurred only a few days before in the Gold Coast at Dream World, and now being extra cautious as they stepped into Movie World.
Jessica Beckman, young Australian attending ‘Fright Night’ said, “We noticed the minute we walked in that a lot of the roller coaster rides were going with no on them repeatedly so we all thought they must be doing test runs, which I’ve never seen them do before. We also noticed that the green lantern rollercoaster was closed, and the log ride water ride (Wild West) was off too,”
The Warner Brothers website states the Green Lantern rollercoaster is closed due to maintenance from the 31st October and reopening on the 21st November.
This scheduled date of closure is set after the night of the 29th October Fright Night, so its closure on this night may be due to setting an earlier date after the Dream World tragedy incident for maintenance or maybe for another reason the public are unaware of. The Wild West water ride is not mentioned on the attractions maintenance page, so we are left unsure as to why it was closed.
Sam Lawrie, a friend of Miss Beckman who also attended Fright Night said, “I am not one for rides, I get pretty nervous to go on them but I push myself to anyway. After the Dream World tragedy, it made me think about it but it didn’t stop me from going. We had bought our tickets a while ago and we came to realise that the Dream World tragedy is not something that occurs often and really you have a better chance of getting in a car accident so we figured we wouldn’t let it stop us from having fun at Fright Night, but of course it was still in the back of our minds and we probably were being more cautious with out even realising,”
Sam Lawrie continued, “I noticed the Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster ride, which is probably one of the oldest rides there, to be not as safe as the other rides. We didn’t feel nearly as secure as we did on the other rides. You are expected to take your belongings on the ride and place them between your feet, and when we were on the ride a girl lost her phone due to the ride being so rough and not being able to hold onto it. The roller coaster is very high up and quite dark so it probably took them a little while to find the girls phone,”
August last year, it was reported that dozens of patrons had been left stranded on the Movie World ride Scooby-Doo Spooky Coaster, leaving guests stalled in the dark. A wife and her children were separated after staff ordered her to immediately exit alone. At the time, the ride was observed and checked to clear any faults and was soon operating again after having a brief downtime. A couple of weeks later, the ride was due to be closed for maintenance and was closed for a whole month.
Miss Beckmans’ sister mentioned that she dropped by Dream World on her way to Movie World Fright night to leave some flowers for the loss of Cindy Low, Kate Goodchild, Luke Dorsett and Roozbeh Araghi.
“My sister actually stopped at Dream World on her way here to Movie World and dropped some flowers among with many others there with her friend and she said it was just so sad actually being there and such a shocking feeling of how a tragedy like that could have happened.”
Miss Beckman also mentioned, “I didn’t see anything that was dream world related in showing respect to the tragedy at Movie World, but I think maybe they may have not wanted to have drawn attention to it.”
Debra Kerr, an ex-ride operator for Sea World said, “I use to operate the boat ride at Sea World, and at the time there was always something wrong maintenance-wise with that particular ride. I’m hope full that theme parks are more strict with the maintenance of rides these days, but you can never be too sure so I think it’s wise to check the theme parks website about maintenances on all rides before attending the theme park.”
For more information, head to the website of the theme park you are attending and check any updates on rides like Movie World’s Rides and Attractions Maintenance page.
