Guest action contributes to ride closures at Warner Bros. Movie World

A series of incidents at Warner Bros. Movie World on the Gold Coast over the past two days have seen three rides forced to halt operations with 'guest behaviour' causing the closure of the Wild West Falls attraction.

While routine engineering inspections delayed operations on the Green Lantern and Doomsday rides yesterday, the Wild West Falls attraction was closed for up to an hour this afternoon after a guest was spotted using their child to reach for their lost belongings.

A Village Roadshow Theme Parks (VRTP) spokesperson told SkyNews that the ride was paused as a precaution after a guest used their child to retrieve a lost item.

The spokesperson advised “earlier today, the Wild West Falls ride at Movie World had an operator-controlled stop due to guest behaviour.

"Our highly-trained operations team have CCTV footage of the entire ride envelope and identified a guest lowering their child into an exterior part of ride perimeter to collect a lost item.

"While there was no risk to this guest, our ride safety procedure is to stop the ride, and our operator did as they are trained to do."

The spokesman said passengers exited to a safe zone within 20 minutes of the stoppage.

 Explaining the closure of the Green Lantern and Doomsday rides, VRTP advised in a Facebook post “during the engineering inspections at Movie World this morning (Wednesday), our team identified a fault on the Green Lantern and Doomsday attractions which required further discussion with the international ride manufacturers.

“The safety of our guests is our highest priority and we have a dedicated engineering team who conduct rigid and comprehensive inspections on all attractions prior to opening each day.”

The Doomsday attraction reopened on Thursday while the Green Lantern will reopen to the public by the end of the week.

Two more attractions - Superman and Scooby Doo - were also closed briefly on Wednesday morning before reopening, with VRTP noting “we also had a minor delay in the opening of Superman and Scooby Doo attractions, however these are open and we have 17 of 20 attractions operating.”

In further comment on the closures, VRTP’s spokesperson added “we understand these closures can be an inconvenience to our guests and our in-park team will work with them to assist them with their individual experiences. In addition to the rides, during peak period, we have extended our trading hours and added additional shows and entertainment options.

"Our intent is to always have everything open and operating, however we will not compromise on safety and if we need to close a ride, we will."

Ride closures and incidents are routinely reported by mainstream media and generate extensive comment on social media.

However, Village Roadshow staff at each of its Gold Coast theme parks perform daily ride inspections prior to opening. In 2017, it released a series of videos demonstrating its ride safety procedures (see above).

Image: Warner Bros. Movie World's Wild West Falls attraction. Credit: Village Roadshow Theme Parks.