Village Roadshow Theme Parks


Village Roadshow Theme Parks is a division of Village Roadshow Limited which operates theme parks and attractions in Australia and the United States of America. The Sydney Attractions Group Pty Ltd was formerly part of Village Roadshow Theme Parks; however, it was sold in 2011 to Merlin Entertainments.

History

In 1989, the publicly listed Sea World Property Trust who owned its namesake theme park coordinated a three-way venture to acquire Wet'n'Wild Water World from the Herringe Group of Companies and build the adjacent Warner Bros. Movie World theme park. The two other companies involved in the venture were American multinational media corporation Time Warner and fellow publicly listed Australian firm Village Roadshow Limited. The joint venture known as Warner Village Theme Parks was led by Chief Executive Officer John Menzies. Prior to the formation of the company, Menzies was Managing Director of Sea World.
In 1992, Pivot Leisure sold its two-third stake of the Sea World Property Trust to AOL Time Warner and Village Roadshow Limited. In April 2001, AOL Time Warner and Village Roadshow Limited announced plans to acquire the remaining 31.6% of Sea World Property Trust that they did not already own. This would also mean the ownership of Warner Village Theme Parks would lie entirely with the two firms. However, the takeover bid failed as the two firms were only able to acquire 85.65% of the trust, just shy of the 90% required for compulsory acquisition. A second takeover bid of Sea World Property Trust was put forward in December 2001. This bid was ultimately successful, with compulsory acquisition beginning in February 2002, and the delisting of the Sea World Property Trust from the Australian Securities Exchange in April 2002.
Warner Village Theme Parks remained a joint venture between Time Warner and Village Roadshow until Village took full ownership of the group in 2006. Time Warner continues to provide a licence to the Warner Bros. brand. The group was renamed Village Roadshow Theme Parks. The group also owns the Sea World Resort, located next to the Sea World theme park. Previously known as Sea World Nara Resort.

Local expansion

In April 2008, Village Roadshow Theme Parks proposed African Safari World, an amusement park and zoo to replace the Werribee Open Range Zoo, southwest of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia. This was followed by the proposal to acquire and redevelop Aussie World into Wet'n'Wild Aussie World. In June 2008, the proposal for African Safari World was rejected by the Victorian Government for a variety of reasons. In September 2009, the plans for Wet'n'Wild Aussie World were cancelled.
In late 2008, Sydney Attractions Group was purchased by Village Roadshow after months of discussions. This included the acquisition of Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Tower and Sydney Wildlife World. The company further expanded its interests in local attractions in 2009, with the purchase of Oceanworld Manly in Australia and Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World in New Zealand.
In December 2010, they announced that they would sell approximately $115 million worth of assets to Merlin Entertainments. On 3 March 2011, the deal was finalised with Sydney Aquarium, Sydney Wildlife World, Oceanworld Manly, Sydney Tower, Hamilton Island Wildlife Park and Kelly Tarlton's Underwater World all being sold off.
In September 2010, Village Roadshow announced that they would be expanding the Wet'n'Wild chain by opening a water park in Sydney.

International expansion

In 2008, Village Roadshow expanded into the international market, with the acquisition of the Hawaiian Waters Adventure Park in the United States. The park was rebranded to Wet'n'Wild Hawaii the following year. At around the same time, the company also purchased WaterWorld Safari, investing $30 million in the park relaunched as Wet'n'Wild Phoenix. Village Roadshow's ownership of Wet'n'Wild Hawaii was short-lived. The park was sold to CNL Lifestyle Properties for an undisclosed sum in 2009. Village Roadshow Theme Parks, however, continued to operate the park on a lease which concluded in November 2013.
On 4 October 2012, it was announced that Village Roadshow Theme Parks would be opening Wet'n'Wild Las Vegas in May 2013. The park sold out of season passes and reached capacity many days surrounding its opening.
On 17 October 2012, it was announced that the company had struck a deal with Guangzhou R&F Properties to assist in the design, construction and operation of two parks in China. The two parks would be based on the Sea World and Wet'n'Wild parks on the Gold Coast, Queensland and would be named Hainan R&F Ocean Paradise and Hainan Wet'n'Wild.
In November 2013, CNL Lifestyle Properties purchased Wet'n'Wild Phoenix, with Premier Parks, LLC taking over operations of both Wet'n'Wild Phoenix and Wet'n'Wild Hawaii for the 2014 season. In addition, CNL Lifestyle Properties also purchased the rights to the Wet'n'Wild brand in the United States, which was later used for the company's Palm Springs water park. Village Roadshow Theme Parks will continue to operate and hold a majority stake in ownership of Wet'n'Wild Las Vegas. In a press release, the company stated the water park market in the United States was too mature, and that they would be pursuing other opportunities in Asia.
On 16 July 2014, Village Roadshow Theme Parks signed a partnership with 20th Century Fox Consumer Products to open the second 20th Century Fox World theme park in South Korea in 2018.

Properties

Current

The group claimed an annual patronage of approximately 4.2 million across all of its properties during the financial year ending on 30 June 2007, including 1.3 million each to both Movie World and Sea World, and 1 million to Wet'n'Wild.