Luna Park Sydney has announced a major update with an investment of A$30 million in nine new rides, including children’s rides, thrill rides and an anchor Intamin coaster, The Big Dipper.
Sydney’s Luna Park is a rare surviving amusement park featuring fantasy architecture in the Art Deco style of the 1930s. The concept builds on the success of the first Luna Park, which opened on Coney Island, New York in 1903. The idea then was brought to Australia by the American entrepreneur Herman Phillips.
Luna Park in Melbourne opened in 1912, and Luna Park Glenelg, Adelaide opened in 1930. Meanwhile, Luna Park Sydney is a relative newcomer, having opened in 1935.
Managing director Peter Hearne spoke with blooloop about the park and the recent redevelopment.
A well-loved park
Hearne has been in the hospitality sector for around 35 years.
“I’ve owned a number of nightclubs, hotels, and restaurants. But for the last 20 odd years I’ve been purely involved in Luna Park,” he says. “My business partner and I won a government tender to redevelop Luna Park back at the end of 1998. We did our redevelopment, and I’ve been there ever since.”
Luna Park Sydney originally opened in 1935, the same year that Luna Park Glenelg, Adelaide closed. The rides and amusements from Adelaide were moved to the new park in Sydney.
“This is the second oldest park in Australia. Luna Park Melbourne beats us by about 30 years. The park is well-loved by the people of Sydney, and it’s well-loved by the people who work there, too.”
Planning regulations
The park has had to surmount a number of obstacles throughout its history, including planning issues, and complaints about noise.
“Noise is probably our biggest issue,” says Hearne. However, this was resolved some 15 years ago when legislation was passed by the New South Wales government protecting Luna Park from such claims:
“In relation to planning, we got to a situation where every time we wanted to bring a new ride in. even if it was temporary, we would have to get a development application. We were able to convince the powers that be, our state government, that we could do it under what’s called an exempt or complying development.”
The State Environmental Planning Policy (State Significant Precincts) 2005, which identifies Luna Park as a state significant precinct, was amended to include exempt and complying development provisions for certain land within Luna Park:
“In layman’s terms, it means that provided the rides meet certain pre-determined conditions in relation to where they can go, their height, the size, the noise, the hours of operations and so on, no further planning requirements are needed,” he explains. “We’ve just done this redevelopment under those conditions.”
New rides for Luna Park
The recent project is the biggest redevelopment and addition of new rides since the park opened in 1935. While there have been a number of updates over the years, this is, in terms of cost, the most substantial investment in revitalising the park. Nine new rides have been put in, and one whole section of the park has been totally redeveloped.
Listing the attractions, Hearne says:
“We bought a little mini coaster, our Little Nipper kiddie coaster, from Preston Barberi; a family coaster, the Boomerang, from Gerstlauer; a hot racer from Intamin, and six rides from Zamperla: the Cloud Nine Samba Balloon, the Bug Mini Ferris Wheel, the Freaky Frogs Jump Around, the Loopy Lighthouse Jumpin’ Tower, the Silly Sub Crazy Bus, and the Sledgehammer thrill ride.
“The exciting thing from our perspective is that we are now, effectively, a four-coaster park. We start off with the little Preston & Barberi mini coaster, which is themed as a shark. From there, we go to our Boomerang, the Gerstlauer family coaster, and then to our existing Wild Mouse.”
Coasters for all
Luna Park’s Wild Mouse, which is heritage-listed, is one of the few wooden Wild Mouse coasters left in the world:
“It’s still a terrific ride,” says Hearne. “Then, obviously, we have the pinnacle of the collection, which is the new Intamin coaster. We call this the Big Dipper. It will be the third rollercoaster to go by that name at the park.”
The range of coasters caters for an all-inclusive demographic:
“Obviously, we desire for customers to come back. The family rides that allow an adult or a parent to go with the child achieve two things. Firstly, some children are a bit apprehensive about going on rides and need reassurance. At the same time, it’s good for the parent to have the experience of having fun with their child when they’re small.”
Luna Park encourages repeat visits
The park has been structured in a way that means there is always an aspiration: a ride to which a child will progress as it grows, right up to the ultimate thrill ride – the Intamin coaster:
“As the kids get bigger, they can annoy their parents to take them back to go on the bigger rides,” Hearne says. “For instance, we have the Zamperla Jump Around, which is a little drop tower. We also have the Hair Raiser, by Larson, a drop tower that is 36 meters tall. The idea is that as the child gets bigger, they’ll want to go on that, just as with the coasters. They can progress through the rides as they grow.”
The Hair Raiser ride, which drops at 80km per hour, opened at the heritage-listed Luna Park in 2013. At that point, it was the first new ride to be added in a decade. However, for a while, its existence was fraught with controversy. At one point, it looked likely to be torn down, having fallen foul of planning regulations.
A local audience
Luna Park caters predominantly to the domestic and local market, something that has been accentuated by the pandemic.
“Sydney’s normally a major tourist destination, but the majority of our customers are from what we would call the greater Sydney area, which is an area of some six-plus million people,” says Hearne.
“We get quite a few interstate visitors, and then we do get overseas travellers when the borders are open. While very few people come to Sydney specifically to go to Luna Park as their primary tourist activity, it is an add-on.
“We have a large conference event function business. So, we pick up a lot of function activity, especially inbound overseas corporate activities. We’re a fun place to have that function; we are on the Harbour, next to the Harbour Bridge, looking back at the opera house. It’s a pretty stunning location.”
Luna Park and COVID-19
While Australia has fared better than many places, the impact of the COVID pandemic has nevertheless been severe.
“We went through some very long lockdowns,” says Hearne. “Interestingly, we had just signed the contracts with the manufacturers before COVID hit. To a certain extent, that was fairly fortunate. I’m not sure we would have entered into spending those sorts of amounts if we’d known about the pandemic.”
“But the biggest impact it had on us by far was this: We closed the park at the end of our January school holidays in January 2021, and we worked feverously to get eight of the rides – all except the Intamin Hot Racer – completed and ready to go for our July school holidays. Unfortunately, two days before we opened the state government put everyone back into lockdown. We missed out.”
Introducing the Big Dipper
Undaunted, the Luna Park team focused on getting the Hot Racer completed. It opened on Boxing Day 2021 as the Big Dipper, the new anchor attraction of Luna Park’s largest-ever multiple ride investment.
The Big Dipper is notable as the first inline seating launch coaster in the world. Designed to ride low to the terrain, it has a top speed in excess of 70km/h.
The Big Dipper combines two launches. The single rail coaster stretches over two main park areas. The ride includes such elements as a rolling first launch a Stengel-dive, a zig-zag double-down and a boost section that accelerates the train at over 70 kph to a large, non-inverting loop, followed by a sidewinder inversion, a -0.3g airtime hill, a series of high-speed s-curves, a fly-over wave turn, a second inversion, and a 180-turn.
Pent-up demand
“COVID has been difficult,” Hearne concedes. “It continues to be difficult. We’re in the Omicron phase at the moment, which affected things through January. Although, the last weeks of the school holidays went very well.
“Before that, although the government restrictions weren’t stopping us from trading, there was a lot of apprehension; people were concerned about going out at that stage. However, in the end, you just have to keep battling along, and to get on with your life.”
He envisages that there will be a significant bounce-back effect when COVID has become controllable.
“People just are over it, and you can’t blame them. We’ve had a very wet summer here, which is a bit unfortunate; obviously, wet weather does have an impact on us. But over the last week to 10 days of the school holidays, there was a big pick up where people clearly wanted to have fun.
“The Omicron wave was diminishing, and they just wanted to get out. That will continue, and everyone will be better prepared if and when the next variant turns up.”
Luna Park redevelopment will benefit local economy
Luna Park’s major revitalisation is likely, in the medium term, to attract more people to Sydney. It will ensure that Luna Park continues to offer thrills and nostalgic fun to millions of visitors over the next decades. The investment is predicted to create jobs, boost local tourism, and have a positive impact on the local post-COVID-19 economy of New South Wales.
“We have introduced dynamic pricing. Now we’re educating our customers in that regard, to maximise our dollars when the parks open. The main thing at the moment is just to get out of COVID, and to build on what we’ve done.”
Hearne is putting further forward-looking strategies in place, though he jokes that his priority will be to pay for the redevelopment first:
Space for the whole family
The positive reaction to the redevelopment is already striking:
“The three main new rides, the Boomerang coaster, the Sledgehammer, and, of course, the Big Dipper, are transformative. It’s a different park, and we’re a major player now. To my mind, we’ve set the park up for the next 85 years.”
The Boomerang family coaster is Australia’s first G-force G-rated coaster that has space not just for kids, but the whole family.
The Sledgehammer is a 360-degree spinning hammer, with a minimum height requirement of 130cm. Sledgehammer promises “G-forces that you didn’t even know existed” as it drops, spins, and swings riders back and forth. The Big Dipper, of course, is the world’s first inline seating launch rollercoaster, and Australia’s tallest and fastest multi-launch coaster.
Luna Park’s nostalgia factor
Part of the Luna Park USP is a timeless quality. In a sector where the trend for immersive, tech-augmented experiences is accelerating, its thrill-driven simplicity has a nostalgic appeal:
“We are a little bit different from many of the parks,” Hearne says. “We have a long history here. The park is heritage-listed. It’s interesting because it’s not just the bricks and mortar, but the actual area, as used as an amusement park and public entertainment.”
“We’ve got a funhouse, for instance, which is virtually identical to what it was like when it was built in 1935. We find that grandparents, in particular, love bringing their grandchildren back.
“We trade off the history. Not only because it is important to us, but also because nostalgia brings a lot of repeat visitation.”
