Developers moving on $600m stage one of new Gold Coast theme park

A CHASM through a replica of Uluru opening up to an indoor land of snow and ice is just the beginning of a businessman’s plans for a new ‘world’ on the Gold Coast.

An artist impression of the Songcheng group’s planned theme park. Imaged supplied by Canford Property Group.

A CHASM through a replica of Uluru opening up to an indoor land of snow and ice is just the beginning of a businessman’s plans for a new ‘world’ on the Gold Coast to be built on his $55 million new block of land at Nerang.

Songcheng Group chairman Huang Qiaoling plans to immediately begin work on development approvals for the $600-million first stage of his Australian Legends World after the sale of the land, from fellow Chinese theme park group Wanda, which settled yesterday.

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A ferry service on the Nerang River from the park to Metricon Stadium and Surfers Paradise is also part of the plan.

This is the type of performance at Songcheng’s theme parks in China.

Mr Huang’s company operates theme parks across China, centred around dramatic dance, music and hi-tech, circus-like performances on transforming stages of lights, water and sound.

Australian Legends World will have three key performance zones, including a main theatre and a more immersive experience named Phantom of the Gold, which tells stories of the gold rush.

Precincts called “Mysterious Orient” will be created, which include a Tibetan section and replica of a village in southwest China known as “Kingdom of the Women”, where a tribe called the Musuo trace their ancestry through the women instead of the men and where females are head of the households.

A performance based on the arrival of Captain Cook to Australia, featuring a replica of the HMS Endeavour, will also be staged at the riverside park where the chairman also plans to build an “Aboriginal Cultural Village” and a small Australian wildlife park, “The Colour Zoo”.

Songcheng’s theme parks dazzle visitors in China

Mr Huang is the self-taught chief director of all his shows in China and masterplans all his theme parks himself.

Through a translator he told the Gold Coast Bulletin the parts of the development themed around indigenous Australian culture would not be based on any specific Aboriginal tribe or nation.

He said he had respect for Aboriginal cultures which would be conveyed by what he created.

“We have been to Aboriginal and cultural villages in New Zealand and Australia and thought they didn’t go deep enough to discover the culture,” he said.

Songcheng’s theme parks in China have different ‘worlds’

“Our creation department has already in different cities gone to the museums to learn the stories.

“We met with the Arts Minister (Mitch Fifield) and the Prime Minister (Malcolm Turnbull) yesterday to seek their support.

“We will look into the cultures deeply to make sure everything is right.”

Theatrical performances about Australian soldiers and their experiences in foreign conflicts, as well as a story of how modern Australia evolved, are also planned.

“We won’t compete with the current theme parks on the Gold Coast because we are totally different,” Mr Huang said.

Canford Property's Roland Evans with Moncrieff MP Steven Ciobo, Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull, Songcheng chairman Huang Qiaoling and CEO Huang Hongming.

“We have ability to build rides and water parks the same as Sea World and Movieworld but we don’t want to do that but we want to do something that has never happened on the Gold Coast.”

Songcheng has recruited Gold Coast Canford Property agent Roland Evans, who sold the land to them this year and Wanda in 2013, as an adviser and buyer’s agent for this and future investments in Australia.