Written by Kent Learned, 13 December 2020, originally posted to the Wonderland History Facebook group.
The sound at the Pirate Ship was a problem when I first came. The speakers were on the front of the dock, and the people in the front rows were blasted while the people up the back couldn’t hear a thing. The solution was to follow the laws of physics and get the speakers much higher above the crowd. In the end, we bolted some speakers part way up the two masts, pointing them downwards. This worked pretty well.
Over time we moved the mixer and other controls from the booth at the entrance to the wharf, up to a control room inside the old sailing ship wreck up the back. That worked pretty well, but some of the operators had trouble judging the sound levels, as it was a fair ways from the main listening/viewing area.
Over the years there were a number of different shows on the stage and ship. One with jet skis (we won’t talk about the security officers who took the jet skis out for a drive one night and crashed one of them into the seating area at the restaurant behind the sailing ship).
Several Pirate/High Diving type shows, one with pyros and stunt guns (more another day). The water was nearly 10 metres deep below the Yard Arms, and some of the performers still hit the bottom if they weren’t careful.
We also had a number of music acts on the wharf as well. There were a number of early ABC Kids entertainers, including Peter Coomb. I did sound for him on my stage at The National Folk Festival in Canberra about 7 years ago, and half of the audience sang every word of every song along with him. There was the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Physical Culture Finals, Indonesian Culture week, John Williamson…