It's the day Dreamworld's owners and operators are probably both anxiously anticipating and mildly dreading.
More than six weeks after a tragic accident which claimed the lives of four visitors to the Gold Coast theme park, the gates will reopen with an "Open Hearts Open Doors" charity weekend on Saturday, December 10.
The 10am opening will be the first step towards rebuilding public confidence in the tourist mecca following the accident on the Thunder River Rapids on October 25 that killed siblings Kate Goodchild, 32, and Luke Dorsett, 35, his partner Roozbeh Araghi and Sydney mother Cindy Low.
Dreamworld's chief executive Craig Davidson said the park, which will honour all existing pass holders with a six-month extension, will reopen with a "respectful" day.
"Our weekend will be a focus on families, our staff and visitors, to show that Dreamworld is back up and running," Mr Davidson said.
Mr Davidson said that every single attraction opening on 10th December will have passed an unprecedented multi-level safety review, encompassing Workplace Health and Safety Queensland's audit, Dreamworld's internal engineering review, Pitt & Sherry's independent review and the external peer-review by UK based theme park safety specialists, LTC.
"Every ride and slide open on 10th December will have passed this rigorously conducted, multi-level safety review," he said.
"Furthermore $25 from every guest entry fee from the charity weekend will be donated to the Red Cross and Dreamworld will also contribute the $25 donation on behalf of all pre-paid ticket and pass-holders.
"These funds will be distributed to those affected by the tragedy through the GIVIT Appeal Independent Distribution Committee."
Mr Davidson said the lead-up to Christmas was traditionally very busy for the theme parks and he urged people to visit to help the staff and also the families involved following the tragedy.
"The Gold Coast Tourism Board has been very helpful and we are also working with Lego to open the new Legoland store after Christmas," Mr Davidson said.
Ardent Leisure, the owner of the parks, will be represented by its chief executive Deborah Thomas, who also said her thoughts are with the family of the victims. Ms Thomas said she will be going on some of the rides, "maybe not the Wiggles one as that's for the kids," she said recently.
Ms Thomas also donated her $167,500 cash bonus, which shareholders approved in October, to the Red Cross appeal for the families.
Although Dreamworld is only a small percentage of the Ardent Leisure group's theme park business, which itself is about 22 per cent of total revenue, it has become a sentiment and reputation issue.
It has been estimated the group generates up to $300,000 a day from its Gold Coast tourist assets which apart from Dreamworld include WhiteWater World and SkyPoint.
Brokers said the impact of the event on Ardent's near-term outlook is still uncertain, as are the longer term implications.
The company has not provided any commentary on the other businesses, although brokers at Deutsche Bank said they expect the momentum achieved in Bowling should be sustainable while the performance of Main Event, which is largely driven by the aggressive expansion, continues to be strong.
"The balance sheet is solid post the sale of Health Clubs and will be further strengthened by the sale of Marinas, providing flexibility to manage earnings weakness and main event roll-out.
"The company noted that the impact of the closure will be lost revenue from November, about $7.6 million in November 2015 and operating costs of $4-$4.2 million for the month. Ardent will also incur one off costs of $1.6 million associated with the incident, net of insurance recoveries," the Deutsche Bank brokers said.
"The impact on full year earnings is unclear at this stage, given that it largely depends on how the parks trade over the key holiday period, with the company committing to providing regular trading updates."
The brokers said the earnings changes reflect the impact of the Dreamworld incident for the first time. Theme Park revenue falls by 31 per cent in the current financial year, reflecting the park closure for seven weeks as well as an assumption for a 20 per cent fall in attendance for the balance of the year.
