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peas_and_corn wrote:Isn't that a building's version of "she looks better when you're really far away"?

The Adelaide CBD, surrounding suburbs and Mt Lofty Rangers can be viewed from the top of the wheel.

Revamp for Glenelg ferris wheel

Local News23 Nov 11 @ 06:21am by Jane Whitford

THE Glenelg ferris wheel will be sped up and revamped in a bid to attract more people, after its operator admitted the $1.8 million attraction failed to meet expectations.

Beachouse manager Peter Rimington said the ride would be sped up from next week to complete one rotation every four minutes as opposed to every nine minutes, as was the case when it first opened three years ago.

The windows on all 16 gondolas will also be replaced with a better quality acrylic plastic to improve views of the sea and hills after the salt air damaged the existing windows.

Mr Rimington said the slow speed of the wheel and murky windows meant passers-by often mistakenly believed the wheel was closed.

“At nine minutes (per rotation) it didn’t look like it was moving unless you held your line of sight for a long time,” Mr Rimington said.

“We then dropped it to six, and now four minutes, and you can certainly notice the difference.

“We’ve had people drive past and think it’s turned off or not operating, but in fact it is moving and they just might not be able to notice it - so we think this will make a significant difference.”

Almost 3000 people rode the 25m-high wheel - the first and only single-armed ferris wheel in Australia - on its opening day three years ago.

But Mr Rimington told the Guardian Messenger last week the wheel, which blew out by about $800,000 and took two years longer than expected to complete, had not lived up to his expectations.

He hoped the new windows and extra speed would once again “spark interest” in the Colley Tce attraction.

“I guess it was far more challenging than we realised to build something that was the first of its kind in Australia,” he said.

“It didn’t meet our expectations but we’ve learnt from that and we hope by doing this it will ignite interest once again. We are hoping, first of all, that people have a better experience and also have positive reports for their friends, which we hope results in higher use.”

The ferris wheel operates on request every day, and until 11pm every Friday and Saturday. Cost: $6 for two rotations.