Australian helps Water cube undergo magical makeover

Alan Mahony, a 46-year-old Australian water park veteran, is working as the general manager of Beijing's Happy Magic Waterpark in the Water Cube.

By Chu Meng

Beijing’s famous Olympic swimming venue, the National Aquatic Center, has been transformed into a world-class indoor water park. Last Sunday it opened to the public as the Happy Magic Watercube Waterpark.

Australian water theme park veteran Alan Mahony, 46, was hired on a three-year contract to be the general manager of the new water park. First he oversaw planning and construction. Now, as the person responsible for safety and quality at the attraction, he said he has been working 15 hours a day since the park’s opening.

“The initial challenge was during the construction stage, ensuring that everything was to the quality expected; now that we have opened, the ongoing challenge is to ensure that we offer the safest services to all guests,” he said.

One of the biggest current challenges is with the park’s capacity. “On our first testing day, we had 2,000 visitors,” Mahony said: the designed limit was 2,500 visitors.

The Water Cube is an internationally renowned architectural wonder. In the summer of 2008, viewers around the world watched as 25 swimming and diving world records were broken inside its three pools.

Yet from the very beginning, the venue was designed with both sports and recreational use in mind. While the immediate purpose was as a competitive swimming venue, over one-third of the 32,000-square-meter structure was earmarked for conversion to a water park.

Mahony has been involved in the theme park industry for 25 years. He began his career with the Warner Village Theme Park Group in Australia, where he managed the operations at Wet ‘n’ Wild Waterworld, Warner Bros. Movie World and Seaworld on the Gold Coast. For the last 15 years he has been managing numerous successful, leading and award-winning water parks in Asia.

“I was always a mad surfer being brought up on the beaches of southern Sydney. Life as a young lad was hanging out at the beach and surfing all day with my buddies,” Mahony said. “Working in a water park reminds me of my childhood.”

With his experience working for top water parks around the world, Mahony has ideas about how to turn a one-time Olympic venue into both a profit machine and a place for public leisure. “I believe it is necessary to utilize Olympic facilities after the Games, as it not only offers foreign visitors the chance to share the [Olympic] experience but also it gives locals a feeling of national pride.”