Charters Towers Ghost of Gold

Australian Electoral Commission (Federal Government) BridgeClimb Charters Towers Shire Council Cowra Shire Council Electoral Education Centre - ACT (Federal Government) Museum of Wellington City & Sea, New Zealand National Capital Educational Tourism National Sports Mueum MCG Parks Victoria - (State Government) Royal Flying Doctor Service Sovereign Hill Historical Park - Ballarat Sydney Football Stadium & Cricket Ground Trust (State Government) Sydney Skytour, Sydney Tower Whale World, Albany, Western Australia Trainworks NSW

Han Yang Mausoleum China Cowra Tourist Info WhaleWorld Albany WA Sovereign Hill Charters Towers QLD Museum of City & Sea Wellington Land of the WathaWurrung Sydney Tower + Oztrek The Big Banana Vietnam Veterans Museum Vic

National Sports Museum MCG Sydney BridgeClimb Harvey Norman Mannequin Trainworks Museum

Charters Towers Hologram

Venus Battery Hologram

Charters Towers City Council

"the ghosts of gold"

The brief was to activate the city of Charters Towers and tell the story of its 1872 gold rush in a series of heritage locations. Each of the eight communications was designed to be a self-standing capsule, allowing visitors to flow freely without the need to follow a rigid sequence.

Most visitors to Charters Towers start at the Visitor Information Centre. Here, we produced a touch-screen, interactive computer program titled `Virtual Tour'.

Towers Hill overlooks the city of Charters Towers. On top of the Hill is a viewing platform and an amphitheatre, which is the venue of nightly performances of a three-projector, wide screen, soft-edge experience of the story of `the ghosts of gold'. Full colour footage of the city today supports the story of the characters of the past, who appear wandering around the city as `ghosts', overlaid on the contemporary footage -they are monochrome and interact with the modern city and its people.

The Venus Gold Stamp Battery was built within months of the discovery of gold in Charters Towers. Set into a corrugated iron wall of the heritage Battery, Mr EHT Plant, on a SpectraVision stage tells visitors of the early days; the need for water, the theft of water, death by water and explains the process of extracting gold.

Mr Plant appears out of thin air in a second area of the battery as two fine sprays of water appear from above with the image of him on them. As he tells the tales of the people of the gold rush years they appear on the second water-screen: happy stories, sad stories and tragic stories; stories of the ghosts of gold.

Charters Towers had its own Stock Exchange, which traded in a grand arcade in the centre of the town. Visitors to the arcade today can do their shopping and witness the sights and sounds of the old trading days, including a Calling of the Cards at regular intervals each day. In addition to the Calling of the Cards, interactive audio stations give listeners the sounds and the feel of the old Exchange.