Hex - The Legend of the Towers Development
Construction
In 1999 Alton Towers set about adding a rather different attraction to the park. Whilst no obvious land clearing occurred, nor the closure of any existing rides. Instead, the Towers Gift Centre, once the park's main gift shop, quietly closed. The Grand Entrance of the mansion shut its very large doors and work seemingly began within the Towers' Ruins themselves.
Unseen by the guests, work was being done on a new building behind Cred Street that would join to the historic structure of the Towers. Step behind the scenes and take a look at how this iconic attraction was built, hidden behind the majestic backdrop of the Towers' Ruins.
The construction of Hex involved two very distinct elements, whilst the ride was being built in a new purpose built building backstage, the original grand entrance to the Towers were being restored - a restoration project that would form the backstory of the ride itself. Tussauds had put £1million towards the conservation and restoration of the southern gallery range, which would act as the queue line and pre-shows for the new ride.
The Armoury was arguably in the best state, as it had acted as the park's main gift shop for nearly 50 years, but it required the 'modern' fixtures and fittings removed. The project also saw the restoration of the original stained-glass, which had been designed by Pugin. The neigbouring Picture Gallery had most recently been used for storage, so had at least been protected from the elements over the years, though it still received a new roof.
The Octagon, however, had been abandoned for nearly 50 years without a roof and required significant work to make it habitable once again. The archway from the Picture Gallery - sealed for... half a century - was unblocked and a modern roof was installed. Several original features were reused, the majority of the Octagon's central column was collapsed within the room from the 1950s, so was reinstated, along with Pugin's original door embellishments. The two replica tombs found in this pre-show were also reinstated, having been found in the basement of Alton Towers some years earlier - these were two of the original sculptures the 16th Earl displayed in the Octagon
Meanwhile behind the Towers, construction of the madhouse commenced during 1999. The foundations for the new building were complete in August, ready for delivery of the ride, with installation to begin in mid-September. As is often the case with new builds in theme parks, the building for the ride was the last element to be constructed after the ride itself had already been installed, as seen in the construction gallery below.
Hex Version 1.0
By early 2000 Hex was installed and ready to go. It told the story of the 15th Earl's unfortunate encounter with a beggar woman, her curse, a fallen branch and the curious experiments which followed. Guests made their way through a restoration site and then into the Earl's sealed vault, where the climactic madhouse finale occurred.
This might all sound very familiar, but the ride did not exactly tell the story as we know it today. This was a tale with a different twist.
Specifically, whilst the ride did tell the story of the Earl and the beggar woman, this was wrapped within a modern day plot, featuring the trials and tribulations of a Professor Graham Nicholson, who was leading the restoration works that had led to the supernatural discovery.
The plot originally cast riders as a tour group, who were visiting the restoration site within Alton Towers, where they were going to be given a guided tour by Professor Nicholson, culminating in a visit to the Earl's Secret Vault, which had been unearthed during the restoration of the Octagon.
The experience had the same number of pre-shows in the same rooms we have today, but they played out very differently:
Pre-Batch: the first part of the Picture Gallery was a much more traditional batching area, where guests were greeted by the voice of a friendly narrator, who took the roll of the group's tour guide. This was framed as though riders were a tour group, who were about to be led into the restoration site, and featured the sorts of safety warning and preamble you might expect at the start of this sort of tour.
The Briefing Room: rather than a cinematic retelling of the legend, in this version of the attraction, the cinema room played an introductory video for the tour, featuring Professor Nicholson standing alongside the Chained Oak, who recounts the story of the Earl's fateful carriage ride, framed within the restoration project and the discovery of the secret passage to the vault. This video is cut short by static and, over the radio, the tour guide invites guests into the Octagon.
The Great Chamber: for some reason, in this version of the story the Octagon is simply known as 'The Great Chamber', but it is here that guests are supposed to wait for Professor Nicholson to collect them. As guests file into the room, over the speakers they could hear an interchange between the tour guide and the professor, discussing the strange electrical storm that is apparently to blame for the issues the tour group are experiencing, as well as strange occurrences in the vault.
Professor Nicholson then appeared on the video screen in the Great Chamber to address the group and explain the delay in their tour. Before he has chance to finish, the video is cut short when the generator in the room sparks and cuts out. The Octagon pre-show simulating the storm then plays out similarly to what we experience today, though notably without the figure of the beggar woman and with additional audio of wolves howling.
Once the Octagon's main show sequence is complete, the tour group is reconnected to Graham Nicholson, who instructs them to enter the Secret Passage (which featured some additional chanting sound effects) and make their way to the vault.
The Ante-Room and Vault: Before entering the vault, Professor Nicholson provided guests with the ride's safety spiel and invited them to take a seat inside. At the start of the ride sequence, he would then begin explaining his findings, before being very quickly cut off by the main ride sequence.
The actual ride experience of the vault was similar to what we experience today, but with a noticeably different mix of the vault's theme. Originally, the soundtrack in the vault was a much more rounded orchestral version of the ride's main theme, rather than the string-focused version we have today. The strings were still prominent, but were balanced by additional organ, percussion and brass parts.
The ride cycle completed with Professor Nicholson exclaiming 'Good gracious, that's quite extraordinary!', and he then encouraged guests to leave as quickly as possible, stating 'it may be necessary for us to seal the vault'.
But the story did not end there...
And so the tale was told. The only issue was, it did not meet the high expectations that the park had hoped to achieve with their historic new attraction. When the team behind the ride got a chance to experience their creation, they were clearly left underwhelmed.
The park have not often spoken about the specific issues with Hex V1, but based on the changes made, it is pretty clear that they felt there were significant problems with the plot and pacing of the ride. The second half of the ride and the finale were broadly doing the right job, but the pre-show intros were not setting up the story as well as they could.
The aim was to retell a variation on the local legend of the Chained Oak. But, to put it bluntly, that story had been overshadowed by a subplot about a professor who was having a bad day at work, and the logistical admin of a fake tour.
Before any paying member of the public got anywhere near the ride, the park already knew there were issues and had resolved to address these. But, by the time they settled on a rescue plan, it was already mid-March and the ride was due to open in just 10 days, which was simply not enough time to give the ride the iconic overhaul it required.
And so, whilst the team set about creating a more permanent solution, at the same time they also made a series of short term fixes, working with what they already had to improve the atmosphere of the current incarnation. And thus, only a handful of people on the design team got to truly experience Hex V1.0, as by opening day the ride had already been retrofitted to become a modified version of the original.
Improving Hex
By the time Hex opened to the public at the start of the 2000 season, the team had made some quick upgrades to moderately improve the experience of the ride, which meant that when the first guests ventured into the Towers on April 1st, they were effectively experiencing Hex V1.2.
Some of the upgrades involved reusing the existing effects, such as improving the smoke and spark effects on the generator in the Octagon to make the effect more attention-grabbing.
Much of the show lighting was also tweaked to create a more atmospheric feeling. It would seem that maybe they had originally been too effective in making Hex feel like a working restoration site, so the lighting was altered to create a more intimate space, with lighting redesigned to better draw guests attention to certain show elements, such as the rising tarpaulin, which signals guests to move through to the Secret Passage.
But more significantly, the early updates also saw the addition of new features which would go on to be staples of Hex 2.0. These included the shrouded figure of the beggar woman, standing on the gantry above the wheelchair access ramp, as well as the UV portraits of the Earl and Beggar Woman that light up in two of the gothic windows during the Octagon show. This effect was quickly installed by reusing UV lights that had originally been used to illuminate the billowing curtain effect.
Despite the changes, as expected, the ride still opened to decidedly poor reviews. The original version of the ride had attempted to make guests a part of the action, and the pre-shows significantly failed to do this. Instead, it made the experience feel fake, which meant that guests were equally unwilling to suspend disbelief by the time they reached the ride's much more impressive finale.
But those in the know, knew that this was a short term problem, and by now the team behind the ride were well on the way to creating the permanent fix that would catapult the ride to the status it retains to this day.
Hex Version 2.0
The long term solution to improving Hex would see an overhaul to the ride's audiovisual components, including a re-tooling of the ride's pre-shows and a full re-write of the script.
A new storyboard for the pre-shows was agreed upon over Easter, allowing work to begin on filming new footage, though some of the original visuals were reused, along with the atmospheric sound effects and remixed music.
The new script jettisoned Professor Graham Nicholson and the un-named tour guide, alongside the entire sub-plot of guests going on a guided tour. This also rendered the recorded elements from the Batching area and Octagon redundant. Instead, the script from the Briefing Room was torn apart and segmented to be spread over all three pre-shows, allowing much more time to introduce and develop the Earl's story.
And whilst the influence of the original script is still audible in the finished product, many of its more humdrum lines were re-written into the iconic lines, enjoyed in the attraction to this day. The new script was re-recorded with a much more sinister tone, famously delivered by actor Jim Carter, replacing the unassuming narration of Dr Nicholson.
The 'modern day' restoration sub-plot was retained but became a contextual plot point, with its narrative elements largely constrained to queue-line videos, providing guests with enough background to deepen the lore around the ride, but crucially not encroach into the main plot, which immerses guests into the tale of the Chained Oak.
Importantly, riders no longer 'played a part' in the new storyline - they were being told the legend, rather than taking part in the story, which allowed for greater immersion and for guests to more-easily suspend disbelief for the duration of the ride.
All in all, the new AV production took several months to complete. However, at the end of the busy Summer season of 2000 the ride closed, reopening a few days later fully repurposed into Hex 2.0 as we know it today. And the rest, as they say... is legend.