Scarefest returns for its fifteenth season on October 7th 2022 and over the past few weeks the park have started revealing details about this year’s event. Discussion has been rife about what mazes would be featured this year, after the park announced in June that a new experience would replace one of the existing line-up, adding a promo shot which prominently featured a coffin.
We now know that the new maze will be called The Invitation and will be based in the Lakeside Cemetery, which is expected to open for business next month alongside the Games Bunker, near X Sector. Whilst not explicitly stated, the details revealed about The Invitation have fed ongoing speculation that the new attraction will be an audio experience, where guests will be secured into coffins for the duration.
The Invitation – Brand new for 2022, a horrifyingly unique, immersive scare attraction, never seen or heard at Scarefest before. Take your seat for the ultimate heart racing, palm sweating, spine-tingling experience.
Book now, we dare you. https://t.co/yM3muD1twd pic.twitter.com/gY2h3gtqNW
— Alton Towers Resort (@altontowers) September 6, 2022
After much speculation and opinion about which maze might be closing, it is now clear that the Freak Show: Toxic Junkyard will not be returning, and the new attraction is likely to be sited in the area occupied by Barb Dwyer’s Reclaim Yard last season. Last month, Alton Towers revealed that Altonville Mine Tours, Darkest Depths and The Attic: Terror of the Towers would all return for this year’s event. In its seventh season, Altonville Mine Tours is now the second-longest running maze in the event’s history.
It is not a huge shock to see Toxic Junkyard depart. Whilst the most recent addition, closing after just two seasons, the attraction was seemingly designed in response to pandemic restrictions and put together reasonably quickly, using props and costumes from a variety of old rides and mazes. It would also have required the most construction, needing building more or less from scratch, whilst all the other mazes have been left largely intact over the course of the season.
The line-up for the family-friendly elements of the event remains quite similar to the past few years. Skelvin’s Spooky Storytime looks like it will be returning after a year off in 2021, replacing Phil’s Halloween Dance Party. Patch’s Trick or Treat Party and the CBeebies Land Monsters Ball will also be returning for the event. However, Trick-or-Treat Town will not be getting a second season, leaving no walkthrough attraction for younger guests.
Update (22nd September): Trick o’ Treat Town was later added back into the event line-up, having secured a new sponsor in Haribo, who will be supplying the sweets for this year’s version.
The event line-up is completed by the ever popular Alton Ancestors and the return of Garden Lights Walk: Whispering Souls, the eerie walkthrough of the Alton Towers Gardens, which will once again be illuminated for the season.
Scarefest will run from 7th – 9th, 14th – 31st October 2022 and, as ever, the park will be open until 9pm each night, offering plenty of opportunities for night rides on your favourite rides.
