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Scarefest 2015

Rob said:
It's totally different but I am doing a 5 hour behind the scenes tour of Magic Kingdom in September that is costing a lot less than £99! And that's Disney, they love to rip you off.

Ultimately it does come down to supply and demand though, however much I hate to say it. Clearly the supply this is fairly limited and if the price was lower there would simply be too much demand and a lot of unhappy people missing out. I think a lot of us on here would do it for say £30.

:)
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Based on the bits I have heard and comparisons with other attractions £40 would be great value, £50 would be ok. There are attractions that are similar that are in a similar price bracket so I'm unsure what the market is like.
 
A season pass for the whole run of Halloween Haunt at Canada's Wonderland, including 10 mazes and 3 scare zones... was only $30.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
A season pass for the whole run of Halloween Haunt at Canada's Wonderland, including 10 mazes and 3 scare zones... was only $30.
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Yes but a west end ticket can be £150 and a local am dram show can be £3. You can't just compare something because it is In the same ballpark.

£99 is to my mind too expensive as I have said but this isn't just a 2hr scare maze.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Halloween Haunt was better than any UK event I have ever been to. ;)
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I don't question that, how many theatrical 2hr scare attractions including hands on interaction did they have available? Just to compare like for like.

(Still must say I don't defend the current pricing strategy).
 
Well I would expect the whole story line to be at a rather high standard if the team are allowed freedom which they seemed to have had with scary tales last year
 
DiogoJ42 said:
Well obviously none.
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As I said I'm not defending the price, I think about half is acceptable. But this won't be standard scare output. It won't be all unique but it will push some boundaries of the scare theatre side of things. Pete isn't a fool and knows what he is doing, but the UK industry is over priced.
 
Little point comparing anything US based to what's happening here, the scare (haunt) scene over there is absolutely immense whereas here it's in it's infancy still.

On top of that, UK scare attractions seem to have gone off in a different direction over the last few years but 95% of it is still completely unoriginal, copy and pasted from one place to another, and just hashed together crap. Towers on the other hand have always put together decent scare attractions. Credit where credit is due, I'm sure whatever this thing is it'll be very theatrical.

Only those who do it will be able to say if it was worth the price, but I heard a lot of good things about The Ultimate Sleepover and that wasn't cheap at all.
 
PeteB said:
Little point comparing anything US based to what's happening here, the scare (haunt) scene over there is absolutely immense whereas here it's in it's infancy still.
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Yeah - but no US corporate park is as interesting as what Merlin do (comparing corporates) with the touching, the free-flow mazes and the adult level. I know the US chains have their up-charge mazes too - but Cabin in the Woods at Thorpe really stood out as a new level for the corporate world - and the "normal" SubSpecies will be the same.
 
PeteB said:
Little point comparing anything US based to what's happening here, the scare (haunt) scene over there is absolutely immense whereas here it's in it's infancy still.

On top of that, UK scare attractions seem to have gone off in a different direction over the last few years but 95% of it is still completely unoriginal, copy and pasted from one place to another, and just hashed together crap. Towers on the other hand have always put together decent scare attractions. Credit where credit is due, I'm sure whatever this thing is it'll be very theatrical.

Only those who do it will be able to say if it was worth the price, but I heard a lot of good things about The Ultimate Sleepover and that wasn't cheap at all.
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Have to agree with how you said 95% of the scare attractions here are unoriginal, I don't think Towers have a bad idea on their hands here, as well as some smaller events such as Screamfest Burton.
 
nickhutson said:
Yeah - but no US corporate park is as interesting as what Merlin do (comparing corporates) with the touching, the free-flow mazes and the adult level. I know the US chains have their up-charge mazes too - but Cabin in the Woods at Thorpe really stood out as a new level for the corporate world - and the "normal" SubSpecies will be the same.
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That's actually my issue with the UK ones. It seems because people over here are so unoriginal and they don't know how to scare or even entertain people, they've resorted to cheap gimmicks like touching to get a reaction from guests. Now everyone is just copying each other, and it's becoming the norm.

Towers and Thorpe always have done fantastic high quality mazes, Towers in particular. Usually whatever Towers and Thorpe do, the rest of the industry try to copy a year later. I really appreciate the little bits of satire comedy Towers put into their mazes as well.

I'm sure under Pete Cliff's watch it'll all stay this way.
 
A lot of scare actors seem to rely on simply leering in your face to scare you. When that fails, they have nothing to fall back on. Touching doesn't really add anything to me, it's just an annoying invasion of personal space.
Personally, I prefer good old fashioned jump scares. As long as they are original and unexpected (such as the actor behind the fireplace in The Mansion at EP) they never fail.
 
DiogoJ42 said:
A lot of scare actors seem to rely on simply leering in your face to scare you. When that fails, they have nothing to fall back on. Touching doesn't really add anything to me, it's just an annoying invasion of personal space.
Personally, I prefer good old fashioned jump scares. As long as they are original and unexpected (such as the actor behind the fireplace in The Mansion at EP) they never fail.
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Could not agree more here. The mazes that allow actors to touch do sort of lesson the horror feel, more like a cop out for actors that struggle. Extreme examples such as McKamey Manor make my blood boil, they seem to cross the line between horror and torture.
 
Jables said:
Could not agree more here. The mazes that allow actors to touch do sort of lesson the horror feel, more like a cop out for actors that struggle. Extreme examples such as McKamey Manor make my blood boil, they seem to cross the line between horror and torture.
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McKarney Manor is a literal extreme example, however, as it's completely removed from the theme park environment. More annoying are the actors at Thorpe who might just give you a shove.
 
It will be interesting to see how much the "theatrical" side of the experience is played upon: it definitely feels like there's potential to do good eerie site-specific theatre in the park and combining it with a few scares could be a good recipe. (Heck, even Westfield in London puts on theatre like this now.)

However, even for this kind of thing, £99 is expensive: most immersive theatre usually ranges from about £40 - £70 a ticket.
 
To think a ticket for a concert that would last just as long is about half the price (depending on the artist).
 
And for the average joe this could potentially cost £150 for park entry (if they are stupid enough to pay that much to get in) and then by the time they add food in and any merch you are talking about nearly £200 for a day out!!! and that's just for one person if a family of say 4 went it would cost £800:eek:
 
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