Ben
TS Founding Member
- Favourite Ride
- Your Dad
Myself and @Sammy utilised a rare matched day off to visit on Scarefest.
Now lets get the main issue out of the way... it was "Traveller Day" - while I visit semi-frequently and Sam all the time, I genuinely felt sorry for people who had this as their only visit. The atmosphere was horrible, Security and Police everywhere and even then we saw: fighting, people in ride areas, queue-jumping, verbal abuse of staff and guests.
While we were able to laugh a lot of it off, we did end up stuck in Oblivions station for quite a while until a Queue-jumping situation (on a 5 min queue) took about 15 mins to resolve - fair play to the ride team for just closing down the ride until it was resolved.
Also we missed the opportunity to have a beer. Boo!
Towers Street and Park
The pumpkins are great, it looked pretty good overall. But park-wide that is where Scarefest stops. Shame.
We saw a few minutes of one show, it was all I could be bothered to stay for - it was lacking in energy, story and worryingly audience. Why are these shows on Towers Street? Put them elsewhere (maybe back to fountain square) as during the middle of the day people aren't around Towers Street and it would make scarefest feel a bit more spread around.
Ancestors were great however when they were at Fountain Square the music was completely overpowered by the ambient music from Dark Forest. Turn it up!
Parkwide - lets be honest theres little to comment on apart from lighting. The new LED string-lighting is bright. The lack of Gels / Colours is striking. Dark Forest looks even worse when lit by football stadium lighting. If every year Towers bought some permeant lighting it would look a million times better by now, even if they couldn't fix it in place buying their own portable colours and styles would be better - surely?!
The Towers window projection was cool.
Rides
Despite being busy-ish, most ride teams were getting decent through-puts. Wickerman was flying (when it finally opened 2pm-ish - apparently closed for planned maintenance... during scarefest, when the park has been closed for 2 days... oh ok then).
Nemesis was great, Galactica was decent but I wish they would agree a theming story now as it makes no sense.
Rita was slow, we just didnt bother. 13 when it opened after downtime (guests in ride area) had a 0min queue... which was closer to an hour due to the amount of Fastrack and comp tickets they had, plus bizarrely sending each 3rd train empty.
Blivvy never seemed to break a sweat, Smiler was mostly 60 mins all day, I simply will not queue in that pit of concrete misery and dirt. Thankfully single rider was under 10 mins.
Duel - is very purple and bright - no, just burn it down, its a waste of time now.
Blade, was nice to see in pieces across the park.
Rapids, I debated just for a sit down because thats the only point of it now.
There was a point during the day WickerMan was down for 'planned maintenance' 13 down and then Oblivion went down - its times like this you realise the absolute lack of flat rides to support the coasters. I beg you merlin, buy 2 or 3 second hand flats and chuck them anywhere - a park of purely coasters is a not a park.
Mazes (Spoilers within)
We did not do Skin Snatchers or Sub Species - the faux american mine is very very over done and Sub Species feels older than my nan. We didnt do Project 42 mainly because I forgot it existed until I saw it and remembered the poor reviews.
We did do:
Cash inThe Attic - Terror of the Towers - to use the Terror of the Towers is a bold move considering the legacy, and Im not 100% it was deserved.
The opening scene is BRILLIANT. The intimate atmosphere, the actor was brilliant and effects very good. The maze itself looks glorious, the roof struts, the toy room, the outfits - just brilliant. Some of the actors (hey wind up doll) were great.
The fireplace heat was a very clever touch. There was a projector scene which was... lacklustre. If you didnt hit it at the right time, it was a waste. I dont think a cycling video scene belongs in a maze so unpredictably times.
Its not a maze without issue though: its short - theres no getting away from the fact its probably the shortest on park. There is no real, significant, finale - ToTT was infamous for that strobe finale and the booming music, while I was bored of it, I found Id have accepted it on The Attic - a lot of dark rooms and one solid creature outfit is not a finale. Sadly. 6/10.
Darkest Depths I will preface this review saying we got lucky with a group of 6 all adults and the actors clearly revelled in this and amped the scares up.
Story? Check. - Opening story told brilliantly, really set it up simple but well done.
Sets? BEAUTIFUL - The tavern, the sinking ship, the Kraken (and its EYES!)
Effects? Screens, Water, Sand, the smells!
I dont know who designed this but you are a scaremaze God!
Can we please bin off the "family" dungeon which is barely themed and full of nothing and keep this glorious ode to a good family scare- I'll start the petition. 9/10
Now lets get the main issue out of the way... it was "Traveller Day" - while I visit semi-frequently and Sam all the time, I genuinely felt sorry for people who had this as their only visit. The atmosphere was horrible, Security and Police everywhere and even then we saw: fighting, people in ride areas, queue-jumping, verbal abuse of staff and guests.
While we were able to laugh a lot of it off, we did end up stuck in Oblivions station for quite a while until a Queue-jumping situation (on a 5 min queue) took about 15 mins to resolve - fair play to the ride team for just closing down the ride until it was resolved.
Also we missed the opportunity to have a beer. Boo!
Towers Street and Park
The pumpkins are great, it looked pretty good overall. But park-wide that is where Scarefest stops. Shame.
We saw a few minutes of one show, it was all I could be bothered to stay for - it was lacking in energy, story and worryingly audience. Why are these shows on Towers Street? Put them elsewhere (maybe back to fountain square) as during the middle of the day people aren't around Towers Street and it would make scarefest feel a bit more spread around.
Ancestors were great however when they were at Fountain Square the music was completely overpowered by the ambient music from Dark Forest. Turn it up!
Parkwide - lets be honest theres little to comment on apart from lighting. The new LED string-lighting is bright. The lack of Gels / Colours is striking. Dark Forest looks even worse when lit by football stadium lighting. If every year Towers bought some permeant lighting it would look a million times better by now, even if they couldn't fix it in place buying their own portable colours and styles would be better - surely?!
The Towers window projection was cool.
Rides
Despite being busy-ish, most ride teams were getting decent through-puts. Wickerman was flying (when it finally opened 2pm-ish - apparently closed for planned maintenance... during scarefest, when the park has been closed for 2 days... oh ok then).
Nemesis was great, Galactica was decent but I wish they would agree a theming story now as it makes no sense.
Rita was slow, we just didnt bother. 13 when it opened after downtime (guests in ride area) had a 0min queue... which was closer to an hour due to the amount of Fastrack and comp tickets they had, plus bizarrely sending each 3rd train empty.
Blivvy never seemed to break a sweat, Smiler was mostly 60 mins all day, I simply will not queue in that pit of concrete misery and dirt. Thankfully single rider was under 10 mins.
Duel - is very purple and bright - no, just burn it down, its a waste of time now.
Blade, was nice to see in pieces across the park.
Rapids, I debated just for a sit down because thats the only point of it now.
There was a point during the day WickerMan was down for 'planned maintenance' 13 down and then Oblivion went down - its times like this you realise the absolute lack of flat rides to support the coasters. I beg you merlin, buy 2 or 3 second hand flats and chuck them anywhere - a park of purely coasters is a not a park.
Mazes (Spoilers within)
We did not do Skin Snatchers or Sub Species - the faux american mine is very very over done and Sub Species feels older than my nan. We didnt do Project 42 mainly because I forgot it existed until I saw it and remembered the poor reviews.
We did do:
The opening scene is BRILLIANT. The intimate atmosphere, the actor was brilliant and effects very good. The maze itself looks glorious, the roof struts, the toy room, the outfits - just brilliant. Some of the actors (hey wind up doll) were great.
The fireplace heat was a very clever touch. There was a projector scene which was... lacklustre. If you didnt hit it at the right time, it was a waste. I dont think a cycling video scene belongs in a maze so unpredictably times.
Its not a maze without issue though: its short - theres no getting away from the fact its probably the shortest on park. There is no real, significant, finale - ToTT was infamous for that strobe finale and the booming music, while I was bored of it, I found Id have accepted it on The Attic - a lot of dark rooms and one solid creature outfit is not a finale. Sadly. 6/10.
Darkest Depths I will preface this review saying we got lucky with a group of 6 all adults and the actors clearly revelled in this and amped the scares up.
Story? Check. - Opening story told brilliantly, really set it up simple but well done.
Sets? BEAUTIFUL - The tavern, the sinking ship, the Kraken (and its EYES!)
Effects? Screens, Water, Sand, the smells!
I dont know who designed this but you are a scaremaze God!
Can we please bin off the "family" dungeon which is barely themed and full of nothing and keep this glorious ode to a good family scare- I'll start the petition. 9/10