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Scarefest 2016

Hey everyone. I have been lurking around this forum for some time now. Always a useful read for anything regarding AT. Thought I had this year's Scarefest trip planned then today happened.

My brother and I have been going to AT this time of year for years and is the highlight of the year. Did some research regarding which day to go this year as ideally we always go the week before kids break up, so we thought today most would still be in school.

As it happened this was the least of our worries. I had heard about the travellers days and was always comforted in the knowledge it fell on a Sunday, not a day we would ever go.

My suspicions were soon aroused by the hordes of teen girls all wearing the same sort of outfit. But it was only after I happened to glance in their direction or caught their eye whilst walking towards them (as you generally do with people) that I kept getting filthy looks which made me wonder if the unthinkable had happened. Yes, it had.

Thinking back I thought it was odd my brothers rucksack was searched at the entrance and that there were security staff around.

To be honest it was quite an unpleasant atmosphere. It was hard to dodge the large groups, they literally seemed to cover walkways and areas like a fast growing, tangling weed. I never saw anyone do anything to disperse the large groups gathered outside the Towers.

If we had known we wouldn't have gone. It definitely spoilt the feel of AT. The OCD in me noticed for one thing abnormal amounts of spittle on the ground. The floor below as you wait to get off Galactica was pretty well strewn with it. Obviously I can't say for sure who the culprits were but......

Another disappointment was the hotels. Every year before we leave we visit the hotels, have a coke, sit down and watch the fantastic entertainment before our drive home. It's part of our day and we look forward to it. This year outside the water park we noticed (looked like temporary signage to me), notices saying due to the comfort and safety of guests, only hotel guests were allowed in. In the foyer was a man asking to see room keys. We explained why we were there and for eight years we have gone into the hotel but he said this was always the hotel policy but they were enforcing it now. I would have been more likely to believe this but for the fact I asked a member of staff earlier about the police and they didn't know why they were there today. So I'm not sure if this is AT again trying not to mention the travellers day to guests.

Also I was told that bar and grill on Towers Street has been closed all season. Does anyone know if this is true or is it something to do with the bar facility and the alcohol ban.

In a nutshell, I've had better times with AT but it could have been worse. I could have been trapped in a maze with them or stuck upside down on Galactica!

At least now the mystery of the polystyrene balls has been solved. I'm sure the ducks and other animals will really benefit from having them all over the place.
 
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I was at the park on the 21/10. Yes the younger travellers did congregate in large groups and I can see that was intimidating. I saw one fight when some travellers took exception to someone getting them wet on Battle Galleons. Saw some queue jumping, but I just told the person to 'eff off', and he did. Chatted to some older travellers and we had a laugh.
Agree that the atmosphere particularly at dusk and after nightfall was unpleasant. There is something wrong when there is a policeman in CBeebies land and three police standing in the audience of the kids show near CBeebies land. And the actors in the scare zone were getting a lot of grief.
It didn't really ruin my day, but at times it was pleasant.
 
BTW, In response to the poster a couple of slots above me, plenty of alcohol being served in the park - Courtyard and the place near Hex for example. I didn't see an alcohol ban.
 
As we were waiting to come of th13teen security pulled a lad of the train about to leave, the only thing that bothered me was the queue jumping. Oh yeah there was also a lad trying to climb one of Rita's supports from jumping over the fence on the th13teen queue, the staff appeared oblivious to it though!
 
Lots of staff made comments regarding trouble they'd had yesterday however I didn't have a problem, they were slightly intimidating when you had to walk through huge groups but other than that and the masses of polystyrene balls scattered around i still had a pleasant day.

BTW, In response to the poster a couple of slots above me, plenty of alcohol being served in the park - Courtyard and the place near Hex for example. I didn't see an alcohol ban.

The park stopped serving alcohol at 2pm to 'maintain the family atmosphere'.
 
I went yesterday too. Atmosphere was fine until I came out of a maze at 2pmish. I've been on traveller day before but that was a bit different since we knew beforehand it would be and we didn't run into any trouble.

Yesterday however we ran into multiple incidents, the worst of which was in the Galatica queue. A group of about 15 kids entered the queue behind us. In retrospect, we should have just waited a few minutes before joining the queue. Anyway, they were fighting, screaming etc for the entire time which I wasn't too fussed about until they started shoving into us. The staff were absolutely useless. We tried to grab the attention of multiple people and got the response "yeah we find them annoying too". Maybe radio security? The kids managed to knock down multiple people in the bridge tunnel and then just left. Weird...

On another note, this was my first time visiting the park for 2 years and I honestly found it a bit depressing. The closed rides, reduced capacity on others and shuttered shops coupled with some really miserable staff really sapped the energy from the park.

Anyway, on to some reviews (and positives!)

Sub Species: Wow

It must be a logistical nightmare to keep everyone split up but boy is it scary. I didn't see another guest from being put into a door at the start until the tunnel section. The pre-show was really well done, the alien costumes were terrifyingly horrible, the rope section worked really well and the actors were bonkers. I was pulled back through a tunnel, followed for the entire rope section, pushed against a wall by an alien and so on. I normally don't get scared in mazes but being in a pitch black room by myself only to have an alien jump on me from nowhere was terrifying. My only gripes with this maze are that maybe through sheer luck my route had some really sparsely themed rooms and the section before the tunnel (which I guess is the scaffolding taking you from the ruins to the shipping containers) seems unnecessarily wide.


Skin Snatches: Good start, bad ending

Really funny intro from the actor outside. First actor inside was excellent as well. Theming was great and the headlight gimmick worked well. The elevator shaft scene was very cool and I ended up getting dragged by my head into the next scene. I really didn't get the dynamite thing or the guy at the end wearing the skin mask who did nothing.


ToTT: Needs an update

I've only done this maze once before in 2014 but I'm not a fan of the new route. It felt shorter and lacked the build up of the old route. The old route started out slowly and built up to the finale, with the stairs down helping. Maybe I just got a bad run through? There seemed to be a lack of actors and the new finale setup seems way too wide. The vampire effect in the strobes is still really cool though.


Nemesis and Thirteen in the dark are still so much fun. The Smiler is also cool with the screens lighting up the pit. I loved the Towers lights as well.

I was pretty non-plussed by Galatica. My view seemed to be at an angle, meaning I had to shift my head to the left for the entire ride in order to get a 'front on' view. The terrible queue probably didn't help. I really can't see this sticking around what with the increased staff and the reduced capacity.
 
Seemed the amount of travellers there yesterday took some staff by surprise, one of the girls on Galactica said they hadn't expected it to be that busy at all. Personal highlight was getting hook a ducks thrown at us near Nemesis.
 
Seemed the amount of travellers there yesterday took some staff by surprise, one of the girls on Galactica said they hadn't expected it to be that busy at all. Personal highlight was getting hook a ducks thrown at us near Nemesis.

Is it likely there will be a lot of travellers there tomorrow? Was going to take my kids, but might postpone till monday if its going to be bad at Alton tomorrow?
 
Is it likely there will be a lot of travellers there tomorrow? Was going to take my kids, but might postpone till monday if its going to be bad at Alton tomorrow?

Have been on park again today and didn't see any so it's likely they were only about yesterday.
 
Hi all, been a long time member on here but don't post too much nowadays thanks to work taking up most of my spare time. Some of you might remember me from years back. Anyway, me and a couple of friends are going to Towers on Saturday (first visit all season!) and we're going all in and dressing up. Was wondering how many people tend to dress up nowadays?

Yes, many guest turn up in Halloween outfits, the closer you get to Halloween (especially on the day) the more guest tend to turn up dressed up.

I was on park Thursday to Saturday. Yes the travellers unexpectedly turned up on Friday. I heard that they caused all sorts of problems, but I can only assume that these were a small number of them causing trouble as I personally (apart from polystyrene balls everywhere) I did not witness any problems, most of them were very well behaved and if anything, they kept going up to my wife, which I leave in her wheelchair as she can't go on any rides due to her medical condition and they kept asking her if she was OK. We actually had a good day Friday.

The House of Monster Maze was surprisingly brilliant, yes it's a kids (sorry I should say family) attraction enjoyable for all, the themeing and special effects used, was not expected. I can see why a lot of people have been raving about it. It's not a scare maze, but only if they could apply this amount of detailing to all the other rides. Well done to the team with this one. :)

Any magicians out there will recognise the head and body twister illusion :)
 
I did Scarefest for the first time yesterday. The park had a great atmosphere and the lighting in FV, Towers and the scarezones were great. I will discus my opinion of the event.

Park Atmosphere/Towerstreet/General:
The park atmosphere was great I loved the lighting apart from the no lighting in the haunted hollow, it should of been lit up with the amount of people using it and you couldn't see any of the statues. FV was great Nemesis was bathed in red blood which looked great during the day too. Galactica in the dark looked insane! And the VR had been improved at the ending. I also had the Devil Firecracker burger and it was delicious.

Scarezones:
I managed to do both scarezones. Never had did a scarezone before I did Dark Apocalypse twice once during the day, once during the nighttime the actors did there job very well. Freak Show was amazing however it was very busy compared to DA so the actors didn't really interact with us. It was all lit up different colours and created a very freaky atmosphere. The area looked completely different than what it would do than what it would usually look like so well done Towers on that keep it up.
 
Had a great day at scarefest!

Mrs Magnox even went on smiler for the first time, and enjoyed it!!

Took a few pics too
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I thought I'd give my review on this years Scarefest after our trip on Saturday.

I shall start with the mazes..

I really think this maze has had it's day now, every year it appears to get shorter and shorter. It was just the same old same old. There were enough actors in the maze but it just feels so dated now, even the strobe maze at the end felt shorter. We started with this maze as I expected it to be poor and it was. Come on Alton, retire the old girl.

We had high hopes for this maze and saved it until last, we did leave it until the end of the night as the queue was advertised at 90mins at around tea time. The introduction was okay and I liked the acting during the first two scenes but overall I was massively disappointed with the maze. Whilst it had the best atmosphere and theme it just did not deliver.

There were barely any actors in the maze and we just walked around and around meandering through scenes with no scares. I'd hoped there was a big finale when you were introduced to one of the family members and his 'bomb' but it was just a strobe corridor with an actor in it. The rest of the group who I was with were also very disappointed with the experience.

I would have much preferred Molly Crow to return instead of this waste of time.

The saviour of the mazes! This was the best maze last year and it was the best maze this year. There were a few noticeable tweaks on last year and it was the star of the show. Last year there appeared to be predetermined routes, this year it was a total cluster f**k. I was pulled from pillar to post, meeting up with members of our group and then being grabbed and forced a different way. I was jumped scared quite a few times which is rare for me.

There was so much buzz upon leaving the maze from our group and so many different horror stories from each person. The ending seemed stronger and more exciting than last year and the actors appeared to have ramped it up. I would happily see this return for future years and new routes added.

For a Saturday during Scarefest it wasn't as busy as normal, even though we had fastracks the queues were all tolerable. I was impressed to see more park lighting this year with rides and coasters being lit appropriately instead of floodlit and there was definitely more around park ents. Freak show was a great addition and a fun little area to walk through. Towers Street also looked the best it's ever been.

Overall we had a great day out and everyone loved it. It is certainly not the strongest year for mazes and you can tell budgets were stretched, there just isn't a big enough budget for the event and it shows in places.
 
I don't know why Alton put up with not only the cost (around £50k rumored) to police these traveler days, but also the bad press they get (Tripadvisor), the damage to the park, and allow the travelers to enter. They are a private park, they should stop them entering. I don't care about the PC brigade moaning, every year its the same, and if it is a "small" minority which cause the problem, then if the rest are banned, the community will soon sort out the troublemakers. No different to a football game where trouble makers are banned.

I was going to visit this weekend but so glad I didn't now.
 
I don't know why Alton put up with not only the cost (around £50k rumored) to police these traveler days, but also the bad press they get (Tripadvisor), the damage to the park, and allow the travelers to enter. They are a private park, they should stop them entering. I don't care about the PC brigade moaning, every year its the same, and if it is a "small" minority which cause the problem, then if the rest are banned, the community will soon sort out the troublemakers. No different to a football game where trouble makers are banned.

I was going to visit this weekend but so glad I didn't now.
They could ban those who do create issues. But as with a football game, you could not ban the entire demographic, when thee is a large number who do not cause issues. I'd be completely for banning those who threaten people or cause damage, but I don't see why completely harmless people should be banned because they fit into a certain group.


Also, a question regarding skin snatchers:
what are people saying about there being a finale about a bomb? I just walked straight out, I don't think there was even an actor in the last room.
 
They could ban those who do create issues. But as with a football game, you could not ban the entire demographic, when thee is a large number who do not cause issues. I'd be completely for banning those who threaten people or cause damage, but I don't see why completely harmless people should be banned because they fit into a certain group.

I think you are completely right Leah. I was on park on Saturday and apart from some loud Booing and cheering when Thirteen temporarily broke down I didn't see any problems. In fact if there hadn't been police wandering around I wouldn't have even known about the travelers.

Skin Snatchers:
There is supposed to be a finale sequence in the tanning room (the last room you go in with the full man suit on the ceiling) where it fills with smoke, the lights strobe and the floor shakes but apparently due to the timing of the sequence some people do miss out on it. I didn't get the finale sequence on my run through either and I know a lot of people who have also missed out on it.
 
I think you are completely right Leah. I was on park on Saturday and apart from some loud Booing and cheering when Thirteen temporarily broke down I didn't see any problems. In fact if there hadn't been police wandering around I wouldn't have even known about the travelers.

The amount on park Saturday was dramatically lower than Friday.
 
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