Scarefest 2018

Anyone got any thoughts on wether it’s worth the expense of purchasing Fast Track for Scarefest? Reading a few things here, it seems FT queues are as bad as regular queue lines!

Last year on the Saturday of Halloween weekend we bought a platinum fastpass's. Through the day it was fine but later on the queues were crazy. 1hr for Rita, 45mins for 13, 30mins for Smiler. So we didn't bother in the main. So, if you plan to use the fastpasses during the day it works.....if leaving them for the evening I would just go with the main queue. From what I've read on here it seems its the same this year.

Wigwam67 said:

Anyone got any thoughts on wether it’s worth the expense of purchasing Fast Track for Scarefest? Reading a few things here, it seems FT queues are as bad as regular queue lines!

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Despite the huge queue waiting times, I personally refuse to pay for Fast tracks. The queues should not be as long as they are for the park numbers. If the info that I've been told is correct, apparently there was only approx 12,000 guest on park on the Saturday 6th Oct and only approx 14,000 guest on park on the Sunday 7th Oct. The queue lines should never be this long.

The next bit of information I got conflicting info from two different sources. Apparently the guest numbers have declined again this season (which I find hard to believe due to the Wickerman) and the queue lines have been artificially increased through poor operations to increase fast track sales. This is disputed from another source, so make of it as you wish.

I personally will not purchase fast tracks as this plays into the hands of Merlin/Alton and we will only encourage them to keep on providing poor ride operations in order to sell more fast tracks.

Fast tracks can be good, but in my experience, they only really save you 10 mins, if the queue lines are quiet, then they are useless, and if the queue lines are busy, then so are the Fast track queues, so again making them useless. Don't forget that there is usually a long queue in the box office to go and collect them too

Visitor numbers being down sound definitely BS.

I’ve heard tons from people going to Towers for the first time in ages or even first time at all. Also I’d suspect the new AP’s would have helped increase attendance.

Not to mention we’ve had word from the park themselves saying that WM has been successful, I can even remember Towers FB saying in the first month alone WM passed 100,000 riders.

I'm personally not sure that the numbers have decreased this year; I was under the impression that Wicker Man had been massively successful in bringing in new guests!

Numbers are up, they are not back to their pre-2015 numbers and poor operations make the park seem busier than it is in comparison. But I wouldn’t be surprised if Towers comes close to reclaiming the top spot for guest attendance in the UK this year.

John said:

The park struggled today due to frequent weather related shutdowns and overallocated of fastrack. Smiler main queue looked horrendous earlier in the day, couldn't see how long it was later on but got a good laugh out of the ft queue length at around 6.30. Oblivion main queue was shorter!

WM ran off the queue at around 10.20, 2 train op all evening - rumoured to be deliberate low capacity to ensure an on time opening tomorrow.

Park some way off maximum guest numbers today, expect things to get worse over the next few weeks.

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The 3rd train was off for maintenance apparently. Was running on 2 trains all day Saturday and most of Sunday. Joined an advertised queue of 80 mins at 8.45 on Sunday night and was off the ride by 9.40. When we joined the queue, it was running 3 trains again.

Laura91 said:

Just got back from my first ever scarefest.
Rides queues yesterday were insane (waited 2hr 30 for smiler)
Really enjoyed mine tours and project 42 (bottled sub species) the actors were fantastic and really creepy.
It was nice to see the freak show roaming around the park and even managed to catch the elusive ghost pirates in mutiny bay today.
Forced myself into sub species today and wow that was intense a lot less actors than I expected but enough to keep you on edge for the duration.
Didn’t really see the galactica airways so can’t comment on that.
Left about 6.30 because of what day it was but didn’t really witness anything bad, only some kids trying to jump into the welcoming queueline and a hell of a lot of police.

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People were removed from the Smiler queue for queue jumping and on Marauders Mayhem, some girls got out of the car before the ride had completely stopped even though the ride op told them to sit down. He e-stopped it and one of them jumped the locked exit gate, the 3 others didn't. He called security and they were all escorted out of the park. Needless to say both occasions all involved were from a certain community who were visiting. We spoke to the ride op and he said that so far (it was about 6pm) a few hundred had already been removed from the park for bad behaviour.

A few pics from this weekend. The lighting on Wicker Man that lights up the structure and the coaster actually flickers red and yellow so giving a realistic burning effect.





https://imgur.com/6MIDBuc
https://imgur.com/FkhyQIn

A video of the skeletons in the window is here. A shame that their audio was drowned out by the musical bush that was behind me!


At the beginning and end of the animation, they draw the curtains. The one after that was them all ballroom dancing! Great touch that sadly not many saw.

funstie161 said:

Last year on the Saturday of Halloween weekend we bought a platinum fastpass's. Through the day it was fine but later on the queues were crazy. 1hr for Rita, 45mins for 13, 30mins for Smiler. So we didn't bother in the main. So, if you plan to use the fastpasses during the day it works.....if leaving them for the evening I would just go with the main queue. From what I've read on here it seems its the same this year.

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Me and my friend were there that day. We had to queue for 20 minutes in the car just to get inside the park boundary. It was absolutely packed

So I did all of the mazes on Saturday, here is a quick summary.

• Mine Tours - same as last year with a slightly revised ending. I quite like this maze, it flows well and builds up nicely.
• Sub-Species - I had a poor run through with very few actors. Not a patch on what it was in its first year.
• Project 42 - the pre-show video starts off by saying "project 42 was a failure. That sums it up quite well! It's just very generic and does not have a story that works. Hopefully it will not return in 2019, it is not up to the standard of an Alton Towers scare maze.
• The Welcoming - even better than last year! It's not scary (it's not meant to be) however it is a great theatrical production with lots of actors and great pacing and build up to the finale. The finale is much improved also. Definitely the highlight of Scarefest 2018.

Project 42 is my favourite maze there. I know it’s down to personal opinion but I really enjoyed it and can’t wait to go through again. I felt the actors were really strong, I liked how the actor outside was interacting with the nemesis queuline, I didn’t see them break character once. I also loved the make up in the final scene.
I also really liked the fact the maze hosts were in themed costumes, only having gone to fright nights before and seeing all the hosts just in Thorpe uniforms, it was a nice change.

"What are your hopes for visitors to Project 42?
We want guests to feel like there is no escape and that they are immersed in a world of fear. They should be asking; why did I sign up to this? When will it end? And sigh a breath of relief once they exit the attraction but want to go around again because the adrenaline rushing through their system. If I can hear screams and gasps of horror when guests exit a maze I know we’ve done a good job!"

Wants to hear people scream and gasp as they exit the maze,. he must be very very very disappointed by now then

https://backstage.merlinentertainme...ogInQvEH3NSsKkicpWkXhIWWaHHP1LF2fG0j4YFOlLBsw

Mine Tours just gets better and better.

I’m gonna be so bummed when this maze goes

P42 I’ve finally give up on. There was a glimmer of hope today but after catching upto the group in front was just a conga line of zero scares to the end.

Wigwam67 said:

Anyone got any thoughts on wether it’s worth the expense of purchasing Fast Track for Scarefest? Reading a few things here, it seems FT queues are as bad as regular queue lines!

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We went today and one of the staff members said to us that it was the busiest day this year, we waited a maximum of 10 minutes with our FT passes so it was 100% worth it.

chlowaa said:

We went today and one of the staff members said to us that it was the busiest day this year, we waited a maximum of 10 minutes with our FT passes so it was 100% worth it.

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I begrudge paying any money towards FT. A good day at a theme park should not cost you more than than £50 entry fee to ride a handful of your favourite rides.

If FT was completely removed (or the sale of them limited to a sensible number), then the main queues would't be as long as they are. Guest purchasing FT is only adding to the problem.

Poor ride operations is also adding to the problem this year.

As scarefest and fireworks have no ert, what is the best ride order (if you want to ride all the thrill rides with the shortest possible queues)? At the moment I think it's wicker man, smiler, 13, rita, galatica, nemesis and oblivion but is that true?

RoyJess said:

I begrudge paying any money towards FT. A good day at a theme park should not cost you more than than £50 entry fee to ride a handful of your favourite rides.

If FT was completely removed (or the sale of them limited to a sensible number), then the main queues would't be as long as they are. Guest purchasing FT is only adding to the problem.

Poor ride operations is also adding to the problem this year.

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Wickerman yesterday was up to 180mins at times. It was running to its maximum capacity with trains reliably crossing on break run and lift. Only fastrack avaliable for it is the very limited platinum. Make of that what you will.

Sent from my SM-G950F using Tapatalk

TPC said:

As scarefest and fireworks have no ert, what is the best ride order (if you want to ride all the thrill rides with the shortest possible queues)? At the moment I think it's wicker man, smiler, 13, rita, galatica, nemesis and oblivion but is that true?

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Good luck!

Merlin/Alton has certainly implemented all day queuing this season

I thought Mine Tours and Sub Species were much stronger yesterday than at the start of the event, but Project 42 and The Welcoming were not as good as opening day.