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UK Halloween events

Fear Island (Fantasy Island) was very good on the VIP press preview night. They put on a great show and had a new maze open, Snap, a circus/clown themed entity. Psycho Mansion, 9 Circles and Ravenous (with resident banjo-playing creepy hillbilly Cletus in great form again) returned, although it took us around an hour to get into the latter one (they were only accepting six at a time when the queue was massive, but then started sticking 10 in a group to get more people through). YouTuber Lifthillsandthrills reckoned it was the best scare attraction in the country.
 
Twinlakes Xtreme Scream vs Tulleys Shocktoberfest.

Only did Xtreme Scream first time last night but never done Tulleys.

How well themed the mazes are at Xtreme Scream and Scary for a junior park took me by surprise and I have been to Twinlakes many times before but Xtreme Scream felt completely different
 
Xtreme Scream is easily the best UK Halloween event I’ve done. Some of those mazes go on for like 15 minutes!

I’m visiting Tulleys’ sister event The Howl later this week. Surprised to learn that they now have 7 mazes (it was only 4 I think the last time I visited) so looking forward to checking those out.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Xtreme Scream is easily the best UK Halloween event I’ve done. Some of those mazes go on for like 15 minutes!

I’m visiting Tulleys’ sister event The Howl later this week. Surprised to learn that they now have 7 mazes (it was only 4 I think the last time I visited) so looking forward to checking those out.
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I was shocked how long the mazes were at Xtreme Scream at a Juniors park. My one thing with the event is I wish the entire park of Twinlakes was accessible a night ride on Buffalo would be cool and theres a lot more land around the park for more mazes
 
Halloween Haunt Fest has ‘ceased trading and entered into voluntary insolvency’. I watched Coaster Crazy’s vlog a week or so ago and he said it was terrible, as have others.
 
So sad to hear about Halloween Haunt Fest. Yes ok the press night was a disaster; but most of the reviews since then have been positive. I visited a week after press night and thought it was a fantastic event. I think they just needed time to get everything settled in, as it sounds like they rushed to get it open for press night before it was really ready.

If we forget the press night, it was a great event. Really good mazes, with high quality set design, really good roaming actors, and overall a great event which sadly just had teething problems. Glad I got to experience it when I did, but such sad news as you could tell the passion was clearly there from the event organisers.
 
One of the Halloween Haunt Fest cast has set up a JustGiving page to raise money for the actors, staff and managers who lost their jobs: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfun...ulA7Vm2XbmSGSVOSVY_aem_QNWkoFDpcUiEXJN3EYVBpQ

Sadly, as we all feared, it sounds like they haven’t been paid. There’s even someone in the comments who says their firm provided the security for the event and will now probably never be paid.

Understandably, it sounds like there a lot of anger surrounding this event. From what I witnessed, the actors and sets were exceptionally good, but clearly the event itself was mismanaged, which makes it all the more sad that this happened to such a talented bunch of people.

Full info from the JustGiving page below:

Halloween Haunt Fest was set to host an exciting scare attraction at the Hertfordshire Showground, but when the news broke that the company had gone under, we were left in the dark. The CEO and General Manager departed without any communication, leaving us to learn about our fate through social media. It’s disheartening to think that after weeks of effort and commitment, we still haven’t received any updates or support.

Before we all go our separate ways, we want to come together one last time for a gathering where we can share stories, support one another, and enjoy a meal together. Your contribution will help cover food and drinks for this much-needed reunion.
 
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Sorry for the double post.

The BBC have today published an article revealing that there were around 100 scare actors who were due to be being paid around £1,000 each for working at the event, and managers who’d been working on auditions and set up in the run up to the event who are owed between £4,000 and £10,000 each for their services to the event. Likely to now never be paid.

Full article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj41y5kpyyro.amp

I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge of how the insolvency process works. Does anyone know what legal rights all these staff have to fight for the money they’re owed?

This is honestly a really horrible situation for them to be in, especially when we consider that many would have turned down, or not auditioned for scare acting jobs at other attractions (such as nearby The Howl) in order to work at this failed event.

As I alluded to in my previous post, the actors and staff made this a really first class event, but the more and more I hear it sounds like there were all sorts of issues going on behind the scenes.
 
Enter Valhalla said:
Sorry for the double post.

The BBC have today published an article revealing that there were around 100 scare actors who were due to be being paid around £1,000 each for working at the event, and managers who’d been working on auditions and set up in the run up to the event who are owed between £4,000 and £10,000 each for their services to the event. Likely to now never be paid.

Full article here: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cj41y5kpyyro.amp

I don’t have a huge amount of knowledge of how the insolvency process works. Does anyone know what legal rights all these staff have to fight for the money they’re owed?

This is honestly a really horrible situation for them to be in, especially when we consider that many would have turned down, or not auditioned for scare acting jobs at other attractions (such as nearby The Howl) in order to work at this failed event.

As I alluded to in my previous post, the actors and staff made this a really first class event, but the more and more I hear it sounds like there were all sorts of issues going on behind the scenes.
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For those employed directly by the organisation who has gone bust, they can claim owed wages via the government’s Redunancy Payments Service.

For those businesses that have contracted work, they are an unpaid creditor and will get a proportionate slice of any assets that can be sold to recoup money (if there are any).
 
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AT86 said:
For those employed directly by the organisation who has gone bust, they can claim owed wages via the government’s Redunancy Payments Service.

For those businesses that has contracted work, they are an unpaid creditor and will get a proportionate slice of any assets that can be sold to recoup money (if there are any).
Click to expand...
Thanks for the explanation, I think it’s likely that a lot of the actors were self-employed and were invoicing the company. Things don’t sound good for them, based on this. All very sad. And concerning for the contracting agencies, such as the company who provided the security and are now thousands of pounds out of pocket.
 
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