Scarefest 2013: Discussion

Like how the dates have fell over scarefest, really liked the idea of the preview weekend

The preview weekend was good, as it meant if things didnt work well, they had 5 days to change things, which they did mainly with Carnival of screams.

I really want to see Scarefest 2013 be the best one yet. In my eyes neither 2011 or 2012 topped 2010, it just worked so well, and the excellent use of lighting created such an amazing atmosphere!

This year I can see them heavily investing in new lighting, permanent fixtures around park like the ones in towers street, perhaps around Forbidden Valley and X Sector, something like Flight Lights could also appear in Dark Forest with new area lights being DMX linked so they can show a sequence in tune to some TH13TEEN music variant. This would also mean that while the show is not in progress the area could be lit in an errie green glow so no more floodlights. I think this year they will also switch off the flood light in X Sector replacing it with some low down path lights, up lighters on Oblivion and Smiler projections.

I think Alton often miss out on a chance to use the Duel outdoor queueline at Scarefest, if they're not going to make Duel a feature attraction at Halloween they should create a maze behind Duel and Duel's outdoor queue for the main queue, I think this would be really effective, and could be a variant of Duels theme, you've got to investigate a recent appearance of spirits in the area.

yeah I hope that the preview weekend does return, it broke everything in and made sure it was right for the week after!

I enjoyed the year when they had lasers projected on the towers to music - we were all stood in Her Ladyship's Gardens watching it and it created an amazing atmosphere. Cant recall what year that was though...

GaryH said:

I enjoyed the year when they had lasers projected on the towers to music - we were all stood in Her Ladyship's Gardens watching it and it created an amazing atmosphere. Cant recall what year that was though...

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I think you're on about Fright Lights in 2007. I really enjoyed that to, hope they bring it back at some point!

GaryH said:

I enjoyed the year when they had lasers projected on the towers to music - we were all stood in Her Ladyship's Gardens watching it and it created an amazing atmosphere. Cant recall what year that was though...

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Fright Lights was fantastic, even if it was just because it was a death trap walking through Her Ladyships Gardens in the pitch black! Before they filled in those gaping holes in the lawn too, people were dropping like flies!

It was a nice show and I really enjoyed it, but that location just didn't work from a logistical or h&s point of view, and that was back in the quieter days of scarefest!
They should definitely bring it back in front of the towers or any evening show to give it more of an event feel.

I think scarefest dates should be removed from MAP, or at least charge a discounted entrance fee to MAP holders, then all mazes could be free to all park guests. Currently scarefest is an absolute rip-off for non-MAP holders, they need to look at how parks abroad manage their Halloween events (usually separately ticketed meaning they can still give the event a decent budget and make a profit without charging for everything again once you're in the park)

Earthwürm said:

I think scarefest dates should be removed from MAP, or at least charge a discounted entrance fee to MAP holders, then all mazes could be free to all park guests. Currently scarefest is an absolute rip-off for non-MAP holders, they need to look at how parks abroad manage their Halloween events (usually separately ticketed meaning they can still give the event a decent budget and make a profit without charging for everything again once you're in the park)

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We still bought maze tickets as MAP holders and many of us bought the pass, most of us didn't abuse the pass and only got fastrack entry on ToTT. Thorpe is horrendous with it's mazes and if you have a standard you still have to pay £5 to get in! I'm pretty sure you still have to pay for mazes at Thorpe and we still ended up getting fastrack for the mazes at Thorpe because it was so rammed. Plus what about the people who don't want to do mazes why force a entrance price on MAP holders that don't want to do the mazes?

BUMP!

I dont think this has been mentioned yet so here goes..

School Half Term dates definitely had an impact I thought last year. Typically I belive that all schools nationally used to have the same half term week in late October. Unless I am mistaken (which isnt uncommon) last year was the first year I noticed a real split, when a lot of the schools in Birmingham had October half term in a different week to the surrounding areas. My other half is a teacher and said that the national picture was roughly a 50/50 split of schools taking the 1st and 2nd week.
This resulted in my opion in a less crowded park, and smaller queues for the rides. It probably also presents an issue for Merlin, as instead of running the event over 10 days its now closer to 20. I'm not sure what effect that would have on revenue and costs exactly, but worth consideration.

It looks like the same is set to happen in 2013 with (most) schools in Liverpool, Leicester, Cheshire and Nottingham set to be off from 21-27/10 October and Birmingham, Manchester, Derby and Stoke from 28/10-04/11.

Have I missed a trick and Scarefest has always been this way? Last year did strike me as a lot less busy than the previous 3 years I attended.

TheMan said:

I don't find scare mazes scary, but I reckon a more open, less controlled environment like that would even get me edgy.

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Unless therr are freaky nurses involved then it becomes something else entirely! Haha
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Im sure most of you are aware of Universals Haloween horror nights (if not look it up!!!). Last year i went to Halloween horror nights in Orlando, nothing can compare to it end of........ I know Alton is family friendly and all that jaz, but wouldnt it make sense to have an even later late nite opening and really turn the heat up with actors,age restrictions, etc??

no forgetting getting chased by clowns with chainsaws, firebreathers you name it etc etc, give the customer a true night they wont forget

I had never witnessed anything like it before at HHH and i know budgets the biggest factor but if they pulled together hard enough and wanted to make it a true horror scarefest they could within time??

See I disagree completely. HHN when I went in 2009 was awful. I only did two of the mazes as the queues were 2 hours long and both of them were horrendously bad with no scares. The theming was fantastic, that's all I can say. Give me any of the mazes Towers have done over the last few years though.

I suppose HHN is a better overall event. However I did not get one scare whilst there.

Yeah, I agree to a degree Ben regarding the event diversity and also the inclusiveness of the entire resort.

However, Disney's Haunted Halloween at Hong Kong Disneyland is much dark than any of it's other sister events across other parks.

It has a mixture of parades, scare mazes etc.

I think the difference with alton being that it has limited offering for 'all round fun'. It's either for the very little or for the un-frightened.

It needs a pyramid system:

Little Magic and Fun: Trick or Treat doors, Franklyn's Freaky Farm, Scarefest gang show and Story time with Skelvin, Riverbank Eye Spooky-fied.

Laughs and Frights: Duel:live, Hex:Live, Haunted Hollow interactive (daytime with live actors) and an evening light and SFX show either in front of the towers and across the lake or over-head on towers street? Maybe projection mapping the buildings, transforming in time to music etc?

Terror: ToTT, Maze 2, Maze 3, Maze 4?, Scarezone 1, Scarezone 2.

Then, to create more of an atmosphere I think Nemesis, Air, Th13teen, Rita and Oblivion should "bow down" to scarefest with a music, lighting, smoke and perhaps slight storyline overhaul. Then the flume, congo, RMT etc spookified with a few touches. CCL become a little tiny terror's area with a few fun and silly props. That way we have more than just TS embracing the season.

I just feel the atmosphere needs to be family and then the offerings need to be diverse to interest all.

I liked the preview weekend idea, but being truthful I was a bit disappointed that they lessened the number of overall days that Scarefest ran for last year (including days with Scare Room availability) :/ The pro was obviously that it gave them time to iron out the kinks from the preview which was definitely a good thing, the con was that it squashed the whole event into around one week - and the time of year that we normally go is the "quiet" days, whereas there were no quiet days as a result. From the parks POV it makes more sense to do it that way but from my own selfish POV.. bah!
I expect it'll be much the same this year. Heh.

Ben said:

You arent the first to suggest this, and you wont be the last.

In earlier years the scaremazes used to be located off park (near the hotels) and ran until midnight, which to me were the best year...

Queuing beside a corn field at 11:30pm, with screams emitting from the darkness was so atmospheric - and it also meant activities out of the park. They were in my opinion much darker and aggressive than the past few park offerings, i.e being loaded into a bus, to see the driver killed and zombies invade as final scene was amazing.

Sadly as is frequently the case with Alton money rules, it was decided mazes on park for the park hours would create more revenue and they wouldnt have to pay staff to be there until late.
So now while we have 3 mazes on park with a scare-zone, instead of 1 maze on park and 2 at resort, they have all been toned down a little and operating hours cut drastically.

Id love for alton to do a Universal style event, sadly the park are more family orientated and more financially restricted. 9pm close at alton is a miracle, dont ever expect anything better.

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That's not exactly true, they moved the mazes as guest feedback suggested most guests didn't know about the mazes off park and didn't want to traipse over to the hotels.

I personally didn't rate the cornfield, in three years it had one good scene (bus finale) and was mostly spent wandering through corn with nothing happening. I do however think that they should keep 3 mazes on-park but have one maze at the hotels running until late.

Dave said:

I personally didn't rate the cornfield, in three years it had one good scene (bus finale) and was mostly spent wandering through corn with nothing happening. I do however think that they should keep 3 mazes on-park but have one maze at the hotels running until late.

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And this is where people are different. The corn maze was my favorite. Yes, you spent time walking through a corn field, but that just added to the atmosphere, and hearing screams coming from random places added to it.

I also liked the fact it had a story, that you could follow. The current mazes, once your inside, there is no story, its just room after room.

TOTT and Carnival both need replacing this year, keep the Sanctuary as its linked to the new ride.

The problem with the Hotel mazes, is there is nothing to do apart from the mazes if your not staying at the hotel. There is no entertainment, or anything that would make you stay a little longer, it was just a case of queuing for the mazes, and then going home.

I do not see any reason, why the mazes on park have to close early, they could be kept open til midnight if they wished, but that will cost them more money, and I doubt any of us would be happy with the price of the mazes increasing.

Ian

IanB said:

I also liked the fact it had a story, that you could follow. The current mazes, once your inside, there is no story, its just room after room.

TOTT and Carnival both need replacing this year, keep the Sanctuary as its linked to the new ride.

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This is my biggest gripe with mazes on offer not just at Towers but at other parks too recently. Far too many rely on just jump scares and effects rather than tying it in with a good, well thought out and paced story. At the moment The Sanctuary is the only one that leans towards having a good story.

The Field of 1000 Screams and to an extent Room13 both had a really solid story that you could follow along with a good amount of jump scares and effects to boot. I feel that mazes like TOTT and particularly Carnival rely too much peoples fears of being made to jump, the dark, clowns etc. rather than coupling this along with a good story line, which is what both Room13 and Field of 1000 Screams both did.

I'd really like to see a return of two quality off parks mazes along with 2/3 improved mazes on site.

I LOVED Field of 1000 Screams. It was great at the end of the night to walk through a creepy cornfield with a full moon shining above in the cold of the night wondering what was hiding in the corn. The crashed car scene, the hiding in the shed when zombies attacked and best of all, the bus scene at the end. Loved it.

Boiler room was pretty good too. While the first year of Carnival of Screams was good in the field, I dont think it was as good last year.