Oh dear.
Oh dear, oh dear...
Back in 2010, Diogo and I went to our first Scaregest together. A last minute decision (we realised we would make the then TTF meet about a week beforehand) involving picking Diogo up straight from work around 7pm on the Friday night (and myself due to start work at 4.30am on the Monday) and our usual three hour drive to Towers - which for various reasons became a ten hour drive and crawling into bed at the Weathervane at 5am Saturday morning...
It was the best Scarefest we've both been to. Fab lighting around the park, great atmosphere, we ended up bailing on the paid mazes from sheer knackeredness but those were by the hotels that year and on going well past 11pm...
Subsequently each Scarefest as an 'event' on park has gotten less and less. My personal thoughts on what I'd change about it aside, The Sanctuary was a great addition... but once you were out of the area of Towers Street and the three mazes, you'd have struggled to know it was Halloween. The lighting was awful, where there was anything on the rides and coasters the huge white generator floods completely washed it out - and as we both work in lighting, this is 1) really important to us and 2) know just how much atmosphere lighing is responsible for creating. Walk into a TV studio with just the houselights on - oh those sets look drab and bad! As much as the view I know here is Phantasialand generally feels like a sterile park compared to Towers, having been there at New Year you knew exactly what time of year it was wherever you were on the park - ITS CHRISTMAS! - and I loved the atmosphere that created. And this is what should be happening around Towers during Scarefest.
Both Diogo and I are not restricted by school holiday times to visit, so as a general preference - we don't visit then! Last year we came up on the Thursday night to have the whole Friday on park before the official TST meet on the Saturday/Sunday, partially because we would have a chance to get a lot of rides in before the meet (which traditionally involves faff). But also as we live a long drive away we don't go to the park very often so we really wanted to make the most of the trip up by having the extra day. Purposefully being there on a quiet park day to get the most out of the park without the crowds! And the extra bonus of three evenings we could enjoy the night time riding.
Apart from the poor atmosphere in the majority of the park, the resort also managed to fail us on the Thursday night as we called up with a Secret Garden booking on the drive up for a quiet meal, only to discover when we turned up for the booking the resturant was closed from a conference funtion taking the resturant staff away... Needless to say our enthusiasm to come to Scarefest again had already waned before this latest announcement...
And with this new news? 7pm closing I mean... WTF?!?!
People will just not bother coming at all on those 5 days. Those like us who are 'child free' and can take holiday outside of weekends and school holidays will wonder firstly what else will be cut from those days in terms of actors/shows/other touches that add to the event atmosphere. I fear it will just be "usual Alton Towers but dark-ish". With the cuts in hours across the season for term time weekdays already, as a demographic we are certainly not valued as guests. Secondly, the point others have made that why decide to come on those days when you could go a few days later and have two extra hours on park, IN THE DARK. Which is surely the main attraction of the event to people? So they're going to be left entirely unsurprised that attendence will be even lower on those days, losing both the planned trip visitors delaying it and the spur of the moment local visitors who can make it there for a few hours in the evening during that week. As has also been said, they should be looking at why that is and trying to change it than just cutting back because they think those days are just 'quiet'. They're making them quiet by their own actions.
Diogo's already stated he wasn't wanting to go this year before this news and doubly so now. I've yet to go to Towers at all this year, and at this rate, wont be either. The Smiler will have to wait (though with it's unreliability perhaps that's not a bad thing). Honestly, at this point, the only draw of Scarefest is meeting up with all of you, and the fun of dressing up for the evening as a big group which is always a blast! Which is nothing to do with actually going to Towers itself. That seems mightily wrong, but the absolute truth.