Scarefest 2013: Discussion

[Ben]

After a chat with some members tonight I wanted to just visualise some of the ideas Ive got for Alton that arent unachievable and could make a much more impressive atmosphere and experience on park.

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Mutiny Bay
You cant really do much with a Pirate theme for halloween, thats fine, not every area needs to have decorations etc.

However, Marauders Mayhem - could be done for Halloween, bit of cloth over the outside to make it dark inside and a strobe chucked in for measure. Sounds like it wouldnt do much? Check out this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GV-PB9o3hI#ws

Yeah.


Haunted Hallow
New Family Scarezone enter the Lady of the Lake.

Groups are batched in the area around Battle Galleons (opposite GW end closed off) and led into the path at intervals. Along the way your host 'walks the line of time' to make you discover the story of the lady who was attached to the water and which led to her death.
You would briefly meet characters who had been involved with the woman and her eventual demise.

As you approached the end of the path (and near the lake) you would briefly spot the woman, looking beautiful and natural...

It would turn out a scorned lover had drowned her in the lake, and she couldnt leave the place, still lost and longing for love.

Then as a finale she would re-appear but all damaged and disfigured, though clearly not too much as to scare the youths. Your host would then return you to the correct tome safely and deposit you with an area 'brimming with spooks' - ie Gloomy Wood.


Gloomy Wood
Duel: Live - another family attraction - hurrah!
Guns turned off, HH sound track back, the fun and slightly sinister spooks are back - including the butler again. Perhaps not use him as a batching tool, but just to be in the lobby greeting people. For the 5 or so actors in there, its a simple trick to do.

Also at night time, dont use the horrid white lights! Some nice deep blues would be nice, also properly use the full queue - even if its dead, you'd be amazed the difference walking through a dark graveyard makes.

If it does become quiet, use the butler to meet guests from the Lady of the Lake tour and use him as promotion for the ride. Its kind of ideal, 2 proper family attractions leading into each other.


Katanga Canyon
Imagine...
Deep greens and the odd red light in the area.
The jeep having its green light back inside, fog bellowing over the lake and towards the rapids.

Also smoke for the rapids/RMT tunnel - not much more to add.

Id love a walking actor Shaman to offer voodoo for guests but I think thats pushing it too far!

Forbidden Valley
Controversially I dont mind the white lights in the main area, but Id love them to be searching strobe lights like proper army lights - it fits the theme yes?
Nemesis should have its deep red lights and the station wouldnt look out of place with some nice halloween theming around - the old cobwebs and spiders could work well.

Air, I would love it to be bathed in a nice blue, but that'll never happen and its actually quite magical in the dark as it is.

Dark Forrest
Oh the possibilities!

Firstly - DARK - for the love of god - DARK - not brighter than the sun with a million lights on.
Deep greens all the way, maybe add lighting to the units similarly to whats inside 13s station, it needs to have an atmosphere that has never been pulled off.

If that visually offending scaffolding is still there come scarefest Id love the smoke machines return to add to Ritas launch. Its a simple effect that worked well... briefly seen here at 24 seconds...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=6xaGKL8hL9E#t=21s

Also return the wraiths! They were great to have pottering about, just poiting and gasping, they should come back to wander and be seen.

I'll get to the others another time. Enough for tonight.

 

[Energetic_starfish]

I just hope this year they bring atleast one maze back to the hotel, after staying over every year nothing beat a nice cold pint and a smoke outside ATH listening to people scream on the way out of the mazes ! Never had the same atmosphere in the hotels since they've moved now, everyone seemed to be buzzing and talking about the mazes

 

[Rob]

I'm almost certain that Towers would love to do more for Scarefest than they do. The problem is the budget. They came very close to having to cut either Zombies or a maze last year. It's a shame that the budget is so relatively small, it doesn't give them a massive chance to expand the event. I think the best and most realistic thing we can hope for is small improvements every year so that in a few years time the event is really what it should be.

 

[Ben]

I understand the budget but it seems to be smaller these days than it has been.

Casualties off the top of my head:
Duel Live / Skelvins Adventure
Haunted Hallow Live
Fright Lights (the towers light show)
Field (techincally other mazes have come, but that was a huge cut)
Park wide theming
Room 13 and ALL hotel based attractions
Park wide lighting

Its really a bare bones event more and more. Theres a great phrase about having to spend money to get money, but as ever Merlins purse strings cant be stretched, 2nd biggest operator after disney is it?

 

[stretchy]

My main problem with ScareFest is why is the budget so small?

The answer is simple. The UK parks on a whole seem to think by doing the bare minimum they will get enough people to make a profit and its the profit alone that they care about. What I believe they do is produce a graph that shows projected budget against comeback. If they spend 10,000 they will get 40,000 in return. if they spend 40,000 they will get 60,000 return and so on. They then base the budget on the most profitable for the minimum spend for this season and that is where the problem comes. It seems that they normally only care about 1 season when doing the Scarefest budget. What they often forget is the IP of 'Scarefest' or 'Fright Nights'.

Thorpe's Fright Nights are a perfect example of this. It seems that Thorpe has been scrimping more and more each year for the past 4-5 years on fright-nights, but this might not be the case in actuality as The passage and Experiment 10 both cost quite a chunk of money. But that cost meant that around the rest of the park less and less theming was added so it looked from an outsider that they weren't as much into it as they used to be. Last week I asked around my friends on who wanted to go to Thorpe Fright Nights this year and out of 8 of them, only 1 of them said yes. The others said that it was 'naff last year'. Now I hear that Thorpe are going to try and re-invigorate Fright Nights this year, but the problem is, unless your a fan you will have already been burned by them promising that it was the scariest place on earth and finding it was more like a tea party on the lawn, so when they advertise this year it wont get the response. Which will mean that next year they will say the added investment was worthless as it didn't increase gate figures which means that they gradually wind the event down.

In my universe, you should have 1 scare attractions in year 1. In year 2 you should have 2 attractions(the year 1 one and a new one). In year 3 you should have 3 attractions, the older 2 and a new one and so on. Some of these can be mazes, others can be just themed areas. In the same way that we still ride Nemesis, if a scare maze is good it doesn't need totally re-doing every year. The problem is, the biggest cost is the staffing, but if you design your scare attraction well it doesn't need excessive staffing and actors, thus making it reusable with just the cost of electricity and some care storing it during when its not used rather than being thrown in a bush as this image by King Nemesis shows

 

[josht]

They've lost the atmosphere around the park and hotel, but they only need a bigger budget.

There are a few things I would like to see.

. An extra maze by the hotels again (late night attraction) giving hotel guest and those leaving the park one final scare maybe put a bar there with entrainment
. Some more extreme scares scattered around because I fined forbidden valley un-scarefest
. And just more atmosphere like between 2007 and 2009

 

[GaryH]

Given the low visitor numbers this year I cant see Scarefest being a big event this year unfortunately, which would be a huge shame given the huge numbers of people who turn up for the event. Last year was the worst it has been for a long time.

Even if they have to close one attraction, such as Zombies, im sure it doesnt cost that much to set up atmospheric lighting around the park, especially as most of them thesedays are LED lights which use hardly any power.

 

[Dave]

Given the low visitor numbers this year I cant see Scarefest being a big event this year unfortunately, which would be a huge shame given the huge numbers of people who turn up for the event. Last year was the worst it has been for a long time.

Even if they have to close one attraction, such as Zombies, im sure it doesnt cost that much to set up atmospheric lighting around the park, especially as most of them thesedays are LED lights which use hardly any power.

Numbers have picked up since Smiler opened. The park has been consistently at or above budget. If it keeps performing well then the budget might be boosted a little.

 

[LiamC]

After a chat with some members tonight I wanted to just visualise some of the ideas Ive got for Alton that arent unachievable and could make a much more impressive atmosphere and experience on park.

---

Mutiny Bay
You cant really do much with a Pirate theme for halloween, thats fine, not every area needs to have decorations etc.

However, Marauders Mayhem - could be done for Halloween, bit of cloth over the outside to make it dark inside and a strobe chucked in for measure. Sounds like it wouldnt do much? Check out this video...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6GV-PB9o3hI#ws

Yeah.

I've just been reading back through this topic and I've just noticed this point. When I was at Twinlakes for their Halloween event last year they had done something similar to this on their tiny cups ride and it looked and was awesome. If a small park like Twinlakes can tart up a child's ride to near on that level there's no reason a park as big as Towers can't with theirs.

Unfortunately, however, the recent Halloween events have been getting worse and worse in my eyes. Between 06/07 through to about 09, as Josh has said, the atmosphere on park was amazing and they were consistent with their quality throughout the whole resort. The atmosphere was always fantastic. However, recently, I've felt that the events have stagnated considerably and unless something drastic is done I can't see things changing for the better

 

[blackholes crow]

I've had a thought if towers is strapped for cash at this moment in time why don't they apply for volunteer's to help out around the park creating some of the atmosphere in some of the areas like gloomy wood or around mutiny bay etc...as for lighting (sorry but the speedy hire lights MUST GO), i know that people need to see where there going but there are other colours other than day light white, like the path to kengota canyon (i can never say or spell that word lol ) anyways they use yellow, blues and green bulbs to illuminate the way so why don't they do that sort of lighting down all the main walkways its got to be cheaper than hiring 50+ stage power lights and diesel for the whole event
anyways that's my view :twirly:

 

[Imagination]

I've had a thought if towers is strapped for cash at this moment in time why don't they apply for volunteer's to help out around the park creating some of the atmosphere in some of the areas like gloomy wood or around mutiny bay etc...

Sadly, this would never happen. In the past, some passionate staff members have gone out of the way for "atmosphere" (like masks on air and the laugh SFX in the tunnel) but also, in the past, it has been known that things (like park wide music changes etc) were not allowed to happen due to higher management.

 

[Dave]

Towers don't allow volunteers to work on park, we once volunteered to help clean up the archives with the then archivist. They where really keen but the resort said no to any volunteering.

Shame really

 

[blackholes crow]

that's a shame only if they changed the rules for events like this, but rules are rules and must be obeyed at all times shame just think of the possibilities that it could open up and the amount of people that would work for towers or any theme park for free (well most people on here may do it lol) "its a shame a real shame"

 

[Dobba]

Can't help but think they're missing a trick not Horrible Histories involved in some capacity to bridge the gap between the smaller child stuff (Trick & Treat Doors) and the scaremazes.

 

[ImUrNemeis]

After seeing the Smiler, alot could be done with it during Scarefest. Imagine the marmaliser lit up at night with smoke around the area. The Cattlepin queue could house a mini scaremaze with "corrected" patients moving around. The little walkthrough at the end of the ride could have some actors camouflaged to the walls, jumping out when you least expect. :twirly:

 

[Alastair]

They need to get back that lighting rig they used for the Youtube promo for Scarefest! Imagine seeing that going in the pitch black, it would make the queue almost pleasant

 

[James]

Audition dates were released today for Scarefest 2013.

It mentions The Sanctuary returning (something we already knew) and also mentions the scare zone, so that is confirmed to return, probably the same one they've used the past few years! No mention of other attractions though.

 

[Dave]

They have already confirmed to TowersStreet that TotT and Sanctuary are coming back, that also confirms the scare zone as well.

I expect Carnival will return as well.

 

[Ben]

Arent ToTT and Carnival up for the chop yet? I thought there was a 3 year replacement cycle and the current incarnations are both past that arent they?

 

[Jonathan]

I was thinking that, Ben. I have a feeling that CoS will be replaced this year, as it's been there for three years, and reviews of it from Scarefest 2012 weren't all that wonderful. As for TotT, I have a feeling that this may last for another year before being refreshed/replaces in 2014.