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Scarefest 2013: Discussion

I think it is very stupid Towers are making people pay for TOTT. Lets just hope they actually do Freedom Passes this year!! Anyone else think they'll do them!
 
They're probably charging for TOTT because if you're going to the Dark Forest (which for a Halloween event would probably sound very appropriate to the GP) you have to go right past the sign for TOTT and The Sanctuary, and if they sell the tickets there, then they can make more money. However, if they were selling tickets for just The Sanctuary and then said "but the other one's free" then people will just go to TOTT because it's free. That may be a bit rambling and not make any sense, but ah well :)

Now, on the website there was one thing that I did notice, I mean I'm probably just nit-picking excessively, but aah well, although it says entry for Carnival of Screams is free, it doesn't actually say that Zombie Scare Zone is free, yeah it doesn't say it costs either, but just to the General Public, they won't know whether you have to pay for it or not. My guess is it would be free, as would you really pay for that given CoS is free?... Nit-picking over :)
 
kydog1299 said:
PS: Don't get angry over an event, which for 1. Hasn't even kicked off, and for 2. None of us know about yet. Because face it, none of us know at the moment if some of the mazes will have changed, do we? Even if they haven't, like I said, it's not for us enthusiasts, it's for the general public and visitors. Stop moaning, and think of the positives. Were lucky to get events like this with the amount of cuts and money loss recently.
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But Scarefest has got worse every year from 2010 in one way or another.This is mainly down to a reduction in park lighting and attractions such as Duel Live having to be cut. Events like this should be expanded year on year, that is what makes logical sense. We've had severely reduced opening hours for 5 days of the event, I know I wouldn't want to go when the park closes at 7pm. The general feeling from the park is not to get too excited for Scarefest this year. I understand it will be more of a progression from last year than anything completely new. As I said previously, that would be fine if there was something new as well. It's just frustrating.

However the problem may not indeed lie with Towers. I don't know exactly how things work but Merlin clearly don't give them a big enough budget to do an event that can get better each year. And the budget for park lighting must be next to nothing. I fully believe that with a bigger budget the entertainments team could produce an event that does get better every year. There are some great people in entertainments. Of course judgement has to be and will be saved until the event has been experienced. Hopefully entertainments have used what money they do have well and been able to make some improvements or changes to the mazes. At the moment though, with other things going on at the park also, I think it is fair enough that people are feeling frustrated.

:)
 
But why feel fustrated about an event which hasn't started? No one knows if park lighting will be back to good standard this year, no one knows if the mazes will be changed? Leave your thoughts open wide, until the event has began. We may be slating one of the best Scarefest's yet right now. May not seem like it, but its possible.
 
I think the track record and cuts to this year's event speak for themselves, unfortunately. I hope they can prove everyone wrong but we say this every year regarding most aspects of the park (rides, shows, food, cuts, prices, maintenance, etc...).
 
kydog1299 said:
Yes, but we are enthusiasts. Not normal visitors. Guys, your slating an event which hasn't even started.
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We're still the public! Just because we know more about the park than the average visitor doesn't make us special...

From what we've saw (maze prices, opening times, lack of special details) then it's making the event seem like it's bound to fail. We can slate it if it doesn't sound good but if it is good then we will take it all back!
 
kydog1299 said:
But why feel fustrated about an event which hasn't started? No one knows if park lighting will be back to good standard this year, no one knows if the mazes will be changed? Leave your thoughts open wide, until the event has began. We may be slating one of the best Scarefest's yet right now. May not seem like it, but its possible.
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Because it's a forum where we like to post our views. There's nothing wrong with having expectations for an event like this. People have expectations for all sorts of things. Also there is a good reason to feel frustrated about the 7pm closes during the first week of the event. And with that being the first thing that was 'announced', it sets a bad tone for thoughts on the event. I also think the way that Towers released the details on their website earlier was done in a very unprofessional manner, that is also frustrating.

Think of it like this, at least if you have low expectations then you are less likely to be disappointed come the event! I hope it is a great event, I think we all do. But we have enough reasons to feel frustrated about things at the moment in my opinion anyway. I just have no excitement for Scarefest this year, an event that I have really enjoyed in previous years.

:)
 
Im not too concerned at the moment, I was worried they would have dropped one of the mazes or Zombie scare zone making the event even smaller, but at least they have kept the same number of mazes this year so lets be thankful for that.

Maybe im odd, but I liked CoS, I like the creepy music, the whole big top, scary clowns etc. Yeah ok last years wasnt that great, but lets hope Alton can improve on things this year (thought I doubt it if it is now the free one).

Sanctuary was good last year but was amazing at the start of this year so im hoping they will build on things for this scarefest. ToTT again was good last year, so lets hope for even more this year given that it will be a paid attraction with limited numbers of visitors.

As for the Zombie Scare Zone......one thing screams out to me here - no, not the zombies, but Haunted Hollow. Here is an ideal location for a walk through attraction at scarefest, already themed, all they have to do is set up an entrance and exit (entrance by haunted house), put in the actors, some smoke, put some more props along the route and you have what would be an excellent walk through attraction.

Sad to see no live additions though, would have loved Duel Live to return, that was quite good second time around and not too difficult or costly to implement.

This Scarefest could go one of two ways. Alton could either invest some time and effort (not necessarily lots of money) in some changes to the mazes, and they could reconnect all the lighting we had of previous years. Quick wins which will make the event great. Or, they could rest on their laurels, keep the format the same as last year, and just make it "ok".

My fear is that they will choose the latter. I hope someone from AT is reading is as I would love to eat my words this year......
 
Don't get how the announcement is un-professional as it hasn't been announced. They don't do full SF announcement until September, this was just some edits to a website. We make edits to live parts of this site all the time on TS that are maybe not the complete picture, the difference is we don't generally have 100 geeks constantly hunting through the pages to find the changes.

Considering the site changed within a couple of hours of the 1st set of changes i would guess they where mid-tinkering. You would set up a live test-page for a big change but not to edit some text. Not everything requires a press-release, no doubt they will have a full one in September.

I also agree that saying "carnival of screams is crap" is a bit premature, who knows. it has run 3 times, once was amazing, once was dire and once was mediocre. So it has the potential to be any of those things again really. The sets are great within the maze it just needs a story and some coherence, along with a better finale.

Don't get me wrong i'm not expecting much from Scarefest but that's more because i don't expect there to be any lighting or park-wide atmosphere improvements.
 
I wonder where they will run CoS this year, isnt the goal striker tent now occupied? Would be great if they did actually set up a proper big top on the field!
 
GaryH said:
I wonder where they will run CoS this year, isnt the goal striker tent now occupied? Would be great if they did actually set up a proper big top on the field!
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The unit was occupied before last Scarefest and they just changed everything around and it was good to go. They'll probably do the same again this year.
 
kydog1299 said:
But why feel fustrated about an event which hasn't started? No one knows if park lighting will be back to good standard this year, no one knows if the mazes will be changed? Leave your thoughts open wide, until the event has began. We may be slating one of the best Scarefest's yet right now. May not seem like it, but its possible.
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With an event with reduced opening hours, I don't really see anything to suggest that they'll be able to improve park lighting or the such - if anything, the budget would be cut as the event is running for less hours and therefore creating less revenue. We all know how they like to link budgets to revenue forecast.

And that's why, to me, this event feels like it'll be less of one. There's less effort to make it amazing when it's got a worse run. Why do lighting when it'll only be dark for a week instead of two etc?
 
I can't see them wanting to improve lighting if they've cut open hours back for a good portion of the event. They'd be spending money on something that will hardly get any use.

And myself and Longy were talking about the potential for adding to the Haunted Hollow as well as or instead of Zombies too. If they don't do anything with it, they've seriously missed a trick.
 
They used to have Haunted Hollow live but it was cut as there seemed to be an unusual amount of actors assaulted in it, even with security present. Think the current location for Zombies is easier to manage.

Wish they would bring back Duel live though, thats a great example of how something done wrong leads to it being cut. every year until 2010 Duel live was just that and always had a queue, in 2010 they named it Skelvins Haunted something or other, no-one knew what it was and so they didn't bother... "ohh no it's not popular lets cut it"
 
Seems a shame that ToTT will be paid, but I guess having both paid mazes in the towers and queuing in the same area makes sense. I don't think it will go down well with the public though, given that it has always been free.
I think we can all agree that Carnival is the poorest of all the mazes, so on a positive note, at least we won't have to pay!!! I dread to think of the queues though.
I feel sad when I reminisce of the late night queuing for the field, the amazing lighting on the park, the atmosphere. This event should be getting better year on year (Halloween events get more and more popular) but with the early closing in week one, and nothing 'new' this year, the event seems to have lost any of its spark. Again, this at the 'UK's premier theme park'.
 
Dylan said:
I think we can all agree that Carnival is the poorest of all the mazes, so on a positive note, at least we won't have to pay!!! I dread to think of the queues though.
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How?

You just don't know until it opens, i'm not saying i expect it to be vastly superior this year but there is nothing stopping that theme having a great maze attached and the scenes within are well themed.

For all we know Sanctuary or TotT could be pants this year and Carnival amazing, it's not likely but mazes depend so much on the performance and in having a good finale.

The bags of fun room, mirror maze and the puppets are really good and have potential and the Zoltaire is a great effect but needs to be in a bigger room. I also liked the opening actor (bounder) as well, it just lacked anything interesting after the puppet room last year to end on a high.

As said i'm not saying i expect anything, just pointing out ANY maze can be great if the performance and the finale are sorted, and last years Carnival never got its planned finale due to issues with space caused by a fire-exit. Something you would hope has been sorted in the year following.
 
I love Carnival! Ok, it's never lived up to its first year but in all honesty I prefer it to ToTT. Maybe I've just been unlucky and never had a great run through ToTT but to me it's always been a lot of aimless wandering around and not many scares - like I said, maybe I just had a few duff runs because I know most people on here love it.
 
People have different opinions and people can have great run throughs on certain mazes, but in general terms was Carnival not less well received than ToTT or Sanctuary in the past??
Perhaps I got it all wrong.
I have no idea how it will compare in the future as it hasn't happened yet, I'm basing judgment on past reviews.

Ok, i will rephrase. In my opinion, Carnival of Screams has been the poorest of the three mazes in the past, so at least I won't have to pay for it if I visit this year.
 
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