My thoughts of the event having now been to the park. I'll try and no go on too much as many of you know how Scarefest is.
General Atmosphere
The park had a good atmosphere as always. Different to any other normal day in the season? I would say no. It felt pretty much the same as any other time of the year. When you're in Towers Street and Fountain Square you really feel like it's Halloween and the atmosphere feels very different. Beyond those areas though the park feels more or less the same.
I understand a park the size of Alton will never be able to get fully decorated although a few pumpkins, photo points or haystacks in areas would work well.
Park Lighting
Not much to say here. Lighting is good in some areas. The lights with filters on really changes some areas of the park. Going back a few pages I understand that the 2010 quoted £25,000 would not be possible these days (maybe Merlin should just, I don't know, give their leading theme park bigger budgets!) although £8,000 to change all the bulbs to coloured ones is very viable in my eyes. When you compare that to £26k it's a very minimal cost. It would add so much to the park too.
Terror of the Towers
Walk on all day on both days of my visit (although I only did it the one day). I did go on it in the daytime though so maybe people are going to the mazes at night? Either way it was nice to be able to get straight in there.
Now I'm used to being in dark environments although I found it very difficult to walk up the stairs to the briefing area, it was pretty much pitch black and was a nightmare to work out where I was going. Some dim lights pointing at the stairs would have helped. Just a small niggle of mine.
Onto the maze itself. The pre-show is really quick and I don't actually see the point of it, blink and you will miss it. The narrative is very loose and pretty pointless. I really hope they re-do this next year as it's quite disappointing.
The actors were brilliant in the maze and made great use of the area and props around them. I was at the very back but all the actors made sure I got a few good scares too so I'm pretty impressed that they made sure every single person in our group got something out of it. One of the actresses followed me through most of the maze whispering in my ear which was quite funny!
Now the finale. The strobes are as great as ever and it's still the most intense finale in a maze I've experienced. The main problem... lack of actors. I only counted one actor in there which just didn't work at all. Most of the group didn't get any scares at that point and the actor just seemed to be running up and down past us.
A very disappointing end to what was an all round, good, solid maze.
8.5/10
The Sanctuary
Advertised queue time of 10-30 minutes on both days. On the day I went we were in less than 5 minutes.
I was very disappointed to see no Gerry at the start! He was on his break at the time so I sadly missed him. Although the actor in his place was equally as good and stayed very in character with a hint of creepy.
The maze itself... in the kitchen I know there's meant to be fire although on my visit there was no fire in there! We were a small group and I was in the middle so I'm pretty sure I didn't miss it. The actors in this room were good, their scares were a bit too easy to foretell though, like the male actor in there screamed in my ear, which I expected as they do that thing when they don't make much noise then slow down next to you and yeah.. you know what's coming.
But both may good used of the what is quite a grand room!
The rest of the maze. Good scares all round although there seemed to be a lack of actors? Not everyone in the group got a scare and some actors seemed to be struggling to cover the whole group. There were quite a few empty spots too when we seemed to just be walking in empty areas. I admire the theming in this maze though, there's some nice detail around and I love the concept of it as a whole (when you detach it from The Smiler).
I love the Marmalisation room! It's really well done although the leg ticklers felts more like smooth brushes cleaning my shoes.
The finale was a bit pants if I'm honest. They did the usual group split although I got not a single scare at this point and saw no actor whatsoever around. The last actor I saw was the one who split the group up in two. It was a very disappointing finale and I must say The Sanctuary's hype did not live up to my expectations. It is a great maze but the lack of actors left the experience feeling a bit empty.
6/10
Overall TOTT beat it and still is my favourite. The actors seemed to be working harder in there and I got a lot more out of it than I did The Sanctuary.
The only problem with TOTT is a loose narrative which may as well be scrapped! The Sanctuary is a great concept and very creepy in ways, although a lack of actors didn't make the experience feel as intense as TOTT did.
I sadly didn't get to do Carnival. It had a consistent 60 minute plus queue time, which personally I didn't feel would be worth the wait. It does show though that when there's a free maze, people lose interest in the paid ones! With where the mazes are placed too, people are going to see the free one before they reach the paid ones so I'm guessing most people go for what they can see first!