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Scarefest 2015

There has been a lot of negativity aimed toward ScareTOUR in this discussion and it's now time we break the silence and explain what ACTUALLY happened. We did not LEAK anything - we posted news that had been sent to business partners and other Merlin attractions. Similar to when we first announced that there would be 2 new mazes and two new scare zones for this year. Everyone questioned our info back then but we were 100% correct.

It would seem that the detailed information we were sent legitimately should never have been distributed at all and the park have requested a full retraction of the announcement (despite the fact that our post was seen by over 10,000 people and shared on Fan websites around the UK)

The park are NOT trying to change names to discredit us, nor are they changing mazes to catch us out. They just clearly had a plan to reveal things bit by bit, but unfortunately, they publicly issued the full press release which we saw before it got retracted

I am proud of our reputation as being the premier source for information about scare attractions around the UK and 100% stand by what we posted. So please stop moaning about the source and just celebrate that this years event will be the best Scarefest ever!
 
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I don't think anybody was having a go at ScareTOUR for announcing anything, but rather at Alton Towers for handling the premature publishing badly. They have simply abandoned a marketing campaign before it has even started, due to the unplanned issuing of information. It is this confused and unprofessional reaction from Towers that has sparked negativity in the thread; I don't think anybody said anything negative directly about ScareTOUR...
 
Im just thinking I never read or heard this leaked news from any other source or business partner that had the information sent to them.
They managed to keep their lips sealed
#JustSayin :rolleyes:

Ps : will also add if the hole marketing campain has now been dropped Towers will probably not promote this until after the sumer marketing campain has finished.
The initial excitement of new scarefest will soon die away instead of being built up over the next few months and hopefully geting the GPs intrest in attending this halloween which is what Towers desperately nead at the minute.
 
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They not going to abandon an entire marketing campaign. They wouldn't have time for a start. They've simply delayed the start or changed the rate at which information is going to be released. I have to say, those scare zone names are so bad that it led me to believe it was a hoax before the Scare Tour post above.
 
I fail to see why people are being arsey because they appear to have postponed the campaign?

Naturally they are going to want to investigate why these details have been published when I imagine an embargo will have been locked down on them. Moreover, they'll probably want to distance themselves from this date to give them time to rebuild any hype lost.

This does seem like a relatively early time to be releasing details, so if they want to push that back closer to the event then that's fine, I fully support their decision :)
 
In fairness, the Scarefest Saturday announcements are barely a marketing campaign. They've done drip-feed announcements about mazes for years now, but it's only a tiny audience (us!) who really respond to it at this time of year.

It's really not a big deal for them to change how they'll announce the line-up. It's definitely not being "arsey". I think there's been a huge overreaction in this discussion.

They'll probably make a big announcement towards the end of August now and then the actual marketing campaign will start.
 
If anything the whole 'Scarefest Saturday' announcement confused people who 'like' Towers' social media channels. A lot of people were commenting on the Scarefest Saturday posts were asking why is a Halloween event happening in the summer...

It wouldn't surprise me if that's one reason why it has been held back, rather than due to the accidental leak. It's a bit early to start releasing Scarefest information and to be honest most people apart from enthusiasts will forget about the announcements by the end of September if they started the campaign now. Like Jordan says it's only us who will really take notice of Scarefest announcements in July/August!

Delaying the announcements perhaps until the end of August will be a better idea. They have the Towers Tastic campaign to cover for now.

I'd assume the leaked press release is an ongoing piece, subject to have changes made over the coming weeks.
 
In response, I was not aiming any comments in a negative light towards ScareTOUR, all of my comments were aimed at Towers for suddenly changing this marketing campaign. I completely believe your line-up, but I am awaiting for confirmation like everyone else too.

In fairness, the Scarefest Saturday announcements are barely a marketing campaign. They've done drip-feed announcements about mazes for years now, but it's only a tiny audience (us!) who really respond to it at this time of year.
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Scarefest line-up for the past 3 years has never been revealed in stages. 2010 or 2011 was the season where we had the countdown 13 days prior to Scarefest (even then the 13 day reveals were just games and videos of the mazes), however for the past 3 years (cannot comment much further as I do not remember past 2011), the line-up has just been published on the website and then people are linked to it. As far as I know, it has never been done in stages like HHN or the proposed Scarefest Saturday. In 2012 and 2013, the line-up was released on August 2nd, and then The Sanctuary in 2012 was confirmed roughly 20 days after this with its logo and name. In 2014, the entire line-up was released early September. I am sure others will agree that over the past few years, Scarefest's line up has always been revealed in bulk rather than stages, which is why everyone thought that Scarefest Saturday would be the perfect chance to build hype and get more of the GPs interest in Scarefest, and also creating an extended marketing campaign for the event so it gets more recognition.
 
I think they have made the right decission and not published any info yet, while they do need a big campaign to drive people to the event more than every this year it is too early to have much of an impact at this stage. The park need to focus on trying to drive up visitor numbers over summer which is something it looks like they are doing, they can then start marketing Scarefest at the end of August/start of sept when it would have much more impact on the general public.

I dont get people saying they just need to right off the summer, while i get visitor numbers are drastically down the park and marketing teams are going to be doing everything possible to drive up guest numbers of the Summer. I am surprised with guest numbers as they haven't done any new online ticket deals such as trying 50% off etc, the online tickets are still more expensive than you can get on the Thorpe park website.
 
It was confusing los of people. I don't know how it can confuse you but there were lots of comments about scarefest being in summer. I think that was probably one of the reasons for stopping scarefest Saturdays, and the other is probably that it takes focus away from the summer, they probably want to focus on the summer (achieved by calling it 'towers tastic') to get people in know. People will go to scarefest, but don't really care about it yet. What they really need to do is something like temporarily lowering the entrance price, lots of people think it's too expensive. Instead they do something that no one really understands.

In short, another triumph by marketing.
 
D!ckhead marketing department, as always!

The info that has been revealed by fan sites is literally for just that - fans. We are a tiny portion of their target market. So tiny it's almost laughable.

Seems obvious they've spat the dummy out over this. A professional marketing team would carry on without a care in the world. That's one thing towers marketing has always lacked - professionalism. I mean wow what a balls up of advertising 'Scarefest Saturdays' and then not seeing it through. Even if major changes are happening, they could have surely found one thing to post about, just to buy some time until the changes were finalised?
 
I really do hope AT's marketing really weren't swayed so easily by something like this, I think Scarefest will be a cracking event this year with what's been shown, It's pretty obvious the excuse of how they wanted to "concentrate on Towers Tastic Summer" is not really why they didn't do Scarefest Saturday. Spose we'll see if they pick it up again next week.
 
I saw a reply on twitter saying "full details on the event will be released on the website soon". So I'm guessing it will be made fully public before the end of august.
 
Did anyone else not think it was odd that the two things were going to be done side by side? Perhaps there is no mystery, they just figured it wasn't a great idea.

As others have said, I'm not convinced the information has leaked out far enough for them to change their plans?
 
It could well be nothing to do with the 'leak'.

Due to low guest numbers I guess it is better to focus on encouraging attendance over the summer via the Towers Tastic campaign, instead of potentially encouraging guests to delay visits until October by pushing Scarefest this early on.
 
AT86 said:
It could well be nothing to do with the 'leak'.

Due to low guest numbers I guess it is better to focus on encouraging attendance over the summer via the Towers Tastic campaign, instead of potentially encouraging guests to delay visits until October by pushing Scarefest this early on.
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This is true but it could also backfire if the GP thinks this is making them look desperate after the accident. The whole thing just looks really quickly cobbled together.
 
AT86 said:
It could well be nothing to do with the 'leak'..
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I got to be honest, I agree with statement. I think due to the smiler incident most people would have postponed their trips to nearer to the end of the season. I booked up a hotel last week and found I had alot less choice then I did when booking up at the same point last year. So perhaps its not needing quite as much marketing as anticipated.
 
Shame marketing team have got all hissy. Oh well - what can we do?

Those disappointed with the TOTT lack of name change - yes the brand will remain but the route will be different. The route change idea was toyed with two seasons ago but wasn't used so it's good to see it materialise. The idea of keeping Terror of the Towers: What Lies Within name is because A) it's established and well known with GP and B) it is a loose enough theme to really play with. Certain scenes will remain but there will be updates and surprises. The towers have actually had a plan for three mazes before so route choice for the mazes will be interesting.

Forbidden Valley scare maze is an old shelved plan which is quite exciting - this has no doubt evolved but the story and ideas around it seem similar. The operations of scare zones this year will be quite cool and different.

As I said before, this year will be the year that Towers really give Scarefest some love. It's nice to see the whole scare lineup refreshed in some way or another.

Now we just need to wait out for park wide atmosphere and family offerings.
 
PeteB said:
D!ckhead marketing department, as always!

The info that has been revealed by fan sites is literally for just that - fans. We are a tiny portion of their target market. So tiny it's almost laughable.

Seems obvious they've spat the dummy out over this. A professional marketing team would carry on without a care in the world. That's one thing towers marketing has always lacked - professionalism. I mean wow what a balls up of advertising 'Scarefest Saturdays' and then not seeing it through. Even if major changes are happening, they could have surely found one thing to post about, just to buy some time until the changes were finalised?
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I don't believe any dummy's have been spat out, the campaign was aimed at the theme park and scare attractions fan audience not the GP. Once it was leaked (and it was not ScareTours fault) there was little point in doing it anymore. I imagine the main campaign that usually starts up at the end of the summer will unlikely to be affected.

Why invest effort into something that will no longer have any impact?

As for the event itself as a few people where suggesting weeks ago things are on the up. Pete and the team will impress i am sure.
 
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