I've now moved this thread to General Discussion.
Anyway, Scarefest 2015, where to begin! With new attractions and an increased budget, this was the most excited I have been for Scarefest in two or three years. So how did it stack up and were expecatations met?
I'll start with Terror of the Towers (TotT). TotT is pretty much the same maze but in a new park of the Towers with a different route; many of the old scenes remain with some being slightly different due to their new environment. At the end of the day TotT was TotT, you knew pretty much what to expect and it reamins a very solid scare maze. I don't think the new route worked as well as the old one (you could hear audio from scenes that you were not in and the maze felt slightly shorter, shame the strobe maze wasn't a bit longer). The big positive for TotT was the amount of actors in the maze, I did it twice and both times the whole maze was swarming with them. This had been a problem in the last couple of years so was very pleasing to see.
Next up, Molly Crow. This was the first maze that we did and unfortunately we ended up having to wait 70 minutes for it which is not ideal when you have a pre-paid time slot. This was largely down to an issue that they were having with actor change overs on Saturday; it was taking 20 minutes every hour for the changeover so that meant 3 hours of operation were lost overall throughout the day. This problem has now been solved though! This was the hooded maze and going though a maze with a hood on did not really do it for me and become quite tedious. The story is solid though and at least there is a reason to have a hood on throughout the maze, it is protecting your eyes, so it wasn't totally random. The finale is pretty impressive also. Not a maze that I would pay to do again.
Last but not least on the mazes front, Sub Species. Let me first describe it in single words; wow, phenomenal, intense, unique - utterly brilliant! This maze alone makes visiting Scarefest totally worth it. I was not overly sure what to expect from this maze beforehand, I knew there were alternate endings but that was pretty much it. As it happened there were not only alernate endings but multiple routes in a free flow maze where you were split up from others. The first time I did it I was shoved in one of the start doors on my own and experience the whole thing alone not knowing where on earth I was and what was going on, quite an experience! The actos in here are incredible, being allowed to touch you (quite forcibly at times) really does add to it all and cannot be called a gimmick. Myself and Russell were foreced to the ground at one point for a good 20-30 secnds whilst the actor got right in our faces. There is such a variation in scares, theming, lighting and other elements in the maze making it such a 're-rideable' maze. I was also lucky enough to be one of the few that experienced both maze endings (the 'human' ending was always open but they were having some technical problems with the 'alein' ending), however at one point they sent a few very small groups down the alein route for testing purposes. This was the only part of the maze that felt like it needed a bit of work and maybe another actor in it - I'm sure this will come once it is up and running as it should be. Overall this is the best scare maze that I have ever experienced.
The scare zones, Nox Infernus and Dark Apocalypse, are exactly what they say on the tin - scare zones within the park. Dark Apocalypse in FV is the stronger of the two with some really good lighting effects and an actor with a chain saw on the Sunday. I think the reason that these might be getting somewhat mixed reviews is because of the scare zones we have had in the past. Zombies and Scary Tales were never actually scare zones, they were more mini-mazes where you queued to enter a very controlled environment. I much prefer the idea of having scare zones like this year where actors are free to roam - hopefully in future years these can be expanded as they really do help give the park more of a Scarefest feel in the evenings.
Another big positive of the event this year is quite a bit of new music including a totally new soundtrack on Towers Street which is great. Nice to see some new theming on Towers Street as well, even if it isn't much it is a definite improvement. Park lighting is pretty decent this year with there being a lot less white light generators around the place. Still not up there with 2010 lighting, it would be nice to have some more atmospheric lighting on key buildings/trees etc in some areas.
Overally I have to be generally positive about Scarefest 2015. The event badly needed something doing to it and it now does feel totally fresh and exciting. Sub Species really is something else and I urge anyone who has not been to go and give it a try. It says something that I was prepared to pay for it three times over the weekend.
Good work Alton Towers!