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Scarefest 2018

The park struggled today due to frequent weather related shutdowns and overallocated of fastrack. Smiler main queue looked horrendous earlier in the day, couldn't see how long it was later on but got a good laugh out of the ft queue length at around 6.30. Oblivion main queue was shorter!

WM ran off the queue at around 10.20, 2 train op all evening - rumoured to be deliberate low capacity to ensure an on time opening tomorrow.

Park some way off maximum guest numbers today, expect things to get worse over the next few weeks.
 
Just got home after a long day on the park yesterday (Saturday).

Was very very busy with nearly every ride having a minimum 1hr queue .Thankfully the weather was good to us with minimal rain and very warm.

Wickerman was running exceptionally well in the morning on 2 train operation.

Smiler queue was horrendous midday with breakdowns. Some friends took 2hr 30 to get on.

Extended queue line was in use on Hex and Nemesis which I haven't seen for a long time.

Park didn't have much of a Scarefest atmosphere to it without the scare mazes and theming was minimal once out of towers Street. Loved the dancing skeletons in towers window and the dance stage in fountain Square.

As for the scare mazes... In order of doing them.

Project 42 - thought this was average with the maze being a bit hap hazard in storyline. Good to see inside the ride all still there although why is the egg still on show?? Ending made up for what was otherwise a pretty average experience 5/10

Sub Species - had high hopes for this but was sadly let down. Walked through most of the maze without encountering any actors. Meet only 2 in the entire maze. See more staff in there in towers uniforms than actors. Finale was extremely poor. 2/10

Altonville mine tours - was my fave last year and again this year due to the excellent acting inside the maze, the theming and the number of actors inside . Scary but funny as well, really enjoyed it 9/10

The Welcoming - last year left me feeling short-changed, this year felt a lot better with more actors, more scenes, more scarss but also some great interaction between us and the actors. Scenes were very well themed. 7/10


Wickerman was up to 2hr 20 by 8pm so we opted to go on other rides in the dark. Overall we had a good day but feel let down by sub Species and lack of Scarefest atmosphere this year.
 
ringo said:
Have to agree there, our group used up some of our amassed freebie fastrack tonight and was absolutely shocked at how busy the fastrack queues were.

That Smiler fastrack / rap queue is absolutely stupid. certain it was longer than the normal queue. Oblivion mind you was walk on via fastrack both times :confused:
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And there i was thinking i'd pulled a masterstroke and saved all our fast tracks from the season to use for fireworks

We have 11 each i thought we'd fly around the park:eek:
 
Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Towers have released a sneak peak of Project 42:

 
yoursilentface said:
And there i was thinking i'd pulled a masterstroke and saved all our fast tracks from the season to use for fireworks

We have 11 each i thought we'd fly around the park:eek:
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Well at 8pm last night I would say the fast track queue was about an hour long for Wickerman.
 
Actually, IT IS NOTHING for some of us at the moment. It's closed on my days off work so it's been impossible for me to visit so far..........
 
Brief review of Project 42 (maybe not)
had so much potential, but let me down. I'm not sure if it was because I was at the back, but there was no scares, apart from an single actor run in front and block me off. The two things that did get me a bit unnerved were the fact that I had to duck down quite a bit, and the inflatable was quite scary, I hesitated going any further because it was just getting more of a squeeze, thought I'd be stuck. The sets were nice (weapons etc at the start) but the use of the actors was poor) also some nice hints to sub tetra project blah de bah NST. The lift floor dots were still in place, essentially the whole lift was still there. It doesn't seem like the drop section has been removed, but just covered up. If they actually re opened it as the experience like it was as project 42,managed to incorporate the drop ride in it would be cool. I think a lot more people would appreciate Sub Terra more if it reopened as the sets were great, it just wasn't too clear at the start of its life. In 2013-2015 I think it was a solid ride.
 
So far, the event does seem to be reviewing better than Thorpe's Fright Nights from what I've read on the internet. Although I can't really comment due to my fear of this type of thing, I'm sure both are brilliant events for their respective audiences!

Out of interest, would those of you who like this sort of thing say that Scarefest has improved since the introduction of the more intense style of mazes in 2015?
 
Has it improved since 2015

Yes

Is it now relying on the 2015 hype

Yes

Same old samefest

Bring in a new creative director I say get some fresh blood and ideas on the case
 
My main concern with the event is that they clearly have not got enough actors hired at the moment to justify the removal of Scare Zones.

I believe this is down to a recruitment issue across all departments - but nevertheless. It doesn't look good on the ground.

Lighting is good again this year.
 
Scarefest this year I felt was worse than last year and definately worse than previous years. No scare zones, no theming outside of towers Street, very poor sub terra maze, no rapids in the dark ...

Yeah the music around the park is great, the lightning is better around the park, but for me it just hasn't the atmosphere previous Scarefest's used to have.

Having a person in a Galactica uniform stood waving at you in the middle of a path isn't the same as walking through a themed area full of zombies, sirens , flashing lights etc.
 
AstroDan said:
My main concern with the event is that they clearly have not got enough actors hired at the moment to justify the removal of Scare Zones.

I believe this is down to a recruitment issue across all departments - but nevertheless. It doesn't look good on the ground.

Lighting is good again this year.
Click to expand...

I believe they are still trying to recruit to fill all the posts for scare maze actors!!!!!!
 
They are. Part of the problem is that today there are so many Halloween events up and down the country, that is is hard for each event to find the number of "quality" actors. So they end up hiring poor quality actors or having to fork out for expensive agencies.

I believe the Galactica Airways team is meant to be 6 - not 3 - and there is literally meant to be double the actors around the park...then again, there remain vacancies in all departments online.

I think the return of a Scare Zone is needed for 2019. At least there was somewhere you could go for actors, guaranteed. As it is - Scarefest is a bit of a rip off. With the focus on earning revenue from mazes too much. Thorpe and Chessington offer much more as part of your ticket.

I like the stage in Fountain Square, though!
 
This year is very easy for scarefest to beat fright nights. Scare zones have gone but at least the mazes last for more than 5 minutes.
 
I'd say some things are better than 2015. Some things are worse.

Overall, Scarefest generally takes one stop forward and one back each year. This has been the case since the start in 2007.
 
Just got back from my first ever scarefest.
Rides queues yesterday were insane (waited 2hr 30 for smiler)
Really enjoyed mine tours and project 42 (bottled sub species) the actors were fantastic and really creepy.
It was nice to see the freak show roaming around the park and even managed to catch the elusive ghost pirates in mutiny bay today.
Forced myself into sub species today and wow that was intense a lot less actors than I expected but enough to keep you on edge for the duration.
Didn’t really see the galactica airways so can’t comment on that.
Left about 6.30 because of what day it was but didn’t really witness anything bad, only some kids trying to jump into the welcoming queueline and a hell of a lot of police.
 
Has it improved since 2015? Yes
Has it improved on 2017? No
Have the mazes improved? Yes/No
Has lighting improved? Yes
Do we need more park wide scare zones (either queue to go in or free roam)? Desperately.
We need scarezones where you can go through at any point after 5PM and definitely see actors and theming outside of mazes, towerstreet and the shows. The removal of any scarezones means there is no actual scares outside of mazes really. we have actors but 90% of the time you wont see them. It takes away the scarefest atmosphere.

onto mazes 2016-17 Sub Species was by far my favourite maze intense, over 6 seperate scares and being alone the whole time. This year I was expecting similar, was first in the group and was sent through the furthest door. one actor scared me there, I went round the corner and ended up next to my cousin, which kind of ruined the maze. The tension was lost within the first two corners. we bumped into about 4 actors afterwards, one scared me, due to appearing out of nowhere and appearing quickly, but the other just walked past. After that we carried on, ducked under a wall, ducked under another wall, turned left and met the main pathway again. The biggest scare of the maze was me popping out of there and accidentally making a woman scream and almost hit me! then the part where they choose the final section came up, everyone apart from me and my cousin were sent to the left, we were sent to the right. no scares in this part. Got to the chainsaw section and with another person in front of me the effect was lost. That maze was the biggest disappointment for me, while not being the weakest maze, it wasn't the strongest.

That was mine tours. Massively improved on the last year for me, at least 6 jump scares, and another point were an actress took me to the side, and said I had a "pretty face (I know, I'm a 5'7 god ;)) and that she was gonna make me hers" or something (sounded like make me her baby :eek::tearsofjoy:) which was pretty funny. Seriously, I do need to get back in the game, I've been single for around two months but I forgot to give her my number :rolleyes: enough about my now non existent love life.
Overall Mine Tours was the best maze I've ever done, and I went in with high expectations based on last year, it went above and beyond.

Finally, Project 42. I was back of the group, and although it got split up so there was only one personn behind me there was a singular scare from an actor, meaning it was the weakest maze, but it was better than ToTT, and other than actors the sets and crevices were great. won't go anymore detail since I posted above. It has potential to become a great maze once refined though, so I'd give it another chance next year.

Rating them
Sub Species 2017 10/10 Sub Species 2018 7/10 (if i could've had another run through i imagine it would've improved, anyone else have a similar experience to me?)
Mine tours 2017 8/10 Mine Tours 2018 11/10!
ToTT 2017 6/10 Project 42 7.5/10.
Scarefest 2017 8.5/10 Scarefest 2018 7/10.

There needs to be a maze where you are guaranteed to be on your own in my opinion, so for 2019 Keep Mine Tours for sure, maybe keep Project 42 but improve actor scares, and this is kind of tough for me to say but either rethink Sub Species so it's guaranteed balls to the wall, or replace it with a guaranteed balls to the wall maze like it was in 2016/17. Theres no way it was anything above 4 Pumpkins for my run through, so I'm interested in others opinions.

I enjoyed scarefest, the mazes on a whole were improved on last year and I imagine The Welcoming will return next year but I've never done it, and with it being the 2018 new ride maze it's fair enough they charge more, but if they keep it on a seperate charge I will never do it until it goes down to below £5. I'd rather they have one free maze, the combi ticket for three mazes like they do now or 20 pound 4 maze MAP ticket (25 for non MAP).

I'd say keep the same mazes next year, but swap one combi maze with the welcoming or make a 4 maze ticket, or make one maze a free maze, but keep the time slot concept as I will never queue over an hour for the mazes (never queued more than 10 minutes. How long do the queues get for Towers mazes, once the queue is full (not overflowing but near the entrance of the queue) as I've never paid.. If they don't do this they need to replace one of the combi ticket mazes in my opinion, but I'd be disappointed to see any leave. The reason I don't do the Welcoming is because I'm not paying £5+ for a maze I have no idea about, If I've done the maze before I'm more likely to pay for it as I know I enjoyed all three.

Biggest scare? The wind blowing the fence on me walking through Sub Species queue at around 10 past 2. We'd done Mine tours before that at around 1:50. doing Project at around 3:10. (was saturday)
I'm interested to know if any enthusiasts spotted me :tearsofjoy: I was either in a dark grey waterproof coat with light green zips or in a dark blue hoodie with a massive red 25 on it.
 
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