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Scarefest 2020

Too tired to do a full review - but my initial thoughts across the board on the 4 mazes are that they just don't worked socially distanced and are meant to be run as we know them in previous years. Not bad though - will give thoughts tomorrow - as a well as a fantastic ride I had on a certain ride where I almost blacked out! (has never happened to me before) - I'm not a massive fan of this particular ride usually but it was excellent today! Full thoughts coming tomorrow.
 
Danscott22 said:
Too tired to do a full review - but my initial thoughts across the board on the 4 mazes are that they just don't worked socially distanced and are meant to be run as we know them in previous years. Not bad though - will give thoughts tomorrow - as a well as a fantastic ride I had on a certain ride where I almost blacked out! (has never happened to me before) - I'm not a massive fan of this particular ride usually but it was excellent today! Full thoughts coming tomorrow.
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You will have upset Shawn there - he said it was the best Scarefest ever!
 
Kraken27 said:
You will have upset Shawn there - he said it was the best Scarefest ever!
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It definitely isn’t in my opinion - but the acting quality is spot on and they’ve done well with what they’ve got to work with this year - the best maze is hands down The Attic though I have to say!
 
Ok so maze thoughts from yesterday - I know I said they don't work as socially distanced but I'm going to try and not take that into account as there's nothing that could be done and just judge them as fair as possible. In the order I did them:
Freak Show: Toxic Junkyard - bearing in mind it was 3:15 when I did this and light out, I think this actually has potential! There is so much random theming about, it's been very well put together. It was hard in this one to hear what the actors were saying because of the masks though. Definitely a night time maze, not my favourite ever but it is decent.

Altonville Mine Tours - the "no touching" rule has really, really harmed this maze to be honest. The acting quality was great, the theming is still fantastic. Worth pointing out there are no longer the head torches which I'm sure will bring no surprise to anyone. The actors did actually come quite close in this one. It's a difficult one for me because I thought what made it so good before was the face touching aspect - they are the Skin Snatchers after all. There is no curtain over the exit anymore either so you can see when it's coming up - and the two actors in the end scene. Not bad, but underwhelmed from previous years.

Darkest Depths - I'd never done this one before and I must say, the theming is exceptional. Genuinely a few jump scares towards the start of the maze - but I found it just petered out relatively quickly and I knew when it was going to end because I saw the member of staff on the exit before the Kraken scare at the end. That did ruin it for me - as I knew something was going to be there as I'd already seen the staff member. Honestly, I know a lot of people love this but after the first few scenes I was relatively disappointed. Walking on sand and stone is fantastic though and you absolutely cannot tell you are in shipping containers.

The Attic - disappointed with this last year, but this year it's great. The most intense jump scares for me at this year's Scarefest are within this maze. The actors do come close to you, so anyone who is uncomfortable with that I'd advise giving it a miss. I think every actor I encountered in here actually made me jump. The burning scene is great, as are the wooden floorboards. Favourite one for this year for sure!

Whilst a good job has been done overall, for me I just look forward to the day - whenever that may be - where touching returns in the mazes as that is what in my opinion, makes them so great.

EDIT: Just another quick thought - the batching on Altonville Mine Tours is done far too quickly, I caught up with the group in front of me at least 3 times and had to hold back. In The Attic, the batching wasn't too great either as I could see the group behind me on the other side of the maze at times and it's not like I was walking slowly. Toxic Junkyard in my opinion is the only attraction where there was sufficiently adequate spacing.
 
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A tad off topic from the mazes, but I’m not a big maze guy. I like to try the new additions but that’s about it. I enjoy scarefest more for the ambience, Lighting, audio and obviously night rides.before my visit next week I was wondering what people’s opinions of the lighting around the park and on the rides this year is? I’m a lighting and audio nerd so would be cool to hear any opinions on this. Also Garden lights walk is something I’ve been wanting for years! Looks such a different vibe from the usual scarefest experience:)
 
Connor98 said:
A tad off topic from the mazes, but I’m not a big maze guy. I like to try the new additions but that’s about it. I enjoy scarefest more for the ambience, Lighting, audio and obviously night rides.before my visit next week I was wondering what people’s opinions of the lighting around the park and on the rides this year is? I’m a lighting and audio nerd so would be cool to hear any opinions on this. Also Garden lights walk is something I’ve been wanting for years! Looks such a different vibe from the usual scarefest experience:)
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Garden Lights Walk has been set up absolutely wonderfully! Nemesis is lit up in red, Galactica in blue, Oblivion in orange and the usual setup for Wicker Man.
 
Just saw some footage of garden lights walk and have to say it looks really good. I wont be able to make it out there this year but I would love to see more pictures as I think it would make great photography.
 
I've moved a number of posts this morning from here to the Scarefest vs Covid-19 thread, as we were drifting a little off topic. Please feel free to continue discussion there.

Thanks!
 
Went to Scarefest yesterday and just thought I’d share a little tip for anyone who is going but hasn’t got maze tickets yet. If u want to do Freakshow at night and there r no late times online, u can get tickets on the day from the box office and they have every time slot available! I went in first thing, as I only wanted to do Freakshow and The Attic. She said I could chose any time I wanted, which suprised me, so chose after dark for Freakshow. Online u could only buy 3pm or b4? Even if u want to do all 3 it only works out £2 more expensive than online so may be worth doing it that way to get a night run through freakshow? Just an option
 
Danscott22 said:
Garden Lights Walk has been set up absolutely wonderfully! Nemesis is lit up in red, Galactica in blue, Oblivion in orange and the usual setup for Wicker Man.
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What do you mean by 'normal set up' for wicker man as when I went on last weekend of oktoberfest there was no lighting whatsoever
 
Wicker man has no themed lighting this year, that budget has long gone. However the bright Leds are less in your face this year than last year. Still a massive loss that they tried to put some perm lighting up in the queue line. Yet most of it is too dark so they’ve added temp lighting, or the themed fire lights are just off completely in the queue line.

Does seem to be less generators around this year and some areas of the park felt very dark, such as Altonville queue line and around the back of fried chicken.
 
djtruefitt said:
Wicker man has no themed lighting this year, that budget has long gone. However the bright Leds are less in your face this year than last year. Still a massive loss that they tried to put some perm lighting up in the queue line. Yet most of it is too dark so they’ve added temp lighting, or the themed fire lights are just off completely in the queue line.

Does seem to be less generators around this year and some areas of the park felt very dark, such as Altonville queue line and around the back of fried chicken.
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shame, as in all honesty Led Par cans and a few moving heads is pretty much all its set up consisted of last year so it is cost effective to do a better job. I’ve always thought they could do so much with that area lighting wise! I mean you just have to watch the press event in 2018 on YouTube to see what is really possible, they even had an extra fire effect on the second pass of big Bob which has never featured with public guests. It really doesn’t deliver the same effect in the day anymore either, without the screens in big Bob and the pre-lift tunnel no longer has any effects at all (come to think of it, non of the tunnels do anymore). Hopefully this years scarefest won’t be an excuse for cuts in the future, with lighting and effects never returning to previous levels.
 
I thought we were told by some on here that the effects etc for Wicker Man were under the control of ents team and that was better than the normal team.
 
I be going with my daughter on the 25th October. She is 8 years old and this is her 1st real Halloween event. We won’t be doing any of the mazes but is there anything else which will make her jump/scared as it’s really the night rides on Wickerman and 13 I’m looking forward to the most as it’s 9 years since I been to Alton Towers after dark.
 
Themeparksandy1981 said:
I be going with my daughter on the 25th October. She is 8 years old and this is her 1st real Halloween event. We won’t be doing any of the mazes but is there anything else which will make her jump/scared as it’s really the night rides on Wickerman and 13 I’m looking forward to the most as it’s 9 years since I been to Alton Towers after dark.
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Probably not, there will be roaming actors (including a flashmob!) but they are to entertain not to scare.
 
The lighting for Wicker Man was sadly hired in. Alton Towers do not own the lights and, as a result, they have to wrestle with the finance from marketing - even though thousands of people take photos of the ride lit up so beautifully making it well worth the cost.

Stupid really that such a huge park hires in lighting for their rides, when actually it's open for several weeks of late rides these days.

JUST BUY LIGHTS.
 
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