Just got back from a day on park, fairly mixed views of this years event to be honest.
I’ll start with the mazes
Darkest Depths:
For me the standout again. I really think this is the most immersive maze, if not attraction that Alton have ever created. The smells, theming, even sounds were brilliant. Actors, as per all the mazes, were great but special mention to the first two actors in those first two scenes which set the story. As mentioned before it’s very very dark, some decent scares and can see why it’s 15+ I guess. Solid 9/10
Freak Show: Toxic Junkyard
A real disappointment for me. I did this at about 2:30pm, and didn’t get to experience in the dark. But from what I saw it was clearly a maze created with Covid largely in mind, and can sort of understand why they decided to bring it back this year due to the uncertainty surrounding Covid. But the maze just doesn’t work for me, I like the idea of the theme but there are barely any jump scares as the maze is so open. I’m sure it would have been better in the dark with more enhanced smoke and light effects etc, but Alton need to be making mazes that are as good in the day as they are at night, surely? For me this maze has to be cut now. 3/10
Altonville Mine Tours:
I believe this Altonvilles 5th year in the lineup? And it seems it’s probably it’s strongest as well. I love the opening two scenes to this maze, does great in building the tension. Inside the maze it was dark, foggy and chaotic. Actors everywhere and on great form. I was shocked how well they spilt up groups also. Not sure how they managed it but one point I turned around to see I was on my own with one random stranger. It’s beautifully themed throughout just a shame it lacks a decent finale! For me it’s one of the best mazes they’ve ever done, but it’s time is also probably up now. 9/10
The Attic
The Attic was also great. The only negative I had was we seemed to experience some batching issues? Our group caught up with the group ahead twice even though the actors did their best to slow groups down. Aside from that it’s again beautifully themed, some great jump scares and that opening scene is also really good, as well as the finale (despite our group being held in the finale room for nearly 40 seconds). I feel however in typical Alton fashion, the effects in the maze were not all 100%. The ‘bed scene’ in particular was anti climatic and we just sort of walked past it with nothing happening. I personally prefer the Terror of the Towers theme from previous years and think it works slightly better, but understand it was in need of a change. 8/10
General park thoughts
In terms of the event in general, I feel it was mediocre, which is just the general feel of the park at the moment to be honest. The lighting and theming around towers street, the lawns and the gardens was great. But as usual it isn’t reciprocated anywhere else on the park. In fact, Galactica had the only theming I noticed outside of Towers Street, and all it was a bit of tacky ‘do not enter’ tape around the Galactica Gates…
As mentioned on this forum plenty of times, operations was a shambles. At some point today The Smiler (closed all day), Thirteen (opened at 12), Wickerman, Galatica, Nemesis, Hex (closed all day) and Mixtape all experienced significant downtime. I would go further in depth but this isn’t really the correct thread for that.
Overall the mazes were good, not £30 good and not anywhere near the levels of previous years good however. Park wide it just felt like minimal effort had gone into the event this year. Might sound harsh but when I look at previous years and I see what they can achieve, it’s so frustrating to see the event being so ‘meh’. I just feel the atmosphere is missing attractions like Nox Infernus and Dark Apocalypse which were removed after just 1 year I believe? Both scare zones did such a superb job to add to the atmosphere around two areas that are seemingly neglected during Scarefest.
With that said I still had a great time, and look forward to next year as usual!
Scarefest 2022
It’s obvious to every man and his dog that next years event needs a big refresh. In fact the only maze I’d be happy enough to see back next year is Darkest Depths. Although in reality I think The Attic, Darkest Depths and maybe Freak Show will all be back.
I’d like to see something along the lines of;
•NEW maze to replace AMT
•NEW Terror of the Towers/Attic style maze
•NEW maze to replace FS:TJ
•Darkest Depths
•Trick or Treat Town
•Scare zone in Forbidden Valley
•Scare zone in Dark Forest
(2015 style scare zones)
Maybe as well a new location for a maze? Cant say i’m too sure where, but would like to see something new.
Again, no idea what theme but excited to see what they can come up with because surely next year we finally get something new…