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Scarefest 2023

Seems like they have canned the lights walk and moved the budget to the scare zone instead.

Didn’t it also form park of the Christmas offering too? (Under a different name?). With Lightopia gone and no replacement announced for that event it seems to be another cut back.
 
When I heard the new maze was going to be in partnership with this Daz - I thought it was Daz Sampson! Maybe a scare experience themed around his chaotic time at Eurovision? 😂

Don’t get me wrong- I’m pleased Towers are trying new things and trying to attract new punters. However, I think this could be quite exclusionary- for those who don’t know who this Daz is which seems like most- the incentive to pay the extra £10 might not be there.
I think towers just doing an escape room style horror maze might have had more of an uptake .
Hopefully they add some roaming actors around Nemesis- I’ve fond memories of being chased up and down the valley with an actor with a chain saw in the 2015 Dark Apocalypse scare zone.

I think Towers do need to be careful though in regards to future scarefests - Halloween experiences these days are growing in number and people have more choice of where they might do horror mazes- in comparison to 15 years ago. If people start seeing the same thing each time, I could seem people going elsewhere.
 
They made a maze about... laundry?

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ML27 said:
The people who are saying “at least it’s something new” shouldn’t be using that excuse. There’s been nothing to be excited about for years and it’s became dire. The fact you are excited by a YouTuber themed maze is because of the lack of new stuff.

Creating more problems to replace the old problems
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i mean i am not excited about a youtuber partnership but i think it looks kinda fun
 
Rob said:
It does seem like a bit of a lost opportunity not having a maze themed around Alton Manor. Plenty of space to put one backstage as well, they'd just needed to have managed the entry via the gates to the left of Alton Manor.

Can't say the lineup excites me that much, but that may be in part due to my enthusiasm for scare events dwindling with every passing year.
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You know, that last bit in bold is my sentiments exactly - maybe its an age thing or maybe its because there are so many to choose from now as every theme park, amusement park and farm seem to be having scare events these days meaning the events lose their novelty value. Admittedly, I have only experienced Towers scare events - not even done my local farm one - but my interest in scare stuff in general is waning. Years ago, Scarefest was the highlight visit of the year for me. Now that we have 3 other big events too - Mardi Gras, Oktoberfest and the Fireworks - I'm beginning to prefer them over Scarefest!

Don't get me wrong the atmosphere at Scarefest after dark is great (mainly due to Towers' setting and all round natural spookiness when dark) and I'll always enjoy going, but the whole "scare" side of it is slowly becoming "same old, same old". And that's not just because the mazes (at Towers) have been pretty much the same recently but even when they change, you know what you're going to get when in them. Also, maybe its because I've always been one to go in mazes and be more interested in the workings of them rather than getting immersed in the stories - and sometimes I hate myself for being like that and not being able to experience the mazes properly for what they are!

Thinking about this new maze, it's another in a long list of maze variations Towers have experimented with: Molly Crow (effectively blindfolded), Trick or Treat (knocking on doors to get sweets), Sub Species (one of the first "find your own way out" style mazes), The Invitation (audio) to name but a few. So if this is an escape room type thing more than a traditional maze, and regardless of the storyline and which YouTube star is involved then fair play to them for trying something different.
 
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I know I’m old so I am trying to stay away from the YouTuber moaning around this maze (it seems a bit cheap to me to remove the theme park immersiveness by having such a tie in but I’m pushing 40 so go figure). But the other issue is the extra £10 to do the maze on top of the extra price to do the other mazes.

Issue is an escape room by default is low throughput so it has to have the separate price by default to make it worth it, but you have to wonder if a population going through a cost of living crisis are going to be willing to pay £44 on top of the £35-£45 they will have paid to get in the park.

Time will tell I guess but it’s a lot of money for one days entertainment.
 
It's going to have the be a markedly... *simple* escape room if it's going to be solved in seven minutes. I assume they're targeting 6 run-throughs per hour accounting for reset time. Doesn't seem... great?
 
BenTechy66 said:
It's going to have the be a markedly... *simple* escape room if it's going to be solved in seven minutes. I assume they're targeting 6 run-throughs per hour accounting for reset time. Doesn't seem... great?
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They could have multiple rooms? Like how the Invitation had multiple shipping containers - 3 wasn't it?
 
Nosferatu said:
In regards to the lack of any Alton Manor themed scare attraction... could it simply be that it'd be too similar to The Attic?

A Nemesis themed scare attraction would've been a great shout if they could have it tie-in to the 2024 retrack more and not Nemesis: Sub-Terra.
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This is very true. Unless they rethemed The Attic to Alton Manor, I don’t really see the point in having that as a maze theme.

I’m really surprised they didn’t have a Nemesis maze, or even a focus on Sub Terra (new end scene, more actors) or even a scare zone outside. Unless they’re saving it for fireworks?
 
I'm guessing Panic is targeting more of a House of Monsters audience with a similar demographic to Walliams, whereas Trick O' Treat is more of a demographic aimed towards families visiting CBeebies.

I'm happy to see the everything returning with one confirmed for a refresh and potentially Invitation getting major changes.

Only issue I see this year is staffing, I know last year they were struggling for staff with already bringing on 200+ staff just for the end of season events. So I hope this won't affect the guest experience of returning product. Also apart from Garden Lights, there seems to be no mention of Alton Ancestors either? Unless I've missed something.
 
I really think they've lost the plot with Scarefest now. For anyone who knows me I'll happily do scaremazes multiple times but even I'm fed up of the same ones now and it's the first year since I started going to scarefest (2012) that I'm not doing the mazes.

I feel like they've really missed a trick not changing the Ancestors into Emily's toys / dolls and having them around Alton Manor and this Panic attraction does absolutely 0 for me. Fair do's if it interests others, although the fact it's not Halloween themed in the slightest is disappointing.
 
The scare zone is definitely welcome - shame it’s taken them so long to have one back.

The escape maze seems like an interesting enough concept - but the brand partnership is definitely not Alton Towers. IPs based on brands is one thing but I think basing them on individuals is a risky move. You’d think they’d have learned a lesson given David Walliams’ waning popularity given the allegations made.

The mazes are disappointing. While I welcome an update to Alton Ville Minetours, it is about 4 years overdue so the whole brand feels stale now. A light retheme of the Attic to Alton Manor feels like a missed opportunity. And agree with the comments that Nemesis should have some focus this year.
 
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