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Scarefest 2024

IPs work at HHN because that's the nature of Universal Studios, franchise based rides and areas. Saw: The Ride opening normalised IPs at Thorpe Park, so them appearing at Fright Nights isn't as jarring as an American TV show suddenly rocking up in the middle of Staffordshire would be. Plus, in hindsight, the original attractions are almost always the ones you look back at more fondly as they've not had a portion of the budget gone on doing a deal for the rights.

Alton Towers could get an entire scare line-up just focusing on the area themes they currently have, excluding CBeebies and Walliams (though adding a family friendly overlay could be done easily and cheapily to bring those areas into the event) and in some cases already have done in the past with the likes of The Sanctuary, Darkest Depths (despite it being nowhere near Mutiny Bay) and Burial Grounds. An Emily Alton escape room could fit perfectly in this new Gloomy Wood building, assuming that's the intention of the planning application and if the park wanted to spread scares around the entire park you could have a Ministry of Joy attraction where Altonville is and a Voodoo or even poachers who have grown tired of hunting animals and has decided to target humans themed attraction in Katanga Canyon. If the park spent a little bit of money on giving the bandstand in the gardens some restoration work they could even put a show on in there, with a band dressed similarly to the Alton Ancestors performing in there, maybe with the Ancestors dancing along, harkening back to what would have been going on in the pre-themepark heyday of the grounds.

Then, if you get to a stage like now where mazes are stale and you want to move on, you have a whole array of props created for these attractions that could easily find a home in the area of the park that inspired them, building further on them whilst giving the designers a blank slate for the next maze/attraction.

If they were going to 'borrow' anything from the HHN blueprint, I'd much rather they went down the icons route than IPs. Emily Alton is now an established character, with the likes of Dr Kelman and even the Dark Forest wraiths waiting in the wings to be built upon if they wanted to go down that route. Or if they preferred an entirely new character to market, there could be an array of BBC Ghosts style characters that have had something to do with the land the park stands on over the centuries.
 
If we need British horror IPs can we have:
most haunted scaremaze Mary loves dick. Part 2
jimmy saville maze (being chased out of a hospital by an elderly man in a shell suit)
 
I think this would be a nice idea.

I mean, as you said, having proper themed scaremazes sounds brilliant!

Especially having Dr Kelman and the MOJ making another appearance, as they could in theory reuse the space that Sanctuary used (Of course rethemed and maybe using it talking about a people who are 'Marmalised' seeing a creature of darkness (In this case something akin to the Lord of Darkness seen in Oblivion's queue line.) who keeps trying to 'break their smile'.

A Dark Forest theme scaremaze would be something I'd love to see! Maybe have the Waiths which haunt the Dark Forest and the Witch from Hex connected in a way, and maybe we could be 'explorers' trying to find the truth with the Waiths and Witch trying to stop us...

The final one I can think of, is a Forbidden Valley one. Maybe we could see a return of the cults which worshipped Nemesis who are trying to trick us into entering a scaremaze of sorts which houses both cultists who have 'sacrificed' themselves to feed Nemmy and maybe a few Phalanx operatives within (Or maybe objects related to them) scattered around showing us the new-found strength of Nemesis after her 'rebirth'.
 
I mean, I wouldn't be surprised with this year's Scarefest having one 'horror' scaremaze. One being themed around Nemmy.
True, but by horror I'm thinking more along the lines of Saw and similar 'shock-value' horror movies. Even a 'horror' maze about Nemesis will still have that element of spookiness and wouldn't be just all out horror.
 
From the top of my head it tends to start June/July, so it's great that the process is starting already. Hopefully means they'll recruit a good number of actors, and more of them.

I don't recall seeing costume sizes on previous adverts (although I don't exactly give them much attention), so perhaps there's more specialist costumes/characters in the works.
 
I wonder why their recruiting this early. This could mean that they're trying to find more actors than usual. Could this mean that there are either:
  • There are more actors in each maze?
  • There are more mazes this year?
Either way, this Scarefest is looking more positive. We already know the location of one of the new mazes (The London dungeon). I'm looking forward to this year!
 
I wonder why their recruiting this early. This could mean that they're trying to find more actors than usual. Could this mean that there are either:
  • There are more actors in each maze?
  • There are more mazes this year?
Either way, this Scarefest is looking more positive. We already know the location of one of the new mazes (The London dungeon). I'm looking forward to this year!
Another reason could be that they have struggled to recruit in the past.
 
That's gonna be one hell of a long queue.

No scare maze should have that a long queue because you need to book time slots.

I know there has to be a little bit of flexibility as ride queue times can throw plans into disarray, but it does seem that too many [selfish] people just turn up when they want and are allowed to get in.

My understanding is that the problem lies primarily with people who leave it late to book when there's only daylight slots left, but they wait until it's dark then rock up. Alternatively, AT sell too many tickets for each time slot!!
 
No scare maze should have that a long queue because you need to book time slots.

I know there has to be a little bit of flexibility as ride queue times can throw plans into disarray, but it does seem that too many [selfish] people just turn up when they want and are allowed to get in.

My understanding is that the problem lies primarily with people who leave it late to book when there's only daylight slots left, but they wait until it's dark then rock up. Alternatively, AT sell too many tickets for each time slot!!

I believe @DiogoJ42 may well have been suggesting that if Alton Towers did indeed choose to use the London Dungeon as a new Scarefest maze venue that the queue line for said attraction would have to be a pretty long one.
 
We now have at least 3 new locations for the scare mazes. Along with the planning permission to build two large 'survival games' type building' behind The curse at Alton Manor and where Darkest Depths currently is, we also have the Alton towers Dungeon closing for Scarefest. Does this really look like money is being put into this event for the first time in many years?
 
It's hard to entirely assume anything right now. Except we know that Darkest Depths won't be back in its previous form.

Otherwise, there's not really any indication of if this is an expansion of the event offering, or refresh of the event at the current scale (e.g. swapping out the audio experience of The Invitation for a themed boat ride experience.
 
Alton Towers could get an entire scare line-up just focusing on the area themes they currently have, excluding CBeebies and Walliams
No, we all know the best maze IP would be be in the night garden

being serious IP is something alton should stay away from in my opinon, because there isn't too many IP theming at towers so it would stand out but also I think they could be really limiting, for instance a nemesis maze is about a mercenary group that try to control the nemesis creature, it could be themed arround so much, a lab, hatchery, alien transportation and more but IP will typically mean you are limited to a story this can make great mazes but also these stories may not transform well into a maze.
 
It certainly wont be in the same form if it does, and to be honest, the layout of the new building does not massively lend to the style of the maze. Darkest Depths is almost a descent into the bowels of the ship, and the length and erratic layout he;ped with that. The new building is much more suited to somethinge like altonville, with a tight winding route round a small space.
 
In other news, Burial Grounds is almost entirely reconstructed as of yesterday. This was taken on a Wickerman track walk after park close. Allegedly the team have a lot of work to do this year and have started early hence this being completed well ahead of time. It scored very highly with guests, the implication being that there may be a second similar free flow zone this year

The rest is staff hearsay, but Ocean is being done so early to allow teams to focus on completing other attractions including Skyride through the winter alongside other additions (very vague I know!)
 

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