So, how to begin to explain perhaps the most eventful weekend in my 21 years of visiting Alton Towers? It was the meet I’d been most looking forward to moreorless since the season began, and for better or for worse, as I said to Astro whilst sharing his umbrella late last night in the Smiler queue, it’s a trip that will live on in my memory for a long while to come. Perhaps not all my expectations were met, but certainly, I learned the hard way to expect the unexpected! I think ‘British grit’ is the best way of describing our approach to the weekend – both days were met with unforeseen issues, all of which had the potential to ruin the day, but those who stuck it out through the bad times were rewarded later on both nights.
But let’s start at the beginning, long before my red make up had begin to run, before a single drop had fallen on the Towers, or any inadequately clad teenage female had stepped through the metal detectors.
October 19th dawned a little earlier than any of us would have liked, but pleasant weather greeted us on arrival at the resort, and there was a sense of anticipation in the air – the highlight of every coaster enthusiast’s season was finally upon us, and it was time for some Scarefest. Firstly, there was the obstacle of collecting freedom passes and such, the queue for which was already lengthy, so after saying my good mornings to the group (despite my thick makeup, I was recognised disappointingly quickly – stupid glasses!) and finding out where to meet them, we had to contend with this. It wasn’t as long as it looked, and despite the crowd, staff were friendly and interacted with all guests, even taking a picture of me in costume to put on my pass, which made the wait worthwhile.
With all that sorted, me and Tarin made our way over to meet the rest of the group in the Valley (my costume made a child cry in the queue for the skyride, which amused me in a cruel way, and ensured we got a car to ourselves!), and the distinctive weatherproof clothing of Sam, Dan and Rob meant catching up was easy. It also meant we’d avoided the wait for Air, and could kick off the day with Nemesis. Despite how busy the park had first appeared, the wait was little more than 15 minutes, and needless to say, it was well worth it. Nemesis did not disappoint – it never does. On top of that, there were still 10 hours on park ahead of us during which time it was only going to get better; I wasn’t to know it was going to be my only ride of the day, but we’ll get to that later.
Next up, intending to beat the rush to the main mazes, we made our way over to the Towers, which seemed to turn into a game of ‘How many TSTers can you fit in a skyride car’, so apologies to whoever I basically ended up sitting on! Expecting we’d be eating soon after the mazes, I only grabbed a cookie and a much needed coffee, which turned out to be my first mistake of the day. Fountain square faff ensued whilst we waited to be allowed to join the maze queue, but this was a good chance for a sit down and catch up with people, many of whom I’d not seen since Sandwich meet as well as the few faces I wasn’t sure I’d ever met before. From what I’ve heard, this was the biggest TST meet to date, which is obviously brilliant news, and it was great to be a part of that – though that did mean I’m even worse with names than usual, and probably didn’t have chance to introduce myself to everyone. However, as my first season in this group draws to a close, I think I’m that bit closer to being part of the furniture rather than just another newbie – certainly being in joker getup helped me to stand out from the crowd (and attracted a lot of attention from staff and other guests alike), though I did think it might have put a few people off getting any closer!
Before I get onto the mazes in any details, the first major change I noticed from last year was how much better crowds were dealt with – each maze last year came with at least an hour’s wait, which was frustrating as hell after paying out extra for them, and just one of many reasons why I hated Scarefest 2012 quite so much. With the obvious exception, I never waited more than an hour for any over the weekend, and the early afternoon wait for the Sanctuary was considerably under this. It was every bit as good as I remembered from earlier in the year, as essentially nothing had changed – Dr Kelman as unsettling as ever, the atmosphere every bit as intimidating, theming and soundtrack used to fantastic effect, and a couple of actors still managing to catch me unawares despite me thinking I knew exactly what to expect. I may have taken a bit of a liking to the nurses at the entrance as well, but that’s another story.
In fact, to my surprise, Sanctuary may have ended up as Merlin’s best attraction this Halloween – I loved it in March/April, and still did at the weekend – from what I’ve heard, it’s unlikely to be returning next year, as I’m sure new ideas are already being storyboarded, but it’s great to see it go out quite so sensationally.
Then we did Terror of the Towers. Hmm. Since first braving this experience 2 years ago, it’s fair to say I’d become a bit of a fanboy, but first time around, it was disappointing – next to no actors for the first 2 minutes or so of the maze, a rather half-baked preshow and unnecessarily rushed pre-maze briefing, and although it did pick up in the middle sections (a couple of the sets created are genuinely stunning, and of course, I’m the last person to complain about a close encounter with a vampire), the whole thing felt rushed and half finished. Based on my reactions, which I think a number of the group shared, I wished we’d done the mazes the other way around, and perhaps after over a decade of service, it’s time for ToTT to have a rethink – or at least a LOT of cash splashed on it – take note, Merlin.
Unperturbed, we wandered back towards Towers Street, in search of Carnival of the Screams – after another of 2012’s bigger disappointments, I wasn’t expecting much. Alas, as we all know, we didn’t get to find out. A long wait, broken up only by Nat’s much appreciated culinary skills, another chance to scare the general public by being a joker and more TS based banter, ended in immense frustration, when 10 minutes from the end of the queue, an eerie silence fell over the park. The rides stopped. The soundtrack stopped. The lights went out. And chaos and confusion ensued. Communication within staff was sadly lamentable, as they seemed as clueless as their guests, and consequently had no information to pass onto us. All we could do as watch and wait – the closest we got to an explanation came from Shawn Sanbrooke and a slightly more informative John Drake who I knew could be relied upon. Yet not even he knew when things would resume, the full extent of the problem or even if the park could remain open – all we did know is that with no apology, explanation or compensation for the wasted 90 minutes we’d spent in a queue, we were removed from it soon afterwards.
To say there was malcontent within our ranks would be an understatement – I’d half expected the group to disband there and then, and everyone to head their separate ways via guest services – and certainly for a long time, uncertainty ruled whilst a frustrated group of enthusiasts tried to work out a contingency plan to salvage the remains of their day. I found Bigdave, Hayden and a couple of others, and we began a reconnaissance mission to see what life was left within the park, with backup plans of McDonalds or hotel. Essentially everyone in the park (and there were tens of thousands of them) wore an expression of identical confusion – nobody knew where to go, or what to do, the advantage of which was that a great many went home. Those that didn’t had flocked to the still functioning Forbidden Valley or Katanga Canyon, making them rather busier than we’d have liked – on arriving there, my little contingent abruptly turned around, wondering why we hadn’t hit upon the failsafe plan of ‘Tavern’ before; even Duel had a queue OUT OF THE DOOR as we passed.
Thankfully, Courtyard Tavern had power, and whilst they didn’t have any information or help for us, they DID have a cheese and bacon burger, which was my top concern by this point. With a rather fuller stomach, a less fuzzy head and the instruction to meet at Splash Landings at 6, I felt a lot happier at 4PM than I had done in the ludicrous previous hour. Annoyingly, the heavens picked this moment to open, putting paid to our plan to ride Oblivion, which had amassed a substantial queue. Queue time boards confirmed the situation was similar throughout the rest of the park – I was tired and irritable and declared it time to relax at the hotel. Although there were still a good few hours of the day remaining, the monorail was full of dissatisfied looking families making their exit – I explained the situation as best I could to one of them (whilst their small child hit from my clownish features), and could gauge the general feelings of the public. Between that and the queue at guest services (though I’m pleased to note how many people were receiving hassle free refunds on maze tickets, fastracks etc – alas freedom pass holders weren’t so fortunate!), it wasn’t hard to gauge the general mood on park. However, with a powercut clearly being beyond anyone’s control, it was hard to be too cross with anyone – although as I’ve mentioned, better communication from staff to guests would have not gone amiss.
Whichever way, from hereon, the day would get back on its feet again – despite misery of the previous 3 hours, everyone seemed to be in higher spirits when we were reunited at the hotel – helped by the remainder of the group joining me in ludicrous costume joy – I still say I was better than ‘the other joker’, but felt suitably outdone by Rob and Ste to name just two; the less said about Mr. Hotdog, the better! Clearly there are some minds on TS far more creative than my own, and again it was great having so many of us together dressed up in the spirit of the event despite the powercut misery. I also managed a catch up with Dan, John and a few others as we settled our nerves over a drink (which they were eventually served with) in the Splash bar – John amused himself pointing out just HOW backdate the rolling resort advert video was, while I think Rowe, who I hadn’t seen since Smiler’s opening weekend and who’d been elusive all day, was thrilled that some people were ‘cultured’ enough to understand her costume (I was quite jealous of the wellies the following day!).
Just after 6PM, it was time to find out what our ‘unmissable’ surprise was (maybe other people knew, but I really was in the dark), but being led to one of the hotel’s conference rooms for a talk from Pete… Someoneorother, the events co-ordinator, was probably the day’s highlight, and for me anyway, it made up for everything that had gone before. I'd had 'perks' before with my previous coaster group (Paulton’s Peppa Pig world, the dreadful Milky Way, Vampire behind the scenes and the infamous boring man of Bakken to name just a few), but this was the first that to actually interest me. Not only did he pick up on our massive enthusiasm for the event, but he genuinely appeared to share in it, and answered all our questions, no matter how daft, even if a lot of our complaints seemed to come down to budget, health and safety or various other factors far beyond his own control – it was good to know the lighting in what I like to call ‘the Bright Forest’ should be fixed in the next few weeks however. Rowe also deserves another thank you for voicing the question I was too shy to ask, as I also miss the brilliant Duel Live and Th13teen after dark, whilst I'd love to see what they could turn Hex into at Scarefest if they put their minds to it!
As you’ve probably gathered, Alton’s Scarefest is far and away my favourite event on the UK calendar, so I was very happy to get this insight on how it works from behind the scenes, while I’m hopeful that at least some of our feedback will be useful to the ents team – we may be Alton’s biggest fans, but we’re also among their harshest critics, so if they produce something than impresses us, they know they’re doing something right! Anyway, I learned a lot from that, and as I said, found him a much better speaker than others – massive thank you from me to him for giving up that time and reorganising on what I’m sure was a far more stressful day for management than it was for guests; a nightmare start to a very busy season on resort – and also to whoever organised that from our end, yet again, I was proud to call myself TST.
Anyway, enough gushing – the upshot of Pete’s generosity and insistence that we MUST have the chance to experience his creations for ourselves when they were running better was a free fasttrack into Carnival and ToTT, which he promised had improved since its lacklustre showing earlier in the afternoon. By the time our heavily costumed group returned to the park to faff epically outside Carnival, I was happy again – night had fallen over the Towers, the power had obviously been restored, normality had resumed (much to the ire of the joker!) and we were finally going to get into the maze.
My experience in Carnival (I’ll ignore the queue part, which was still lengthy!) was eventful, to say the least. Firstly, the introductory host seemed to take a disliking to me, perhaps suspecting that anyone dressed like a clown sought to create havoc within (OK, so I HAD spent the last half hour jumping out at people as they emerged from the photo tent in the queue, and was nearly as frightening as the rest of the queue entertainers), followed by the first scare clown greeting me like an old friend, much to my amusement. The girls behind me were obviously terrified, which amused me, aside from the amount I was being clung to – and then… I managed to lose them going through that horrible big squeeze thing, where my main concern was trying not to lose my wig. To my horror, I realised I was alone on exiting this – I waited a while for the others to catch me up, and when they didn’t had the unpleasant feeling I’d be doing the remainder on my own. The actors however seemed keen to prevent this from happening and had stopped the rest of the group two rooms on so I could rejoin them at the back – disappointingly, the two rooms I DID do alone involved actors basically encouraging me to catch up, rather than jumping out at me. By this point, I’d already seen the massive improvements Carnival had made since the 2012 failure (although random plastic farm animals? Really?) but the last few rooms were where it really came alive. The giant clowns with scary teeth were particularly upsetting, Mr. Dotty’s dance through the crowd to keep re-appearing where he was least suspected was very impressive and as for the final scene? I won’t spoil it for anyone who’s not been in yet, but it’s possibly the most frightening thing Alton have put into an attraction in recent years – this year, I’ve realised I’m becoming the same way with mazes as I am with rollercoasters, and consequently having to look a lot harder to find anything that actually scares me, but the Jack Knife sequence worked perfectly – big well done to the minds behind that. Needless to say, I left laughing hysterically, but probably shaking more than I’d have liked to admit – and as for the girls behind me…
It’s worth mentioning at this point that this was Tarin’s first time at an Alton scarefest (she insisted on coming with me this year, and I figured this was the easiest weekend for me), and was... as close to speechless as I’ve ever seen her when trying to explain just how much better the night had been than last Saturday night which we’d spent trying out Thorpe’s Halloween offerings. Good news and bad news; I think she’ll probably be back – she was uncharacteristically shy on the Saturday, but I think we mingled much better on Sunday. Anyway, with the misery of powercut-gate now well and truly behind us, but time sadly rapidly vanishing, we said goodbye to the group who were heading for the Smiler, and opted instead to give ToTT another try.
Cliched as it may sound, there’s no word but magical to describe the courtyard area in which the queue lines are set at night time, under a finally clear sky lit only by a full moon – and as I mentioned earlier, the wait time had nothing on last year, perhaps as so many were distracted by the Smiler – I needn’t have been as worried as I was upon hearing that freedom passes for the day had sold out.
Aside from the staff member’s total lack of sense of humour upon being handed a joker card instead of my freedom pass, this time through the maze went better – as Pete had promised, the actors were working their behinds off, and whilst we were rushed through, it was in a more satisfying way, and there didn’t seem to be half so much dead space as before – being shoved at the back of the group where actors were more inclined to single me out perhaps helped with this. Still not matching the quality of the Sanctuary in terms of scares and satisfaction, but beating it in setting and set design, I was definitely happier than I’d been in the afternoon, but would have to do it at least once more before I could be certain.
However, it was 9:00 now, and about the only thing I was interested in was BED – it was time to go home, knowing that the various attractions we’d missed out on for one reason or another could be made up for the next day. I’d have left unhappy had it been a one day meet, but as I’ve said, the Q & A session and the improved runthroughs of two mazes, as well as the overall feel and magic of the Towers at night had more than made up for the earlier misery, and TS had made the very best out of an unfortunate situation. So, just in case I don’t get around to writing up Sunday because I’ve got MASSIVELY carried away here, because I didn’t just want to do a ‘highlights’/’lowlights’ list, thanks again to everyone for that. And indeed, to the very vast majority of those who attended, ‘twas a pleasure spending my Scarefest with you
Also, hope to see the pictures soon, and as infuriating as it was having his camera shoved in my face constantly, I'm intrigued to see Hayden's 'live blog'
