Scarefest - General Discussion

[Morgan]

Tales could use the old Nemmy or Duel queue then?

[TuesdayNightChat]

I,ve been to every Scarefest since the start,I think the mazes and scarezones have been fantastic this year and previous...

but,

Anyone else think Field of 1000 screams (first effort in 07) has still yet to beat, in terms of interaction,storytelling and length.?

[arw2010]

Anyone been to the altonville dining experience? Without spoiling was it any good? We are going this Friday.

[joelpagett]

Hi guys,

Just thought I would share a few thoughts on Scarefest from Saturday Night. The park was absolutley packed - even Duel had a queue (I have never seen this before) and waited over 2 hours for The Smiler! The mazes were good - The Sanctuary was great - Terror of the Towers was predictable and not as good but we didn't have to queue for either which was great as I have waited 60+ mins for both in the past. Scary Tales was a great addition but they were missing a third maze in my opinion!

Video from the event...
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some pictures as well!
Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

FULL GALLERY ON FLICKR - https://www.flickr.com/photos/themepark ... 947301796/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[lewis97]

I have 2for1 vouchers. I haven't found anything that says they would apply in the terms and conditions (kelloggs vouchers). Just wondering if asnyone has used these during Scarefest and can confirm they're still good to go.

I've had a look through the Terms & Conditions, and there is no mention of Scarefext being excluded. This makes sense as admission is the same price as normal and the additional scare attractions have additional charges.

- What time does the park open?
- To drive into
- Gates open for rides

The rides opens at 10am, however you may find that they let guests into the park before then, but you can arrive and park up much earlier.

I know it'll be busy. That's understandable and will add to the atmosphere I'm sure, but what do you think would be best to do in terms of which rides first. Would getting a fast-track for Smiler and then trying to get some other rides early be best?

The Smiler's queue remains long all day so if you don't fancy enduring the queue then fastrack is probably your best option. Rita and Th13teen are good rides to get done early on and the queues in Forbidden Valley are usually quite reasonable compared to the rest of the park.

If you get there for when the park opens and stay until 9pm you'll probably get to do most of what you want to, but as you say it is likely to be very busy so expect considerable queue times.

[LeBro 13]

Hi guys,

Just thought I would share a few thoughts on Scarefest from Saturday Night. The park was absolutley packed - even Duel had a queue (I have never seen this before) and waited over 2 hours for The Smiler! The mazes were good - The Sanctuary was great - Terror of the Towers was predictable and not as good but we didn't have to queue for either which was great as I have waited 60+ mins for both in the past. Scary Tales was a great addition but they were missing a third maze in my opinion!

Video from the event...
" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Some pictures as well!
Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

Scarefest 2014 by ThemeParkMedia, on Flickr

FULL GALLERY ON FLICKR - https://www.flickr.com/photos/themepark ... 947301796/" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Wow! Really good photos there, especially the daytime ones of the towers and gardens.
Lighting also seems a lot better this year, well at least from the photos

[Jammydodger]

I must say, everything about Scarefest this year has really felt fantastically thought out and well organized, and while the budget cuts were obviously at work behind the scenes (i.e no maze photography, 1 less maze, what felt like less actors), this year actually felt like someone put a lot of thought in to it. Its the little things for me, such as having the two maze entrances side by side, having all the hosts in character and not having the mazes in completely random places (i.e a black hole tent)

One thing in particular I liked, is that for whatever reason the fire exits are now manned inside the maze, but instead of plonking some member of staff in with a bright red hoodie on, they actually put them in costume, which is something not even Universal bother with for their staff at HHN. It's little things like this that make the difference.

It really shows Thorpe Park up and puts it to shame too if I'm honest. This is not a dig at the quality of each parks' attractions, because that's a whole different can of worms, however, there is no reason that organisation and presentation of each park shouldn't be on par with each other, but frankly, the organisation of Fright Nights was a complete shambles this year.

Tl;dr: Alton Towers, you did good. Best Scarefest in a long time.

[Ripsaw Raver]

I have to say with my trip on the 20th ToTT was far the stronger maze over Sanctuary.
The Sanctuary left a bitter taste when i had my 3-15 run through simply due to the lack of people batching..1.. Which resulted in a 1 hour queue, thats right for a quieter end of scarefest it took 1hour and 20 Mins to do 2 mazes. Really was not happy, further more the actors were very sparse. 1 in the Rec Room, 1 In the kitchen, 2 in the ward which followed us to marmalisation, 2 doctors downstairs, and 1 in the strobe maze, it left for a very lack lustre feeling, this feeling was further enhanced with the awful "Extreme Sanctuary" runthrough later on which was way over sold, with minimal actors which lead to me being the fourth out of 14 people!!(Last year it was 6) when the last person was a good 20 mins longer. When we had our briefing we was in the corridor of kelmans briefing hell all of his dialog was lost. During the experience my tie was taken off me which was fine... however no effort was made to retrieve it till the last person had finished making my exit at 9:30 ish and the last person at 10 to 10. I didn't leave the park until 5 past 10, and after staying in the Chained Oak you can imagine how much fun it is trudging through the dark through the fields feeling totally sold out by your fave park.

ToTT on the other hand was just so much better, it was far more atmospheric, i think having to make your way down thin corridors really adds to fear of it. As you can't see whats round the corner at many times. Plus the actors in that Strobe Maze , ohh they knew what they were doing , being at the front i remember seeing an actor at the far end of a straight only to move point blank in front of me as soon as the room went dark, that really was cool.

Zombies was errr OK it just seemed to be lacking somthing and i dont know what.

Scary Tales was good ,Loved Hansel and Gretel and Red Riding Hood, however the mirrors section did nothing for me , maybe because i could see in the mirrors ahead where the actors were hiding lol.

The Lack of Freedom Passes this year was a huge blow thats for sure,wanting to do multiple run throughs of mazes i had to buy 2 lots of Combi Tickets, which conscript you to be back at the towers for a certain time, which resulted in sacrificing night rides on Nemesis and Air.

I also had some rather derogatory comments from 2 of the Rita staff, which made me feel small and belittled
To which i had to send letters of complaint. Which i got a more than poor response.Which im still not happy about.
Last years scarefest was far superior i have to say. but M£RLIN strike again.

[Milgod]

Cheers for the reply to my questions. Is the Smiler queue quite big even if we get into the park early and go straight there?

I understand there are no ERT during Scarefest, so thought if we got to the ticket gates for pre-9:30 then ran straight to Smiler, we might not have too big a queue. Then possibly get fastrack for Air, Nemesis and Sub-Terra (by the way, what is Sub-Terra? I've never actually done it in my times at AT).

Or . . .we'll get Smiler fasttrack and run right to Rita and 13 early. Again, I've never bought a FT ticket before, not entirely sure how they work.

[Dan]

On Sunday when we got onto the park at about 10:30 The Smilers queue was already at 100 minutes.

Sub-Terra is a dark ride with a small strobe-maze section at the end, although if it's being ran how it was last weekend I would give it a miss

[Kirsty25]

Anyone been to the altonville dining experience? Without spoiling was it any good? We are going this Friday.

Hi,

I did the Altonville Motel dining experience last Friday Night and although scary wouldn't be a word I would use to overall describe the experience, it was well worth the money paid (£35 due to Annual Pass Discount) and was hugely entertaining. The actors stayed well in character and had very good improvisation skills when interacting with the guests. All I will say is for me the ending was a little lack lustre and underwhelming but it didn't hugely detract from the overall experience.

[arw2010]

Do they let you film the dining experience?

[Milgod]

On Sunday when we got onto the park at about 10:30 The Smilers queue was already at 100 minutes.

Sub-Terra is a dark ride with a small strobe-maze section at the end, although if it's being ran how it was last weekend I would give it a miss

Thanks Dan. I plan to in the car park for 9am, so will hopefully be in the park early as I can.

Will probably just do the smiler as a fasttrack (I guess I can buy these at the ticket office?) and run to Rita to start with.

[Dan]

Thanks Dan. I plan to in the car park for 9am, so will hopefully be in the park early as I can.

Will probably just do the smiler as a fasttrack (I guess I can buy these at the ticket office?) and run to Rita to start with.

Yes you can. You can buy them from the Box Office on Towers Street or at any Sales & Information booth, however I'd advise buying early as Fastrack can sell out.

If you're one of the first ones in the park then you may not need it, as if you head straight there you can be on & off within 15 minutes, but this can vary depending on the volume of people heading that way.

[Kirsty25]

Do they let you film the dining experience?

I couldn't say, none of our group did

[CA-Frantic]

Scarefest for me was fairly good this year! The park was atomsphere was so much better than previous years!!

I'd never did the sanctuary before so that was a first this year! It was so mind messing and really jumpy. It has more of a narrative and realism compared to TOTT. I've experienced TOTT previously so I found it boring at times even though it was filled with actors! TOTT does need a new chapter next year or it has a risk of flopping.

The new scare zone though! Scary Tales. It was Scary. Better than Zombies by miles! I loved the fact it was a four pumpkin. It was similar (in a strange way) to a scare maze. During my run I was pinned up against a wall twice and chased once by Snow White! The themeing and lighting was incredible. However I hope this scare zone doesn't stay the same each year very much like Zombies as it can get boring.

[Dr0idd]

Just got back from a great day at scarefest (Wednesday), which was my first this year! Have to say that despite the expected crowds, the atmosphere really is great and even better after dark!

In contrast to most of you guys on here, I have to say that I preferred Zombies to Scary Tales. We experienced it at 7:30 and the actors were really pushing the boat out, really strongly into their roles and actually got me a few times when a couple teamed up in the strobe tent! But I did enjoy scary tales, although it felt more funny than scary if I'm honest, but the characters dialogues were great (wishes that they interacted more).
I have to say that scary tales for us wasn't a 4 rating, we took my 10 year old sister into both (fearless!) and she said that zombies scared her but scary tales made her laugh!

Was happy with the lighting but would've liked to see more roaming actors after dark, it is SCAREfest after all, but I realise there have been budget cuts.

Nemesis I have to say was amazing last night (8:30), the crew were working non-stop to churn riders out frantically, the fastest I've ever seen and the fastest I've ever felt on the beast! The dark must contribute!! Loved it when we stood in the station to hear "nemesis crew our queue time is now 5 minutes!"

So overall I really enjoyed the event, despite the *minor* smiler breakdown in the evening for 30 minutes, but it did give us a ride in the dark so no complaints!
Will definitely be visiting for scarefest again next year!

[Milgod]

Are there any early rider rides during Scarefest or does everything just go at 10am?

[lewis97]

Are there any early rider rides during Scarefest or does everything just go at 10am?

There is no Early Ride Time during Scarefest, the rides are open from 10am although those usually entitled to ERT will be able to fastrack the attractions on the ERT line-up between 10-11am.

[Zach]

Scarefest trip 30th Oct! Well what a day! Certain highlights included chatting to the alton ancestors and after nice chat got to know few little details about scarefest and how stuff happens and that the same actors doing ancestors do scary tales and they asked me if I got scared easy and I said no and they looked at my costume and LMS costume and said okay we will remember you and boy did they! Scary tales for us got put to the max! Soon as we got in we got separated for our big group held off and then got separated further, highlights of the zone included being pinned against various walls and threatened (in character) really heightening the experience, then in the wolfs house being put onto the bed and not being let out even as other guests walked through she wouldn't let me leave then having 3 pigs corner me! So yeah wow full credit to those actors! Then the mazes...TotT for me not as good this time than previously in scarefest far few actors (tbh fewer actors in both mazes) scares weren't there still good maze, I think next year it really has to be removed it's stale now! The sanctuary not as good as earlier in scarefest, again due to lack of actors, still scary and gets heart pumping for me it can stay but next year I want to see the twist it should have had this year. Final highlight of the day and for me best part was Extreme sanctuary without huge spoilers of this attraction but WOW this version you really get a to experience a story and feel apart of it when I went through we were in a group of 4 and you really do get picked on attacked and made to feel vulnerable. Highlights of the extreme maze include...made to bow, jabbed Zimmer frame, laid on bed and repeatedly pulled tickled and poked, physically pulled dragged and ridden like donkey and finally pinned On floor and tickled to death :moj fully corrected!