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I see, thank you for explaining. I take it I’m reading too much into this and it’s simply a tease for some upcoming ‘Project Fobia’ or attraction name?

Moving coasters, though cheaper than getting a new coaster, is still a costly and time-consuming exercise. The logistics are a lot more difficult when dealing with a wooden coaster... I'm struggling to recall the last time a wooden roller coaster was relocated. The only example I can think of was more than 50 years ago. The other coasters from Oakwood have gone to other parks owned by Aspro, making it an easier and cheaper deal in that regard. It'd be a huge surprise if Thorpe went for Megafobia, or frankly if any park did.

Not exactly, but yes I did pick the name for that reason. I have no relation to the park though.

Marp backwards is Parm.

Whats so unlikely about Megafobia moving to Thorpe park? Oakwood closed and has sold off other coasters already. It was recently retracked, highly rated and fills a gap in the Thorpe Park lineup. It would just about fit in the area occupied by Ghost Train and some food stalls (which will presumably move to the updated Project Pivot area) Unless you mean the wishful Intamin multi-launch and Xtreme spinner guesses, in which case I agree 😛

Closed season has been what, a couple of days off of Towers and already we've seen the wildest suggestion that will not happen at all. Next year is gonna be a lot of expectation for what's next. But given Merlin's situation at the moment I'm not sure what can be expected.

Wait a second.. I think I’m totally wrong. The clue is ‘fobia’, and earlier that ‘something mega may be to come’. Is the park buying Megafobia from Oakwood? A woodie would be a great addition! Especially if you RMC it 👀

Pretty much confirms ‘Phobia Phear Coaster’ to me 😛 It would make a lot of sense for the park. Small footprint and relatively cheap, so can act as a big upgrade from Ghost Train. Different from anything else we have and quite marketable as the UK’s first swing-launch coaster. Plus another set of modern lap bar restraints to add to the comfort & thrill! Not a world class ride like Hyperia, but a welcome upgrade. A great addition in this long window before we hopefully see a heavy hitter built on the new island (please be an RMC 🙏)

some options are being considered, many are possible, one is cheaper. phobia is the traditional spelling, but in this case, the thrills may exceed the normal levels of fear

They removed all rides that were closed for the buyout days, Tidal Wave too. There was actually some sign of life on on the last day of the season. Engineers around all day and some spinning (not lifting) so hopefully its not over just yet for Zodiac! Zodiac always looks brilliant at night so that was certainly missed during Fright Nights this year.

Its dissappeared from the queue app a few days ago.

Earlier in the year there were also hints “Spiiiiiin, click click click click spiiiiiin” and “there may be some x citing news to come” Both of these could point to a Mack Xtreme Spinner, which would be incredible! Fits with the LSM launch, but I don’t see a connection to the phobia or foto clues.

I made an account just to have a guess! Veloxrotaphobia is the fear of rollercoasters. There was also a clue in another thread which heavily suggests an LSM launch: “They turned the launch to magnet spaces” If the clue above implies we should take the part before ‘phobia’, is it a stretch to say that ‘veloxtora’ sounds like ‘velocicoaster’? Could they be planning an Intamin multi launch coaster similar to Velocicoaster/Taiga? Alternatively, if the clue is ‘phobia’, a much less exciting answer might be a Premier Rides Sky Rocket II model. ‘Phobia Phear Coaster’ matches the photo/foto hint quite well. I imagine this would be considerably cheaper, and we keep hearing about Merlin budget cuts. With slammer having finally been removed, my best guess is a Sky Rocket II replacing DBGT and the old slammer site, to bide their time for a massive headliner on the island behind Swarm for the parks 50th anniversary.

Just to go back to the topic of attendance, it is really worth stressing that the TEA Attendance Report is not accurate for Thorpe / Merlin. This graph is from the Hyperia consultation, including numbers up to 2020: The Queue Times website also has these numbers listed, as well as numbers from the TEA Report: https://queue-times.com/parks/2/attendances#reference4 Just for some reference: 2019: Thorpe say 1.49m, TEA say 1.9m 2018: Thorpe say 1.59m, TEA say 1.88m 2017: Thorpe say 1.54m, TEA say 1.8m 2016: Thorpe say 1.62m, TEA say 1.8m 2015: Thorpe say 1.51m, TEA say 1.85m 2014: Thorpe say 1.83m, TEA say 2.1m etc, etc. As you can see, there's years when the actual attendance has gone down, but TEA say it's gone up, and vice versa. But there is no rhyme or reason. So it is certainly possible that 2024 saw an increase in attendance compared to 2023 at Thorpe. As Benin says, the late opening of Hyperia followed by its extended downtime will have hurt attendance. But once it did get running, it ran well and was a draw. Was that enough to outweigh and then eventually beat what was a quiet, but consistent, 2023? It felt like it, but we'll never truly know.

Recently on the website, it has been suggested that people could arrive earlier and "take advantage of the facilities available in the dome" though I think for most, that would only be a visit to the loo. A while back, when the rides opened at 10a.m., my joy would be to be the first to my favourite ride, as the teams would put you on for an unaccompanied ride; just a distant memory now, affected by the hotel guests and several staggered entry times. I am lucky to live fairly local so don't take my car. A lot of congestion around the public road junction is caused by pick ups, massive congestion.times in my past employment experience, discretionary baggage searches work better than 100% searches. It would reduce the queues and requires less staff.

A few things to throw out into the realm of conversation... Fright Nights Music I noticed during the last week of Fright Nights that many rides did have Fright Nights themed announcements, from Lucifer. Rush, Detonator and Nemesis Inferno spring to mind. It's weird that it happened late into the event, but good to see. I do think it's something that really does add to the atmosphere, and something the park should continue to focus on and improve. Fright Nights specific audio was one of the biggest successes from early Fright Nights - even if it was just Midnight Syndicate - and something that the park should continue to replicate. Even using free, spooky audio would add an extra layer. The park have shown this year they have the ability to programme park-wide changes to lighting and audio, so the next step is to really focus onto ride-specifics. I've also been on park for the pop music change at the end of the day. And...I still don't get it. I've seen a couple of videos of large groups of people really getting into it. My experience was a couple of people scattered around getting into it, but most people not being bothered by it. When I say I don't get it, I do understand the logic behind it. But I just don't see how it links to Fright Nights, how it adds to the overall experience or anything. In the BTS interview, it was mentioned they wanted to replicate the vibe that occurred in 2013 when they used Perfect Day (which was used in the You're Next film, which was part of that year's Fright Nights), and they wanted Bittersweet Symphony in particular to be another "iconic" Fright Nights song. I certainly don't view Perfect Day as an iconic Fright Nights song, or even associate it with Fright Nights all that much. That whole viewpoint comes from a very skewed perspective in my opinion. Mazes Thorpe have a...problem with the mazes. I will maintain what I've always said in that the quality of the mazes, on the whole, is pretty good. Yes, there's issues, batch sizes majorly affect the experiences, costs are high, etc, but on the whole, they're pretty good. You chuck any one of their mazes into any previous Fright Nights event, or into most scare events across the country, and they'll be well received. But the problem is that they're all so samey. You have 4 mazes where you get batched in as a group. You then watch a pre-show (3 of which on shown on a screen). You then walk round well themed sets as a group whilst actors jump out, invade your personal space and then you move on. The mazes feature quite passive scenes, where you see actors do things to others, but you experience no real scare. Examples.. Trailers in the dentist scene, when the dentist 'beats up' the patient. Deadbeat, just before the sewer, when a Visceral sucks out the soul of a raver. Stitches, when a worker is sewing up a mannequin. As I say, each maze in its own right is good. And the variety in themes of the 4 mazes is perfect. The issue simply is is you have 4 mazes which are basically carbon copies of each other, just dressed differently. I think that, in part, comes down to have a consistent creative team for many years, using UVE for many years - there's a level of comfort and knowing what works. I think this is highlighted again in the BTS video. One notable reason for Survival Games (which, prior to this year, stood out as being completely different) being changed is because it was seen in guest feedback that people were getting an inconsistent number of scares, which was impacting experience and the perception of value for money. And their solution to that problem is to make Survival Games like every other maze they have - single route, actors jumping out, you continually moving. Thorpe know how to make that work, so they went with that. I'm not saying that was necessarily a right or a wrong move. Nor am I saying it's easy to create a multi-route experience which is consistent. But they went with the easiest option available to their team. The last time that Thorpe had no variety in their mazes, in terms of style of scares, was 2010. They had 4 mazes (Asylum, Hellgate, Se7en, Curse). They were all "get batched in a conga line, go straight in the maze with no pre show, and actors will jump out and touch you" in style. In 2011, they changed things (not just for them, but for the wider UK scare industry as a whole). They introduced Experiment 10, which had a pre-show, split you up, etc. And even 14 years later, is spoken about extremely fondly. And that kick-started a wave of creativity for them. Each year after, you had at least one maze which was completely different. The Passing, Cabin in the Woods, Blair Witch, Big Top, Do or Die...heck, even Vulcan Peak. The quality of those vary, but there is no denying that all those mazes felt different, and all for varying reasons (split up, multi-route, outdoors, hoods, etc). There's certainly an argument that in playing it 'safe', creating the same style of maze, has allowed the maze quality to increase. But there's a parallel argument that that 'safety' is stifling creativity and progress. I'm not saying the park should change their creative team. Far from it, as they've really pushed Fright Nights forwards. But they need to take a risk, try something different, and not be afraid to put the work in to tweak and change it to make it work.

One thing I've noticed with Thorpe is that such a large number of people arrive for 10am. As in, they see the park opens at 10, so they think 'Well let's aim to arrive at 10ish'. Whether that's something embedded deep in UK culture or something the park can get better at communicating, I don't know. With multiple thousands of people all doing the same, it will inevitably cause issues. That issue was particularly compounded during Fright Nights, when even more people attend. The simple answer is security is slow. What they choose to do takes a while. Simply put, if they want to continue with the level of security they are doing, they should look to invest in better scanners which means they can get through people quicker. The alternative is to reduce the level of security check (which they could do, as it is a very thorough process; significantly more thorough than most parks who do manual bag searches). Hiring more security is impractical, as has been discussed. This Fright Nights I've been impressed with all of my exits from the car park. Yes, it's busy and again many thousands of people are leaving at once. But it does feel smoother compared to previous years. The biggest issues I've found is the quality of parking (when people arrive later in the day and just park wherever and however they please) and the red and white dividers getting blown around. It would be nice if the park could manage what many other parks do with paying for the car park before entry, but realistically, I don't think the park have the space, design or capacity for that to be feasible.

I complained about this before and got shouted down on socialz saying I should have planned my time better and stopped for 10 minutes to get something to eat 🙃 ...I haven't been to a Fright Nights since, as the idea of paying for mazes and not getting them all done - potentially - I found insane.

the noise returns. 2026.

it's been 4 months aaaaaaaaaaaannnnnnnd we're likely never getting that soundtrack...😔

Towers is the same. The state of the entrance plaza at around 10am isn't the best first impression. Especially when most guests have either queued 30 mins for Monorail or walked.

The security queue is an interesting one. I've had some thoughts on it - I always wondered how other parks, DLP for example, can handle vastly larger crowds everyday with minimal queues of just a few minutes. Yes I know they have a far larger budget, but the point still stands. I think it's got to be because parks like Thorpe only actually need the security point staffed for a couple of hours each morning. After 11am the workload drops off almost entirely. It's not feasible to employ a large team of security for 2-3hrs every morning. Other parks have a steady flow of people throughout the day outside of the 9-10 peak, so a large team is justified and can be working throughout the day. I think Thorpe are limited in that they only actually need staff there for a couple of hours, which realistically isn't something they can recruit for, so they're settling for a small team. I preferred the old system of spot checks, but I suppose after the spate of violence and the stabbing that happened a few years ago it has become more needed. To be fair, even DLP's security is purely theatre. The bags go through scanners and you walk through the detector, but realistically it is very much a quick in-and-out. Perhaps they can gear it up if required, but keep it relaxed most days? (could be an option for TP going forward).

I can't believe we're nearly at four years of this twaddle.

I thuppit! a ride in times gone by When hope was high and plans worth making I thuppit! the crowds would come and cry When track and thrills were there for taking Then budgets cut, they came at night With voices soft as paper shredding As they tore the blueprints from my sight And left my coaster dream unthreading They killed the plans, they cut the funds They turned the launch to magnet spaces They stole the loop, the airtime runs And left us with… more burger places Still I thuppit! the ride would rise again That steel and speed would soon deliver But there are storms we can’t contain Thorpe’s lost its dream forever I thuppit! a ride that now is gone A phantom coaster in the distance So here I stand, still holding on To scraps of hope and sheer persistence

everybody raise a glass, HEY! raise it up the constraints pass, HEY! everybody raise a glass, to the master of the park!