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A scare zone doesn’t specify that it requires theming, it’s an area where you can get scared. And this falls under it. I think you need to stop defending the audio. Someone didn’t like it, it’s personal preference just like you not liking imascore. if it wasn’t finished, it shouldn’t have been published, pretty simple. People would assume it was a finished product. Would you expect to see 3/4 of a movie at a preview screening? You bashed imascore stuff when it first came out at the park and you bashed that, despite it not being finished.

Rather than repeating all the problems I and others have with this attraction, I'll just leave here one extremely major flaw I had with this yesterday on the preview event for Fright Nights (29th September 2018). The fake shop at the end of the attraction wasn't working and so the entire group walked through it without the demon jumping out in front of guests because......... *drum roll*

Contrary to the over-exaggerated praise I am seeing from many blogs/YouTubers about last night's preview everywhere online at present, if everything from yesterday remains in place and things are not improved upon considerably by the time the event arrives in just a week's time, 2018 is shaping up to be potentially the worst Fright Nights in the park's history through my eyes and here's why. Almost every year I have attended Fright Nights since 2007, I have always enjoyed visiting this event to try some of the exclusive attractions the park offered and most times, these mazes were thoroughly enjoyable as they felt very polished and delivered on what makes a good scare attraction, especially for the likes of Asylum, Big Top and Experiment 10. Back then, the park used to pride itself with the event. However, the mazes last night had none of these qualities at all. Blair Witch being a perfect example. It was horrendously and laughably bad and I kept on thinking "why is this back?" the whole time going through it. As for the audio, my question is "what audio"? If you take away Inferno and Canada Creek, along with the bizarre speech coming from Vulcan Peak's empty queue line, not a single other ride or area had music or ambience which matched the event. Everything was playing it's regular version, so you would scarcely think this was a Fright Nights evening if you were on-site. I understand there are more audio changes on the way but come on now, adding at least something to every area whether it's IMAscore's 30-minute Fright Nights loop, or a bit of Midnight Syndicate would've been an improvement. Not impressed with the audio and frankly haven't been with this event since 2011 in all honesty. Park-wide theming was non-existent other than across the entrance bridge, so clearly this is still not a priority for the park when it comes to Halloween. I still miss the days of 2007 - 2009 when this used to matter to them... As for operations, this was the most concerning area. Even on a preview night they were terrible in terms of queue management regarding Fastrack/disabled guests and I dread to think how much worse they will be when the event is in full swing next week when even more people are attending. I'll post these problems experienced in the "Park Operations" topic with examples. The overall vibe I was getting from last night was the park only cares about having the largest number of scare attractions possible now, not about the quality of the mazes and the event itself anymore. Not a single maze impressed me, the audio was a right mess and very inconsistent, the queue management was awful and there was simply no trace of anything resembling Halloween at this park at all, thus having no atmosphere anywhere. There is no "go-to" maze anymore and I doubt Vulcan Peak or Do or Die will change that when they finally open. It truly saddens me that the park is now going down the route where "more equals better" because last night has proven this not to be the case at all. People everywhere are falling over themselves because of the quantity and as a result, the mazes we are likely going to see this year are going to be both short and poor in quality for many guests, especially in comparison to previous years with excellent attractions such as Big Top, Asylum, Experiment 10 etc. For example, Blair Witch didn't need to come back and I would happily have sacrificed this entire attraction and picked a longer version of Dead Creek Woods over this if it meant delivering a better maze. Vulcan Peak feels extremely lazy as it's just gonna use I'm a Celeb's building and route for the most part, just with some changes inside with the props and theming. Do or Die looks to be extremely short and is just Sanctum under a different name, and as for the misleading advertising for the park to class Terror at Amity High an attraction when it's just actors...... no comment needed. Maybe this is an outdated opinion, but I would much rather see fewer attractions of higher quality than more attractions of less quality as we are now seeing. My worry is when the event arrives next week, people are not going to care about the fact the event might have some very poor mazes and will instead focus on the fact there are (supposedly) 12 attractions altogether, which is more than other competitors like Tulleys Farm for example. I guarantee those with a position of influence like bloggers and YouTubers are gonna keep mentioning this in all their reviews and forget everything else at the event (such as the mazes, atmosphere, audio etc), which is going to be sub-standard. As others have said, it was just a preview night, so things might improve and I really hope they do so everyone can enjoy it. But I'm concerned with the way things currently look, this year's quality control will be at an all-time low for them.

After doing Dead Creek in the light (and there was no chainsaw part) plus Living Nightmare which I prefer to call Living Sh£&emare, I was feeling decidedly meh but hadn’t built up any expectations at all and went in fully expecting it to be naff (that way you avoid being bitterly disappointed plus I’m just a bundle of pessimism). Living Nightmare had 2 females in the first part who weren’t scary and there was no photo point but that could change. I much preferred last year with matey and his baseball bat. At the end, my niece and I were way ahead of our group so the actor asked where everyone was and I said they were dead!) so she just told us to escape so we strolled our casually! Thankfully things got better after doing Platform in the dark (so much better than when it’s light), Saw which I love because I always think it smells of bacon in there (though I walked into a horrific stench of body odour towards the end so it was more like bacon and onions) and surprisingly Blair Witch - I expected zero from BW going by past run throughs but it is SO much better - only thing I would say is that I’d be surprised if no one either falls into a bush, falls out of the shed, or trips on the flaps at the end but maybe I’m just clumsy. There were loads of actors in there and they were fab. It’s much shorter than before but a lot better IMO. The clowns etc were brilliant and interacting with guests so well. They were on the bridge at the end of the evening chasing poor sods who decided to run - it was funny to watch though. Throughout the afternoon and evening we saw them several times and they really scared some people. When I heard that Big Top was not going to be there this FN in maze form I thought it would be complete ? but actually turned out a lot better than I had anticipated - plus Vulcan Peak and Do or Die weren’t open yet so there is a lot more potential. I think once FN starts fully and the nights start getting darker, then the atmosphere will add to it all, plus FN audio etc and the actors getting accustomed to their roles it could be a decent year. So yeah for me I was pleasantly surprised

Given it's listed as an attraction, surely it's fairly reasonable for people to expect a scare zone at the very least? Though arguably 'roaming actors in a specific area' is the definition of a scare zone in the first place... But if they're listing a set of roaming actors as an attraction, then that's pretty poor, and shows how much they're scraping the bottom of the barrel when it comes to listing an attraction.

Let's look at what someone from Thorpe's marketing department say: http://www.cupcakesandcoasters.com/2018/09/halloween-2018-most-anticipated.html?m=1 People will expect what they're told to expect. They're told Terror at Amity High is a new attraction, and clearly fits the bill of being a scare zone. Don't blame people for expecting what they've told.

You have just described a scare zone. They weren’t expecting to have one untill pass holders pointed out they actually listed a date back in March for a preview. So had no choice 1. Why not? 2. Don’t be blunt with those who don’t have access to hear or know what the tracks are being created before they are actually played in the park. It was a preview, surely all the tracks should have been “installed” or rather changed over (it’s pretty easy) for this event. No ifs no buts. All that was open should have had completed audio playing.

To anyone that said fright nights will be rubbish this year... oh how I am so glad u are wrong honestly this preview night was the best fright nights I have ever been to (and ive been to a lot) when they say “this year nowhere is safe” they mean it everywhere I went there were clowns, clowns and oh look.. more clowns. Props to the actors.. you guys were amazing! I wont review the mazes until ive done them all at press night but trust me, you do not want to miss this year.

Do bears ??? in the woods?

Does anyone know if our beloved leader, Shawn Sanbrooke will be at FN's Press Night? Asking for a friend ?