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They are leaving Rumba Rapids empty of water for 2019, adding a rope to the side and re-opening it as a year-wide "Vulcan Peak II" due to the resounding success of the groundbreaking, immersive maze "Vulcan Peak". Source: Lord Sanbrooke

Alright, I have now had two visits to this year's Fright Nights, the first on the preview night and the second last Saturday (13th October) and have finally tried almost the entire lineup minus Fanta's Twisted Carnival and the Screamplexx Cinema. I said a few weeks ago I predicted this was going to be the worst Fright Nights ever and 2 weeks later, I still stand by that statement as the entire thing has become a former shadow of itself and quite honestly, a joke. How can an event reach such a low after having some fantastic years and attractions in the past? Everything this year screams "quantity above quality" around every corner now where the mazes themselves were average at the very best, the audio management was incredibly inconsistent, the park lighting looks horrendous and there was virtually no atmosphere at night anywhere across the park. Here are my mini reviews for each of the attractions Fright Nights have this year which I've tried. These are my honest thoughts and I'm not holding back exactly what went through my mind when experiencing each of them. Spoiler tags used not to hide what happens, but to reduce the size of this post as I've got a few things to say about this year other than the mazes: Saw Alive: 4/10 Platform 15: 4/10 Dead Creek Woods: 3/10 Living Nightmare: 3/10 Blair Witch: 3/10 Sanctum Do or Die: 2/10 The Big Top: Showtime: 2/10 Vulcan Peak: 0.00000000001/10 So yeah, as you can see from the above reviews, all of the mazes were awful this year with some being so bad it makes 2010's Dead End Terror Zone look scary. As for other parts of the event, the park lighting this year was absolutely horrendous with bright white lighting everywhere across the park from Inferno, to Old Town, Dead Creek Wood's entrance where you can't read the flipping sign and Stealth. There were temporary lights installed in a few places, but unlike last year's nicely coloured stencil-shaded ones, these were all multi-colour changing LEDs going through all colours of the rainbow, similar to those approaching Swarm's area. It looked horrendous, and the ones used across the bridge were even worse, reminding me of the inside of X. Since when were disco lights associated with Halloween?! As for the audio, I was optimistic about this year after hearing some of the preview clips found online from Nick Hutson as I was hoping we would see each and every ride having their own theme like it used to be when Midnight Syndicate ruled the park. Whilst some rides sounded great, Colossus' station especially which was my favourite, I noticed it was only some the coasters which had theme changes, no other rides across the park had them, so every single flat ride like Rush, Samurai, Vortex etc were playing their regular themes all day and night. As for Amity Cove's playlist across Tidal Wave and Stealth, it sounded identical to the regular one and did not work well at all in my opinion, especially at night. I understand the intentions behind why a FN dedicated playlist was made, but it failed in my view. I could also hear the director voice overs a few times across the park too in a few places. Why is he still being played across a Walking Dead themed Halloween event? I keep on stressing this every year but Thorpe, for goodness sake, can you just bring back the Midnight Syndicate tracks used in 2007-2009 when the whole park used to sound amazing at night? This was what made you stand out from Alton and Chessington years ago during Halloween. Give every ride and area a consistent audio track to play, play themed announcements once again and less manual ones, only use the linked park-wide audio system for opening/closing nothing else and most of all, sort the damn system out. There are so many inconsistencies across the park with the audio this year that it's a joke. Are you all-in with regular audio like in 2010, or all-in with Fright Nights audio like in 2007-2009 Thorpe? Make your mind up. Last comment to make is the park-wide theming. It's nice to see it in some areas like the entrance, Saw and Swarm but again, it is still not at the levels this event once used to be a while ago and likely never will. Just hoping one year we can see park theming being a priority for this park once again, but realise it's never gonna happen. Won't stop me calling them out on it every year though. Last year, I wrote these comments for 2017's Fright Nights: It took a lot for me to attend this year's event as I was adamant about not going after the poor experience I had last time, but decided to give it a try anyway in the vain hope something has improved, but no. Nothing this year is better than last year and has solidified my opinion about this event - I'm done with it. I'm honestly done. I cannot cope with seeing what this event has now become after knowing and experiencing it during a different era in the late 2000's when it used to be a fantastic event. Back then, the event and park used to pride itself as being one of the best, if not the best Halloween attraction in the country, but now it's just a commercialised piece of rubbish where sticking a famous IP on the name with poor marketing saying there are "6 new attractions" and making each and every maze a botch job seems to be enough to please guests these days just to they can get a few cheap scares. What happened to originality, dedication, imagination and effort? It's now become painfully obvious that whilst Merlin and Thorpe are capable of turning out a product for guests at this park, they are not capable of turning out a product that is well done anymore. The fit and finish this event once had is now dead and is just a distant memory for those that remember and indeed experienced it during that time. I've given Thorpe 5 years now ever since the Lionsgate takeover in 2013 to get their act together with this event and whilst during that time a few little gems like Big Top and Cabin in the Woods were made, the rest of the other attractions made ever since that year have frankly sucked and none of them have ever reached the levels of Asylum, Experiment 10, Se7en, Hellgate and even The Curse. The focus of this event between 2013-2017 was all about the IP and the mazes nothing else, so audio, park theming, lighting and other factors started to degrade gradually, but 2018 has shown the park don't seem to give a damn about the quality of their mazes anymore either. It feels as though they believe only putting an IP on their product and having the biggest number of attractions is enough for guests to be happy these days, when in truth, it is not. I've documented problems this event has had over the last few years in posts on this forum and are honestly tired of talking about it now by repeating the same things over and over again constantly, because it seems to be an endless battle I am fighting for here. I genuinely really want this event to be brilliant for all guests, so new ones can experience the delights and thrills of what this park is capable of during Halloween for those of us that remember how amazing this event used to be, but cannot do that right now. People deserve a great product when they are forking out good amounts of money to attend this event and currently, they are not. Understandably, I know I rail on against Merlin and Thorpe an awful lot on this forum and are probably boring many readers with it by now, but want to establish I am not a hater and are not "bitching" for the sake of "bitching". I say these things because I care and believe people deserve a better product from the park, whether they know it or not and I want people to speak up about problems they are seeing or experiencing to let the park know when something isn't right. I commend the reviewers above for voicing their concerns about this year's FN and encourage others thinking similar to do so as well, as this year is an embarrassment on many proportions.

Couldn’t say it any better myself ?

- Fan boys ‘designing’ audio for Thorpe Park’s Fright Nights and then watching the forums for comments and getting all defensive because nobody really understands the complete lack of artistic or creative design. “Woo cameos from the theme park community - intense!” - Flashing, multicoloured LED park wide lighting with no design or thought whatsoever - Significant lack of maze design, coherent theme and complete lack of quality - No Big Top - A non-show in the Dome where actors chase guests to some music because the competency to build the maze was no longer available - Another laughable, confused, messy marketing “campaign” - Black walled mazes (oh, they almost left Fright Nights) - Vulcan Peak Goodbye Fright Nights.

@StevenVig Amity is a fishing village, hearing seagulls occasionally isn’t a stupid suggestion. It would add to what the area is.

Wasn't really a fan of the audio in Amity during my visit yesterday. Went through it dozens of times over the course of the day and evening, and it really killed what little atmosphere there was for me. Obviously that's just my opinion, and I'm not saying I could do better, but I think something that sounds more obviously sinister with some Amity ambience (seagulls etc) would have been quite nice.

Vulcan Peak. I’m going to write a review of this as I have never laughed so hard in (or at) a maze before (Fright Night meet yesterday). The queueline wasn’t too bad, it was 40 minutes or so but the walls outside were lined with some neat looking wheat, forgetting the cheap looking plastic human hearts that seemed to have faces hanging in the bushes. At the end of the queue, our group were guided by an attendant (TP staff) to stand outside the ‘entrance’ (a standard fire exit) where we were given a speech to “never take our hats off in the maze”, then we were left there. After about 3 minutes still standing there waiting, the attendant came back round the bend in pure horror shouting directly at us “Didn’t I tell you to move?? Go inside I said!!”. Did we miss something?! So we sat down in a room already filled with other people sitting down watching a screen and a TP staff handed us small bags that were inside-out, mine had foundation smears and marks showing on it. Once the film finished people walked towards the first corridor. There was no mention of putting the bags on our heads and I noticed at least 5 bags still laying on the seats behind where some people had left them! It wasn’t particularly dark and there was no instruction of what was going on, we just followed the crowd. It became apparent that this must be the actual maze now so some people put on the bags, but the theming of IAC could be seen clearly and the bags weren’t even needed. The only “scary” part of the walk was the slightly uneven flooring. We kept stopping due to congestion ahead and the atmosphere was ruined dreadfully, we were just walking through a leafy corridor. No actors, forgettable sounds, and the lighting was still bright enough to see everything without the hood. After a few meters, we came to a tiny corridor/room with a cheap, bright white strobe light that was dreadfully placed and was lighting up the ugly ceiling, wires, and goodness knows what. We were stuck in this room for a couple of minutes just standing there due to some serious hold up and eventually the next group caught up too, causing a jam. I don’t even remember any sound at that point (was there even any??), I was laughing too hard at the ridiculousness of it all. Then, a member of staff just came finally and roughly ripped the hoods off of our heads, pulling some of my hair!! When we finally started moving again, we entered another corridor with a half deflated blow-up tight passage, and then.... the Inferno shop. That was it. It was just the most dreadful, disorganised, least atmospheric maze ever that was so bad, it was almost good. I for one could not get over the ridiculousness of it, I laughed so unbelievably hard my stomach hurt and it became a highlight. Later, the unknowing queue was coming out the entrance and slithering about 30 steps further... I’m not sure if they had as much fun as I did!!

As I said in my review for FN, I loved some of the new audio like Infernos and Colossus' station. Great atmosphere in both the stations. I wasn't a fan of Amitys myself but admittedly have not listened to the 'story' I've only heard parts of it when walking around the area, which sounded the exact same as normal. Park audio is played way to quiet in places and there are so many dead speakers which just kill the atmosphere for me. Detonator for example, used to be able to hear the audio of Detonator from the top of the inferno queue by the station very clearly, now you can hardly even hear it next to the ride. There are also soo many rides without FN audio, which again just killed the atmosphere. Why couldn't old FN audio be used for the rides which didn't have time for new audio? Even the director one would be better than them playing their regular audio.

There’s a good 25 minutes where evil takes over; spooky rock and roll songs play and big Bob Jones is possessed. It’s all about the story though; it all depends what time you get there. But - there are horrors in there.

Perhaps the problem is the song choices are too subtle? Not enough people will actively stop and listen to audio to work these things out. People drop in and out of listening to these things, so it's quite easy to miss out on finer details. I know I'm not sure on a lot of it, simply because I haven't listened to it closely enough. It's not necessarily a bad thing, buy if it's leaving people confused or unsatisfied, then it's not a good thing. It also isn't great that the voices on WWTP sound extremely over-edited, making it almost laughably bad. It ruins the believability which the normal loop has, and also more difficult to listen to.

Fright Nights to say the least was interesting. Went to the meet on sunday really good fun thank you. Anyway attraction reviews. First up the Infamous Vulcan Peak. Scare Rating 1/10 Hilarity rating 8/10 I don't know if that's how the maze is meant to run with hands on shoulders. Felt around for a rope for a good half of the maze. I also don't think there were any Actors in the maze... Anyway Platform 15 7/10 This maze last year was really good fun. Still is really good fun some brilliant sections shame about the story change but the final is a big improvement and some fab scares inside the cottage section. Only downside is the uncomfy ground. wear decent shoes to events like these. Dead Creek woods. 7.5/10 this walk through was fun a bit abundant of Actors for the first half but sadly it felt rather short. I would say this was the best scare attraction at this place. It had a simple story line but sometimes that works. then Later on in the maze the Actors where very good with some great scares. Final attraction we experienced was Do or Die. 6/10 this had a very loose storyline. some good moments but most of the time felt like we were being rushed through. came out the end feeling a bit unsatisfied. This event overall was okay the rides in the dark are the highlight this year where as last year the highlight was, yep you guessed it the Big top. One issue I found at this years Frightnights is that it lacked a final big scare with the exception of Platform 15. they seem to put there best scare in the middle of the mazes most notable in Dead creek and Do or Die. so it could use some improvements, A maze with no ending feels like a film with a good beginning fantastic middle but a lacking ending making the overall film not that good or talked about because the ending is the last thing you remember after leaving the cinema. Also one thing to note is the Audio around the park is good although a little quite in areas notably in the center of Amity. The themed audio on rides like Colossus Stealth and Nemesis Inferno really stood out, Another great part of this years event is Inferno's queue line music with the chanting and deep jungle cannibalistic ambiance. Big Top Showtime was doing its thing scaring all the kids in the dome. Overall sad to say it but this year could use improvement and in my experience is the worst Fright Nights I have experienced. Hopefully they can improve for next year. Time will tell.

Someone eagerly wants to start the 2019 Fright Nights topic

Long time since I've posted here sadly, but I've just got home from Thorpe Park and my god... I feel the need to post here after reading other people's experiences. To be fair on the park, at around 3pm hundreds upon hundreds of travellers arrived and the park and caused a bit of a stir, however security and police were very good as keeping things as orderly as possible. It was clear that all the staff were getting progressively more agitated throughout the afternoon and evening, but to be honest, I don't blame them for a second. I visited Fright Night from 2010 to 2015, and today in 2018, and this year is by far the worst. It's a shame as it's an event me and my friends have always felt close to, and we loyally attended for years. But sadly this year there was just no magic. Do or Die was a travesty. Very unfinished and I spent most of the run through cringing and just feeling pretty uncomfortable. Saw Alive was decent. I've never been a fan, however the actors seemed to try a little harder than they have done during previous visits. As for Dead Creek Woods, I'm assuming this was a joke? It was just a path with some toilets on the ground. Living Nightmare I actually enjoyed. We did two runs through, the first being superior. Theming was good, good enough that it made the other mazes actually feel quite sad to walk through. One thing I did notice was the use of a microphone in the first scene with the headlights. Being able to hear the actress speak clearly without her having to shout made it appear far more polished and professional in my opinion, something I wish they would utilise more often. Platform 15 is laughable. I'd never done it before today, and will never do it again. It's just a tunnel of nothing. Oh, and Vulcan Peak doesn't deserve a review. I will say however that the roaming actors and the performers in the Dome were fantastic on my visit today. They were all so enthusiastic and seemed up for a laugh, definitely a highlight of the day for me. It's really a shame. Like I said earlier, I used to be so loyal to this event. But after this year, I just don't think I can bring myself to go anytime in the foreseeable future, which sucks because I've had so many fantastic experiences at FN. So yeah, just thought I'd put my two cents in.