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I won't do a huge rambling post like I just did for my blog, but I will say that the Liseberg Halloween event is incredible and I highly recommend it! All 4 mazes are fab, and a lot of effort has gone into the event. The park is really well decorated, obviously night rides on Helix were a ride based highlight, and Valkyria is fab! The Experiment was short but crammed in the scares, they also sent me round alone. 8/10 Zombie was longer, loads of actors, looked amazing, and the make up was spot on. Not wheelchair accessible as stated though. 8/10 Smittharden Gasten was the most beautiful maze I've ever been in, and I wish I'd had time to do it again, again lots of actors and lots of scares. 9.5/10 Vinden was a surprise, it included a very big and fast industrial lift, and some of the most impressive animatronics I've seen inside a maze. 9/10 There were also a tonne of actors in both the scare zones, and they really did interact with everyone, even children. Probably the best event I've been to at a park, loved it.

Apologies I misread that as in he’s not exactly known to the public so shouldn’t be identified. It is fact he’s no longer in that job position though? The direction the park has headed in has been questionable though. Thorpe has a history of a cycle of attracting family guests and then undoing all that effort by alienating them, we’ve seen that again this year with Year of the Walking Dead, Walking Dead the ride & love island to name a few. Fright Nights has gone for quantity instead of quality. Behaviour of some staff has been questionable and wouldn’t be tolerated at say Towers. But on the flip he did oversee the entrance area improvements and driven home the brand of the Island and managed to bring the theme back into theme park with parkwide audio changes and improvements. Time will tell what other changes the interim director makes.

I agree that it is probably not appropriate to discuss individuals and I do normally try not to comment negatively on individuals working at the park. However I feel that the last 1 and a half years the park has taken a serious dive. The concerns I had when it was announced the Midway's guy was taking charge pretty much all manifested themselves. While it might be a misinterpretation and lack of information I feel that ultimately the blame for the parks decline ends up on the directors shoulders. As for my comments on Varney I have great respect for him to turnaround the mess that was the parks and turn it into the giant that is Merlin Entertainments from his branding background. However with recent performance and the direction the company is going in I have doubts if he is still the best person for the Job and shareholders will certainly be asking the same thing. End of the day the company is hardly making any money and the time to keep blaming market conditions and weather is running out.

His name is hardly a secret - as I said, any Divisional Director's name appears in basically any piece of marketing. A link to an article with his name was posted in a different thread too. I stand by my comment that I don't know how appropriate it is to discuss this, but if the discussion is going to carry on, it's only fair to have more balanced facts than just guessing and going on hearsay.

Well I didn't know that. The old guy from the Midway's wasn't around for very long at all. Do you know when was he replaced and if he left or was forced out?

They should look at the pay structure and make significant changes. Merlin pay very poorly especially at management level and are often £6000+ less than what similar roles offer in the south east. There graduate scheme for example pays £19k-£21k while the average for a graduate business management scheme is around £27k. I would have applied for the scheme if it wasn't for the potential 30% pay cut. They must be loosing out on countless motivated highly qualified individuals due to the poor pay. Then the ones they do get are then driven away by the poor corporate structure and lack of direction. The seasonal work and the poor pay for management means that they get very few career staff. Instead they get people working for them who's sole objective is to earn money with little to no motivation to make an impact. The business structure is rotten and lacks direction. I don't believe Varney is good as CEO anymore and needs to be replaced for the next business phase for Merlin. As for the new director of Thorpe I don't believe he has a clue what the parks history or objectives were and now he's come in and completely changed it to the thing the park was trying to move away from. Merlin could be doing a lot better and I feel all of its issues stem from the top. (I feel you are the reason you lost this task and for that reason, Varney, You're Fired.)

This will never happen because then the parks won't invite people just in case they're mean honest... Like I doubt Bakken or Walygator would ever give me freebies...

It currently seems that a bunch of disjointed theme park fans are running the park. With the bizarre and irrelevant IPs popping up constantly; rushed, poorly managed, low-budget attractions; and pointless, disappointing events it is difficult to see where the park is planning on going. Hopefully they will learn from this mistake, and sort out the actual root of the problem. The people who believe that creating 8 Mazes and a 'Show' (very, very loose term) in one to two months with minimal staff who seem to be not experienced enough to make it work. It seems that the Marketing team saw what Universal are doing, and decided that they would take it all and do it in the UK, without thinking about the amount of money that goes into those attractions, and the large group of designers, technicians and builders who manage to create these attractions.

So far all they've done is sack the Divisional Director. Arguably not the best resolution, and definitely not getting to the root of the issue. Hopefully there's a more intensive attempt at shake up ahead, as the entire structure and direction of the park needs rectification. The constant U-turns and unprofessional management need to go asap.

https://www.merlinentertainments.biz/investor-relations Merlin’s summer update is well worth a listen - some interesting points about struggles staffing the parks in the south east with hints they may look at the pay structure.

Quite sad to see the person involved in something creative responding to criticism in a very "YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND THE SUBTLETY OF MY DESIGN" approach... Like, I've no idea how it actually sounds, but most people aren't going to be sat around Amity Cove listening to the music in order to 'get' it... You might get lucky and hear another part of it as you pass through, but if you need extensive listening to understand it then you've already failed at the job at the creative aspect of passing on the story for guests... Consuming other media to get the full story only works for those who are dedicated, this goes for games, movies and anything else...

Come on... if you put cheery 60s tracks in the mix that are used on the standard amity track, then people are going to assume its the same BGM or just pure laziness, just like I did as I walked through Amity in 4mins, hearing no FN related stuff at all. This actually ruined the atmosphere for me completely, as BGM plays a massive part in the mood. No one wants Big Bob, its Fright Nights for god sake. You can't be on here defending the track saying "had you listened longer and closer" you would have heard the FN theme. Are you standing outside Thorpe Park telling all the other guests this? I'm not going to hang around for 10mins to hear some Halloween related audio. This just means the sound design is very poor. Just sounds like it's been created as it's something a bunch of fans wanted to do. You should be able to pick out the mood instantly when walking into an area, and the amity track isn't doing this at all, this is like the first thing that should be thought about. Not that you want to recreate more Big Bob indents or include theme park enthusiasts in in the mix. Hey, now it's all available online, for what, ego feeding? what utter rubbish. Why is this even a thing in the UK, I don't see Universal posting their tracks online. The park was built for 'islands' but everything is such a mash and islands are so close and mixed, with broken speakers and poorly levelled across the park, until this is fixed, adding zoned audio for FN's isn't effective and should have just been one or two park wide tracks, designed allowing the roamers to act along with, and actually make you feel like at 3pm, it's Fright Nights, and not normal TP. Regarding ride audio, you do it all, or non at all. Saying theres more to come, err the event opened last week, it should have been done. Why would you theme only 25mins of the track. Why would you put a story into the track, in an area which no one is going to be around to listen, because the mazes are on the other side of the park. It shouldn't depend on what time you get there, it should be there ALL the time. ----------------------------------ION------------------------ This has to be the worst Fright Nights ever, everything has been thrown into it to make it the biggest, but it's all shoddy, low class, black walls, poorly designed atmosphere and mazes and then go to the lengths of using enthusiast to produce content across the park, including the vloggers, where I'm 100% sure have been paid to say it's the best Fright Nights ever, when it's the worst. I mean, 2017's top maze couldn't even come back, despite owning everything for it, apart from a tent to put it in. As for Scare zones... what scare zones? Fright Nights 2018 has nose dived. I feel extremely sorry for the Actors who are trying the hardest, as I saw in some mazes, but frankly they are not given the environment to make scares happen. Everything's so open. Instead I found them more of an annoyance, just standing there and then stamping in front of me.

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.

I see from Facebook that today is "that" particular day where people Travel from far and wide to Thorpe Park & Alton Towers... #prayfortheannualpassholders EDIT: my fave tweet thus far is someone asking why there are so many people in high heels on park today ?

Run from it, hide from it. Ride cutbacks still arrive. ( (The person who tweeted this put a smile on my face)