I was implying the fact last year the park were too obsessive over delivering the highest number of mazes and scare attractions more than anything, all of which were admittedly poor quality, so I take on-board what you say that maze quality can make or break the event, especially when looking at previous years.
To me though, there is far more to this event than just the mazes which is why I highlighted other areas such as the lighting, theming and audio and why they matter. For example of where it goes wrong, the WWTP playlist used last year did not work in my opinion one bit, Dead Creek Woods had a blinding white floodlight above it’s entrance sign so you couldn’t read the bloomin’ thing from the ground, and the placement of those stupid random RGB rainbow LED light rigs was ridiculous and so out-of-place.
And as for theming? This event has had close to zilch park and ride-wise since 2009. Before 2010, every ride was decorated properly from Hell freezing over for Inferno, a Children’s play swing for Rush or Humpty Dumpty for Detonator. The park had character back then, unlike the last 6 years of Fright Nights honestly with IPs galore shoved down your throat everywhere.
2007-2009 were incredible years not only for the mazes, but audio from Midnight Syndicate and Charlie Clouser coupled with proper lighting and brilliant park theming were what made those the best years of the event in my view.
It’s such a stark contrast to what we have today I think.