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There has to be ventilation wherever chainsaws are used and CO monitoring to shut down the maze if too much build up, so that sounds more likely the reason there were shutdowns. Alton's mazes still have strong haze and narrow corridors, if haze too strong usually just opening a door for a few minutes would clear it. I can't really imagine why the Creek Freak building would have a Covid ventilation problem worse than anywhere else, when it's a wooden shack rather than a stone basement, especially when chainsaw mazes usually require strong ventilation anyway (stronger than for Covid regulations) Maybe there were other complications why it didn't open, or just different parks different approach

Might be overthinking things, a set in the ruins basement isn't too different from a set in a draughty wooden shack, probably the ruins basement would be less ventilated. Actually I'm not sure there's any substantial ventilation at all in any mazes Ive been to this year? The Alton mazes still use thick haze this year. Even before Covid I'd not heard of a maze ever needing to actually shut down because of haze too thick. Usually smoke would just get turned down/off and left to dissipate a bit if it got too much. So maybe it's a case of Thorpe being over-precautious and Alton being more pragmatic about their maze H&S. They are two separate parks with separate H&S departments after all and probably just received general advice from above. OR Thorpe have other reasons (Covid related or not) why Creek Freak didn't open this year.

Went yesterday, had a good time. Helped very much by the low crowds which meant lots of interaction in the scare zones too. Mazes I'll be honest: both of the mazes were pretty poor. Platform wasn't helped by the group behind us catching up way too quickly, and because they were the very scared type, actors always targeted them. It's a shame actors towards the start weren't able to slow the group down, as towards the end, other actors certainly would have thought we were part of the same group. Roots of Evil is just poor frankly. I hear the park are improving the issues with time slots and maze queues. Sounds like they were too ambitious to start with and are now having damage limitations. Hopefully it doesn't hit them hard during half term. It's a shame that the two upcharge parts of the event are two of the weakest parts. Zones Swarm: Invasion definitely shouldn't be marketed as a scare zone. But the new music and the actors definitely add another layer to the whole area, which is very much needed during Fright Nights. I hope they keep it in future, but market it less as a zone and more as an added experience (Swarm Comes Alive if you will). The Amity / LycanThorpe High dance show is fine, but I still think it misses the mark a bit compared to last year. Outside of the show, the zones are okay, but a little bland. Amity High is okay thanks to being by Stealth, but LycanThorpe is pretty dead to be honest. Creek Freaks Unchained is great still. I imagine it struggles when busy, and I'd rather it not be like a very mini outdoor maze, but it works very well, and there's lots of good theming about. Still prefer it to the maze. Fearstival Arena is definitely my favourite area. They were enforcing the one way system where it was busier, but when quieter they didn't mind. All in all, it's a really good area, but one where you get more out of it by stopping and interacting with the actors. You can walk through and it be 'okay'. But if you interact with the actors, or let them interact with you, you see just how rich and deep every character is, and everything comes together really well. I think the zone suffers from its location, being a major pathway, so many people won't really want to stop and interact, they'll just walk through. So that means you lose some of the impact. In an ideal world, I think the stage should have gone where LycanThorpe High was, and then turn the Saw Alive pathway into the main zone. Would have helped it have much more impact, and give it more space, especially for the shows. I like how all the shows at the Fearstival arena are different. They tell a complete story, but you can still get it even when you see just one of them. And the mini fire and light show is good too. Saw the Crows a few times too, and they were decent. There's still issues with Fright Nights. Some of the audio overlays are nice, but I really hate the voice-overs. It just doesn't work for me (which is an added shame when the announcements are clever in tying many rides into a phobia). Lighting around the park is pretty dreadful in most places - white floodlights kill the atmosphere! And obviously there's issues of how the park copes when it's busy. And the fact that the key component of Fright Nights, the mazes, are rubbish is a bit of a sour note. But still, it was an enjoyable evening. I really hope that in the future the park keep with proper scare zones, and a show or two, to compliment a selection of mazes. I still maintain that if the quality is right, paying for mazes isn't a bad thing, but Thorpe will always have to balance that with at least one free maze to make it.

I thought Tomb Blaster was meant to have had a refurb?! I rode it on Sunday and... - Axe alley was just pitch black, couldn't see anything - Boulder totally broken and not even spinning - Half the scenes just pitch dark - Voiced audio was overdone and inaudible for the most part The only improvement was uplighting in the very first scene and decent new lighting on the mummy scare at the end. Everything else just felt broken and disjointed.