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Potential Spoiler Alert Went to EPCOT today and took a ride on Guardians Of The Galaxy: Cosmic Rewind. Towards the end of the coaster it did an e-stop (engineer said it was to do with the sensor detecting the train before it was expecting to) and we had to evacuate through the show building. Took some photos with the lights on, thought might be interesting to see.

I think the most expensive maze before this was Trailers (though it wasn't marketed as such). Though I guess it depends on how the measure expense, etc. And that assumes it's not just some throwaway phrase. But yeah, I like the concept of this at heart. Multi route, potentially being split up and the whole "survival" aspect. Really cool. The social media side is something that's been done a lot lately (you could even argue Black Mirror does this), so I hope that's more just a backstory and not a key focus of the maze. These things are difficult to do right, and it may take some time to bed in, but I'm excited to see how this develops.

Final maze announcement - Survival Games! From Jack Silkstone's Twitter: "A BRAND-NEW multi-route scare maze and Thorpe Park’s single biggest FRIGHT NIGHTS investment to date! This incredibly intense indoor experience features live actors, special effects, and multiple genres of horror designed to terrify even the most fearless." Now this, I am excited for. This has massive potential, especially considering it's the biggest fright nights investment to date.

The thing is, the theming of Trailers was top notch - can definitely see that it was their most expensive maze to date. However, the execution of it was poor in my opinion. If it was executed better (and personally, the different rooms were reduced so the rooms could be bigger and therefore less predictable scares that you can see before even entering the room), it would've been a phenomenal maze. I'm super, super excited for this one. It has massive potential, and if the theming is anything near Trailers, it has the potential of being super immersive too. Let's just hope they don't go over-ambitious with their ideas in a small space which will lead to predictable scares again. I'd rather only have a few rooms but have them be massive and therefore have well-hidden scares in it, than lots of different rooms to experience and be able to predict the scares before you even experience them.

I think they don’t really deserve the bad rep when it comes to dark rides. Not anymore at least. They have clearly tried hard recently to improve the situation. - Hex is still absolutely brilliant. - Skylion is outstanding. - Griffalo holds up really well. - Walking Dead, although a bit meh, was an improvement and fairly well done considering it was only a minor project. - Duel is going to be improved soon. I think one problem is that Merlin very publicly s*** themselves with DBGT though. A lot of effort and money wasted on a white elephant. It was however done with good intentions - they set out to achieve a truly great dark ride, but unfortunately missed the mark horribly. I think the reputation is improving tbh. It’s a lot of the older rides that have been letting the side down. Duel and Tomb Blaster for example.

In general I would say the offering by Merlin for dark rides isn’t great but I LOVE Hex. Also really like Flight of The Sky Lion and Bubbleworks (not so keen on Gruffalo). I wish there were more dark rides to chose from - something like Symbolica at Efteling would be pretty cool to have

Today's announcement is a new scare zone, Death's Doors https://www.facebook.com/thorpepark/videos/598885065061349/ It's taking place in the pathway under Nemesis Inferno, and it sounds like it will have 21 different doors which you can open, and each has some sort of reference to Fright Nights. Some will be scarier than others. It's...a thing. The location sounds like a nightmare, especially being adjacent to the Birthday Bash show. And operationally it sounds like even more of a nightmare, especially when the park is busy. Could be a cool thing, but....yeah, I'm not sold on that.

The Terminal sounds like an interesting experience and idea. The park are working with Darkfield for the experience, who have lots of experience with audio attractions (they very much became the rage during the Covid lockdowns). I believe that usually you do these experiences blindfolded, and it relies on your imagination somewhat. Couple that in with special effects (movements, mist sprays, etc), and it has potential to be a really cool experience. But. I think this experience suffers from being quite niche in market. I reckon it involves a certain level of buy in from the guest for it to truly work. How many people, at Fright Nights, want to go into a experience and actively participate in making the most of an attraction for themselves, whilst also - somewhat paradoxically - sitting in an enclosed space alone? I don't know, but I reckon it's a smaller proportion of the audience than those who are interested in going into a scare maze. In turn, it runs the risk of disappointing a lot of people because it may just end up feeling like "sitting in the dark with some headphones on". I'm not saying that's what will happen. But there's certainly a risk there. Could be a risk that pays off majorly though. Fair play to Thorpe for doing something which is truly different and not really seen before in a wider market. I really hope it works out well.

An 'audio scare experience' huh? If done correctly this could be very, very cool indeed.

Creek Freek Annoucement Creek Freak Massacre: The Final Cut is returning for its third and final year! Glad it’s been confirmed as the final year (and on a separate note, I’m glad that they are continuing to be confident on Exodus and preparing for it) Sad to see it go, it was possibly the maze which changed fright nights as we see it in its present day. It was a strong maze last year and imo the best.