JoshC.

New video from the park... The aforementioned potential 'new details' day is Tuesday, when the park are presenting at EAS. Oh and for all you fans, yes, that music is from IMA Score...

Construction is starting on the new Gerstlauer Bobsled for next year. The coaster is partly taking the place of La Coccinelle, the park's kiddie cred, as the surrounding area, which has now been removed and will reopen next year on the site of the park's old ferris wheel... (Image from looooooooooooooopings) I believe the nearby boat journey ride is closing soon (if it hasn't already) for construction, and the Halloween version of the ride won't be making an appearance this year. But the boat is back next year. The water park expansion is also happening and progressing well.

It was open last year during AP night, so don't see why it wouldn't be this year. Still the same price (so £8 with discount) and presumably it will be just buy on the day. Probably worth checking with Thorpe for certain on that though!

There's a new video on AT's Facebook about The Welcoming (can't link atm as on phone). There's a plank of wood with symbols spelling out 'Gift', a male hand with the 'N' symbol, and the video ends in a way suggest that the maze will involve you being hooded at some point.

Neat investment from the park, and not that surprising really. A bit of a shame that there's not a more exciting family water ride coming, but it still fills a gap. And their concept art always is realistic compared to the final product, so that bodes well too. One thing from the press release though... Looks like someone has been attending the Merlin School of Marketing...

I feel sorry for anyone who has to go to media night, since they'll have to be near some arrogant enthusiasts who think they're special since they get to go to a theme park a day earlier...

In other news, Tobin Bell visited Thorpe Park yesterday and did a brief interview... https://www.thorpepark.com/blog/thorpe-park-meets-tobin-bell

To be fair, Efteling are pretty good with throughputs and their queues are quick moving, with only the old rides like Python and Bob being quite slow. They don't have Fastrack queues, and only 2 SRQs (Baron and Symbolica). So they do focus on 1 quick moving queue mostly. It's also worth noting that Carnival Festival (their omnimover which can get like 2 hour queues on busy days) has recently had an app made, which can interact with stuff in the queue now. Makes me think they're trying loads of different ideas to try and improve people's queueing experience (since there's little more they can do with throughputs), and see what works best.

The outside section of Platform is what needs the most work. It's where the majority of actors are, yet you can see them all as there's no hiding places. And there wasn't enough scope to be able to draw off a 'creepy atmosphere' for that length of time. So if they added in some walls / set pieces to turn that section into a bit more of a labyrinth, that's work well. The tunnel doesn't need much in my opinion. It was bad last year because it was just a long walk in dark. If they included more things to tackle the senses, it'd be fine. For touch, they could have different types of floor (hard floor, soft floor, gravel), and say have bits of cotton hanging from the ceiling, as well as bits of cloth like last year. A couple of extra sound effects / ambient background for sound. Add in a smell somewhere and that's enough to keep you entertained during the whole tunnel if spread out evenly.

BTS Tours never included Fastrack before. So, assuming maze Fastracks are £9 per maze, the price of the actual tour has only gone up a couple of quid. Of course, you have to wonder if the people doing BTS tours care about Fastrack, since they're either in a position that they've done the mazes before and will do them again anyway, or they don't do the mazes outright and just want to see them.

"You're just here for the rides..." - except Efteling is one of the few theme parks that isn't just about rides, and if that's all you do there, you're foolish. But yeah, good to see more Efteling creeping up in the UK media.

Saw V is my least favourite. The Hoffman backstory is good, but the traps are the most nonsense of the series and there's just not much too it. IV is my favourite, and has the best ending - SO MANY TWISTS.

Just as good as other events, who hang signs on the ceilings... Or make small, bland signs with a basic logo stuck on... Moral of the story - everywhere does the occasional bad entrance. And, mostly, it's what's inside that counts.

I was there the first Sunday last year too and this is more accurate...

It is coming back as it's listed as an attraction on the Fright Nights page. Not sure why they haven't made tickets available (unless they're considering a change in price and that's still being finalised). I'd guess it would go on sale very soon though! The cost of Fastrack is continually rising. It is a premium product and they do want it to be limited. However, there is a case of trying to find the right balance between making it accessible to everyone (in terms of cost), making sure they make enough money (like anything else, it's there to make money and has targets to hit) and making sure it's limited enough. If they sell it at too cheap a price, it means they have to sell loads to meet targets, everyone will want it, meaning it's not a premium product and defeats the point. Not to mention how much it will annoy guests. Make it too expensive (and reduce the quantity sold) and people won't buy it, they won't make enough money and it will just annoy guests ("it's too expensive"). The large jump in price would suggest to me that they're reducing the number of Fastrack tickets available. Hopefully it'll be noticeable, as the number of Fastrack tickets sold as always been a major complaint come Fright Nights.

Probably just saying that Fastrack starts for 11am for rides and 3pm for mazes, since some people think they start straight away. Odd wording though!

They've worded it differently, so that it just lists the rides you get unlimited Fastrack on. Though they might want to remove Rush, Slammer and Rumba Rapids... Ooh, looking back into it, the 5-combo was actually £30 last year (£6 a maze like the coasters), so it's actually gone up by £14. Would assume then the single maze Fastrack are £9. Definitely a big jump, but certainly needed. Ultimate FN Fastrack was £99 last year, so it's gone up by £26.

Toverland recently posted this video, which is the first 'official' confirmation from the park that the new entrance and new area (with wingrider) is coming next year: Apparently there's going to be more details / concept art revealed later this month. There's also rumours that the new area could be themed around King Arthur / general castle and knights theme, which would be exciting and interesting for the park. Very little has happened in terms of actual construction at the moment though. So fully expect this to open sometime next summer...

Following the recent-ish announcement of The Walking Dead coming to Thorpe, I thought I'd share a review of TWD: Breakout, Movie Park Germany's 5 Euro upcharge scare attraction. And also share some expectations I have for Living Nightmare and Sanctum as a result.. I have to say, I was really looking forward to this. Movie Park are well known for this Halloween event, and they continually bring in big name IPs as well as original concepts (this year, they've got an 18+ maze themed to the Hostel series which looks to be at least partially an alone experience for example), so that sets a certain bar. The maze itself was really pushed hard, on the website, on leaflets, on the park map and on park too - it was almost like it was a crowning success for the park; their gem along with their big new ride. They advertised "the latest technologies" which helped achieve special effects, along with the standard 'intense, scary' jargon that most mazes get. And even though I haven't watched the TV show (and still haven't yet), I knew how much scope the franchise has. Breakout Review Warning - spoilers After doing some queueing in some shipping containers, you reach the entrance of the maze, which is themed around the Harrison Memorial Hospital (apparently from the first series). You could hear lots of banging to the right of the wall, which I thought was a bit of a spoiler, since an actor was bound to appear. You get batched in in groups of about 8, and encouraged to stay together, but it's not a conga line maze. The first scene just ends up being a standard safety scene (delivered on TVs in multiple languages), and then an actor appears from a hidden route to your left (despite the loud noises you hear outside coming from what should be your right). It was a clever bit of misdirection, and though not scary, showed some promise. The actor then chases away to go down the corridor on your right, banging the walls to encourage you to leave.. Unfortunately from here, things go downhill. You walk past the famous 'Don't Open, Dead Inside' doors, with no sort of effects or actor or special lighting or anything; a particularly disappointing thing since that was so widely pushed in advertised. An actor appeared, shouting 'Boo', and doing some general arm waving to try and invade our personal space. No context to the scenes, and I realised that it was actually the same actor as from the first scene, which begun to ring alarm bells as to the number of actors. You continue through more scenes, which are very well themed, but had little sound effects and no special effects. Occasionally an actor appeared, but they all did the same thing - shout 'boo' and walk like a zombie who'd an accident in their underwear... Though the theming was nice, you weren't given any chance to really interact with it - you were always well away from anything of note, and given tonnes of space with nothing filling it. It was the worst thing a scare maze can be - boring. The ending was cliche to say the least... Large open space, couple of barrels and a door at the end of the room. Oh, except a big burly man with a chainsaw appears out of nowhere by the door. Been there, done that. However, a tiny ray in the ending was the fact that the actor kicked down a barrel onto the floor, creating a huge, echoing thud - easily the biggest scare in the maze, and shows that there was at least a glimmer of thought put into 'how can we actually scare people' when designing the maze. So yeah, TWD: Breakout was a very poor maze. Few actors, little-to-no use of standard scare tactics introduced and nothing exciting or interesting to go with it. Maybe having done a few good mazes over the years has hardened me up a bit too much, but there was just nothing of note. Thorpe Expectations Something which still sticks in my mind about Breakout is how well themed the maze was, and how well designed the sets were. Looking at photos of the maze and looking at images from the show, they are very similar down to the small details. So I expect that AMC / Fox have quite high expectations and demands about the theming of the maze that have to be met. Given the Paragon Creative have been spotted on park (the company who also did a great job when making Saw Alive!), I expect that those expectations will be met, especially with Living Nightmare. From the brief description that Thorpe have released, it sounds like Living Nightmare will be in a similar vain to Breakout in that there are a variety of scenes from the show in the maze that you go through, except that they are including Season 7 in there. Also, as we're told that we can "choose your path and decide your fate", there might be the possibility of multiple routes akin to Cabin - a nice touch which works nicely with the 'assorted scene' vibe. I must admit I'm concerned about what sort of scares we're in for. Thorpe have gotten a reputation that their style of scare is 'growl in people's face, brush against their arm and slam against a wall' and move on. Though I don't strictly agree with this (and we've seen them move away from that with the likes of Big Top, Blair Witch and Platform 15 in my opinion), I certainly see where people are coming from. And it feels almost inevitable that we could be in for that treatment here. I'd really love to see some effects that play on the senses more here - smells are something which are particularly under-used by Thorpe. And I feel like having a hospital scene, for example, which is literally 'cold' would work well. Couple in some other effects here and there, and it would work really well. But I'm just not sure we're in for that. As for Sanctum, given it's said to be an outdoor maze, and from the little we've seen of it, I get a feeling like it will be a bigger, better, more-coherently themed version of Dead End. The general story seems to be 'death and destruction wasteland, you enter a safe bit, but oh wait, it's not safe' - something that Thorpe can do well. The containers could act as means to create a long route to walk around, and be used for impact scares. Chuck in a couple of set pieces and bits and bobs and it'll be a fun little maze. I'm not expecting anything groundbreaking, but it has the potential to be a perfect filler maze, as well as helping spread the crowds around. tl;dr - Germany's Walking Dead maze is on the whole, naff, but the theming is good. I expect good theming at Thorpe and hope they can produce something different in terms of scares.

A "double storey" scene doesn't necessarily mean you'll go upstairs.. In fact, given how the prison scene looks in the show, I'd be very surprised if you do go upstairs. It'd just be a very narrow walkway, which would require unsightly enhancements to make safe: Entirely possible an actor might be on the second storey or something, but I'd be very surprised if you did go up.

Totally agree. The changes are too overbearing right now. But the argument of 'something was fine in the past, why isn't fine now' doesn't always hold up. These changes are there for a reason, and I'm sure we'd all agree that if it helps stop an incident akin to Smiler happening again that's a good thing. But at the same time, I hope they know things are a bit too extreme at the moment and they can find the happy medium between being safe and being sensible (and quickly!).

Though rollbacks are safe, it's not exactly ideal to have it operate in wind which can cause it to rollback. Imagine if Stealth was open but 1 in every 15 rides was a rollback - it'll be a huge pain for staff to be continually resetting it, it won't be reassuring to guests who don't know it's a safe and natural thing, and it'll annoy people in the queue having it regularly rollback. Sure, it's not closed all the time, but it's not worth having it open enough. I agree about the fact the park have operated fine in the past, but we do have to remember that sometimes changes are for the better. I'd much rather see these changes if it prevents an accident. It does feel like they've gone a bit overboard though, yes.

I didn't watch it (18+ only), but I seem to remember that actors and special effects were advertised, but they never actually appeared. It ended up just being some clips from the first 5 films (of gory traps) and the trailer for the new film (Saw VI I think?). Quite disappointing. If memory serves me correctly, there was an 'Ultimate Horror Movie Bites' show in 2002 and 2003, which showed assorted horror film clips and the finale was Texas Chainsaw Massacre with an actor with a chainsaw appearing. Not too sure on that though. Wasn't that popular and replaced with Circus of Horrors.

Last year's event was very reasonable - don't remember queueing much more than 10-15 minutes for any maze or ride really! Pretty certain got a few re-rides too. Other events are harder to compare to since they were either shared with media night (making them a bit busier) or very limited. However the atmosphere is usually very relaxed in the sense that it's easy enough to get everything of note done without rushing.