JoshC.

haha, when I heard about No Tricks, the first thought that sprung to my head was that some over-enthusiastic fan would go just to interrogate Derren on DBGT. Alas, this is the first vaguely Ghost Train related question I've heard of being asked! One thing I did notice during any interview Derren gave to newspapers / Youtubers / etc about Ghost Train early in the year was how similar it all sounded; using the same buzz phrases again and again. It's only really with Thorpe-specific marketing has he seemed to give more specific answers. Wonder if that was because of wanting to keep everything secret or the fact that what Derren says had to be agreed with by Merlin... I always find these sorts of comments interesting. I've always felt Ghost Train should be taken like one of Derren's TV shows, rather than one of his stage shows. So, really, he shouldn't be there too much - he should be there before and/or after the experience, and not much else. Take Pushed to the Edge for example; he met with those he used in the show prior to the experience, and after for the big reveal, but the actual event, Derren isn't present at all; just an invisible hand behind it all. The way Derren features is pretty good in my eyes. He greets you for the pre-show, explaining some safety things and the like. And then he's just there for the countdowns; not much else is needed. Perhaps one thing which would be good is for his voice to be heard in the room between pre-show and the warehouse, and in the warehouse itself. Little things like 'everything isn't as it seems', 'challenge your perceptions', to try and tie things in a bit more. The throughput itself is actually pretty reasonable, and ever improving (like with many new attractions), from what I've heard. The obvious issue is that because the ride is shutting down regularly, the flow of it is broken, causing issues to the number of people who are actually getting through in an hour. And of course, any time a group of people are taken off a train during a shutdown, they are allowed to go back on and experience the attraction again through the Fastrack queue, which delays the main queue some more. That would also explain the 10 minute wait between preshow and the warehouse, as well as why some people get incredibly long green mist sequences - the attraction has, in effect, shutdown, but the holding sequences and areas are still 'live' with guests if it's a quick fix. Which is totally frustrating and shouldn't be happening often (ideally it shouldn't happen at all of course, but unfortunately shutdowns will happen). I remain by a lot of my views of Ghost Train from my first review - it is a very fun, enjoyable experience. The second VR lets it down (which is a real shame since that's the lasting opinion people have on the ride), and the evacuation from the train causes people to lose the point of the big illusion. From the moment I rode it, I knew it wasn't going to be everyone's cup of tea, but did think most will appreciate what it's trying to do. In saying that, it's not surprising that some people's views have become more negative over time - new ride fever has worn off, more issues have cropped up and the reliability issues have caused a big lack of faith. Frankly put, Closed Season will be a blessing, as I'm sure it'll give all parties involved with the attraction a chance to work through all the issues without the constant pressure to open it up. Hopefully fixes can be done to improve reliability, the quality of the VR can improve, to general VR experience can become more dependable and so forth.

I guess you could say that The Swarm is Ian's bogey ride...

Why does everything have to be compared to something else? Also +1 with Mark about having no idea about e-ticket system at Legoland.

McKamey Manor is a survival experience - you are in a series of scenarios for several hours with no means of stopping the experience. It's not a scare attraction or anything like that, but just a means of pushing people to the edge and a way for people to get their kicks. From what I heard of Snuffhouse After Dark and Snuffhouse Alone (experiences co-created by McKamey in the UK), it feels like McKamey has very little knowledge in terms of scare attractions, but instead knows how to just make things as brutal as possible, whilst avoiding the realms of full-on torture. Face it Alone is an extreme version of mazes. The aim is to unsettle and scare you, but still keep it fun. Face it Alones still keep within the theme / idea of the maze (Big Top uses custard pies for example, as a way of partially blinding you to make things more difficult for you. Studio 13 caked you in make up, before 'giving up on your face' and covering it with masking tape). So they essentially the mazes as they are during the day, just with the opportunity to actually interact with you on a personal and invasive level; something which cannot be done during any normal maze run through at any park.

SPOILER WARNING So after trying Containment again this year, it feels appropriate in some ways to do a review to mirror my review from last year, and see whether the improvements I wanted to see happened or not. For a quick run down, here's some of the things I said could be improved, and some comments... 1) The preshow. Last year, I felt the preshow either needed to be moved inside or just be given totally be an actor. This year, it's given totally by an actor, who sets the scene perfectly - creepy, yet funny, whilst setting the scene and explaining the rules. 2) The scare rating. Last year, Containment received a 5* scare rating - something which was completely unjustified, and that the attraction could never live up to. This year, it's been given a much more appropriate 2* rating, matching the attraction's more "panic" feel, than scary intense feel. The attraction isn't scary, but has it's place in Fright Nights, especially with this much fairer rating. 3) The cost. I'm all for making this an upcharge attraction, but I was concerned £8-10 was too much, especially after seeing time slots not sell out during the second weekend of Fright Nights. The cost hasn't changed, and there's been less marketing, but it's certainly seemed to be attracting a lot of attention too, and has sold out on a few nights already which is good to see. They might need to allow a bit more time between groups (having up to a 30 minute wait after the designated time slot hasn't been uncommon this year!), but it's at least good to see it's selling out. 4) The ending. The ending still needs more for me. I'd absolutely love another room where it shows you how many rooms you solved, how quick you were and have an actor give you the corresponding wristband, along with a final scare. Obviously space is the main issue for that, and presumably it would add another technical layer to the attraction, making things more difficult to control in some sense. But it would still be awesome. However, it's nice to see that there's something a bit more after completing or failing the final room, giving an actual scare to get you out the attraction. Other Improvements? One thing I really liked was how at the start of each room, an explanation to the fear your were facing was given. Last year, I had no clue what each fear was meant to be - the four rooms were meant to be fear of touch, small spaces, dentists/needles and darkness in that order. I thought it was fear of small spaces, foreign things, needles and darkness... This year, a nice voiceover explained it all, before the actors then begun to do their things. The rooms this year felt a bit more logical too, and actually had things to solve rather than blindly tackle and hope for the best. Definitely an improvement on last year! Room for Improvement? I noticed a couple of noise bleeds from rooms at times, which is a bit of a pain, but difficult to solve. And there needs to be a solid way to stop groups from catching up with one another (especially if you solve the first room quickly, since there's no actor to occupy you!). And obviously the ending. However, these are all difficult things to solve, especially with the small space the attraction uses. All in all, Containment is very good this year - easily my second favourite attraction this season behind The Big Top. The new challenges and new spin on the story is refreshing and has really turned this from a 'nice thing to try' to a 'don't miss' attraction in my opinion! And with a very good cast, it's really done wonders. I look forward to a return of it next year (hopefully), again with new scenes, fears and challenges!

Wolf head was working last night!

Where has this been stated? Not saying that I don't think it will see changes (to the VR) semi-regularly, but I don't recall any statement (explicit or implicit) saying it's an ongoing project, which would be a big deal.

https://www.heide-park.de/ghostbusters.html Heide Park are getting a Ghostbusters '5D dark ride' next year. Sounds potentially like the same ride system as Ninjago at the Legoland parks. Will be interesting to see how it's received.

And it's now been taken off. *laughs and cries*

Out of the Big 5... 1) Swarm 2) Inferno 3) Saw 4) Stealth 5) Colossus Colossus just gets more and more painful lately, from the first turn off the lift to even the last turn before the final inline. The only bareable parts of the rides are the inlines, but they can't be a saving grace for me any more. Saw is an intense ride, but I've only had 1 or 2 bad experiences with it. It honestly boggles the mind for me that people say it's more uncomfortable than Colossus...

If something is dumb and it works, is it *really* dumb?

CALLING @MattyMoo - WE HAVE A JART. I REPEAT, WE HAVE A JART!

It's a shame that Fastrack queues are still an issue at the moment. On the whole, Fastrack control has been better this year than previous years, so I was hoping that that would reflect during Fright Nights. I imagine yesterday wasn't helped by the fact Platform 15 opened about 90 minutes late, which would have caused a backlog of Fastrackers no doubt. Fingers crossed that lessons are learnt from this weekend!

What I'm saying is if there was, say, 1000 people virtually queueing for Stealth, instead of in a physical queue, they have got to be elsewhere on park. So they are going to be in a queue for another ride (or even a standby queue for Stealth since they did that). As far as I can see, we're saying the same thing?

Ah, got you. It was definitely the biggest flaw of the system in my opinion - the 1000 odd people who would be in a queue for Stealth, for example, have to go somewhere, don't they! Me being nitpicky though, that's not really a probability thing in my opinion - it's simply a case that you have a (large) number of people redistributed around the park and simply doing the next best thing. But tldr is we're essentially saying the same thing just in different ways!

I'm probably just being a bit slow here, but I really don't get what you're trying to say here? Are you saying that having RnR on the major rides (which are also the higher throughput rides) drives people to the lower throughput rides, counteracting the worthwhile-ness of the system? If so, then yes, that's a fair point, but that's not to do with the maths for the system, more just the logistics of it.

Interesting, as I felt this is why it worked so well. The strobe timing was perfect at making things disorienting, and the actors already seemed to know how to take advantage of it - I regularly felt like I was seeing two of the same actors when in fact I was facing mesh fencing and the actor was standing right next to me. Different strobes at different times would lose that effect for me I think. It's still a surprise I like that part as much as I do given how I disliked Asylum (and also TotT's strobe scene in 2012..). May as well chuck in a few more spoilery stuff... Big Top I like the new take on the story this year; feels a bit more 'backstage at the carnival', than a journey through the carnival. The Madame Mephisto sequence is a nice start. I like how the end of the mesh maze is really open, which made it quite unclear where you had to go. After that, all the scenes were really well themed, and the clown wash room was fab. Chainsaw ending was good too; both Ryan and I turned the wrong way to almost walk into the actor which was a bit of a shock. Platform 15 The beginning sequence is fun, and it's nice to see a good story at the beginning (Studio 13 did this very well for example, so it's nice to see the idea replicated when there's more space). The train sequence is alright, but nothing of note really. The maze leading up to the tunnel is too open and lacking in actors, making it difficult for their to be any real scares, and it loses any chance for the creepy feel I was really expecting since you can see too many people. The tunnel is very long and needs more actors, and the ending can be ruined if you catch up with the group in front of you (like we did). Definitely a work in progress, but I think with some more actors and some more stuff in the middle it could be a fun attraction! Containment Completely different this year and a lot of fun; my second favourite attraction of Thursday night. Actors were brilliant and the clues actually made sense this year! Saw Alive Saw feels like a dependable maze now, and the actors really did a great job. Much like last year, it very theatrical as opposed to in your face scary, which is exactly what it should be! Cabin in the Woods I'm not sure what it is about Cabin, but it seems to slowly get worse every year. I remember in its first year, there was an actor and a special effect in every room. Since then, there haven't been actors in all the rooms and some of them you walk through waiting for something to happen, before getting nothing and leaving disappointed. It's a shame as there's so much potential and scope, but it just isn't fulfilling it. Blair Witch Maybe after being my favourite maze last year I hyped this up a bit too much, but I didn't like it much this year. Actor positioning was a bit off, and it just felt a bit wasted in places. Something which feels easily fixed though! So I really enjoyed 3 attractions, and the other 3 have issues which can be fixed reasonably quickly. It must be said I found all the actors to be of good standard, though I had very few touch me. It's not necessary to scare, but it felt like there were places where it was appropriate to do so, but they just didn't seem to take advantage of it? Maybe it was just settling in stuff, but we shall see.

Mathematically speaking, the system can work. From a purely theoretical perspective, Reserve n Ride was a brilliant idea. From a more practical perspective, it wasn't really handled in the best way, needed more work put into it, more attention paid to it, more exposure and perhaps a little bit more faith in the system for it to work to a decent level. Of course, all the points you raise are very valid - especially since they publicly said the aim of the system was to try and make Thorpe Park a queue-free park, a very bold claim that they could in no way uphold without having multiple non-ride things to do (which the park simply does not have the infrastructure for).

Yes - http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/11349-spoilers-fright-nights-2016/ Please keep this thread spoiler free, and only use it if you're trying to find out stuff whilst avoiding spoilers. I'll leave this thread open for the time being, but I imagine there won't really be a need for it in a week or so time.

The spoiler thread for all things Fright Nights 2016. No need to use spoiler tags, and be as in depth as you want! Warning: Unless filmed during Thursday's media night, POVs / photos of the mazes are not allowed and will be removed. Don't try to record / photograph inside in the mazes.

A few quick, non-spoiler, words: Platform 15 Needs work. A bit too open and not enough actors. Nice beginning and nice idea though. The Big Top Fantastic. Much more intense andvery nicely themed. Definitely a highlight and stand out attraction to me. Blair Witch Not as good as recent years, which is a shame. Much like Platform, a bit too open and not enough actors. Good idea still, just needs a couple of tweaks. Containment Great fun this year. Each room is clearer in what needed to be done and what it's representing, but still represents a challenge. Also had the best actors! Saw Alive Pretty much the same as last year. Very intense and the actors matched that intensity. Cabin in the Woods Not the best run through I've had in it. A bit weak all in all, but one has to wonder of that's because of getting used to it. Also something to note - only maze where actors touched me was Containment. Touching was allowed in all mazes but never happened. Obviously touching isn't necessaryto scare, but if you're allowed to do it, why not do it? Obviously media night should never be used to judge the event as a whole, and I'm sure the event will grow and settle as time goes on. I look forward to going again soon!

Two and a half years ago we were all talking about what roller coaster was going to be built on the island behind Swarm. Thorpe is very predictable ey!

^^That queue time website is unofficial, hence why not everything is in there. They were probably just testing that the system worked, hence why it displayed a queue time.

Feel free to send a name change request to JartyJoo any time Mat!

It's not planned to be closed, so it should be open.