JoshC.

The park have announced that this new thing will be called 'NeuroGen'. They've released a couple of videos, and it seems to be a bit Ministry of Joy / Sanctuary inspired, in that NeuroGen gives treatment that makes you better at life... There's still no word on what this actually is, aside from the use of VR. Construction updates on the park's Snapchat show a reasonably tall, circular-ish room having work done to it to make it look quite clinical. My guess is that it'll just be some sort of 4D theatre variant (ie moving seats, special effects, etc), just with VR, which makes sense given the attraction is taking place in a small part of the old 4D theatre. The park are still pushing this to be super horrifying though. They've said that "The Clinic explores the boundaries of your emotions...The new attraction goes one step further." Given how The Clinic was quite psychological, it'll be interesting to see if they can actually pull it off...

So Grona Land have submitted plans to build a B&M invert, at 115ft high and 700m long, along with what looks like 4 inversions. Christ knows how they've squeezed that in, but it looks really solid. Should open by 2020 apparently...

Doesn't matter - Loggers closes when it's dark, so the queue can still be used for a Fright Nights attraction. As for a queue for Blair Witch with a ride around that location, I don't see why they can't just close the Tug ride early in the day and use the queue for the maze - they did it with Fungle Safari and Asylum.

I don't understand your logic? This discussion is all about Blackpool. You're the one who mentioned Merlin parks. How has the state of the Merlin parks got anything to do with Blackpool's operations? Yes, credit where it is due, it's great Blackpool had got essentially the whole park open in February. But if they're not ready to cope with the crowds they will receive, should they open so early?

Using 'well they're actually open' seems a bit of a non-point. Regardless of when a park is open, if the operations are poor, they're poor. People weren't sympathetic to Thorpe, for example, during their half term event when things didn't go to plan, despite all the good things. Just a case of a bit more perspective really. Wasn't expecting to hear that practically everything is open though - that's a good thing!

1) Chessington is open 2) No one said anything about Merlin parks. But oh well. 3) At no point during any of the Merlin parks' February events have they ever experienced long queues. The line up they provided suited the crowds that came. 4) Marc's point was a tad tongue-in-cheek. Seems to be a case that the masses descended to Big One at a certain time. What other rides are actually open at Blackpool atm? Might be a case that the place needs to try and be better prepared for the crowds in future, by adding more rides or more capacity to what they've got open. But then that'd require more money for more engineers and whatnot, so seems doubtful.

River Quest is receiving more theming this season, because Phantasialand are awesome like that... The park are also doing a closed season blog - https://phantasialandblog.de/mission-off-season-river-quest-wasserstrudel/

The making of series is now to episode 3, which focuses on the attraction's music and a sneak peek of the ride vehicles towards the end... Efteling have also revealed that a majority of the ride's roof will be a garden: Should make the view from the Pagoda slightly more pleasing!

Going back to free flow vs conga line discussion... I don't think there is necessarily a 'better' one, and different mazes will suit different styles. Being in a conga line means that guests will have their hands on the shoulders of the person in front, which straight away creates an open torso, which can make people feel more vulnerable. People don't want to get lost from the group, so will keep a firm group on the person in front, rather than cover their eyes with their hands, which makes it perfect for jump scares that appear out of nowhere. So labyrinth style mazes (ie mazes with one obvious, few large spaces for guests to go in, etc.) usually work better with hands-on-shoulders, since those mazes usually utilise jump scares the most. Free flow allows for people to explore more. Be that through multiple choices, larger scenes or other forms of interactivity. Jump scares are usually less effective in this sort of environment, and scares come out of tension-building, mis-direction or from the natural interactivity. But you need to ensure that there is enough for people to do, and that the scares happen frequently enough, otherwise people can relax - put their hands in their pockets and treat it as a stroll through a building - or they'll huddle together and make any scares coming their way less effective. This is why I think MBV was so poor for me. The layout was very labyrinth-style, and the interactive elements (tunnel and air bag thing) do very little by themselves and didn't have actors to go with them. Sure, the maze was claustrophobic and noisy, but it was easy to distance yourself from the maze because of the free flow nature. Had it been hands-on-shoulder (say the tunnel didn't exist), it might have worked much better for me. I guess one thing with Platform 15 we have to consider is that space for attractions is at a premium. After 2015, where the Beach and Big Top flooded a lot, it's understandable they don't want to use that area. And I can't think of any other places on park which aren't being used that could be used for a scare attraction (only place that springs to mind is the marquee but I think there's quite a lot of logistical issues with that making it highly unlikely). And given they probably had to spend a fair bit making that walkway safe to use, they will want to use it as much as possible. And let's not forget that Big Top, Blair Witch, Curse all received poor reviews in their first year, but all came back and were improved upon.

So Phase 2 is happening with the shuttle coaster: It's now called 'Turbo Track' and is meant to simulate what it's like to be a Ferrari test driver. The track has a max height of 210ft (64m), which is apparently the tallest point on Yas Island, and a max speed of 63mph. It also has forward and backward facing seats, What is impressive is how this has had the hole in the building custom made for this, which I imagine is something easier said than done. Here's a couple of nice pictures too...

There's some on ride footage released by the park here:

Doesn't Lego Friends also suffer from the fact it is more aimed at girls than boys? At the very least, the extremely pink and girly nature of it all is really alienating to boys in my experience.

If it's the Saturday, then I might be tempted to go. But at the same time it's Chessington, so I might be tempted not to go. So yeah I'm maybe at the mo.

I don't think they are planning on doing that any more; certainly no work has started on it at the moment. On the above map, I don't think areas D and G have happened either. I always felt that infilling that area surrounded by Loggers was a weird; just didn't feel like it'd work to me. Of course, can't say it isn't / won't be happening, but given they haven't done any new infilling for a few years now, it seems very unlikely to me.

Didn't realise it has been this long since we had an update on what is arguably Europe's second most exciting coaster addition for 2017... A reminder of the concept art for Pégase Express (since the link above is dead): Apparently June-time is the aimed for opening for this, and here's a little construction update from Parc Asterix Fans' Facebook...

Close up shots of the train design were released a few days ago on the park's Facebook... The design feels a bit more basic than I was hoping / expecting; bit of a shame.

If you're into this sorta thing, London Dungeons is doing a 'darker' tour on Valentine's Day to 'celebrate' the release of Fifty Shades Darker. Oh, and you get a little adult present at the end of it, courtesy of Ann Summers... https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/fifty-shades-of-the-london-dungeon-in-partnership-with-ann-summers-tickets-31886413120?aff=facebook I'd go, but I'm tied up that evening...

So S&S have noticed that Mack design half of their rides whilst seemingly drunk and / or high as a kite, so decided to have a crack at it themselves. The results aren't good - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCyJi4uenl18tUI2ytqkzWfA/videos Interestingly, one of the rides seem to fit pretty nicely at Drayton, seemingly being based at the park: There's been a few wild rumours over the past few months of Drayton investing in an S&S coaster for 2018, and an inverted coaster and a launched coaster are two obvious things which could add to the ride line up. Hope it's not the above though, since it just seems awful...

Park opening hours have received a tweak... -10:30am openings are now 10am. -4:30pm closes are now 4pm. Dark Forest, Cloud Cuckoo Land and Hex are advertised to open at 10:30am every day.

I'm sure you are well aware that there are many members here who find out many things relating to parks, and can post these things, but can't give any 'proof'. And some members who almost constantly give correct and accurate information don't always need proof.

The Danes are getting a piece of the virtual action... http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/6986/Virtual-reality-bij-achtbaan-in-Kopenhagen.html Dæmonen, the B&M floorless at Tivoli Gardens, is getting the VR treatment, with a Chinese theme - letting people get chased by loads of things from Chinese mythology. The VR is being supplied by VR Coaster (which did Europa's VR stuff). It's optional, and will cost about £2.90 to try.

Not content with adding a new attraction, painting Goliath a new colour, and refreshing the colour of two other coasters, Walibi Holland have also announced they're replacing some track of their wooden coaster, Robin Hood. Where's Walibi's cash cow come from the past couple of years?!

It's a shame all the stuff is so RARE, I only like my merch well done

Of all the criticisms that could be thrown at Fright Nights, I don't think a lack of uniqueness is one of them. Outdoor attractions are rather uncommon, especially in a more set attraction format (most outdoor scare attractions are scare zones). Cabin's free-flow, choose-a-door style was original, and still remains rather unique. Of the top of my head, I can't think of many specific scare events that offer, albeit mini, escape rooms either. And they've never been afraid to try something different or unique in recent years either - Experiment 10 and The Passing being prime examples. In some ways, we are spoilt for choice a bit, and with Towers pushing the boundaries a lot more lately, it does under-value the uniqueness of Thorpe's mazes somewhat - especially since everyone visiting Thorpe will know of Towers. One could argue that Thorpe's biggest downfall at the moment is their inability to be able to produce a quality, 'standard' maze. And that's not the park's fault either - they don't have a huge space they could use to create a standard, conga-line maze with rich theming, lots of special effects and so forth. Compare this to all other major scare events in the country, who all have large spaces which can be used / converted into scare attractions.

Walibi in 2016: "Our 2017 attraction won't use VR" Walibi in 2017: "Our 2017 attraction will use VR" http://www.looopings.nl/weblog/6903/Nieuwe-virtual-reality-attractie-in-Walibi-Nog-heftiger-dan-The-Clinic.html As of yet, this new thing doesn't have a name, but it's been revealed it will be a spin off of their headline Halloween attraction last year, 'The Clinic'. The Clinic strapped people to a stretcher and then simulated a person's death, post-mortem, funeral, cremation and afterlife and was really well received. A "more horrifying" version of that does sound interesting...