JoshC.

I imagine Smiler incident has had a knock on effect towards the park's popularity. I expect Merlin predicted that, plus they had a low investment year, so I don't think slightly lower figures should be ringing alarm bells to anyone to be honest.

Maybe I'm missing something, but I don't see how anyone can seriously think Samurai is returning to Chessington? It just seems like people are putting 2 and 2 together and getting 5. If Samurai returns to Chessington, I'll eat my hat.

I agree that Rattlesnake's prolonged downtime after the Smiler incident is a bit odd considering everything else that was closed following the incident has now reopened. However, I feel like it's very difficult to criticise the closure when Merlin have handled the situation perfectly in my opinion, and they're not going to be keeping a ride closed longer than necessary. I also think it's difficult to have an opinion of when the closed rides should reopen, since this is an incident that we've never seen Merlin handle before, and have no clue how something like this is dealt with behind the scenes.

Why do you think they need to step marketing up? They've got leaflets on park and a teaser website for the ride. Do they really need any more at the moment, when the ride isn't going to open for (at least) another 7 months? At the moment, not many parks have big time marketing for their major attractions set to open next year. Swarm had some huge marketing campaigns going on this time in 2011, and yet you see that final product as a let down, so it goes to show the marketing preceding a ride's opening doesn't make a good ride in the long run! I personally think that would spoil the effect of any sort of immersive tunnel. The whole point is you're meant to be immersed in a surrounding - having a huge car to your side would really make that difficult and would certainly ruin anything on the screen to your side in my opinion.

Fuji-Q has some ridiculously awesome-looking scare attractions; would really love to experience them one day. Certainly a place Thorpe should strive to compete against in the global market if they're serious about making their Halloween event top quality. Saw is crying out to have an escape room treatment really, but would require some minor modifications for it to work. Would be a pretty amazing thing to do if they could pull it off, but I'd be surprised if it's happened this year. Most staff won't know that much about the building schedule of WC16, so I wouldn't believe that even. There won't be a maze in the building either - they would have to finish the rest of the building, construct the walls and ceiling, make the ground safe to be accessed by the public, stop the construction of the ride to create, build and operate an entire maze for a month, then de-construct it to be able to continue work of the dark ride. Way way way too much effort and logistical trouble for one maze. I'd be surprised if a maze goes near where the Island Beats stage is. There's not a lot of room there. Sure, they put Dead End by that walkway a few years ago, but there's not a lot of room there, so any form of official attraction would be very short. That space could hold a small scare zone, but that's about it. tl;dr - don't believe everything you hear from "someone"

Worth pointing out again that Rattlesnake is still down because of the Smiler incident. So at least that has a decent reason for its closure.

Only old maze I really miss is Se7en. I really enjoyed the concept of the maze and there were some great scenes with great effects in there. The blank areas between scenes were very meh, but it was overall a good maze in my opinion. -Curse was always underwhelming to me; nice to look at, but never more than people shout 'Arrrrr, me mateys'. Shame I didn't do it in its last season, as apparently it was good -Asylum was very meh, and liked giving me a headache. -Hellgate was a bit meh too. Some of the others I miss in some ways - I'd have liked to try Passing a couple more times / see it develop over a couple of seasons. Could have been a really nice attraction. Experiment 10 was great too, but needed some of its issues sorted out, and unfortunately MBV just doesn't match up to it. So I 'miss' them in the sense of I'd like to have seen them have more time to possible develop. I wish I'd done Freakshow 3D too. Sounded like a nice and clever concept (and then it would have given me a full house on Fright Night attractions). Shame it's all be painted over and the like. But then again, I'm not complaining with what we've got. Cabin is a brilliant maze with a fantastic idea. MBV inherits some of Ex10's issues and some new ones, but at least uses small spaces and good theming well. Saw Alive is a solid conga line style maze. Blair Witch was great last season, and showed that Thorpe can utilise suspense in their attractions. Studio 13 had a fantastic premise and is to the date the most immersed I've felt in a scare attraction. So, very happy with what we've got at the moment!

I saw this and expected to see "something other than graw" as a member now. But close enough ey..

Unfortunately I don't have a photo of this, but the Tetley Tea character that recently appeared on a themed bench by the Teacups, then disappeared following some damage, has returned! Hopefully it can stick around longer this time!

I don't recall any kitchen scenes from Studio 13 / Asylum / Freezer? Sure the guy wasn't just pulling your leg? IAC was closed today too though, for the record.

Truckers had had Fastrack for a couple of seasons now (since 2012 I think?).

I'm with SCB on this one - effects-based rides are different to rides with effects.

*Insert a suitably sarcastic comment to celebrate*

Yeah, definitely my main issues were with the park were clearly older parts of the park. I could at least appreciate the quality and effort in some of the newer rides I didn't like (Mystery area, Talocan, etc), and Taron already looks fab, so it's great there's a positive outlook. If Temple and Hollywood get replaced, I'm not even sure my wildest dreams could come up with sort of quality attraction they could do in that space...

Lazy retheme of Peeking Heights it is then.

Hotel tickets include Summer Nights.

Agree with Benin that whilst they may not give the exact theme (then again, why would they want to?), they give the generic feel and theme. This marketing campaign is a bit odd though, since the boards around the construction site and the website have very different tones and feel to them. Of course the website will give a better indication to the ride's feel, but it just feels...odd, almost like there was a change in idea or something.

Never too early to advertise for Halloween events in my opinion. Didn't the Scarefest hearse appear at like the beginning of August last season? Just a shame they decided to put it on the Market Square compass, which is arguably the coolest thing Chessington have added in the past couple of years.

I'd be Lez Cougan, since we are all Lez Cougan. Alternatively, I'd be Gustave Hooghmoed. [Yes, I'm really that much of a geek]

Looks like it's lights out for everyone then.

The amount of time it took for a pun to appear in this thread is shocking.

One Chessington meet a year is already one too many in my books.

You see, I see people say about Thorpe only going for dead IPs, but the 3 ones they have all round the season aren't really dead... -Saw is one of the most iconic horror franchises of the 21st century. Yeah, nothing's happening with it at a moment (though a reboot / sequel is apparently going to happen sooner or later), but everyone still knows what it is, and loads still want to experience it. -Angry Birds has topped download charts with its new game and will be there for ages. It's got a film coming out next year. I bet merchandise sales are still really strong across the world too. -I'm a Celeb still attracts millions of viewers, and still peaks between 8-10million in it's most recent series I believe. It's got a contract for at least another 2-3 series as well I think. It might be a bit past it in terms of which celebrities they attract and less things are surprising now, but it's still current and by no mean dead. -The Fright Nights ones are a bit of a mix, but I think they've gotten good IPs for a theme park environment. So Thorpe have gotten good IPs to be honest. They may not be at the height of their popularity, but they're far from dead or out-of-fashion. If WC16 is an IP, then I'm sure the park will have gone for something popular and with sticking power.

Hunger Games really doesn't fit in with the Minds Wanted stuff, unless it was a ridiculously complex spin off. Also, didn't a new park in Dubai get exclusivity rights to the IP? Really can't see it happening at Thorpe to be honest. I'm not getting Smiler / Ministry of Joy vibes either. Yes, there's similarities in that they're about the mind and trying to change you, but the tone is completely different to me!

Leaflets are now on park advertising the site... (From TPM FB)