JoshC.

Am I the only one who thinks that, bar the length, it looks okay? Not gonna lie, it doesn't set the world on fire and I'm not dying to go out and try it, but I don't think it looks bad, in honesty.

It was packed today. I was there till about half 12 and rides I saw unavailable were... -Stealth (down all the time) -Vortex (down all the time, though was testing) -Loggers (down till 12ish) -Rush (broke at 10:10, reopened later though) -Storm Surge opened late (and then had a 140min queue! ) -Slammer still broke. Was a shame to see, especially at the park's busiest period, when the reliability this year has been very good otherwise!

This made me laugh more than it should have done... http://www.designboom.com/technology/mini-roller-coaster-turns-the-street-into-amusement-park/?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

As others have said, there are so many factors to consider when you look at 2012's attendances. To solely say Swarm didn't bring in the crowds is unfair really. I personally think that Swarm will have a different type of pulling factor - other coasters (Stealth, Saw and Colossus) have had a key marketing gimmick which draws people in, and people decide to return of their own accord. Obviously, a UK first ride is not gimmicky enough for the general public, but as the general consensus of guests is that Swarm is a very good ride, then word of mouth will eventually spread. Why do you think this, just outta interest?

I've just had a thought... If the Blair Witch (or any attraction really) uses the CCR route in any way, will it open later than the other mazes? The maze is likely to have the majority of it outside in the open, and I think having it open at 3pm, when it's still light and that, would definitely detract from the experience. Even if they were to use the woods up the hill - which I think is doubtful - it would still be rather light. I'm not saying open it ridiculously late, more like 5-6pm (depending on if the clocks have gone back). But I do think opening it any earlier and it could detract from the experience..

I'm not entirely sure what system I prefer. Personally, I think Thorpe's system is fine as it is. £5 extra for Standard AP holders and a rise in price for everyone, and you can choose between mazes, night rides, or a bit of both. It's consistent with the pricing of Summer Nights, too. Alton's system is also good, as it allows for people who don't want to do the mazes not to have to fork out extra. It also helps keep queues small most of the time. In a bit of a cop-out answer, I think each system suits the individual parks fine. Thorpe have more scare attractions, and have a lot more focus on them at Halloween, so it makes sense to have an added extra price. Alton have less scare attractions and I feel have them as a sideline for Halloween, with the focus being more on all-rounded for everyone, so having 1 free maze and 2 paid mazes works well.

I feel scared for Mr Fish now...

I liked the idea someone posted a few pages back about the camera being with an actor who was guiding the group around. I'm not sure how well it would work, and I'd personally not want the end of any maze be met with a photo or DVD booth... That was one of the things which ruined The Passing for me last year.

Interesting for me to read this back as well actually! I think my viewpoint is pretty similar. Thorpe should remain a park where the main focus is the thrill rides; I don't think there's anything wrong with that. I still think the park should focus on a broader age range - probably a focus on children as young as 8, up to about 55-60 year olds. A family-friendly major coaster is a must now, and would work a treat. I agree with you about having more rest rides though. It helps break up the day, and creates a more even spread of what families want to do. Add in a show of some sorts - using either the cinema or the Arena - as well, and I think it'd be great. The recent shift is almost spot on - the park feels a lot more friendly to kids and families now, without the loss of a fun day for friends too. Hopefully the next couple of years will aid that!

I was there on the Saturday, and the queue never went above 80mins. Get a feeling your friend could be over-exaggerating a bit...

Isn't that last year's one though? It has last year's logo and park-wide theme (which doesn't make sense for this year), and last year 4 mazes were included in admission, as Passing was a paid extra.

After trawling through the planning portal again, which is always interesting I find, I came across the original plans for Colossus. Much like with the http://forum.maniahub.com/topic/151-tidal-wave/page-30#entry164771]original Tidal Wave plans, they are quite different. But before I divulge into that further, let's look at how a new coaster came about in the first place... As is well known, in 1997, the Tussauds Group took over Thorpe. Prior to that, as you'd expect, it was hard for the park to get serious funding for any major development or investment into the park. In the 10 years prior to that, there had only been two 'major' investments - Canada Creek and X:\NWO. Due to the otherwise low investments, and local competition from Chessington and the newly opened Legoland Windsor, guest numbers were declining and the park was not making profits. In fact, the park themselves describe it as a "spiral of decline", and between 1993 and 1998, visitor numbers had dropped from 1.35million to 0.8million; quite a significant drop really! This shows the number of visitors, in millions. This was made sometime during the 1999 season, so any figures for 1999 and after are predictions / hopes (with a coaster opening in 2001). Thought this might be of interest too. Attendances at the Tussauds parks and Windsor Safari Park on a similar timescale. The introduction of Pirates 4D and Tidal Wave was aimed to be, if anything, a 'quick fix', to boost visitor numbers in the short term. Pirates had the intriguing tagline of 'the UK's first 4D cinema', and Tidal Wave could pretty much sell itself, so those investments spread over two years would help attract some people to the park. However, more is of course needed, especially as Tussauds aimed to turn the park into a profitable, year-round business. Of course, as it is, Thorpe still isn't a year-round park. The aim was, just after the turn of the century, to introduce two big, huge new rides. This would, essentially, be the first step in truly turning the park around. Tussauds noted that, following the introduction of Nemesis at Alton Towers, that park turned around, and it was hoped the same could happen with Thorpe. Two rides were applied for in 1999, to open in 2000 and 2001 - what is described as a "45m elevator ride" and a 40m coaster respectively. Both plans were withdrawn following discussions with the council (and, as such, plans for the rides are not available online). Despite the council advising the best location of the coaster - the current location of Colossus - it was said to be difficult to get approval for the coaster. Whilst it was probable they could have gotten approval for the 45m ride, they decided to withdraw that application too to help with the approval of a revised, 30m tall coaster - what we now know to be Colossus. I can't quite figure out where this elevator ride would have gone, but by the sounds of it, the area would have been close to the coaster, and were to be developed soon. So, I'd guess we'd be looking at where the Lost City flat rides are (which makes sense with rumours I've heard of Detonator originally being planned for Lost City). So, the park didn't just want this new coaster, they needed it. Without it, the park would struggle and continue its spiral of decline quicker than a helter-skelter. It was projected that an additional 200,000 people would visit the park thanks to the new coaster; a quarter of their current visitors. Can you imagine a ride now where the park hoped they'd get almost an extra 500k visitors thanks to it? So, it was a huge risk in one way; if they didn't get the visitors, it was huge amount of money pretty much chucked down the drain. So, that's enough background I reckon. But, with all that in mind, what sort of ride do you go for? Well, the park's first choice was, interestingly, a LIM coaster (just to be clear, this coaster had a maximum height of 30m. As I mentioned earlier, the plans for a 40m coaster aren't anywhere online, unfortunately). A brief outline of the coaster itself: The actual launch mechanism was to be inside a tunnel, for protection apparently. After the launch, the train would dip down slightly, and then enter a cobra roll, which would be the high point of the ride, and a vertical loop would follow. Some strange, twisty meandering in the air, an airtime hill and another weird twisty bit and the ride ends. It covers almost the exact same area as Colossus I believe, though a bit shifted about of course. A side on view of the coaster. A view from where, I think, Rush or Quantum is now situated. Looks...interesting. However, for reasons I can't find, the plans changed, despite approval of this coaster. I'd assume one reason the plans changed to what we now know to be Colossus is to get the world record inversion count. If you're gonna do something big, you may as well do something massive, right? Personally, I think I prefer what we have now. Colossus really was, and always will be, the ride which 'put the park on the map'. Whilst it might now be uncomfortable and not highly rated - especially amongst enthusiasts - it did the job, and still does to this day. A couple of badly-edited pictures showing the difference of how the coasters would have looked. As some may know, and as I mentioned to earlier, Colossus was intended to open for 2001. However, due to this change in plan, the project was pushed back a year. Perhaps this was fortunate for the park; 2001 brought instead 3 new attractions, bringing in more guests, and adding to people knowing of the big, brand new coaster coming next year. So, we now have the coaster we know and 'love' as Colossus applied for and approved. Yet what we have today is still slightly different to what was originally planned! The entrance was is a completely different place to where it is now - though the cobra roll. The queue would start there, go down into the pit (similar to Smiler's entrance in a way I guess), and then meander around in a similar, but shorter, fashion to as it does now. The shop also bordered directly with the station, instead of its current location. I've - badly - shown the queue layouts; black is ordinary, red is Fastrack (then known as Virtual Q). Interestingly, approx maximum queue times were 40mins and 15mins respectively! This is a RCT screenshot made by John Wardley, where you can see the entrance through the cobra roll. (Photo taken from Thorpe Park Guide Archives). I'd guess the changes to the queue line and shop location were more cosmetic more than anything else. Again, I think I prefer what we have now, specifically the pit, than what we could have had. So that's about it really. If you read through all that ramble, I hope it made sense. I just thought I'd share the wondrous history of Colossus which I've pieced together - from the initial reasons and vision, to design and to what we have got today.

Flume and Rapids don't open till 11 anyway, so that'd be why they're listed as closed. Th13teen is an Intamin, so...

Must admit, was a bit quick to judge this one... Can't wait to see this develop more and see how it looks completed!

Good to hear it's up and running again. On Tuesday, there was a cherry picker doing some work on it; had fearful flashbacks to this time last season!

Whilst I too like the fact Thorpe moved away from the 'traditional' conga lines, last year they didn't seem to work in the park's favour. Experiment 10 was dirt awful last year in my opinion, and seemed to focus on grouping everyone together as much as possible, bar the obvious split. The Passing was met with very mixed opinions as well, though I was quite fond of it actually. From what I heard, the conga line mazes were much better than those 2 mazes last year. Also, whilst not a Thorpe maze, The Sanctuary is the best scare attraction I've been in to date, and that too adopted the simple conga line idea. Basically, what I'm trying to say is, the way you walk through the maze means very little; it's how the maze is executed which matters. This is also where my fears lie, though - if the mazes are executed in a similar fashion as to last year's mazes, the changes made will not have that much of an impact. I don't think many have been asking for an all-IP Fright Nights. However, we have been asking for a serious amount of time, money and, most importantly, effort put into FN, and I think this is exactly what we are getting. Plus, when the rumours started circulating of IP mazes, most weren't exactly against the idea. My main hopes for this Fright Nights are that we see more of an effort into park-wide appearance, and that the execution of mazes works well. I'd also like to see the time spent in the mazes lengthened, if possible. What struck me after visiting Alton was how short the mazes at Thorpe were; hopefully we can see improvements there!

Banned for being lazy; you could have thought of a better reason than that Sids...

It's located on the smaller side of the beach, which I think is totally blocked off at the moment.

Pretty much, though maybe a bit more pleasing on the eye!

I'm gonna be bold in saying this, but maybe a looping 'woodie' is just what the UK needs. It's been said time and time again that woodies are viewed as unsafe and whatnot. Maybe by creating a hybrid coaster, where the supports are quite clear steel and the track quite clearly wood, and marketing it as 'Europe's first inverting wooden coaster' or whatever, the park will see that woodies can do whatever steel coasters can do, and are thus as safe as them. It just needs clever marketing. Then, with that one coaster, the public may well lose this 'wood is unsafe' stigma, and the UK can freely build woodies again without the fear that the public will be afraid to ride them... Then again, I'd remain sceptical as to seeing a looping woodie at Thorpe.

Well well well, this is all mighty interesting, isn't it? Couple of extra things which I don't think have been mentioned yet which I found from the Press Release: -Mazes open at 3pm. This effectively gives an hour longer maze-time than there's ever been at the park; good stuff. -They make a comparison to Florida, setting the bar really high for themselves. The added information ScareTOUR mention as well is interesting too. However, assuming that the info they've provided is accurate (which I believe it will be), I have a few more things to add... -Keeping Asylum pretty much the same? Yawn. I appreciate that not everyone goes year-on-year, and that it's been a headline attraction pretty much most of FN, but come on. Give it a refresh, take a risk on it, be bold. The maze has remained pretty much the same for 8 years as it is and I think it's time for change. I know some may use the old 'If it ain't broke, don't fix it' motto, but as I've said before, I think it is 'broke', and the time has come to fix it. Then again, maybe they want to keep one attraction very similar as a back up? -If the Blair Witch Project, or any attraction, uses CCR or the CCR route in any way, I wonder if Loggers will remain open when the mazes open? Noise could be an issue, if not from the ride, then guests riding the ride. Will be an interesting thing to see either way. -Seems like no tents this year? YAY! -My biggest concern with this, though, is just because you stick an IP and have backing from Lionsgate into a maze, it doesn't necessarily make it good. For example, I don't think Experiment 10 would have been much better if they had an IP stuck on it and more money put in on the scenery. I hope the park don't just decide to keep the same attractions, but just retheme them and keep them the same. This is a chance to be creative with the mazes themselves, to inject a ton of actors who don't just scream 'BOO' at you, but who work on scaring you. There's stories to work with, to develop. There's huge opportunities to make the mazes something special and extraordinary - fingers crossed they are taking them. -I highly doubt we know everything yet - I get a feeling there's more announcements of other things to come that have yet to be revealed yet. -The park said earlier that they're introducing 'scare ratings' to their attractions. Looking at all the IPs they have, if they were to use a 1-5 system (5 being scariest), I'd be expecting all of them to be 4 or 5. I wonder what exactly they have up their sleeves. -Like pluk mentioned, I hope if we have a scare zone coming our way, I hope it's an actual 'zone', as opposed to a walkthrough a la Dead End and Zombies at AT. -I wonder if this is a one off thing, or whether this will be a continual year-on-year thing, which sees new IPs introduced each year? Maybe we could see this develop into the UK's - or even Europe's?! - own HHN... -I think Ryan suggested in the Chat Room a couple of nights ago about showing horror films in the Dome for Crash Pad guests, late into the night. I think that would be great, and maybe they could add their own 'scare room' twist to it and have actors watching the films too, and scaring guests concurrently with the film? Would be an amazing experience, and certainly attract more people to the Crash Pad (though I doubt it will need it!) So, all in all, I'm really excited for this. I still have a couple of concerns, but I do hope my fears become unfounded. Roll on October!

Swarm. It's just incredible in every way, and the views you get at night are amazing. Inferno comes a close second, followed by Saw and Colossus as a joint third.

A working Slammer is a scary sight - one fit for Fright Nights indeed! (But glad to hear it will hopefully be working for the park's busiest period )

Would have to disagree with you there! Thought it was good for the first half hour or so, then got gradually worse and sillier.