JoshC.

Jack Silkstone has made a documentary about the Big Top. It includes a look at 3 versions and interviews with members of the Ents and Tech teams at the time. Really good and well worth the watch!

There's been some cracking promo videos for the attractions coming out lately: Creek Freaks Crows of Mawkin Meadow: I imagine we'll get one a day for each attraction

Looks about right - they increase the price of the Ultimate Fastrack during Fright Nights, and then they just tack on the £30 for the mazes on top of that. Bit weird to not give any sort of discount for the mazes. I'm sure prior to the mazes being upcharge, it worked out cheaper to buy Ultimate Maze Fastrack rather than Ultimate Ride Fastrack + Maze Fastrack. Hopefully it's made clear to those who buy that the mazes don't actually have Fastrack, and you're just getting a ticket for each included.

Whilst it's true the park have done work to the system to make rollbacks less of a thing, they will still happen. It's just one of those things with launch coasters, even with modern ones. Getting it back open quickly is a good sign, in theory, that they were able to pinpoint the reason why it rolled back and feel confident it wouldn't happen again. Then again, I hear it also rolled back this morning too. Could be a weather related thing given the reasonably quick change we've had from warmer and humid weather to colder and wetter weather?

Confirmed to be Jumanji: The Adventure... https://www.gardaland.it/jumanji/ With the all but confirmed nature of Chessington's new land being Jumanji themed, I'm expecting this to be a new dark ride experience. Gardaland can ride off the IP and "world's first Jumanji ride". Chessington can then ride off the IP and "world's first Jumanji roller coaster".

If you like images from the sky showing a reduction in the number of trees in a random location, boy do I have a treat for you... There is very much a clear and obvious removal of trees over the year period between March 2020 and April 2021. So, what does it mean? Who knows. One would certainly have to raise a suspicious eyebrow at this slow deforestation and the fact that this is Platform 15's final year. But here's the thing. Cutting down trees is a very simple job in the grand scheme of things. If an investment for 2022 (or 2023, or beyond) was going there, what need is there to cut down trees over a year and a half in advance? Genuinely don't know the answer there. Maybe some groundwork surveying or something? I dunno. Could this just be a sign that there's some diseased trees in the area? Or that the trees were felled for all the wood used in Creek Freaks Unchained last year? Could there be a plan in the future to create a building round the Platform 15 route to create an indoor maze space? Or could it actually be for some new ride in the future? Only time will tell I guess.

A selection of updates is available on the TPM Facebook page... Most exciting one is for Legacy, which is having a huge rig being set up on the Beach: https://www.facebook.com/thorpeparkmania/posts/10166055995155624 It looks similar to the rig that's been set up in the past at Fear at Avon Valley, done by Aardvark FX (who do great fire effects). Could be a really fun show!

Don't think it does it much any more (though I'm not that well acquainted it tbh!)

This is what is said when you go through to buy it online: So it doesn't list Walking Dead The Ride. But I think that could be an outdated list and Walking Dead might be included now. Your best bet would be to ask the park directly for confirmation

Yep, VIP host gives you the front of the line, choice of seat experience. They'll also litter your day with fun facts about the park, etc. There's a very niche market for it, but for a select few I'm sure it is worth it.

I've just checked now and it seems to have been edited to remove 'Outdoor'. So I assume it was a typo / copied from a previous template. Everything suggests it will be indoors. I imagine the 'take your seats' is in reference to the cinema-esque style, and perhaps even a possible pre show element.

Some constructiony updates via Everything Fright Nights... The Crows of Mawkin Meadow is receiving some hay Creek Freak Massacre is going through tech rehearsals: Work is going on round Old Town for Creek Freaks Unchained: Somewhat tacky addition to the Platform 15 entrance: Saving the most interesting one for last: There's been some work towards the side / back of the building for Trailers. This has recently been themed, and very much seems like this will be the entrance of the maze. That would make it the first time the entrance for an attraction in that building wasn't by the main corner by the pathway.

A passholder preview event has been set for Thursday 7th October with all attractions available. All passholders get free entry (regardless of exclusions) and 50% off mazes (presumably make the trio ticket £12):

Just shows how meaningless - and perhaps farcical - the Golden Ticket Awards are.

Hey there. Here's the locations of all of the photo points: Stealth: At start of launch Swarm: Just after the billboard Saw: Just after airtime hill Colossus: After 5th inversion (double corkscrew); it's near the queue line entrance so you should be able to see it Nemesis Inferno: Just after the final inversion (corkscrew); again, you should see when in the queue as well Rumba Rapids: Near the water tower at the end (though currently the flash isn't working on that) Tidal Wave: Bottom of drop Walking Dead The Ride: Spoilered just in case you don't know about this surprise Flying Fish: Turn into the first helix (you can't miss it)

As of yesterday, construction and preparation has turned up a notch for Fright Nights: Seemingly the Saw Alive pathway will be the location of the Crows scare zone: Old Town is being partially shut off for Creek Freaks Unchained: I am also under the impression that much of Trailers is complete now, which is a good sign of course.

It is basically the same voice as heard on Detonator which says something along the lines of "Bavarian Bingo has been activated..." (along with other stuff). It then plays the Chicken Dance song, which goes into one of the Bavarian versions of the Thorpe Park tune. The actual tune of the Chicken Dance song into that Bavarian version is cool in itself, but the randomness I'm less a fan of, especially when it can be very jarring with the music and announcements of the ride itself. Would rather musical overlays or nothing new, not an awkward blend of both.

Went to the Oktoberfest event this weekend. Marked improvement over last year's event. The main area from last year remains and is more or less the same. The tented picnic area in Lost City is also an Oktoberfest tent, with beer and entertainment. There's live music and actors around these areas from 12pm, along with the food offerings available. There's themed music around the rides again, along with the random 'Bavarian Bingo' which takes over rides randomly. Not a fan of that; would prefer something a bit more streamlined, but I guess it's cool all the same. I think Rumba (sorry, Oompah) Rapids has new audio over last year which is better. Detonator audio is the same as last year and I still don't like it. The main problem I have is that the actors the park have speak with terrible German accents. In the sense that they're meant to be terrible. They act as caricatures of Germans. It's "'Allo! 'Allo!" level of humour, and is extremely cringey. It's really, really not my thing. Maybe it's something the masses react positively, but it simply doesn't work for me. But yeah, as I say, a marked improvement from last year. Some good entertainment. Just drop the cringey accents please.

And the final maze, Trailers: The 'never ending loop' thing makes me wonder if this will feature some sort of multi-route / repetition throughout the maze. The theme is a nice idea and I've seen other places make this sort of concept work. And I also think this is where these play a part: These are probably the 'films' which are shown at the SuperSpark Cinema, and throughout the maze, you enter into a scene of each one. This then combines a nice mix of Fright Nights throwback whilst keeping things fresh (and makes things easy to follow for people unfamiliar with old mazes too). I think the main concern I have there is space. The Jungle Escape space isn't that big: I reckon it's similar to Creek Freak Massacre, if not, smaller. So it's by no means small, but not huge either. So fitting in 8 scenes (plus the inevitable pre show, and an ending scene) is a challenge, especially if you want to make sure the maze flows coherently too. I think being upcharge and putting people in small groups will be a huge help, but that still isn't an answer to many of the concerns.

Being a Tuesday during term time it should be reasonably quiet, even with the Oktoberfest event going on. Probably worth starting the day at Colossus as that gets the longest, slowing moving queue out of any of the major rides, and working your way around. Then decide from there whether you needed Fastrack, though I doubt you will.

I should stress that I'm not saying Asylum would be poorly received. But just as a general thought experiment, would it be as highly regarded? When it first opened, and even really up until it closed, it was something different which had a very obvious style unlike many other mazes. But it's a style which has been recreated and mimicked many times over all around the country, and even within Thorpe. Would a maze which is a stretched out version of the ending of Creek Freak Massacre (or a version of Big Top's strobe maze...or a version of Walking Dead's strobe maze...) hit the same high notes for the masses? Maybe it would, maybe it wouldn't. 2011 and 2013 were, in my opinion, some of the best Fright Nights out there. More importantly, they are head and shoulders above most other years too. I'm not suggesting that recent years were better than some of the best years ever. But if you go back to say, 2008, when you had Asylum, Hellgate, Se7en and Curse, you only had one consistently well received maze, which was Asylum. Hellgate ticked along, but was a rather basic maze which never hit great heights. Se7en had settled into the line up at that point, but was nowhere near its peak. Curse was suffering from first season syndrome. Personally, I think you could replace those mazes from that year with Platform 15 and the Walking Dead mazes of 2018 and the event would be a similar quality. It's easy to look back and remember things fondly, or forget about some of the bad things. I really enjoyed Se7en, and some of the runs I had in its final year were some of the best runs I've had in any maze. But equally, I had some proper duds of a run in years prior. That's in part the nature of mazes too. But I do think it's easy to gloss over some of bad points of years gone back. It will be genuinely interesting to see what people's views are like in 10 years time. Will there be people remembering fondly the likes of Blair Witch, Platform 15 and Living Nightmare? Here's a fun question: Do they need to do 20 years justice? Does it matter that it's the 20th anniversary, or is it just something that the park are cashing in on for an advertising and merchandising stand point because fans made it a big deal? For the 10th anniversary, the park opened a new maze which had a 10 at the end, and had some roaming actors. Did that idea really do the 10th anniversary justice? If yes, then what the park are doing is more than enough. If no, then why does it matter, when 2011 was one of the best years of Fright Nights regardless? Not quite sure what you mean here. If you're suggesting that the maze could be related to something else beyond itself (ie a new ride), I mean, I guess it's possible. Towers have done it a couple of times. At this stage though, I think all we can really read into it is that because it's the big new maze, they want to push it separately.

I think there's a lot of rose-tinted specs with regards to some of the old Fright Nights attractions. I've made my comments on Asylum quite clear in the past, but just as a general thought experiment. Imagine if Asylum (and Freezer) never existed, and this year the park opened up a maze which was 90% chain-mesh fencing with strobe lights, featuring a chainsaw runout at the end. I'm sure it wouldn't flop, but would it be as well received now as it was 10-15 years ago? Or would many find flaws in comparison to many other mazes? Mazes such as Hellgate, Se7en and Curse took a while to find their feet. Hellgate really was never that good or sparked that much interest. Se7en and Curse only really more consistent positive reviews in their final year or two and, despite their well-themed interiors, were mocked for being in white tents. The park had plenty of misses and underachievements too. My point here is simply that it's easy to look back and say Fright Nights was better in the past, etc etc, but saying so certainly glosses over many things. I think the set up for this year is good on paper. 3 mazes, 4 scare zones, 2 shows and roamers. Good mix of themes too. The number of mazes is a difficult balancing act to get right, especially going down the upcharge route. But, at the very least, both Platform and Creek Freaks are decent length mazes (which can be stretched out time-wise if you are in smaller groups). That's a good thing. I'd like to see the event develop and experiment with one high throughput free maze and the rest upcharge to give that extra choice.

Yep, there's certainly one more maze to come. The website certainly makes that clear: https://www.thorpepark.com/explore/theme-park/fright-nights/ Humorously, the name of the image with the question mark is titled "Nice try"; a nice stopper to anyone who checks those things for a little hint. Line up looks promising. Some immediate thoughts: Maze upcharge - Will have to wait and see on costs before a full judgement, but I don't have a problem with the idea in principle. Creek Freaks Massacre - Good to see it return. Wasn't my cup of tea, but I know the masses liked it. Creek Freaks Unchained - Happy to see that return too. Good duo there. Platform 15 - Interesting to see it has received the 'End of the Line' tagline in the title. It's final year, perhaps? Vampires vs Werewolves - Yeah, good idea to merge these to one. Should have been like that last year really imo. Crows Scarezone - Nice idea. Bit confusing having that AND the Crows roaming. Curious about the location of the zone and what exactly will happen there. Swarm Invasion - Has potential. Hopefully it gets more actors and some extra bits. Birthday Bash - Seems like it will be a generic clown thing, but can be fun. Legacy - Nice idea. The stage location is awkward, especially with Ghost Train open again Mysterious new maze - Still confused why they're holding off on announcing that. I just hope whatever they're planning is worth the extraness.

Hasn't logged on since 2014, last post before this May 2015...

Yes, I certainly think that's the plan! I thought Breakout might have been a reference to Containment, as that's what the original victor wristbands said (as well as the original-planned name of the experience I believe!) and Nightmare on Staines Street a reference to Living Nightmare. Beyond the Chair I'm less sure about, though the dentist thought is a good shout. Maybe that will be a nod to the new maze though? There's another teaser, doesn't seem to feature anything of interest though: