JoshC.

The thread for any photos, views and such about Fright Nights 2020! If any photos or videos come about from inside the mazes through tonight's preview night, feel free to post them, but still use Spoiler tags just in case.

Worry not, everyone's favourite unofficial Thorpe Park fansite shall be covering the event!

Indeed, much repurposing and reusing. Moreso at Thorpe than Towers (where that's only localised to Freak Show). I guess in some ways we shouldn't be surprised - it's a way to cut costs after all. And given Covid, and the fact the park seem to try and minimise spending anyway, it makes sense. I don't have a problem with it if it's done well, though. The stuff in the Fearstival Arena looks nice, for example. I'm less sure about the idea of reusing Big Top's walls in Old Town, or some of what has been seen down Platform 15 though. Puts on mod hat As mentioned earlier, we believe that there is a Press event tonight, so no doubt there will be photos from the scare zones in 'show mode', and possibly even inside the mazes. A separate spoiler thread will be set up later to post all that stuff, along with any reviews that come about. This thread will stay open for a little while so people can avoid spoilers if they wish. Takes mod hat off Also, with the BBC reporting that new Covid restrictions are likely to come in place in England from Monday, it will be interesting to see how this will affect the park. Particularly Fright Nights, but in general. The Spelthorne area (which is next to Thorpe, but where loads of staff will live) was seeing a steeper increase in infections a few weeks back, but things are a bit better now, so it's less likely that a tiered system will affect Thorpe severely, but who knows anymore...

I believe Press Night is this Thursday, so there should be some reviews out before the event (though will be interesting to see if the vloggers in particular are allowed to record in the mazes, given the fact they're paid-for experiences).

Thorpe have mentioned on their Fright Nights page that, due to the 10pm closing restriction, the park has to be clear of guests and effectively 'closed' from 10pm. As such, they will close some ride queue lines from 8pm: What I imagine this means in practice is if a ride has more than an hour queue at 8pm, it will close then, to ensure people have time to leave the park. Otherwise, the queue line will remain open till 9pm. The mazes likely won't be affected due to having timed slots, so long as timings work out well. A sad reality, but not too surprising given the circumstances. I do wonder how chaotic things will be with trying to get everyone *out* of the park by 10pm though!

The tunnel itself is very long (about 100m!) and very narrow, as well as very dark. The thing is, it's not the best thing for a queue line at the best of times, least of all during Covid (in my opinion). They could chuck in extra lights, stick social distancing markers on the wall, etc, but I just don't see it working out. In other words, that tunnel is part of the maze. That means they'd still need a queue line outside of the tunnel. Even with timed slots, there'll be loads of people with the half hour slots (anyone who's been to Scarefest, or remembers The Passing will know there can sometimes be quite long queues still!). The area outside the tunnel is quite small then leads to a massive pathway - so it'll be interesting to see how much of a queue they put in place. And after that, whether it'll actually cope with the demand the park will experience!

https://m.facebook.com/story.php?story_fbid=10164587106160624&id=283706330623 Some updates from today! I quite like what they're doing to Old Town

And we have a view of Platform's entrance... That seems to nix my earlier musing that they may in fact use the tunnel area as a queue. It'll be interesting to see how much of a queue line they will build and if it'll be sufficient.

Agreed. Even some dark humour somewhere along the line would be good. It's all very serious, and that can get a bit samey. It's another reason why Big Top worked well in Thorpe's line up imo, because it was able to be a bit less serious, whilst still being able to scare people. Given the diverse range of themes this year, it would be nice to have some things a bit more light heartened. The Amity High / Lycanthorpe High combo has potential. I think The Crows should be creepy / serious characters though. The concept feels like it would be better suited to an actual area (where they could have fake characters for the actors to blend in, for example). But just having these weird, creepy characters stalking and appearing out of nowhere has great potential. We also have some work happening on Swarm Island...

The costumes for The Crows look very nice.

If there's been any benefit to the park opening in July, it's that the likes of Samurai, amongst others, haven't had the chance to tear themselves to pieces just before Fright Nights.

To be honest, regardless of what they say, if it was truly because of the issues with people not being able to pre book dates, then they would have removed passes sooner. And they wouldn't have removed the £1 booking fee either. Whether because of Covid or not, I expect they're planning on changing the structure of the passes. Would fully expect to see the cost of what was a Premium pass increase and be rebranded, and perhaps see cheaper options with further limitations.

I don't see them cancelling the events unless they have to tbh. At this point, they've gone through the process of designing attractions, building them (possibly getting in contractors who will have to be paid the same amount either way), plus hiring staff, along with marketing the event and collecting money from people who have paid for the event and the mazes. Cancelling them now means they still spend the same on design and building costs, plus have to refund a lot of people (unlike smaller / independent events, they can't get away with the "we'll validate your ticket for 2021's event" as easily). It's a lot of money to just throw away based on a 'what if', when they can instead just run for as long as possible, get some money in, and refund others if necessary. Just the way I see it at least. Equally, Towers today have released an 'after 4PM' ticket for £25 for Oktoberfest and Scarefest, which very much suggests that - currently - their plan is to press ahead with the event.

When you spend 2 hours making a meme and your head cannot contain your brain anymore... Maybe should have gotten 1000 experts in instead?

The park closes at 9pm for this year's Fright Nights. The potential issues are: -How strict the definition of 'closed by 10' means for a theme park -Rides closing at 9pm and having longer than a 1hr queue. -Potential ramifications for food outlets, in particular for hotel guests These are issues which have solutions, but it does change the way the park operates, and requires a lot of clear communication from the park. Pushing closing time forward to 8PM wouldn't solve the problem, especially when people have booked maze slots for after 8PM. It's just another issue the park have to overcome, and not an ideal one. The threat of local lockdown, and national ones, is also a worry. Although Thorpe Park is in Runnymede, not Spelthorne, which I believe is classed as being in a better position. However, many staff will live in Spelthorne, so whilst the park wouldn't necessarily have to close, it may well be forced to.

I'm sure Thorpe (and Towers) are, simply put, bricking it right now. Everything is so up in the air and there's so little they can control. More and more independent events are cancelling too, despite maintaining they would open - I can only think of a handful still running now. I guess at this point they'll just run when they can. Everything is still being set up and they've spent the money on designing and building stuff, hiring actors, etc. At this point, they have to run whenever they can otherwise it's all for waste (a risk that they were no doubt aware of). As for the village section, I see no reason why it can't stay during Covid. Since you'll be in your own bubble it doesn't particularly matter if you enter an enclosed section briefly. How they'll manage it with actors though is a different question. And whether the village section is still usable too.. I also wonder what the situation is for actor experiences and the "Rule of 6". If a group of 6 enters these maze, then technically an actor makes it an unallowable group of 7 at any point. I'm sure that's me overthinking it, but the government's rules are usually ridiculous, so who knows what their rule is in that sense. Vaguely related too, I wonder how Thorpe and Towers will cope with the 10pm restriction coming to place? It's not uncommon for some coasters to have longer queues at park close - will they be having to stop running rides at 10pm regardless? And it limits people staying onsite with the evening meals. Not a desirable situation. Obviously that's something that will come clearer later today, hopefully, but all a bit of a faff.

Certainly true that there were concerns within Merlin about RMC after New Texas Giant. Rumours were still rife about one for Towers in 2017 of course, though The Smiler incident was the nail in the coffin there. I'm under the impression that when the 2017 coaster was cancelled, RMC was not under serious consideration. Merlin are still considering RMCs for future projects. Indeed, RMC was considered at one point for Thorpe this year (there were RMC rumours all the time of course, and where there's smoke, there's fire). The issue ultimately came down to a change of philosophy from Merlin about what to give Thorpe to invest in terms of money, along with Merlin's further issues and decisions to invest even less in the parks. Covid complicates things even more. So long story short, RMC is not off the table for Merlin. The bigger issue right now is when Merlin will approach the table of making a big investment, especially at Thorpe. As for Thorpe following RMC, almost definitely something that was done for a bit of fun. I'm sure other parks follow them, and there's nothing to be read into it really.

I went to Blackpool for the first ever time a little over a week ago. Some thoughts... -Icon was fun, but not great. Launches are probably the weakest I've done. Only one good airtime moment. The layout is well integrated around the other rides, but not particularly interesting. -Big One is a big old meh. Did nothing for me. -Grand National is a national treasure and by far the best attraction at the park in my opinion. Opinion is likely swayed because I only rode it in back row which is probably a smoother seat, but still. -Was spited by Nick Streak. 😓 -Park feels like it needs a water ride which gets you suitably wet. The open water rides looked too wet imo, and obviously Valhalla has a reputation for a reason. -I liked the dark rides. The Pleasure Beach itself is nice enough for what it is. Not my cup of tea really, but I had fun all things considered. Blackpool as a town is even tackier than I imagined though. Eurgh.

I feel like I've heard this every year since the Raptor was announced. 😂 No denying they've got potential and look like fun rides, but they don't seem to have taken off as well as RMC's conversions of wooden coasters. And they're having issues with the T-Rex model too still. Maybe one day they'll be a big thing, but it just feels like the model is ticking along right now, and not going to be the next big thing.

Update from Theme Park Guide: https://themeparkguide.co.uk/news-page/Fright-Nights-2020-Preparations Should stress there's a couple of spoilers in there, particularly for Platform 15. Speaking of Platform 15, a thought I've had recently. What if this year they completely get rid of the tunnel, and use that area as a queue? Having the entrance to the maze where it's ended in previous years leaves effectively no space for a queue, which is necessary even with timed tickets. They could obviously get rid of a bit of it, but I could see them just getting rid of it entirely. Of course, the reason for the tunnel idea because, technically speaking, people aren't allowed to walk down that route whilst Saw is operating unless undercover. So an undercover queue would still be necessary, but that's easily sorted out really.

Rookburgh soft opens today, with the hotel to open a week today. The area will limit the number of people allowed in during this soft phase and is subject to closure at any time, as one would expect at such a point.

So I went to Oktoberfest at Thorpe yesterday. There's some photos and videos on TPM's Facebook page and as I'm only on my phone I'm too lazy to drag them all in - so check them out over there... [/plug] First thing first: the event isn't finished yet. They were still putting out benches, bunting, etc today. Some of the stalls don't have a full range of food yet. The steins you can buy aren't in yet. It's a bit of a shame. I don't quite get why Thorpe decided to have the event start so early, especially when they only decided to have the event a few weeks ago. It's likely put a lot of pressure on staff to cobble it together and ultimately it feels a bit unprofessional to have a half ready event at opening. The Oktoberfest area is basically the stretch alongside Derren, turning a dead spot into the highlight spot. It could do with more speakers and stuff as it's a bit lifeless at points. There's typical German-market like stalls; all but one run externally I think. There's a main stage, which will have acts perform on Fridays and Saturdays. There's some audio changes around the park. Notably Rumba Rapids (which has stickers over Rumba saying Oompah), Detonator and Stealth. Many other rides have Oktoberfest audio too, but they play intermittently. The Oktoberfest area, entrance, bridge and dome have audio too. Some thoughts and moans: -Some of the stalls (like the bratwurst bar) are cash only. In a time where Thorpe have been pushing going cashless for a couple of years, and Covid where card payments are strongly encouraged basically everywhere, I was surprised. -The stage doesn't have social distancing marked outside it yet. Performers who sing or play instruments should be at least 3m away from people during Covid I believe. It'll be interesting to see how that works... -The area has a lot of benches and barrels now. I can see it being quite congested in busier days, which could be a social distancing nightmare. -I found out from a staff member yesterday that most Thorpe food places are also doing German inspired food options. But nowhere is this said round the park. -A lot of the ride audio is a bit meh in my opinion. And the announcements are caricature level German to the point it sounds more Austrian in my opinion. -The huge focus on yodelling too, which is a bit odd given yodelling isn't a big Oktoberfest thing. It's more a Swiss thing, but whatever. All in all, the event has potential there. It's clearly been done very quickly, and is a knee jerk reaction to a lack of other events. It would be foolish to expect anything top notch from the word go. But equally, it isn't hitting the mark yet, and it's a bit of a shame it isn't really ready yet, and that they haven't got the stage performers daily (they do have roaming performers, but they're...not good). Hopefully it grows, hopefully they iron out the flaws and - in honesty - it would be nice if they continued it in future years and gave it a chance to properly develop.

I wouldn't expect it to open this season. Even on the recently updated Fright Nights FAQs page, they list Walking Dead, Ghost Train and Jungle Escape as unable to open due to Covid. As mentioned, there's only fans in there as opposed to aircon. Likely turned on for engineers who may have been working in there.

This isn't the most accurate thread to say this, but probably the one that will be seen the most.. From Tuesday, Annual Passholders no longer need to spend £1 to reserve entry to any Merlin attraction. I know it's a contentious point, but given the fact that many dates for passholders are sold out at other parks (especially weekends), and people don't always turn up despite paying the £1, it's perhaps a weird move.

There's a lot going on there. Quite a bit of good. A bit of not good too. Okay so first, the upcharge mazes. Ultimately to be expected. If you can only go through a maze with the people you visit with, it's going to drastically reduce the throughput. If you have it as a free for all like normal, you're going to be left with ridiculously long queues and people will be unhappy. There's the second issue of the park needing to make money. The park have missed out on half a season. So they're going to want to play catch up wherever they can. And they haven't extended park opening hours like the rest of the Merlin parks (except for one day). Which suggest they may not be doing as well as the other parks. So using Fright Nights to make extra money is a good idea. There's also the third point of maybe they should start charging for some mazes. Towers' system works because they charge for mazes - they spend money on the mazes, they charge for them, they get the money they spent on them back from maze tickets plus more, meaning they can invest more next year and still make a profit. It's a nice, neat closed system which doesn't rely on park entrance tickets or Fastrack or whatever. Thorpe just put a pot of money into Fright Nights each year, the number depends on how the entire park performs. A pay per maze structure works much better in a long term sense. And it's something I know Thorpe have considered for a while now. The issue, though, straight up is the price. £10. That is a heck of a lot for one maze. I've been thinking and thinking, and I can't think of any standard scare maze which has a higher price. I can think of special / extreme / alone maze experiences which are priced higher. But standard experience? No. (Okay, actually, I lie - I can think of one. Walibi Holland have introduced a new maze to their - severely Covid impacted - line up this year, which is priced at 10€. It's not clear if that's a standard maze experience though, so wait and see there..). Sure, Thorpe may do something different, but does anyone honestly expect that? I expect not. Especially when their hands are tied with Covid restrictions. It's a very high price which will command very high expectations. And honestly, I don't think it can be met. This is particularly the case for Platform 15, which has been free for 4 years. And even then, Roots of Evil in Blair Witch's space can only do so much and only be so different to the maze that was there for 2 years previously. The idea of charging for mazes is one I can get behind (though Thorpe should always balance that with at least one free maze imo). But this is way too high, and too much of a change too soon. I can only see that ending with a lot of unhappy guests. Also, another issue - there's still charges for Standard Merlin Passholders and Thorpe Season Passholders. At peak period, these people have to pay £25 to enter the park, plus pay for mazes. A bit of a kick in the teeth for them, especially when Towers' set up has entrance included for those types of Passholders. Enough moaning about the charges now... As for the maze offering. Platform 15 is going in reverse this year. Brave it Backwards if you will... I love the idea in theory, as it means you can have a weak, but potentially unnerving, start with the tunnel, build up through the village, then have the train explosion, then have a chaotic finale with the space they have. Obviously with the space they have they couldn't do that normally due to there being nowhere for a queue to go. Covid seemingly forces their hand here as it means they can control guest flow through the tunnel better. The issue is, the maze is designed to flow from the train station to Samurai. The village looks great going that way, and boring going the other way (because you're not meant to see the back). The train is facing the wrong way and has less impact. The ending will be very open and weak. These are things which aren't easy changes, or cheap changes, and a quick fix round them isn't going to have much impact. So again, nice idea, but I can't see them executing it well. Roots of Evil is a nice theme and backstory. As I said earlier, I don't see what they can do with the space to make it feel different to Blair (given that not much work has gone into the area at the moment). But hey, Blair was decent enough the past couple of years, so it'll be okay enough in its own right I'm sure. The scare zones, however, sound good. I'm not fussed either way about IPs, but this is the first year since 2016 that IPs haven't been the focus, and the first since 2009 where we've had no IP maze. It's also a nice varied thematic line up: vampires, werewolves, hillbillies/chainsaws, clowns/freaks and aliens, plus the roamers (btw, a stretch pushing roaming actors as an experience, but whatever) and the ghosts and dark/creepy theme of the 2 mazes. They're not doing anything particularly original or groundbreaking, but sometimes that's a good way to get the quality right. Interestingly, Swarm: Invasion isn't said to be a Scare Zone on the website, whilst all the other scare zones explicitly say 'Scare Zone'. So I have reservations there...almost not expecting actors, just set pieces.. But we'll see. Fearstival Arena looks like it'll be a mini freak show, and will probably reuse some Big Top props. A stage has been set up opposite Ghost Train for Oktoberfest, so they'll probably use that. Hopefully Lycanthorpe High is another dance show type thing. Make it feel like a competition between the two. Links things together a bit more. So all in all, some cause for optimism, but also a lot to be weary of. I hope for Thorpe's sake that the price point of the mazes. Some other stray thoughts... -I like that they're calling it Fright Nights Fearstival. Helps show that it's not a normal Fright Nights. -I wonder if any of the scare zone themes will develop into fully fledged mazes in the future? Or if any of those themes were meant to be mazes this year? -It's great to see practically the whole park have something Fright Nights based now. Swarm island, Lost City, Jungle, Amity, Old Town all have something! The quality of those things remains to be seen, but it's a start.