JoshC.

Crows scare zone is back for the 3rd time. With the Saw Alive queue gone, it'll be interesting to see how they use the extra space. I'm aware that the park looked at removing the queue last year for the event, so they've had a long time to think of what to do! --- It's interesting see the reaction to Trailers. I think it's got its place in the line up. Yes, it's not the scariest maze, but I think that's needed. Trailers is a more 'fun-scary' maze, which some people prefer over the out-and-out full on scare/gore type mazes. Obviously it's still a scare maze, and should achieve scares, but I'm fine with it being a tamer experience, so long as it can still deliver. I don't think the park are necessarily on a 3 year maze cycle. We're in a new phase of Fright Nights after 2020 completely changed plans. But also the only mazes which we've seen last 3 operating seasons in recent years were Living Nightmare and Creek Freak. Living Nightmare closed because of the Black Mirror, as opposed to a Fright Nights plan, and Creek Freak closed because of Exodus (though it would have been interesting to see what they would have done this year had that not happened). I think it's a shame that Trailers hasn't received any new scenes. It's clearly got the potential, and with the closures of Platform 15 and Creek Freak, they've had ample opportunity to do so. Hopefully they do so next year, should it remain (which I expect). It will be particularly interesting to see what the park plans to do next year. Do they expand the maze line up, adding a 4th maze, or do they keep the maze line up the same and focus on the other offerings on park?

First teaser: The line up seems like it will be revealed over the next week, with a new video at 7pm daily.

Jack Silkstone has released the first half of his Fright Nights documentary / BTS, where he details about his involvement with the teaser videos, marketing, etc: I haven't watched it all, nor the second half (which is released tomorrow). But, the amount of work that has gone into the teaser campaign is obscene. And I'm not sure I mean that as a compliment. The park had early ideas for Survival Games, the locksmith character, etc. shortly after last year's event finish. Which is great. And then Jack and Kieran and marketing had ideas for the teaser campaign. Jack and Kieran pushed for the teaser reveal campaign, with videos for each attraction. The corridor of locked doors was a custom-built set from scratch. The sheer number of man hours that went into building it, doing scenic work for it, having staff on hand for the shoot and so forth is insane. On top of that, each video had multiple hours of filming work put into it; prep work would start during the day, filming in the early afternoon and then go past midnight. I don't know how it works in terms of pay, but Thorpe actors tend to be on hourly wages, so just paying them for several hours adds up. Then whatever hours the permanent marketing members put in, plus whatever rate Jack and Kieran command. I absolutely admire Jack and Kieran's creativity, effort and the passion they clearly have for making the content they make for the park as fantastic as possible. But they themselves must have been running themselves into the ground creating this content. It's crazy. And for what? They created some cool videos, which have details and Easter Eggs far beyond noticeable comprehension. The videos created a world-building far beyond what the attractions can tell. Enthusiasts like the videos. But they don't do an accurate job of portraying what the attractions will be like. And they have next-to-no impact on the actual quality of the event. Again, it's very admirable what they have done, the scope given by the park and the preparedness of the park to put in the time and effort to create a high quality teaser campaign for the park's premiere event. And it's great that the park continue to give nods to geeks. But at the same time, one can't help but wonder if this is misplaced time, effort and (most importantly) money from the park. Especially when they could create a much more modest campaign for a significantly less effort and get similar results. And as mentioned, Jack and Kieran especially were putting in tons of hours of work into this. Definitely feels like they ran themselves into the ground a bit doing this. Clearly a labour of love for the cause.

So less the Future of Thrills, and more the Present of Thrills?

Nope. DBGT was the future of theme parks. Gosh, get your futures right Benin...

A little model of the ride will be going into the Megastore soon shades of the Colossus model during its construction.

Little update...

The Ride reopened earlier in the summer 😀

I don't think Exodus is in the limelight at the moment. The park have simply made a clear indication to the masses that they're building the UK's tallest coaster. For most people, that's huge news, and enough to spark interest. The park don't need to do any more advertising on that for a while yet, really. Whilst it's true that this time last year we were half way through the Fright Nights reveal, in previous years, reveals / announcements usually happen in mid-to-late August or early September. Perhaps a bit of a controversial opinion, but I think last year's slow burn announcement wasn't quite on the mark. The videos were great, don't get me wrong. But they didn't do a good job at showcasing each attraction, or communicating what each attraction was. Yes, they built up the story around the attractions, which was great for a small portion of the audience, but they didn't tell you what each attraction was (maze/scare zone/show) or accurately depict what to expect from it. Equally, the park only revealed new attractions in the last week of August. This year, the park could just do one big reveal for the entire event. Yep, I think another thing is they didn't want the Exodus video in the middle of any Fright Nights campaign. Could send mixed messages. Oktoberfest is, comparatively, a small event. Almost the forgotten child of the park's event line up (which I personally think should be scrapped, but that's another topic). They can focus on FN advertising whilst Oktoberfest is being prepped / starting. Yep, Jack and Kieran have done the videos for Fright Nights (and the Exodus video from Wednesday). I don't think that they've necessarily focused on Exodus over Fright Nights; it will be a creative decision from the park to not do any Fright Nights promo work yet.

And here's an issue I have with the park at the moment. They have been great at sharing updates geared towards geeks and those who are interested. The collaborations with Jack Silkstone over the years (pre-season videos, for example) have given a great insight into what to expect, some of the park's thinking, etc. But they're almost being too open. We go back to Tidal Wave's fire effect returning. That was announced for, what, 2021? And yet here we are, no fire effect in sight. Their communication about SRQ has been good. They trialled it on Saw last year (after a push to trial it from a Rides Team Leader), and expanded it to a couple of flat rides. They've said they intend to put it on Stealth too. But that was many months ago, and the official line has just been 'it's coming soon'. How long does it take to set up? I genuinely cannot understand why it is taking so long, especially since Stealth was designed to have a Single Rider Queue, which still exists. If they hadn't have said anything until it was confirmed and all but in place, it wouldn't have caused any issues. Even if they said "We're looking at putting it on more rides if possible - watch this space", that would be fine. But by announcing it, with no clear idea of when it could happen, it's created this situation which frankly could have been avoided. Hopefully they've learnt from that, and choose to be more selective with what they talk about. And they get SRQ up and running. I don't see Stealth's life as limited. Hydraulic launches are fine. Yes, Top Thrill Dragster had issues, and that's why they've changed that. Hydraulic launches are still not the most reliable and parks do still have issues with them. And yes, hydraulic launches are old hat now, with LSMs the launch of choice now (and rightfully so). But at the same time, Thorpe have got Stealth down to a tee. Yes, it's had a bit of downtime recently (a few days I believe). But aside from that, it's been reliable, rarely has a rollback, and is incredibly popular still. Okay, it's not going to be the tallest ride on park. But that's not big issue, when the tallest ride is only a bit taller and faster, and on the other side of the park. It still has a huge selling point and draw. People still lap it up. Thorpe aren't short on space, so don't have a need to remove it yet. And frankly put, there's other coasters which would be higher up on the list to be removed in my opinion. Doing a Top Thrill feels a bit unnecessary at the moment. It would have to be turned into a swing launch in all likelihood, which would require a significant rejig of the station. The whole process would be incredibly costly at a point when, again, that money could be better spent elsewhere. If it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Another construction update from the park...

Being world roller coaster day tomorrow, I wonder if that's when Thorpe are planning to pull the trigger on their first proper piece of marketing on the ride.

For some reference, Big Top (in 2016 and 17) started going up around this time of year. I think Survival Games started going up mid-to-August. Mazes in permanent locations start being built earlier too. I would imagine the reason for the comparatively early start on the FN build is down to the number of man hours available. The park will have a small Production Team, and work with UVE (presumably - they've done Trailers, SG and been involved with FN for a couple of years now), to build the mazes and zones. A maze in a tent will need to have all the walls built and then scenic design applied once the walls are in place. They can't really do that work prior to building the maze. As such, they'd need to start early to get that all set up. If they're stretched for manhours, they'll need to start early, hence why getting Death's Doors up early likely happened.

Chessington are now selling ERT slots, for £20pp: https://www.chessington.com/explore/extras/#selected-rides-and-attractions-included It's the same ERT that hotel guests get (which is still included for free): - Mandrill Mayhem - Ostrich Stampede - Mamba Strike - The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure - Elmer’s Flying Jumbos - Room on the Broom – A Magical Journey - Treetop Hoppers - Jungle Rangers - River Rafts - Tiny Truckers. You still need a standard day entrance ticket / Annual Pass on top of this.

From the Cred Sheet, here's all my ranked UK coasters not including Merlin parks, including their overall ranking in my list: Rank Coaster Park 46 Grand National Blackpool Pleasure Beach 53 Cobra (Paultons) Paultons Park 68 Storm Chaser Paultons Park 93 Icon Blackpool Pleasure Beach 95 Velocity Flamingo Land 96 Kumali Flamingo Land 97 Wilde Maus XXL Winter Wonderland 106 Accelerator Drayton Manor 113 Avalanche Blackpool Pleasure Beach 115 Revolution (BPB) Blackpool Pleasure Beach 117 Spinning Racer Fantasy Island 118 G Force Drayton Manor 119 Velociraptor Paultons Park 126 Mumbo Jumbo Flamingo Land 136 Flight of the Pterosaur Paultons Park 147 Millenium Fantasy Island 158 Rage Adventure Island 162 Big Dipper Blackpool Pleasure Beach 163 Ice Mountain Winter Wonderland 166 Odyessy Fantasy Island 167 Big One Blackpool Pleasure Beach 169 Rhombus Rocket Fantasy Island 176 Rockin Roller Botton's Pleasure Beach 181 Infusion Blackpool Pleasure Beach 182 Olympia Looping Winter Wonderland 183 Dinosaur Valley Wicksteed Park 186 €uro Coaster Winter Wonderland 193 Shockwave Drayton Manor 199 Hero Flamingo Land Also includes travelling coasters I've ridden in the UK, but oh well. tl;dr - my answer is Grand National at Blackpool.

I think for all the (fair) things said about the UK coaster industry, we never truly appreciate just how spoilt we are with B&M inverts. Sure, we only have 2, but one is an absolute creme de la creme of coasters, and the other is - as you say, Mark - perhaps the best of its scale in comparison to similar rides.

From having experienced the previous tent mazes, can confirm light bleed is not an issue (because mazes are designed with this in mind). Also, I assume people are aware that many of the mazes at Tulleys are in tents, and these do not suffer from the issues that people are raising.

Tent seems to take up a similar size to Big Top. The park did have white tents for Se7en and Curse (admittedly this is going back 15 years ago), so there's form there. Ultimately I find it makes very little difference to the experience. Whilst a solid exterior adds to the experience, I don't think a bad exterior takes away from the experience, so long as it's designed right. The wooden/laminate flooring is interesting, and not what I expected. Can't think of many temporary build mazes which use that as their base.

Thorpe have had a few: Se7en, The Curse and both versions of The Big Top (the first incarnation was in 3 tents). You could even say Survival Games is in a tent-like structure too. Really, if it's done well, it's not different to any other maze frankly. Some issues may come around where if you look up and realise you're in a tent, it can break immersion (but many mazes suffer with this issue, not just ones in tents). If the maze is designed well, it won't matter whether it's in a tent, shipping containers or a permanent building.

Whatever it is, it's gonna be intents

The Big Top will not be returning.

And another image from the park, which could possibly indicate a maze in a tent / marque this year!

I very much reckon we're gonna see the new maze next to Zodiac. Also should mean goodbye to the awful Terminal.

Mr Monkey's wouldn't be the easiest ride to relocate, since pirate ships tend to have a hole for the ride mechanism. It would also be a largely pointless endeavour, as what would go in its space? The ride had been closed as they were awaiting parts from the manufacturer, which were order before the end of last season, and only arrived in late June I believe. Rocky Express isn't coming back. Chief Ranger's Carousel isn't in storage. Even if it was, having been in storage for 9 years, it would be better to buy a new one than try and start up an old one. Quick and simple Amity retheme for the area is best in my books. Dodgems goes to a garage / pit stop theme. Detonator is Detonator. Leave it as it is. Teacups can be rethemed at some point once the Dobble partnership ends. Only issue is the 4D cinema, which does still pull in a crowd and the numbers, surprisingly. But a custom 4D film, or just some random IP chucked in there, does the job in my books. One thing I've noticed with the park is that their events, and even the Thrillmakers show, is targeted more towards a younger market. Carnival especially, but also Mardi Gras, definitely has a leaning towards to children with the shows, and a more family feel. Whether this is the park's way of answering the need for more family stuff, or if it's in preparation of a larger family market push, is unclear. Leave the Rangers in past in my opinion. They haven't been relevant for almost 20 years, and I don't think they have a place in the modern day. Ahhh, so we're going for Prime then? World's first area themed to a drink?

I would love this too. Even a Platform 15 room would be good. I have spoken with people at the park about this, and suggested explicitly a CFM room, especially since it would then lend itself to having a chainsaw ending for the maze (one of the Creek Freak characters spilling out at the end). Apparently it's been looked at, but with the way Trailers was built, a H&S sign off on a chainsaw is apparently trickier than previous incarnations of that maze space.. A shame if they can't manage it.