JoshC.

That YouTube channel has all the videos.

As you said, the one you posted was the first.




And though this wasn't a teaser, it was posted shortly after the name reveal:

I believe that the Saw IP was confirmed reasonably late in the process - my understanding is that it could have even been after the first teaser video was released.

I came across this which I found quite interesting https://creativepool.com/merlinentertainments/projects/hyperia-experiental-award-for-merlin-entertainments?utm_source=chatgpt.com

It’s Merlin’s entry for Hyperia in the 2025 Creativepool Awards, a few things I found particularly interesting:
Hyperia was specifically designed with teenagers in mind, with Merlin saying one of the aims was to 'reignite the passion' of teenagers for Thorpe Park
Within just a few months, Hyperia had achieved a 9.6/10 Product Score, while Thorpes Net Promoter Score increased by 12% year on year
46,154 Hyperia merchandise items had been sold, with the shop generating £698k. This was £385k more than expected
The queueline shop generated £240k, making it the best performing queueline shop on site
Merlin says Hyperia directly contributed to increased visitation, with many guests specifically saying Hyperia was the reason for their visit

Seems as though you're right Cal, though nothing officially confirmed...

Couple of extra bits:
Only available as a one shot ticket (£12-£14, so £2 more expensive than the other one shots) or VIP packages
Actors will touch you and you will be split up.
It's a cool concept and I'm intrigued by it. It feels slightly...un-Thorpe like? Which I mean in a positive way. That probably makes sense given RWS are more in charge this year.

Throughput will be an interesting one. Lots of darkness, being split up, plus the presumed torches. Some mazes that have used Haunted Lantern have gone for very small groups (eg Purgatory at Tulleys), others keep group size the same. But I'm not aware of any that have split groups up before.

So yeah, intrigued and excited.

now something to replace ready player one PLEASE IT'S NEARLY BEEN THREE YEARS.

Hyper Coaster is probably not talked about much as it isn't that ridden. Looks like a solid ride all round though.

I really enjoyed Batman GCE, but it didn't hot the upper echelons of my list. I can't describe why really, as it has lots of what I like. I'd love to have ridden it more, but my god the throughput is rubbish.

Updating my 10 top as I don't currently have any more trips planned this year, new entries in bold.

1) Batman Gotham City Escape
2) Toutatis
3) Untamed
4) Kondaa
5) Shambala
6) Hyperia
7) Ride to Happiness
8) Taron
9) Balder
10) Hyper Coaster
Helix and Zadra now both fall out of my top 10.

Batman has always intrigued me, but I didn't expect to like it as much as I did. Every element hits no matter what seat you're in. The tophat works, the ejector airtime is insane, and it's easily my favourite stall I've done on a coaster.

I never really see Hyper Coaster talked about, but it's a solid coaster. Pretty traditional hyper layout with an insane first drop and a crazy zero g roll.

I believe they own that stage and have done since the mid 2010s (when they purchased it for the Thorpe Sounds event... I'm getting deja vu...)

I don't think on-park announcements or advertising will work all that much.

I agree that using the screens around park to make it clear what time the park closes is not a bad thing. But if people are oblivious to the closing time, think it's 6pm (say), and then rock up and find out at 2pm it's actually 9pm, I don't think that will encourage that many people to stay.

I think there's two things to keep in mind with later opening hours.
You need to give people a reason to stay. Fright Nights is always packed until close, because there's a reason to stay (scare stuff and night rides). Summer Lates had a DJ and maybe one night ride if you join a queue late on. For many, that's not enough to get people to stay.
You have to accept that people will leave early. At similar sized parks (and bigger), people leave before park close, especially when there's late closing. Just as a recent example: I went to Dollywood last month, 10am-9.30pm opening hours. All day, Lightning Rod had 45min+ queue, except in the last hour where it dropped to 5mins. People leave early. And that's fine, so long as you're busy enough during the day and people who stay late get their money's worth.

I was on park both Fridays and staying late felt worthwhile. If it translated into people spending money and giving better KPI scores it's worth it.

The park just need to come up with a way of making staying later more appealing, and advertising that a bit more.

Ahhh, that all makes sense.
Creature Campus could work as a scare zone if they wanted it to. Back in the day, Amity was a mix of both, and I think the location outside Stealth makes more sense for a full set based around the school than Launch Pad, which seems to be used for multiple different things.
Not really Fright Nights-related, but it’s funny how Launch Pad suddenly comes alive when there are food units open. Maybe they should have stuck to the original plan and kept permanent food units around the area.
I just can’t see Lucifer’s Lair also having a stage and staying show-focused. I think the danger is that there ends up being more shows than scare zones. I think the theme of lucifers lair lends itself better to being a hub of entertainment. I’d be really sad to see it go.
I don’t think Purgatory Town should come back unless they move away from the conversation-based approach. Me and my group aren’t really going to interact with actors on that level. I think the actors should be providing scares and approaching us to scare us, rather than just loitering around and having a conversation with people.
Alton Towers does scare zones really well with its two free walkthrough scare zones. I’m glad The Crows are coming back, but I think they really needed another one alongside it.

Summer lates were great, really hope they build on them and we have more of them next year.

I normally completely avoid Thorpe during July and August but I went last Friday and yesterday for the afternoon/evening.

Last Friday seemed to be the quietist of the 4, but I think a lot of people left/were put off due to the heat. Yesterday a good amount of people stayed till the end which is good to see.

I do think they could do a better job of advertising it though. I don't think theres enough (anything?) on park telling you the park is actually open until 9.

I got sent a survey the other day about the event, asking about reasons for visiting, rides being open late, the food stalls, DJs and what time of year is best for rides in the dark. So it's good to see they're at least considering expanding on it.

Not usually.

Most of Thorpe's IP contracts, to my knowledge, have been on 3 or 5 year contracts which can then be renewed for certain periods of time. All very flexible.

It appears they haven't given up with Zodiac just yet - quite surprised to see all the doors from the gondolas seem to have been removed.

Shades of Oblivion and Fanta.

I don't get it. Nor have ever noticed a brand that has apparently been around since the late 90s.

RCDB even updated the entry.

shush

Flipz pretzels are temporarily sponsoring Hyperia:

Is this 1 foot more than Blackpools ?

Taller?

Maybe TPM's April Fools was more prophetic than joke?

In a similar fashion to Alton Towers, Thorpe now have a selection of street food stalls, all in The Launchpad.


The stage is set up for Thorpe Lates, and a lot more seating is available (I think some of it moved from the old Saw Alive path now that construction is taking place there).

The area was the most alive I've ever seen it, and definitely how it should be used.

There's a few contributing factors I think...

-Post-big investment lull. As Benin mentioned, there can be lulls after big investments at parks. Not every park, but it is common. It's funny because historically Thorpe was good at avoiding that by having some marketing gimmick for the year after a big investment (Stealth's "upgrade", Saw with Saw Alive, Swarm's Brave it Backwards, DBGT and Rise of the Demon). Hyperia didn't have that, and there's not been anything to follow up. It happens, but it's very bland, yes.

-'Time thing'. I assume by this Matt you just mean getting older, and that does play a part of it too I reckon. You get older, and busier, and times just change. And also ties in with what Benin says about the world being general a bit rubbish right now.

-Lack of updates. There's things happening at the park, whether it's little touch ups here and there or bigger things behind the scenes. Admittedly right now that is minimal, but it is there.
But there's less noise about it all now. The Passholder Group on Facebook closed down. Jack Silkstone, who has been the main source of such things for a few years now, has moved into a more professional capacity so isn't making the little update videos. Fansites (like TPM) have succumbed to the time thing. And there's just very few places providing general updates.

-Lack of anything to be excited about. There's no plans to the council for anything new. There's no rumours of anything new coming. Other parks in Merlin are getting things and Thorpe aren't. We're kind of just ticking on by. It makes it hard to have the same enthusiasm.

On a personal level, I found 2024 to be such a huge buzz of a year for Thorpe. New coaster, obviously, but the Sparkle Project invigorated lots of other parts of the park. There was optimism for the future and such a positive. Since then, they've followed that up with a much-needed open space by the front of the park (although that execution has split opinion), and nothing else. The park is effectively exactly the same as it was 2 years ago, even down to food outlets.

With seemingly nothing new on the horizon, there's only so long one can revisit the exact same place before a bit of burnout hits.

The tent has been covered. It is 5 roof panels wide; Stitches is 6, so it's a bit smaller (but still very big).

The tent has been covered. It is 5 roof panels wide; Stitches is 6, so it's a bit smaller (but still very big).

Vortex (and Zodiac) look like they'll be down for a fair while longer as their entrances have been fenced off to allow for Fright Nights construction to pass through.

They wouldn't need fences that far forward if the rides were open, so it's likely to stop people going so far unnecessarily.

When DeadBeat was introduced, Thorpe had a 3-maze package (of the returning 3 mazes), and the 4-maze package too. So I guess it's not totally unheard of for them to do something like this.

My hope would be that this 5th maze is something different to the current norm. Paying £40 odd on top of entry for 5 "Thorpe mazes" where you're batched in a group, have a pre-show, wander round well-themed sets as actors jump out at you just feels a bit overkill to me. Yes it helps with capacity, but I'd question whether it improves the quality of the event.

What "something different" looks like is of course a different question. My personal preference, once again, would be an alone experience. I don't mind spending more on something like that. But if there's not a market for that, which I accept there might not be, something which is done in smaller groups, and just 'feels' different to the norm. Tulleys had success with that with Purgatory, for example.

My biggest criticism last year was how all the mazes felt the same, just dressed differently. I hope they can avoid that.
I also hope that they have the finances and the numbers to man 5 mazes plus shows and zones adequately.


On another a note, a tent has been set up today on Saw Alive's pathway:
Whether this is the new maze, or perhaps Stitches relocated there, currently unclear.

This will be the other reason that the "influencers" are barely mentioning Thorpe. Everything is ticking along relatively, whereas Towers you can bang out a quick video on park showing some closed rides (think about 3/4 long term break downs yesterday), or whine about the RAP situation and you got yourself a video.

In addition to the above - I have to say I really do miss the almost obsessive fan culture that used to exist around Thorpe.

Not so long ago there would be something to read about online every few days, even if it was just little things like new signage appearing, a change of audio somewhere, things that had been fixed etc.
Closed season as well - we would always have detailed updates from many sources (including the park themselves) about what was going on.
All that stuff still happens at Thorpe of course - but I suppose we’ve all moved on from sharing about it online!

I think for me this sort of thing is what’s missing now. It seems to me that that level of enthusiasm doesn’t exist for Thorpe anymore, or if it does then it looks different now.

Perhaps there’s a gap in the market for this since Mr Silkstone has moved on from all that, and the traditional forums are no longer busy. Because actually when you look at other parks, namely DLP and the upcoming Universal UK, there is quite a fan base already following the developments in microscopic detail.
Thorpe just doesn’t seem to have that active fan base anymore for some reason outside of big projects like Hyperia.