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I have to say I was really pleasantly surprised by the quality of attractions tonight. And today was just a preview; there is so much potential this year! Mini reviews from my runs tonight are as follows: Platform 15 - Best maze tonight for me. The amount of actors in the village, especially at the end of the night, was crazy! Had a good few actors in the tunnel as well which really caught me off guard. The finale.. I did prefer last year’s in all honesty. Better at night than day but that’s no surprise. Blair Witch - Huge improvement on previous incarnations of the maze! A lot of actors throughout and they did not hold back on intensity. It is a little short however. It’s definitely better at night as well. Definitely has potential to be better, but still great. Dead Creek - Surprisingly scary! The chainsaw in the middle was actually horrifying. Again definitely has more potential and is better at night. Saw Alive - Identical as expected. Not the best run I’ve had but pretty good none the less. Living Nightmare - Not a fan of this tonight. Lacking in actors and sadly didn’t get too many scares (the ones that were there were great however!). I’ve seen how good this maze can be so hopefully it improves as the event goes on. The Big Top roaming team were great and were around the park for nearly all of the night; we saw them multiple times all around the park! All in all, it’s looking positive! And seeing as tonight was a preview, we could very easily be seeing these mazes increase in quality by next week. I’m looking forward to heading back soon to do the other attractions and head back in the ones that were open tonight.

The temporary fences have been up since I lasted visited (16th) but they may have been up since before that. Also Sam, when you say that Do or Die was still being put together, do you mean the maze or the queue line? It looked nowhere near completion last time I was there. Then again, it may not be an overly complex build.

Saturday 29th September

It will run down Zombie Hunt's old path, as from the looks of things, the maze will be Zombie Hunt without the guns. They have a ramp leading down from where the Timber Tug queue currently is. There's a wall blocking the way but my guess it that it'll be removed so the maze can run down there. Platform keeps it's previous queue and entrance, Dead Creek goes where the Blair Witch queue used to go then down it's old path up until the IAC area, where it diverts to the right and exits down that path they've built to the right of the area. Blair Witch will presumably queue in the other half of the IAC area and enter from there down to the shed.

It should hopefully spread the queues out even more which will be extremely helpful, especially in half term. In terms of the quality of the maze, given that it looks as if it’ll be unchanged from Zombie Hunt and of course the low scare rating, it might still be a good maze for younger audiences. Thorpe have really upped their game this year. 11 attractions and with one more still to be announced. I really hope they can pull this off...

It'll be down Zombie Hunt's pathway with the ending routed to the other side of the I'm A Celeb area. And from the looks of things, it'll literally just be Zombie Hunt without guns. It's worth noting that the maze has a scare rating of 2 in the day and 3 at night, so it's not going to be a new terrifying addition.

The Thorpe Breaks website does say that there will be eight new horror attractions joining the lineup this year. Well, it says mazes, but we all know that’s not happening. If we add the extra two attractions covered by leaves, this would add up. The question is... when are we getting a reveal? The event starts in two weeks..

Is it bad I'm kinda sad to see HPH go? ? It wasn't great admittedly, but I always found it quite fun to go in. I have to praise the creativity of the marketing for whatever will be replacing it though!

The scare ratings have never usually meant that much. Cabin’s scare rating always used to be a 4, but was far scarier than My Bloody Valentine (notably in 2015.). The 2 scare rating just means it won’t be as scary, which is expected given that it is a scare zone, and from the description, it looks like it’s going to be more of a fun scary than full on intense scary, which is definitely something Thorpe needs. I’m more concerned about Blair Witch being open in the day to be honest. I just don’t see how that’s going to work; it’ll lose any atmosphere it might have when it’s dark. Also, there are only a total of 4 all indoor attractions out of 10 this year, and one of them is upcharge. That is really limiting given that the event has had up to 6 all indoor attractions before..

A timed show ? They should've just scrapped it completely.

The old Big Top site has been closed off in preparation for Fright Nights. Not all of the area is closed, making its pretty much impossible for The Big Top to be returning to this site. (Photo from Theme Park News For You on Facebook)

Found something of interest on the background image on the Fright Nights website: https://www.thorpepark.com/fright-nights-2018 "6 NEW MAZES TO BE ANNOUNCED 11TH SEPTEMBER 7AM" Could just be to throw us off, it seems highly unlikely, but it's odd that it's in the image.

The date on the ticker has changed to Tuesday 11th 7am. So, we do have a whole week to wait.. EDIT: GetEchoes beat me to it!

That’s what the website says ? Theyve also said this year will be their biggest and most terrifying event to date. But then again, don’t they say that every year..

The Fright Nights website has been updated confirming that Saw Alive, Living Nightmare, Platform 15 and Containment will be returning. So basically nothing that we haven’t heard before. “More mazes and encounters” are going to be revealed soon.

The website has since reverted to showing the closed days in September, and the two new Fright Nights dates have disappeared. Maybe it was accidentally published, or was published too early?

Zombie Hunt and Saw Alive both had their last day's of operation for the summer today. Surely a lineup is imminent at this point? Last year the reveal was on September 5th, so maybe it'll be the same/similar this year. We'll have to wait and see.

They definitely aren't markings for a tent. So... R.I.P. Big Top? ? They look more like markings for shipping containers to me. Sanctum relocation maybe?

Yellow marks have appeared on the floor on the site of The Big Top. Photos from Scream Seekers Facebook page.

We have the new Fright Nights poster. Pretty similar to last year's. The tagline "Nowhere is Safe" has appeared again. It was used in the short video on social media, and is now on the website too.

The pop badge calendar tells all. I'd say it was irrelevant if not for the Fright Nights 2018 pop badge. If this is anything to go by, the lineup will be: Big Top, Platform, Living Nightmare, Saw Alive, Sanctum and a new maze. There's rumours flying around about what the new maze could be and where it would go, the strongest one being that The Blair Witch is returning. We'll likely find out on September 2nd according to this calendar. Realistically, the IAC area is the only free space I could think of for a new maze...

Project Zer0 has been revealed! Two brand new escape rooms in Surrey coming this summer! https://xscream-escapes.com

I'm pretty sure the flame effect has definitely been altered in some way. There is much less smoke and it is much less effective than it was when I rode it in March. Hopefully it returns back to how it used to be.

As well as The Walking Dead: The Ride, Annual Passholders will get exclusive access to Living Nightmare Extreme from 6pm-10pm next Saturday! Photo from the Merlin Annual Pass group on Facebook.

I don’t know how long this sign was outside Big Top for, but it was there at some point in early September before it was taken away. Photo credit: Kieran Adams