JohnnyRocket

So so happy Colossus is finally getting some love. Wonder what the unopened present could be in the Project Sparkle video. 🤔 shall we take bets? My money’s on Black Mirror re-theme/replacement!

All sounds great! So good to hear Colossus’s theming is being repaired and even added to. And the Stealth entrance finally being repaired. Always thought they should’ve rethemed Samurai / painted it black when they built Saw next to it. But quite funny they’re doing it now after saying they want the park to be brighter and lighter 😅 I’d say Zodiac is the flat most in need of a repaint, just to give it its original colour scheme. Maybe next year!

I can't remember where I saw it now but someone posted that their friend lives in one of those houses on Manor Lane and a company has been negotiating with those houses to buy them out for the past few months. Now it's known to be Universal, you'd be laughing your way to the bank right now if you lived in one of those!

They’ve said they’re not repainting sections that are being retracked. I believe that includes the vertical loop. They might not get everything re-painted that is *not* being retracked as they said there’s a short time window to get it done, so anything not painted won’t necessarily be getting replaced. Hopefully they’ll manage to get it all done though!

The new logo has been picked up by a rebranding blog I subscribe to. They look at the new rebrand, logo, marketing etc and have given it quite a bad review. It’s behind a paywall but this is the summary. “Overall, this is very sad and a missed opportunity because it’s rare that theme parks get redesigns and there is so much material to draw from, especially for one with such a rich history as Thorpe Park — what this needed was more 1980s water bus energy” The reader comments are also unfortunately quite scathing! https://www.underconsideration.com/brandnew/archives/new_logo_and_identity_for_thorpe_park.php

Presumably VIBES will get another new name and theme for next year, since they like to change it each time they rebrand. Any guesses?!

A look at the wider Thorpe Park rebrand. Do really love all the patterns, colours and applications! https://www.robyeodesign.com/thorpe-park-rebrand

They literally downloaded a free font and called it a day 😂 https://www.dafont.com/kelvinized.font?text=Thorpe

I’m not sure how, but it’s SORT OF growing on me already?! Think I’m just happy to see the back of the old one! Always hated it since they changed it to ALL CAPS in 2008. The angled O is obviously a nod (eAsTeR eGg) to the old swoosh, and the bubble-type writing is a nod to the original 80s logo It absolutely does not work scaled down on social media profile pictures, you can’t read it at all. But I do kind of appreciate the retro vibes of it, even it it looks like an 80s sports brand. I think main issue is it doesn’t really…. look like a logo?! It’s just a word mark. It only pops once it has the new graphical elements behind it. I’d love to know the process behind the designing of it. I think…. Overall… it’ll grow on everyone. As said before, despite being “iconic”, it’s better than the old one!

Disappointing! I don’t really get the vibe they’re trying to give with it. It looks like a 1950s van logo. But as always, it’ll grow on everyone. The current Comic Sans-esque logo is shockingly bad but feels iconic as we’ve all been looking at it for so long. So, it’s definitely an improvement at least…

Would be keen for it to take some sort of inspo from the original 80s logo! Bit of a trend for that at the mo, see Burger King, Pepsi are reverting to their classic wave logo etc.

2 out of 3 isn’t bad!! Very pleased with this. A good compromise for integrating it back in with the 1950s American theme of Amity but with a new twist.

We got the rusty logo in 2009 for Saw, which they brought back several times. Quite fitting to go with the rusting infrastructure! And a sPoOkY white logo for DBGT (pic from https://x.com/dg95official/status/1094600599860072448?s=46 )

Agreed! Would be SO easy. Just give the cinema a generic 50s Amity Cinema or theatre theme so it doesn't matter what film or show is on in there. Dodgems can be a 50s gas station. Then Detonator can just pretend to be jungle themed again.

Yes! Even just the original countdown would be amazing 5… DUN DUN

New soundtracks for rides too? As long as they don’t touch Colossus or WWTP…! So happy the logo’s changing, it’s been awful since they ruined it in 2008

Did this for the first time yesterday, thought it was pretty disappointing. Really miss the Victorian train illusion, it's weird they got rid of it since it's set in a Victorian train station?! I honestly didn't really understand the storyline at all. I've read on here about there being nuns in the finale, we never had any nuns? The guy in the fake shop at the end said as part of his spiel, "did you like the nuns?" - we were like, "what nuns?" .... "oh. you didn't see any nuns? you should have" - all just a bit of a waste of time sadly! We just had the same 2 actors the whole time doing creepy movements on the train and stomping about. Very random!

Black Mirror needs to go, it was terrible yesterday. They weren’t even bothering to take the photos properly, half of them were just blurs! And shouting “don’t worry if you haven’t put your name in it doesn’t matter”. Even the park can’t be arsed with it

Just to say - the park looks absolutely brilliant at night, the lighting etc is fab BUT the Swarm seems to be the odd one out. So much bright white flood lighting. And same for the station, no ambience at all. Is this because the ride was designed with permanent lighting from the start, unlike the others so it’s just sort of stuck how it is?

Yep exactly re. the timeslots, concerning as they’ve already sold out of the packages on most Saturdays so no chance to tweak the allocated numbers unless they really reduce the number of one shot tickets they sell in the afternoon. It’s quite miserable trying to get all 3 done in the time slot as you don’t feel you have a chance to just pause and get a drink/food, just relentless queueing for 3 hours. At the very least, they really will need to be fairly lax about letting people do the third maze past 6pm otherwise there will be lots of pretty pissed off people on peak days.

I LOVED the strobe section in Stitches. They’re always by far my favourite part when they use these in mazes. Which is why The Freezer/Asylum will always be the most terrifying and intense maze for me. Absolutely loved Stitches, my favourite of the 3 by a mile. Brilliant atmosphere and theming with so many jump scares. The room with the dolls (I think they were?) not knowing which of them were real was a highlight, I know they sort of did that in Trailers but it’s executed so much better here. Really comes down to what you look for in a maze as I really didn’t find Survival Games that intense. The shouting and being shoved takes away the sense of the unknown for me and you can see the actors coming from a mile off. But it’s great we have 2 very strong and complimentary mazes with Stitches and Survival Games. I do think now Trailers is easily the weakest of the three and wouldn’t be surprised to see this one gone next year

Went to Fright Nights yesterday, was a bit busier than expected but then Ride Queue Times site considers it “quiet” at 39% crowd level so really can’t see how it’s worth doing on days that are 80%+! But anyway that’s a whole other discussion. Really enjoyed the day. I think they’ve got the pricing and timeslots wrong unfortunately. We hedged our bets and went for the afternoon slot 3-6pm, we queued over an hour for each maze. We didn’t get into the second maze until 6.10pm so anxious we wouldn’t get into the last maze. We asked a manager on our way in to the 2nd maze if we’d be OK doing the 3rd after the time slot finished. She said lots of people had asked her about this and had radioed ahead to our last maze to allow people in from the afternoon slot. So we got in just fine. But if they’re already getting backlog issues with afternoon people having to be let in during the evening slots on a “quiet” day then I honestly don’t know how it’s going to work on peak days. Also not helped by the queue times for the mazes saying 0 minutes on the app all day so it’s hard to plan Once it got to about 7pm, the queues for the mazes were incredibly short. We kicked ourselves for not just paying the extra £6 for the evening slot. So if you’re going on a quieter day, absolutely do the evening! Trailers was OK, same as last year. Think it’s time for it to change now though. The novelty of the throwbacks was fun but now it does just feel like a bit of a disjointed incoherent maze of random things put together. 3/5 for me LOVED Stitches, definitely our favourite of the 3. Great length, and loads of clever ways of getting a scare (don’t want to give anything away). Theming quality very high, great atmosphere. It’s my favourite type of scare, the unknown and anticipation of something about to happen. Would honestly give this 5/5 - a very worthy and superior replacement for Creek Freak Massacre First time doing Survival Games. Heard so much about how intense this was and how terrifying it is, our group was actually nervous about this one after hearing about being pushed and shoved. Turns out, at least for us, it’s really not that bad. I think for me the actors talking to you and kinda nudging you about takes the scare away from me. But I still thought it was very very fun. We actually did this one again as we found it a laugh, and 2 of us managed to stick together for the first half which to be honest made it even more enjoyable for us. We kinda played hide and seek in there, was in for ages (which I’m sure is frowned upon!). Obviously theming’s non existent which is a shame. Would give it 3.5/5 Now since everyone seemed to be queuing for mazes in the afternoon, it meant short queues in the evening but queues for the scare zones instead! The Crows is brilliant this year. Great use of space. It’s honestly better than some of the outdoor mazes we’ve had in the past. Didn’t bother with Deaths Doors as the queue was so big, did it last year and it’s a fun attraction and can’t complain with it being free. Didn’t see the Amity show but got glimpses of the Lucifers Lair shows. That area’s great, absolutely full of actors from all angles. It’s the best this area has been. All in all, probably the strongest Fright Nights in years! So glad it’s back to its best.

Don’t mind it! Seems like yesterday when they revealed Project Stealth was to be called… Stealth! So at least a bit more of a surprise than that was 😄 So we’ll have a bit of a Greek inspired corner of the park going on - Hyperia, and Colossus (Medusa fountain pit, Greek inspired name). Know areas aren’t a “thing” anymore but nice there will be a bit of a link with Lost City

So what time slots are people going for this year? Not sure if it's been mentioned but the 3 maze combo ticket has 2 pricing tiers for the first time this year - Afternoon (between 3-6pm) £24 Evening (between 6-9pm) £30 It's a very smart way of spreading the queues out over the day so they're not dead in the afternoon and massive in the evening - but not sure which slot to go for! Tempted to go for the afternoon to save a bit of cash, but then perhaps everyone will have the same idea and it'll be busiest in the afternoon!

There's definitely enough signs of it being Egyptian themed but I don't know why, I still can't see them going for it, just doesn't feel very 'Thorpe' to me but then I couldn't really tell you what a Thorpe kinda theme is other than abandoned and 'lost' - Egyptian's a bit too on the nose. I guess in the same way I've always thought Katanga Canyon doesn't really fit in with the wider Alton Towers sinister/dark/spooky theme. But yeah it's probs gonna be Egyptian!