coasterverse

I dunno, I think it was a nice refreshing addition to the thread.

As an attraction that's not overly popular, this has always baffled me too. You run a scare event at a theme park which houses a year-round scare attraction - a ghost train that already houses live actors as part of the attraction itself - and yet they don't do anything with it? Imagine how much more hype that would bring to the attraction if every year they adapted the ride in some way to have a different narrative - hell - fill that place with scare actors and make it a Fright Nights attraction! Such a massive space with so much unfulfilled potential. SURELY there's gotta be something that MMM/Thorpe management could do with it.

Announcement soon..? 👀

this dude really theorizes in his own head and then singlehandedly makes it a 'rumour'

With it being an awkward period of time since opening (6 years now!!), I would imagine that the contract would have somehow been renewed a year ago (although, to be perfectly honest I don't think Derren would be interested in renewing it at all - I've heard he was extremely unhappy with Simworx for the way the ride turned out and has never even entertained talking about it since it opened, really) or the initial contract length discussed was 10 years. This seems like an incredible amount of time to negotiate a contract length for, however they were hyping this attraction up as being the "future of theme park technology" or something along those lines, so maybe they were a little ambitious in the licensing and went for 10 years. I don't know, I think the latter option is probably more realistic - I think Merlin would've been interested to renew the contract last year because as @Matt N said, the £30m budget is a hell of a lot of money to spend on any attraction and I can't see them admitting failure and closing it this early on their own accord, but I really don't think that Derren would be interested at all as all it does is put a dampener on his name (unless Merlin are paying him incredible sums of money to renew the license, in which case maybe his attention was swayed!).

Funny you should mention that because I made a video on this at the beginning of the year: I explained it more in depth in the video but I'll vaguely recap here. My personal rankings are: 7. Flying Fish: Great for a kids ride or for someone who's never ridden a coaster before and wanting to dip their toes in the water... but obviously every other coaster at the park is more thrilling and enjoyable imo so couldn't really place it anywhere higher than last. 6. Colossus: As far as I'm concerned, the worst big coaster at the park. For its age the theming and whatnot is very impressive, but the coaster is incredibly uncomfortable, the restraints are awful and for anyone even slightly above average height will be pushed for legroom. 5. Nemesis Inferno: Granted, Inferno is the better Nemesis of the two. And quite honestly, I do find it enjoyable. However, as someone that sometimes seriously struggles with motion sickness - Inferno has always just sent me over the edge. As a result I'm not able to ride it very often at all, so can't really place it any higher than this either. 4. The Walking Dead: The Ride: I really do like TWD. The pre-show and... post-show? is incredible (by Thorpe's standards). Yeah I get that the actual coaster portion is just your bogstandard Vekoma family coaster, but even the portion where the train 'stalls' and needs restarting just adds to the exhilaration for me. The theming inside of the actual ride portion could use some updating as the zombies just look like your generic fun-fair ghost train style props... but if they ever implemented some actual animatronics to this ride (and proper lighting so you can actually see things rather than 2 second flashes of light) I think it could be insane. 3. The Swarm: The Swarm is incredible. Extremely smooth, the theming is incredible... there really is a lot to love about this coaster. But personally I just find it gets a bit tame and boring in the second half. It's all amazing right up until the helix around the helicopter, and then it totally peters out in speed and intensity. 2. SAW: The Ride: Deciding upon these next two coasters was a real battle. I love everything about SAW. It's got a great queueline, the use of the Billy pre-show is great, some of those tight elements in the layout are insane - it genuinely does feel like a deathtrap (but in a good sense, as that's exactly what the ride is supposed to simulate). Granted it can be incredibly painful and you need to act on the side of caution not to re-ride in too quick succession to avoid a brain hemorrhage, but that's all part of the experience baby! Oh, and I absolutely LOVE that the trim brakes near the end of the layout aren't functional, genuinely. 1. Stealth: Stealth is my baby, man. What it lacks in theming it absolutely makes up for in speed. Stealth takes my breath away every single time I ride and I still get anxiety when I sit down and wait for dispatch. Also... those views you get at the top of the top hat are incredible!

I know I risk a fate of sounding like a broken record continuously going on about DBGT, however following my most recent trip to the park and witnessing virtually everything inside the attraction being painfully downsized and even the Ghost Train shop being all but entirely void of merchandise begs the question as to what the fate of Derren Brown's Ghost Train: Rise Of The Demon will be. What is everyone's predictions? A re-theme? Demolishment of the current building and replacing with a coaster? Something else? I'd love to know what everyone thinks could be the potential path to the future with this attraction!

Planning Committee will be talking about Exodus on the 5th October and the agenda says that the planning committee will be recommended to grant planning permission!

I was there yesterday and I must admit I didn't see anything advertising it. It could've just been me not paying attention, but there were no signs outside of the queueline that stated such. But then again, yesterday it was running on reduced capacity and the main queue were directed up the fast track side of the staircase and the main left side was totally unused for whatever reason, so perhaps Fast Track/Single Rider just wasn't in operation yesterday but that's anyone's guess.

Not forgetting that Alton is in dire need of a new water ride now - The Flume was bloody brilliant (granted, Wicker Man is even better) but now all that we have is the rapids, and even that is a shadow of its former self. I would absolutely love a Valhalla style dark water-ride and I'm crossing everything I've got that's what it's going to be!

I really do think it could be a flying theatre. Don't get me wrong, I would love for it not to be... but I just think at the moment all of the hints are pointing at it. I hope the name is a red herring and actually has nothing to do with the ride at all. Intamin have released a new 'Motion Tower' recently, which I think could be an option and looks like it could be scaled up and take up a whole lot of space. Take a look at the demo here:

Well, well, well. Deary deary me. I think this was possibly my second (maybe third?) visit to Thorpe Park this year and of course I always have to have my obligatory ride on DBGT. In fact, the ride was a walk-on at about half 12 (the person on the gate wasn't even checking tickets, so I just walked straight though even though I hadn't actually booked!). I rode DBGT at the start of the season, and they had implemented some changes to the second-preshow that I thought were absolutely fantastic. A little more backstory, tying together all of the plotholes and having a member of the infected burst into the room warning people not to ride. Now... I'm not sure if this is just because I visited during the extreme off-peak days... however this second-preshow was skipped in its entirety. Instead, we were directed straight through onto the train after the talk from Derren at the start. Onto the VR section now. I know lots of people have had issues with the VR headsets on here before and I assume I have just gotten lucky until now... however my headset today was absolutely awful. Constantly drifting, sometimes just locking the camera into place so I couldn't even look around (which, might I add, was absolutely horrendous and triggered immense motion sickness every time I tried to look around). I sat down after being directed onto the train and immediately put on a headset where the audio wasn't coming through one of the headphones... so immediately got up and found somewhere else. Other than the technical issues, the first VR section was exactly as normal. Then we de-board the train as normal, and get hurried along into the big train room. Now, as we skipped the second pre-show... we obviously didn't have any 'codes' or anything to give to the actors in this room, which made the entire situation totally pointless. We were taken off the train, directed into a large room where people were just pacing up and down freaking out, the infected come out, and then we get directed straight back onto the train again. No participation from the audience, just straight back onto the train. Look, I totally understand that there's probably a potential lack of staffing... but the whole 'remembering the code to get out of the room with the infected' bit is kind of the entire motif of the ride. Without that, you're basically just watching VR. Anyway, back onto the train for the second and final VR section. Again, VR and audio issues galore. We had the super-extended VR part two (I assume there was some sort of technical issue and hence we were held up), but aside from all of the VR and audio issues... I actually really liked the extended VR section. It's a real shame they don't let this play out in its entirety all of the time. I really don't jump at the jumpscares on DBGT anymore, but some of the jumpscares in the extended VR Part 2 section really got me (and I couldn't even look around because my VR was stuck again!). For part two I had to change my headset three different times during the actual VR segment and had members of staff asking me what the problem was - pretty sure after they got me settled again they radioed in about all of the issues as I could hear people talking on the radio about them... so other people must've had the same problems as me. And then... the grand finale. *sigh* This, for me, has always been the highlight of DBGT... but not today. Nobody made any attempt to direct people's attention to the ouija board and the audio was so low in the fake shop that nobody even knew what was going on. It was just me and my friend observing the ouija board and even when the infected person came out... nobody even looked! 😂 Which brings me on to my biggest pet peeve about DBGT which I've always been very vocal about - the demon costume. It needs to make a return. I don't care how much it costs. Bring it back. Having no mention of a demon in the first VR section, no mention of a demon in the large train room section, and oh! Suddenly there's a demon thing that nobody has talked about walking around the train in the third VR section!... oh and it's gone again. The storyline is totally discombobulated. Either stick with the demon storyline or abandon it altogether. 'Rise Of The Demon' my arse. More like 'The Demon? What Demon? Oh, There He Is! Oh No, Gone Again!' It truly gets worse every single ride. Also... I mentioned it earlier in the year but it's even more apparent now - the Ghost Train shop is virtually completely empty now. Which I can't help but wonder why? Are they just not ordering new stock to the shop because they're planning on closing it soon or do they just not see the point of restocking because it doesn't get a lot of footfall? I can't imagine it being the latter, because DBGT can get very, very busy at times! I'd be interested to hear what everyone else thinks. Sorry for the long one, folks! 😂

Had a quick peek into the construction earlier today, seemed to be a fairly large group of people wearing high vis wandering about the area. Really does make you wonder what the fate of Exodus will be at the moment.

Weird, I visited today too and having lots of 30/45 minute queues (although obviously not as busy as the summer days - I only ever tend to visit mid-week and typically most rides are only ever 5-10 minute queue times at most... maybe I just get lucky), I would definitely not say the park was 'quiet' by any means 😂 I saw lots of schoolkids running about, but the last hour of the park was extremely quiet and was nice to get a few re-rides in before heading home. DBGT seemed to be operating inconsistently throughout the day (I managed to get two rides on it... I hate how that ride gets worse and worse with every re-ride. I'll write a more thorough review on that in the topic shortly). The way they were batching people at SAW was interesting to say the least. Bit of a free-for-all in the queueline (nobody on the actual door batching people into the building) and only directed up the fast-pass stairs. No doubt about it being reduced capacity, it was ridiculously tedious. TWD had no actors in, but then again that's totally to be expected on a mid-week day in the very off-peak season. The SAW audio was very, very nice. They seem to have gotten rid of the constant, blaring SAW theme playing 24/7 and only playing the snippet on dispatch. Means that the Billy pre-show can be heard pretty much perfectly, which is an absolute bonus. Detonator was operating very, very well today to be fair. The operator seemed to absolutely love his job, and was holding people at the top for multiple minutes at a time! Definitely agree that the park needs quite a bit of TLC over closed season, lots of areas of the park are in dire need of a bit of loving.

I think Fright Nights is always pretty busy to be honest, but your best bet is definitely some time during the week. Although with the extended park hours allowing people to travel down after work and still enjoy the event, being there of a weekend is usually just all-out hell even on a non-event day let alone Fright Nights. Definitely try to go down mid-week, that way you should be able to avoid families - but just remember that it will pretty much always be busy at a Fright Nights... just a bit less busy during the week.

This is brilliant - granted it feels weird not hearing the SAW theme on blast in the station, but the Billy puppet pre-show really sets the tone for the rest of the coaster. They really do either need to turn the station audio down (they really need to do this because the station audio is always SO incredibly loud - I couldn't imagine having to work in there, it's hard enough standing there for 10 minutes before boarding the train!) or crank the Billy dialogue waaaaaaay up.

Has the Billy doll audio been turned up? All the times I've ridden it, the station audio really overpowers the doll and I literally can't hear a word he says - still to this day I'm not entirely sure what it actually is that he does say 😂 Really good to hear if it has, that's a job that needed to be done for a loooooong time.

The thing is, the theming of Trailers was top notch - can definitely see that it was their most expensive maze to date. However, the execution of it was poor in my opinion. If it was executed better (and personally, the different rooms were reduced so the rooms could be bigger and therefore less predictable scares that you can see before even entering the room), it would've been a phenomenal maze. I'm super, super excited for this one. It has massive potential, and if the theming is anything near Trailers, it has the potential of being super immersive too. Let's just hope they don't go over-ambitious with their ideas in a small space which will lead to predictable scares again. I'd rather only have a few rooms but have them be massive and therefore have well-hidden scares in it, than lots of different rooms to experience and be able to predict the scares before you even experience them.

Final maze announcement - Survival Games! From Jack Silkstone's Twitter: "A BRAND-NEW multi-route scare maze and Thorpe Park’s single biggest FRIGHT NIGHTS investment to date! This incredibly intense indoor experience features live actors, special effects, and multiple genres of horror designed to terrify even the most fearless." Now this, I am excited for. This has massive potential, especially considering it's the biggest fright nights investment to date.

Very cool concept, but operationally would be so much better as a scaremaze rather than a scarezone. Imagine having a maze with 21 different individual micro-scare mazes rather than, what is evidently just going to be, 21 different jumpscares in one room.

I'm not sure about the blue light event, but at the passholder events mazes have still been paid for seperately (although discounted for passholders, not sure if they would be discounted for blue light holders). I would probably say that, knowing Merlin, the free entry will only be to the park and the mazes will still be upcharges.

Am I the only one who thinks this could be a vague storyline tease for Project Exodus? The description of the door 7 video reads: "It’s time to pack your bags and enter your cryo-pod aboard The Terminal for a one-way trip to an intergalactic utopia! You’ll find yourself drifting into an eternal slumber as you dream of the promised new land in a faraway galaxy. On your journey, your safe haven gets hijacked by unearthly creatures leaving you and your fellow passengers in perilous danger😧 Drifting in and out of consciousness, trapped in your own cryo-pod, there’s nothing you can do except accept your fate and pray you make it in one piece. " Obviously in Trailers, the E:\O-DUS poster very clearly had imagery of somebody being abducted by aliens... and 'The Terminal' is very much extraterrestrial in nature. Could be a similar thing to The Sanctury (for The Smiler) and The Welcoming (for Wicker Man) to foreshadow a vague storyline for their upcoming coaster projects. Just a thought! 🤔

An 'audio scare experience' huh? If done correctly this could be very, very cool indeed.

Looks like the Duel redevelopment could be coming very soon 👀 (via @ThemeParkGuide on Twitter)

I’d like that - I would really like Black Mirror to be on its way out now. It was good as an attraction to drive visitors to the park post-covid, but I don’t think anyone really cares for it anymore. It would be much better adapted as just a scare attraction space opening for Fright Nights until they decide to demolish Slammer and then re-develop that space.