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Why did Thorpe do away with face it alone??


Martin Doyle

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So today I was remembering doing face it alone. Doing so made me think of one question and I apologise if it was already discussed. Why did Thorpe do away with it??

 

If its what I think it is in regards to it being "too extreme" then frankly I think that's ridiculous. Those who participated in it knew what they was getting themself in for given they had to sign a disclaimer which explained clear as crystal what was about to occur aswell as being told at the time of purchasing the tickets exactly what was about to happen. If it's because people complained then I personally feel that they should be more concerned with reading a disclaimer properly before signing OR paying attention at the time of purchasing the ticket.

 

Obviously it's been gone for years now but I was just curious 😛

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2013 face it alone Asylum... I cant imagine how scary that must have been. Id give anything to do that. 

As for guests being all creepy and sexual, I feel being tied and **** like that kind of gives opportunity for things to take a different path down that direction. So perhaps if they remove any things that could be interpreted sexually then Face it Alone could be less of an issue.

Hopefully it'll return one day as I think it hits the spot for guests who don't find ordinary maze experiences particularly scary anymore...

Great answer from Josh...

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1 hour ago, LukeP_8 said:

2013 face it alone Asylum... I cant imagine how scary that must have been. Id give anything to do that. 

 

My last ever go through Asylum was indeed Face It alone...and it was every bit as surreal and crazy as you could imagine 😕

 

I did face it alone every season when it was about and by its final year, it was watered down quite considerably.

 

Whilst I personally cant see Thorpe bringing something as physical as face it alone back, I certainly think a more psychological "alone experience" which doesn't rely on man handling you and covering you in God only knows what could be the ticket for the event. When I did the Clinic at Walibi Holland, first thing I thought when I finished it was that something along those lines would fit the bill for Thorpe one day.

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25 minutes ago, Martin Doyle said:

 

Whilst I personally cant see Thorpe bringing something as physical as face it alone back, I certainly think a more psychological "alone experience" which doesn't rely on man handling you and covering you in God only knows what could be the ticket for the event. When I did the Clinic at Walibi Holland, first thing I thought when I finished it was that something along those lines would fit the bill for Thorpe one day.

Lets be honest though, that would never work at Thorpe capacity wise.

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9 hours ago, LukeP_8 said:

2013 face it alone Asylum... I cant imagine how scary that must have been. Id give anything to do that. 

As for guests being all creepy and sexual, I feel being tied and **** like that kind of gives opportunity for things to take a different path down that direction. So perhaps if they remove any things that could be interpreted sexually then Face it Alone could be less of an issue.

Hopefully it'll return one day as I think it hits the spot for guests who don't find ordinary maze experiences particularly scary anymore...

Great answer from Josh...

The issue is, being tied up is a great - and easy - way of turning up the intensity of an attraction. Restricting movement, going to the next stage of the touch barrier, etc. It all works, and a large quantity of intense scare attractions do it.

 

I think the challenge that faced Thorpe was that it hit a slightly wider audience than it should. Particularly theme park enthusiasts and the like. When many people get introduced to extreme experiences, they never know what to expect. So when a large number of people experienced the 2015 iterations, it gave a very specific idea of what extreme attractions were and what they could do. Unlike in 2013 and 2014, when people stuck to the encouraged 'don't tell anyone about the experience', plenty of people were online saying "I did Face it Alone, I had x, y, z done to me". This then led to people wanting x,y,z done to them, and going so far as asking for requests. And from there it's a slippery slope..

 

For now, Chessington's Creepy Caves After Dark is probably bang on the money for what should be offered for people wanting a mainstream extreme experience. I sadly didn't get the chance to do it, but from what I've heard, it ticks all the right boxes. Hopefully it sticks around. But again, like with Face it Alone, there was a small team that was very dedicated to getting it just right, and worked extremely hard in doing so.

 

7 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

My last ever go through Asylum was indeed Face It alone...and it was every bit as surreal and crazy as you could imagine 😕

 

I did face it alone every season when it was about and by its final year, it was watered down quite considerably.

 

Whilst I personally cant see Thorpe bringing something as physical as face it alone back, I certainly think a more psychological "alone experience" which doesn't rely on man handling you and covering you in God only knows what could be the ticket for the event. When I did the Clinic at Walibi Holland, first thing I thought when I finished it was that something along those lines would fit the bill for Thorpe one day.

Clinic at Walibi Holland is a very isolated case and I don't think it could ever happen in any other theme park. The staffing levels required for it are insane to start off with - I'm fairly certain that one person will interact with about 20 actors during their alone experience. And I'm sure there's more actors too. They then have people operating and overseeing the experience (effectively like hosts and operators on a ride), etc. And because of the type of attraction it is and the scares needed, you need a strong cast to do it. From what I hear too, last year's event still had quite a few actors who were there in its first year, and every year since. That's something which is less and less common for many Halloween events.

 

Walibi Holland has built a huge name for itself in its Halloween event and pumps an insane amount of money into it. They can afford a ton of actors, and there's not enough local competition that they risk losing seasonal actors, which means they can risk investing in training them more.

 

Somewhere like Thorpe has a higher staff turnover when it comes to actors (though a lot still do return year-on-year in fairness) thanks to higher local competition for actors, and other factors. They also don't have as strong a name built for themselves compared to even the like of Tulleys, so more talented people are tempted by them for example. So it would be a huge risk for Thorpe to introduce something even vaguely like Clinic.

 

Don't get me wrong, something like that would be great for Thorpe and I'd love to see it. But I don't see it happening.

 

7 hours ago, Glitch said:

Lets be honest though, that would never work at Thorpe capacity wise.

An in-hours alone experience could be similar to Containment, no? Market it as what it is, have it as a ticketed attraction, etc. Plenty of people would just brush it off, and enough people would be interested by it. Make it a premium product and charge a premium price and it'll be fine as long as it's not at the expense of a normal attraction.

 

The issue at Thorpe is they wouldn't have the resources available to make it a premium alone experience.

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20 hours ago, Martin Doyle said:

My last ever go through Asylum was indeed Face It alone...and it was every bit as surreal and crazy as you could imagine 😕

I'm jealous. I only ever got to do Asylum twice and the second time I just stared at the floor with my ears plugged I found it so scary. I was only 12 at the time though so it pains me to this day having only done it once really... 

Face it alone in there sounds amazing. Something that nowadays would really hit the right button for me. Was there anything different that happened in your face it alone experience compared to a regular conga line run through of it?

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14 minutes ago, LukeP_8 said:

I'm jealous. I only ever got to do Asylum twice and the second time I just stared at the floor with my ears plugged I found it so scary. I was only 12 at the time though so it pains me to this day having only done it once really... 

Face it alone in there sounds amazing. Something that nowadays would really hit the right button for me. Was there anything different that happened in your face it alone experience compared to a regular conga line run through of it?

 

Actors could literally grab you,push you,pull you,swear at you,carry you,cover you in all sorts of stuff like water and powder to name but a few. It was a complete departure from the feel of doing a standard go through the mazes during regular hours.

 

It was an intense experience when it was at it's peak and was a good addition to the event while it was about 

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1 hour ago, Martin Doyle said:

 

Actors could literally grab you,push you,pull you,swear at you,carry you,cover you in all sorts of stuff like water and powder to name but a few. It was a complete departure from the feel of doing a standard go through the mazes during regular hours.

 

It was an intense experience when it was at it's peak and was a good addition to the event while it was about 

That sounds insane. Asylum was scary enough on its own... Hooefully face it alone might come back some time in the future with fright nights hopefully improving again in the near future

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14 hours ago, JoshC. said:

The issue is, being tied up is a great - and easy - way of turning up the intensity of an attraction. Restricting movement, going to the next stage of the touch barrier, etc. It all works, and a large quantity of intense scare attractions do it..

Yeah it is for sure it is. Does also lend itself to other suggestive things unfortunately as you said. It works well with smaller audiences

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On 4/21/2020 at 10:09 AM, Mattgwise said:

Want something extreme, go and sign up for Mcamey Manor 😂.

 

Search it on YouTube at your own discretion if you don't know what it is! 


I’ve read about and seen a fair few vids on that place.  The guy that runs it surely has to be some sort of sadist?  There’s a huge waiting list for it and I question why anyone would want to experience what looks like torture 😮

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McKamey Manor's "success" is down to how well they've - for lack of a better word - marketed it. But it's not a scare attraction.

 

If you look within scare communities and scare attractions, very few people have done and even less have taken inspiration from it. The types of people who do it are people who don't usually do scare attractions as much, and are more inclined to something to challenge their mental survival capabilities, or people who are 'into' that 'sort of thing'.

 

 

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