Fright Nights 2021 - 20th Anniversary

[JoshC.]

Recently, Jack Silkstone posted a documentary about his involvement in Fright Nights 2021, which was primarily the teaser videos, as well as some other bits:

 

 

It's worth a watch to see the amount of effort himself and Kieran Adams put into the creation of the videos. I'd say they're some of the best official Thorpe Fright Nights videos to come about.

 

I think there's some questionable things - the amount of effort and manhours that seemed to be put into creating the SuperSpark Cinema Shop feels like wasted energy as it didn't quite work. And whilst it's great to see a lot of work going into giving nods to fans and such, I hope it hasn't come at an expense of alienating a wider audience. Though that is something that the park seem to be cautious of.

 

But yes, back to the documentary itself - it gives a great insight into the creation of the videos, as well as a little bit of the operational preparations before Fright Nights begins. Give it a watch if you can!

[MattyMoo]

1 hour ago, JoshC. said:

giving nods

 

The Merlin vlogstar phrase of 2021 🥰

 

Bants aside, looking forward to this, as Jack & Co. clearly have a passion for what they do and for theme parks. I just sincerely hope they are remunerated accordingly and fairly by Merlin because credit where credit is due, their promos and videos that have been commissioned are pretty darn good quality.

[JoshC.]

Thorpe Park and Fright Nights have been nominated for five awards at this year's ScareCON event, which they are hosting next month.

These are...

 

Best Theme Park Event

Best Entertainment

Best Set & Design (for Trailers)

Best Costume & Makeup (for Trailers)

Best Scare Zone & Roamers (for The Crows of Mawkin Meadow)

 

Thorpe usually get a nomination or two every year, but to hit five is impressive. Wouldn't be surprised to see them get at least one award too..

[JoshC.]

Thorpe won three of those awards at this evening's event...

 

Best Theme Park Event

Best Set & Design (for Trailers)

Best Scare Zone & Roamers (for The Crows of Mawkin Meadow)

[MattyMoo]

Well done to all concerned... I didn't get to experience Fright Night's last year but Trailers, both concept, branding and theming looked particularly decent to me! That, combined with Creak Freak is a pretty solid offering.

 

Was saying to @JoshC. earlier - as much as I am a fanboi of Tulley's, it did feel maybe a little stale in 2021 vs. what Thorpe were offering (though I didn't get to experience that in the flesh, as it were) - hopefully the 2 new haunts this year will give it a little bit of a refresh, and hopefully more story led concepts like Trailers. Fingers crossed my £95 (GULP) advance VIP ticket is worth it

 

 

 

[StevenVig]

14 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Best Scare Zone & Roamers (for The Crows of Mawkin Meadow)

I don't understand how this won, it was some hay bales, some lightbulbs and about 3 actors. 

It was sh*t

[Glitch]

29 minutes ago, StevenVig said:

I don't understand how this won, it was some hay bales, some lightbulbs and about 3 actors. 

It was sh*t

Perhaps leaning more towards the &Roamers part....

Would be interesting to know how these awards are decided though is it based on voting or a panel.

[Inferno]

16 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Best Theme Park Event

What?

I must have gone to a different event. The Fright Nights 21 visit I had was the worst theme park visit I've ever had.

 

16 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Best Set & Design (for Trailers)

Fair enough.  The set & design was fab.

Our run-through was awful though.

 

16 hours ago, JoshC. said:

Best Scare Zone & Roamers (for The Crows of Mawkin Meadow)

Again, I must have gone through a different scare zone. 🤷🏼‍♂️

 

---

Congratulations to them for the awards, clearly a lot of hard work went in to creating the event, and as always the actors were incredible and working bloody hard. But based on my visit and my personal experience on the night, the park don't even deserve the wooden spoon.

I think it was down to difficulties recruiting staff etc, but even so it's interesting to see how much guest experiences can differ from each other with scare events.

 

It's promising to hear that many thought it was worthy of these awards though.

Hopefully consistency is worked on going forward.

[JoshC.]

 

6 hours ago, Glitch said:

Perhaps leaning more towards the &Roamers part....

Possibly, although the nomination was specifically for "The Crows of Mawkin Meadow", which was the name of the Scare Zone, whereas the roamers were just "The Crows". But equally, yeah, could be lumped together.

 

6 hours ago, Glitch said:

Would be interesting to know how these awards are decided though is it based on voting or a panel.

The awards are decided by a panel of judges, who effectively help run and organised ScareTOUR and ScareCON. They're all obviously huge scare attraction enthusiasts, and they do a huge number of attractions. They're also the ones that choose the nominees.

 

I don't think they've ever detailed exactly how they rank and judge the awards (at the end of the day, they don't need to - they're the ones organising it all!). But I believe they say they take into account the wider audience reaction too as much as possible, but primarily go off their own experiences.

 

4 hours ago, Inferno said:

What?

I must have gone to a different event. The Fright Nights 21 visit I had was the worst theme park visit I've ever had.

 

I think there's two things to take into account here:

1. A large number (perhaps even all) of the judging panel get to visit these events on press nights / with free tickets. The attractions will do their absolute utmost to show themselves in the best possible light. That's not just for Thorpe, that's for absolutely everyone. So when it comes to the larger events, I do think it's hard to judge, just by the very nature of how these events are.

2. Bluntly put, Thorpe hosted the event this year. Ultimately they'll be making a profit from it one way or another, but it's a heck of a lot of effort to organise it their end. I think that whoever and wherever has hosted ScareCON over the past several years has always ended up with an award or two.

 

That second point isn't to take anything away from the award, or to discredit ScareCON and the awards (and even if it was, it's their award ceremony, so they can do what they like). But I do wonder if there should be a bit of salt pinched in these cases.

 

4 hours ago, Inferno said:

Congratulations to them for the awards, clearly a lot of hard work went in to creating the event, and as always the actors were incredible and working bloody hard. But based on my visit and my personal experience on the night, the park don't even deserve the wooden spoon.

I think it was down to difficulties recruiting staff etc, but even so it's interesting to see how much guest experiences can differ from each other with scare events.

 

One thing which stands out to me from going to ScareCON for a few years now is that this is an industry-wide problem. Staffing is a huge issue, and the number of actors in mazes always goes down as the events go on. This is where smaller events actually have an advantage, because they run for a significantly shorter period, so lose less staff, so get greater consistency. But places like Thorpe, Towers, Tulleys, Fear at Avon Valley all get hit very hard and struggle. 

 

Obviously that can still be mitigated and managed, and some places do that better than others. But it does lead to the wild inconsistencies that we see, which is highlighted further by the fact that scare attractions are so difficult to make consistent in the first place.

 

4 hours ago, Inferno said:

 

It's promising to hear that many thought it was worthy of these awards though.

Hopefully consistency is worked on going forward.

 

Year-on-year consistency is the big thing for Thorpe.

 

People speak about the quality of the event in 2011 and 2013 for example. And although the event had problems then, 2016 and 2017 were also good incarnations, and there was a clear upward trend in quality. But that then dropped off in 2018.

2019 introduced the much-loved Creek Freak, but in 2021 it was really struggling.

Thorpe have shown they can create good mazes when they want (Big Top, Creek Freak and Trailers all being the best most recent examples), but they've struggled to keep them there / at the high quality.

 

If the park can bring back Creek Freak to its 2019 form, keep Trailers at the level it was at early last year and introduce another big hit maze, plus have on park entertainment, then they'll have a cracking FN this year.