Fright Nights 2023

[coasterverse]

15 hours ago, JoshC. said:

 

I like to think I keep my forum reviews from Press Night as reasonable and level-headed as possible!

 

I think the main issue is that Thorpe Park always fill these mazes to the absolute brim with actors for these press nights, so doesn't necessarily truly represent the quality of the mazes for your average consumer. All these press outlets and 'VIPs' (I wouldn't class Z-list celebrities as VIPs perse, but whatever floats Thorpe's boat) will be ranting and raving about the quality of mazes that they receive tonight, but it's very unlikely for that level of maze quality to be consistent throughout the rest of the event.

 

Of course, that's through absolutely no fault of your own though, and definitely do think you keep your reviews as levelheaded on this basis as possible compared to a lot of other outlets - but I understand it's quite hard to judge a maze on scares if you're not sure the level of scare quality after press night.

[ML27]

I’ve purchased the unlimited maze pass, one of the factors is that I’d rather pay the price of £99 once and get multiple run throughs than pay £10 and get a really bad trailers run through. 
 

It has its downsides, hence why I’ve only purchased the pass now. However, I will go to fright nights at least 5 times, the ability to do the mazes repeatedly during the 3 hours is quite ideal and I’ve only done SG once, so for this line up it’s pretty good.

[Glitch]

18 hours ago, JoshC. said:

 

I like to think I keep my forum reviews from Press Night as reasonable and level-headed as possible!

Ofc but you’ll have all actors on shift giving it their all.

whereas when I go through Thorpe will have actor staffing issues among other things 

[MattyMoo]

Gonna avoid spoliers as going next Friday, but from posts from earlier today, I just find it absolutely bonkers that on the day of the press night, they are still setting up during the day, including painting fences, putting up signage, finishing stages etc. Same every year. Will no one think of the cast of Love Island Series 3? 

[ML27]

It really is an amature operation if you really think about it.

[JoshC.]

Spoilers here: 

 

[Glitch]

Unpopular opinion but I wish Thorpe had some sort of embargo on enthusiast reviews / cameras in mazes say till Saturday so others can get the true spoiler free experience.

For me there really was something magical in not knowing what was behind the doors of the asylum or curse because they hadn’t been documented to death.

 

I think Thorpe have one goal with the inviting of z listers, yes they may post about it however the stock photos used for articles across the year with the Thorpe park logo is much more valuable.

[coasterverse]

Does Ghost Train run all evening until park close, or does it shut early to allow actors to head into mazes? I know the park have said that The Walking Dead won't be running with actors this Fright Nights as they're needed elsewhere in mazes, so wondered if the same happens with Ghost Train.

 

I also really do think the park have missed a trick this year by not offering something like 'Ghost Train: EXTREME' for Fright Nights (especially considering this is its opening year, so would make sense to maximise the advertising for the attraction by essentially piggybacking off its 'NEW for 2023' motif). I'd have preferred something like this for Fright Nights this year rather than the return of Trailers... again.

 

They could've really amped up the scares everywhere in the attraction. I understand that it would then limit the people that can ride it, but perhaps if they made the switch from say 6pm - that way it essentially gets its full day of operations, and gets 'amped up' after the sun goes down (which is when the attraction would normally close outside of events anyway).

 

I've said it every year - even with Derren Brown's Ghost Train - that the park are seriously missing a trick by not doing something extra with it for Fright Nights. The same goes for Towers with The Curse this year - if they did something like Duel: Live! again but for The Curse, it would go down an absolute treat (imagine the Emily Alton figure just before (what used to be) the Hide and Seek scene, instead being a live actor providing a jumpscare!)

[Glitch]

It’s 4am. The park have left the music on load. Nice for the locals.

[JohnnyRocket]

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.

[jessica2]

I went yesterday and will do a more detailed review in the spoilers thread.

 

I also wanted to echo JohnnyRocket's point above, I was very confused as to why the maze queues between 3-6pm were all a good hour or so long (so I imagine many people did not get them done in their timeslot) but when walking past the mazes at 7/8pm there was a 5-10 min queue. This is with the trio of mazes being sold out in both the afternoon and evening timeslots! Also- Thorpe telling people the maze queues were all 0 minutes on Saturday was definitely a load of rubbish as the app said 0 minutes for all of them despite them being around an hour. We did survival games last and interestingly it had a sign up to say to do it at the end of your slot, as it was 'very busy'. Makes me dread to think how it will cope on busier days assuming once the trio packages sell out more people will book one shots.

 

Overall though despite that I thought it was the strongest fright nights in a very long time and I don't think any element/attraction was bad at all, which is a first, and we managed to do everything pretty much. Highlight had to be the crows, I love the theming and the atmosphere was spot on! But genuinely thought all the mazes were quality this year for different reasons, just a shame about the queueing but hey that's thorpe for you!

[JohnnyRocket]

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.

[Cal]

I echo the comments about queueing for mazes above. When paying for the mazes, it would be nice to have a timeslot and get straight on/little queue. An hour queue for a maze when you've paid for them is unacceptable in my opinion. They know the throughput of the mazes, and they know how many tickets they're selling. If theres an hour queue, they've clearly oversold.

 

We got to trailers a little after 6 and they originally weren't letting us on telling us we've already used it. Had to argue our way onto a maze id paid for because I'd been stuck in queues for the others...

[JoshC.]

On 10/8/2023 at 4:31 PM, coasterverse said:

Does Ghost Train run all evening until park close, or does it shut early to allow actors to head into mazes? I know the park have said that The Walking Dead won't be running with actors this Fright Nights as they're needed elsewhere in mazes, so wondered if the same happens with Ghost Train.

 

I also really do think the park have missed a trick this year by not offering something like 'Ghost Train: EXTREME' for Fright Nights (especially considering this is its opening year, so would make sense to maximise the advertising for the attraction by essentially piggybacking off its 'NEW for 2023' motif). I'd have preferred something like this for Fright Nights this year rather than the return of Trailers... again.

 

I don't know if Ghost Train does close early. However, I'd assume it does, purely because the building isn't the most sound-proofed, and the noise from Lucifer's Lair probably bleeds in. 

 

Tbf, I doubt there's much they could do with the space and ride system by adding more actors. The trains will have a maximum number of people allowed, and they can't go for high-intensity scares there. The only place they could realistically do an extreme version for Ghost Train is in the crypt, and even then, extra actors wouldn't add a significant amount there. Better to have 3 mazes and close it early than 2 and keep it open imo.

 

---

 

It's very interesting to see the early reaction to the time slots. I still expected the later slots to be packed, but the price difference does seem to be swaying a lot of people. Wonder if that will change throughout the event or be a common theme.

 

It is a real shame the park haven't managed to sort out the queueing for mazes yet. I think it's unrealistic to expect no queues, but a minimal wait time is okay. Approx hour queues are too much. It's good to see the park have tried something different, in turn acknowledging the issues that were present, but there's clearly still work to be done.

[Benin]

Towers have been doing time slots for years and still have queues, Thorpe was never going to be any different. 

[Cal]

I've personally never waited more than 15 minutes for a Towers mazes over the years, so my experience with queues there have been a lot better. Maybe I've just been lucky.

 

One thing I did notice though is that Towers open the mazes at 1pm on peak days. Maybe thats something Thorpe can look at doing to help spread the crowds out? 

[Jack29]

Do Thorpe still run a preview night for pass holders? It used to be held on a Friday evening and maze entry was free back then. 

[Cal]

27 minutes ago, Jack29 said:

Do Thorpe still run a preview night for pass holders? It used to be held on a Friday evening and maze entry was free back then. 

No, they haven’t done the last couple of years unfortunately

[StevenVig]

On 8/25/2023 at 1:37 PM, JackJRDN said:

Maybe they could make a maze next year built around satire...

Except it isn't satire though is it? That's one of the problems with theme park geeks, they just don't think about things logically. People actually believe its coming back one day

[Glitch]

Seeing some people defending half term will always be busy.

At what point will Thorpe take action and improve guest experience whilst perhaps upping the prices or adding more attractions 

[Benin]

22 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Seeing some people defending half term will always be busy.

At what point will Thorpe take action and improve guest experience whilst perhaps upping the prices or adding more attractions 

 

Once the world realises that capitalism is evil.

[MattyMoo]

Was just saying on Twitter, I think part of the problem is a lack in number of mazes too vs previous years. Yes, quantity doesn't always mean quantity (See Vulcan Peak), but as someone who has been going to Thorpe for donkeys, paying out £30 to do 3 mazes (on Friday 13th) and then nearly not getting all 3 done (with 5 mins to spare) shouldn't be a thing... Ok, so we got to Stitches queue at about 6.15, and we stopped for 10 mins to grab food and walk, but honestly, I was not expecting it to be a stress. I don't think that makes me stupid, and I genuinely did not expect queue levels to be the size they were on that Friday. That said, our queues on 13/10 pale in comparison to those over the weekend. Reading online of people getting just 2 or 3 rides completed in a day - that's nuts to me, sorry. Something is wrong somewhere - I genuinely can't recall queues like those seen over the weekend on previous Fright Nights, unless I'm mistaken? 120+ minutes on anything significant - 100 mins on some flats. Bonkers.

[JoshC.]

26 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Seeing some people defending half term will always be busy.

At what point will Thorpe take action and improve guest experience whilst perhaps upping the prices or adding more attractions 

 

2018 the park had a million mazes (okay I exaggerate, it was 8). In terms of quality, that was agreed to be one of the worst Fright Nights ever. The park keeps upping the prices and that doesn't stop people.

 

Thorpe can do anything and the park will always be busy during this half term. 

 

Other large parks experience this issue too. Walibi Holland is a prime example. They have multiple mazes, experiences and scare zones. If you want to do everything, it will cost you over €100, and you're still looking at queueing for Halloween attractions and 2-3hr queues for coasters.

 

The park should look at introducing another indoor experience for Fright Nights. But more importantly, they need to look at creating Fright Nights experiences which can handle the crowds without compromising on quality. Stitches feels painfully slow between groups, for example. Survival Games has 10 cages, meaning you either get slow-moving queues or double-batched, neutering the experience. 

 

It doesn't seem like the mazes get more than 300-400 people per hour. That's the biggest problem at the moment. The throughputs of the big rides not being a great doesn't help either.

[Glitch]

Perhaps the universal route is required then of removing the pre show and having one long conga line fashion.

Yes there’s not 8 attractions but 3 mazes seems like a major cutback from the 2010s era……

Also I don’t care if the park has staffing issues I don’t know how they get away with closing at 9pm

[MattyB]

43 minutes ago, Glitch said:

Perhaps the universal route is required then of removing the pre show and having one long conga line fashion.

Yes there’s not 8 attractions but 3 mazes seems like a major cutback from the 2010s era……

Also I don’t care if the park has staffing issues I don’t know how they get away with closing at 9pm

 Having done Universal, I think the conga line would help in this situation, particularly if demand is high.  RE closing at 9pm, the park has to ensure its staff can get home, particularly if they are using public transport.  Considering some staff may stay up to 2 hours after park closing (depending on how busy it is).  I don't know how we got away with the late night closings back in the day!

Edited October 23, 2023 by MattyB
Removed duplicate words