Fright Nights 2024

[JoshC.]

We're just over 3 months to Fright Nights 2024 and we don't have a thread? We're slipping guys...

 

Nothing is confirmed for the event, so for now, everything is speculation / what you want to see...

 

My Predictions

• The return of the 3 mazes Trailers, Survival Games and Stitches
• Return of Lucifer's Lair and Amity High (in some incarnation)
• Something new in Death's Doors' location
• Mysterious new attraction

 

The glaring omission here is The Crows. I would love to see them return in some way, and I think the scare zone works well. But the simple issue is for now: Hyperia. The area is being used for Hyperia's extra queue. Do the park expect that by Fright Nights, their busiest time of the year, they wouldn't need that extra queue? If that space is used for a FN attraction, where would they sensibly contain people? It just seems like a massive headache. 

Obviously it's difficult: maybe by October they wouldn't need it. But they'll need to make that decision, at latest, by August really. So they've got time to see how it goes. But if they're regularly needing that area over the next month or so, I reckon they have to pull it this year.

 

As for something new, this is a tricky one. I'm behind the park charging for mazes; I think we've seen improvements in the quality of mazes (at the very least, the budgets have increased). But a 4th upcharge maze stretches things a bit; can the park appropriately staff 4 upcharge mazes worth £10 a pop, as well as scare zones and shows? Might be tight. That's not to say they won't do that though.

 

However, I'd rather the park try something different. Obviously we saw them do that a couple of years ago with the audio experience which flopped massively. But something that isn't a standard, upcharge maze is worth a shot. Maybe a proper alone experience? Or a more intimate show (like the Exorcism show at FEAR)? Or, maybe be wild, and do a smaller, but high-throughput / constant conga-line, free maze? Give people a taste for the mazes without them having to pay. I don't know, I'm just throwing ideas out here, but I think it's time for something different.

[Mattgwise]

Perhaps the crows could come back, as they aren't using that area for Hyperia any more. 

[MattyMoo]

Must be getting near teaser time, no?

 

I'm going for the 4 paid mazes prediction - Stitches, Survival Games, Trailers (for it's last year, I reckon) and then a 4th new maze in the old Black Mirror area.

£10 a maze, but book all 4 and its £35.

No Crows this year cos Hyperia M E G A Q U E U E. I know at the moment it's being housed on the Hyperia plaza, but I can't see that being big enough for peak Fright Nights? Or maybe I'm wrong - but even if they do just keep it to the Hyperia plaza, having Crows round there too is a heck of a lot of people around there - unless they run it the other way round, with the exit being at the Saw end maybe? Either way, you still have a lot of people in the same area. Interesting times.

 

[JoshC.]

I guess the flipside of the Crows argument is if you have the entrance the other end, you've got chaos with Stitches and a scare zone entrance bottled together.

[Glitch]

This year hs been very good for horror movies that tbh I wish we got some IP stuff….

[Cal]

First teaser video out. Website has also been updated to show we have 4 mazes this year, same 3 as last year and 1 new one. 
 

Glad they’ve got a 4th. Hopefully this will relieve a bit of pressure on queues, hoping they can get that right this year. 

 

 

[JoshC.]

58 minutes ago, Cal said:

Glad they’ve got a 4th. Hopefully this will relieve a bit of pressure on queues, hoping they can get that right this year. 

 

I'm less hopeful.

 

Perhaps I've been naive with Thorpe's logic. Or possibly just stupid. But I've realised what their thinking is with maze tickets.

 

The park are offering a Fearsome Four bundle, which costs £34 for the early slot (3-7pm), or £38 for the late slot (5-9pm). One shot maze tickets remain at £8 for the early slot (choosing a 1 hour time slot of either 3-4pm, 4-5pm or 5-6pm) or £10 for the later slot (choosing a 1 hour time slot of either 6-7pm, 7-8pm or 8-9pm).

 

So that means the Fearsome Four early slot bundle is effectively more expensive than buying four early one shot maze tickets. I clarified this with Thorpe (via their Facebook Passholder group), and they said it is correct because "Based on giving a four hour window, it would be 3 Afternoon slots and 1 evening, hence the price".

 

So, that means if you (say) book a One Shot for 3-4pm, the park aren't saying you can choose any time between 3-4pm to visit that maze, they are saying that you should be dedicating the whole 3-4pm slot for that one maze (in both queueing for and experiencing it). That is how they are organising it, and that is how their numbers work.

 

But this is not clear at all, in my opinion. At the very least, I have only just realised this from Thorpe directly saying this, despite the fact it has always been like this since they introduced the ticketing procedure: "Since introducing ticketing it has always been hourly timeslots for one shots, and then an hour per maze in a package, so this has not changed."

 

So herein lies in the issue. People think they can rock up at any time in their time slot for a maze. So if, say, more than half the people for the 3-4pm slot rock up after half 3 (which is a natural reaction as people will think "Everyone will go at 3pm"), then it spills into the 4-5pm slot. Same thing happens for the 4-5pm slot, and that further spills into the 5-6pm slot. Rinse and repeat, and then you've got a horrible overflow of people in the later slots.

 

Bluntly put, too, there have been too many instants I've seen - and experienced - where the queue line for mazes exceeds 1 hour since the paid-for tickets were introduced. Reasons for that will be varied and complicated, and in some cases, unavoidable. But it's been a consistent issue, and one I don't think they will have put any real effort into solving (although please prove me wrong Thorpe).

 

 

I don't want to come across as harsh or dismissive. But simply put, it does not seem like Thorpe know or understand how they are advertising or selling the timed ticket system of their mazes, and how the public view and use them. Operationally, the park have shown themselves to be incapable of running the mazes in a way which matches the timed ticket system, and I don't think this will change this year.

 

I fully expect that whatever the new maze is will be to a good quality. Stitches will return and be a hit again. Survival Games will remain well-received thanks to its split up technique (but be less impactful due to focuses being elsewhere). And Trailers will again be fine, but show both its age, and how it was the first maze to be built under this new, budget-heavy, Fright Nights direction.

 

Again, perhaps I've been naive / stupid and this has been glaringly obvious to everyone else. But if this is how Thorpe have operated, and continue to operate, the paid-for / timed-ticket mazes, it will have the same issues it has every year.

[Inferno]

Oh….? So you’re supposed to show up at the start of the time slot? 
What, literally every single person on that slot is supposed to show up then?

even by their own bizarre logic, it doesn’t work… Because there will still be the same number of people queuing, it’s just they’ll all arrive at once, meaning the queue would start off gargantuan and decrease before the next slot starts.

 

God I miss the days of free mazes, you just turn up and bloody queue… what a concept.

[MattyMoo]

Josh is spot on. All I will say is, last year even on a "quieter" Fright Night I very nearly didn't get all 3 mazes completed that I'd paid for. Had no idea we were "supposed" to keep an hour for each maze, and that's coming from someone who is in the cOmMunItY and not just a casual Thorpe attendee. We ended up queuing 90 minutes for Stitches as I recall last year, and we started queuing 10 minutes after the evening timeslot started. Survival Games after seemed to take forever to queue for.... We got to Trailers mere minutes before it closed, meaning that we were the very last group, and had the sort of run through that only press night VIPs normally get 😅 

 

Make no mistake, I throw no shade at any actors as they always work their socks off, but there's only so much you can do with large groups as maze staff try and clear the queues. I would have loved to have spent longer in Stitches but sadly that wasn't possible and it became a conga line with the next group. My Survival Games run through was below average because a severe lack of actors in the "arena" that's normally swarming with them for the vloggers.

 

Anyway - new maze - it's in the Black Mirror building people have worked out from coordinates in the video/photo Thorpe posted. So what are we thinking? Evidently darkness is the theme of sorts... Vampires? spirits? Just lots of pitch black? To be fair, if done well, lots of darkness could lead to maximum scares....

[Inferno]

1 hour ago, MattyMoo said:

Evidently darkness is the theme of sorts... Vampires? spirits? Just lots of pitch black? To be fair, if done well, lots of darkness could lead to maximum scares....

The Passing returns - hopefully they’ve at least shaken off the head bags and charged the iPod shuffles before we go again.

[JoshC.]

My concern with the use of the Black Mirror spot is that it's not overly large.

 

One of the key positives about Survival Games and Stitches is that they do have good lengths to them, which help justify the upcharge.

 

All mazes which have gone in the BML spot have utilised the space well, but have never been particularly long. As such, I hope we get a more "special" / "gimmick" maze in that location.

[MattyMoo]

11 hours ago, Inferno said:

The Passing returns - hopefully they’ve at least shaken off the head bags and charged the iPod shuffles before we go again.

 

 

I'm gonna throw "THE VOID" into the ring as a possible name. Likely completely wrong, but it came to me in a dream about easter eggs and nodding.

 

Also, since Thorpe have started the Fright Nights advertising, expect Tulleys to tease/update on their (sort of) 3 new additions for this year (1 new maze, retheme of THE ISLAND, new live show cos no more Circus of Horrors)

[Cal]

On 7/22/2024 at 2:19 PM, JoshC. said:

 

I'm less hopeful.

 

 

I'm also less hopeful now - as there doesn't to be any changes to last year does there unless allocation is lower. The thing is they know the rough hourly throughputs the mazes get so I don't get why its so difficult to get right. Towers seem to get it right, I've never had a bad experience with queues there.

 

It does surprise me they haven't changed the pricing structure this year, as last year the higher queues seemed to be early on and very little queues later on. But they have the stats etc so must have their reasons for doing it. 

 

Last year, I visited on an off peak day and got turned down on my final maze as I queued too long on the first 2. Had to argue to experience a maze which I had paid for. 

 

Really puts me off purchasing mazes this year, especially with less time in the dark with the 9pm closes. I will probably just purchase 1 shot maze tickets as an when I want to do one and I see a short queue for one. 

 

On 7/22/2024 at 8:35 PM, Inferno said:

God I miss the days of free mazes, you just turn up and bloody queue… what a concept.

 

Free mazes and 10pm closes... what a time to be alive 😢

[JoshC.]

Death's Doors currently hasn't been constructed. This time last year, the set was complete (unsure how much of the tech stuff was rigged up). This was presumably done because of the amount of man hours needed to build Stitches.

 

Which then begs the question, what's the deal now? 

-Is Death's Doors returning?

-Has the park's technical team grown?

-If Death's Doors isn't returning, is a new scare zone taking its place? Or is the new maze effectively taking its place?

 

I'm finding it particularly interesting that there's been minimal activity at Black Mirror from the outside. When mazes have been built in that location in the past, it's been a hive of activity outside.

 

Obviously UVE are the ones building the attractions these days, so I guess a lot of the buck and planning stops with them.

[MattyMoo]

So the new maze is codenamed "Project Sophie"

 

Is that picture relevant or from a previous maze? I don't recognise it...

 

Other options for buying your own eAsteR EgG in Project Sophie is the "Guest List" and "Name a Bottle".

 

However, in true inconsistent Merlin style, it's then referred to as Project Sofi should you wish to purchase one of these once in a lifetime incredible and definitely will be seen on your one run through easter eggs checkout page:

[MattyMoo]

Me old mucker @JoshC. speculated that it may be a "party gone wrong" type maze - because the easter eggs you can buy are for the Guest List and Bottles.

 

Which got me thinking.

Project Sophie

Sophie Ellis Bextor

Murder On the Dancefloor.

 

Ridiculous? Or possible?

[JoshC.]

What a world we live in where we can buy the opportunity to have our names written in mazes. I'd love to do it (they have a Trailers one where you can have a poster designed for you and put in the lobby), but money.

 

Here's the options in full:

 

Silver Option - £15

• Stitches – Naughty or Nice Christmas list
• Trailers – Staff notice board
• Survival Games – Leaderboard
• ‘Project Sophie’ – Guest List
• Includes a digital certificate. Names will feature once in the maze selected during the 2024 Fright Nights event. Buy before 8th September to be included the 2024 event.

Gold option - £35

• Stitches – Name a toy
• Trailers – Name a doll
• Survival Games – Name a cell
• ‘Project Sophie’ – Name a bottle
• Includes a digital certificate. Names will feature once in the maze selected during the 2024 Fright Nights event. Buy before 8th September to be included the 2024 event.

Platinum options:

Crows Graveyard Cross: £45 (5 spaces available)

Trailers movie poster in exit lobby: £120 (5 spaces available)

Project Sophie tag on graffiti wall: £120

Also, this:

25 minutes ago, MattyMoo said:

Feels a bit rushed / lacking of QA that when you go through to the purchasing options, there's no pictures or descriptions. Shouldn't go live like that in my opinion.

 

As for what Project Sophie could be, as @MattyMoo says, I'm wondering if we're going to see a party gone wrong vibe. Start of the maze is you trying to get into a party, waiting "outside" alongside graffiti-ed walls, and you can only get in if you're on the guest list. You then end up sneaking in, and then it turns out the party is a front for something more sinister, or something goes wrong. The bottles could simply being bottles of 'alcohol'. If this wasn't Thorpe, I'd suggest the maze could be a massive drug trip at a party, but that seems too risqué for them.

 

I've experienced something similar with the Hostel maze at Movie Park Germany. It starts off as a massive party atmosphere (not too dissimilar to the film), before it completely switches to the horror side in a flash. Something like that could be done really well. 

[Inferno]

What a bizarre situation this is… you can buy a NameDrop?  I’m baffled.

[Benin]

18 hours ago, Inferno said:

What a bizarre situation this is… you can buy a NameDrop?  I’m baffled.

 

Well MAP holders aren't going to spend money on park might as well get something out of them.

 

Though I dread to think how bad a run through with some "influencer" searching for THEIR reference in the maze would be.

[MattyMoo]

3 hours ago, Benin said:

Though I dread to think how bad a run through with some "influencer" searching for THEIR reference in the maze would be.

 

This. All the more reason why I'm probably unlikely to drop £8 per run through with the chance of it being ruined by a complete twonk.

[JoshC.]

The 'Make Your Mark' extra was a thing last year too. If memory serves me correctly, options included being able to have your name on a door in Death's Doors, your name being included on the food products in the Brainsburys scene in Trailers and others. 

 

It is free money for them effectively; printing a name on a piece of paper / cardboard and sticking that there. Take a photo of it, make a simple digital certificate of authenticity and bam, profit. 

 

The platinum options are a bit more involved and actually pretty cool. The Trailers "have a film poster with your name on" one meant you had some say in the design of the poster (I guess a simple "what sorta film would you be in"). You would get a level of say in the design of the graffiti tag in the new maze. The Graveyard Cross in Crows is something that would be seen a lot and recognised more too.

 

The big question...why? Well, in recent years, "Easter Eggs" have been a huge thing in Merlin attractions. Some are more in your face, others are more subtle. By doing that and, with Thorpe in particular via Jack Silkstone videos, drawing attention to them, it makes people want one of their own. People will willingly pay £15 to have their name in a maze. They might try and find it, but if they've got a photo of it and certificate saying their name is there, they get the bragging rights, which is all they want.

 

The big kicker is that the Silver and Gold ones are tiny.

 

Let's have a look at the Silver options

Stitches – Naughty or Nice Christmas list

Trailers – Staff notice board

Survival Games – Leaderboard

 

Ask yourself two questions for each of those (if you've done the maze):

1. Do you know where that specific theming piece is?

2. Could you name any of the names on there?

 

For Survival Games, I could not tell you where the Leaderboard is (maybe this is something they're adding in). The other two maze, I've seen, and only had the chance to read names thanks to Press Night runs. At the moment, they feature actual names of people involved in the creation of the mazes, rather than people who paid for it. 

For those people on the original props, it's a nice "Hey, I helped build this, and I've got my name in there". For everyone else, if you see them, it's a nice little extra prop.

 

Let's look at the Gold options:

Stitches – Name a toy
Trailers – Name a doll
Survival Games – Name a cell

 

All three of those are easier to know where they are, but seeing a name there is much harder. Again, 95% of people won't notice any names on them. 

 

 

The whole Easter Egg culture has spiralled a bit. In the past, they were just something you could put in and no one would be none the wiser. Some designers like to put their name somewhere in attractions, like a signature. Now it's becoming an expected thing, and people hunt for them and want to know where they are, which worries me a bit, as it can distract from the experience.

 

The one that stands out to me is how it was mentioned that in Survival Games, one of the scenes features a severed penis that's labelled JS, an Easter Egg to Jack Silkstone. When people found out about this, people were looking out for it more than focusing on the scene it was in. People are weird. I do hope people don't do that with their own names.

 

 

[In saying all this, I'd've loved my name on a cross in Crows. Yes I'm weird. No, I make no apologise. 

But I didn't buy one]

[JoshC.]

On the topic of Make Your Mark / putting your own Easter Eggs in mazes, I think we can thank/blame @Glitch:

 

  

On 8/16/2021 at 3:41 PM, Glitch said:

I wonder if this year or next, you will be able to pay a small fortune to get an eater egg of your own within the mazes. 

 

 

[JoshC.]

Stage is built:

 

Interesting that it's effectively in the opposite place it was last year. I guess it gives more room for viewing, and an additional pathway for Fright Nights since Death's Doors seems to not be returning. 

 

I wonder what effect it will have on Ghost Train. There was instances of noise bleed into Ghost Train from the stage, so it will be interesting how being closer, but with speakers facing the opposite way, affects things.

 

[MattyMoo]

I've never heard of Easter eggs before, what a fantastic idea.

[MattyMoo]

On 8/21/2024 at 4:59 PM, MattyMoo said:

Me old mucker @JoshC. speculated that it may be a "party gone wrong" type maze - because the easter eggs you can buy are for the Guest List and Bottles.

 

Which got me thinking.

Project Sophie

Sophie Ellis Bextor

Murder On the Dancefloor.

 

Ridiculous? Or possible?

 

Just had a brainwave, if it is a club type scenario, the preshow could be doorstaff, and then you are split with a "you're on the list" or "you're name's not down, you're not coming in"... Just an idea, like. In the same way as good Vs bad wood on Creek.