1 hour ago, Cal said:

for me Fright Nights was good in the old days of the stronger mazes and being able to lap them till 10pm free of charge. I don't have an interest in the dance shows, scare zones, or paying money to stand in queue to get a weak runthrough in a maze. I miss the old intense Fright Nights days, getting locked in cupboard in experiment 10 and having actors in queue lines etc..

This is a perfect summary of my thoughts as well.

It’s quite an interesting subject really, because now that they’ve chosen to go down this new route of highly themed walkthroughs and dance shows etc I imagine it would be difficult to change course.

The Asylum, Experiment 10 and Cabin in the Woods are examples of excellent Thorpe mazes in my opinion at least - but I imagine they would be poorly received if they “came back” exactly as they were, even if they were still “free” (or included in the event ticket price as I prefer to say!).

I think now people have grown used to what a Thorpe scare maze “is”, and something like Asylum would probably now be seen as lazy, as it had next to no theming and just 2 stock songs playing in the queue, even though it could be an extremely intense experience.

I also wonder if these sort of “more basic” attractions won’t be able to compete now adays due to the need for things to look good for social media etc, especially with Universal a few years away, Thorpe need to have impressive looking attractions I suppose so they can directly compete with HHN.

I expect however, the real reason is that they need to justify the prices they’re charging for a run through, so it needs to look like it’s worth paying for, more so than the need for it to be scary.

As you say Cal, times have changed I suppose.

9 hours ago, Cal said:

^

I'm not either, in fact I've only just watched that trailer for first time which shows my excitement level.

I don't think thats a this year only thing though, for me Fright Nights was good in the old days of the stronger mazes and being able to lap them till 10pm free of charge. I don't have an interest in the dance shows, scare zones, or paying money to stand in queue to get a weak runthrough in a maze. I miss the old intense Fright Nights days, getting locked in cupboard in experiment 10 and having actors in queue lines etc..

I think there's a bit of a rose-tinted specs here to be fair.

2013 was the only year when maze queues had actors. Saw The Ride had a couple of actors in the queue on and off (both during and outside of FN). But it was more the exception than the rule in the past.

The "getting locked in cupboards" only happened in one maze, for 2 years.

Now, the likes of 2011 and 2013's Fright Nights still remain some of the strongest editions of Fright Nights even now. So it's completely valid to miss those editions and compare to them. But they weren't always like that, and still had their own issues. Queue times back then were very long even back then, outside of a few select dates, making lapping mazes uncommon.

Sadly, anyone under the age of 20 won't understand what those amazing Fright Nights of yesteryear were like. Even anyone under the age of 25 won't fully appreciate what it was like. We're in a complete new age of Fright Nights, and of Halloween attractions.

9 hours ago, Cal said:

On another note, I do hope they make more of an effort with ride soundtrack overlays this year. They've been redundant for a good 2-3 years now which is a shame.

This certainly should be a focus for a quieter year. Spending time, resources and money on ride soundtracks - whether it's a park-wide idea or ride-specific takeovers - will really add to the overall atmosphere of the event. It's not exactly necessary (many parks don't do it at all), but it will improve an event like Fright Nights.

In the past, simply using Midnight Syndicate (which of course is royalty free) did the job. That could still work now to be fair. But if they wanted to be more original, that would work too.

8 hours ago, Inferno said:

The Asylum, Experiment 10 and Cabin in the Woods are examples of excellent Thorpe mazes in my opinion at least - but I imagine they would be poorly received if they “came back” exactly as they were, even if they were still “free” (or included in the event ticket price as I prefer to say!).

I think now people have grown used to what a Thorpe scare maze “is”, and something like Asylum would probably now be seen as lazy, as it had next to no theming and just 2 stock songs playing in the queue, even though it could be an extremely intense experience.

I think it's easy to forget the shortcomings of each of the mazes you listed (as well as other well-loved Thorpe mazes from the past), and those may be highlighted more in the current line up, even if they were including in the ticket price.

-Asylum is repetitive, and it's 'trick' (a strobe, mesh maze) is used as scenes in so many scare attractions. I get why people loved it (even if I didn't), but a maze which is an elongated scene from other mazes might not capture people's imagination.

-Experiment 10 was short, even by 2011's standard. It worked, and the first half made up for it. It might work well as a free maze now, given the other mazes would be notably longer, but its length would be an issue.

-Cabin in the Woods suffered from a very congested second half. It also got progressively worse each year, with the first half becoming further and further away from the original design and plan.

This is me trying to be objective and nit-picky, yes. But I think there's lots of discourse about previous mazes in general, and people do look back too fondly. Give it a couple of years, and I reckon there'll be people crying out for the returns of Do or Die, Roots of Evil and even Vulcan Peak.

But yeah, there is now a clear identity of what a Thorpe maze "is". It's very similar for Tulleys - everyone knows what a Tulleys maze "is". It's fine to have an identity and to do what works for you and your audience. But it does create a bit of a 'same old, same old', doesn't it.

8 hours ago, Inferno said:

I also wonder if these sort of “more basic” attractions won’t be able to compete now adays due to the need for things to look good for social media etc, especially with Universal a few years away, Thorpe need to have impressive looking attractions I suppose so they can directly compete with HHN.

I expect however, the real reason is that they need to justify the prices they’re charging for a run through, so it needs to look like it’s worth paying for, more so than the need for it to be scary.

As you say Cal, times have changed I suppose.

The social media thing is a good point, with the rise of it all. Prior to 2015, you never had anyone allowed 'officially' to take footage inside mazes except the park really. I'd argue that leaves us with these rose-tinted specs more, but that's a different point. People do judge on the look things a lot more.

It will be interesting to see how Universal manage HHN in the UK. The near continuous flow of guests is very uncommon across European Halloween attractions in general. So I wonder how the public will react to that compared to how we usually operate.

I don't think Thorpe (or any scare attraction in the UK) should try to play the same game as HHN though. They'll lose. Better to craft out a niche than play someone else's game and lose terribly. I imagine many guests however will look at it as a direction competition regardless though, so they'll have to compete.

I think the biggest issue that Thorpe will face, at first at the very least, is that I expect actors will be chomping at the bit to work for Universal. If I was a scare actor, the opportunity to work at the first HHN UK would be something I'd be hugely tempted by. And if Thorpe is my otherwise closest major event, Bedford isn't exactly a huge upheaval to my life for a couple of months.