Fright Nights 2013

[Dodge2002]

After my second visit, I'm a bit disappointed with how fast things have degraded since my first visit a couple of weeks ago...

Firstly the You're Next actors. We saw two of them stood there having a conversation in plain site, and a woman in a grey hoodie who stuck out like a sore thumb? What the hell was that all about? Had she forgotten her costume or something? I probably wouldn't have thought anything of it, had I not noticed the fact she was wearing nail varnish too. Seriously, I know I sound picky, but these actors get paid £70 a day. Do they not have even a basic level of uniform standard? If I was their supervisor this would be absolutely unacceptable. On the whole there is a real lack of professionalism surrounding all the actors if I'm honest. We saw one walking in to Saw chowing down on a hotdog, we caught 2 discussing their shifts in Cabin in the Woods, we saw the director check his phone multiple times and the assistants wig was basically falling off. This job role should be treated no differently then a stage show. Could you even fathom an actor getting his phone out while on stage?

Generally as well, presentation is annoying. MBV, why is acceptable for them to just dump left over scenery next to the entrance? It ruins the atmosphere completely and shows they don't care at all about attention to detail. Would it REALLY have been that hard to move it out of sight?

The Asylum is still just far too overcrowded. We ended up with a 3 group bottleneck, and we weren't even particularly going that slow. Not to mention the fact there were 15 people in our group as it was anyway.

Cabin in the woods...well the first run was as good as ever, although the Control room is essentially pointless now. For some reason they took out the suspended ceiling and you can now hear X's music and cars rumbling round, and if you look up you see the pyramid. The camera had been fogged over for 2 days in a row now, so you can't actually see what's happening in the room you're supposedly controlling.

The second run however was totally unacceptable. We joined the queue at about 9.30pm, and it was supposed to be around 2 hours wait time. Evidently the maze supervisor had decided she wanted to go home early, and thought it would be a great idea to clear a 2 hour queue in the space of about 30 minutes by forcing a huge stream of people in the maze at once. We walked straight through the dark corridor into the entrance, and the host was stood there forcing people to go in to the doors she decided for us. Eventually a gigantic bottleneck occurred on the ramp and chaos ensued. As we walked out, there was an actor being rushed out, bleeding. Obviously they lost all control of the maze and she got hurt as a result the supervisors poor direction. Needless to say, if I had paid for a fastrack I would be fuming.

Which brings me to my next point. Fastrack has absolutely ruined this event.

Every single Fastrack queue was overflowing. The fact that Colussus was on one train operation and still selling fastrack goes to show that they do not give a toss about keeping queues down, and only care about money. I visit enough times off peak to not care about missing out on some rides, but if this were my one and only visit and I had paid for a fastrack to get on every ride, but ended up waiting a hour to get on Saw, for example, I would be absolutely livid. We were lied to about the queue times outside of MBV. We reluctantly opted to go for a fastrack as my friend desperately wanted to go on it and were quoted a 10-15 minute wait. We waited 50 minutes. I honestly wouldn't have cared if she had told us this, I probably would've passed on the maze altogether. This is not right at all, and after guest services refused to do anything about it, really I think the next step is to talk to Trading Standards, because they are flat out lying to make money. I really do not want free priority passes or free tickets, I just want this anarchy to stop.

They really need to go back and fundamentally think of a solution to the throughput problem. When its quiet and you aren't literally being herded through the mazes like some sort of Universal attraction, they really are amazing. But considering the lack of attention to detail, they're pathetic unless the actors are given time to do their thing.

/rant over

[Emma1980]

It's amazing how one night can be completely different to another. I went to the preview night and am going back on Saturday with friends and my husband who have never done this kind of thing before and now I'm worried after reading the above post their experience will be crap and I'll get the blame hahaha! I have warned them about the 2 hour queues and possibly only getting on the mazes and not the rides but after paying £35 a ticket the least you expect is to get on at least the mazes and then if not your forced into buying fast track at £5 a pop to have any chance of getting onto the mazes otherwise we have wasted an hours drive, petrol, ticket entrance just to queue up for 2 hours and not get on all the mazes.

Something needs to be done how can two experiences at the same event be SOOOO different. What happened!

[Benin]

Consistency is a typical problem of scaremazes though, for every good run, there will be a crap run for various reasons (actors not in, effects not working, staff being rubbish, etc)...

As for Thorpe overselling Fastrack, this is very consistent as it happens regularly on busy days... Shame... But people need to physically complain on the park (and probably be given priority passes as a result) to get anything done about it...

[Marc]

As for Thorpe overselling Fastrack, this is very consistent as it happens regularly on busy days... Shame... But people need to physically complain on the park (and probably be given priority passes as a result) to get anything done about it...

Merlin*

Thirteen was on 2 trains and advertised at 120 min queue, Smiler was running 3 trains with an advertised 110 min queue, could buy fastrack on both with no issue.

[Benin]

Were the Fastrack queues overflowing though like mentioned in the person's report?

That's the point I'm making... Thorpe have much more of a history of packed out normal AND Fastrack queues... Alton seem to be levelling Smiler's reasonably well since upon my last visit it was only reaching the entry into the indoor queue, although not on 3 trains (surprise that a lower throughput makes the Fastrack queue longer)...

Though it would seem on Thirteen the 3rd train is broken since it wasn't in use on last Sunday night...

[Marc]

To be fair they wasn't ,but then they are very good at making sure fastrack queues are low. we queued from the door in smilers fastrack and they just let us all through till fastrack was clear. Good for fastrack people not so much for those in queue, especially on 3 trains!

[NinjaDonut]

Hello Thorpe Park Maniacs! I'm hoping to carry out a survey that will be used as part of my psychology A-level, and you're participation would be really helpful! I'm looking into whether being in anticipation of a scary event, and after experiencing a scary event, affects how frightening your dreams are. If you wish to participate, please record how scary your dreams are on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not scary at all, 10 being like a never ending overnight Blair Witch stay with actors from the asylum!) on 1) the night before you go to Fright Nights, 2) the night you go to Fright Nights and 3)the night after you go to Fright Nights. The data I collect will be anonymous and will only be used as part of my coursework, and wont be shown anywhere else. I would be so grateful if you took the time to participate! If you find any mistakes with the survey, or any ways to improve it, please let me know that I can change it before I submit it for my coursework. Thank you so much to those who participate, and I hope everyone has a great time at Fright Nights!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VCNVMSY

[Glitch]

I really do think the fastrack system does need to be changed now as batching groups of 8 fastracks to 2 main queue does not work. As well as BWP queue line needing to be sorted as once the front gate opens people will start moving barriers to get closer to the front of the queue.

[Dodge2002]

The thing that annoys be about MBV is that when you look at the physical fastrack queuline fencing, its clearly designed to carry up to around a 40-50 minute long queue, so they clearly knew it was going to happen. Again, Inferno has had extra fences put up outside the fastrack merge over Halloween, because they know they're going to be overselling it.

Its misrepresentation, and as far as I'm concerned, its now in the hands of trading standards to define whether or not 50 minutes is considered "a short period of time". Because Thorpe Park certainly seem to think it is, and after going through all the necessary steps and not seeing any changes made, I'm personally getting a little sick of them being able to lie to customers and continue profiting from it.

[Inferno]

Disgusting isn't it. And the thing is, it happens time and time again. Always exactly the same story whenever it gets busy, especially halloween half term.

I think Thorpe would simply argue that the Fastrack queue is "considerably shorter than the normal queue", which to be fair is true... Still terrible though!

The answer is to go to Fright Nights in early October when it's quiet, then do Scarefest later in the month when the parks are busier - because Alton seem to run the whole Fastrack thing better than Thorpe!

It's such a shame that Thorpe are still unable to handle a crowd

[th13teen]

I always felt mazes like The Asylum could have larger groups than they currently do which is about 10-12...I feel for Fastrack they could do a single group of Fastrack every 3-4 normal queue groups (of normal size) and put the Fastrack in a group of about 15-17

[RubyRed95]

Spoiler filled review of my visit to Fright Night today :

Queues not really too bad on the whole, especially for rides. We managed to get on Saw, Vortex, Quantum and X before lunch, and then Nemesis Inferno, Stealth, Swarm, Rumba Rapids, Detonator, and, of course, the tea cups (which by the way seemed to be blaring really out of place Heavy Metal music but it just made the ride funnier in my opinion) also managing to fit in re-rides. This was all well and good, but the actual Fright Nights bit was slightly underwhelming in places.

Firstly: YOU'RE NEXT were nowhere to be seen all day! Clearly they were avoiding us xD in seriousness though, in future, Thorpe should really attempt to either get more roaming actors of confine them to a specific area of the park so people stand a chance of seeing them. So, onto the mazes:

*spoilers*

The Asylum: not gonna lie, I had big expectations for this one and was a bit let down. It was our first maze and the tension was hugh but it was only 'okay'. This is the first and only time I've been in it, so maybe I had a bit if a bad run, but I felt like there weren't nearly enough actors and that it was too disorientating to really be scary at all. I was leading and the strobes did little more than cause me to crash into a few walls and people and eventually it seemed like the floor and walls were moving which distracted me from what was going on xD the sirens were way too quiet and it seemed that it was timed pretty badly since we managed to bump into the group in front halfway through the maze resulting ina queue in which no actors attempted to scare us at all. This also destroyed the chainsaw ending. That said, there were a few actors that really stood out and I feel it would have been so much better had the group in front not shown up. The one good effect that the strobes creates was the actors gradually getting closer, but this isn't the type of thing that really scares me. This maze was also lacking in smoke rather a lot, you could see so much and it was a but bright in honesty. After this negative review people are probably going to disagree, but this was one run through and if id had a chance I would have done it again in the hopes of experiencing what everyone else has in there xD

Unfortunately though: 5/10

My Bloody Valentine: not gonna lie: I loved this one. Yes, it was a bit short and yes it needed a better ending but I found it to be rather good on the whole and it genuinely frightened me. I liked how the actor at the beginning stopped to explain a bit of the story, and then we were chased out by Harry Warden. The whole thing was excellently themed with plenty of actors throughout. The corridors were very narrow and since I'm claustrophobic this made me quite panicked. Our group was split down the middle and I didn't get to go down the tunnel but instead had to crouch down and push through some very squishy material, near which an actor was conveniently hiding. The little garden bit at the end was also very well themed, but needed a better ending in all honesty. Harry Warden just stood there banging his axe against the ground and I just casually strolled out. If this were longer and had an ending to send everyone running for the exit it would have easily been my favourite, however it didn't quite make it.

7/10

Cabin in the Woods: quite simply the best one! We did this twice so I'll split this review in two, but my only real complaints about this maze are that you are ushered through the doors rather than truly getting to chose and some of the staff running the maze towards the end of the night were SO rude. I get that they were probably stressed but they didn't have to act like they were so irritated with us for doing nothing wrong. I felt like we were a but if an inconvenience to them, though none of the actors ever broke character so props to them for that

1st time: this was around 7pm so it was quite busy, yet we somehow didn't manage to meet another group until the final corridor. We first went into the room themed as a forest and it was truly a brilliant room, though the scariest one for me was the one with All the white masks on the walls. We went through a rotating tunnel with a load of actors at the end and one of my friends got separated and chased off by about 3 actors. Didn't find the control room either time but I'm pretty sure I figured out where it was, the door was very locked xD this time round was pretty short, but still very good nevertheless. The themeing was amazing, the actors were really lively and top notch, I especially loved the clowns

2nd time: started this one in a pretty bad mood due to the rude attendants but soon got over it. This time round was much much scarier with more actors and we took a longer route, going first into the door in the far right. We found the basement which was creepy despite there being no actors and yet still ended up back at the rotating tunnel: is this always the way out?? There didn't seem to be any alternative. Again, the clowns were amazing this time around and the bedroom really stood out for me, with three actors all coming at us at once! Again: I feel like it needs an ending although thus time one of the actors followed us out into the exit corridor for one final scare.

Basically, a really, really good maze 9/10

Saw Alive: liked this one way more than last year I actually rate it pretty high, which is especially odd since last year I wasn't a fan despite being at the back. The one thing that has always impressed me about SAW is the theming: it is literally beautiful... In a very disturbing way. I like the beginning bathroom scene and the freezer was creepy too, though the hilight had to be a girl following me for two entire rooms stroking my hair xD she just would not leave me alone the pig men were far more effective than last year, waiting in the middle of the flaps between the rooms so you knew you had to walk right up to them. Again, an actor joined our line and followed us out which I thought was effective. The military officer at the beginning was also really good: this maze surprised me with its greatness!

Overall I'll give it 8/10 - second favourite!

*spoilers*

we didn't bother with Blair witch as we decided to do cabin again instead xD overall, despite a few blips, it was a really good night and a fun event

[Kerfuffle]

Well, theres a lesson to this...

GO TO HOCUS POCUS OR SCAREFEST!

[pluk]

Good to hear a more positive report coming from the busier end of frightnights.

[Ryan]

Well, theres a lesson to this...

GO TO HOCUS POCUS OR SCAREFEST!

Why? Fright Nights is fantastic this year.

[Emma1980]

Not a positive report here I went tonight and the queues were 90 mins plus, the selling of fast track was ridiculous as in they were no where to be seen we only did aslym cabin and bloody valentine and that took 4 hours.

No actors in any queue lines or out in the park. Was mental busy and we got fed up and went home!!

Defo going on preview night only or the first weekend next year.

What a load of tosh.

[coastergod]

I didn't go other than the MAP preview night.

just a quick question, what time did they close each night???

for example, Ocean Park in HK, when I went to their Halloween event, yes the queues were long, but they limited the amount of people who were allowed to enter, especially the fastback lot. they even stayed open till 2am in the morning. this meant that we could get through all the mazes + some rides.

I reckon Thorpe can learn from this. The Staff were polite, even though they were working extra (event meant to have finished by 1am, but didn't), I knew some would rather be at home and were stressed, but they didn't show it.

[NinjaDonut]

Today is the final day so I need as many responses as possible! Please if you have been to Fright Nights take 2 mins to fill this out! Thank You! Hello Thorpe Park Maniacs! I'm hoping to carry out a survey that will be used as part of my psychology A-level, and you're participation would be really helpful! I'm looking into whether being in anticipation of a scary event, and after experiencing a scary event, affects how frightening your dreams are. If you wish to participate, please record how scary your dreams are on a scale of 1-10 (1 being not scary at all, 10 being like a never ending overnight Blair Witch stay with actors from the asylum!) on 1) the night before you go to Fright Nights, 2) the night you go to Fright Nights and 3)the night after you go to Fright Nights. The data I collect will be anonymous and will only be used as part of my coursework, and wont be shown anywhere else. I would be so grateful if you took the time to participate! If you find any mistakes with the survey, or any ways to improve it, please let me know that I can change it before I submit it for my coursework. Thank you so much to those who participate, and I hope everyone has a great time at Fright Nights!

https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/VCNVMSY

[BigBobJones]

I was on park all day, come 3 PM when most of the mazes opened they had almost instant queues of 60-90 mins, so I simply just didn't bother doing any of them.

[Glitch]

rip fright nights 2013

And is anyone planning on doing a brave it alone review now that it's over.

[JoshC.]

rip fright nights 2013

And is anyone planning on doing a brave it alone review now that it's over.

I won't be, unless the park specifically say on here people are allowed (which I doubt).

From what staff told me, they were really keen on having the experience return next year, and I expect there'll be similar tactics used each year, so it's best to not have it spoilt.

[Benin]

Be interesting to see if both Thorpe and Towers bring back their respective versions... Due to the secrecy, it's hard to tell if either were actually popular or not, especially with such minimal advertising...

[JoshC.]

Didn't Towers have their 'extreme' run on just Sanctuary last year? I think that'll almost definitely return.

Face it Alone will have a very small target market, so the park probably aren't expecting many people from it. On my visit, about 10 people did Face it Alone - which doesn't cover all the actors' wages for stay to do FiA. In fact, they probably lose money from running it in the long run. But almost everyone I know who's done it is very happy with it, so I expect it'll continue!

[FrightNights04]

Rip Asylum :(

[Mitchada04]

After getting to do Blair Witch and Saw Alive last night I have now done each maze this year (first time ever) and feel like they should be reviewed. I'll warn you all of possible spoilers ahead but I don't think anyone will mind. So let's start with the worst;

My my my, that was Bloody Awful: If you can't pick up from my rename of it, I didn't enjoy MBV, it was utter rubbish. This is based on one awful run through and I did want to try it again but I wasn't prepared to queue 2 hours for something which is likely to be rubbish again. How this got the 5 scare rating worries me but it somehow did. The potential within here is what annoys me, it has the potential to be quite good. But this potential wasn't used and from what I've heard from others who did it other times it wasn't great once. The concept of Harry chasing you through the mines is good and they could have even used some suspense where there is silence in a mine, lights go out and he appears. It just didn't work, the forest just had a troll actor walking through, the room with the heart shaped boxes was empty, actually that whole corridor was, the ending was rubbish, not a single actor in there on our run through but even when Harry is there he just seems to hit his axe on the floor from what I've heard. The only part that was good was the tunnel but not everyone gets to experience that. So overall, awful.

Blair Witch Project: I really enjoyed this! We didn't bump into another group on our run and it was pitch black in some parts. The actor hides were noticeable but they were using them in different ways so they didn't always jump out in front of you. Quite an eerie walk in the woods with a few jump scares. The shed was great too! Walking up to it (I led our group) you could just see a silhouette in there so when I entered I went to the right to go round it and he appeared in front of me. And then I got lost in the shed because I didn't realise half of it was blocked by a wall so after having an actor flash a light at me I found my way out. Really good fun and no where near as bad as people had told me. So overall, a great laugh with a group of mates.

The Asylum: As per every year, the use of strobes is very disorientating and makes it seem like stuff is moving away when they're coming towards you. Good length, good fun, a few up close moments with actors, and the chainsaw guy doing a good job changing where he hides. Always good fun and confusing with a few jump scares. So overall, good 8 year stint and will be a shame to see it go but change isn't always bad.

Saw Alive: I haven't done this since it last opened in the main season (2011?) so was nice to do it again. Although there was no smoke on our run it was good fun with actors joining the conga line, cornering our group as a whole, stroking us, and hiding very well. Theming was as good as it always is, and having a photo with Jigsaw is always nice. So overall, more jumpy than Asylum and it has improved in my eyes since I did it a few seasons ago.

Cabin in the Woods: Easily the best. The free flow of going round in small groups is great. The queue line actors are great. The maze actors are great. Just great! After my first few goes I was getting used to where the actors were but yesterday they had changed their hiding places and it actually made me jump a few times and I'm not very jumpy. Got pinned up against a wall to which was very fun. Really hope this returns next year or if we lose the IP based mazes they keep the free flow, choose your route maze because it was so much fun! So overall, great fun, in a group of 2 it is amazing, definitely a concept I hope is continued and improved upon next year.

I'd talk about the You're Next actors but I'd rather not talk about them.