Halloween Events Roundup 2019

Anyone else sad that the Halloween season has come to an end? We are - mainly because this has probably been our most Halloween-y season yet! We managed to get out to loads more theme park and scare maze events than usual and absolutely loved it. It’s definitely been interesting for us to experience a range of different events, including new ones that we have never been to before. Having been in a larger number of scare mazes, we now feel we have a more refined opinion of what makes a “good” and “bad” maze and know what types of maze we enjoy the most. It’s been really good to expand our portfolio of Halloween events and experience some truly terrifying mazes!

Alton Towers - Scarefest

Scarefest is our go-to Halloween event and one that we have been attending for many years now. It’s a favourite of ours - not only because of the night-rides, but also the high quality and selection of scare mazes on offer. This year we were able to experience all 5 of the scare mazes, including the new for 2019 maze - Darkest Depths. Overall, our favourite in terms of spookiness has got to be Sub-Species. It has some unique elements - like the fact that you’re split up from your friends and can end up in real dead-ends - which make it absolutely terrifying (it even scares Harry, which is saying a lot). But the award for best set design has to go to Darkest Depths. We went into this maze with relatively low expectations considering it was advertised as a maze for kids aged 10+ - but it blew us away. Every set was stunning, the actors were engaging and it had a really original, interesting storyline throughout which we loved. We really hope this maze returns next year so we can experience it again!

Although we loved the scare mazes, there were a few things at the event that we were disappointed about this year. We felt that the lack of any scare zones brought down the Halloween atmosphere across the park and we really hope to see them return to the event next year. We also thought that lighting could have been used more effectively to create more of a spooky vibe. Some of the rides were well lit, but as we visited on the first weekend there were no lights on Wicker Man which we would have loved to see. However, we did love the addition of the huge pumpkins which were great for photo opportunities! There were a few roaming actors across the park and spooky shows for kids to watch which was good to see. It was just a shame that the scare zones were not there this year as those were one of our favourite aspects of the event last year. Even without the scare zones and the limited lighting, Scarefest is a fantastic event with lots to do for all ages. We will definitely be visiting again next year.

You can read a more in-depth review of our 2019 Scarefest visit in a separate blog post.

Thorpe Park - Tidal Wave (photo by Jack F)

Thorpe Park - Fright Nights

It might be hard to believe, but before this year we had never visited Fright Nights. Crazy, we know. That’s why we decided to make the trip this year - we wanted to see what it was all about. There’s a bit of division in terms of people’s opinions of the event; some people love it and others aren’t so keen. I don’t think we are really sure where we stand yet. Having only been to the event once it’s quite hard to form a solid opinion, but there were definitely things we liked and other things we didn’t like so much.

As we were mainly interested in experiencing the scare mazes, we got to the park at around 1pm to be ready for the opening of a few of the mazes at 3pm. Thorpe offers all their scare mazes for “free” (the price is basically included in the ticket price) which is a very different system to Alton Towers where you have to pay extra to go in the mazes. As the Thorpe mazes were “free” they had much longer queues compared with Towers - with some of them reaching 2 1/2 hours long! This meant we spent all afternoon queueing for the mazes and only managed to experience four out of the five, despite all the queueing. Luckily, we also managed to squeeze in a few night rides!

Thorpe Park - Colossus (photo by Jack F)

Overall, the scare mazes were of a lower standard than we were used to seeing at Alton Towers. The quality of the sets and number of actors in The Walking Dead: Living Nightmare were a bit disappointing. The batching was also strange - we caught up with the group in front of us and ended up in a huge line of people, meaning we didn’t experience as many scares. Blair Witch had a more original theme with the use of an outdoor forest as the setting for the maze. The winding paths and spooky actors were good - but we felt there could have been many more actors throughout to increase jump scares and actor interactions. Platform 15’s setting was also quite original - an outdoor railway track. Overall the maze was pretty good, but we ended up having a less exciting ending to the one we had heard about from others who had experienced the maze (annoying!). Our favourite maze by far was Creak Freak Massacre. Despite having fairly generic elements, like the chainsaws, it had the best set designs of all the mazes at Thorpe and some good actor interaction. The main scene in the maze was unfortunately not working for us which was a shame, but even despite that it was a quality maze.

We will definitely be visiting Fright Nights again next year. It will be interesting to see if there are any new mazes on offer in 2020 and whether they make any improvements to the mazes they keep for another year. It’s been good to finally experience Thorpe Park at Halloween. Even though the overall quality of the mazes was not as high as we had hoped, we still loved our visit!

Fear Scream Park - Roaming Actors

Avon Valley - FEAR Scream Park

This year we wanted to try an event that was a bit different to what we normally do at Halloween. Scream parks and dedicated pop-up scare maze events are something we haven’t really experienced in the past, which is why we decided to check out FEAR scream park at Avon Valley. The overall atmosphere at the park was pretty good considering it chucked it down with rain all evening - which meant everyone had to either get soaked or crowd in the bar area. There was a main stage area with a lights/music/dance show every hour. Unfortunately due to the rain there was no fire display on the night we visited, which we were gutted about because online the fire looked amazing. The show was still great though, as were the roaming actors across the park and the variety of food they had on offer.

There were five scare mazes on offer at the park. We managed to get in all of them thanks to the fast-passes gifted to us by the park (the queues were pretty long!). Some of the mazes had little in the way of great sets designs - with some of them feeling a bit incomplete. However, the overall actor interaction in all of the mazes was great and really added to the experience. Our favourite scare mazes at FEAR has got to be Vita Nova and X4. Despite its pretty generic theme, X4 blew us away in terms of the number of actors and the interesting ways they interacted with us throughout the maze - they were terrifying. On the other hand, Vita Nova offered one of the most original themes we have seen on a scare maze - a government set out to condition you and make you conform to their ways. It also featured some interesting set deigns and layouts throughout which made the maze really interesting and spooky.

We were pretty impressed with the event overall - it had a solid lineup of mazes, great roaming actors and shows. We liked it so much that I think next year we will be getting out to a few more events like FEAR scream park to try out some more pop-up scare maze parks. It was a great night out despite the pouring rain and we thoroughly enjoyed trying out the five mazes they had on offer.

Well, it’s been a great Halloween season for us. We’ve tried loads of new mazes, been to new events and really got into the Halloween mood. Next year we want to try even more Halloween events! We can’t wait for the spooky season to be back again next October, but for now it’s time to wrap up the 2019 theme park season and get ready for the off-season.

I hope everyone had a great Halloween!

- Zoe