This was our second new-to-us event and we headed up north blindly to experience this event. After years of hearing such amazing things about it we couldn’t resist adding it to the trip list this year. Here’s how our evening went!
Roaming Team:
These guys were brilliant. They all looked tremendous in the scariest of ways. I found they blended into the crowds so easily it was sometimes difficult to spot them. But they were all so interactive and played their roles brilliantly.
Live Bands:
We saw two of the live bands and thoroughly enjoyed them. It’s always so nice to hear live music especially after been starved off for the length of time we all had.
Contagion:
Rating: 2/5
Onto our first maze of the evening, Contagion. It turns out this was a 3D clown style maze. I ain’t usually one to enjoy the 3D aspect of these type of mazes however last night I really made the conscious effort to try with them. I found myself heading through this maze with little to no scares in all honesty. There was a real good scare which included an actor being pretty much camouflaged into the wall. But as it goes for a clown maze it was perhaps one of the weakest I’ve done. The theming was there and it was great yet physical scares was close to non existent but the actors did try but the batching was an issue.
Maze of Death:
Rating: 3/5:
A real fun & unique maze style we have never done before. You enter and don’t exit until you find your own way out. The scares weren’t necessarily the strongest within this maze but the style of it alone just made it that bit better in all honesty. For me, it was the constant getting lost that was holding the atmosphere on its own. The highlight actor for me was the crow who continuously kept me screaming for a good few minutes. Overall, it had strong potential and it weren’t too far of hitting it neither but for me I found it fun but not all that scary aside from the crow.
Beast of Terror:
Rating: 2.5/5:
Unfortunately, this was the maze which highlighted the batching issues the most. We ended up in a group of around 10 with people ahead behaving in a manner which made everyone else feel uncomfortable. The theming throughout was tremendously produced. But also the actors were trying their utter best to give everyone equal scares yet the group ahead was continuing to cause issues meaning we lacked a decent number of scares. I found a lot of similarities between this maze & The Village at Xtreme Scream with the room near the finale. If the group sizing was fewer if not just your own group entering it could of been a-lot more scarier. I also found the queue line somewhat confusing with regards to the line of being spooky to over sexualised again.
Meat Locker:
Rating 3/5
Entering through an animal barn with the name meat locker seems somewhat fitting yet ironic too. This was one of the mazes I was most hyped to experience & yet again the number of people batched altogether did dampen it a lot. Throughout this entire maze I had two solid jump scares and that was quite literally it. Yet I know with confidence that if we were in smaller group it could of been an entire world apart. I found this mazes theming was beautifully put together with some areas somewhat lacking with visible beams on show from where the maze has been built unfortunately. The finale felt as if it was meant to give more than it did. But we were made aware prior there was an issue with security which therefore perhaps left the maze a little empty on the actor score. The one unique & strange thing about this maze is the fact you exit through a portable toilet haha.
Overall:
As an overall event it had so much to give with various bars, music stages and roaming actors. All of which were fab. In regards to scare mazes there were certainly the weakest of this Halloween season so far. The main reasoning behind the disappointment comes down to guests issues & too many people entering mazes at once. The actors we’re close to top form last night yet there weren’t enough time for them to scare & reset in the groups going through. So, you ended up witnessing a scare happen to then be fully aware of what was about to come. A lot of the scripting was the same as well. Unfortunately, it’s not an event I’ll be in a hurry to return too.
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thank you for reading!