2014 Review of the Year
Another New Year celebration means that another year has passed, and once again we are ready to look back at all the highlights of 2014 as well as taking a sneak peek at what's coming in 2015. It's been a bumper year for scare events as well as for the website as we continued to bring you the most accurate and honest reviews available. At ScareTOUR - we genuinely love all the events we have visited, and know that if attractions invite us to visit then they want us to write a genuine, factual independent and constructive review. So where did we get to this year?
Starting off with the out of season events, it was an interesting year for some of the independent production companies, who all produced new and exciting events. Primrose Unknown Projects teamed up with the National Emergency Services Museum to create Caine: Who Am I - an attraction based around the supposedly actual ghosts of the museum. Interestingly one night, some of the actors started to act a little bit weird and a spiritual cleansing had to be held. Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, it clearly is a creepy building and the team played on this with their overnight Discover Caine event. After a fairly quiet night of "real" ghost hunting, a few extra actors were thrown in at the end to spice things up a bit and give everyone a terrifying finale they weren't expecting! The Museum was then used for EVAC - a new event at Halloween while the Woolley Edge October Screams event grew with the addition of The Pit - a terrifying pitch black maze alongside the return of The Barn - home to a very twisted family!
Twisted Attractions returned for their second year in the industry and presented The Facility in Birmingham.The intricate design and thought that went into this attraction was very impressive and we loved the way they split the group and changed the order of things so that there was no chance for the easily scared to "hide" between others as in other attractions. When the team came back at Halloween, they presented House of Insomnia - a traditional style "haunted house" and Ward 13 - an extreme "alone" style attraction. These two attractions eventually merged into one big show for Christmas, as an exceptionally drunk Santa welcomed us to Christmas is Cancelled.
Kernow Scare Attractions took a bit of a break this year but rising from the ashes came Unlocked Vision Entertainment. The team, with many years of scare experience under their belts, created three brand new mazes this year. Two at Fear at Avon Valley (including the incredible Anarchy) and the impressive Hidden House in Stratford. The Hidden House, mixed grand storytelling, great scares and some beautiful set design. The fact that this was all built in the middle of a food court in a shopping mall is even more impressive!
More is More had a quieter year as they launched a Spring version of Evil Rising, promising the chance to win over £1,300 for anyone who solved all the clues. Unfortunately this event got cancelled quite late in the day and the tickets and prize money) were moved to their moved their Halloween event Evil Rising: Possession. We had some great scares but unfortunately didn't win any money!
Over in Jersey, we were pleasantly surprised with the incredible attention to detail and scares in The Torment. Although built in a marquee, the tent structure was expertly hidden by an impressive facade and the quality of scares continued throughout. The key creative talent from Secrets Beneath then came over to the UK to help with Tulleys Shocktoberfest and this years event was clearly their strongest yet.
GNG - a key player in the "out of season" scare maze scene in the past had a quiet year and returned with H3LL and their zombie event at Cusworth Hall. They also created a new event called Fear Forest in Nottingham. As the creators of the UK's first extreme attraction - Project Fear, they have teamed up with AtmosFEAR in 2015 to present Snuffhouse - a horror simulation.
On the permanent front - there wasn't a huge lot of change at the Dungeon attractions. As the second year of the new branding, we started to see a bit more consistency with theming and logos and each attraction added (or tweaked an existing show). London's boat ride got a new story and finally repaired some of the effects that had never really worked since opening, Edinburgh added a new special effects scene - Street of Sorrows and the Tyrannical Tudors rampaged through York.
The London Bridge Experience featuring the London Tombs continued to tweak its offerring (particularly downstairs in the Tombs but come Halloween - all bets were off as the venue was invaded by a crazy gang of gun toting hill-billies. We still shudder about what happened that night but lets just say that we have a good divorce lawyer on our side and we wont be protesting custody arrangements!)
The love for immersive overnight events continued in 2014 with the return of Horror Camp Live as well as Extreme Sleepover at Tulleys Farm. Horror Camp Live relied on shock tactics and larger than life characters while Extreme Sleepover used subtle effects, some genuine magic tricks and genuinely unnerved everyone who visited. Alton Towers also used the paranormal themed for their new overnight event - the Ultimate Sleepover. Based in the Towers ruins, the attraction mixed theatrics and effects and replaced the scare rooms of previous years. Alton also created a scare dining package which reused a lot of the Altonville wedding storyline for 2013.
Of course we don't just love static scare attractions, and this year we managed to catch up on a number of different horror events including Asylum: Origin of the Infection by the team behind Zombie Boot Camp as well as Zombie Earth, Zombiexperience, Zombie Uprising, End of Days Events and The Hungry Games. All these events add an extra dimension to the experience with the chance to fight back using airsoft guns etc. Other more traditional "running" events we visited included 2.8 Hours Later: Survival, The Hunted at Tulleys and Outbreak in Brighton. Many of these events will be returning in 2015
Whilst on the topic of zombies we must mention Generation of Z - the New Zealand zombie show that took the Edinburgh Festival by storm. Mixing a theatrical show, with audience interaction, a compelling storyline and a horde of hungry zombies, made for one of the most exciting things we experienced in 2014. We are pleased to announce that the creative team are still here in the UK in planning for the next phase of the show and are promising something even larger!
Reviewing more global events has been a key aim for us, and last year we managed a whole series of fascinating reviews on scare attractions in Japan, Orlando, Germany and Holland. If you are visiting any scare attractions around the World we would love to hear what you thought and see some pictures.
Last year also saw a number of events in unusual places - we experienced several exciting events in old historic buildings including the terrifying Fort Amherst Halloween Horrors (still one of the most intense attractions we have visited), The Creep in a fort on New Brighton seafront and Scarenation in an old Victorian factory full of ancient machinery. Nevendon Manor in Wickford Essex created a massive horror walk through in the grounds of a stately home and scared us with a mix of creatures and zombies throughout. Other interesting venues included a soft play area (Sector 17), a laser quest arena (Silence: Playtime is Over) and a shopping centre car park (the critically panned - Scream Park UK)
At the theme parks, Halloween dominated the line up over October with the Lionsgate takeover of Thorpe Park bringing revamped new mazes based on some iconic horror movies. The Asylum finally left and was replaced with Studio 13 - a great maze but not quite as intense and manic as its predecessor. Up at Alton Towers - the Sanctuary and Terror of the Towers returned unchanged but the big shock was the demise of Carnival of Screams as the only free maze for the park. They replaced it with an impressive scare zone - Scary Tales but overall the attraction line up this year felt quite muted in comparison. Chessington World of Adventures returned with the genuinely scary Haunting in the Hollows and the magical makeover of Hocus Pocus Hall. Merlin's other main attraction - Warwick Castle created a number of impressive shows including the baffling "how did they do that" Seance and the terrifying finale of the Mary Black trilogy.
Some of the smaller theme parks around the UK also joined in, with the Frightwater Valley event running for longer than before and PrimEVIL returning to Norfolk Dinosaur Park with a number of new mazes. In the East Anglia region, Pleasurewood Chills decided to go it alone for their Halloween event and a slightly smaller Curse of Black Scream returned to Adventure Island in Southend. Xtreme Scream Park also came back for a third year with the massive Stilton Hall Hotel and Spa, an incredibly well designed attraction .
Obviously the big rush of events came during the Halloween season which was the the biggest review period ever for us at ScareTOUR, and as our talented review team grew we were able to visit events up and down the country. This year we managed to visit some really new and different events including Fright Nights at Blackstock Farm, Wickscream, White Post Farm, Stockeld park, Scream Factory, Terror Fest, Farm of Terror, Bolsover castle etc. Many of these events have never been reviewed before and we thank them for the support and hospitality they showed us during our visits.
Of course - we have a number of major events that we visit each year without miss and these included a very impressive Tulleys Shocktoberfest, Dr Fright's Halloween Horror Nights which had really stepped up a level this year and Broadwitch Hauntfest which gave us some really different and exciting scares (especially Biometrix which just blew us away with its full contact experience!). Scare Kingdom impressed this year with the beautifully designed Manormortis and the shocking Pyschomanteurm. Over in Yorkshire - York Maze created an impressive event with an underlying story linking all the mazes including the Time Travel themed 1873
Screamfest Burton came back with three Andrew Porter designed mazes and we were pleased to see Hop Farm Freak Week return after a 2 year break. One of the creatives from Hop - Tom Swift, took many of his concepts and ideas and created two exceptional mazes - Pitch Black in Harlow and the confusing, genuine maze of Porky's Fear Factory. Meanwhile, over in Essex, Cursed moved to a new home in Basildon and the ghosts returned to the bus museum for the Castle Point Ghost Tours. Talking of buses - the Ghost Bus Tour from London and Edinburgh also opened up in York.
It wasn't just all new events, and a number of events that we had previously covered failed to open in 2014. These included Climb of the Cursed, Panic in Fife, Fright Site, Nightmare Circus, and Oakwood theme park amongst others. Also - Zombiexperience was closed unceremoniously when it's owner was jailed for dealing in stolen goods!
One of our key objectives at ScareTOUR is to unite the scare industry and its fans and over recent years we have organised a number of exclusive visits and behind the scenes tours at events up and down the country. We have also been offered many key discounts, free tickets for readers, competitions and more. We are already working on benefits for 2015 and all details will be posted to the site soon.
As many people will know - the ScareTOUR team also run ScareCON - Europe's biggest convention for the scare attraction industry and 2014 saw our largest year ever. Over 300 industry professionals descended on the Tulleys Farm to see trade stands, listen to seminars and attend workshops from the biggest names in the industry. As always, we had the most original and diverse line of guests wanting to share information and help those just starting out in the industry. Despite being a business show, ScareCON is also the social highlight of the scare calendar giving scare industry professionals the chance to let their hair down and mix with their counterparts. The packed daytime schedule was followed by the ScareBall - an evening of drink, food, and dancing
ScareCON is also home to the SCARs - the ScareCON Anuual Recognition awards - the only award ceremony for European scare industry. What is most unique and innovative about these awards is that they will be awarded by a judging panel who between them will have visited every single attraction across the UK. Each winner will be judged against strict pre-determined criteria which will mean that a small independent attraction could be judged against a large theme park attraction and still win. Criteria is not based on the number of people who visit, or how many votes a company can ask it's Facebook followers to vote for them, but is a true critical appraisal of one attraction against another. It's an exciting new concept that has been missing from the industry for years.
So that's it! 2014 is over and 2015 has already started and as you can see we have loads to look forward to already. We already have two extreme style attractions vying for attention. First up is Cracked Survival Experience which was shortly followed by Snuffhouse - a collaboration between Atmosfear and GNG entertainment. Both of these experiences appear to be aiming for the more extreme torture/survival element of the scare industry, potentially along the lines of the controversial McKamey Manor in the US. Last year we held an exclusive interview with Russ McKamey but we're still not sure if the Great British public is ready for this extreme style of event. We shall see
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Don't forget to keep checking back for all the latest news, exciting exclusives, insightful features and the most comprehensive review directory in the UK. Thanks for all your support - see you at an event soon!
The ScareTOUR team
Starting off with the out of season events, it was an interesting year for some of the independent production companies, who all produced new and exciting events. Primrose Unknown Projects teamed up with the National Emergency Services Museum to create Caine: Who Am I - an attraction based around the supposedly actual ghosts of the museum. Interestingly one night, some of the actors started to act a little bit weird and a spiritual cleansing had to be held. Whether you believe in the paranormal or not, it clearly is a creepy building and the team played on this with their overnight Discover Caine event. After a fairly quiet night of "real" ghost hunting, a few extra actors were thrown in at the end to spice things up a bit and give everyone a terrifying finale they weren't expecting! The Museum was then used for EVAC - a new event at Halloween while the Woolley Edge October Screams event grew with the addition of The Pit - a terrifying pitch black maze alongside the return of The Barn - home to a very twisted family!
Twisted Attractions returned for their second year in the industry and presented The Facility in Birmingham.The intricate design and thought that went into this attraction was very impressive and we loved the way they split the group and changed the order of things so that there was no chance for the easily scared to "hide" between others as in other attractions. When the team came back at Halloween, they presented House of Insomnia - a traditional style "haunted house" and Ward 13 - an extreme "alone" style attraction. These two attractions eventually merged into one big show for Christmas, as an exceptionally drunk Santa welcomed us to Christmas is Cancelled.
Kernow Scare Attractions took a bit of a break this year but rising from the ashes came Unlocked Vision Entertainment. The team, with many years of scare experience under their belts, created three brand new mazes this year. Two at Fear at Avon Valley (including the incredible Anarchy) and the impressive Hidden House in Stratford. The Hidden House, mixed grand storytelling, great scares and some beautiful set design. The fact that this was all built in the middle of a food court in a shopping mall is even more impressive!
More is More had a quieter year as they launched a Spring version of Evil Rising, promising the chance to win over £1,300 for anyone who solved all the clues. Unfortunately this event got cancelled quite late in the day and the tickets and prize money) were moved to their moved their Halloween event Evil Rising: Possession. We had some great scares but unfortunately didn't win any money!
Over in Jersey, we were pleasantly surprised with the incredible attention to detail and scares in The Torment. Although built in a marquee, the tent structure was expertly hidden by an impressive facade and the quality of scares continued throughout. The key creative talent from Secrets Beneath then came over to the UK to help with Tulleys Shocktoberfest and this years event was clearly their strongest yet.
GNG - a key player in the "out of season" scare maze scene in the past had a quiet year and returned with H3LL and their zombie event at Cusworth Hall. They also created a new event called Fear Forest in Nottingham. As the creators of the UK's first extreme attraction - Project Fear, they have teamed up with AtmosFEAR in 2015 to present Snuffhouse - a horror simulation.
On the permanent front - there wasn't a huge lot of change at the Dungeon attractions. As the second year of the new branding, we started to see a bit more consistency with theming and logos and each attraction added (or tweaked an existing show). London's boat ride got a new story and finally repaired some of the effects that had never really worked since opening, Edinburgh added a new special effects scene - Street of Sorrows and the Tyrannical Tudors rampaged through York.
The London Bridge Experience featuring the London Tombs continued to tweak its offerring (particularly downstairs in the Tombs but come Halloween - all bets were off as the venue was invaded by a crazy gang of gun toting hill-billies. We still shudder about what happened that night but lets just say that we have a good divorce lawyer on our side and we wont be protesting custody arrangements!)
The love for immersive overnight events continued in 2014 with the return of Horror Camp Live as well as Extreme Sleepover at Tulleys Farm. Horror Camp Live relied on shock tactics and larger than life characters while Extreme Sleepover used subtle effects, some genuine magic tricks and genuinely unnerved everyone who visited. Alton Towers also used the paranormal themed for their new overnight event - the Ultimate Sleepover. Based in the Towers ruins, the attraction mixed theatrics and effects and replaced the scare rooms of previous years. Alton also created a scare dining package which reused a lot of the Altonville wedding storyline for 2013.
Of course we don't just love static scare attractions, and this year we managed to catch up on a number of different horror events including Asylum: Origin of the Infection by the team behind Zombie Boot Camp as well as Zombie Earth, Zombiexperience, Zombie Uprising, End of Days Events and The Hungry Games. All these events add an extra dimension to the experience with the chance to fight back using airsoft guns etc. Other more traditional "running" events we visited included 2.8 Hours Later: Survival, The Hunted at Tulleys and Outbreak in Brighton. Many of these events will be returning in 2015
Whilst on the topic of zombies we must mention Generation of Z - the New Zealand zombie show that took the Edinburgh Festival by storm. Mixing a theatrical show, with audience interaction, a compelling storyline and a horde of hungry zombies, made for one of the most exciting things we experienced in 2014. We are pleased to announce that the creative team are still here in the UK in planning for the next phase of the show and are promising something even larger!
Reviewing more global events has been a key aim for us, and last year we managed a whole series of fascinating reviews on scare attractions in Japan, Orlando, Germany and Holland. If you are visiting any scare attractions around the World we would love to hear what you thought and see some pictures.
Last year also saw a number of events in unusual places - we experienced several exciting events in old historic buildings including the terrifying Fort Amherst Halloween Horrors (still one of the most intense attractions we have visited), The Creep in a fort on New Brighton seafront and Scarenation in an old Victorian factory full of ancient machinery. Nevendon Manor in Wickford Essex created a massive horror walk through in the grounds of a stately home and scared us with a mix of creatures and zombies throughout. Other interesting venues included a soft play area (Sector 17), a laser quest arena (Silence: Playtime is Over) and a shopping centre car park (the critically panned - Scream Park UK)
At the theme parks, Halloween dominated the line up over October with the Lionsgate takeover of Thorpe Park bringing revamped new mazes based on some iconic horror movies. The Asylum finally left and was replaced with Studio 13 - a great maze but not quite as intense and manic as its predecessor. Up at Alton Towers - the Sanctuary and Terror of the Towers returned unchanged but the big shock was the demise of Carnival of Screams as the only free maze for the park. They replaced it with an impressive scare zone - Scary Tales but overall the attraction line up this year felt quite muted in comparison. Chessington World of Adventures returned with the genuinely scary Haunting in the Hollows and the magical makeover of Hocus Pocus Hall. Merlin's other main attraction - Warwick Castle created a number of impressive shows including the baffling "how did they do that" Seance and the terrifying finale of the Mary Black trilogy.
Some of the smaller theme parks around the UK also joined in, with the Frightwater Valley event running for longer than before and PrimEVIL returning to Norfolk Dinosaur Park with a number of new mazes. In the East Anglia region, Pleasurewood Chills decided to go it alone for their Halloween event and a slightly smaller Curse of Black Scream returned to Adventure Island in Southend. Xtreme Scream Park also came back for a third year with the massive Stilton Hall Hotel and Spa, an incredibly well designed attraction .
Obviously the big rush of events came during the Halloween season which was the the biggest review period ever for us at ScareTOUR, and as our talented review team grew we were able to visit events up and down the country. This year we managed to visit some really new and different events including Fright Nights at Blackstock Farm, Wickscream, White Post Farm, Stockeld park, Scream Factory, Terror Fest, Farm of Terror, Bolsover castle etc. Many of these events have never been reviewed before and we thank them for the support and hospitality they showed us during our visits.
Of course - we have a number of major events that we visit each year without miss and these included a very impressive Tulleys Shocktoberfest, Dr Fright's Halloween Horror Nights which had really stepped up a level this year and Broadwitch Hauntfest which gave us some really different and exciting scares (especially Biometrix which just blew us away with its full contact experience!). Scare Kingdom impressed this year with the beautifully designed Manormortis and the shocking Pyschomanteurm. Over in Yorkshire - York Maze created an impressive event with an underlying story linking all the mazes including the Time Travel themed 1873
Screamfest Burton came back with three Andrew Porter designed mazes and we were pleased to see Hop Farm Freak Week return after a 2 year break. One of the creatives from Hop - Tom Swift, took many of his concepts and ideas and created two exceptional mazes - Pitch Black in Harlow and the confusing, genuine maze of Porky's Fear Factory. Meanwhile, over in Essex, Cursed moved to a new home in Basildon and the ghosts returned to the bus museum for the Castle Point Ghost Tours. Talking of buses - the Ghost Bus Tour from London and Edinburgh also opened up in York.
It wasn't just all new events, and a number of events that we had previously covered failed to open in 2014. These included Climb of the Cursed, Panic in Fife, Fright Site, Nightmare Circus, and Oakwood theme park amongst others. Also - Zombiexperience was closed unceremoniously when it's owner was jailed for dealing in stolen goods!
One of our key objectives at ScareTOUR is to unite the scare industry and its fans and over recent years we have organised a number of exclusive visits and behind the scenes tours at events up and down the country. We have also been offered many key discounts, free tickets for readers, competitions and more. We are already working on benefits for 2015 and all details will be posted to the site soon.
As many people will know - the ScareTOUR team also run ScareCON - Europe's biggest convention for the scare attraction industry and 2014 saw our largest year ever. Over 300 industry professionals descended on the Tulleys Farm to see trade stands, listen to seminars and attend workshops from the biggest names in the industry. As always, we had the most original and diverse line of guests wanting to share information and help those just starting out in the industry. Despite being a business show, ScareCON is also the social highlight of the scare calendar giving scare industry professionals the chance to let their hair down and mix with their counterparts. The packed daytime schedule was followed by the ScareBall - an evening of drink, food, and dancing
ScareCON is also home to the SCARs - the ScareCON Anuual Recognition awards - the only award ceremony for European scare industry. What is most unique and innovative about these awards is that they will be awarded by a judging panel who between them will have visited every single attraction across the UK. Each winner will be judged against strict pre-determined criteria which will mean that a small independent attraction could be judged against a large theme park attraction and still win. Criteria is not based on the number of people who visit, or how many votes a company can ask it's Facebook followers to vote for them, but is a true critical appraisal of one attraction against another. It's an exciting new concept that has been missing from the industry for years.
So that's it! 2014 is over and 2015 has already started and as you can see we have loads to look forward to already. We already have two extreme style attractions vying for attention. First up is Cracked Survival Experience which was shortly followed by Snuffhouse - a collaboration between Atmosfear and GNG entertainment. Both of these experiences appear to be aiming for the more extreme torture/survival element of the scare industry, potentially along the lines of the controversial McKamey Manor in the US. Last year we held an exclusive interview with Russ McKamey but we're still not sure if the Great British public is ready for this extreme style of event. We shall see
But this is just the tip of the iceberg. Don't forget to keep checking back for all the latest news, exciting exclusives, insightful features and the most comprehensive review directory in the UK. Thanks for all your support - see you at an event soon!
The ScareTOUR team
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