Rainton Arena - Horror Car Wash and
A Nightmare at Rainton
Rainton Arena has been home to the Horror Car Wash for a few years, but in 2024 added a new walk though attraction called A Nightmare in Rainton.
We will start our review with the best of the two attractions - the stunningly fun Horror Car Wash, which saw along the route. But the scares were so much more than the actors just walking around, and they leaned through windows, opened doors, and at times, actually got in the back seat of the car! We visited as group of two, but we could see actors in other cars opening the boots, and climbing through to get at the passengers in the back seat.
Throughout the route we could hear people screaming as the actors were not afraid to get up and personal and certainly invaded everyone's personal space. After all, there is something very secure about sitting safely in your own vehicle, so when masked creatures break in and get so close, it is certainly very intimidating.
Towards the end of the trail - we entered the actual car wash element, which basically involved a couple of sponges and a jet hose before leaving. Sadly after a long drive, we were looking forward to having a sparkling clean car afterwards, but the "wash" was purely in name only!
Now we have experienced a few other "car mazes" before, but the Horror Car Wash was easily some of the most fun we have had in the car. Whether it was being assaulted by chainsaws through the windows, or watching others around us getting attacked, this event was certainly worth a visit and left us wanting more.
The other event at Rainton Arena was a new scream park style attraction with three different mazes. And we do mean "mazes" especially in our first attraction - Blackout. This indoor attraction had a very long and confusing layout and we struggled to find away out. Now this would be fine if there were interesting characters or scenery along the way, but the rooms were very dark and basic with the same young actor just tainting us every time we ended up doubling back or getting lost. There was also no background music or effects so we could hear other people (or actors) ahead or behind us talking.
Now, we do understand the nature of "maze style" attractions but it needs to be clear that when a party are bored or are not actually scared any more, that maybe the actors should help them find the exit. In fact - it's a real cardinal sin for us to turn on the torch on our phones in a maze, but we needed to do this to eventually get out. Or we would have just spent the night going round and round! We can see what the event team were trying to do and we cant fault the fun characterisation of the actors in the maze, but we genuinely feel that we should not have been trapped in one attraction for so long, and were grateful to finally find a way out and move on.
Haunt, the other main attraction, was clearly built in the rooms that are used for Santa's Grotto and definitely gave us some more theming and story. The actors in here were particularly active, and we found this maze easier to navigate. Again - we cant fault the actors who were doing their best, but it felt like they were maybe lacking some direction in how best to scare people. We also had an unfortunate scare whilst in a vulnerable position crouched down on a ramp, which would probably not be advised by a professional scare actor trainer.
Sadly we had to skip the outdoor maze as it wasn't open when we first arrived, and we needed to get over to the car wash before the queue built up. Elsewhere around the site - there was a nice Tipi social area with a bar and food The roaming actors in this area added some great audience interactions to the night.
So all in - Rainton Arena was an event of two halves. We wouldn't rush back to do the new scream park event as it felt like it was lacking some real direction and focus. But the car wash was amazingly good fun and we would absolutely recommend visiting for that alone!
We will start our review with the best of the two attractions - the stunningly fun Horror Car Wash, which saw along the route. But the scares were so much more than the actors just walking around, and they leaned through windows, opened doors, and at times, actually got in the back seat of the car! We visited as group of two, but we could see actors in other cars opening the boots, and climbing through to get at the passengers in the back seat.
Throughout the route we could hear people screaming as the actors were not afraid to get up and personal and certainly invaded everyone's personal space. After all, there is something very secure about sitting safely in your own vehicle, so when masked creatures break in and get so close, it is certainly very intimidating.
Towards the end of the trail - we entered the actual car wash element, which basically involved a couple of sponges and a jet hose before leaving. Sadly after a long drive, we were looking forward to having a sparkling clean car afterwards, but the "wash" was purely in name only!
Now we have experienced a few other "car mazes" before, but the Horror Car Wash was easily some of the most fun we have had in the car. Whether it was being assaulted by chainsaws through the windows, or watching others around us getting attacked, this event was certainly worth a visit and left us wanting more.
The other event at Rainton Arena was a new scream park style attraction with three different mazes. And we do mean "mazes" especially in our first attraction - Blackout. This indoor attraction had a very long and confusing layout and we struggled to find away out. Now this would be fine if there were interesting characters or scenery along the way, but the rooms were very dark and basic with the same young actor just tainting us every time we ended up doubling back or getting lost. There was also no background music or effects so we could hear other people (or actors) ahead or behind us talking.
Now, we do understand the nature of "maze style" attractions but it needs to be clear that when a party are bored or are not actually scared any more, that maybe the actors should help them find the exit. In fact - it's a real cardinal sin for us to turn on the torch on our phones in a maze, but we needed to do this to eventually get out. Or we would have just spent the night going round and round! We can see what the event team were trying to do and we cant fault the fun characterisation of the actors in the maze, but we genuinely feel that we should not have been trapped in one attraction for so long, and were grateful to finally find a way out and move on.
Haunt, the other main attraction, was clearly built in the rooms that are used for Santa's Grotto and definitely gave us some more theming and story. The actors in here were particularly active, and we found this maze easier to navigate. Again - we cant fault the actors who were doing their best, but it felt like they were maybe lacking some direction in how best to scare people. We also had an unfortunate scare whilst in a vulnerable position crouched down on a ramp, which would probably not be advised by a professional scare actor trainer.
Sadly we had to skip the outdoor maze as it wasn't open when we first arrived, and we needed to get over to the car wash before the queue built up. Elsewhere around the site - there was a nice Tipi social area with a bar and food The roaming actors in this area added some great audience interactions to the night.
So all in - Rainton Arena was an event of two halves. We wouldn't rush back to do the new scream park event as it felt like it was lacking some real direction and focus. But the car wash was amazingly good fun and we would absolutely recommend visiting for that alone!
Links:
Sunderland Live website
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