Alright, I was holding off on posting a review after the first night I went (1 Oct) and did the UTT. I figured, it's night one, not everything is going to go to plan, and it didn't but it's not 100% fair to judge them on that. However I've now been on the UTT twice, and to the event 3 times so I feel more comfortable in assessing it.
As I'm sitting here tonight deciding which images I might edit and post, I started looking at photos from 2015. I really shouldn't have. The more I look at the photos from last year, the more I'm let down by this years' event.
It really does seem like there was a lot of budget cuts to the event this year.
So, in my opinion:
The Negative:
> There's no actors anywhere other than main street.
> There's less actors this year on main street (or at least there seems to be)
> I know it's never going to change, but I'll say it again like I did in 2014 and 2015, the dance music IMO doesn't suit the event.
> The event was oversold
> The UTT was oversold
> Fast track was oversold
> The "tour" on the UTT was, well......weak. Think back to last year. A walk through WB Kids with multiple 'scenes' to stop and watch, with the tour then culminating in a ride on the merry go round while being attacked by zombies. This year? Enter a room, hear a story, get ushered out of a room by 3 or 4 actors. Last years tour would have taken around 10+ actors (at a guess) and worked really well. This years' tour took 5, was shorter, and left people going "that's it? oh". I agree with them.
> The behind the scenes rooms in the mazes. These are both a positive and negative. They're good fun, but this year, you've done one, you've done them all. It is fun squirting water at people though.
> No fire show
> The actors in main street were mostly repeats of previous years
> It felt like it was trying to be more "family-friendly". IMO they should make FN 18+ only and make it really scary and gory. Leave Carnivale for the families and Xmas for the kids.
The Positive:
> The terror lounge was bigger and a nicer venue
> The food on offer was great quality and there was plenty to go around
> The mazes - F13, and WW, even though they were recycled mazes they were done really well as usual and still felt new enough to be enjoyed. FDTD, having never seen the show, the maze seemed pretty good. It was a 'fun' maze. C2 - this is the big name as we all know, and it was really well done. Having seen it with the lights on really showed the amount of detail that went in to it and I really enjoyed it.
> The behind the scenes areas of the mazes are fun but repetitive. Trying to scare people is fun and it was also nice to see the commercial set behind FDTD.
> The performers did well to stay in character when approached by guests. I only saw one break character and that was to provide directions to a guest, which IMO would have been rude of them not to, but it was also rude of the guest to approach a performer rather than a staff member.
> Make up was great
Overall:
The tour felt lacking and there was not enough actors in main street. I'll admit there were massive improvements between the 1st and the 15th, but even with the changes for the better, it was still lacking. I just hope that whatever sapped their budget this year (I'm looking at you DD, coaster, expansion plans & WnWS) doesn't have as much of an impact next year and 2017 can be just as kick ass as 2015 was. We'll just pass 2016 off as a glitch in the matrix.
Last year I gave FN 8.5/10.
This year, if I'm being generous I'd give it a 5.8/10. I just couldn't get into it this year which is sad since I'm usually a huge advocate for Fright Nights.
For reference: