Fright Nights 2024

[Brad2912]

9 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Jaggs Journeys has posted photos of a new 'Horror Encounters' set up in main street. Might not be a new maze, but it's something different, no?

Admittedly i havent seen Jaggs photos, but my understanding is they are just static sets for a character photo. If i had not gone last year, then sure thats something that would add interest to attending the event, but for me personally, a couple of photos ops is not enough to warrant a repeat visit with no new mazes on board. I understand it is clearly a financial decision, but i think it was a poor one to not at least have ONE new maze. Make that the hero maze and have the other 4 as repeats, then you are spiking interest again. 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

As i've said before, my understanding is they're spending on in-park experiences instead of mazes this year and honestly it's been lacking a bit. Mazes make up around 30 minutes of your FN experience (if you ignore the queue times) so for an event that runs for multiple hours, there should be more to it than smoke and red lights everywhere. 

I'm painting very broad strokes and I know it's more involved than that, but they're trying something new with the event and time will tell whether it pays off. either way, other parts of the event will benefit from the concept and that will potentially last into the future whether the 'trial' works or not.

[New display name]

1 hour ago, Brad2912 said:

Admittedly i havent seen Jaggs photos, but my understanding is they are just static sets for a character photo. If i had not gone last year, then sure thats something that would add interest to attending the event, but for me personally, a couple of photos ops is not enough to warrant a repeat visit with no new mazes on board. I understand it is clearly a financial decision, but i think it was a poor one to not at least have ONE new maze. Make that the hero maze and have the other 4 as repeats, then you are spiking interest again. 

People attend FN for the mazes.  To divert spending from the mazes is suicidal.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Which is ok too - they've been coasting their success, jacking prices while delivering less across the board for some time and i've been screaming for people to vote with their wallets, and yet people still turn out in droves to feed at the trough. 

Finally, some fans are saying "i won't go this year because they haven't invested in the right stuff" and this might be the wakeup call that they need.

I do think the park's marketing team have probably woefully under-marketed the new additions though. So it's a big double whammy, but ultimately it might be the turning point for them to realise people won't just queue up for the same crap...

[themagician]

1 hour ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

ultimately it might be the turning point for them to realise people won't just queue up for the same crap...

Hopefully they have the same realisation for Carnivale and Spooky Nights.

White Christmas is probably their only consistent sell out event now and the major refresh a couple years ago would’ve definitely helped with that.

[Vidgamer]

I went last night so thought I would pop up a bit of a review of positives and negatives of my thoughts for anyone interested. Small spoilers ahead regarding the Horror Encounters.

The event began at 6:00pm with an introduction by Beetlejuice, he came up on stage, introduced the event and then it went into about a 3-4 minute musical performance, after this Beetlejuice came back and 'released' the horde and then the event began. We had fast pass for the mazes so went straight to try and get on a maze without using the fast pass so we could do a maze without using the entitlement.

Positives
+ The mazes themselves haven't had any real changes, except all the preshows are gone (the VIP rooms, the Conjuring). This did speed things up and added another 'room' to the Maze. There was considerably more actors in the mazes than last year

+ They have added a DJ to the maze precinct at the back which builds a much better atmosphere. 

+ Beetlejuice pretty much stayed out the whole night in main street for photos. If you wanted a photo, you got one

+ I really enjoyed the entertainment. There is good pyrotechnics, The Wrath was great as always, the calibre of the entertainment just felt better this year. It does make main street feel like a 'concert vibe', which I really liked

+ The way they group people in mazes this year is much much much better. Previously you were grouped in 10 or so and this meant you almost always missed a scare. This time they ran people through generally as a group (or 2 groups if it was 2s) so you often only had about 4/5 in your group. You get a lot more scares, people move through mazes quicker and it's much more immersive. The improvement in the way you experience the mazes cannot be overstated, it is much much better. 

+ The staff were great. I can find Movieworld staff a little 'barky' but I did not find this last night.  

Negatives
- Fast pass continues to be oversold. We still waited 25 minutes for DCeased, 30 for Conjuring and 20 for Death Row even with fast pass
- DCeased had more actors but is still just a 'poor' maze, it's not overly thrilling, which was a shame because I thought the time could have been used to improve the maze
- There is considerably less scare actors in the precincts now (i predict maybe even half?!). There are many more actors in the mazes, but the precincts themselves would now only have about 7/8 in each area. 
- Hypercoaster was running 1 train (!?!)

The 'new' this year is the horror encounters. There are four horror encounters and they are setup in Main St. They are The Exorcist, Conjuring, The Nun and IT. You line up for each of these separate and they don't have a fast pass option for these. The lines rarely exceeded 15 minutes. The staff essentially take a small video of you 'encountering' these characters. If you want a photo you can pay a $25 'candid' photo charge (although we have a candid photo card so just used that). They were a bit of a mixed bag but I see what they are trying to do there.

The Conjuring: The crooked man comes out and greets you and then goes back into the door. This was a great encounter as you saw the crooked man and he looks great.

The Nun: You stand in front of a wall and the Nun essentially appears behind you.

IT: You stand in front of a wall and Penny Wise appears behind you, although he did 'reach out' a bit

The Exorcist: The best one by far. They give you a cross and you basically perform an 'exorcist' for 10 seconds or so and they capture  the video. This was very very very clever and looked amazing in person, genuinely 'movie quality'.

My whole group loved the encounters. The ones where you could see the character (rather than wait until you had left and had to watch the video) were the best ones. I think these are a great addition, simple, effective and sunk up some of the crowd. As they were in main street you could hear and watch the Music while you waited as well.

So, in summary. I really liked the event. I was quite disappointed when I heard the mazes were the same but the quality of the entertainment, the addition of the horror encounters and a better way to experience the mazes had me genuinely impressed. I don't like that there was less scare actors and I still wish there was more 'new', but if this year's event is about improving quality then I would call it a success.

Side Note
You get some good views of Wizard of Oz and the Oz Precinct, it looks nearly complete and Emerald City looks great.

[Levi]

^ i agree, the event definitely improved in quality which explains no new mazes, however i hope next weekend there is more actors especially on main street and the doomsday area. i hope they keep the improvements they made for this year while spending the budget on 5 new mazes next year, even though the ones they had were good (CirCurse was upgraded quite a bit with more actors and smaller groups going through), they were predictable as they’ve been there for years. the encounters also were a great addition.

[Park Addict 93]

35 minutes ago, Vidgamer said:

This time they ran people through generally as a group (or 2 groups if it was 2s) so you often only had about 4/5 in your group. You get a lot more scares, people move through mazes quicker and it's much more immersive. The improvement in the way you experience the mazes cannot be overstated, it is much much better. 

This was greatly appreciated, and makes a huge difference. In addition to the smaller groups I even witnessed a maze leader telling a grouper not to push people through too fast to avoid groups merging.

39 minutes ago, Vidgamer said:

There is considerably less scare actors in the precincts now (i predict maybe even half?!). There are many more actors in the mazes, but the precincts themselves would now only have about 7/8 in each area. 

This was very noticeable, and honestly I would rather some of the couple of extras in mazes in spaces where they are not concealed be moved to the zones.

Worth noting to is the additional theming/photo ops placed around the park.

I was skeptical when I heard they were stepping up entertainment based on the shows listed. But they absolutely have, the opening and closing have been fully redone and “Hellfire” isn’t just pyro for a few mins and features the dancers too.

Opening and closing features pyro, dancers and the band all shows run approximately 10mins.

Apart from new mazes the only thing really missing this year in my opinion was a large arena show. I hope next year features predominantly new mazes and a big arena show. 

[themagician]

2 hours ago, Vidgamer said:

I don't like that there was less scare actors

It seems they struggle to get the right balance because for a few years a lot of us on here have been seeing there aren’t enough actors in the mazes, but a good amount in the precincts. And then a few years before that it was the other way round (which seems to be the case again this year). Around 2016 and prior years they  almost always had a great balance of actors in mazes and around the park. 

[New display name]

First opening night, in the history of FN, opening night wasn't a sell out.

Says volumes on what people want.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

On 06/10/2024 at 1:20 PM, New display name said:

First opening night, in the history of FN, opening night wasn't a sell out.

Says volumes on what people want.

On the contrary, it sounds like a lot of people judged it based on what they heard, and assumed it wasn't going to be a good event, but everyone who has gone so far (based on the reviews above) has had a lot of positive things to say. While the mazes haven't changed, it sounds like they've made the experiences better through operations. Meanwhile the non-maze experiences sound like a big plus too. 

[New display name]

There is no on the contrary, with what I said.

Less people went because MW went cheap on new mazes.   

[STRAWS]

10 minutes ago, New display name said:

There is no on the contrary, with what I said.

Less people went because MW went cheap on new mazes.   

Correction MW Went cheap with the same mazes.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

1 hour ago, New display name said:

There is no on the contrary, with what I said.

Less people went because MW went cheap on new mazes.   

Less people went because people assumed that the same IPs in the mazes meant it was going to be the same event. Based on the reviews above, they made an incorrect assumption.

[New display name]

You're making the assumption people who decided not to go, thought the entire night was going to be the same.

MW advertised BJ and the horror encounters.

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

2 hours ago, New display name said:

You're making the assumption people who decided not to go, thought the entire night was going to be the same.

Jesus would you pick a lane?

On 02/10/2024 at 6:06 PM, New display name said:

People attend FN for the mazes.  

As for advertising

2 hours ago, New display name said:

MW advertised BJ and the horror encounters.

I called this out before the event started

On 03/10/2024 at 8:26 AM, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

I do think the park's marketing team have probably woefully under-marketed the new additions though. So it's a big double whammy, but ultimately it might be the turning point for them to realise people won't just queue up for the same crap...

 

[New display name]

10 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

Jesus would you pick a lane?

Jesus, hand your license in, if you think I'm changing lanes.

12 minutes ago, DaptoFunlandGuy said:

As for advertising

I called this out before the event started

I had no problem with MW's advertising and I knew what MW was selling.  @Vidgamer @Levi @Park Addict 93all knew MW went cheap on adding new mazes.

We get it ,your're standing up for an event you don't attend yourself.  Makes no f^&king sense. 🙄

 

[themagician]

Tonight Oct 11 has sold out

[STRAWS]

9 minutes ago, themagician said:

Tonight Oct 11 has sold out

Do you reckon it is actully sold out or they just want to say it is to cover how poor numbers have been so far.

[New display name]

Have the numbers been poor?

[STRAWS]

36 minutes ago, New display name said:

Have the numbers been poor?

Well the opening night wasnt a sellout so you tell me?.

[New display name]

Maybe MW had 5000 tickets to sell and only sold 4999.  Is 1 less ticket poor numbers?

[STRAWS]

33 minutes ago, New display name said:

Maybe MW had 5000 tickets to sell and only sold 4999.  Is 1 less ticket poor numbers?

Acording to BGH I belive so 😮.

Edited October 11 by STRAWS

[TV15]

Does anyone know what the ticket cap is that MW and SW sell for these events? 

[DaptoFunlandGuy]

Just got a text advertising fright night tickets selling out for this weekend.

Just checked online and you can still buy GA tickets for all 5 remaining dates

It blows my mind that only a few years ago we used to pay that price for an annual pass with fright nights (and other events) included. I can't imagine buying a season pass either - imagine logging on and buying a season pass for $499 today - which is actually more expensive than buying 5 individual tickets to the remaining 5 events!

I'm a little late to the upgrade options, but just having a look and the fast track add-on for mazes (+$130) and the maze+rides fast track (+$190) are still available too. The only other upgrades are food or midway games, so no premium experience offered either. 

By all accounts the event has still been well received by the punters, and it sounds like a good experience for most folk who went there - but I really hope they're seeing this "we didn't sell out" metric and realising their missteps...