As reported on TowersTimes News, the Resort have received five ScareCON Scar Award nominations, four of which are for Altonville Mine Tours: Uncover the Legend of the Skin Snatchers.

This is a reflection of the continued hard work the Resort have been putting into improving the Scarefest offering over the past couple of years. However, I am somewhat disappointed that House of Monsters was not nominated in any category, as for me that was the stand out addition to the line-up last year.

I must agree, Lakey!

The Scarefest line up was particularly strong last year and it would have been nice for House of Monsters to receive some recognition. This was a well executed attraction with great theming and storyline. I thoroughly enjoyed it and look forward to its return this year.

Hopefully, we will see Terror receive a complete makeover this year, with Sub Species following the year after. If they can keep the line up on a rolling refresh, setting high standards, then I can see them winning the Halloween battle for many years to come.

I always look forward to Halloween on the channels! Theme park worldwide are always fab, theme park planet could do something decent potentially. Insidethetowers I've heard are planning something big.

We think the reason House of Monsters didn't get shortlisted is because the panel were probably thinking about "main scare mazes". It certainly was a highlight of the 2016 line up, and we are very pleased to see it return in 2017

The first time I visited Alton during Scarefest was in 2016, so this year will have a lot to live up to since the bar was set so high last year!

I can't see it on their website but has the 2017 dates been announced yet?

The dates are displayed here

https://www.altontowers.com/activities/events/

7th, 8th, 14th, 15th, 20th - 31st October

I know it's abit early but do you think we will see any links or hints towards sw8 at scarefest this year ?

I doubt there will be, as this is most likely a family coaster. House of Monsters would likely be the only place we would see any hints, but to me The Sanctuary worked because the connection wasn't obvious, so doing it whilst everyone is looking for connections would go against that.

SW8 may be a family coaster, but everything so far points to it being themed to the Wicker Man which suggests a dark theme, so I for one wouldn't be surprised if we see some sort of related maze at this year's Scarefest. After all, the Resort's marketing strategy for The Smiler was very successful and they are trying to mimic this for future projects.

The Smiler was an adult attraction though so it makes sense to have a maze designed for adults, having an adult maze for a family attraction doesn't make much sense. 13 has a dark theme however when they added a scare experience for a one off it was catered toward the attractions target market and only lasted one year because of it. That being said the Wickerman theme doesn't have to be dark, it could be an aspect of a theme focused on magic and some kind of voodoo.

You also have to take into account that there is allegedly no new mazes planned for this year according to the creative team who stated so at Scarefest last year, with rumours pointing toward an alteration to Terror of The Towers, so for me personally I'm not expecting anything like The Sanctuary - small hints similar to Ghost Train and THE BIG TOP possibly, but not a whole maze. Just my opinion on it though!

I never got to experience The Sanctuary, so I don't know how much it actually fitted and connected with The Smiler, but I personally don't think new rides should be as publically linked via scare mazes. I loved the subtle hints that were given in DBGT, as Owen mentioned, so it would be great if they could do that again this year with regards to SW8. As its a family coaster I think they should use House of Monsters to subtly hint.

That being said, I also hope they don't use Scarefest to advertise or hint at the ride as Scarefest is my favourite time for the park and i would rather they put the effort into bringing us amazing scare mazes and attractions instead of ruining them to hint at a ride.

I rate The Sanctuary very highly as it tied in so well with The Smiler! It certainly makes the ride extra special for me, especially when elements of it still exist to this day on the Marmaliser, lift hill screens and LED displays.

I doubt much will change this year, apart from ToTT which I hope returns with a new story. Throwing a spanner into the works, could the theme be tied in with Alton Mine Tours? If so, Alton have done it again. I doubt it, but it does make me wonder if Alton will try and repeat one of the biggest marketing successes Alton have ever had for SW8.

With regards to the hints in mazes, like Thorpe, then I really hope not! I found the DBGT connection nearly non existent and poor.

I don't necessarily think The Sanctuary contributed greatly to the overall success of The Smiler, more so just the marketing campaign as a whole which was very extensive, I don't personally have any non-enthusiast friends who realise there is a connection. I think Dom means that the subtle hints are better because they are quite 'poor' (although they were far smarter at implementing them in THE BIG TOP in my opinion), as this way it doesn't necessarily intrude too heavily on the maze but is still offer a nice little Easter egg for keen enthusiasts!

Some of the signage linked to Derren Brown's parrots, there was an eye on the Wheel of Misfortune (linking to the eye for the WC16 teaser) and there was a poster in THE BIG TOP that was also found on the WC16 teaser website!

Back to Scarefest though!

I always get excited for scarefest news in my opinion it is the best time for the park. Planning to make it to next years one for my 2018 trip

How do you think House of Monsters will be improved this year (if at all) and what changes would you like to see made?

Personally I think that Venoms room (the torture chamber) needs to go as last year it was little more than filler.
Wolfboys room also needs a major rewrite as it just falls flat, and he doesn't even complete the transformation!
Gorgel's green house was one of the best scenes last year but the ending really let it down, they should make the plants animatronic so they can start thrashing around violently as everyone leaves the room,
another issue with this room what that the leg tickers in the back row would sometimes get immovably jammed in the bench in front creating a quite the deadly trip hazard when trying to hurriedly leave the room while being shouted at and sprayed with water!
The room also needs redesigning as there was a lot of unused space in that room and the bits that were used were far too cramped.

I think the storyline needs some form of antagonist, something that poses a threat directly to the audience or to otherwise be feared by the audience, as last year the maze lacked scare factor (even for a kids maze) and an antagonist would perfectly fill that gap without becoming too scary (similar to the witches from Shreks Adventure in London)
The story could also do with getting its priority's straight because last year they tried to make the vlogger out to be an unreasonable bigot who hated the monsters just because they are different but its hard not side with him when said monsters include Venom for example who kidnaps and tortures people regularly for fun with no attempts made to stop her!

One thing I would like to see is a multi route maze for the final (basically End Games for kids) as last year unless you were in the very front, it just completely fell flat.
They could at least replace one of the many identical pictures in that section with a drop panel!

One thing they need to do is find a way to make it feel more halloweenish because surely that's point of a kids maze, to feel halloweenish its lack of scares doesn't help in the regard but even just dotting a few Poundland Halloween decorations around like the monsters are celebrating halloween would do wonders for it!
Lastly I think it just generally needs to be scarier or rather needs to have more scares in it as there was some scenes where nothing scary happened at all and its at that point it stops feeling like a Halloween attraction, I'm not saying to traumatize people, just...at least try!

Although it would be good to see some changes, I kind of doubt we will, the attraction was a runaway success last year and I think they'll probably take a 'not broke don't fix it' stance.
I wouldn't really agree that it needs any more peril or fear written into the storyline, but then I am a wuss .
Personally I liked the Wolfboy section, and thought the Venom section was good, when we went through the kids certainly seemed to find it fun.

Also -

they could at least replace one of the many identical pictures in that section with a drop panel!

I'm almost 100% certain at least one of those WAS a drop panel, as it frightened the life out of me...

I have to agree with Michelle. I very much doubt we'll see any changes to House of Monsters, and personally I don't think it needs it. It has the ideal balance of fun and frights and works really well for its target market. If it was to be any scarier it would be too much for the young children it's targeting.

Michelle is right, there definitely was a drop panel in the final section.