Leaderboard

My partner and I went to Fright Nights last night and thankfully the rain stayed away for the majority of the night. I'll start with the overall positives and negatives and then go into detail for each maze. POSITIVES Overall I thought this year was pretty good, the last couple years have been a bit hit and miss (particularly with some of the mazes), but this year there were some great sets within the mazes, some really good scares and overall it was well managed by the park. The increase in security was great to see. With more and more twelves coming to the event, somethings had started to get out of control. Last year there was a definite presence of weed smoking in the queues and line jumpers. Last night there was non of that, security was all over it. And the increased security at the park entrance with metal detectors and thorough bag checking too. And great to see traffic control at the start and end of the night. It was good they controlled people when the event began and slowly moved everyone together so there was no running, pushing, etc and security would stop anyone that would try to do so. To finally have 5 mazes was awesome and I can assure you, it is possible to do all of them with plenty of time to spare for other things (will go into more detail later). It also seemed like they had more scare actors on the streets too. At the start of the event they said there were over 230 staff members on every night this year too. And finally, there was more variety of food offerings too. Opening food trucks like this western grill is great, despite it not seeming to be overly popular. But the food was really good. NEGATIVES The mazes, were overall good, the increase in animatronics, while can add a cool element in some instances, but other times were so ridged it didn't appear scary at all. And if the timing wasn't right, it was pointless. And the mannequins. In Doll Haus they were great because of the set design and the way they were dressed up. In some cases you couldn't tell what was and wasn't real. But in zombie land and IT (if I remember correctly) they were just placed and didn't add anything to the story. While the live music had some great performers, it didn't really fit and match the event. I would much rather they had a live arena show or use the money for more scare actors and just play music instead. No one ever really stood and watched it and most times I passed the fountain stage, there was no one there (most likely poor timing on my part). Now that it has been a couple years since they've done one, I think its time they explore the arena shows once again. Or have smaller stage shows (like they have done before), but advertise the performance times. The precincts themselves had some great costume design and the un-offical precinct around IT with the clowns was great. As to were the zombies in Dead West. But there was a lack of theming. A part from the usual facades around WWF, some more props that they could interact with would be great. The Doll Haus setup under SE was really good and the actor was awesome. So many people wanted photos with him and the girl in the alleyway next to Roxy. People seem to want these prop setups because they create great photo OPs, so I definitely think they should dress Main Street, etc to match the precinct. And finally the opening show. The performers are great... well done to them. But it's getting a bit boring. The talented guitarist coming out doing his thing and then everyone released. I much preferred the truck or the gate keeper (if I remember correctly) from a couple years ago. It added real horror to the night and setup the releasing of the actors. MAZES We managed to do all 5 mazes in 2.5 hours with no fast tracks. If you want to get them all done and have time to do other things. Definitely try to get to the front left corner to get to IT first. This queue was nearing two hours within 10 minutes of the event starting. Then head to Doll Haus (it was surprising how popular this maze was, but for good reason), then Zombieland, House of Kain/Leatherface. From here there may be some spoilers. IT - 7.5/10 For years many people have been asking for this maze. Was it worth the wait... yes... did I hope for more... yes. The story was there, they featured some of the iconic moments, some really good set design and costumes. It was probably too reliant on animatronics though. The two actors at the end in Pennywise costume were terrifying, but some awesome. I wish another one or two of these throughout the maze would have been good (especially in the first quarter of the maze because there was a couple of long corridors that needed something. It was great they played with the twisted reality of this franchise, but I feel like it could have been taken further. Doll Haus - 9/10 Movie World have become really good at doing their own original mazes. And honestly I wouldn't mind if one year they just had all mazes as originals. There is no limit to it, they create the story and do the sets how they want to. This maze had some awesome set design and scares. As mentioned, at times it was difficult to tell who was and wasn't real. The use of sounds and lights made some scenes quite intense too. I'm someone who gets scared quite easily, but my partner doesn't. However even she got some really good scares and also thought this was the standout maze of the night. Zombieland - 5/10 Honestly, a bit disappointing. This actually had one of the shorter queues of the night, but was also one of the shortest mazes too (whether it was or not and it came down to how quickly we moved through it, I'm not entirely sure). They could have just made this a zombie maze and not had any IP link with it and it probably would have been much lower expectations. There was nothing that really stood out to me that made it link to the franchise other than zombies. There were plenty of actors in here and they did have some good jump scares, but I couldn't really see a story. I was really hoping for some actors to be dressed like the characters, but unfortunately not. Leatherface - 7/10 It was pretty much the same as last year, but still had some great scares. There were plenty of Leatherface characters throughout the maze and gave some really good. The sound was quite out and obviously pre-recorded at times (mainly with the chainsaw), but otherwise still an enjoyable maze. House of Kain - 8/10 Like Doll Haus this is a great maze, that has a really good story line, set design and actors. The laughing receptionist at the beginning adds a sense of fun, but as soon as you enter the first room you realise how twisted the hotel is. I felt like there were some lighting issues with the maze last year, but this year there didn't seem to be any problems with that. You could fully appreciate the detailing and the use of flashing lights and sounds add to the atmosphere really well. OVERVIEW As mentioned, the precincts had some great costumes, but didn't really feel like anything special. But I found the unofficial precincts for the clowns and Doll Haus to be really good... creepy and fun. Overall, I definitely think is a stronger year when compared to some of the previous events. The last Fright Nights that I loved was in 2015. That was the first year where they had precincts (and the awesome and well detailed Zombieland precinct) and still two of the top mazes they've ever done, Wolf Creek and Evil Within. I thought 4 out of the 5 mazes were really good, but Zombieland just didn't have anything special and didn't really match with the IP as I thought. Well done MW with the event as always, especially to the scare actors and staff, but I still left the event hoping for more. Overall I give this years event 8/10

All the Aquaman posters and signage has now been replaced. Where it states ‘Aquaman: The Exhibit’ now just says WB Studio Showcase. And all the posters for the new films inside the exhibit have been put up. Asked a staff member and they believe it will be opening in the first half of November

Solo trip to AW, today. Got a free coffee and a nice chat with Ross. Inferno is back up and running. Apparently, it got a new control panel in the refurb. It was doing shots and what appeared to be extended drops. The Aussie Wildlife Experience has yet to reopen.

The night started with pyro (spark) and basic lighting out the front of Dreamworld. The queuing was a mess. The event starts at 6 and people were being let in at 6. There is a reason fright nights and other events let people in early prior to event start. The side entry was open with 6 queue lines leading into only 2 entry gates which was an overflowing and long mess. I ended up waiting over 20 minutes to get in. The decorating around the park were fine with hay and pumpkin everywhere you looked. The “orange” fountain was a failure, only appearing orange from a certain angle because of lighting. The event didn’t seem to have a cohesive “halloween” theme but rather a festive theme. There were laser lights and coloured lights which didn’t seem to follow the “spooky” trend of the night. Despite being a family halloween event, it failed to be spooky enough. At times thought I was at a park after dark event. The globe used for Winterfest had a halloween backdrop being used. Once again, this doesn’t really fit a spooky theme and didn’t make sense. There were three pumpkins that has projected faces that moved which was a cool concept. The monster was open and didn’t appear too busy. Ride queues were next to nothing, getting on to Tower of Terror and Buzzsaw on the first cycle. Sky Voyager was also only moderately busy. The highlight of the night was the train experience. The bawd brothers were looking for gold and got blown up. This was a new and unique show to the night and was presented well enough. Once you boarded the train, a “crazy scientist” character was looking for the “Mississippi Monster.’ You pass various footprints and pumpkins before being dropped at Billabong Station. There, you see a lighting display with a sea monster animatronic in the water. Cool to see a narrative based experience with physical props. Only complaint is that there was not enough room because only two carriages were attached. They also seem to undersell tickets as the park was not busy at all. It’s great having the park not cluttered and ride queues being short, but they defiantly could have sold more tickets than they did. Finally, the candy stations had the longest queues in the park. You could receive a brochure at guest services that would be hole-punched when you visited a station. Overall, good start to the event, some minor and major changes needed to make the event better next year. Also, I will upload videos of the experience tomorrow.

The IT Maze was absolutely top notch from my point of view. The sets, props, sound track, costumes, animatronics. It looked straight out of the movie. There were so many times when I didn't know if I was looking at an animatronic or an actor. So well done

Arkham is now down for maintenance

Today a large hole digger arrived on this site and has started earth works. So this could possibly be in preparation for the foundations of a new slide tower

How about turning the dirty Murrusippi River at DW into a lazy river. DW history of dumb management decisions means its a small chance 😅

Maybe they are planning to construct a new slide next to the wave pool. Most likely not, but a man can dream

This fanfic sure is interesting. Whether we're talking pie in the sky dreams or fiscally realistic strategies, there's two things the park needs to do: 1) Build a big f*cking coaster. 2) Change the narrative. In regards to the first one - there's just no way Dreamworld exists without a rival to rival Rivals. Find me a park that's bounced back from a poor start or a tragedy without a roller-coaster and i'll eat my hat. Just look at Wipeout's closure - it effectively wiped off hundreds of millions of dollars from the company's share value, and yet a replacement Zamperla clone is 8 million in change to install. The lesson here? Never, ever question the power of a good thrill ride and what it does for theme park brands. It doesn't matter if you're a regional park like Six Flags Great Adventure or Alton Towers, or a major player like Hong Kong Disneyland, if you don't build it they won't come. Movie World proved that the crowd exists and people will pay for it. No roller-coaster, no Dreamworld. In regards to the second point - I reckon the park will probably need new owners with fresh faces for the simple fact that as @joz mentioned earlier you need to draw that line in the sand between old and new with the public in order to get them to trust the brand again. Whatever the plan is, the park needs to get real honest, real humble and real transparent to win people back.