Carnival

Carnival is one of the sides at this event, which has a lot going on from midday onwards. With a rather large team of performers, they each provide entertainment across the day, whether its dancing, singing, miming or fortune telling, they have it all covered. 

Within the Carnival area, they have a handful of mini tents which are like mini shows / interaction points. These include a Fortune Teller’s Tent where you can get your future told and a Magician’s Tent to see a few close up magic tricks from the Magician himself! These were both super fun to have a more of a personal experience with the actors without a huge crowd. We managed to get a palm reading experience which was very accurate and funny, as well as seeing a number of magic tricks, whilst simple they were also made hilarious by the team.

That’s not all within the Carnival area. You have 3 family shows providing funky summer beats, singing, dancing and other great entertainment. 

The Ring Leader’s Show is on 3 times a day and starts off the entertainment for the day too. Introducing all of the characters you’ll find at the event, from the Ring Leader himself, through to the mimes, a balloon artist who can rap, The Flossers who are a singing trio, to the rejected acts of the Carnival who now reside in the Junkyard! It included some acting, comedy, singing, rapping and dancing. The show had it all and was very enjoyable. Lasting around 15 minutes, it felt like a proper show and it worked with the event. 

Next up would be The Flossers Singing Trio, which host three sweet ladies who love everything sweet. Whilst having their own bakery at the event, they can also sing! They provided hit after hit of songs that linked to everything sweet, like Sugar Sugar and Candyman. Very clever, very entertaining and another perfect family show for the event. 

Last up would be our favourite being the Mime Dance Troupe. This is a non verbal show given that they are mimes, but they provided some great dancing to current hit songs. With a number of different styles and songs, it was more than enjoyable, so much so we watched it twice! One of the best shows we’ve seen at Thorpe Park for a long while.

The Junkyard area also had plenty of food and drink offering. With additional trucks and stalls selling Mac ‘n’ cheese, nachos, candy floss, popcorn, beer, wine, corn dogs and lots more. Again no Merlin Annual Pass discount but they had plenty on offering for the event which was great to see. 

The main centre piece of Junkyard was Trailers: Breakout at Bozo’s. Trailers was a brand new maze for the Fright Night event in 2021 and was a firm favourite with guests. So they have brought a more family friendly version for the Carnival event, where the maze has been taken over by clowns! 

The maze is aimed at daredevils who wish to enter the dark side of the Carnival, but with a hilarious twist. Expect to laugh, jump and scream all in equal measure as you go through a summer horror maze. It is a additional paid experience costing £6 per person, or £4.80 per person if you have a Merlin Annual Pass or stayed in the hotel. 

Trailers was a fun twist and nice to have as an added experience to this summer event. Our experience through the maze was there was more laughs than scares, with many funny additions added in by the team. We felt the maze lacked some actors during our run through but the team inside really did everything to make you jump and laugh, which was odd for a horror maze for sure. There was very minimal changes within, but the few areas that had changes were very cool to see and made it more Bozo’s than the Trailers experience you would of known at Fright Nights. With no or little queue at select parts of the day, it is great to have this around in the summer! 

On top of all this amazing additional Carnival fun, you still had all the rides and usual offering from the resort. Which we love that you can always avoid this if you didn’t want to come for this side, but equally its great to have as an extra distraction to your day! 

Overall, Carnival is one of the best events at Thorpe Park with its jam packed lineup. You could easily lose over half your day watching all the shows and meeting the characters, plus with the addition of the summer maze, it adds such a unique twist to the event. With so many excellently executed elements to Carnival, it is not an event to miss this summer!

We were invited by Thorpe Park Resort to experience the event as they supplied 2x VIP wristbands which gave us free entry, fastrack, food & drink and entry into Trailers. This did not influence our thoughts and opinions above but are very thankful to the team for allowing us to join on opening weekend! 

Head down to Thorpe Park before the event ends and let us know your thoughts over on our socials. Can’t make it? Then check out our TikTok of the event with more to come too!