12 November 2023
A hugely horrific and interactive horror attraction returns in the abandoned theme park for Halloween 2023. Scare City Experience which in sponsored by Swizzles returns as a popular Halloween attraction for 2023 after a successful run last year, with a long trail filled with terrifying monsters and horrifying entertainment. All of this is located within the abandoned theme park of Camelot, a truly scary destination on its own accord. Live actors, special effects and a mixture of indoor & outdoor trails make up Scare City, with it being a night out you won’t forget for Halloween.
Advertised as being bigger, better & bloodier than 2022, they have a lot to showcase over the experience. Located at Camelot Theme Park site, you can find it in the North West of the UK in a place called Chorley. Easily found by using a Satnav and driving, you will take on a this attraction of several sections which takes around 45 minutes to 2 hours, depending on queues and the time it takes you to get around at your own pace.
Tickets are from £25 per person and this is for a standard entry, meaning you must queue for each section throughout the trail. On busier nights, there can be short waits in between certain zones and on quieter nights, there may be no waits at all. Alternatively, you can buy a fastrack / VIP ticket that allows you to skip any waits on your night.
They run on selected dates throughout the end of September, October and ends in early November. With plenty of time to experience Scare City, we took our first ever visit to this haunt in late October to see what they had to offer.
Our Thoughts from this event…
With this being our first visit and hearing others give rave reviews about this attraction, we had to make sure it was on our list for 2023. On arrival, we headed into Scare City and entered into an amusement / funfair style area which had a few rides such as a ghost train and bumper cars, plus there was a bar and food truck too. We decided to head straight through into the maze area, which first you join a line to sign a waiver. You can only enter this line at the time of your ticket. The standard queue line looked quite lengthy however, we had VIP so we were able to skip straight past this and into the waiver document signing area.
Once we signed our life away and had our tickets scanned to be given a wristband, we joined another line to actually enter into the start of the trail. Scare City is a linear experience, meaning you will endure each section back to back until you enter a safe zone, which was also the halfway point. Before we officially entered, we were given a brief health and safety speech, as well as the rules we already read on the waiver and then we were free to set off on our own pace.
Whilst we came across many sections, below we cover some of our favourite sections and moments along our journey!
One of the first memorable moments along our journey was the carnival / clown area. This area had some pretty terrifying creatures walking around, but also had a setup of fun side stalls which resembled funfair games but with a Halloween twist. They even had a great illusion here with a bit of comedy which was certainly different to see compared to your average walk through attraction.
The next area which really stood out for us was the old Camelot Castle. This hosted a maze which had a tonne of really cool scares and lighting effects. As you stepped inside, you had strobes and flashing lights going off everywhere. They even had some scares on a rope / pulley system which allowed them to get bags to drop from the ceiling super close to you. With the space they used, it allowed them to get really close to you and create a lot of close encounter scares. As it’s using an original building from the Camelot Theme Park, it felt so authentic and had such a creepy feel inside & out. This was certainly a shock to enter inside and see the space used.
Before reaching the half way point, our first half had a lot to reflect on. As it had so many great sections and authentic theming, with an amazing lighting package. We felt it could of been a Christmas trail but for Halloween with how cool the lights were and you could see them from so far away. The coverage of it was so large and that was so cool to see. Whilst some sections lacked actors & scares, the areas that had it with the special effects, really made it spectacular.
The half way point was a safe zone in some ways. Here you can get some food & drink and was more of the entertainment point from the long trail. It took around 30-45 minutes in the first section and we had fastrack, so we could see already it takes some time to complete Scare City. We stopped in the half way zone to see some of the entertainment on the stage, listening to the music and get a drink. It was a little wet during our visit and cold, which was a shame as they didn’t really have any areas to keep you warm or dry. They did have a fire act and some roaming characters which were causing chaos. We loved seeing them and they were very entertaining and it seems everybody thought the same. After around 30 minutes, we started to head forward to the second half of the trail.
The second half was equally as good as the first half in terms of lighting & theming. We found ourselves in sections which had chainsaws and people jumping out of the bushes and darkness left right & centre. We even entered into a smoke filled container which just didn’t seem to end. It was so filled with smoke and so long, people were going around in circles and we couldn’t see a thing. This was terrifying for many as it was tricky to get out but it provided some comical aspect to hearing the screams of people as actors came out of nowhere. Whilst we’ve done many smoke filled rooms, nothing compared to this. The ending scene for Scare City was something known as Red Light, Green Light, based off the Netflix hit Squid Games. When the lights were red, you had to stop or you would be swarmed by the monsters and armed soldiers. Only on green did you have a chance to escape and get closer to the exit. This was a great photo point too!
At the end of the your long experience, you can purchase a photo and get some Scare City merchandise, plus get a free goody bag of sweets sponsored by Swizzels. You then enter back into the funfair zone where you can get another drink, some food or maybe treat yourself to a ride or 2.
Theming – 90%
Storyline – 60%
Screams – 50%
Laughs – 65%
Actors – 75%
Scare City was super impressive. For a scare event, it was certainly visually impressive with a great range of lighting and making use of the abandoned theme park. This gives it such a creepy feel but with the lighting and other effects, makes it so pretty at the same time. We weren’t sure on what to expect but for our first time, we loved it. Whilst it wasn’t the scariest Halloween attraction we have experienced, the theming throughout was impressive. It included lots of special effects & illusions which you rarely see elsewhere and had a mixture of jump scares and clever interactive moments. Whilst we could certainly see some areas of improvement in terms of the scare level and batching sometimes large numbers, we understand it can be hard in this free flow attraction of length. Whilst we had VIP tickets meaning we didn’t have to wait at any stage, we would have thought if we had standard it would have been quite annoying to have the queueing sections which then break up the experience as many times as it did.
A huge thank you to the team at Scare City for inviting us up to experience the attraction this year. They provided us with two VIP tickets and whilst you can see photos & videos, anybody was allowed to do so as long as you didn’t use a light. All comments, thoughts and rating have not been influenced by the gifted tickets.
The event is sure to be back bigger & better in 2024 and we recommend you keep an eye on them to see what new creative concepts they come up with. Make sure you follow Scare City Experience on socials for the latest information and if you want a little more information and insight into what happens during your night, then watch our TikTok!
Attractions 65%
Entertainment 80%
Atmosphere 85%
value for money 70%
uniqueness 95%
@thrillnation 🎃 @Scare City Experience 📍 Camelot Theme Park Dare you explore this abandoned theme park after dark!? #camelot #scarecity #scarecitymcr #abandoned #urbanexploring #halloween #horror #october #scareactor #chorley #manchester #lancashire ♬ Tension - Treefingers
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