RingMaster

At least it would give them an excuse to have what would equate to be a near exact clone of MIB: Alien Attack at Uni Orlando. Also it'd be a chance to counter Midway Mania at California Adventure as a family shoot-em-up attraction. Doubt it would be possible considering the headaches just trying to make a Ghostbusters 3 happen even before the passing of Harold Ramis.

Tell that to some of the enthusiasts furiously spamming Facebook comments about how the belts will slash capacity times and diminish airtime. Speaking of which: My anger towards this is....forget it. Not even gonna go there.

In the olden days of FearFest, CarnEvil (then Circus of Horrors 3D) used to reside in the right half of Festhaus where Panda Express sits now. Of course, this was also back when there wasn't a show or a stage in Festhaus so the show control board was used for the maze. As it stands, I much rather prefer a maze to not be under the same roof of a still operational eatery.

It's less of the fact that they have Harry Potter "stuff" and more of the fact that that "stuff" is some pretty groundbreaking technology being used to deliver a one-of-a-kind experience unlike anything anyone has ever seen before. From what I understand, it's taking and mixing in elements of Forbidden Journey , Revenge of the Mummy , Transformers 3D, Busch Gardens' Verbo lten, and even a gag from Buzz Lightyear's Astro Blasters. But in all honesty, and even I forgot about it almost completely, Gringotts might be overshadowed by the other new attraction Universal is building for the new Harry Potter expansion - The Hogwarts Express. A simple thematic concept (a train going from London to the Scottish countryside where Hogwarts lies), with its own set of technical achievements (actual carriage interiors and windows to look out of), and logistical nightmares (the train has to go through the backstage areas between the two parks).

If they manage to do half of what they say they're going to do inside Gringott's Wizarding Bank, then Universal's upcoming Escape From Gringott's dark ride is poised to take top honor this year like Forbidden Journey did in 2010.

In terms of the monsters getting to their mazes, particularly the two in Planet Snoopy, there's not really an easy way for them to reach their particular maze without walking in view of park guests during the "transition" phase. That's just one of the caveats of not being able to shut the park down after Howl-o-Palooza ends to get the park ready for Haunt to begin. There also was a strict rule in place about not interacting with guests on your way to your positions, not even making eye contact. As for street performing monsters, I think the big thing is that they decided to start Haunt earlier in recent years at 6:30. While it's only a half-hour difference from previous openings (@ 7), it's also a half-hour GAP between two totally different events. I don't have children of my own, but I understand the major concern of having your child exposed to the themes that Haunt entails before the event even begins. Some enjoy it, others don't, and they shouldn't be forced into something they don't want to do. And also because then the parents start taking their frustration out on the monsters, some of whom go out of their way to avoid confrontation, because their child is frightened. Oh, and don't think this is only an issue at Kings Island; plenty of people have brought their toddlers and infants to standalone haunted houses with strollers.

If you download the Education Days packet from the Kings Island site, you can zoom in all you want. In other news, I was wondering when they'd remove The Box from the map; seemed confusing to have it on there if its only purpose is a Haunt attraction. The tent-thing I assume to be a makeshift pavilion/shade structure that most likely won't have any ties to Banshee thematically, even if the base does resemble that of a Celtic circle.

Oh, just wait until all the 13-year-old boys start cracking jokes about riding a female coaster come Opening Day.

I actually can't wait to see the final product of "The Circle" now, although I'm willing to bet money people are going to go into conniptions once they find something's been left out of the loop. Or is it, IN the loop? Always get those two tangled.

Given the recent trend that's been occurring with haunts over the past few years, I'd expect to see an Edgar Allen Poe haunt pop in before a Shakespearean one. Between the literal (Universal's Nevermore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1G7F9L04n9s) and more abstract (Knott's Forevermore: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=24q3Y67U_5s) interpretations, it would seem to be a quite unique haunt in Kings Island's lineup alongside ones like Board 2 Death, Holiday Horror, and Wolf Pack.

You're underestimating the amount of people that are going to be in Action Zone this upcoming season with the first new ride built in that area since 2003.

Where did you hear that at? Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I547 using Tapatalk That's been the rumor for years. On the other hand, why would it? It's still very unique and very popular. It's had a lot of staying power. I'd go as far as saying that a retheme might actually be a bad idea. Why, because all the prepubescent boys will be upset they can't ogle scantily-clad vampire dancers even though they can go watch Hot Blooded? We have Delta Delta Die to appease that "crowd" now. EDIT: If they merged the "sex appeal" of Club Blood with the brutality and intensity of Slaughterhouse, then it'd be a truly unique haunt. As it stands, the Club has no scares to back up the "sex appeal" in an event that's supposed to be SCARY.

I feel as if someone guessed that it would be relocated a while back, but I can't seem to remember who it was... Yeah, I cannot for the life of me remember who it was...

I used to have the same mindset as you (except for Club Blood) before I started going through other haunted houses outside Kings Island. If what you said is true about basing decisions off the general public at the Haunt, then almost every haunted house in the nation would be bankrupt as they change the layout of their attractions year in and year out to keep their customers coming back year after year, and some customers complain that it should have stayed the same. But I find it quite hypocritical that, while you ignore the reasons why some of us "enthusiast fanboys" want to see an event we love become even greater than it is and instead assume we don't find Haunt "scary", you're defending a maze for the sole reason that it has "attractive women in skimpy clothing."

From the perspective of a "monster", it's a double-edged sword when it comes to scaring people: always targeting the easily scared means you're alienating the rest of the group, but you know you'll get a good reaction, whereas attempting to startle those with a "straight face" means you have a 50/50 chance of either getting a positive or negative reaction, at worst the scare failing completely and you being chastised for it from the group. Maze monsters, for the most part, have a somewhat easier time with this because the groups come to them every 45 seconds. They pop out from behind a curtain or a door or a window, scare the group, and that's it. They never see that group again. If they messed up or somehow got the wrong part of the group, tough luck; the next monster can pick up the slack (unless you're the last scare of the maze). Street monsters don't have that luxury of waiting and resetting scares, ESPECIALLY during an event that takes place at an amusement park. Having worked the streets of both Kings Island's Haunt and most recently The Dent Schoolhouse, I can comfortably say that street monsters have it the hardest when it comes to scaring people. Unlike being in a maze where the people that come through are, 99% of the time, the ones who ACTUALLY want to walk through a haunted house, there are thousands outside the houses that may NOT want to partake in the festivities (like a certain group of enthusiasts that only go for night rides on roller coasters, not mentioning any names) and accost monsters for somehow ruining their night. Amidst all the chaos that is trying to entertain what could be 7,000+ people in an area like Coney Mall, some take to being full-on entertainers, interacting and conversing with guests while in character, compared to simply just running around and popping in and out of groups, even though that works just as well. I think the point is that not everyone is going to have the same reaction to a scare as most would expect/hope. Some think that going after the girls is just a rookie move or a fallback scare. I beg to differ; most people that don't scare easily have a blast watching other people get scared, and that's the most important part of the experience. It's to have fun, whether you're watching someone running for their life or actually running for YOUR life.

The event, as a whole, shows potential, but it's plagued by poor design and management choices that keep it from being "the most immersive horror experience around" it markets itself to be (granted, the idea of "immersion" is immediately lost when you realize you can't drastically change the surrounding environment of an amusement park midway to fit the theme of, say, a dilapidated graveyard). I think the event has gotten too big for them to adequately manage well as resources are spread way too thin over too many mazes; some look professionally well-done while others look like a third-rate backyard haunt. Size-wise compared to other park haunts, Universal is gearing up for its 24th annual Halloween Horror Nights and has only maxed out at 8 houses; meanwhile, Knott's Berry Farm has had their Haunt around for now 42 years and has 10. Kings Island's Haunt/Fest is just now reaching its 15th year of operation (technically 8th as they still refuse to acknowledge their FearFest past) and they've already gotten 11 mazes. If they downsized to, say, five or six big mazes as a part of a major overhaul of the event and worked to up the quality from there, then it'd be a bigger critical success.

I'd bet on it being relocated if it can't stay in Stunt Crew Grill, assuming Chicken Shack is its replacement. It's too popular of an attraction with both the general and hardcore Haunt audiences to get the axe, although I'd suggest they give it a major overhaul should a relocation be in the cards, much like the last several Knott's gave to their own Slaughterhouse maze.

Chicken Shack? Throw in a Krusty Burger and I'll be all set!

How a single lawsuit was not filed during the inaugural season of Firehawk is beyond me. Even with the awnings installed, heat exhaustion was a major problem in the summer of '07 while waiting in line for the 'Hawk. The fans weren't installed until halfway into the summer season (thankfully, Diamondback had its fans installed from Day One), and ride operators had to put water coolers in the queue line for guests to use.

Perfect example: http://www.foxnews.com/travel/2013/04/29/top-4-dinosaur-theme-parks/ That's one of the top four news media outlets in the nation with online readers in the millions misspelling a name while promoting a recent attraction. In other news, I'm still hoping for "Batwing" chicken wings as a menu item this upcoming season.

People should also take a trip down Kings Island Drive to see the sheer size of the attraction from beyond the parking lot. At this point, every completed inversion can be seen front and center from quite a distance, even the Batwing.

The course? Half the cars were removed, but the course? Terp, who likes to ask questions If I am correct, which I believe I am, the CarnEvil attraction was once the PT course. I could be wrong, and communications on my part, on the course and the cars, but that is what I knew prior to the topic. CarnEvil resides in the former Enchanted Theater immediately next door to Boo Boo's Blasters, and behind The Great Pumpkin Coaster. The course of PT remained exactly the same even during the theme change to Haunted Castle/Boo Hill. What changed was that the Enchanted Voyage originally took residence of both locations to which Paramount split into two separate properties; the left side became an Omnimover, the right a small indoor theater. 1) I didn't actually ride PT until its last year of operation, but I wasn't particularly scared riding it. I was 13 at the time and wouldn't get majorly into haunted houses for another two years. I liked it, however Tomb Raider basically stomped it into the ground in terms of the overall experience and theme (Islands of Adventure had spoiled me). 2) I'd go so far as to say they ought to make the attraction larger by using the Enchanted Theater space and get rid of CarnEvil. They might, realistically-speaking, add the technology from the upcoming Guardian attraction into Boo Boo's (see 4 for my opinion). 3) I unfortunately missed out on most of the new effects because I went in the middle of the season, especially the skull projection effect. That said, heck yeah I'd ride it more if everything worked. To be honest, though, I always ride it at least once every time I'm there, and sometimes I don't even use the guns and just sit and watch. 4) I'd have to actually ride Guardian before I made an actual decision on whether or not I'd want to see it come to KI. Right now, with the basic renderings on their site, it looks worse than what Halloween Productions does with their dark rides (the group behind Garfield's Nightmare at Kennywood and also The Darkness haunted house in St. Louis). If there are any external set pieces that pepper the ride, I'll be fine. But if it's literally just a bunch of screens and no thematic transitions between them, then it's a waste of $10 million. 5) No. The frustrating part is that Busch Gardens Williamsburg has a Spiderman clone with the same technology, which throws a monkey wrench into the whole "seasonal parks can't pull off Universal/Disney-style theming" mantra. Even the simplest carny ride at the Magic Kingdom is intricately themed and detailed. The closest the park has come to even scratching the surface of immerse thematic rides are Flight of Fear, Tomb Raider, and (to a point) Stunt Track.

Diamondback's announcement had Entertainment folk dressed in Western garb and old-timey spaghetti music, though. Also, model coaster on display.

I don't believe the line will be nearly as long this time around. Diamondback was the first big-time ride Kings Island received since Son of Beast. Nine long years between "blockbuster" attractions (no Paramount pun intended!). The collective sense that Kings Island was finally installing a people-moving headline attraction after years of mostly low-capacity installs. It was also (and still is) the tallest and fastest coaster Kings Island has installed. I really don't think that the importance of Diamondback's height can be overstated as far as the buzz it created on its opening day. Diamondback checked a ton of the "what Kings Island really needs" boxes and re-established Kings Island as a destination park. The other thing to consider is that the weather on Diamondback's opening day was nearly perfect. It was a bit cool early in the morning but the sun was out in full measure. If we have weather similar to Diamondback's opening day it's possible that we get a similar crowd, but to me Diamondback's opening day was the perfect storm. The best thing about Banshee is that it's a B&M. Opening day lines will be what they will be, but it's infinitely more important to have a coaster that is reliable and has high throughput ALL the time. It's going to be so nice to have another re-rideable coaster that has fast-moving lines! In terms of enthusiasm amongst those who check roller coasters instead of academic courses off their list of credits, people have been clamoring for an inverted coaster to stake its claim on the Island for Kings for the better part of two decades. If the collective train of thought involving a new coaster install wasn't, "Hey, when do you suppose we'll get a ride that takes us 200 feet in the air and then sends us through more humps than a parade of camels in a Bollywood dance number?", then it might have instead been, "Hey, when do you suppose we'll get a ride that takes us 200 feet in the air and then sends us through said Bollywood camelback humps, but this time with our legs dangling freely and precariously above the ground?" I wasn't there in person for the Banshee announcement, but I was in attendance for the Diamondback announcement, and I can comfortably say there were more people anxiously awaiting and even cheering on Banshee than they were for DB. Granted, Rattlesnake came about at a time when the park hadn't even thought of using the rapidly rising social media empire as a means to get hold of the younger generation, and even then their newly created Facebook page wasn't without its kinks (outdated snack nuts and extinct reptilian monstrosities be darned according to the young/old "thrill seekers"), so I think Banshee has the upper hand in the marketing wars. I just think Banshee may have an even longer line than what The Serpentine Sidewinder had its opening day. At least now Sonny's old extended queue might get some action again with the eventual overflow.

I wouldn't classify a stadium for a football team that hasn't seen the second round of the playoffs since the fall of the Berlin Wall to be an awesome or profitable improvement.