FearFest Trip Report: 10/22

[RingMaster]

Hello, all. Here is yet another (VERY LONG) trip report on last night's FearFest events. Enjoy...if you dare.

First things first, came to the park at around 5:30-6:00. I noticed at first that there weren't that many cars in the parking lot (compared to last weekend), so it didn't really bother me much. My first goal was to pay yet another visit to my friends in ECO (Sarah L., Sarah R., Hillary, Willie, Nick); hugs and merriment were exchanged.

Then, I headed for Sleepy Hollow (Rivertown) to see if they were handing out tickets for Headless Hollow. About halfway through cornSTALKERS, I stopped and sat down on one of the hay stacks next to a fog machine running normal. Strange, because the cornSTALKERS music was playing full blast, and that was the only fog machine running at the time. Five minutes into sitting, I ran into Hillary again and we walked back up to the Cage (2nd time). We parted ways and I walked back towards Massacre Manor. Then, I ran into Sarah R. again, and we walked back to the Cage (3rd time, now).

I then headed back to cornSTALKERS again and sat down on the same hay stack as before. Now I knew it was crowded as hordes of people were walking back and forth through the midway, and the fog machine was still running. Two FF managers walked past and saw me, but didn't say anything (one gave a slight chuckle) as they went to repair one of the stands that the scarecrows sit on. I pretty much stayed on the hay stack for the next hour and a half, just sitting there and watching people walk by. This was when my "evil instinct" kicked in when several people mistook me for a scareactor because I would sit completely motionless on the hay stack.

It wasn't long before I started scaring girls my age to death...in plain street clothes. Other bystanders started cracking up when they saw some random guest (mind you, some random black kid) actually getting these teenagers GOOD. What made this truly interesting was that the same two FF managers working on the stand were only 10 feet behind me and heard the screaming. I believe that, after the eighth or ninth group I scared, they started laughing. I also ended up chasing three or four groups through the midway, doing my old zombie walk from COTC last year. I chased one group, in particular, out of cornSTALKERS and up to the floral clock where the line was for Masacre Manor. People in line started laughing when they saw this, and one of the ushers never even said anything.

Finally, at a quarter till 8:00, the REAL monsters showed up in the midway, and did their thing. I was kinda disappointed that they weren't getting people riled up that much, except for one scareactor, who looked almost exactly like me, who used the wagon in front of my hay stack and the crate behind it as trampolines as he jumped into other groups and caused several to fall to the ground. It was classic.

So then I finally left and finally made my way up through Rivertown and towards Headless Hollow. What a scary sight. It wasn't creepers scaring the crowd (I have yet to see ONE actor over here actually scaring people), but the line for HH. It had gone from the train station to Tomb Raider's cave, then snaked BACK UP halfway up the other line. I heard someone yell the wait was two hours, so that was definitely a no-go.

My next idea was to go to Fear Street and see if they were still handing out reservation tickets. So I took a shortcut through cornSTALKERS (I sure do love corn) and up past Massacre Manor's line towards Coney Maul. I soon reached the house that R.L. Stine built, which had an hour-and-a-half line, and they had ran out of reservation tickets early. Darn.

So I finally decided to walk over to PsychoPath; knowing the guys running the maze over there, it was probably going to be a short wait. The line had stretched maybe a little bit past the actual exit to PP, but it was only a 10-minute wait, tops. It was halfway through the wait that the fog (from Sleepy Hollow, no doubt) started to clear up and we saw the real terror-there was one continuous line walking into the maze. Bad idea. I got up to the front and ran into Rachel, the usher for PP. I asked her what was up with the huge line and she said that's what the managers told her to do. Again, bad idea.

20 minutes, and 10 stops through the forest, later, I finally got out of the PsychoPath. And, yet again, they had blocked off the tunnel portion of the maze, which probably would either alieviate the pain or add a whole new problem of the line control. Yet again, bad idea. It was now 9:00 when I left PP, and I was late to meeting up with the Sarahs of ECO for their break. Along the way, the line for Manor had stretched to the main entrance of the Showplace Stage, so I said no way to MM. At Oscar's, I ran into my good buddy, Shep (Andrew Sheppard) from the Maze of Madness, along with the Sarahs, and Hillary, who was just now getting off of break.

I told Sarah L. about the line problem with PsychoPath, and she was just as surprised as I was when I told her. Apparently, they had done the same exact thing last year involving one big line of people walking through PP, which of course didn't work, so they went to having groups of 6-8 people walk through the trail. This year, they stopped doing the groups after Dry Run Night and went back to the one continuous line of people. Apparently, this "disease" has now spread to Headless Hollow, as, last weekend, it was almost another continuous line of people walking through WWC's exit path.

At a quarter to 10:00, after walking with Shep back to the Maze, and after "meeting up" with another one of my usher friends, Christina (read: scared her silly), I headed up Coney Maul and towards the Circus of Horrors. Along the way, I ran into Big Mike (the tall creeper with long hair and the skull on his face, he's the best one) and a terrified group of girls running past me by Adventure Express. It was the first time I had ever seen that many people running from one creeper before. Of course, I then realized they were running away from the Gauntlet, a very small midway in-between the Sling Shot and the Festhaus.

This, besides cornSTALKERS, is what saved FearFest this year, as four creepers and a chainsaw-wielding madmen wreaked havoc with the guests. This was also the first time in which I saw a chainsaw being used in such a large crowd, and he got EXTREMELY close to people with that thing. Every ten seconds, there were two or three groups of people running into or out of the Gauntlet.

Two of the best scares I saw this year was one involving a large group of black folk; one sight of the chainsaw and they went speeding. At first, only one guy ran through the thick fog; pretty soon, two, three, and eventually, eleven, guys and girls ran past with two creepers not far behind them. The second was three girls who got blindsided by the chainsaw man and ended up running into me (mind you they were the hottest chicks I saw last night), so I slid away from them, but they, and the chainsaw, were less than four inches away from me. So the girls almost knocked me down again in their failed attempt to escape as another creeper slid into their path and the girls fell onto the ground, rolled up into a ball and crying liking a baby.

Finally, I left the park at 10:30, but not without getting some take-out from the Int. Street Skyline Chili. As I ordered my two chili cheese fries, one of the scarecrows from cornSTALKERS had managed to walk all the way up here and order a three-way. Another gang of teenagers sitting down started cracking up when the scarecrow came in and started running around the place with his chili and asking for a spoon. At one point, he sat down next to a family of six with two children aged 8 and 9 and began waving at them, just to be friendly. The kids started crying, yet everyone else was plain rolling on the floor, laughing (except for the family). Then, the mother gets all ****ed and starts yelling at the scarecrow and everyone in the store, "That wasn't supposed to be funny!", and "I hope you're happy that you've made my children cry!" Yeah, well, next time, don't bring your eight-year-old kids to an event when you know they're going to get scared. Especially when it spcecifically says FearFest is not recommended for kids under 12.

Long read, long night, good scare.

[CoastersRZ]

Yes, that always amazes me. I got to the park last night a little before 8, and there were people bringing in small children, who couldn`t have been more than six or seven. I`ve seen kids crying walking through Cornstalkers. Why even bring kids on a night like last night when the park was full of people?

[PKIbabe89]

Awsome trip report, Ring Master. The whole story had me glued. Alithought, 2 weekends ago at Fear Fest, I was in line for the headless hollow and it took about a half an hour (since it was a friday) and alittle kid in line freaked out when it was his turn and refused to go through the maze.

[hauntguy]

"The Gauntlet"... is this a new scarezone? Any pictures or videos of this? -Hauntguy

[flightoffear1996]

All it is like 10 secodns of a small pathway.

[RingMaster]

Really, there is no name for this small path....What it is is several metal cubes with army camoflague wrapped around them, with metal plates and blood-covered tarps in-between. There's usually three or four creepers running around this little strip, and last night had a guy from Maze of Madness wielding a chainsaw. I'm not sure if he stays over there or not on other nights. I'll try next weekend to get some footage of The Gauntlet and wrap up on all of the SHRIEKshow footage.

[PKIbabe89]

That little area was there last weekend. I saw one dude with a chainsaw. It was a pretty cool short walk through though

[harvesterofyoursorrow]

I'm not sure if you realized, the actors dont have the chains on the saws. That would be crazy! (relates to IJ TV commercial)

[RingMaster]

I'm not sure if you realized, the actors dont have the chains on the saws. That would be crazy! (relates to IJ TV commercial)

^ They do have the chains on the saws for PsychoPath, I think. Would make a lot of sense not to have chains when you're running around and THROUGH large crowds.

[pkiboy]

I did see a guy sliding on his knees. I thought that was cool.

[PKIbabe89]

One of the sliders came up to people that were in line for Maze of madness. It was pretty sweet!

[screamingnight]

Good bye forum I wont be back for a while.

[Matt]

I saw or rather heard th guy with the chainsaw in the Gauntlet on Friday the 21st. I was headed to the arcade after riding Top Gun twice and saw a scareactor in the little path and said to myself screw that. I didnt do any Fear Fest attractios that day just rides. I have never been to a frightening attraction at any park, I'm too scared

[PKIbabe89]

awwww

[Dan]

I'm not sure if you realized, the actors dont have the chains on the saws. That would be crazy! (relates to IJ TV commercial)

^ They do have the chains on the saws for PsychoPath, I think. Would make a lot of sense not to have chains when you're running around and THROUGH large crowds.

Nope, they could touch you with the chainsaws and you wouldn't feel a thing.

[DeLorean Rider]

I'm not sure if you realized, the actors dont have the chains on the saws. That would be crazy! (relates to IJ TV commercial)

^ They do have the chains on the saws for PsychoPath, I think. Would make a lot of sense not to have chains when you're running around and THROUGH large crowds.

Nope, they could touch you with the chainsaws and you wouldn't feel a thing.

Do you realize how dangerous that would be to have the chains?? Running around the woods in the mud with a chainsaw with a chain on it. Never, there is probably some sort of law against it. I think its cool that the sliders knee pads have little pieces of metal and such in them so when the slide on a dry surface, it will create small sparks. I had a good friend that was a slider last year who showed me his pads. He doesnt work here anymore though.