As Fright Fest’s 30th anniversary comes to an end at Six Flags: Great Adventure, it’s best to wonder: was this year’s Fright Fest worth it?
But what is Fright Fest, and what’s it like? For those who don’t know, Fright Fest is an annual event presented by Six Flags and Snickers. The amusement park is filled with decorations for Halloween, and after the clock strikes 5:30, all hell breaks loose. You’ll be able to see clowns, zombies, demons, and many other people dressed up as monsters trying to give you a nice scare. But other than that, you can still go on roller coasters and enter their exclusive haunted mazes for an extra $30.The question is: Was it worth it? Let’s discuss.
Before 5:30, you can go through a normal Six Flags experience. You can eat, ride, shop; all the stuff you’d expect in a normal Six Flags day. If you’re not a fan of the terror and thrill of the event, then you will be allowed to leave. However, you’ll be greeted by a parade of monsters once the time is 5:30. Fog and strobing lights will fill the amusement park, and scare actors will scatter around the place and give the heebie-jeebies to anyone in their way, whether it is a child, a teenager, or an adult. There are many areas where you are vulnerable to being scared. These areas are Clown Town, Demon District, The Bloody Fountain, and the Curse of Blackbeard’s Bounty. Go through any of those areas, and expect a frightening encounter!
There are also a few scare-free zones you can stay at, restaurants that will close at a later time than normal, and all rides will still be available during Fright Fest. Now, on to the fun part of the event! Six Flags offers many thrilling and spine-tingling mazes. For example, Big Top Terror, Fears, The Manor, Aftermath, Bloodshed, and Reflections of the Dead are a few mazes that have been at Six Flags for a few years now. However, there are two new mazes this year, The Conjuring, and in celebration of the new movie’s release, Saw X. Six Flags also offers many shows during the day and can be an excellent way to cool off from all the fear in the park. But, with all these fun and exciting things to do during Fright Fest, there are also a few cons.
To begin with, one of the reasons why Fright Fest is starting to become not so frightful anymore is the shortage of scare actors. This is nothing new. Every year there has been some sort of shortage of scare actors and nobody knows why. The only two reasons people can assume that there are no actors is because either the job must be very physically demanding or nobody is interested in dressing up and scaring people anymore.
Secondly, you probably would have guessed it: the lines. The lines during Fright Fest are EXTREMELY LONG. When I went to Six Flags: Great Adventure to check out this year’s Fright Fest with a friend and my siblings, we were quite shocked to see how long the lines were. There was a lot of cutting, lines overflowing, and everything just felt… messy. For those who do not have the Six Flags app, it is highly suggested that you install it on your phone so that you can know where rides/haunted mazes are and how long you need to wait to ride any roller coaster you want. The only issue is that the app does NOT tell you how long the lines are for each haunted maze, and you can only guess by going to the attraction yourself. As a result, I was confused about how long the lines were and ended up only going on one haunted maze, which was Big Top Terror, and waiting a whole hour and a half to go through a 4-minute scare experience. That’s no fun. But, this leads me to my final issue: the FLASH Pass.
The FLASH Pass gives you a watch that allows you to reserve a spot in the FLASH pass line so that you can wait in a shorter line and wait a shorter period to go to any attraction you’d like. There are three types of FLASH passes: regular, gold, and platinum. With the pass, you can reserve a spot to skip the line while also technically waiting. For example, say you booked a reservation for The Jersey Devil, and let’s say the wait time for people without the pass is 50 minutes. Essentially, people with the regular FLASH pass would reserve a spot in the FLASH pass line and would wait 50 minutes before entering the line. For those who bought the gold version, they would wait 25 minutes, and for those who bought the platinum version, they would wait only 5 minutes before entering the line. As for the exclusive haunted mazes, all you need is to show that you bought the FLASH pass by showing your FLASH pass watch. Although this sounds incredible to purchase, the prices are very high. According to the Six Flags Great Adventure website, the regular FLASH pass is $90, the gold one is $110, and the platinum version is $200. If you add the ticket to enter the amusement park, the ticket to do the haunted mazes, your food, and merchandise (if you’re interested in buying), the costs add up quick! Considering that I had four people, including myself, during my time at Fright Fest, that’s a whole lot of money!
In conclusion, what do I think about this year’s Fright Fest? I think it was a good effort, but there has to be an improvement with the scare actors and tremendous lines. I don’t mean to crush anyone’s dreams, but unless you’re willing to pay a lot of money for Fright Fest, it’s just not worth it to go and only enter 3 to 5 attractions. Fright Fest has done an amazing job with decorating the whole amusement park, however. But before you go on your computer or phone and tap/click that purchase ticket button, make sure you know what you’ll be getting yourself into.