Tulleys Shocktober Fest — Local services in Mid Sussex

First time visiting Shocktober fest and i was extremely disappointed. It was absolutely not worth the money or the journey down there. The park itself is good, lots of food and drink places, a few rides, DJs/bands playing, and decent toilets. However what let it down was the poor quality mazes. They were unbelievably bad. And the queue times were a complete joke. We got there early at about 5pm and was let in at about 5:30pm. To our surprise no mazes were open till 7pm, so we were walking around aimlessly for about an hour. The first maze we eventually did was about a 45 minute queue when it finally opened. It was hell-elements, where they put a bag on your head and you walk through. It was pretty crap, the rope you hold onto would stop at every post and so it was hard to continually walk through it because i was struggling to find the rope again. At one point i thought it was finished so i took the bag off and we were all just stood in a bare open field. Once it was actually finished someone just shouted at you to take the bag off. Not scary at all and lasted about 5 mins of that. Luckily we had 3 fast tracks and decided to use one on the next one which was purgatory, the normal queue was over an hour. Even the fast track queue was about 20/30 minutes. Again absolutely rubbish. Lasted no longer then 5 minutes. You walked though rooms that were all the exact same and every actor dressed the exact same with minimal/badly done face paint. Again not scary what so ever. I genuinely couldn’t believe it when we came out i thought is that it?? The rest were all just as crap after this. Chop shop was literally just a walk through of plain white blank walls. Literally nothing to see or look at, just around 7 young kids with chain saws and awful makeup. It was boring and repetitive. Round every corner was the same thing over and over again. Like they ran out of ideas and thought we’ll just put loads of people with chain saws in big metal containers and literally nothing else?? We just walked past them all and i couldn’t wait to get out not because i was scared or thrilled, because i was sick of the noise if anything. The haunted hayride we used a fast track for because the original queue was 100 minutes. Probably the only half decent haunt there was. However, the trailers were so over packed there was no where to sit, i had to sit at the end of the bench in the middle of the trailer. We was all so packed on me and my partner could barely move and i was hanging off the end. The actors could barely moved down the isles. One actor actually elbowed me in the face and he apologised. Another one stood directly on top of my foot. Both accidents of course but they did hurt and could have been avoided by not over packing the trailers. We didn’t get the chance to go round all of the haunts but to be quite honest, i really wasn’t too bothered as i knew they’re probably be a waste of time anyway. I think it’s pretty much impossible to get round them all unless you have fast tracks for every one. Food and drink was of course over priced which was expected. We bought two drinks that came to £20.

We go to Twin Lakes Xtreme scream every year and it is amazing, X100 better then Tulleys. The detail of every maze and actor is insane. Some actors don’t even look human it’s so well done. So much more interactive and interesting with animatronics, props, weird walk ways, story lines, you get split up, put in confined spaces etc. It’s a smaller park but each maze lasts so much longer than any of Tulleys ones. Another good one is hinchingbrooke house. The actors actually grab, touch and chase you.

Overall i think Shocktober Fest is absolutely over hyped. The actors seem like they don’t care and don’t wanna be there (not all but most), talking to eachother when we walked past them. At no point was i scared, shocked, or amazed. I don’t think i jumped once. I definitely would not recommend going if you are thinking about it, unless you don’t go through the haunts. There are many better horror attractions to visit that cost...

This was my first time at Tulleys Shocktober Fest and I was genuinely excited after seeing so many great TikToks about it. Unfortunately I left feeling really underwhelmed and quite disappointed given how expensive the evening was.

After queuing for about 15 minutes to get in, we started with Creepy Cottage which was actually brilliant. It was scary, immersive and a great first maze to set the tone. We only queued about 15 minutes because we went there first and it is on the other side of the park, and the actors were fantastic.

After that things went downhill. We queued around 1 hour and 15 minutes for the witch maze and it just did not deliver. The queue design was flat and boring with no spooky soundtrack or atmosphere building like theme parks usually do, and barely any interaction from actors. Inside it was mostly strobe lights and then an outdoor section that looked cool but was not scary, especially because crowds were being rushed through in big groups, so actors did not really have a chance to do much. It all felt more chaotic than creepy.

We then tried the circus cabaret which was another disappointment. It was in a tiny metal cage so unless you were standing right at the front you could not see anything at all. There were no seats or proper stage setup and everyone ended up clustering around which meant barely anyone could watch properly. Also, it is not a cabaret, just a circus.

By this point we had been there for around two hours and had only managed two attractions. We considered going on the slingshot but it was £20 per person which felt extremely expensive. I was pleasantly surprised that food was not as overpriced as I had expected. We paid £9.50 for a burger and £9.50 for pulled pork fries, which is obviously expensive but to be expected. The dirty fries were delicious, but the burger was completely tasteless. However, soft drinks were £3 which I thought was quite a lot and water was £2.50.

We then queued for over two hours for the tractor ride. The queue was incredibly boring with no atmosphere, no theming and no entertainment at all. Everyone around us looked tired, bored and ready to go home. The tractor ride itself was well designed and creative, but by that point the mood had already dropped. Again, the actors were not scary or creepy at all, it just felt like it was meant to be more of a funny, comedic experience. One of the actors made a joke about Jet2 holidays which was obviously funny, but as I said, I had gone in thinking this was going to be a scary, horror-themed park. There is also no phone service at all throughout the park, and there is no free WiFi, though free WiFi was advertised it was never an option on our phones, which made queuing feel even longer where there was no entertainment or interaction put in place.

Overall it felt like the event did not know whether it was trying to be a creepy immersive horror experience or more of a light hearted Halloween theme night. That confusion really took away from the scare factor. The overcrowding also meant there was very little personal interaction and it never felt immersive. You were always aware that you were at an attraction rather than in a horror world.

It cost three of us around £130 just to get in plus roughly £70 on food and drink, and I really do not feel the experience matched the price. The sets and costumes are clearly made with a lot of effort but the queues, lack of atmosphere, overcrowding and limited actor interaction made it disappointing overall.

Sadly I would not go back which is a real shame because I wanted to love it and clearly so much time has gone into the...

When my brother mentioned that his girlfriend had booked tickets for Shocktober Fest on Sunday 13th October, I was shrewd enough to add my name to the list. And boy am I glad that I did! As an old school Horror fan I knew that this would be right up my street. We arrived in the car park around 5.15pm. There was a small queue for the slightly muddy entrance but the presence of three, attractive, costumed, zombie nurses made the time fly by. Once inside it was like being in another world! Subtle hints to classic Horror films were everywhere. The design of everything from food stalls, stages, attractions and street performers were totally ‘on point’ and there was a relaxed, friendly vibe amongst the visitors. As newbies I would recommend picking up the map leaflet on entrance, this was invaluable to us in planning our evening and, after identifying that the Scare Attractions were highlighted in red, we quickly headed for the nearby Electric Circus. After queuing we were ushered into a holding room before a short monologue set the tone and a creepy clown peered out at us from the doorway into which we were about to enter! Cue carnage! As we hurried our way around the extensive maze, approaching every turn with apprehension as creepy clowns (male and female) and impressive animatronics jumped out of the dark, piling scare upon scare until we reached the salvation of the exit. I’m not gonna lie, even as a seasoned Horror fan, I did endure multiple jump scares. And no more so than in The Chop Shop Garage. A gasoline fuelled, corrugated steel dwelling for feral car mechanics who chased you around its blood splattered walls with chainsaws making you feel like Marilyn Burns in that classic TCM movie scene! As you can imagine, after enduring two attractions, we were starting to get a gist of the set up and, whilst it is a little repetitive, it is no less fun as the variety of homages are diverse - from clowns to chainsaws to prisons to zombies to ghosts to witches - hell, the list is endless. Even to the point of a tractor driven trailer ride through Hayride Route 666. Another favourite of ours. Needless to say we had an immense evening, managing to cram in 7 of the 14 attractions along with a drink in the Reaper bar, a foot long hotdog and a warming Bad Boy Hot chocolate (all reasonably priced and recommended). The only negative was Doomtown, a zombie themed walk through an abandoned church on Romero Drive into a town supposedly inhabited by zombies? Unfortunately, we didn’t get that far! After exiting the church and climbing through a disused minibus, we entered a mock-up of a 70’s disco (I guess?) with dry ice soooo thick that you couldn’t see anything in front of you apart from a wall of white. I persevered with this for a few seconds, waiting for it to disperse and reveal another unexpected horror, but when it didn’t, unease and confusion set in until we were guided back to the exit by a voice from one of the character actors. I understand that in an event this size that things can go wrong but, on this occasion it ruined our enjoyment of an attraction we were especially looking forward to. We could’ve tried to revisit it later in the evening but we simply didn’t have the time. However, not wishing to end on a sour note, I can wholeheartedly say that our evening was a thoroughly enjoyable one and well worth a return visit, if not to catch up on the scare attractions we missed the first time but also to revisit Doomtown - without the excessive dry...