On Friday the 13th of September, PSG joined forces with Scream Camp to experience the opening night of Farmageddon. With the weather clear, the harvest moon out, we were looking forward to a night of scares and fun! As soon as we entered the building we were met with the sounds of live music, laughter and the occasional shriek as the numerous live actors that roamed the scream park engaged with the guests. The atmosphere had a fun and lively feel to it with the music giving it an ‘underground ring come mad max’ energy. After chilling out near the smoking area for a while to soak in the ambiance we decided to tackle Meat Locker first.
If there’s one thing that Farmageddon nail every time it’s the queue line entertainment, and Meat Locker wasn’t any different. Encased in a chain link fence that is split into two winding queues, we were accosted with the sounds from the maze as well as two roaming actors specific to Meat Locker, not sure on their actual names, so I’ll go with Mr Pig and Baby Pig (who with her small size was definitely giving off the creepy vibes). Both actors were great in their characterisation and certainly kept us from being bored in the queue line.
As we were shooed into the start of the maze, the intro started which had each of us standing against the walls waiting for what was to come next. We were greeted with an actor who did very well to make his scares personal as we were driven out of the room. The maze itself had great interaction with us, each character having their own way of pushing the story as we were herded through the maze. There wasn’t a room without an actor in it, and we all got a decent amount of scares wherever in the group we were.
At the end of the maze we thought it was all over, ha ha… ha. At the end of the alley that we had to leave through stood a shadowy figure with a chainsaw, and as if I had a target on me he would not let me leave that alley without making sure I got a good close up of his chainsaw.
As we headed towards our second maze of the night, we had a dance off with a Grandad in a motorised armchair, and he had no sense of decency as he ogled the provocative dancers on the stage! He kept this up all night as we passed him occasionally and he kept smiles on everybody’s faces all night.
Next up was Contagion, which along with the beautiful theming had a great view of the street performers from the queue including a few interactions. As we were given our specs and pushed through a seemingly never-ending airbag, we got a glimpse of the waiting room where we could try out our glasses and see the mesmerising effect it created. We got split up in the maze so it was just me and one other person for the entire run, and boy what a run it was. Timing was on point, the interactions with the rooms the actors were in was lovely, and along with the use of the effects of the glasses, some of the actors could hide in plain sight and pop out without us noticing a thing. Calum (Director of Scream Camp), was too busy being mesmerised by the floor and stamping around through the effects to notice the actors taking advantage of that and converging on him, making him jump and laugh. Overall, a very trippy but fun filled experience with lots of scares and interactions. A lot of different levels and textures made the set itself a great distraction for the actors to use to their advantage, which they fully utilised. I would say it was my favourite maze of the night.
We then took a break between mazes, greeting a few friends and trading off experiences, every now and then being interrupted either by a clown with very good special awareness with a jack in the box, a demon who talked about his friend the ferret who was once a man or the witch who gladly told our futures with her crystal ball. I can’t stress enough how impressive the street performers were the entire night, keeping up the energy in the downtime between mazes to keep the high of the night going.
Finally we were ready for the last maze, The Beast of Terror. By this time of night, the queue line was literally non-existent, the dancers still giving it all they had though as we walked through the entrance. Now even though Contagion was my favourite overall maze of the night, I completely fell in love with the sets from The Beast of Terror. Each room is incredible to look at, with the story developing as you walk through. The use of both actors and animatronics were well placed, the actors clearly knowing how to use their space well. The sounds and smells added to the mix to create an intoxicating feeling. My favourite room being the swamp like area, where we had to take a moment to stop and take in the smells of the water and plants that made it an incredibly realistic take on a marsh, though safe to say, the actor in that room soon managed to usher us on with a sudden scare.
We finished off the night having a drink at the bar and chatting away about the entire night, and even though we had been there for coming on 3 and a half hours, we were still giddy with the nights entertainment.
All in all, I was glad that I made the in the end 3.5 hour journey (thank you M6) because there was never a dull moment, never a time when I thought, isn’t there more? They’ve truly upped their game this year, and even though we didn’t get to experience the Zombie Paintball (which again was fantastic the year before), we would highly recommend finding the time to visit this remote attraction, you will not leave disappointed.
A massive thank you to the staff, actors and performers who made the night fantastic!
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