The Alton Towers Dungeon has launched for the 2019 season with the promise ‘miss it and you’ll be gutted’. The second gate attraction takes guests on a journey through Staffordshire’s darkest moments and promises to be scorchingly scary and fun for families who dare to enter.
Experience designer Holovis, who worked with Merlin on the creation of last year’s new flagship attraction Wicker Man, has once again worked with the brand to design and install the AV, lighting, audio, SFX and some ghoulish projection mapping.
The experience is located on the former Charlie and the Chocolate Factory site and uses elements such as the (formally chocolate) river with freshly themed vessels as a transportation method for guests through the eight scenes that fully immerse them into the dark and gory history.
Holovis brings the scenes to life using multisensory immersion techniques that brings a sense of discomfort and unease to the guests about what is happening and who might be around them.
Peter Cliff, creative director at Holovis explains: “Some of the highlights for me are the zonal audio, where during a blackout scene voices and whispers surround the guests and give the impression that live actors are right behind them, breathing down their necks. Audio is something that often isn’t used to its full capabilities within projects so it’s great to experience it being used here as a key storytelling metric.
“Another striking feature is the talking heads where we’ve intricately projection mapped onto the three dimensional theming to make it look like the head is really talking. Details like this make the experience stand out in the minds of guests, whilst the technology remains invisible and frictionless.”
