The Welcoming: Be Chosen

The Welcoming saw The Beornen completely takeover the Mutiny Bay Courtyard.

Whispers around Alton village said that the group were angered by people abusing the world’s natural resources and the rapid advance of technology. Every year the secluded group host a festival to celebrate their own interpretation of Halloween – paying homage to the earth and celebrating the crossover between the living world and the dead. Of course it was unknown what part the outsiders would play in this ritual…

Guests would enter the scare maze through the Courtyard entrance on its north-western edge, opposite Heave Ho and the midway stalls. The first part of the maze would take place in an open outdoor area, with guests weaving their way around the villagers’ belongings. The route would take guests past a stage (repurposed by the former The Pirates of Mutiny Bay shows), where fire would shoot from the giant skull centrepiece.

Heading under the Courtyard’s central canopy, guests would then find themselves heading deeper into the village, venturing back outdoors and through a winding pathway with ambient sounds of livestock being heard. The route would then take guests back inside the village’s buildings, where they would encounter a chanting crone.

At this point, guests would have a hood placed over their heads in the original 2017 version of the maze. This was to ensure that the location of the Beornen’s ritual was kept a secret, and meant that guests had to face a short section of the maze blind, with only a guide rope to follow. This hooded section did not return for 2018.

Eventually the hood would be removed and guests would find themselves heading through the final sections of the maze. It was here that the dark practices of The Welcoming ritual would become clear to guests, as they encountered individuals with thorny blind-folds as well as someone burnt beyond all recognition.

Following a corpse-lined path, guests would eventually reach the finale where half-naked sacrifices appeared to be taken over by some unseen forces. Standing atop an elevated platform, a member of the Beornen would condemn guests to their fate to ‘feed the flames’, as fire burst up in front of guests! In 2018, the space no longer used for the hooded section was instead utilised to create a more extensive flame-filled finale.

Guests would then exit from the village and Courtyard, with the figure of the Wicker Man standing before guests upon their exit from the maze.