Scarefest 2012

2012 offered yet another incredible Scarefest at the Resort. It played a crucial role in the marketing of The Smiler whilst unleashing a returning plethora of brand new and old spooks.

Dates: 13th-14th, 19th-31st October

The Flume, The Dung Heap, Squirrel Nutty, Riverbank Eye Spy, Skyride and the Gardens shut at dusk.
Other rides shut at 9pm daily.

Carnival of Screams & The Sanctuary
1pm-3pm – £9.00
3pm-5pm – £11.00
5pm-9pm – £13.00

Thrill Attractions
The Sanctuary
Carnival of Screams
Terror of the Towers
Zombies! Scare Zone
Altonville Motel (Scare Rooms)

Family Attractions
Franklyn’s Freaky Farm
Halloween Characters
Patch’s Trick or Treat Party
Phil and Franklyn’s Ghoul School
Skelvin’s Spooky Storytime
Patch’s Freaky Farm Talks
Trick or Treat Rooms

With the imminent arrival of a brand new world record breaking rollercoaster approaching in 2013, Scarefest was the perfect period of time to begin the anticipation build up for the forthcoming season. Replacing The Boiler House was a brand new maze in the form of The Sanctuary, a hospital facility located inside the Towers that was shut down 50 years ago. Overseen by the mysterious Ministry of Joy, the doors to The Sanctuary were reopened under the careful watch of the chief founding member, Dr Kelman. The aim of The Sanctuary was to find ‘potential’ advocates who would be eligible for correction on the Ministry’s brand new project, which was eventually revealed in January to be The Smiler.

The un-dead rose once again, this time stalking a restricted military zone between the Gardens and Dark Forest. Zombies! Scare Zone remained mainly unchanged from it’s previous debuting incarnation, carrying many of the props over into this year.

The Carnival of Screams rolled in to the Resort once again, this time situating itself opposite the hospitality suite. The familiar horde of chaotic clowns and ringmasters returned to put on a show that guests simply couldn’t forget.

Terror of the Towers – What Lies Within also made a return for it’s 10th consecutive year in the making, but also for the last time as a free maze. The vampires had once again awoken within the ruins and were very hasty in seeking brand new flesh to feast upon if anyone dared follow in the footsteps of two urban explorers, who had mysteriously vanished inside the Towers.

Free admission to Terror of the Towers wasn’t the only element of Scarefest departing this year. Frankyln’s Freaky Farm would be making one final appearance in the Farmyard before relocating to Fountain Square the following year. The usual selection of silly spooks and scares returned alongside the freaky four; Franklyn, Skelvin, Patch and Phil.

Meanwhile up at the hotel end of the resort, the Altonville Motel opened up many vacancies across the scare rooms that lay within. With warnings of an oncoming army of scarecrows, two secretive motel owners and a mysterious sheriff, the Altonville Motel proved to be a booming success to any residents who dared to survive the night!

Throughout Scarefest, many images of a crazed smiley face were appearing all over the Resort, from on the lawns to the floor of the monorail station’s queue lines, and even being projected onto the face of the Towers themselves. Brand new marketing material was cropping up in every direction possible, building up to the arrival of a brand new rollercoaster in the form of The Smiler later the following year.

Burton on Trent 1963 and Gerry’s motor racing career started driving saloon cars. He quickly became a member of the British Racing And Sports Car Club and acted as a Race Driver Liaison for a number of years. His career ran until 1976, a whole 13 years.

Gerry raced under the name “Gerry Taylor” some photographs of his racing career can be found here.

Following on from his racing years in 1976, Gerry started Vulcan Film Productions where he was a producer and Managing Director. This particular television production company produced The FearMakers a television program, and with Rank and Cinelingual in London.

Onto 1984 and Gerry served on the board of Motofit Ltd where he produced and directed events on behalf of the company. In this time, the first ever “CB Radio Show” event was held at Donnington Park whichattracted over 100,000 people. It was so popular the Police had to close Junction 24 of the M1 Motorway. During his time at Motofit he organised the Performance Ford Day which attracted over 60,000 people – the company also manufactured all the insignia for Donnington and Silverstone Circuits until 1989 when Gerry left the company.

2005 found Gerry elected as Chairman for the Equity Actors Union, covering the Midlands. Duties involved arranging meetings and heading a committee of nine members. Gerry’s reign in the Actors Union ran until 2010.

So where now for Gerry? Now a producer at Masquerade Productions dealing with Independent Production companies, and also Owner at Gerry Cannell Productions, a company which he has run since 1976, Gerry is an established voice over artist and has worked on a barrage of projects over the years including: Network Rail, and being the Voice of Jerry Lewis for the Radio 4 show, continuing onto voicing the stage production of Jerry Lewis in theatres all across the United Kingdom.

So why Alton Towers? Well little known to many, in 2011 Gerry could be found playing Father Christmas at the resort’s annual Winter event, so who better to choose for Dr Kelman?

“They shut us down you see, they said I was a failure!” – clearly not in our eyes Gerry.