Prepare to be gassed, confined and left screaming for a way out of Experiment 10’s deadly grasp. You’ll be tortured, split up, left alone and have to journey through a chilling and disturbing government test lab where the latest project has taken a sinister twist.

Experiment 10 opened in 2011, celebrating the 10th year of Fright Nights. To truly understand the importance of Experiment 10, it is worth remembering what Fright Nights was beforehand.

Fright Nights had primarily been formed of mazes which were one route. Guests were always batched in groups which had to go around in a conga line, with hands on shoulders. They were very similar in design, although they had very different styles and themes.

Experiment 10 ripped up the book. Experiment 10 removed the idea of a conga line, and split people up, including locking people in isolation chambers.

Located in the Arena, Experiment 10 was the first maze to take place in shipping containers at Thorpe, located across seven different ones pieced together.

Grouped in 10s, the pre-show featured a scientist / government employee explain Experiment 10: a government experiment that has gone wrong. We were to tour the facility, following the instructions of all employees, and be cautious of any sinister twists.

After this, the group was moved into a decontamination chamber. The group was split in half, forced to line up on either side of a container by an actor in a full hazmat suit. An intense strobe sequence begun, with the container filling with dense smoke, stopping guests from being able to see. 

As the smoke begun to clear, guests were then directed in two different directions. Each person was then locked in an individual chamber, no bigger than a cupboard, again by another hazmat suit actor. The length of time people were locked in these chambers would depend on how long the queue was – the shorter the queue, the longer people could be locked in for.

The cupboard would be unlocked from the other side, again by a hazmat suit actor. As each chamber was unlocked one at a time, it was possible that you could complete the rest of the maze alone or in a very small group. Depending on the side you went through, you would either navigate a small corridor or climb through a small tunnel (another first for the park).

From here, the rest of the maze was a single route. This featured a squeeze cushion (a narrow pathway between inflated air bags), and various hospital scenes. In the maze’s first year, the ending of the maze was less defined. However, in its second year, the ending featured a video showing a surgery of a ‘patient’ (on of the people who were part of Experiment 10), before an actor appeared from nowhere with a scroll saw to chase people out.

The maze became a huge success for the park, even if it was on the short side. Not only was it completely different for the park, it was new and unusual for the scare industry in the UK. Experiment 10 redefined what the scare industry could do in this country, and showed that Fright Nights was a big player in this industry!

The shipping containers were repurposed into My Bloody Valentine for 2013. Despite the success of the isolation cupboards in Experiment 10, the park did not want to copy the formula for My Bloody Valentine.