In groups of 10, Containment challenged you to face 4 of the country’s biggest fears in an escape room style experience. A unique experience which blended a scare maze and an escape room.

Containment was a bold and new idea which hadn’t really been seen before in the UK scare industry. With escape rooms becoming a booming business idea in 2015, the park decided to capitalise on that popularity by introducing their own horror take on one.

Following a pre-show, which said that there was a virus outbreak looming, guests would be thrown into 4 different rooms, each based around a different phobia. Each room had a 5 minute time limit; succeed and you could move onto the next room immediately. Fail, and you would still move onto the next room, but fail the overall experience. When Containment first opened, the four fears were:

-Arithmophobia, the fear of mathematics

-Chronophobia, the fear of time

-Odontophobia, the fear of dentists

-Hemophobia, the fear of blood

The first room did not feature any actors, but the following rooms all featured actors. The actors were there to both aid and scare you, giving clues where needed, but also distracting and scaring you when necessary. The puzzles were, by escape room standards, straightforward but sometimes obtuse or awkward to figure out. However, for a scare experience which would require several groups an hour, they worked and the experience was designed to be operated efficiently and effectively.

In Containment’s first year, the park gave everyone who experienced Containment a wristband afterwards. If the group was successful in all four rooms, guests would be given a green wristbrand that said “Breakout”, whereas those who failed even one room were given a red one saying “Outbreak”. This was in reference to Containment’s virus storyline. Moreover, it was said that if actors saw the red wristband in other mazes, you would be targetted more. This was a great idea in principle, but didn’t fully work out in practice, and the idea was dropped in future years.

Being a long, escape room-style experience, this was an upcharge experience at a time when the park wasn’t charging for attractions. At £10 per person, this was reasonable given the length and personal-side of the experience. Also, as the codes to escape would only change each year, it was not something which had repeat-visit value each season.

Containment was a great experience which kept Fright Nights fresh and different, and is sorely missed!