by Freddie Cardy
More than 30,000 people – the equivalent of five sold-out football matches at Burton Albion’s nearby Pirelli Stadium – will flock to the National Forest Adventure Farm for 14 nights of terrifying fun over October and early November, as Screamfest returns for a 13th year.
The farm’s owners, Ivor Robinson and brother Tom, believe that this year will be bigger and, most importantly, scarier than ever before.
Its latest scare attraction, Hellcatraz, has been two years in the making, a claustrophobic prison designed to accommodate those people too evil for hell.
A total of 17 scare actors will roam the corridors of Hellcatraz, with up to 130 actors spread over six attractions, all determined to make you jump, scream, and occasionally laugh.
These actors are supported by 30 makeup artists, who have a remarkable 20 litres of fake blood at their disposal, and more than 250 individually crafted prosthetics. This is no normal Hallowe’en party.
Screamfest’s reputation has spread from Tatenhill, near Burton, across the country – bringing a sense of pressure for those involved to improve it year-upon-year.
“We don’t leave it the same year after year,” said Ivor. “We use external designers, we’ll all sit down at the start of the season and decide on: ‘First of all, are we going to change anything? What are we taking out, what are we putting in?’ And then we decide what the general direction is we want to go with the scare.
“And that’s when we hand it over to the designer – and he’ll come up with the flow rate through the attraction, how it’s going to work, how we’re going to put enough people through, so everyone has a chance to go on it when they come on a night.
“That’s where their expertise comes in, and they’ll also do all the lighting diagrams for it and the scripts and the music and everything else. The sounds that will be going on in the background and then the tech team come and install everything that makes that work.
“Then the big element is getting the actors trained to work in there, so they get the most out of what we’ve built. They bring it to life, essentially.”
Ivor describes behind the scenes as a “Screamfest family”, and that the tirelessly working actors play a crucial role. Each scare has a ‘show captain’ in order to keep morale high throughout the physically demanding days for the actors, who must know their specific roles in each attraction in order to elicit the maximum amount of fear for the thousands of people who pass by each night.
For Ivor, Tom and family, Screamfest has become imperative to their ‘agri-tourism’ ventures, forming one third of the farm’s annual income. They work with a network of other farms who have diversified their business, meeting to share ideas and help each other.
“Farming’s not an easy way to make a living, but at least there’s potential for this to be a more successful business than a lot of farms,” Ivor said.
“As a farm, we’re relatively small in the grand scheme of things compared to a lot of places. And the economies of scale dictate this. I’ve got family and my brother’s got family, and a farm of this size wouldn’t support that many people. So by doing this, it’s allowed us to get more out of it.”
As well as proving vital income for the farm, Screamfest also supports the local community, bringing in visitors from all over the country and creating job opportunities.
This year, the event will feature live music and dance, fairground rides and a DJ booth, as well as bars and food for punters to enjoy. Students are involved as makeup artists and actors, creating opportunities for those at local colleges.
With most nights selling out in advance, the festival is encouraging people to book tickets early to avoid disappointment. Prices start from £32, including options for fast-track tickets.
All that remains to say is: are you brave enough? For more information, visit www.screamfest.co.uk
