Creepy Caves: Resurgence has won Best Halloween Scare Experience at the 2021 ScareCON Scare Awards last night.
The unexpectedly terrifying attraction at Chessington World of Adventures beat rivals in the category including Toxic Junkyard at Alton Towers, Creek Freak Unchained at Thorpe Park, and Road to Hell Drive Thru.
Reacting to the award on the night via live stream, Entertainments Manager at Chessington, Claire Eglinton said: "That was quite unexpected honestly, at a family theme park". With the rest of the team in the background celebrating, Claire continued: "It's obviously unexpected that we're up there with the greats, so we're very grateful".
ScareCON awards host and founder Michael Bolton said on the night: "It is unbelievable that the scariest experience we did last year was at a family theme park".
Theme parks had a good year at the awards with Alton Towers winning Best Theme Park Event along with Best Set and Design for Toxic Junkyard. Whilst Thorpe Park won Best Original Concept and Design for the scare zones at Fright Nights Fearstival.
With the ongoing coronavirus pandemic affecting the entire industry, the awards recognised all attractions that either found ways of reinventing their scares to make them safe, or who were forced to cancel their plans outright. The awards ceremony itself changed significantly, with it being broadcast live from a television studio for the first time. Interspersing the award ceremony were numerous adverts, trailers and messages from a wide variety of exhibitors in the industry. It was noted at the end that there had been no fee charged for any of the advertisements, as ScareCON's way of trying to further support the industry in an extremely difficult year.
The entire ScareCON Scare Awards broadcast can be viewed on the ScareTOUR YouTube channel.