Celebrities Brave Screamfest as Staffordshire Scream Park Celebrates 15 Years

Celebrities from Love Island, The Traitors and Hollyoaks faced terrifying attractions at Screamfest's 15th anniversary opening, as the Staffordshire Halloween event unveiled its largest line-up yet.

Stars face shocks and scares to celebrate Screamfest’s 15th anniversary as the doors open on the Staffordshire fright night’s largest event yet.

Celebrities from TV favourites Love Island, Hollyoaks and The Traitors travelled to Staffordshire to brave the National Forest Adventure Farm’s Halloween spectacle Screamfest.

Part of the 15th year anniversary for the scream inducing fright night it marked the opening of the New for 2026 horror hospital Cortex 17, one of 7 attractions on site for a record-breaking season.

Love Island duo Olivia and Alex Bowen, who met on series 2 of Love Island UK in 2016 going on to become one of the shows most enduring success stories, were among those braving the opening night.

Alex, who is originally from Wolverhampton, said:

“It is terrifying. Will definitely come back this place is unreal. It’s the best.”

Talking after taking on the park’s most intense scare maze Hellcatraz, Reece Ward, who was in season 3 of the Traitors, said he was definitely more comfortable at the roundtable. He said:

“Honestly such an experience, you come here to be scared and I’m on the edge of my seat no matter where I look...My voice has gone I’ve just been screaming.”

Other stars attending included Love Islanders Reuben Collins and Ethan Ellis, The Traitors’ star Leon Jackman, Paigey Cakey star of the Netflix hit-series Sidemen Outside, Love is Blind’s Jordan Taylor and Married at First Sight’s Adam Nightingale. Soap stars braving the scares also included Waterloo Road’s Liam Scholes and Summer Violet Bird plus Hollyoaks’ Anya Lawrence.

Screamfest, which won the UK Theme Parks silver award for this year’s best scream park, started at the National Forest Adventure Farm in 2011. Growing year on year this year’s 15th anniversary event is the largest yet with 6 scare mazes and trailer tractor paintball experience AREA 52 set in an alien apocalypse.

Ivor Robinson, who runs Screamfest at National Forest Adventure Farm with his brother Tom, said:

“To mark 15 years of Screamfest we wanted to do something a bit different, and our red-carpet opening has definitely started off the season with a bang.

“When we first started Screamfest we could never have imagined we would be here today welcoming over 30,000 guests year on year. It makes all the hard work worthwhile to hear the laughter, screams and thrills each night. This year we have our biggest event yet with new scare maze Cortex 17 spread out across a whopping 440 square metres.

“As the attraction continues to grow we look forward to seeing where the next 15 years will take us.”

Screamfest runs for 14 nights throughout October. The fear-inducing adult-only fright nights is set across the 40-acre farm site and is home to seven terrifying attractions.

Brand new for 2026, the haunting Cortex 17 attraction sees guests volunteer for Project Eidolon, a clinical trial exploring the potential to unlock dormant psychic abilities. Set within a covert 1960s hospital, volunteers are administered Cortex 17 before making their way through the facility, witnessing the wide-ranging side effects of the experiment as they unfold.

Back by popular demand, the corn maze attraction Mutation Damnation returns for its second year alongside Area 52 - which sees visitors paintball battle across 5 acres in a terrifying alien apocalypse tractor trailer ride. And of course, Hellcatraz, famed by fear fans as Screamfest’s “most intense attraction ever” sees guests separated and imprisoned with Hell's worst inmates.

Tickets are available from £34per person*, and from £43per person for access to Screamfest and AREA 52 (paintball experience). For more information and to book tickets visit www.screamfest.co.uk

Screamfest is not recommended for under 16s. Under 16s will not be admitted without a 21+ year responsible adult and must be supervised at all times.

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