Traumatica is an award winning scare event running from late September until early November on the site of Europa Park in Germany. After visiting Traumatica on Halloween night of 2024 I share my review and everything you need to know if you’re planning a trip out to Traumatica next year!
Traumatica contains 7 scare mazes, an ice show (which takes place in Europa Park’s Ice venue), a stage where performances take place and a variety of food and drink stalls. It also has a number of actors spread throughout the attraction and offers 2 VR upsell attractions.
During my visit in 2024 the kids coaster Pegasus was also open for visitors to the attraction which was a nice, if not slightly bizarre, choice. I’ve also since learnt that Matterhorn-Blitz (a wild-mouse style coaster) was open…but missed that!
Traumatica operates separately to Europa Park (although run by the park) which means you enter it through a dedicated entrance which is under 5 minutes walk from the main Europa Park entrance and runs from 7pm (gates open 6:30pm) until 11:30pm meaning you could fit in a full park day prior to visiting Traumatica.
Finally, a lot of the ground at Traumatica is not tarmac’d or smooth so wear suitable footwear…especially if it’s been raining!
Tickets for Traumatica start at €43 per person and visitors must be aged 16+. If you want entry with a fast-track onto the mazes you’ll want Shoxter Pass which costs €99 and includes your entry and fast-tracked entry to 7 mazes allowing you to fast-track each maze…or your favourite 7 times! – When the event first opens queues are pretty short so it’s probably worth doing your first 1 or 2 in the normal queue so you don’t waste a fast-track. You can then re-do your favourites with fast-track later. The queue times are displayed on boards outside the mazes, within the Traumatica app and for most mazes you can see the queue!
If you want to guarantee getting in all 7 mazes and the Ice Show (and have time to relax, enjoy the atmosphere and chill-out) then I’d recommend the Shoxter Pass. During my visit queues for mazes reached as much 65 minutes for some and so the Shoxter pass is the only way to guarantee entry and I felt like it was worth the cost as someone travelling to the event from the UK and wanting to get in everything.
The mazes get changed each year with some being replaced and some sticking around (in a similar way to Thorpe Park does). This year there was: The Hill, Tarot House, Grim’s Funhouse, Murderdome, Cinema Macabre, Unknown and Studio 13.
Each maze follows the same batched-walk-through approach whereby small groups go into the maze at a time and work their way through, each maze is largely linear with the exception of one part of Grim’s Funhouse.
So, let’s dive into each one a bit more…spoilers ahead!
This maze (appropriately) requires you to walk up a bit of a hill to get to it and is the most set apart maze. The storyline is that children are going missing and you have to keep quiet and try and listen out for them.
The maze takes you through some woods, into some buildings and you see the hub for the search and encounter some creepy characters along the way.
In my opinion this was the weakest maze and lost the storyline a bit and seemed to just throw in a random chainsaw welding character for the scares rather than the story.
This maze had the most impressive facade and with the sky the evening I went looked fantastic.
You entry the maze into a brief show scene where a lady with a crystal ball greets you and there’s a few good scares here.
You’re then let loose around the house where you go through different rooms including a really well themed green house and meet a variety of actors.
I enjoyed this maze although felt there could be a few more actors.
What’s a scare attraction without clowns?
Grim’s Funhouse was my personal favourite at Traumatica. It was themed really well, was fun to walk through and even had plenty of UV paint for a more circus feel.
There was also the only non-linear part of any attraction where you ended up outside with a variety of exits but only one being the way out. This section was full of actors and led to you going round in circles, being chased by chainsaw-welding actors and was just a lot of fun!
For me this was the maze with the most potential but just wasn’t executed very well.
The storyline was that you were going to be given these guns and needed to work as a team to defeat the characters around. It was set up a bit like a dark shoot-em ride or laser-quest where you have targets to shoot at but without the scores at the end.
The targets were a mix of actors and props and the actors didn’t react to you ‘defeating’ them which defied the point of the maze.
This maze did have some great set pieces including a whole set of damaged and abandoned vehicles including a bus but with this maze being in a large circus tent you were always aware you were in a tent and it just needed to be a bit darker and have more smoke to make it more immersive.
I have to be honest, I did this maze but don’t really remember much about it!
There were some similarities with Studio 13 which I’ll come onto next but generally it felt a bit short and flat.
Studio 13 is set at a movie set and you start off by being put into a lift (which obviously isn’t a real lift) but the sequence that sees you plummet all the way to floor -13 had some fantastic effects and felt very real.
From there you work through the movie studio encountering various actors (pun intended). This was another fun maze.
The final maze we did was Unknown which was a sci-fi themed maze which saw you starting off by going through a corn maze before being lined up and sent into a spaceship which had been taken over by aliens.
There was some great jump-scares in this spaceship and the whole maze was well themed and really immersive and I enjoyed it more than I was expecting to.
Priced at around €6 each the Brain Shocker and Taken VR experiences aren’t something I chose to do but are priced really reasonably in my experience, likewise The VR overlay of the madhouse attraction Fluch Der Kassandra wasn’t something I did but is available for visitors – I believe also as an upcharge.
With performances at 9pm and 10:30pm the Ice Show takes place in the park’s ice arena and followed the story of 4 performers facing-off against each other with a game of truth or dare, showing off their skills.
The show featured rock music, ice skating and some impressive performances including fire juggling, a contortionist and a couple of performances on suspended ropes. There were also plenty of pyrotechnics and a fun dance using light-up programmed costumes to create some really fun visual effects on the ice.
As a whole this show was around 30-35 minutes long and was really enjoyable although did seem to lose the storyline after the first act!
I had a great night at Traumatica and would certainly recommend it, the mazes were fun, the actors in the mazes and around the site were putting in everything and there was frequently performances taking place on the outside stage too which varied between dance shows and performances from a live band.
If you’re planning to visit and want to be able to enjoy all the attractions then I’d certainly pick up the Shoxter pass so you can walk into mazes and still have time to enjoy the exclusive Traumatica beer, watch some music, soak up the atmosphere and check out the ice show because I do think if you didn’t have one you wouldn’t get all mazes in.
One final thing to note for anyone thinking of visiting is that fancy dress and painted-faces are not allowed in the event…this is so they can tell who’s an actor and who’s not…which makes sense!
You can find all the latest Traumatica information including 2025 news when it is released on the Traumatica website
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