Please note: for our recent guide to the latest 2018 event, read our spoiler free tips for Secret Cinema: Blade Runner.
The end is extremely fucking nigh kids, Secret Cinema is bringing 28 Days Later to London from April 14th to May 29th and the only thing you have to decide is whether to pray or run. I’d go with the latter.
Much like our previous guides to Empire Strikes Back and Dr Strangelove, this list will be entirely spoiler-free and contain no references to the location of the event, but it will offer you some practical advice to help you make the most of your time there.
1) This is Secret Cinema’s very first ‘horror world’, so prepare for an intense experience. Secret Cinema has stated themselves, “Prepare to be scared.”
2) As of 6th April, tickets are still available for every evening performance (6pm start) apart from Saturdays, which are sold out. However there are still Saturday matinees available, they begin at the slightly more brightly-lit time of 12pm.
3) Tickets cost £67.08 (inc booking fee) and concessions are available. The matinee costs £57.20. There’s also a ‘VIP Ticket’ available for £129, and as it’s 18+ it probably involves booze and, judging by previous events, private transport and exclusive missions.
4) If you want a ticket for a sold-out day, just look on the Facebook page during the week before you want to go. There are plenty of people selling spares for face value.
5) If you’re the ticket-buyer for a group, when you’re sent the registration link and password do remember to forward it to the rest of your group.
6) Once you’ve bought your ticket, you’ll receive a link to the Disease Control and Prevention website. You’ll also receive a password. This is where you’ll find out the location of the event, your costume and what you’ll need to bring.
7) If you haven’t received your email, rest assured Secret Cinema will contact you soon. The first lot of emails have only just been sent out (as of 8 April)
8) Once registered, your details can be found under the ‘Patient Information and arrival details’ link on the top right of the homepage.
9) You will be able to make your way to and from the location via public transport.
10) You won’t be given a different identity. Your identity for this Secret Cinema will be your own. So, you know… terrified London resident. You’ll fit right in!
11) Print off you ‘patient identity card’ and keep it with you at all times.
12) The only costume essentials are “layers of dark clothes you don’t mind being scuffed or soiled” so prepare to be covered in some amount of blood and a surgical face mask.
13) You are however encouraged to wear an ‘arrival outfit’, which is basically hospital scrubs. Contradictory reports have been coming in around people without costume being turned away or forced to buy costume before entering. It seems like this was a ‘one-off’ incident during preview week and since then things have been more relaxed. After all, you’ve already paid more than £60 for a ticket. You only *really* need the face mask.
14) You’re also encouraged to bring an ‘anti-contamination kit’ consisting of a face-mask, bandage, blood sample, irrigation liquid, patient wristband and a biohazard tattoo, which you stick on your neck or hand to prove you’ve not been infected. Although you could probably just draw a biohazard symbol on your body with a marker. Update: you don’t really need any of this.
15) All costumes and anti-contamination kits can be bought from the official Secret Cinema online store: NSHsupplies.org.
16) You’re also encouraged to bring message for a loved one, a photo of a loved one and a romantic poem.
17) Wear trainers. Be prepared to do some short bursts of running (or light jogging anyway).
18) Optional items you may want to bring include goggles, hazard tape and a marker pen, although these don’t really come into the action at all.
19) As ever, don’t be late. Latecomers will not be admitted. But don’t panic if you have an appointment time different from your friends. You’ll still be let in with them.
20) If you have specific access requirements email info@secretcinema.org to let them know ahead of attendance.
21) Do not bring any large valuables, laptops or jewellery.
22) If you haven’t printed off your ticket, they’ll still let you in with your pdf ticket on your phone.
23) You will have to place you mobile phone in a little zip-lock bag provided on entry. This is often the nicest thing about Secret Cinema: nobody’s stupid phone getting in the way of the action.
24) The price for booze is £4 for a can of beer and a bottle of wine is £18.
25) Food is around £7 for a hot meal.
26) It’s card payments only throughout the event space. Contactless is available.
27) Previous Secret Cinemas have finished around 10-10:30pm, with opportunities to hang around and party longer. Again this is only based on previous events, and you may be far too traumatised/ravaged with rage to want to boogie with the other survivors. Update: it’s around four and a half hours long.
28) And while you’re at it, you could also pledge your support for junior doctors.
For more cinematic adventures in the capital, check out our guide to London Film Events, including this spoiler-free guide to Secret Cinema Dirty Dancing.