Scream Score is a groundbreaking experiential technology that transforms fear into an interactive, gamified experience while delivering real-time insights for operators. Through the Scream Score mobile app and wearable devices on Apple and Android platforms, visitors compete in real-time as their biometric reactions are captured and scored.
Guests can compete against the top scorers of all time at an attraction or create a small team to challenge friends and family, amplifying social engagement and replayability. Real-time scoreboards are displayed on TVs for visitors to see both before and after their experience, adding excitement and anticipation to every moment.
Unlike traditional immersive experiences or attractions, where audience reactions are anecdotal or indirectly observed, Scream Score quantifies engagement instantly, turning passive spectators into active participants. Beyond competition, visitors can share their personal scores on social media, amplifying reach and creating a new avenue for marketing and audience engagement. Media outlets, influencers, and review teams can also leverage Scream Score data to showcase experiences in real time.
Scream Score does not rely on heart rate alone. Instead, it captures the broader physiological fight-or-flight response, providing a deeper, more accurate picture of how guests experience fear. Research shows that simple heart rate can fluctuate for many reasons - movement, excitement, or stress - making it an unreliable sole indicator of emotional engagement.
By analysing the nuanced dynamics of the body’s fear response, Scream Score can differentiate genuine moments of terror from general activity, giving operators a precise, real-time view of audience reactions that goes far beyond traditional measurement techniques.
Scream Score is part of a broader ecosystem that includes Experience Score, which applies the same methodology to measure audience emotion across all immersive experiences, not just horror. This enables operators to capture nuanced responses during museum exhibits, VR walkthroughs, escape rooms, rollercoasters, and other live experiences, providing a powerful tool for iterative design and audience research.
For prototyping, Scream Score and Experience Score allow designers to gather real-time feedback from focus groups, test actor performance, and evaluate VR experiences or walkthroughs before full-scale implementation.
The platform is also driving research and development into integrating audience biometric responses directly into show control systems and wearable LED accessories. This innovation would enable attractions to respond dynamically to how the audience feels in real time - adapting pacing, intensity, acting or effects based on guest engagement and emotional state. This represents a truly new frontier in interactive entertainment, where the audience’s physiological and emotional input shapes the experience as it unfolds.
Scream Score has been developed and tested in multiple real-world environments, including horror film audiences, haunt review teams, and haunted attractions. Current deployments have demonstrated both scalability and flexibility, and the system is now widely available for attractions to integrate immediately.
Ongoing explorations include applications in escape rooms, VR experiences, adventure sports, professional development, and rollercoasters, showing the platform’s potential to redefine guest engagement across diverse settings.
This technology is unique in several ways:
- Interactive Gamification – Guests actively compete individually or in small teams, combining personal challenge with social play.
- Real-Time Feedback – Scores are captured live, viewable via scoreboards for visitors and dashboards for operators, offering actionable insight during the experience.
- Cross-Experience Flexibility – Works across rides, haunted attractions, escape rooms, VR, rollercoasters, adventure sports, and film screenings.
- Prototyping and R&D – Useful for focus groups, actor performance evaluation, and VR/experience testing prior to launch.
- Audience Amplification – Visitors can share scores to social media, and media outlets or influencers can use Scream Score™ data to showcase and encourage engagement with the attraction.
- Broad Emotional Measurement – Beyond fear, the system can also detect engagement, contentment, and frustration, providing a holistic view of audience response.
- Future Integration – R&D is ongoing for show control integration, allowing attractions to respond dynamically to real-time audience reactions.
By combining gamified engagement, real-time insights, mobile and wearable integration, and broad cross-attraction applicability, Scream Score and Experience Score push the boundaries of visitor-facing technology. They transform how audiences interact with experiences, create new layers of competition and social connection, and provide operators with unparalleled data to optimise design, performance, and audience satisfaction.
This is not just a tool for measuring reactions - it is a platform that fundamentally changes the way attractions understand, engage, and respond to their guests.
