Another season, another mystery – and this one’s hotter than a blimp on fire. Literally.
Welcome to The Burning Blimp Festival at Phantom Peak, the sun-soaked summer spectacular built around one of the town’s most iconic symbols: the blazing wreckage of Dr. Furbish’s doomed airship. The official story? Jonas saved the town from its tyrannical ex-mayor. But this is Phantom Peak – and things are never that simple.
If you want a full run down of what Phantom Peak is, check out my earlier review here.
Everywhere you go, there’s someone willing to chat about Dr. Furbish’s legacy – but whether they speak of him with awe, fear, suspicion or mystery depends entirely on who you ask. Was he truly the villain history (and Jonaco) painted him to be? Or just another casualty of Jonas’s carefully curated rise to power? One thing’s for sure – his disappearance still casts a long shadow, and The Burning Blimp Festival only adds fuel to the fire.
The storylines this season are as rich and twisted as ever. We stumbled into a conspiracy involving Furbish himself (is he really dead?) and were warned – more than once – to stop digging. The Jonassist app leads you on a merry chase, effortlessly spinning you into tangled narrative webs and pushing you to interact with the endlessly engaging townsfolk. Some of them seem suspiciously clued-up. Others? Suspiciously quiet.
Of course, it’s not all steampunk espionage and unreliable narrators – it’s summer, and Phantom Peak knows how to play. The town is buzzing with life, the platypuses are begging to be hooked, and of course back by popular demand are the ice creams! Delicious, creamy, perfectly summery ice cream. The honeycomb one is absolutely scrummy and should be declared a national treasure.
The bars are still slinging cocktails, the food is as tempting as ever, and the cast – honestly, they just keep getting better. Every interaction feels spontaneous and personal, even when you know they’re juggling a dozen story threads and dozens more guests. Whether you’re helping uncover mysteries, working to bring down Jonas, or being recruited into something you probably shouldn’t be, it’s always fun, always weird, and always entirely convincing.
Visually, the Peak is in top form. The usual blend of industrial steampunk and charming small-town Americana is as immersive as ever, and the blimp – the literal burning blimp – is as haunting and theatrical a centrepiece as you could want.
This is Phantom Peak doing what it does best: telling stories that spiral outward, drawing you in, twisting your expectations, and leaving you wondering what’s real. Is Furbish gone for good? Who’s pulling the strings now? And is it actually Dr Winter’s famous moustache that’s really in charge?
There’s only one way to find out.
Book your tickets. Get your ice cream. And keep your eyes on the prize – because in Phantom Peak, nothing stays buried forever.
To book tickets visit https://www.phantompeak.com/
Words by Nick Barr
Photography Alistair Veryard
