For anyone heading there over the next few weeks, I found this YouTube video really helpful for tips to save time and money:
The picnic blanket was especially useful when we stayed for the later shows. Lots of snacks were good too!
Over Halloween, there were lots of people (both adults and children) dressed in Halloween costumes as well as a handful of knights and princesses.
If you do stay late, they sell lots of light up toys so worth bringing some from home (or even a packet of glow sticks) particularly for when you wait for the later shows to start.
We brought a packed lunch, snacks and water bottles then went out into Warwick for dinner around 5pm and came back around 6.15pm for the evening shows.
We didn’t really queue for anything for long (including the entrance around 11am) even though it was quite busy. We did allow 15-30 minutes to find a good spot before all the shows.
If you have a go on the archery, it’s £3 for 6 arrows or £5 for 12- for 2 children you can get 12 arrows and they are happy for them to do half each. The people running it are great- really friendly and encouraging.
The adventure playground near the entrance is closed for maintenance at the moment which was a bit of a shame as no other real playgrounds in the castle grounds.
We still found enough to do and see to stay for the full day until after the fire jousting. The highlights for the children were the birds of prey show, the trebuchet and the fire display show.
It was definitely worth a visit although I don’t think we’d go back again too soon unless there were any major new attractions there.