In my opinion, there were two reasons why Klownz wasn't a huge hit, not only because it was an original theme. I feel like #1, it was basically competing with pretty strong IP's that year, like AWIL and AvP (in it's first year was pretty good honestly), so it clearly got overshadowed. Not to mention #2, I remember after going through it several times, hearing people outside the maze talking about how it felt repetitive with just the 3 clown characters, thus making it feel sort of lackluster. The music was great and was a great example of a 3D house, but it was a bit of a generic storyline with few iconic characters. Basically, that's the risks with original concept mazes: getting overshadowed by IP ones and not having a really strong story/characters.