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The Fantastical Express

Sam said:
Ashby-de-la-Zouch sounds like a Dr. Seuss book.
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I'll have you know I spent much of my childhood in Ashby-de-Zouch!
It was a glorious place where one rarely could mooch!
 
The only thing that saddens me the most about Jordan's joke post on the previous page is that I wouldn't put it past Alton to have Cheadle as one of the destinations...
 
James, i was thinking i hope that does not give Alton an idea for the next one.
 
To give this thing some credibility, they really need to send it somewhere further afield, as many folk seem to be catching onto the fact the bus is only going 'down the road' as it were.

They could realistically send it to Manchester or somewhere up that way! If I were them I'd send it to Blackpool and park it right outside the Dungeons ;) little bit of MerlinLove going on! They might as well help each other out, its not like the upper echelons are giving them an olive branch...

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If I was in charge of this campaign, I'd make sure it went to Tamworth, for a cheeky bit of competition with Staffordshire's other theme park. ;)
 
I know it about 200 miles away but i would send it to the park in North Stainley, North Yorkshire. even if its only to thank them for the cheeky digs :D
 
is this still ongoing?
All I have seen so far is a pretty poor unclear marketing project. They have a bus, its driving to local places- and what?

Do they take a bus load for free? If so how it is organised.
Its been pretty unclear so far, and not an obvious marketing strategy. Whos getting involved with this?

The £1000 give away was unoriginal, but at least it made sense.
 
I think they visit the town, select winners, then pick them back up from the town on the weekend and drop them off at the Towers.
 
erm thats it?

Im sure Aly does a similar thing in scotland for not much money on his busses lol. Oh dear, budget cuts all round.
 
This part of the campaign has failed mainly due to, well, nothing happening. :p

There's not even any videos on YouTube or such. What a waste of investing money into this campaign and then not using viral marketing to their advantage. Poor show, Alton.
 
Well those who get picked to go on the bus get free tickets after all. [And a hotel stay? Not too sure on that]. It's good for a small scale promotion, but it's too weak to be an all summer long scheme to draw people in.
 
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Todmorden, West Yorkshire, has been chosen as the third stop on the Alton Towers Resort’s Fantastical Express summer tour.... We think that given the floods they have encountered this year they deserved to win this week! Enter our competition now if you live near Todmorden and want to win Tickets and a place on the bus this Saturday...
 
Todmorden is a much better location than the last two (though I may be a tad bias with it being an hour train journey away.. :-X).

It's good to see a larger radius being used this time I must admit.
 
As has been said, they need to sort some YouTube videos out, LOADS more Facebook updates, and generally provide more feedback.

I just feel like once a week, a random town gets picked... and I see nothing apart from a photo of the bus at the park :-/!!

I'd like to know how people are picked, for example. Do you just walk past the bus and catch someone's eye??

More information needed!

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Just thinking about this, surely they're limited to how far the bus can go from Alton Towers, because they'd have to drive people to the Towers and back, which would in turn eat into their time on the park?

I like the idea, but like many have said I'd like to see more thought put into it. I'd of preferred them to team up with a confectionery company and give tickets away through a golden ticket scheme. Now that would be a taking point!

We need more social networking to make this idea a winner, why haven't they used some location based service software as well? Tell people they're near the bus! Scream it!
 
Ok so people nominated their town? (i think)

A town wins, the bus goes there and takes people to Alton. But like Saz said who does it pick up? The people who nominated it? A first come first served basis? Do the people need to prove they live in the town?

And this happens on one day - whats the bus doing the rest of the time?



They could have made a full Facebook and twitter operation for this, perhaps select a few similarly sized towns to 'compete' for the bus to come, have people send in pictures of their town or doing alton towers related things, shared them and opened it to a vote to let one town win.
Then the people who got involved get priority and other people could just 'win' tickets via text or something to fill the seats.

When the winners are going get them to take pictures, videos, share it through the social media the way it was promoted to show what they won - and encourage the next round of towns.

During days the bus isn't doing the full day, it could go to the competition towns with BOGOF vouchers and explaining the competition.

^This concept took me all of 5mins to think up, why have alton made such a shambles of the one they've got?
 
I don't understand this promotion.

Thus it doesn't exist to me... It doesn't confuse me if I just deny its existence!

Perhaps they just decided to repaint one of the "ultimate rollercoaster" buses and just didn't know what to do with it. Send it somewhere.. where? ANYWHERE!


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oldgitben said:
Ok so people nominated their town? (i think)

A town wins, the bus goes there and takes people to Alton. But like Saz said who does it pick up? The people who nominated it? A first come first served basis? Do the people need to prove they live in the town?

And this happens on one day - whats the bus doing the rest of the time?



They could have made a full Facebook and twitter operation for this, perhaps select a few similarly sized towns to 'compete' for the bus to come, have people send in pictures of their town or doing alton towers related things, shared them and opened it to a vote to let one town win.
Then the people who got involved get priority and other people could just 'win' tickets via text or something to fill the seats.

When the winners are going get them to take pictures, videos, share it through the social media the way it was promoted to show what they won - and encourage the next round of towns.

During days the bus isn't doing the full day, it could go to the competition towns with BOGOF vouchers and explaining the competition.

^This concept took me all of 5mins to think up, why have alton made such a shambles of the one they've got?
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I'm guessing the process is as follows:

Step 1. Alton randomly pick a town from the list on Faffbook. Most likely at random and not from the most nominated town.

Step 2. The bus visits the town on a week day [or possibly several week days, not too sure here] People from the town apply or attempt to win the tickets via some form of competition.

Step 3. The winners are informed that they have won the tickets.

Step 4. The bus picks up said winners on a weekend, drops them off at the resort and lets them have the day there.

Step 5. The bus returns the winners back to their home town where they are forgotten about.

I think from what's been 100% confirmed about the promotion that it's quite terrible, and could be held in so many better ways. For example, five towns are selected and the bus visits each town on each day of the week. Then have several buses pick people up and drop them off at the resort.
 
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