Dino fever hits Rochdale, and it’s about to evolve!
With the arrival of Dippy venturing around the UK for the first time, Rochdale BID has put together a programme like no other, DinoDale, a 5-month programme with an accompanying guide, put together with a primary intention. To show off the town centre to the World, to show the visitors what we are capable as a town. Involving local businesses is the core of what DinoDale will achieve with visitors and locals to find their new favourite restaurant or pub, in their new favourite town.
Dippy has attracted over fifty thousand people to the town over the past two weeks, our bars and restaurants have been at capacity and we are attracting attention like never before. Dinodale will facilitate these new visitors in ways the town has never seen. Over the next months, the Dino Dale project will stretch the boundaries of hospitality and engagement and put Rochdale on the map for the right reasons, the best reasons – not as individuals, as one community, a community with open arms and warmth; your DinoDale adventure awaits!
The Dino Dale guide is available from participating venues and will be available on a permanent basis outside the BID office in the Wheatsheaf (or the huge t-rex head as its now known!) The guide contains a map of the key areas around Rochdale, celebrating our town centre while absorbing our magnificent architecture. The guide will highlight some of our food and drink venues and shpping centre events. Including our extremely popular coffee-trail, which has been transformed to the DinoDale Coffee trail! Where participants can now own their very own DinoDale reusable Coffee-cup after completion. Alongside the release of the DinoDale guide, local schools have been invited to take part in a dino-egg competition where they can create and design their own dino-egg that will be proudly displayed in a jungle setting with a prize for the winning egg!
We will also see the return of the very popular Rochd’ALE’ Trail, aptly temporarily rebranded as the DinoD’Ale’ Trail!
But that’s not all, the centre page of the Dino guide, the BIDs most ambitious project yet. A project that wants to engage all our new visitors to our great town. The BID proudly presents - Dino Dale Hunt.
The DinoDale Hunt:
Working with local businesses the DinoDale Hunt aims to take visitors around the Town Centre a hunt for hidden letters in dinosaur bones. Ten frames will be presented around Rochdale that contain dinobones and within those bones a hidden letter, the frames will contain a QR code, where budding explorers can use their smart phones to find out more about the encased dinosaur! The letters found can then be wrote onto the map that will spell out the name of a dinosaur! Entries can be posted in the Dino post box outside the BID office in the Wheatsheaf or emailed to admin@rochdalebid.co.uk . An online version of this guide is available at: https://www.flipsnack.com/AE96C97F8D6/dinodale-even-guide.html to print download this version https://drive.google.com/file/d/1oWnxZcCFf06bCILOvjU85RoNhfCBZe3U/view
While you’re in the Wheatsheaf shopping centre, there are 3 very special visitors in the shape of three dinosaurs! See for yourself, be careful though, one will roar back!
Whats more, Dino Dale has been in partnership with The Paper Concept, a Rochdale based plastics alternative company that has been involved in the Boroughs first plastic free festival (Street Eat 2019) and works alongside the BID to ensure all their projects follow innovative and exclusive new ways of reducing plastic. Jayne, the BIDs Project Executive says “Working alongside Arron and his company has been both an eye opener and a revelation. Here at the BID we are determined to do our bit to protect our environment and reduce our plastic consumption, with our ultimate goal to reduce our single use plastic consumption completely from all our events and projects.”
With this in mind, the Dino Hunt will be accompanied by a new none slip aluminium based material in the shape of a dinosaur foot print, that is revolutionising wayfinding that is both environmentally conscious and eye catching. These footprints will have a QR code that will allow the user to bring to life an augmented reality t-rex right before their eyes! Paul Ambrose, BID Manager states
“Finding new ways to tackle environmental issues but at the same time provide the same level of functionality that plastic would bring is changing the way we do things. With the arrival of fifty thousand new visitors into the Town over two short weeks. We are keen to showcase what Rochdale has to offer, from it’s established bars and restaurants to its new businesses around town. Having had visitors from as far as South Africa we now have the worlds eyes on us and we want to do it right. DinoDale is about engaging and supporting local businesses, it’s about showcasing our town centre and most importantly it’s about showing everybody that Rochdale’s strong community is a welcome and vibrant one. Rochdale isn’t just a few businesses doing well, it’s about everybody doing well, it’s about what we can achieve if we pull together and use the Town Centre we have, it’s a wealth of opportunity”
With fifty thousand new visitors already embarking on Rochdale Town Centre, venues like the Medicine Tap. Bombay Brew and the Flying Horse are seeing a huge increase in footfall, and with their new dino-themed kids’ menus, they are embracing our visitors and locals in the towns new love for all thing’s dinosaur
DinoDale is launched this week and will continue to run over the next 5 months. The BID invites any feedback or any suggestions to #dinodale and thanks everybody for the Dinomite support.
25 Feb 2020