Texas On Tour

Client: RedPeg Marketing, Inc.

RedPeg Marketing, Inc. engaged Spevco to build them a 53' RDV (Rapid Deployment Vehicle) to help bring Texas to the tourists with a multi-venue road show called Texas on Tour.

RedPeg Marketing, Inc.  and SPEVCO created a fun and interactive experience that allowed data to be captured  for the program's success.

Launching off in Dallas for the 2008 Texas Tourism Week, the tour traveled to 16 venues and events including state fairs and summer festivals nationwide. At each venue, the 53-foot Texas on Tour trailer stood out among the typical festival vendors and was a great success.

After setting up its 80-by-50-foot portable campus, two staffers registered visitors as they entered. Each guest received a scan card embedded with their name and e-mail address that they then scanned before entering each Texas on Tour attraction. That way, the tourism office could pinpoint what each visitor had been most interested in for future follow-ups.

Serenaded by up-and-coming Texas musicians and entertained by trick ropers, the visitors’ first stop was the Western Dome, a 30-foot-diameter inflatable purple dome. Inside, guests were transported to the Texas of “Lonesome Dove” and the Chisholm Trail — a mini-meadow of log benches, cacti, stuffed armadillos, bluebells, and the unmistakable tang of mesquite in the air. Then the lights dimmed and the stars in the simulated sky above began to twinkle. A holographic cowboy in a red kerchief appeared on the wall to regale the crowds with stories of Texas’ fabled past, then sang a plaintive tune around a virtual campfire, all while images of Texas, from scenic lakes to the mountain woods, floated past.

After the dome, the next attraction, Ride the Waterways of Texas, offered four virtual-kayak simulators whose sole function was to douse the notion of Texas as a bone-dry desert decorated with cow skulls and buzzards. Visitors climbed into the single-seat kayaks and donned a pair of virtual-reality goggles, whisking into another world of churning Texas waterways. While the kayaks bounced and bobbed like a bucking bronco for seven minutes through Big Bend Country canyons, Lady Bird Lake, and the rolling waves of the Gulf of Mexico, the goggles gave riders a 360-degree view of scenery.

Guests next visited the Green Screen Photo Experience and Stroll Along the Texas Coast attractions, where, standing in front of a green screen, they could view themselves on a flatscreen monitor superimposed in front of a beach scene — beach balls included. Then they strolled over to Picture Yourself in Texas, a separate room where attendees could pose against motion-picture backdrops of Texas scenes such as the Alamo, SeaWorld, skylines of a Texas megalopolis, or NASA. Staffers photographed the visitors as they blended into the diverse backgrounds holding a miscellany of props. A link to download the photos was sent via e-mail to attendees.

Staffers corralled approximately 20 to 25 visitors each day to ask what they liked and disliked, while steering them to kiosk monitors for a game of “Texas or Not,” which quizzed how well participants knew their texarcana.

Within a few days, those who had their card scanned received an e-mail thanking them for attending, along with links to the information on the tour they had shown an interest in and a reminder to pick up their green-screen photos at TravelTex.com.

Along with the trailer itself generating 6.9 million impressions and the media coverage of the tour adding 3.3 million more, 111,000 people attended the tour, spending 10 to 60 minutes each. Fifty-five percent of e-mail recipients opened them, with 37 percent clicking through to at least one of the Texas-related links. Overall, 79 percent of visitors to the Texas on Tour experience reported they were interested in planning a vacation there, meaning the mobile event successfully brought its prospects’ psyches deep into the heart of Texas.

Mission Accomplished!