Quick! Fancy some family tickets to Ice Age 3 this Saturday?

I emailed before six and didn't get any news as to whether or not I had been successful. Not to hear either way really annoyed me, especially as I had to leave babysitters hanging on as to whether or not to look after our baby so we could take DS.

And to hear our local cinema had lots of seats left is very annoying indeed.

I am not convinced its worth being a Woolies VIF to be honest, unless they get their act together.

one rucsac per family in Sheffield which seems right considering the amount of stuff in it. I would have been seriously impressed if it was one per child!

Signing up for that is no guarantee either though is it? Its a pot luck thing who does or doesn't get tickets for the VIF thing.

Like Goober, i can't afford the cinema for myself never mind with the 3 DCs (1 of which i probably wouldn't pay for tbh as he is only 16 months!) plus the transport to get there as i don't drive. Add to that the cost of somethig to drink in there as you aren't allowed to take your own and you may as well go away for the weekend!!!

There were people who mailed you around 4 o clock who still didn't get tickets which was plenty of time to arrange things as around that time you were saying that you had not yet been inundated.....

yes thats what we were told too.

it didn't matter really, they contained quite a bit so the children shared the bits out. can't really complain about a freebie, especially as we had an extra 2 children that they allowed us to bring in.

there were quite a few spare seats though which is a shame as im sure there are plenty of people that would have loved to have come.

thisisyesterday - i was the very tall lady in the green top.

mamazon, we went to brighton and weren't on the list either, but got let in!

the goody bags seemed to be one per family rather than one per child

I thought the rucksacks were supposed to be one per family of 4 not one per child in any case?

"Espcially for a company that is now a baby"
Shop Direct Group are hardly a baby... they have "annual sales of around £1.5 billion and five million customers." (Source)
Woolworths.co.uk may well be a new addition to the Group, but the group itself can trace routes back to 1924.

So I do not feel they are a 'baby' when it comes to PR/Marketing. Just my view.

Mamazon, very pleased to hear you managed to get all the children sorted

Can I ask exactly who was responsible for the running of this promotion please Adam, was it Rubber Republic or Woolworths? As in who was allocating tickets, who was responsible for emailing applicants etc?

Thank you.

We took all 4 children to the brighton showing and although there was a tense few minutes as i wasn't on the list ( despite getting the confirmation email from Woolies) they did let all of us in - phew!.

entertainment was a bit pants, no wii games or anything like that just a balloon artist (is that what they're called?) but the children got an animal each and were very happy.

the film was great.

the backpacks were fantastic but they didn't have enough so we got one to share with teh 4 children.

on the whole it was a great freebie, just not quite as glitzy and special as maybe we were lead to believe.

Sorry Goober the deadline for responses meant I did my best to get everyone in who replied in good time but it also stumped us. It was in place so everything could be planned for who was coming at such a late stage (organising rucksacks and the like). And sorry to peddle this but make sure you sign up as a VIF for free tickets in the coming weekends and I'll see what else can be done for those who missed out this time.

How about free tickets to a movie of their choice to the ones caught up in the mix up?...

...or a free copy of the Ice Age 3 DVD/Blueray when it hits the shops!!

Also sorry for those Mumsnetters who didn't get tickets but we went to Cardiff and had a really good time, although I agree that the entertainment was a bit non-existant.

The children had their photos taken though in front of the Ice Age board and then we collected them after the film in a magnetic frame. The goody bag was great and perfect for ds and dd to share.

We really enjoyed the film too.

I was gutted yesterday as I didn't hear ANYTHING from Woolies, not a "yes", "no", or "maybe".
I had foolishly told my children that they might get to go to see a film that I wouldn't be able to afford to take them to see, so they were more than a little bit upset!
But to read now that there were so many empty seats at Ipswich this morning is a complete kick in the teeth.

Oh and the magician didn't hand out the £100 note he magiced.
I though that a bit off

rubberadam
We loved it, I can understand others upset and annoyance not to get tickets or notification, particularly the lack of notifictaion as that is a bit off, but can I say that we really did have a good time.

We went and sat on the carpet in front of the entertainer.
He did say at one point that he'd go round and do tricks individually, but most of the kids had sat in front of him so not much point really.
Ther was one child/family who did hog a bit but perhaps just more outgoing children than the others.

I thought he was good, I enjoyed the tricks and as I have already said, the lollipops ones went down really well with the kids.
He had to go to get more lollies, and I had to shush DD who saw instead of going along with his 'magic dust'!

Maybe because we don't have a lot of treats, it really was great for us, and the lack of what we thought would be there didn't matter once we got there.
I don't even mind if it was just a promotion, we had a great day out of it.

Anyway, I know this is sucky uppy, but Thank you.

Though I did miss Ewan McGregor and the other Scottish slebs?
Did you smuggle them in and out of the back door when I wasn't looking?

I agree - organising this opportunity so late was always going to be a customer services nightmare and sorry for those that didn't receive any email confirmation from the organisers. Better planning and better organisation would have been in place with more time and I think the amount of responses genuinely surprised them (it did me!). Lessons will be learnt if there any future fora offerings -- feel free to email me some and I'll pass it on. Espcially for a company that is now a baby!

Yes of course Adam it was about anouncing the relaunch of Woolies, they certainly did that though didn't they we all know about them now as a lot of people spent a lot of time on here yesterday and contacting cust services themselves to find out what was going on.

Also there were a couple of people on this thread that did turn up and their name wasn't even down.

I totally agree with the other posters who are saying it was a fab treat, goody bags and all but I can 100% see POTC point of view as well and she got tickets that yes what everyone dod get was great but there was a lot promised that wasn't delivered so it sounds and feels like they all now have our attention we all know woolies is back online and most of that is because of this thread not because we all got tickets to a fab day out and are all very grateful for them. It has left a bad taste in a lot of mouths and for those of us that never got tickets to hear of 2/3 of the cinema being empty is a bit of a kick in the teeth.

And I meant work - not wok.

Thanks lisa, sorry for any momemny of anguish there as it could well have been my error when passing on the info! Glad you got in all OK.

I think the logistics of it all on this scale meant that only a few cinemas had all of the entertainment gubbins mentioned in the list (especially London, was a general list as such that I was given). Staff were probably bringing their own Wii's!

Adam what might be nice is if there's a film out at Christmas, have those who missed out this time on the list for that. As you said, it was about re-launching Woolies and Woolies being about family stuff. It might be a good idea as a family morning out, away from the madness of Christmas shopping. Have a Santa, some Christmas songs and a bit of mulled wine for the mums and dads.

Probably the cheesiest and suggestion possible but there you go, I don't wok in event planning.

Possibly RA, but I did see the guest list for the cinema we were at and there was only a dozen names on it at most - and one of those was press.

I would suggest a mini goody bag for the ones who lost out or at least first pick on tickets for an up-coming movie?

I turned up adam, shame my name wasnt down I was sooo worried they would turn me away, lucky i had email.

I suspect a lot of people didn't turn up. Shame

POTC - it was all about announcing the relaunch of Woolies online and the VIF free cinema ticket scheme for Sat mornings. I think it's a lot more than just a one-off marketing ploy, especially as Woolies has always been about families so it's good to see them at least taking steps to give something back to all those who were sad to see them go back in December (now they exist in the digital space and that). I promise I'm not rentaquoting this! ;)

I'll be asking what can be done for all the mumsnetters who missed out last minute. Email me over some suggestions!

you can still get free tickets for other movies though hope you all get some soon. Have to say this is the first thing I have ever been given in comp stylie from MN in 6 years.