THE RIDE to Become Bewitching Masquerade for Halloween Season in NYC
By: BWW News Desk Sep. 02, 2016
Just awarded the 2015 RTO Summit's COOLEST NEW PRODUCT Award and its FIFTH TripAdvisor Certificate of Excellence Award, THE RIDE has also been inducted into THE TripAdvisor HALL of FAME; an accolade reserved for less than 1% of the worldwide Travel-Related Corporations reviewed by TripAdvisor's 60 million members and 140 million visitors. Also honored with a nomination for Broadway's coveted Drama Desk Award in the prestigious Unique Theatrical Experience Category and named the Third Most Successful Youth-Primed Attraction in New York City by FODOR'S Travel, THE RIDE has most recently been nominated for THE CONCIERGE CHOICE Award in the BEST TOURIST ATTRACTION category. THE RIDE has also been declared one of the Top 8 Must-Attend Wild & Wonderful Spectacles in New York City by NewYork.com who also named THE RIDE'S Gold Star Tour Guide, Rory Lipede, as the Most Entertaining Tour Guide in New York. The New York City phenomenon began 2016 by winning The Culture Trip's Favorite Award as the Must-Take NYC Tour and being named "the most exciting entertainment experience to ever hit New York City" by VIATOR. All of this homage and accompanying critical acclaim has led to THE RIDE becoming the singularly most requested ticket at Travel Agents' offices all over the country.
The concept is a brainstorm of design that has resulted in a fleet of multi-million dollar motor coaches whose interiors are a state-of-the-art wonderland of electronic wizardry that guide 49 dazzled tourists around the most fascinating city in the world. THE RIDE'S original genius was its realization that the streets of Manhattan are a fifty-mile stage exhibiting the most riveting visuals on earth. Adding its own actors to the crowded mix on the street, the huge motor coaches deliver a show worthy of the standing ovations and group euphoria that results at the end of each RIDE. The motor coaches are events in their own right. They are specifically designed theatrical vehicles; the tallest allowed by federal law, fitted with stadium-style seating that orients the 49 fortunate participants sideways so as to look through the massive windows that deliver New York as the most successful Broadway show on earth. These unanimously acclaimed coaches are equipped with surround sound, 3,000 LED lights and 40 video screens. They are, in essence, rolling state-of-the-Art Theatres that introduce their travelling audiences to an interactive experience that only the most interactive city in the western hemisphere could deliver. Each motor coach's external speakers and lighting allow riders and on-board performers to interact with THE RIDE'S street performers as well as anyone else they pass on the street. THE RIDE is an EVENT whether you are on the bus or on the street. But it's better on the bus. A fact mightily agreed upon by both Broadway critics and audiences alike. As Paris, Boston, Dublin, Tokyo, San Francisco, Las Vegas, London, Hong Kong, and Dubai are currently being considered and scouted, THE RIDE is preparing for its 11,000th performance in New York and the World Premiere of THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE powered by The Ride.
What elevates a paid for "experience" to experiential entertainment? EXPERIENTIAL ENTERTAINMENT has a host of defining components including activity that encourages the viewer to enhance or alter the actual performance through his/her interaction and total immersion in the creative process. What makes this form of entertainment so engaging to audiences today as opposed to sitting reverently in the dark safely on the other side of the "fourth wall?" THE RIDE comes foremost to mind as a pioneer in this category. THE RIDE makes the street the stage and entices its audience to engage and to share in the invention of created moments along the journey of its mise-en-scene. Alchemy is derived from the true emotional engagement of THE RIDE's audience evoking pathos, humor, complicity and a sense of community with the other unknown audience members throughout the performance. Each journey is made unique because of the contributions of its constantly changing audience.
Richard Humphrey, currently the CEO and CCO of The Ride, LLC., has over thirty years experience bridging the performing arts, entertainment and business communities. He has an award winning and proven track record in content creation and as an entrepreneur in developing innovative business plans and sustainable business strategies for the arts and entertainment communities, creating partnerships between the for profit and not-for-profit worlds, lobbying on the federal and state level for the arts and arts education, and in realizing international business collaborations. He has nurtured and presented original work on Broadway and Off-Broadway including as co-producer of Sam Shepard's Pulitzer Prize winning play, "Buried Child," and as a 2013 Drama Desk nominee for Unique Theatrical Experience for producing and directing The Fazzino Ride. His first Broadway triumph was in the cast of Ellis Rabb's star-studded, award-winning, histrionically-elegant "The Royal Family" which he later directed for the first National Tour.
He has, as executive producer, built a copyrighted library of over 125 titles including his interviews with some of the world's greatest artists, performances and art history documentaries. Many of these titles are currently being distributed through Discovery. Richard's unique vision for uniting the arts, arts education and technology communities has led to frequent requests to keynote at industry conferences including "Connecting All Americans for the 21St Century" hosted by Vice President Al Gore and the Department of Commerce. Previous to The Ride, Richard co-founded Arts4All, Ltd./A4AMobile, an entrepreneurial digital company focusing on the intersection of content creation and its distribution via emerging digital technologies, with Hong Kong businessman/entrepreneur Daniel Ng. As CEO of Arts4All, Ltd./A4AMobile and, later, as CEO of Redcloud Mobile, Inc., a partnership with Telcordia Technologies, Richard utilized his fluency in digital media to develop a mobile marketing platform and to introduce innovative campaigns for the arts and national ad agencies with such clients as "Shrek: The Musical," Bacardi Brands, Grey Goose, Starbucks, U.S. Open and feature films with AlliedIM, to name a few. As a pioneer in mobile applications, he and his colleagues at Redcloud Mobile introduced Broadway to the potential of mobile marketing and became the national mobile media partner for the Tony Awards from 2007 - 2010. Richard has created visionary strategic partnerships for the arts with companies including Telcordia Technologies, AT&T and Lucent Technologies and content provider partnerships with such renowned institutions as Manhattan School of Music, Jazz at Lincoln Center, Interlochen Center for the Arts, London Symphony Orchestra and a wide-variety of the nation's top performing artists. Via his mastery of video-conferencing, Richard has produced internationally over 100 real-time videoconference arts events and master classes with such notables as the New York City Ballet lead dancer Peter Boal, mezzo-soprano Marilyn Horne, Jose Limon Dance Company, actor Matthew Broderick, and violinist Pinchus Zuckerman, and the late Isaac Stern, to name a few. Richard was the founder of Humphrey Fine Art, Ltd, a flagship gallery in New York's Soho and Midtown districts from 1986 - 1996. Representing emerging and mid-careers artists, his gallery exhibited in nine countries and at major art fairs in Paris, Madrid, Tokyo and Seoul. He curated the groundbreaking exhibition "Forces: Art for the End of the Century" which represented artists at the end of the twentieth century utilizing non-traditional materials such as light, time, planetary motion and technology. This critically acclaimed exhibition travelled nationally to museums and public venues for two years. Since 1985, Richard's choice of public service and philanthropy has been his alma mater Bucknell University. He was the President of the Bucknell University Alumni Association and its Board of Directors for two terms (2006-2010) and served as a Board and Executive Committee member for three years prior. He was a two-term President and is now on the Emeritus Board of the Bucknell Association for the Arts and served on its Board for eight years. In 2010, Bucknell presented him with its highest honor for the arts, induction into Bucknell's prestigious Academy of Artistic Achievement.THE RIDE'S TWO BOX OFFICES:
234 West 42nd Street
1200 Sixth Avenue at 47th Street
$74 Individual Tickets:
ExperienceTheRide.com
866-811-4111 Group Tickets:
646-661-7699 x168
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