Last month we took some vacation in New York City (Manhattan specifically) visiting friends and taking in the sites. We visited the usual suspects: Statue of Liberty, Central Park, Natural History Museum, and of course Times Square pictured above. On our very first day in New York as we were walking around we saw this scene smack dab in the middle of Times Square:
Yes, a viking ship in the middle of Times Square. At first we didn’t know what was going on, but as we ventured closer we realized that the big ship was part of a promotion for How to Train Your Dragon. Being the movie and marketing geeks that we are we had to get a closer look to see what was going on. Sadly though as we got near the ship we figured out that the promo had already wrapped up as they were starting to take everything down and put things away. As we made our way past the ship and continued through Times Square we saw a line with people holding passes to see How To Train Your Dragon waiting to go into a theater–classic sign of an advance screening.
Later on I Google’d the event to see what we had missed and found out that the event was actually much bigger than we thought. Apparently America Ferrera (who voices one of the characters) was there along with a bunch of guys/actors dressed in viking regalia in an effort to mimic the movie. All of this was done in an effort to promote the film in New York City. Like the title of this post states, they do it bigger and badder in the Big Apple.
Suffice it to say that it was pretty cool that we got to see a big movie promo being done in a big market (what was left of it anyway). I don’t remember anything of this scale being done here on Oahu. Possibly the biggest “in theater” celebrity promo we had (the only one we’ve ever had) was when Cary Hiroyuki Tagawa (of Mortal Kombat and Johnny Tsunami fame) was at the advance screening of Balls of Fury–but it just so happens that he’s a sometimes Hawaii resident so that was why he was here. The other big screening that I can recall was (that we didn’t go to) was when they screened Michael Bay’s Pearl Harbor at Pearl Harbor on the flight deck of an aircraft carrier. Man, wish I could have been involved with that event.
Anywho,check out the following pictures from media that was there during the event as well as a news report about the event:
How to Train Your Dragon a Fun Lesson in Times Square – Examiner.com
Photo courtesy JustJared.com
Photo courtesy JustJared.com
The Red Band Project 
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