Foxy Crew
Foxy Bingo was 5 years old this weekend and Foxy held his Birthday party at the Cliffs Hotel in Blackpool. The guest list was made up of online bingo fans of Foxy Bingo, a number of Foxy Bingo chat hosts, Foxy Bingo back office staff making sure everyone had a good time and yours truly.
There were a number of ways to join the fun, including winning special online bingo games, quizzes on Foxy Radio and special bingo chat games. For those of you not too familiar with Foxy Bingo, the bingo site usually has an away day of some kind at this time of year and this often takes the form of a mini-cruise.
Of the 50 pairs of Foxy fans that arrived at the hotel Friday afternoon to be welcomed at a drinks reception it turns out that not all were winners. Quite a few had chosen to pay for their rooms and to gain access to the party as they had not been lucky enough to win tickets.
Such is the loyalty and sense of community that an online bingo site operated correctly can generate. I met two such people in Crazielass and Jubbie555. Crazielass is a Foxy girl through and through and, as all the Foxy allocated hotel rooms had sold out, paid over the odds for her room and her place at the party and wouldn’t have missed it for the world. Crazielass travelled down from the North East of England and Jubbie55 travelled from Newbury for the event.
Best friend Jubbie555 is normally a Gala girl, but joined Foxybingo so she could keep her friend company. Although not a total Foxy bingo convert, Jubbie could see the appeal Foxy had for Crazielass.
If you wonder why it is sometimes not so easy to get on the winners board when playing online bingo this could be because there are growing numbers of people that do buy the maximum number of bingo tickets possible on a regular basis. And especially on the higher priced tickets. Jubbie555 is one such player as was another player I was lucky enough to meet, ROTFL. Yes, they admit, this appears expensive, but often the returns justify the amount spent and they do come out ahead.
Of course, at WhichBingo we advocate responsible gambling and not to spend more than you can comfortably afford. However, I don’t know about you, but these kind of stories make me inclined to save up and have a go at this method just for one session to see if it pays off.
Everyone was wearing their bingo roomie names and new friends were being made as the bingo players introduced themselves to each other. One thing was certain, the highlight of the party was always going to be the bingo games.
I went along with my (non-bingo playing) husband who expected to see rows and rows of computers lined up in the function room so we could all play online bingo! That would have been a sight to see – talking to each other in the chat room instead of face to face in the real world room!
As reported in our news story, paper bingo tickets went on sale. People were a bit shocked at having to pay £12 for 6 games of bingo, but when queried with the Foxy Bingo crew, manager Grace McMillan pointed out that the bingo was not set up and run by Foxy Bingo, but by the hotel and was part of its regular entertainment programme, but they had kindly put extra sessions in place for the Foxy party. No-one profited from the bingo except the bingo players lucky enough to win.
Can you believe my husband won a house and I won the very next game too. It was great. I had forgotton that feeling of playing bingo in a live situation and the thrill it generates. I made a mental note to pay a visit to my local bingo hall very soon and the other half even said he might come along too.
Lucky Bingo Winner
We were sitting in a very lucky corner. I was sat with three other lucky winners during the course of the night, including regular online bingo winner ‘ROTFL’. I had touched her for luck after hearing her stories of big wins at Foxy bingo of large jackpots and cars and cruises and it looks like some of it might have rubbed off.
The entertainment comprised of a singing duo and a comedian. The singers were called Oxygene and were ok, although I’m not sure how far they would get on X-Factor or Britains Got Talent in front of Simon Cowell, but they kept the audience happy for half an hour until the next bingo session.
Then we were treated to comedian, Carl Schofield, who did not look too promising, dressed as he was in a bright red suit with a pattern of hundreds of footballs. Our fears were unfounded as, although he was a little risque and he insulted almost every member of the audience during his act, he was very funny and very clever.
The absence of Foxy himself was noted on more than one occasion and we had to make do with a cardboard cut out, but still many fans wanted to have their photo opportunity.
Foxy Bingo knows how to throw a party and how to keep its online bingo customers happy and as an exercise in PR this weekend was second to none.
