Tripe Marketing Board chairman Sir Norman Wrassle has warned board members that “it’s too early to tell” whether the decision to publish a 2021 Diary was the right one.
In a brief Zoom meeting to selected board members last night, Sir Norman said:
“This for me is like a train journey where you’re standing on Wigan Wallgate station and it’s wet, it’s windy, it’s horrible and two miles down the track you can see a couple of lights appear and it’s the train, but it’s a long way off. That’s the point we’re at now, with our Diary about to be published. Then we hope the train slows down safely to get in to the station, and then the train stops, and at that point the doors don’t open – the guard has to make sure there’s a big crowd before he opens the doors. That’s the pre-publication publicity we’ve been doing. And when the doors open I hope there’s a huge and unholy scramble for the seats. Some people have got advance tickets and they are going to get their Diary first. That’s how we have to frame this, and right now it’s a couple of miles down the tracks and we’ve just seen the lights come round the bend.”
Sir Norman said he had been ‘hugely encouraged’ by the advance sales, but the proof of the pudding would be in how many people turned up for the Tripe Train when it pulled into the station. In response to questions, Sir Norman said that he had been using an analogy, and there would be no requirement for anyone to actually hang around at Wigan Wallgate in order to obtain a copy of the Diary. “We’ve actually received stock today, but we’re still offering advance sales through our website at a discount price, at least until next Sunday,” he said.