Pat's Uninteresting Tours

Pat's Uninteresting Tours was a series of themed route bus tours that offered an alternative to the usual sightseeing tours. Taking passengers on a four-hour comedy excursion to downmarket locations it operated in Sydney, Australia during the mid to late 1980s.

The premise was to conduct paying passengers on a bus and expose them to ordinary situations in incongruous contexts - actively avoiding normal tourist attractions and visiting uninteresting sites. These included wine tasting at a rubbish tip, "experiencing fresh air" at the sewage works and formal dinner at a road-side diner. Passengers were encouraged to dress in tourist garb for the day tours and tacky evening wear for night tours.[1] After TV New Zealand program That's Fairly Interesting recorded a segment, tours were conducted in Wellington, Christchurch, Palmerston North and later Auckland.[2][3]

Beginnings

Patrick McGeown created the concept in 1978 whilst serving on board the Royal Australian Navy warship HMAS Perth.[4] After repeated trips to Hawaii, he began to lead alternative sightseeing events for other crewmates. Following the inaugural tour he then conducted tours in Darwin and Canberra before launching the concept as a business in Sydney on 17 March 1985.[5]

Destinations

Each tour was unique and the four hours of improvisation and creativity took passengers to an assortment of locations.[6][7] Some Sydney locations were:

References
  1. Mandy Nash, "Moving theatre tours the eyesores" The Eastern Herald 12 November 1987
  2. Evening Standard, Palmerston North 25 July 1988
  3. "Communicado: Pat's Uninteresting Tours", That's Fairly Interesting presented by Neil Roberts TVNZ July 1988
  4. Ken Davidson "Bored to Laughter" Australasian Post 22 July 1982
  5. David Conley "Tips are tops" Australasian Post 2 October 1986
  6. Malcolm Andrews "Tours host vows to bore 'em", The Daily Telegraph 4 March 1985
  7. David Conley "Oh, so bored - that's what you get when you go touring with Patrick" Gold Coast Bulletin 12 July 1986

Other media references:

  • Fred Baker - Benelong "Perhaps it's another Pink Elephant" The Sunday Telegraph (Sydney), 20 March 1983
  • Denise Shaw "Madcap Pat Bores Up Tourists" The Truth (newspaper), 27 July 1985 p. 3.
  • John Elliot "Tedious Tours" Australian Penthouse January 1986
  • Judy O'Connor "Miracle of Turning Boredom into Cash" The Press Christchurch, 25 February 1988 p. 13.
  • Willesee Channel 9 television. 27 March 1985. Reported by Howard Gipps.
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