THE RIDE New York City Tours - New York City Article
The Ride’s Portfolio of NYC Experiences:
Just awarded the 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.
“THE RIDE takes full advantage of the natural excitement of New York City, its eclectic inhabitants and electric atmosphere.”
- Forbes
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.
“Take THE RIDE.”
- Wall Street Journal
This New York City phenomenon began in 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.
“There’s a show on every corner in New York and that fact has been woven ingeniously into THE RIDE, a new sightseeing experience proudly wheeling around and through Manhattan.THE RIDE rolls on vehicles pimped-out in razzle-dazzle.What makes THE RIDE so unique is its street performers positioned strategically along the bus route who get in on all the action.Their moments are charming and delightful.Even if you know the city, you haven’t seen it from this panoramic view. It’s like watching a movie unfold live.THE RIDE lets you see the city with fresh eyes.”
- Joe Dziemianowicz, NY Daily News
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.
Established on October 15, 2010 and Re-Launched on April 1, 2014, THE RIDE is currently scouting Tokyo, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Boston, London, Hong Kong, and Dubai as expansive markets. In the meantime, THE RIDE is planning the World Premiere of its breakthrough Virtual Reality DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE that looks to expand the parameters of live experiential entertainment far beyond the wildest dreams of both its fans and its competitors.
“Fasten your seat belts and embrace the city.THE RIDE is a shared experience and something to be talked about.It takes on a cinematic aura.This is, after all, how movies and Broadway shows work.While walking down a street, someone breaks into song and dance, just as strollers do here. On THE RIDE you watch the passersby look in pleasure at the theatrical indulgence of the performers on the sidewalk; you almost expect them to join in.Quite a few conversations started on the sidewalk as the bus rocked by. The street is quite a RIDE.All motor coaches should be built this way.” -New York Times
THE TOUR
Powered by The Ride
On March 23, 2015 the producers of THE RIDE launched THE TOUR, "The New Generation of Sightseeing” where you luxuriate in climate-controlled comfort as you experience New York through an enormous glass wall and specially designed glass ceiling. THE TOUR hosts you with an informed, personable, licensed Navigator who has all the facts you want and more.
THE TOUR is enriched with audio/visual support that frames the City and its glorious history in context and brings moments along the way to magical life utilizing THE RIDE’s patented technology. Discover the past, present and future of NYC through an immersive multimedia sightseeing adventure! With five departures daily from 45th and Broadway, THE TOUR's $1.5 million state of the art motor coaches will immerse you in the greatest city in the world while plunging you into its exhilaration and excitement. THE TOUR is a love letter to New York where EVERY SEAT is the BEST SEAT in the house.
“THE RIDE is a spectacular immersive and interactive entertainment experience that moves you through Midtown Manhattan as an ever-changing show featuring actors, performers, and New York citizens unfolds before you.Each vehicle features over 3,000 LED lights, 40 video screens, an IMAX Theater’s worth of audio equipment, cutting-edge speakers and “floor-shaker” sound system technology that emulates everything from passing subways to a thumping nightclub.”
- Promenade Magazine
THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE
Powered by The Ride
The Award-Winning Times’ Square attraction juggernaut, THE RIDE, has chosen TimeLooper, a global Virtual Reality platform, to create unforgettable VR moments in New York’s history to be scripted into its new timeless production, THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE, Powered by THE RIDE.
While continuing to scout and negotiate with City Councils and Zoning Boards in Boston, Dubai, Dublin, Hong Kong, Las Vegas, London, Paris, San Francisco and Tokyo, CEO/CCO Richard Humphrey and President Dan Rogoski have chosen historic Downtown Manhattan for the next revolutionary version of the Internationally acclaimed phenomenon.
“Listen my children and you shall hear of the midnight ride - not of Paul Revere – but of the new bus THE RIDE. Three new, custom-built, amped-up, rock-star-sized buses, the tallest allowed by federal law, with three rows of stadium seating facing massive windows.Each costs $1.25 million with an IMAX Theater’s worth of equipment -- 3,000 LED lights, 40 video monitors emulating even subway sounds. With New York City as a stage, THE RIDE is a sightseeing bus on steroids.”
- Cindy Adams, New York Post
THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE, Powered by THE RIDE presents the world-changing iconic events of a neighborhood that gifted FREEDOM to every other country on Earth. From the minute President George Washington was sworn in on the second balcony of Federal Hall at 29 Wall Street on April 30, 1789, the new Americans went to work. They laid out the streets, built bridges, libraries, universities, ships, railroads, tunnels, hospitals, theatres, museums, churches, town houses, meeting halls and commercial concourses, survived fires, riots, epidemics and the weather, created Wall Street, organized unions, published newspapers, developed public education, public transportation and public housing. And all of this under the welcoming torch held high by the Statue of Liberty as she introduced millions and millions of people to Downtown Manhattan where the word FREEDOM was spoken in over forty languages. Downtown Manhattan is still the center of all that is possible. It is now the stage for THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE Powered by The Ride.
Click Here to Experiency THE RIDE in New York City!
HISTORY – REVOLUTION – EVOLUTION
THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE Powered by THE RIDE begins at 200 Water Street overlooking the New York Harbor and explores the historic blocks of the Seaport and lower Manhattan - the very blocks where rough and tumble New York roared to life, struggled to be born into freedom and through freedom’s challenges evolved throughout the last two hundred years. THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE looks forward to having you aboard the 21st century technological wonders that are THE RIDE’s patented traveling theatres on this audio/visual, personally
narrated journey recreating New York’s downtown history and enhanced with the magic of Virtual Reality.
VIRTUAL REALITY & THE STORYTELLER
THE DOWNTOWN EXPERIENCE is a multi-media historical adventure with a STORYTELLER’s on-board narration highlighted by the magic of 6 VIRTUAL REALITY visualizations (enhanced with the magic of the TimeLooper virtual reality app) and including on-location time-travel back to the inauguration of George Washington in 1789.
“One of the most fascinating aspects of THE RIDE is how everyone becomes a performer in the experience, both inside and outside the bus.Written and directed by Richard Humphrey, THE RIDE is a piece of careful choreography that takes the city streets as its stage.The fun is contagious. The energy and enthusiasm overflows. This is a phenomenon that could happen only in New York."
- Stage and Cinema
The Ride’s Two Box Offices:
Inside: THE GIFT SHOP
584 Eighth Avenue
Between: 38 & 39 Streets
&
Inside Hornblower Cruises & Events
78 South Street
Pier 15
Waterfront Esplanade
Pavilion 2
Individual Tickets:
1-212-221-0853
Group Tickets:
646-661-7699x168
AVALANCHE of AWARDS:
Just awarded its SIXTH TripAdvisor® Certificate of Excellence Award and the RTO Summit’s COOLEST NEW PRODUCT, 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 this year 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.
About Richard Humphrey, CEO/CCO of The Ride LLC:
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 videoconferencing, 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.
