The 1992-1995 Sega Roadshows

[Badnik Mechanic]

I recently did a lot of research and investigations into an old event that Sega used to hold between the years of 1992 and 1995.

They were basically Sega Roadshows, the first was called "Sega on the Road" and the last one was called "In 2 Action." Each bus would tour major cities and large events in the UK allowing people the opportunity to play the latest Sega games and hardware. 

You've probably seen a few pictures of these in videogame magazines and issues of Sonic the Comic. Well... I was able to find some video and accounts of the events so I decided to try and gather together the best and most common accounts of the events into one video which covered the roadshows in order to catalogue and inform.

You can watch that here.

Anyway... I wanted to ask about this here due to a really interesting comment I got on this one and something that was bugging me even when I was making the video.

So the first roadshow was in 1992, the bulk of the events happened during the Summer of that year in the UK. The bus was decorated as you see in the thumbnail, with Sonic 2 imagery all over it. 

And part of the attraction was the chance to play Sonic 2 in a competition style "How far can you get in 5 min" or "Can you beat the Sega high score?" And from what someone has told me, when they went onto it, someone was able to get all the way to Aquatic Ruin Zone during their run.

Others have said that when they tried the game some people didn't make it out of the Emerald Hill Zone since the game wasn't released.

So.... Does that mean that these events had Sonic 2 available to play in a near full condition... BEFORE it was officially released? Just that it seems the upper floor of these busses always had a Sonic competition, yet in some of the footage I found they're clearly playing Sonic 1, soooo... 

Anyone go on these in 1992 and remember an early Sonic 2?

 

Anyway, the 1995 event seems to be the last one and they had a Sonic, Tails and Knuckles mascot attend a few of them, sadly there's a distinct lack of media for these. Did anyone attend these and does anyone have any additional photos or dare I say video? 

 

 

 

[Eurisko]

Fantastic video! Really well done , nice to see something Sonic related that's near and dear to the UK.

I was prime age for all that back then and I do remember seeing it mentioned in old gaming magazines. Though it never came around anywhere near my neck of the woods as far as I'm aware.  I remember Sonic being plastered all over the Williams F1 team racing cars too as Damon Hill was an household name at the time and I watched that a fair bit in the early-mid 90's.

As for the games being played and especially Sonic 2 , I'm guessing it was probably an early build and possibly had only a few levels on it. Or it could have been the final build if the footage was close to release day.

Anyway again, great video. Would love to see more of this sort of thing.

 

 

[Badnik Mechanic]

2 hours ago, Eurisko said:

Anyway again, great video. Would love to see more of this sort of thing.

There's plenty more on my channel lol.

As for the 'it never came near my town'.

I thought the same for mine... Then I discovered it actually did, it came within 45 min of my town. But Sega never published a full list of the bus stops, so you had to ring them up and ask where it was stopping... which... is really annoying.

[Eurisko]

On 4/26/2019 at 2:31 PM, Mayor D said:

There's plenty more on my channel lol.

As for the 'it never came near my town'.

I thought the same for mine... Then I discovered it actually did, it came within 45 min of my town. But Sega never published a full list of the bus stops, so you had to ring them up and ask where it was stopping... which... is really annoying.

I'll be checking your channel out then lol

45 mins? Thats gutting. You had to ring them? Thats a very inconvenient way of finding out , what would have been wrong with putting a list of places in one of the many Sega magazines that were out at the time? Mean Machines , Sega Power , MegaTech.......etc surly that would've resulted in a major turn out.

[Badnik Mechanic]

So urm...

It looks like there might have been another roadshow.

Does... anyone know anything about this one?

 

[HywelAtTheMoon]

I remember one of these turning up at the Bristol Balloon Festival as late as summer 1996. I remember seeing a CG vid of Virtua Fighter 3 where Jacky finally broke Sarah out of her brainwashing.