Paddy Power goes to Hollywood in Cheltenham

You have to hand it to Paddy Power – he knows how to do publicity. The bookmaker unveiled the “world’s longest free standing billboard” yesterday on Cleeve Hill overlooking Cheltenham. It’s bigger than the Hollywood sign in LA. Speaking at the unveiling, Paddy said :

“Cheltenham is the biggest and the best race meeting in the world so we wanted to build a monument to reflect and celebrate that. Everyone knows how much the Irish love Cheltenham, so we are delighted to finally have built them a sign to celebrate what many people call the Irish people’s second home in true Hollywood style.”

Some Vital statistics about the sign:

• 270 feet long (82 metres)
• 50 feet high (15 metres)
• Almost 100 tonnes in total
• 60 man build crew
• 3 years in the making
• Over 1000 man hours to design and build
• Landmarks dwarfed by the Paddy Power sign:
• At over 270ft wide that’s longer than the world’s largest free-standing billboard in Manila, Philippines (160ft)
• Taller and bigger than the Hollywood sign (45ft by 200ft)
• Longer than the famous Cerne Abbas Giant in Dorset (180ft)
• At over 50ft high that’s taller than three double-decker London buses stacked on top of each other

Pity he didn’t make it a DISCOVER IRELAND.IE sign instead. You know, for the good of the country and all that. Still, there’s nothing to stop Fáilte Ireland going one step further and finding a suitable location and beating Paddy at his own game.

UPDATE from the comments below :

“I don’t know where you got your facts from, however they are wrong. i with the other crew from utopium lighting i built that sign. It is 85m long it took a 10 man build crew and it was about 3 weeks in the making. so get it right”

Paddy Power obviously losing the run of himself and getting the facts wrong.