I suppose the reason why it can sometimes *seem* that GNE get critiqued more than others, is because they are arguably the most PR-fluent of the North East bus operators, Stagecoach and Arriva don’t offer too much extra in the way of corporate communications and PR material. Comparing the ‘news’ section of each, Arriva and Stagecoach stick to just service updates, timetable changes and the like. For Arriva there’s one article about Jubilee events and another about Kids going free whereas GNE have ticket offers within their news section, they hosted an open day, have also backed LGBT pride and International Woman’s Day plus they have at least two jubilee articles and have branded a bus for such occasion too. So it’s hardly surprising that GNE comes under the spotlight more, as PR/comms is a two way street - you put yourself out there you put yourself out there for criticism too. The same can be said for slogans such as #BetterThanEver “Fit for the Future”, Arriva and Stagecoach avoid this sort of PR speak, to an extent.

Back to the topic of this thread - GNE do seem a bit late to the party on this one. Back in 2019, when Spice Girls came to Sunderland, they seemingly had an article up a month earlier with a travel guide - I suspect they may have held back in case of timetable or last minute changes this year, but it’s rather late as you’d expect people to have made travel arrangements with less than a week to go.

https://newsroom.gonortheast.co.uk/news/...ide-367536

Mind let’s hope a bit more attention to detail in such travel guide this years - I notice in 2019, they had advised people of the last bus to Consett on the 78 was at 10:10pm. Considering that was 10:10pm departure from Park Lane, a 10 to 15 minute walk from the Stadium of Light - they may as well have said there is no service to Consett as the show went on til 10:30 I believe, so you’d be lucky to make it to Park Lane for 10:45.