Record breaking Elephant Parade National tour finishes on a high - UK tour successfully auctions off full herd for The Asian Elephant Foundation

Today marks the finale of the intu Elephant Parade National Tour, the world’s longest running public art expo raising awareness of elephant conservation issues. The UK tour concludes having successfully auctioned off the entire herd of 35 magnificent art pieces designed by top artists and celebrities through a 100-day online auction.

The auction raised just under £150k which tour sponsor intu will donate to The Asian Elephant Foundation (TAEF), a non-profit foundation, that supports elephant conservation projects across Asia.

Billed as the ‘people’s parade,’ the 2013/14 national tour engaged people from all walks of life, making one-off collector pieces available to the masses by offering them at a lower reserve price than usual. The top bid overall came in at £15k for Claudia Schiffer’s elephant, Forest, followed closely by Butterfly Effect and Little Sweetie at £7.5k, with the average price per elephant working out at just over £4k.

Elephant Parade’s return to the UK followed 11 successful parades held in major cities around the world. In addition to the 100-strong herd, more than 10,000 people submitted design ideas and for the first time ever, school children created their own elephants that joined the parade.

The ground breaking UK national tour presented by intu has been arguably one of the most successful tours to date and has taken the nation by storm. These are just a few of the tour highlights:

‘An Unforgettable journey’ – with a 24 hour flash parade in King’s Cross to launch the parade followed by a national tour lasting 377 days, the public art expo can rightly claim the title of both shortest and longest ever parade.

‘Stop the Traffic’!  This year’s herd has involved an incredible amount of work and man hours to create the 6500kg worth of elephants that took part in the expo. The tour was prepared in record time – just four months instead of the usual nine. One thousand designs were submitted in the early stages of the planning process and 75 schools were involved. Combined, the artists and celebrities spent 2,880 hours paintingtheir elephants, using 600 tins of paint, not to mention 22,000 rhinestones for Rylan Clarke’s sparkling creation. The tour even saw the youngest artist ever put pen to paper – Sheara Abraham’s daughter was just 18 months when she helped lend her artistic talents to Razzle Dazzle.

‘An Elephant’s Tale - Over the last 12 months, the intu Elephant Parade has connected directly with over 30 million people at intu shopping centres throughout the UK, with social media playing a big part – the campaign reached on average a total of 100,000 a month via social networks with more than 8,000 images shared and 25,000 Facebook likes. On Twitter, Stephen Fry, Alex Jones and Union J all tweeted their support and the message was radiated via Thunderclap to a network of over 150,000.

A tour of firsts – the first ever school designs were made as replicas following a public vote, the first ever public art painting days were held with 500 people taking part and this was the first time that an Elephant Parade has been hosted indoors. 

‘Happiness is for Everyone’ – the tour was made accessible for everyone and had a real local flavour with local art competitions being held in tour venues. In addition to being based at intu centres across the UK, the elephants also made one off appearances at a wealth of eclectic landmarks arranged by intu including The Blue Peter Garden, Nottingham Castle, Norwich Cathedral and Cardiff Millennium Centre.

‘We Love Mosha’ – it turns out that artist, Diana Francis, couldn’t have picked a more appropriate name for her elephant art piece, as it proved to be the most popular replica across not just the UK but the whole of Europe.

Carmen Rademaker, Director of The Asian Elephant Foundation: “Thank you to our friends and supporters in the United Kingdom and of course to our tour partners intu who enable us to put on a tour unlike any other.  We recognize not only the contribution of all those who have bought the painted elephants during their travels through the UK, but also those who have been moved to learn more about these magnificent animals. The proceeds from the auction of the beautiful full size sculptures will make a significant contribution to the work and projects that we support. For your understanding of the issues in respect of elephant conservation and your support for the work of TAEF, we are eternally grateful.”

Trevor Pereira, commercial director at intu commented: “Our aim was to surprise and delight our costumers – adding a sense of joy and excitement to their everyday shopping experience.  It’s been wonderful to see how much enjoyment these stunning elephant statues have brought to our customers, adults and children alike.  Our focus was primarily raising awareness of this important cause to millions of people across the UK but also raising as much money as possible for The Asian Elephant Foundation. The auction gave everyone an opportunity to bid or pledge towards either helping or owning one of the amazing elephant statues that have graced our shopping malls and put a smile on everyone’s faces.”