The giant bunnies ‘flew’ from Bournemouth Pier and across the sky to mark the launch of Love Bournemouth Bunnies, a special fun, free and interactive Easter hunt aimed at encouraging people to hop across Bournemouth in search of over 100 golden and virtual bunnies.

Last year’s Easter competition saw hundreds of adventurous families locate and take selfies with golden bunny statues situated in local businesses. The new competition challenges people to explore Bournemouth’s coastal areas, enter a greater number of businesses and find as many bunnies as possible using the free Go Bournemouth Coast app.

“We’re thrilled to launch the Love Bournemouth Bunnies competition for 2018,” said Bournemouth Coastal BID manager, Stefan Krause. “There’s more businesses involved, more golden bunnies to find, bigger prizes on offer and an added augmented reality level. Hopefully, this will get more families, out and about exploring Bournemouth’s coastal areas over Easter. I urge you fly like the wind and find as many bunnies as you can before it’s too late!’’

Sarah Hunter from RockReef who hosted the launch event, said, “We had a great time helping launch the competition, with human-sized bunnies flying down our Pier to beach zip line. It’s great to be a part of this exciting competition. Last year we had lots of visitors take selfies with our golden bunny and we can’t wait to see even more visitors take part in this year’s family-friendly activity.’’

Aside from the 100 physical golden bunnies, the free Go Bournemouth Coast augmented reality app is providing a new enhancement to the competition, adding an extra 11 exclusively virtual bunnies for people to find. Utilising the Go Bournemouth Coast App on their Android or mobile devices, participants must upload their images with both the physical and virtual bunnies to social media using the hashtag #GoBoCoast. Uploading more bunny selfies will unlock different game levels. Each level will include a draw for a local shopping voucher of ever-increasing value:

– Gold £1000 Shopping Voucher: Unlock and share images with 6 bunnies
– Silver £500 Shopping Voucher: Unlock and share images with 4 bunnies
– Bronze £250 Shopping Voucher: Unlock and share images with 2 bunnies

To find the bunnies, participants must watch out for clues on the Go Bournemouth Coast app, plus Bournemouth Seasons and associated business social media pages. Part of a number of locally planned Easter activities, the Coastal BID will also be bringing fun Easter weekend events to Boscombe on the 31 March and Southbourne on 2 April. This will include children’s entertainment and a giant golden bunny in Southbourne to celebrate the season.