LOG CABIN DROP-IN WAS A RESOUNDING SUCCESS - 20/06/08

Night fever turned into cabin fever when more than 3,000 students visited Liverpool Primary Care Trust’s ‘Chill Out Log Cabin’, which recently toured the city to discourage binge drinking.

Proving that you don’t need to be legless for a good night out, they drank around 2,600 non-alcoholic ‘mocktails’ and 99 per cent agreed that the cabin was a great way to promote sensible drinking. A further 84 per cent said visiting the cabin had had a positive impact on their drinking habits and 70 per cent said they were likely to seek out other non-alcohol alternatives in the future.

The innovative Chill Out Log Cabin was part of an intensive seven week campaign by Liverpool PCT and is linked to the Pssst! Alcohol awareness campaign backed by the trust and Citysafe.

The cabin toured popular student drinking spots for 19 nights offering mocktails and massages and giant board games were set up in the city to give students a fun alternative to excessive alcohol. Professional alcohol advice was available and Arriva buses joined in to promote their night bus service.

“We wanted to provide students with a positive distraction from drinking and with 3,000 visitors, the log cabin was a resounding success,” said Gideon Ben-Tovim, Chair of Liverpool PCT. “As well as the novelty value of this idea, they were able to get sound advice and left with a more educated viewpoint on drinking.

“Our campaign is all about awareness so it’s also great news that visitors to our website have rocketed by nearly 150 per cent since last year.”

In addition to this on-street activity, the number of visitors to the website was 141 per cent up on the same period in 2006. Visits during the campaign were also 31 per cent up on the average for the rest of 2007.