Alton Towers free tickets: how NHS staff and key workers can get free entry via Blue Light Tickets - and if the park is open

After being given the green light from the government to reopen for business, Alton Towers is giving away 30,000 free park tickets to a select number of key workers.

The free tickets are intended to show gratitude to some of Europe’s most vital workers, who dedicated themselves to helping others during the coronavirus pandemic.

Where can the tickets be used?

Merlin Entertainments, which owns Alton Towers, is dishing out 30,000 free tickets to a range of its parks, which will be divided across five different countries.

A total of 10,000 tickets will be donated in the UK, while the remaining 20,000 will be split across Asia, North American, Australia and New Zealand.

As well as Alton Towers, which reopened on 4 July, lucky ticket holders will be able to use them at the likes of Legoland, Chessington World of Adventures, Thorpe Park and the Bear Grylls Adventure, along with some Madame Tussauds and SEA LIFE Centres.

Who will get the tickets?

In the UK, the majority of the 10,000 tickets will be made available to key workers, including NHS staff, via the free platform ‘Blue Light Tickets’. This is a new initiative which lets UK frontline workers register to secure free tickets for various attractions and events.

Of the 10,000 tickets available, 3,000 will be divided equally across 30 different industries and companies in the UK, including the following jobs:

- Teachers via the ASCL

- Royal Mail postal staff

- Compass Group UK & Ireland - the UK’s largest food and support services company (which has been working in healthcare, education and defence as well as supporting key workers within business and industry sectors)

- WH Smith (for its Post Office colleagues who provided vital postal and banking services on the high street and for their store colleagues across over 100 hospitals who served frontline NHS staff)

- Council workers across the UK, including refuse collectors

- A range of the major high street supermarkets, including Tesco

- Food takeaway delivery companies

Merlin Entertainments said the full name of all businesses will be announced in late July.

NHS, social care and emergency services workers are urged to sign up now to get early bird access to the free tickets.