Explore every episode of the podcast Skip the Queue
| Title | Pub. Date | Duration | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Putting the customer at the heart of everything we do. CX in the real world | 07 Aug 2024 | 00:42:29 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast. Competition ends on 21st August 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephenpriestnall/ Stephen Priestnall founded oomph, now an accredited B Corp, in 2005, acquired Decision Juice in 2009 and is globally recognised as a specialist in CX driven transformation projects and digital innovation. He has advised at a senior level across public and private sector organisations in the UK, Americas, Asia and the Middle East and is an instigator of international research studies into behaviour change. He is a Board Trustee with Aneurin Leisure Trust, advising on CX and communications strategy and a founding Director at Wellbeing Economy Cymru, part of the global Wellbeing Economy Alliance, advocating for a new approach to economic sustainability for people and planet.
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. On today's episode, I speak to Stephen Priestnall, the CEO of oomph, a CX focused agency based in the UK and UAE who help clients to understand people and design better experiences. We're going to go back to first principles and understand what customer experience is all about and understand what attractions can do better to serve the needs of their customers. Paul Marden: Hello, Oz. Oz Austwick: Hi, Paul. So this is the last episode of Season 5, right? Paul Marden: Yes, that is right. Can you believe after we took the reigns from. From young Ms. Molson not too long ago, that we would actually make it to the end of the season? Oz Austwick: Do you know, it's crazy, isn't it? I mean, five seasons of a podcast. Most podcasts don't get through to the end of one season. And I can remember listening to this podcast years ago and actually sending people links as an example of what a good podcast is. And now here we are, you and I, at the end of Season 5. It's crazy.. Paul Marden: Yay. Guardians of this little baby. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, no pressure. So today's quite an interesting one, right? Paul Marden: Yeah. I've got a guest who has been a friend of mine for some time, Stephen Priestnall of Oomph agency. And we're going to talk a little bit about customer experience. So nice little chat between Stephen and I, and then you and I will come together in a little while and talk a little bit about. Let's reminisce about season five and talk a little bit about what might happen in Season 6. Oz Austwick: Awesome. Great. I'm looking forward to it. Paul Marden: Let's get on with it then. Welcome to podcast, Stephen. Stephen Priestnall: Nice to be here, Paul. Thanks for inviting me. Paul Marden: Good to have you on. Longtime listeners will know that we always start the podcast with some icebreaker questions, which hopefully not too challenging, but we get to know you a little bit better before we start talking about work. So both of my icebreakers are all about visiting attractions this time. So how organised are you in advance? If you go to an attraction, do you take a picnic with you, or are you always partaking of a cup of tea and a slice of cake in the coffee shop? Stephen Priestnall: I think it would have to be a particularly kind of informal attraction for me to have thought about taking a picnic beforehand. So normally it's just the anticipation of going to the place, and then I'll utilise the services in the place. Paul Marden: I love a good slice of cake in the coffee shop afterwards. Scone, cream, tea and scone that would be me. Stephen Priestnall: No way. Maybe a bit of our breath or fruitcake. It's probably more me. Paul Marden: Oh, lovely. I was at the Roman Baths yesterday with my little girl and we had a lovely wander around and they had a brilliant self guided tour. So if you've got a choice, do you go for a self guided tour? Do you wander around and follow your nose? Or would you rather have a guide take you around and tell you the stories? Stephen Priestnall: I almost never have a guide to take me around. And then sometimes I even find the self guided tours a little bit invasive. If I'm in a different country where there is kind of a language barrier, a filter, then I might use it then. But you know what? I kind of like that the ability just to bump from one bit to another. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: And experience the experience through my own kind of filter. So that's what I would normally do. I haven't been able to wander around with the headphones on, almost never with a guy. Paul Marden: Yeah, they had a lovely one at the Roman Baths yesterday. So it had both adult interpretation and kids interpretation, and I found myself switching to the kids one so that I was experiencing what Millie was experiencing, because I was saying to her, “Oh, did they tell you what that was?” “Oh, no, that wasn't in the kids version.” So I swapped the kids one and it brought it to life. It was really. It became much more shared experience for us. Stephen Priestnall: Yeah, well, that's like that's like the horrible history stuff. Yeah. But actually, it's brilliant. Rattles that was what they were on about in the tudor period, then. I didn't get it until now. Paul Marden: Yeah, look, listeners, Stephen and I have known each other for quite some time. We've been working together a lot on different projects, and his agency, Oomph, does a lot of work in customer experience. And so today's episode is going to be a little bit more about a primer on what do we mean by customer experience? And really, what I'd like to get to the bottom of today is what can attractioners do better to serve the needs of their customers. Yeah. So, really, Stephen, what I want to do is pick your brains. Let's introduce this whole subject of CX and customer experience and help people to better understand a little bit about what does that mean and how can they bring that into their day to day work in running attractions and meeting customers. Paul Marden: So, before we start that, why don't you tell us a little bit more about you and a little bit more about Oomph. So that listeners can better understand the context. Stephen Priestnall: Yeah, thanks, Paul. We've positioned ourselves around the concept of customer experience for about ten years now, and customer experience ten years ago was a bit of an oddball place to be. It kind of grew out of the user experience, the UX world, with a little bit of event management thrown into it and a little bit of actually, you need to think about people in the middle of all of this. And we come from a background of combining digital and data quite successfully to kind of help devise communications campaigns, kind of brand engagements, that kind of thing. And what we could see was if you brought all these things together as data was getting more sophisticated, with digital interactions on the rise, that you could get yourself much more informed about the way in which people's customers were actually behaving. Stephen Priestnall: And not so much what they were actually how they were behaving, but also what their needs were that drove the behaviours. And so we have, we've grounded our work and customer experience around a very clear desire to understand the needs of our clients’ customers, and then to hold that mirror up for our clients and say, “Look, I know you have these products and services to sell and to engage with, but what we're going to do is a job of letting you know at the point of engagement they're hitting your customers needs in this way. And if you then flip the lens around from the customer need first rather than the product or service first, you might determine a different way of building that service or designing that interaction, or maybe even changing the way in which you invite customers into a journey with you.” Stephen Priestnall: So a lot of data and digital inside are our space port that inform CX. And then in the last couple of years, AI has been another transformative technology that we've started to utilise. And we know we treat it as good AI. We know there's bad AI out there, but the good AI is really helpful. Paul Marden: That's really interesting. We know from the Rubber Cheese Survey this year that most attractions have dabbled. They've played with ChatGPT, or something like that. But there's still a large portion of attractions that have done nothing with AI. And then there's a couple that I would consider at the leading edge. So they're doing things beyond GPT. They're looking at AI enabled CRM or AI enabled workforce management solutions. Paul Marden: So there's some interest in here, but it's definitely, there's a conversation that we've had on the podcast just recently with Oz and I talking about the idea that we can't quite figure out if we're in a bubble because a lot of people that we talk to talk a lot of good game about AI, but when we're talking to the businesses, the clients, they're only just getting into this in the most shallow way. Agencies like yours and ours are kind of. We're leading the conversation on this, I think. Stephen Priestnall: Well, I think it's really interesting you frame it like that, because one of the things that has informed our approach to CX is the idea of understanding behaviour change, which is a science in itself. So if any listeners are familiar with behaviour change, you'll know how long the tail of kind of investigation evaluation that is. We launched a study in 2020 which ended up over three years and three waves, 10,000 respondents looking at the impact of Covid-19 on people's behaviour and their interaction with organisations. That is part of our research centre which we call tide of events, which is now about to launch another study which is going to be looking at the impact of AI. Paul Marden: Oh really? Stephen Priestnall: As employees, as citizens, as customers, as service users, as members, as supporters. I'm expecting some very interesting things to come out of that study as well. Paul Marden: Yeah, very interesting. So there's this idea of kind of CX thinking and embedding that, embedding it the heart of your agency, but you then helping your clients to embed it into the business. So how can CX thinking help an attraction to improve its offering? And I think if we can look at that in two directions, because obviously most visitor attractions are an in person experience, there's lots of thinking around their interaction and the experience that they feel when they're in the attraction itself. But there's a lot of us looking at either side of that interaction. How do we use marketing to get more people to want to do stuff? And then how do we make sure that they got the best experience after they did and reengage with us. How can CX thinking offline and online help an attraction? Stephen Priestnall: The principles of customer experience thinking, certainly from our perspective, is to deal with the reality of that there are people involved. And I think you and I both know, Paul, in the digital world it's kind of quite easy to forget as a person we spend a lot of time in front of technology, trying to get technology to do stuff that we think is helpful. And then it's easy to lose sight of the goal, which is to help a person achieve a task or do something which they have, they enjoy doing. I think in the world of attractions, destinations, then when you're in a kind of physical world, that you're sat in that environment designing something, and you're a physical person yourself. Stephen Priestnall: And as a designer, looking in that environment, feeling that, okay, well, if I walk from here to here, it's going to feel like that. If I put this in the wrong place, if my member of staff is trained in the wrong way and uses the wrong language, that's going to have a direct impact. So you kind of get brought back to the people side of it quite a lot when you're in it in person. So I would say that the world of CX thinking is about bringing the importance of the human into the overall experience. So you don't treat the digital experience with kind of it in a different frame set than you treat the in real life, in person experience. Stephen Priestnall: And that's quite hard to do, because sometimes you're trying to drive the digital experiences as a kind of conversion funnel to get people to do something and buy something or consume some content. And you can kind of get hung up on the word optimisation and funnel management, and you then get drawn into, how can we push people through to the next phase? And push people through to the next phase? And imagine if you're in an attraction, and yeah, you might make certain parts, physical areas, a place where you would want people to go to, but you wouldn't have somebody walking up and nudging them in the back, pushing them down the aisle and stopping them from turning around and staying in one place. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: And yet, that's often what happens in the digital world. It becomes an optimisation process to kind of channel a particular behavior that we think is optimal for the organisation. So the world of CX stands back from that, identifies the needs that were satisfying, and looks at Paul and Stephen as two individuals who are unique as individuals, and can be defined by a set of age, gender, sociological, economic characteristics. But actually, Paul and I might have five or six relevant needs for the attraction of which two are consistent. And, you know, two or three are completely different. So we can't treat Paul as Paul and Stephen as Stephen. We have to understand the relationship between the needs that we have as individuals and the thing that we're doing, or the point of the point on the journey we're on. Stephen Priestnall: And I think that's tricky to kind of link the digital and the in real life worlds together. But that's the trick I like to think the kind of CX approach would bring. Paul Marden: Yeah. Just as you're saying that it can be hard to think about the person. But also many of the attractions that we work with have very different offerings. And so consequently they have very different audiences that have very different needs. And, you know, are you trying to serve online an audience that's never going to attend? How do you serve those people's needs? If you've got an educational remit, how do you serve those people's needs whilst at the same time serving the needs of the people that you want to bring in and spend money on site with you? If you're a historic house that also has a golf course and it has a hotel and it has some sort of kids attraction associated with it, there's so many different audiences. Paul Marden: So that kind of CX thinking can help you to step back. Stephen Priestnall: Absolutely. And actually just maybe think of a great triangulation process between three different clients that we've been working with recently that show that kind of breadth of differences. So we work with the saudi arabian government on a new, one of their giga projects on a new destination out in the desert near Rhea called Duria. And that is an amazing set of destination components. Golf courses, equestrian centres, hotels, business centres. And that's creating a destination for a country which has never had any tourism in it before. So with a whole bunch of high net worth individuals that you've got to think about, then also a challenge to get people who live in Saudi to not spend the $90 billion a year that they do going to visit the rest of the world and to actually visit somewhere in Saudi. Stephen Priestnall: So we've had a set of kind of challenges around how do you drive a customer journey, a visitor journey for that. And we've been working with an organisation called Marketing Manchester, helping them devise a new segmentation so they can, I'm going to use the term, attract the right kind of visitors to go to Manchester to hook in with their sustainability strategy. They don't just want people in the shopping malls and going to the football, sports events or shows, albeit they would like that. They also want to understand the community engagement, the cultural engagement and the environmental footprint that they leave behind. And then we're just in conversations with North York Moore's National Park. And then there's a whole different set of conversations about engagement with the local community, communities, a little bit arms folded about tourists. How do you make that come together? Stephen Priestnall: And all of this is about people and it's about understanding people's relationship with people and things. Paul Marden: Brilliant. So let's have a little think about given that those are the ideas behind CX thinking. If you were starting out down this road, what are the simple things that people can do to start to bed the customer at the heart of their thinking as they're planning their services? And I'm thinking in terms of, we've got very different types of attractions in this country, very small, up to, you know, big international attractions. Let's pick the small guys. Yeah. Imagine you're running a small town museum and, you know, you've got a handful of people working in the team. How can you start to embed the customer into your thinking to improve the service? Stephen Priestnall: So I think, I don't think the principles change with scale. I think that the executional methods will change with scale, but the principles. And you can have, you know, if you've got a small team of three or four people, you can have these three or four people working together in a room. You can support a research or not, if you can afford the research that great. If you can't, then you use. So we use a term called foundational intelligence. So before we start any research with a client which might go and look at their customers or prospective customers or visitors. Stephen Priestnall: We say, “Right, let's go all of the information in your organisation on the surface, first, because there's however many people around the room's years of experience, which is not necessarily formed in a cx way, but if we get that on the table, we've probably got a 60, 70, 80% starting point for what we're going to need to know in the end. I think that's the first thing I would say, is take confidence in the fact you've got some foundational intelligence about customer experience. But there might be a clever way of bringing that out through a little workshop. So you ask the right questions of each other. And one of the ways which I think is useful to do and quite practical is to think about three different ways of looking at people as individuals. Stephen Priestnall: So think about themselves as a, you know, a standard attribute based, if you like, cohort or segments, you know, age, demography, all those things that we talked about, but then move those to one side and then ask a relatively straightforward question, what needs are being satisfied by your services? So it's kind of, what's the point of what you do? Yeah, well, harsh question. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: But it's devoid from, if you like, knowing your customers at that point, devoid from any transaction based evaluation or business case to say, what's the point of what we do? Why do people turn up and then be quite hard about answering those questions. And when you get the first answer in your head, which is based on what you've always thought you've always done, just go right. Is that really why people turn up? Paul Marden: Is that right? Stephen Priestnall: Really why people walk through the door? Is that really why people tell their friends about us? Paul Marden: There's a little bit of lean thinking there, isn't there? You've got five whys, haven't you? You could go, but why? But why? But why? Just to keep pushing yourself to think that hard thought. Stephen Priestnall: Exactly. Whatever, you know, whatever little mental games you want to play with it, that's the kind of point. What's the point? And then the next lens to look at it is the journey your visitors are on in order to not just get to your destination, but get out of your destination and be reflecting on it to their I, peers, friends, colleagues, family. And that journey doesn't mean I book a ticket, I turn up, I walk around the attraction and then I go home. It means what are the component parts of that journey when they're in planning more just you asked me earlier on about whether I plan a picnic. What are they planning? How likely are they to plan? Do they not want to plan? Do they just want to turn up? Stephen Priestnall: You know, when they're getting to, when they're coming, when they're traveling to the destination, how are they traveling? What's their preferred method of travel? And then what are the different ways in which people engage with the attraction itself? And then what happens afterwards when they walk out? Do they walk out and go for a beer? Forget about it. Did they do that thing you do in a golf club where you spend the next 3 hours talking about what you did for the last 3 hours? And what's the version of that could be done in social media afterwards? And again, do that. Do that without necessarily worrying too much about who does what. So you end up these kind of journey components. Stephen Priestnall: Now all these things can be really heavily researched if you've got resources and the time to do that, but you can do it in a room with three or four people in 2 or 3 hours. And what you'll end up with is a set of right. The people who visit us look a bit like this. Typically, here's five or six types of people, here's a pool type, here's a Steven type, here's a whoever else type of. We've got ten or eleven needs. Well, who knew we had ten or eleven needs? That were satisfying. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: So you write those down. Oh, look, we got a journey which looks like planning, engagement, reflection. And I use those three terms because we use them all the time because they're nice and easy to get your head around. Planning, engagement, reflection, and within engagement here are all the different bits that are happening in engagement here. At the different bits that, all right, we might have a dozen, maybe even two dozen components underneath those kind of three big things. And you've then got a bit of a jigsaw. And it's also objective at that point as well. You've then got this objective jigsaw to say, which of those five or six groups of people have which of those needs do we think you might end up with that funny place where. Stephen Priestnall: Oh, actually that cohort doesn't have any of those needs, so we think they really like coming to us, but we're not doing anything to satisfy their needs or this other group that we don't get many of. Look how many needs we're satisfying in that group. Maybe we should be targeting that group. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: So whether you're. Whether you go outwards and change your segmentation, your targeting, or whether you come in with and change your service design, you've already got some things to think about. And then when you map the journey on top of that, and again, you know, nice. It could be a done on paper, it could be done. There's loads of tools online you can do this without getting too scientific. You've then got the points at which, all right, so if that need is being satisfied for those people at that point, we now have a design intervention to work out. So we now have, essentially, we have a brief, we have a specification now that might be a piece of digital interaction, it might be a piece of communications design, it might be a piece of signage in the attraction, it might be a follow up social media nudge. Stephen Priestnall: You're then not inventing what you think it is that you need to do for your attraction. We use a phrase which I think clients are pretty comfortable with in the end because it. It's a real reflection. It's completely normal for organisations to kind of end up with an inside and view of the world. Everything is all about the product and the service because that's where the investment goes, that's where the thinking goes. And what we try and do is just to persuade people to take an outside in view. So actually look at this from the point of view of the customer. And I think what the exercise I've just described does is help you take that outside in view. Paul Marden: I'm smiling for those listening. I'm smiling because I just, it reminds me of so many times where I can, you know, I can see observing in the projects that we do or just, you know, interacting with the outside world, where you can tell that people often take a very parochial internal view and they'll communicate with the outside world in their own internal language. They will try and, you know, influence people to do things rather than thinking, how does this appear outside? Stephen Priestnall: Yeah, and it's, it, but it's also, it's not a critique. It's normalised behaviour. If you just think about how organisations grow, you end up with an idea, you know, where often it is about the customers. You've got this entrepreneurial, innovative spark that kicks the idea off, satisfying the needs. And then you build up a bunch of teams who, by definition, have broken out into departments with different roles and responsibilities. And then, and then the sense of self of the people in those teams is derived from the departmental responsibility. Paul Marden: Yes. Stephen Priestnall: But as a consequence, you then are trained, naturally trained to be inside out. Paul Marden: Yeah. Stephen Priestnall: And so, it's normal. And then when that, then when the salesperson comes back and says, “Why did you build it like that?” You know, the designer, the product person says, “Well, because that's the best way of doing this thing.” And the salesperson says, “I can't sell that.” And that actually, and I don't know how much. In your podcast, Paul, you talked about agile, but this is when the concept of squads really can work. I think that you have to take real care with squads because they can end up creating rooms of people who don't understand each other. I think unless there's one other thing I would say about the human part of CX, you have to take this into the culture of the organisation as well. So you asked me earlier, how do you present a CX focus for an organisation? Stephen Priestnall: Well, you can't just drop the results of that little workshop on top of everybody, because it's the going through the process of looking at those three lenses that puts you in a different mindset. If you then just end up telling the product people or telling the sales people or telling the ops people, can you do it like this now? They'll just add that onto their list of things to do. It won't be a change. Paul Marden: But when you bring those people into the conversation, I think it brings a different perspective, doesn't it? And I think that's the one thing I've learned from you in the few years that we've known one another is that when you boil it down, everything is a CX project. And I don't think I ever really thought about that. That there can be something which to me seems so navel gazing, internally focused as a technical project to deliver in the business. But actually, when you think, when you apply the rigor of thinking about the client, the customer, then you find that it is a CX driven project, even if it is completely internally facing. It can be about the communication between two teams, but in the end, because they don't have good communication, it's resulting in this poor customer experience over here. Paul Marden: So when you think about it hard, then these projects have a CX focus, even when they are very kind of internally facing. Stephen Priestnall: And it's sometimes difficult. I mean, I think that's a really good articulation of it. It sometimes can be a challenge to make that process seem worthwhile, because what you end up doing is spending more time challenging what you think is right at the beginning of the process. And there's always a desire from somewhere to move things on. I think that there's a little value based model that I always apply in my head, which if we treat this kind of CX phase as the planning phase, and then you go through a design phase, then you go through a build phase. For every extra hour you spend in planning, without spending that, you would spend ten more hours in design and a hundred more hours in production. So if you leave that hour aside, you're going to have a tenfold in design phase. Stephen Priestnall: And if you don't deal with it in design phase, you'll have it 100 fold, then build phase. But choosing to do that extra hour, which is tension filled, it might be a bit of conflict, there might be a bit of defensiveness. It needs to be carefully managed and kind of cajoled, but the value of it is meant. Paul Marden: Yeah. So you've described this kind of approach to take, identifying who the customers are, trying to use a little bit of intuition to be all science if you've got the budget to go and do the research, but to understand those customers in more detail and what their needs are, and then driving down and finding out where, you know, the journey maps onto that and where the gaps are and starting to look to fill those gaps. Is there room in the world for a dirty bottom up approach where you can see a problem already and you want to address that problem? Can you attack this from both angles or do you need to start from a top down approach? Stephen Priestnall: I'm an arch pragmatist and if we know there's a problem to solve and it's screaming for a solution, then that's going to solve the problem. I would only cancel that try and stand back and look at the unintended consequences through a very objective lens. You don't need to spend long doing that. But I think the magnetism of solving a problem that's been a longstanding problem can also act as a set of blinkers. So that's the only thing I would say. Paul Marden: Yeah, you can be distracted by the screaming problem that turns out not to be the real root cause. If you take the bigger picture of you. Stephen Priestnall: If we got this horrendous problem just before checkout, whether that's a digital or at the attraction itself and queuing up going on, you know, there's a need to solve that through a piece of technology or extra stuff on the tills. But actually, it turns out that there's a funneling process going on in the start of the process that's causing everybody to end up at the checker at the same time. And that can be solved by a different distribution of products in the attraction itself, or bringing in some different content to inform people in the digital journey. That means they don't have to do task X and Y because they now know about it. You know, we've all had that before, which it looks like people can't get through this bit of the funnel. Let's try and make this bit of the funnel easier. Stephen Priestnall: Let's try and do more things. More buttons, more. Let's just try and make it easier. But actually, it turns out, if only we'd given that visitor to the digital journey more time to consume content and not push them through the first stage of the transaction process so quickly, they would have entered the second stage much better informed and relaxed about completing the overall thing. Paul Marden: It's just such a challenge, isn't it? Because I can just feel me even now with our fictitious scenario, all I want to do is squeeze them down the funnel. But you have to focus at the end about getting the right outcome, don't you? Stephen Priestnall: There's another great metaphor I like to use, and we do this all the time because we talk about something called sustainable customer experience. And sustainable customer experience strategy isn't about a green CX strategy. It's about saying, if you get your CX strategy right, you will have to spend less money on acquiring new customers, so it's more economically sustainable and there's a really interesting kind of just different way of looking at it. So normally if you look at the typical retail conversion process, if you get 100 people on the top of a digital funnel, you might get five out the end as a conversion there's usually really simple numbers, five. So everybody works on how do we make five six? That's the big thing because that's like 20% improvement. If you get five to six, we've just put 20% on the bottom line. Stephen Priestnall: Meanwhile there's 95 people. Do you care? Are you interested? I came here for a reason and you don't like me anymore, so. Well, goodbye then. So what we do is we say, right, we want to put as much effort into understanding the 94. It's not wasted effort. I'm a pragmatist, as we do making the five six, because if out of that 94 we can get another 20 over the next twelve months to do the same thing. We've not spent any money on customer acquisition. We've built and engaged in a relationship. We've had opportunities to talk and engage them, which probably means they're going and talking to other people and checking about the experience. So they're probably doing some recruitment for us anyway, which we can also nudge behaviour. Stephen Priestnall: And then what that does, it changes the mentality inside the organisation to not just think about, we've got six out the other end. Yes. Celebrate. And actually think about. Because imagine if you did that physically. Imagine if physically you could see the hundred people in a queue and everybody went off celebrating the 6th that went through. And then you look back and you looked at these 94 people just milling around having a chat with each other and what just happened. Paul Marden: Yeah, that would feel pretty uncomfortable, wouldn't it? Stephen Priestnall: It will. Especially for an attraction. Paul Marden: Yeah, for sure. Look, this has been brilliant. It's nice. I think sometimes to take a step back and look at that kind of the 101 class, the intro to the subject. And I think this is a subject that we will come back to again and again. We've talked about taking it back to its first principles a little bit today, but this is embedded within the attraction sector. They know and understand the people that come through the door. This is something that they take really seriously, obviously. But I think there are ways in which we can take what we've learned today and use that as a springboard into some more deeper conversations. Paul Marden: Maybe in Season 6, which is coming up where we can talk a little bit more about, you know, your conversations about AI, the direction that you take these things in. How does AI help you in a world where you want to be cx centric? What does AI do for you? So thank you ever so much. This has been brilliant. Thank you. Stephen Priestnall: Really enjoyed it. Paul Marden: One last ask of you, though. We always ask our interviewees to come up with a book recommendation. And it can be fiction, it can be factual, it can be about the subject. But we will give this book away to the first person that retweets the show advert and says, I want Stephen's book. So what is the book that you'd like to share with the world? Stephen Priestnall: Well, so I'd love to say it was. It was a book I wrote in 1986 on expert systems in context. I was doing AI back in the 80’s. That one is out of print. You definitely will get hold of it. Instead, it's a book that I think challenges, whatever your persuasions about understanding of the environment and climate, challenges your way of thinking about. It's a book by an activist called George Monbiot, and it's called Feral. And it's to do with the rewilding of Britain, the potential for rewilding Britain. And again, whether you're minded to think that's a good thing or not, it's a great book to just think, okay, that's my perceptions challenge. I hadn't thought of things like that. Paul Marden: Excellent. So, listeners, if you'd like to get a copy of Stephen's book, then head over to X, find the show tweet that we put out and say, I want Stephen's book. And the first person to do that will get a copy. Stephen, this has been wonderful. Thank you all so much. And hopefully we will talk more about this in Season 6. Stephen Priestnall: Thank you very much, Paul. Oz Austwick: He's a really interesting guy, isn't he? Paul Marden: He is indeed. I said to Stephen afterwards, it was such a nice conversation because we've been working together for years, and today I got to ask the questions I've been too embarrassed to ask for the last few years because I really should, at this point, know the answers to them. But today I was able to take the place of the listener and ask those questions without fear of embarrassment. Oz Austwick: Yeah, there does come a point where you kind of feel that you probably shouldn't be asking this question anymore. You should already know this. Yeah, I love that. I thought, it's really interesting. I love this concept of nudging that he talked about, and it's something I've been aware of online for years, but the kind of putting it in the context of happening in the real world, I thought was really interesting. It gives you a bit of insight into how weird it is that we try and force people into certain pathways online. When you'd never dream of doing that in the real world, just having somebody outside a room just pushing you into it. Yeah, you wouldn't do that. Paul Marden: You're in a queue for the log flume and you get poked in the back to say, “Do you want to buy your photo? Do you want to buy your photo? You really do want to buy the photo, don't you?” Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, that does kind of happen, doesn't it? It's usually my children that are doing it, if I'm being honest. But, yeah, really interesting stuff. Paul Marden: A nice way to round out some amazing interviews and fireside chats that we've had over Season 5 and look forward to Season 6. Oz Austwick: Yeah, I'm really excited about Season 6. Paul Marden: Yeah, we want to do something a little bit different, don't we? Oz Austwick: Yeah, well, I mean, firstly, I'll get to start the season of the podcast. Because I wasn't here at the start of Season 5. I've kind of just weaseled my way in halfway through the season and gone, “Yes, mine now.” Paul Marden: Tell listeners, what is it that we want to do differently? Oz Austwick: Well, it feels a bit weird to me that we're creating a podcast all about the visitor attraction sector, which is designed to get people out of their houses to a place and actually experience it in the real world. And yet you're sitting in exactly the same room, and I'm sitting in exactly the same room. And as we pointed out not long ago, I'm wearing the same t shirt as I seem. This appears to be my podcast t shirt. And yet, you know, we're not getting out. So we're gonna get out. We're gonna get in a car and go to a place and record a podcast in an attraction with a person. And I think that's amazing. Paul Marden: Yeah, I just can't wait. We've got a couple lined up. One's crazy, one's going to be a big event. It could be really fun, but we love listeners with attractions who would like two blokes and some cameras to turn up to invite us along. We would love to come and visit your venue. We would love to talk about whatever subject it is that you think our listeners would like to discuss, and we'll come along and we'll record it in real life at your place and see how amazing your venue is and talk more about the stuff that everybody's interested in. Oz Austwick: Absolutely. But it's not just that we're going to do a little bit differently, is it? We're kind of focusing a little bit more on different groups. Paul Marden: Yeah. There was some lovely feedback for those, for listeners that listened to Kelly's final episode, her swan song. When Ross from Drayton Manor came on and talked about his experience of being on the podcast and how influential it was for him to have his 15 minutes of fame for Skip the Queue, and how important that was to him in his stage, in his career, that prompted us to think about, can we use this platform now that so many people before us built to help to shine a light on new and emerging talent in the sector? So if you are in early stages of your career and you are doing something interesting in the attraction space, could be digital, it could be something customer focused in real life. Paul Marden: There's so many different ways where we could have an interesting conversation about what it is that you do and why other people would find it interesting. You know, invite us in. We would love to have that conversation with people. If you know someone, if there's someone in your team who, you know, you can see is doing amazing things and could grow in their career with the spotlight shone on them, and there's lots of people like that, then point them in our direction. Point us in their direction. We can definitely do something to help them to share their story and hopefully to benefit from that springboard, that stepping outside and talking to the outside world about what you do can really have on a career. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's lovely that hopefully now, after five seasons, the podcasts kind of mature enough that we don't need to lean on those famous, influential people in the industry quite as much. And hopefully that maybe we've got enough loyal listeners and enough of us standing as a podcast that we can tell stories just because they're interesting. Yeah, you already know the name of the person we're talking to, so, yeah, that's going to be really exciting. Paul Marden: But, you know, there are stories to be told that we don't know about yet that I'm sure will be going on inside listeners minds and, you know, hit us up, send us an email, send us a tweet, an X. I don't know what. I don't know. That's another story, isn't it? But send us a message by carrier Pigeon, if you can, that tells us what you think we should be talking about, the people we should be meeting and the stories that should be told. We would love to hear from you. Oz Austwick: Yeah, and in the meantime, enjoy your two or three weeks without Skip the Queue. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Hopefully you're all busy working in your attractions, being absolutely swamped. If the attractions I've been to are anything to go by, it is a rip roaring success of a summer. We've had some pretty good weather and yeah, we'll be looking back at this September October time thinking what an amazing summer it was after a disappointing start to the year. Oz Austwick: So yeah, well, fingers crossed. Absolutely. Paul Marden: Thank you, Oz. It's been delightful. I've enjoyed every minute of it. Oz Austwick: Yeah, me too. Here's to Season 6. Paul Marden: Yeah, see you on the other side. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Why you absolutely should take part in the 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey | 17 Jul 2024 | 00:41:54 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast. Competition ends on 31st July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://rubbercheese.com/survey/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/ Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII’s personal man at arms. Outside of work he’s a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids.
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. In today's episode, Oz Austwick and I talk about the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey. After six weeks of data collection, we've seen some really interesting insights that we'll share and we'll also announce a new digital sustainability initiative that we're really excited about. Paul Marden: Hello, Oz. How you doing, mate? Oz Austwick: Hi, I'm good, mate, I'm good. How are you? Paul Marden: I am very good. On a slightly gray summer's day, hopefully, you know, all the private schools have broken up, so it should start to get busy in the attractions over the next couple of weeks and then we've got all the state schools breaking up in the next few weeks as well. So exciting times, hopefully. Hopefully busy times as well. Oz Austwick: Yes. So what are we going to talk about today? Paul Marden: Well, we are going to talk a little bit about the survey, but I thought it might be quite nice as well to talk a little bit about what's happening in the news because there's quite a lot at the moment. Oz Austwick: There is been a bit of a change of boss, haven't there has been. Paul Marden: A change of boss recently. But before we do that, shall we talk about where have we been recently? Tell me, tell me, which attraction have you been to recently? Oz Austwick: So this is why you're here, to keep me on track. The most recent attraction I've been to is Hazelmere Museum in Surrey. It's a bit of an eye opener, to be honest. I've always had a bit of a love for these tiny little provincial, formerly council run museums that you find in little towns around the country because you come across some amazing gems hidden in them. But Hazelmere Museum is a little bit different. I mean, it's astonishing. It's got a vast catalogue of natural history stuff. I mean, hundreds of thousands of pieces in the catalogue there. They've got an Egyptian section as well, with a sarcophagus and a mummy. Yeah, it's a great place. It's hidden away in this tiny little market town and if you get the opportunity, go, because it's great. Oz Austwick: But there is no parking, so you have to park in the town centre and walk along, which is the only downside I can come up with. How about you? Where have you been? Paul Marden: Sounds awesome. I have been to a few tiny little museums, actually. Recently I went to Winchester with my daughter and we did some of the military museums in Winchester because there's quite a few regimental museums in Winchester. They are all of them, you know, hyper focused on a particular regiment doing very specific things. So, you know, there's a cavalry museum and infantry museums. And it's just really interesting. My brother was in the army. It's quite nice to be able to take Millie and walk her around some of these military museums and for her to connect with what he did when he was in the army. So we’re able to see, there's a little piece in one of the museums showing the war in Kosovo and how peacekeepers went over. And my brother had a medal from going to Bosnia. Paul Marden: He went to in peacekeeping back in the ’90s. That was very interesting for her to be in a museum and connect with something that's of relevance to the family. He was slightly offended when I told him. Also, we saw model of Pegasus Bridge. And she was like, “Was he at Pegasus Bridge?” And I was like, “No, no. Uncle Barry's not quite that old. No, that's about 40 years too old for Uncle Barry.” Oz Austwick: Yeah. Do you know, I remember I went to Pegasus Bridge completely by accident once. Literally. We were just driving back and went, “Hang on a minute. This looks familiar. “Yeah. We stopped off at the cafe and had a wander around the bridge. And you can still see the bullet holes in the walls of the cafe building. And there are still tanks. Amazing place. Anyway, sorry, I digress. Paul Marden: No, absolutely. So let's talk a little bit about what's happening in the news at the moment. Anything that springs to mind for you? Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, obviously, the change of government, I don't think it came as a big surprise to anyone. Maybe the actual numbers were a little surprising, but the fact that we've now got a Labour Prime Minister with a fairly clear majority I don't think was a massive surprise. How that's going to play out in terms of the sector, I don't know. Paul Marden: Yeah, we've got a different culture sector in place, haven't we, than were perhaps anticipating. So there's few changes of personnel than we perhaps anticipated. Oz Austwick: Yeah, I mean, I guess we'll wait and see. It's probably just a result of the change, but I guess I'm feeling fairly optimistic that things might improve. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I feel an air of optimism that we haven't had for quite some time. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Paul Marden: Interesting times, other things in the sector. Interesting, exciting news. The Young V&A were awarded the Art Fund Museum of the Year. That's a, you know, a new museum that's doing lots of amazing work. We're real focused on kids and families. Lots of. Lots of co creation with young people involved in it. So that's quite exciting stuff. And it comes with a really hefty prize fund as well. So. So they got quite a nice pat on the back, a gong and some money as well to be able to fund their good work. So that's exciting. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Good for them. Anything else? Yeah, Bloomberg. I think we should probably talk a little bit about Bloomberg earlier in the year. We talked a lot about to a lot of people about the fact that Bloomberg philanthropies were awarding grants as part of their accelerator program for attractions, culturally significant attractions, to improve their digital presence. And that's kind of happened. A lot of awards have been made, attractions have got money to spend, and that's beginning to work its way out into the community now. So I'm really looking forward to seeing if that actually makes a significant difference to the overall level of websites. And I guess we'll probably have to wait until next year with the survey to find out if there's been a change in the sector. Oz Austwick: But I think for those attractions that have received the money, it can't be anything but a positive thing. Paul Marden: I was quite impressed because it's not just money that they're getting. They're getting help and support from Bloomberg as well to guide them in the use of that money. Because I think sometimes you see charities getting awarded large chunks of money and sometimes it can be a challenge for them to spend that money effectively, whereas by being provided guidance from Bloomberg, you know, you can see that money is going to be well spent and well used. So that's. I'm pleased about that. It'll be really exciting to see some of those projects come to fruition. I was pretty excited about a couple of science centre related news items. So we the curious in Bristol has reopened after two years of being closed in fire. So that was, I think that was monumental for them to be able to turn that around. It was really. Paul Marden: I was really pleased to see them reopen. That's definitely on my list of things I need to do this summer, is go and visit them and see what amazing things they've done. Absolutely. And then we've also got Cambridge Science Centre as well, will be due to open in a couple of weeks time. So they've opened their ticketing up. So people can now buy tickets to go to Cambridge Science Centre who have been a little bit like we the curious. They've been without a physical home for a period of time and are reopening a physical offering again. So that's exciting to be able to go and buy your tickets and head on over to Cambridge Science Centre. Oz Austwick: And Kids in Museums as well. I'm not going to talk about it because I know you know a lot more about it than me. But they're looking for volunteers, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So I think we talked in a number of episodes about the Family Friendly Museum Awards and short lists of those have been announced. That includes Young V&A again. And we're looking for volunteer families to go undercover and do the judging. And I love it. The idea that families will get. They will have a contribution to the cost of money, pay expenses for them to go undercover and do this judging. And the feedback we get from those families is amazing. At the awards last year, each time an award was announced, we get a little snippet of what the undercover judges actually said and it's surprising what kids find important to them. The benches were comfy or the cafe was nice, you know, little things that perhaps adults might notice, you know, comes out in that undercover judging. Paul Marden: So, yeah, Kids in Museums need volunteers. Head on over to the website to go and find out a little bit more about that undercover judging. If you'd like to get involved in it. That's the news. But what do we really want to talk about? Oz Austwick: We really want to talk about our survey. Paul Marden: We really do. It's exciting. Oz Austwick: In fairness, we're kind of always talking about the survey at the moment. So now we're just going to talk to you about the survey rather than each other and anyone that will listen. Paul Marden: Yes, absolutely. Oz Austwick: We've been open for submissions for, what, six weeks now? Paul Marden: About that, I think. Yeah. Oz Austwick: A few weeks to go. It's proving really interesting. Paul Marden: Yes. Oz Austwick: Is that enough of the hook? Have we got you now? One of the things that I think is probably worth saying is that somehow, and whilst we wanted this to happen, I don't think we specifically planned for it, we've kind of lost a lot of the kind of fake submissions that we've had in previous years where people were clearly just having a look at the survey or not bothering to fill it in, or maybe it was bots doing it and we don't seem to have those. So the overall quality of the responses is just fantastic. And some of the venues that have submitted their data to the survey, I mean, they're astonishing. I'm not going to name any names because I don't know if I'm allowed to. Paul Marden: No, you're definitely not allowed to. Oz Austwick: Some of the biggest and most famous attractions in the country. Or even the world because we are worldwide this year. Paul Marden: But more importantly, also the smallest museums you could possibly imagine are in that data set as well. So what have we seen? We got all of these amazing responses. We've still got a couple of weeks left to go. We don't want anyone to feel left out. We definitely want more people to respond over the next couple of weeks. But let's give some teasers. What have we seen that we thought was interesting? Oz Austwick: Before we do, can I just make a couple of points that I think everybody needs to be aware of? The first is that any data you put in is absolutely confidential in every way. We're never going to release your data to the wider world. All the data that gets released is aggregated together and is done in a way that is completely anonymous. But what that does is it allows us to give sector wide data and we can give your data in comparison to that, so you can and see where you are. So there's no risk of anything getting out in the wide world that you don't want out there. It's completely non commercial. You know, we're not making money from this, we're not doing this, we're not asking for your data in order that we can make money. Oz Austwick: This is to give back to the community. We want people to have the information so that they can make the right decisions. And also, you don't have to fill in everything. If you look at it and think, you know, I ought to fill this in, I want to fill it in, but I haven't got time to do the whole thing, do half of it, that's okay. Even if you only fill in one question, that will improve the value of that answer to the entire sector. I'll shush now. Sorry. Let's look at some action figures. Paul Marden: Let's talk about some of the interesting findings. We've definitely found some things where we've gone. “Oh, really? Oh, how interesting.” So for me, one of them, I'm a tech geek. Everybody knows I'm a tech geek. Okay. Ticketing systems, content management systems, that's my bag. I was quite interested this year that we're seeing much more parity in terms of the ticketing system data that we're getting. So there is a number of ticketing systems where in previous years there's been a substantial number of people selecting Digitickets. In previous years we're seeing more. We're seeing more responses from other respondents this year with different ticketing systems. And I think we've said this before, it's nothing. These aren't necessarily indicating changes in the behaviour of the sector. Paul Marden: It more speaks to the different people that are responding in different years and we're seeing more responses from different people this year. And so we are seeing different ticketing systems appearing alongside Digitickets as key. You spotted something that surprised you, didn't you, in that respect? Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. When we designed the survey went through all of the ticketing systems that were familiar with and all of the names that we knew but hadn't had specific experience of working with. And we created what we thought was a really comprehensive listing of ticketing systems. But we allowed people to tick other and then write in what they were using and we clearly missed one big player from that list and they're probably the highest ranked so far. I haven't actually looked for the last week or so. They're certainly up there. They may not be the most popular but they're one of the most popular and it came as a complete surprise to us. So, you know, do make sure that you get your report because there is stuff in it that surprises even if it's just me, I mean. Oz Austwick: But you may well be surprised by some of the results of that. Paul Marden: Yeah, we saw interesting shifts. So we've done a little bit of year on year analysis as well. Already we've seen that there are more people selecting WordPress as their CMS. So that's now around half of all respondents have selected WordPress as their content management system. Oz Austwick: I'm going to take issue with your phrasing there because I'm not sure that's an accurate description. Paul Marden: Why? Oz Austwick: Because I don't necessarily think we've seen more people selecting WordPress, but we've certainly had more people stating they use WordPress. They may have been using WordPress years, much like the ticketing system. What we've got is a snapshot of the people who have submitted. Paul Marden: Yeah, so I meant selected the tick box as opposed to selected the technology platform. But you're absolutely right. It is indicative of the responses that we're getting this year. And it's not. They're not eating away market share from the other CMS's. I think we're seeing more people being able to tell us what the CMS that they're using is. So fewer people are saying I don't know or I can't track this, and actually giving us answer. Oz Austwick: Yeah, we made a real conscious effort to try and reduce the number of people just saying other. And I think that's probably made a big difference to these. Paul Marden: Yeah, up around is around 11% now, up from 4% in 2023. So that's quite interesting. We're definitely going to do some analysis this year to try and see. Can we slice and dice some of the other data by technology platforms to see if any of these platforms give those people that select them an edge in terms of their performance or their sustainability scores or things like that? Oz Austwick: I know one of the things that we noticed last year was that the bigger, more successful venues were more likely to use Umbraco or perhaps the other way around. The venues that used Umbraco were more likely to be the bigger, more successful venues, but there was no way of telling which was cause and which was effect or whether they were just completely disconnected at all. And hopefully now, because we've got a slightly bigger sample size, we might be able to be a bit more accurate with that. Rather than stating this is a correlation, maybe there's something we can actually action from this. Paul Marden: Yeah. You had some interesting stuff that you saw around how easy people find it to find stuff, didn't you? Oz Austwick: Yes. There's been a long debate that's been going on for longer than I've been with Rubber Cheese about the value of self reporting. And I know that there were some conversations with the Advisory Board that we put together to help design the survey this year about whether that was a valuable thing to do. And I think that, because that's how we've done it for the last few years, we've stuck with it. But also, I think as long as you're open about the fact that this is self reporting, the figure is still accurate. So when we ask people how easy it is for visitors to their website to find what they're looking for, over half of them ranked 8, 9 or 10 out of 10, so that it was very easy. Oz Austwick: And nobody ranked zero, one or two, so nobody thought that it was really difficult to find stuff on their website. But 50% of sites have never actually tested the site or collected feedback from users. So how valuable that figure is a different question. Yeah, we'll come to that later, because there's an important point that I think we're going to make later on about how we can make that figure more valuable. Paul Marden: You also saw some stuff around personalisation, didn't you? Oz Austwick: Yeah. The personalisation things are really important because as a marketer, you go along to agency groups and conferences and workshops and webinars, and for years, if not decades, people have been talking about how important personalisation is. If you've got anybody in your organisation that works with email newsletters, personalisation is absolutely key. And it's really clear that the more you personalise, the better you do. And 90% of the people who filled in the survey agree that personalisation is more important than not. However, only 9% of websites are offering personalised content. Paul Marden: It's a bit heartbreaking, isn't it? Oz Austwick: Yeah. Obviously we don't know why and we can say that even at this point, without the survey having finished, that's already up from last year. It was 6% last year and now it's at 9%, which doesn't feel like a big improvement, but it's a 50% increase. Paul Marden: It'd be interesting to slice that again and see is that the 9% that have personalisation, are they the attractions with larger footfall and larger budgets and that's why they can afford to do this and that's the big barrier to entry? Or is there a something else that actually know that smaller sites with less traffic and less footfall at the attraction can still offer personalisation? It's not just about budgets and some people can use this stuff and get really good outcomes from it, or spending all that time and effort mean that you get no real outcome of it anyway, and that all of those people that think it's really important are kidding themselves. And that's the great thing about the survey, isn't it, that we've got all of this data and we can start to draw those conclusions from it? Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. And I think this is going to be a really interesting one to follow over the next year or two to see if. Is this year's number an actual increase or is it just a more accurate number? Yes, and I guess we can only see that as a trend over time. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: Now, you were very keen that we included some questions about AI and the use of AI. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: Have there been any interesting findings there? Paul Marden: Yes. So the majority of people have used some sort of AI content generation tool, so they've used ChatGPT or the like to be able to do generative AI, writing, copy and that kind of thing. We've not gone into depth about how much they've used it. Do they use it extensively? Is it part of their day to day work? It was simply a question of have you used any of these tools? So, you know, over half have used a tool like that. There is also hidden in that data set there's a few attractions that are doing some pretty innovative things with AI as well. So there's a couple that are using things like AI powered CRM or AI powered scheduling or workforce management. So earlier on you said everybody's submissions is completely anonymous. That is completely true. Paul Marden: But I am definitely going to be tapping up those people that gave us the interesting answers to say, “Would you like to come and tell the story in more detail?” So, yes, you're right, we're never going to share anybody's data, and we're never going to share anybody's stories without their permission. We will definitely, over the next few weeks and months, as we're planning the report, we're definitely going to go to the people that have given us interesting data that has made us go, that's very interesting, and talking to them. So we'll find out a little bit more about what those people are doing. But you had an interesting observation, didn't you? If half of the people have used something like ChatGPT, that leaves about half the people that haven't used it. Oz Austwick: Yeah, it's really difficult to know from where we sit as a digital agency that is constantly trying to stay ahead of the curve and understand new technologies and how they might be relevant and how we can use them to help our clients. You know, we may be, are we more familiar with this than most people, or is the way we see it representative? It's really hard to know. And I find it really hard to believe that the approaching half of visitor attractions simply haven't even looked at it. They've not even gone to ChatGPT and said, you know, find me a title for this blog post or something like that. It just seems that maybe they're missing a trick. Oz Austwick: And I'm not suggesting that you should go out and get vast amounts of content written by AI and plaster it all over your site. We know that Google is specifically and deliberately penalising sites it knows are doing that, but you can certainly use it to maybe improve your language. Or if you can't come up with a catchy title, you can ask for twelve different suggestions for titles and pick and choose. I find it really hard to believe that half the people haven't even done that, but that could just be my context. Paul Marden: I think you might be sat in a little bubble of your own making. I sat with people recently and walked them through. How do you prompt ChatGPT? What does prompting even mean? And talking about how is it doing it? And talking about the idea that it's all just probabilities. It's not intelligent, it's just using probabilities to figure out what the next word is. Yeah. And what does that actually mean to people? I definitely think that we sit in a bubble where we are. We are not experts. Neither of us, I think, would consider ourselves experts at best, gentlemen amateurs. But I think we sit in a bubble of people that are using this a lot and are experimenting with it. I don't know. Paul Marden: I think there's a place for Skip the Queue to look at this next year, to look at what are the innovative things that people are doing. But also starting at the 101 class, what does it all mean? What are these things? How could they be useful to you? How could you make use of ChatGPT to accelerate your content creation, to come up with new ideas that you haven't potentially thought of? So definitely, I think there's space in Season 6 for us to delve into this in more detail. There's one more area that I think we added this year that we're really excited about, isn't there, around sustainability. Paul Marden: Not because we think we are thought leaders on this, not because we think we're on the cutting edge, but because we're learning so much around this at the moment and really changing the way that we work, aren't we? Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a really important point. It's something that. Oh, which conference was it? I think were both there. One of the agencynomics conferences, Joss from Enviral, made the point that this is actually our problem. If websites are out there and they aren't sustainable and they are causing damage, it's the fault of the companies that have built them. And really, that's us. So we kind of feel that we have to be at least trying to take the lead in helping fix that. And you can't do anything to fix the issue unless you've got the knowledge and the understanding of where you are. And I guess that's where we are at the moment. We've asked a few really basic questions, but they've given some quite interesting statistics. Paul Marden: Yeah. So most attractions have got good intentions, so most have got a sustainability plan in place. We've not asked what that plan looks like or how comprehensive it is. It was simply, does your attraction have a sustainability plan? And most people have said yes to that. Oz Austwick: When you say it's a majority, I think it's quite important to note that this isn't like 56%, this is a huge majority. The vast majority of sites have sustainability plan to the point where you could say almost everybody does. Not quite everybody, but almost everybody. But that does make the fact that very few have actually specifically measured the carbon footprint of their website a little bit more shocking. Paul Marden: So that's the big, “Oh, really moment” for us was the idea that most people have got a sustainability plan. Some have even actually taken action to improve the sustainability posture of their website, but very few have actually ever measured the CO2 emissions of their website. So they don't, they're not benchmarking. This is not a coherent plan where you measure, take action, measure again and then replan. Very few of the attractions have actually done that measurement process. We know, we know from recent episodes where we talked about sustainability, the importance of measuring in terms of helping you construct a plan and working in a methodical way to improve the CO2 emissions and improve that sustainability posture. And I think we've recognised as a result of doing the survey that there is some impediment that is stopping people from measuring. Paul Marden: We're not entirely sure we understand what the impediment is, but there is definitely something getting in the way of people being able to measure. And I think that's our. There's the big thing that I wanted to be able to share today that we have decided as a result of doing the survey and then started to run through, we could see that most people haven't tested the CO2 emissions. So what we have done is we've enriched the database of all of the respondents that we've had this year and gone and done the CO2 emissions tests of their websites for them. Now, obviously, we're going to keep that private to us. We're not singling anybody out, but we are going to be able to aggregate together what the whole industry looks like as a result of the testing that we have done. Paul Marden: The testing, to be fair, is not just restricted to the people that have responded to the survey. We are also going and testing more widely across the entire sector to be able to get an understanding of what the CO2 emissions of the websites of the wider sector look like. So that's been, that's something that we've been really pleased that we've been able to do and it's something that we want to be able to offer out to everybody that has taken part in the survey. So one of the things that I guess we're announcing today that is a key thing that we've not talked about throughout the whole survey process, is we're going to give everybody that has taken part in the survey the opportunity to download the CO2 emissions report that we have gathered for them on their website. Paul Marden: So they will be able to see a grading of A to F as to what their CO2 emissions look like. They'll also see that broken down in a little bit more granular detail around the page size, the amount of CO2 that is emitted by the page, one page of their site, and a rough estimate of what that turns into in terms of CO2 emissions for their entire site. And that's something that we will share with everybody at the end of the survey. So this year, it's not just going to be one large survey that aggregates everybody's data together. We will also give individualised reports to everybody for them to be able to see where their CO2 emissions are in terms of their website. Paul Marden: With ideas we're hopefully going to work with friends of Skip the Queue and supporters of the survey to be able to come up with ideas around how you can actually improve that CO2 posture, which could, that could be an amazing thing for us to run the survey again next year, gather that data again and see today, as we're recording, BBC is running the Michael Mosely just one thing in memory of Michael Moseley. I think we can take inspiration from that. What if every attraction that got access to their report did just one thing to improve the CO2 posture of their website? What difference is that going to make to us as a sector as a whole in that one year process? Paul Marden: Because there will bound to be a few little things that you can do, knobs to twiddle and features to add on your website that will just improve that CO2 emissions posture just a little bit and make everybody better as a result of it. Oz Austwick: Yeah. And I think it's really interesting that even though we haven't got the full data yet, and we've not put it together in any meaningful way, it's already changed the way we work as an agency. But not only that, there are other changes going on in the wider community as well, because the website briefs we're getting through from attractions are talking about this more. So I guess from a personal perspective, if you're putting together a brief for a new website or an app or some kind of new digital service, put this in there, ask that somebody pays some attention to the footprint and the impact of your new site and make it part of the decision making process. Paul Marden: Procurement managers have the control. I absolutely believe that the person that holds the purse strings gets to set the direction of the project. And just like accessibility is always on, every tender, sustainability should be there. This is a easily, trivially measurable thing. And when procurement managers hold us to account, the industry will improve as a result of being held to account like that. Oz Austwick: Yes. Now, the sustainability reporting isn't the only new thing that we're going to do. There's one more big thing that we're going to do as part of the survey to try and make. Make the data far more valid and applicable. Do you want to say what it is? Paul Marden: Yeah, I'll take this one. Because this was an idea I had. It was an idea I had a few months ago. I would love to get real end consumer input into the survey. We asked attractions, how important is personalisation? Have you done user testing? How easy was it for people to traverse your website? We're actually going to go out and survey people who have visited a large attraction in the last year and ask them, how easy was it to buy your tickets? We could be asking them about personalisation. We could be asking them about, is sustainability a key deciding buying factor for you? There's lots of things that we could ask people as part of this consumer research piece that we're about to embark on. Paul Marden: I think it's really exciting to be able to join up the voice of the consumer with the voice of the attractions in the Rubber Cheese Survey as a whole. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. Not only will it give us that knowledge from the other side of the transaction, but it'll let us know really very quickly whether the self reporting that people are doing as part of the survey is actually accurate. Is your view of how easy your website is to use, is that accurate? Is that the same view that people coming to your website for the first time have? Because we're all familiar with our own website and if you've designed the user experience, you probably think it's great and it may well be, but unless you actually test it and ask people, you can't know either way. So I think this is a really exciting thing to do and it allows us to kind of draw in more important information that can help us all as a sector improve. Paul Marden: Completely. And we've got a little ask in terms of that, haven't we? We would love to hear from you if you have got input into that consumer research, if you've got ideas of things, we could be asking real people that go to real attractions about how they use the website. You know, let us know. We'd love to hear feedback either. You know, send us a message on Twitter, reach out by email. There's links all in the show notes that will help you to make contact with us. But please just make contact and let us know. We've got amazing feedback from the advisory board and we will be talking about this piece of research with the advisory board before the survey goes out to the real people. But you've got a chance at the moment to be able to input to that. Paul Marden: So please do let us know what you think would be interesting. Oz Austwick: And whilst we're asking things of you, I've got a few more things that we want to ask. Paul Marden: Go on then. What do you want? What do you want? Oz Austwick: Well, all sorts of things. But for today, if you haven't filled in the survey, please do go along to rubbercheese.com. There's a link on the homepage through to the survey. There are different surveys for different parts of the world. Just click on the link, fill it in. You don't have to do the whole thing. Even if it's a partial response, it's still helpful. So please go along, give it a try. I'm led to believe, and I haven't tested this so I'm not going to state for effect, but if you half fill in the survey and then go away and come back on the same computer using the same browser, you'll go back in at the point that you'd got to so you can finish it. It depends on your cookie settings, but that's what is claimed. Oz Austwick: But even if it doesn't happen, you know, a half survey response is better than none. Paul Marden: We'd also like you to nag your mates as well. You know, I've been messaging people that have been responding and so many of the marketers that are filling in the survey are part of communities of other marketers. They're parts of communities, regional communities, Wales communities, or they're parts of sector specific. There's so many different groups and organisations that are working together. If you can, please raise the profile of the survey, stick a link in your WhatsApp group with all the people that you work with around you. We would really appreciate that. Obviously, the more people that submit, the better the data set. The more money we'll donate to Kids in Museums as a result of what we do. Paul Marden: And of course now everybody that submits will get their personalised sustainability report at the end as well, which is another great incentive to get involved. Oz Austwick: I guess the other thing is that if you filled in the survey before and you don't think you've got time to do the whole thing again from scratch, do let us know because we can quite happily provide you with all of the previous answers that you've given that are relevant to this year's survey and then you can just update or fill in the gaps. We're very happy to do that if it would be helpful. And still for those multi site organisations, if that's an easier way for you, for us to provide you with a spreadsheet that you can just put data into, we're very happy to do that too. Paul Marden: Absolutely. And the spreadsheet approach again lends itself very well. You don't have to answer everything. If you don't want to share information about the technology platforms you're using, that's fine. If you don't want to share information about your Google Analytics, that's fine. The more data that we get, even if it is partial data, it enriches what we've got and we get a better picture of the entire sector as a result of that. So, yeah, really keen to get input from more people. So that's our call to action. You've got one more thing you want touch on, don't you? You've got your book recommendation that you want to share with us. So tell us what your book is. Oz Austwick: Well, before I do, there are a couple of things I have to say. The first is that I realise that this is tangentially connected to the visitor attraction sector. That'll become clear, I'm sure, as soon as I reveal the book. The other is that I am an absolute massive history geek. So the book I would like to recommend that if you haven't read this is The Mary Rose by Margaret Rule, which is the story of the excavation and recovery of the Mary Rose itself. I don't know how old you are, dear listener, but I remember sitting in the hall of my school, my primary school up in Yorkshire, with a big TV in a box on a stand with this on the BBC Live and watching it be raised from the depths. And that's kind of stuck with me. Oz Austwick: So it's lovely to read the story of it from the person who kind of made it happen. And then when you've read the book, go down to Portsmouth and have a look because it is a visitor attraction. Paul Marden: Now, I guess it helps you with diving the 4D because you get the fuller picture of the whole story and then you go and do dive the 4D experience and you get to experience a little bit of what that excavation was actually like. And I bet you like any good book to a movie. The book tells the story in much more detail than the movie ever can. Oz Austwick: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. Without a doubt. In fairness, it's going to be tricky to get a copy of this book to somebody because I don't think it's in print anymore. So it will be a secondhand copy. I've checked. You can get them. Abe books has a few. Paul Marden: Are you going to bankrupt me? Oz Austwick: No, no. It's not one of those secondhand books. Don't worry, it's probably cheaper than a new one. Now all the booksellers that are listening are going to put their prices up. But, yeah, comment on Twitter. Sorry, Twitter x. If you want the book and the first person will send it out to. Paul Marden: Yeah, so go find the show announcement, retweet it and say, I want Oz's book. And yep, we will find that and we will send a copy of the book. That will be a challenge for the team behind us that do all of the behind the scenes production to actually try and figure out how you order a secondhand book and get it delivered to somebody different. It's easy on Amazon. Not so easy on a secondhand book site, so that'll be interesting. Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, eBay Books is owned by Amazon, so, you know, there'll be a way. Paul Marden: I'm sure that's a wonderful book, is a wonderful location. If you haven't been before. It's an amazing attraction to go and visit. They've got a pretty good website as well. I think we've said it before. Oz Austwick: It's true. I've heard good things about their website. Paul Marden: Yeah, they seem happy. Great to talk to you again. As always, our little fireside chats are very enjoyable. We do tend to ramble on. We've got one more episode left of Season 5, but planning is underway for season six in the autumn, so nearly we're in the home straight now. Oz Austwick: Definitely do make sure you follow and you won't miss season six. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm.
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Questions from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report, with Kelly and Paul from Rubber Cheese | 06 Mar 2024 | 00:56:28 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/ Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show. As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're answering your questions from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report, asking what more you'd like to see in this year's survey and sharing more on how you can get involved next time. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hello. Paul Marden: Well, hello. Kelly Molson: This is nice. So the two of us haven't been together for a podcast episode for a while. Paul Marden: It does feel like, well, happy new year to start with. Kelly Molson: Way too late for that malarkey. We've just been busy, haven't we've got lots of exciting projects that are coming to. Well, I don't like to say the end, but they're coming to point of launch. Paul Marden: The launch, yeah. The exciting bit. Kelly Molson: The very exciting bit. So we've all been pulled here, there and everywhere. So I've had lovely guests to speak to and you've had a little bit of a break from this. But we're back. We're back. Paul Marden: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: And we're going to start like we always do with these ones. With what attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it? Paul Marden: I have been to Mary Rose Museum and I went with a bunch of nine and ten year olds. We basically went down there for the Kids in Museums Takeover Day. It's one of the kind of showpiece Kids in Museums events that they run every year all around, putting the ownership of the museum into the hands of kids. I managed to wangle my way to Mary Rose, which is relatively close to me. And I took my daughter's class, who I run a coding club for. So interestingly, theme around our coding club this year is all around the arts and how you put art into StEm and make it steam just like an amazingly. Kelly Molson: I can't believe how well that's worked out. Paul Marden: It gets better. The very first session of our club was all about what is the job of a museum curator. And so we took that theme and went and took over the Mary Rose and became curators for a day. So the kids got to go around the museum and have fun and see all the cool stuff that's going on there. They did the 3D Dive, the Mary Rose experience, and it was amazing watching a bunch of nine and ten year olds reaching out and popping these bubbles that were on the 3D screen in front of them. And then they went off and they designed their own interactive display around whatever was the thing that excited them about the museum. Paul Marden: So there was lots of dog themed ones because there's a dog that is the kind of subject of a lot of the kids stuff focused around Mary Rose. But there was all different sorts of interactive displays, augmented reality within the glass lift that looks onto the Mary Rose and how you could gamify it. The kids just had a whale of a time and I just strolled around the museum and watched them having fun and say, that wasn't a tough day at all. Kelly Molson: I'm actually really jealous as well because were due to go and then you got the opportunity to go because of that thing happening and I still haven't been. Paul Marden: I know. And it's an amazing place. We had so much fun. They welcomed us. We had all the education department looking after us and making us feel special. It was just such a brilliant day. Apart from trying to park a minibus with 15 kids somewhere near the Mary Rose, which scared me whitlets. Kelly Molson: Oh, you actually drove a bus? Paul Marden: I did not drive the bus, no, I was a navigator. I had to find the parking spot. It's a level of responsive. Kelly Molson: You were bus driver dad as well that day. Paul Marden: There's a character in Peppa Pig, isn't there? I can't remember who she is, but she works in the supermarket. She drives the minibus. Kelly Molson: This rabbit is the hardest working rabbit you'll ever meet in your whole. Paul Marden: Exactly. Kelly Molson: No, I'm going to put her on par. Sorry, I'm actually going to put her on par with Mrs. Rabbit, who has got hundreds of kids who doesn't work, but she has to look after those. So she is probably the hardest working rabbit that you'll ever find. So there you go. Digress into Peppa Pig. You can see where my world is right now, can't you? That just gave you an insight into where I'm spending my time. Paul Marden: So tell me about where have you been recently? Kelly Molson: I have been recently to the Museum of the Broads. I don’t ever really spoken about this on the podcast that much. But I am a trustee of the Museum of the Broads and it is a lovely museum. It does not get as much love and attention as it should. So I felt that today was a good opportunity to highlight it. It's wonderful. It's on the broads, obviously, it's in Stallham. And it is such incredible value for money because you can buy a ticket to the museum and a boat trip. And the boat trips are phenomenal. Last year these were really popular, so they introduced some afternoon evening boat trips where you could go and spot kingfishers because that stretch of the broads is absolutely like prime Kingfisher viewing area. Kelly Molson: I have only ever seen one Kingfisher out in real life, and they're so quick, like it was a flash of blue and I didn't have my glasses on it. She wasn't going to see anything in great detail. That is incredible. On one of the trips last year, on the boat trip, they saw ten kingfishers. It might have been the same kingfisher, just like, who knows? I'm going to say ten. I'm going to take the ten. But the museum itself is wonderful. Some of the artefacts they have there are just really fun and really engaging. And obviously they've got lots of information about the boats and the broads themselves and what the broads were traditionally used for and how they've developed over the years. It's a lovely little museum. It's volunteer led. They have, I think, two or three members of paid team there. Kelly Molson: So much work goes into the management and the development of those museums when it's volunteer led as well. So it's lovely. It is really lovely. Paul Marden: We both started doing trusteeship type stuff at the same time. So I started at Kids in Museums because I wanted to see a broad view of things. You started at Museum of the Broads because you wanted to see the inside running of the museum itself. What has the experience been like for you? Kelly Molson: It’s so different. It's such a different environment to what I'm used to. So, I mean, it won't surprise you to know that museums are not quite as dynamic as an agency, or they're just not as fast paced as an agency. So I think the speed at which some things happen is I find it a bit of a challenge, if I'm honest, because we're used to kind of going, should we try this? Okay, let's talk it. Okay, great. Let's not someone run with it. And it's sort of just, I don't know, there's a speed at which stuff happens in an agency that it's incomparable to any other organisation. So it's nice in some ways that kind of take a bit of time to kind of think things through. I've really enjoyed understanding about all of the different facets that are required within an agency, within a museum. Sorry. Kelly Molson: And the things that you have to understand about. Even when we had an office, there's a level of HR and a level of safety management that you have to do, but it's a whole other level when it's a museum and you've got members of the public coming along. So that's been really interesting to understand and learn about. I've really enjoyed kind of looking at how they're developing certain areas of the museum as well. So when there's a new exhibition that's on. So last year, the Pippa Miller exhibition launched. Pippa Miller was a really famous artist that was connected to the broads, and the museum was entrusted with some of her artwork when she passed, and it's the only place you can come and see it. It's a wonderful exhibition. Kelly Molson: So understanding about how those exhibitions are developed and put on and watching those happen as well. And there's another one this year that will happen, which is an exhibition on peat, which I know that probably doesn't sound that interesting, but it really is my mate Pete. No, not your mate Pete. No, actual Peat. Peat soil Pete. So, yeah, that's been really nice to see and kind of understand how those things progress and are developed and the ideas that go into them. It's fascinating. Paul Marden: Cannot imagine the effort that goes into curating a whole exhibition like that. Kelly Molson: It's vast. And I will give a huge shout out to Nicola, the curator at the Museum of the Broads, because she works tirelessly there to just bring these stories to life. That's essentially what they do. They bring the stories of the broads to life. This is a little plea from me, actually. A little shout out to everyone that's listening. If everybody listening to this podcast, I mean, we get hundreds of people listen to these episodes. If everyone went and bought a ticket from the Museum of Broada that's listening to this episode today, it would make such a massive difference to that little museum. So if you are thinking about booking a little staycation this year, head to Norfolk, get a ticket to the Museum of the Broads, go and check out the broads themselves. Kelly Molson: It is just a wonderful experience to go and see that museum and take a boat trip down the broads. Paul Marden: There's a very nice place nearby to stay as well, isn't? Kelly Molson: Yeah, I mean, a certain podcast host does have a lovely little place in Norfolk that you could rent out, which is literally 25 minutes from this museum as well. Just heads up. Paul Marden: Incidental. Kelly Molson: If you want to give me a shout, I can put you in the direction of 28 Millgate. Or you could just search that on Google. No, honestly, genuinely, if you are thinking about having a staycation and you're heading that way, put it top of your list because it's a lovely afternoon out. Thank you. Thanks for listening to my podcast. Paul Marden: So what are we actually talking about today then? Kelly Molson: In this episode, we are going to be answering some of the questions that we've received from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report. So, as you can imagine, we launch the report, we do the survey. All you lovely people fill in our survey for us and we launch the report, which gives you an analysis of what that survey data has meant. And it's a huge undertaking. It really is a huge undertaking. And I don't say that lightly. It's massive. It takes over our whole lives. And there is so much data in the report that we send out, but there's always questions, there's always more, and there's always more that we can do as well. And I think it just is an awful lot of work. Right. Kelly Molson: So what happens is we launch it goes out, people digest it, and then they send us emails and they say, “This is really great. Thank you for this bit. Is there any insight into this thing?” And there's quite a lot of those emails that come in and most of them we probably can answer. It just, again, takes a bit of work to go back and look at the data and crunch the data and see if there is any answers to those questions. So we have had some of these questions in and we thought, well, let's do it as a podcast. And then everybody can hear the answers to these questions because it might be something that other people are thinking about as well. Kelly Molson: So we're going to talk through some of the ones that have been sent in, and then we are going to give you a bit of a heads up about what's happening with this year's report and survey and talk a little bit about that. Sound good? Paul Marden: Does sound good. I need to get my geek hat on my numbers. Geek hat. Kelly Molson: It's time for Paul to nerd out. I will be asking the questions. Paul will be nerding out on the answers. Right. Okay. One of the questions we had in was how many respondents were return respondents from 2022 to 2023? Paul Marden: Yeah. This was a question that somebody asked in relation to. They saw some changes, I think it was in terms of ticketing systems that were being used and they wanted to know, “Oh, if there's been a change in the ticketing systems that were used, could that because we've got different group of people, or is it the same people changing systems?” So, yeah, I dug into that. It was actually relatively hard to figure this out because what people type in as the name of their attraction is not always exactly the same. It's sometimes different people, sometimes they'll write the same name in a slightly different way. So actually, comparing apples with apples turned out to be quite challenging and I had to change some of the data to normalise it between the two groups. Paul Marden: I could see they were the same attraction, although their names were subtly different. What I worked out was two different views of the same thing. But essentially, in the 2023 data set, 20% of the respondents were return respondents from the previous year. But of course, the 2023 data set was much bigger than the 2022 data set. So if you look at it from the other direction, how many people that filled in a survey in 22? Filled in a survey in 23? It's 50% of the 2022 respondents replied in 2023. So we had a good return rate? Yeah, for sure. But there was 50% of people didn't reply. So that made me think, there's a job of work to do this year. Kelly Molson: Where did you go 50% of you. Cheeky little monkeys. Paul Marden: And they vary. Some of them are smaller institutions, some of them are much bigger institutions. There's the reasonable amount of movement of people in the sector, isn't there? So you can easily imagine. Actually, there was an interesting one there, isn't it? What if I were to match the names of the respondents? Did we actually get a reasonable number of returners, but they were in a different job with a different institution? Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really a good point, actually, because I do know that people, I know people personally, that I know that they've moved on and gone to different places, and actually, some moved out of the sector and moved into completely different roles altogether. Paul Marden: There is a decent cohort of people that returned and responded in 23, but the 23 data set was much bigger. So when you do see swings between 22 and 23, some of that is just a sample size thing with the best will in the world. We talk to lots of people and lots of people respond with data to us, but we have not captured the whole entire set of all attractions in the UK, and so we will get sampling errors out. If one year we sample a different group of people than we did the previous year, the comparisons can be a little bit harder. Paul Marden: If we could just get more people responding and we had more data, then you'll get that the role of chance and the role of sampling errors will have less impact on the data and you'll be able to compare more year on year outcomes. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay, well, there's your call out to get involved this year we'll let you know how. Paul Marden: There's going to be lots of those. Kelly Molson: Okay, second question. Can we break down the responses in the other type category? This is an interesting one, isn't it? Because we detailed out as many different visitor attraction types as we possibly could think of or find on internet and gave everybody the opportunity to be able to select what they specifically were, but we still had a huge amount of people put other. What's the reasoning behind that? Paul Marden: Can I give you facts and then tell you what I think the reasoning is? Yeah. So there's some things that I know. Okay. 37% of all respondents mark themselves as the other. It skews when you drill into that 37%. It's a big group of people. It was like the second or third largest group of people in the report itself. They tended to be attractions that had lower visitor numbers. So they were under 100,000 visitor numbers in that other group. So it was about 45% of people were under 100. About 37% were between 100 and a million visitors. Those are the things we know. Then I started having a play with the data. Paul Marden: So what if I were to group those people that were in other because they had the opportunity to type some stuff in for free text box, and could I make a grouping out of that? One thing that I did notice, and this is observation as opposed to fact. Okay. So I could see many of the places that chose other because we didn't allow them to choose multiple types and they were an attraction that had multiple things. So one of them was one of our clients. And they have a historic house. They have a guest house, they have a beach, they have outdoors activities. They've got. Kelly Molson: So how do you categorise yourself based on all of those? Actually, with that client, I probably would have said historic house because that was what I would have put my hat on for that one. Paul Marden: But then I met somebody yesterday. Not too dissimilar. Yeah. Primarily a historic house, but it's a historic house that has a hotel, bar, golf on the site. And if you ask them, it would totally depend on who you spoke to as to what they primarily were. There were people that ran the historic house who would have you believe that they were primarily a historic house, but there were other people that would say, “Well, actually the revenue is generated elsewhere in the organisation and primarily we are a hotel and golf destination and alongside we have a historic house.” So I think there was a nuance in the way that we asked the question, please choose what type of attraction you are. And the only option for the people that had lots of these things was to say other. Paul Marden: And actually, I think going forwards we probably need to say, what are you primarily, and do you have other things and give people the option to choose multiples? Kelly Molson: Yeah, I was going to say, because even if you put multi, it causes the same challenge, doesn't it? Without being. Paul Marden: But when I had to play around with that group and I tried to assign them to things partly based on what they replied on their questionnaires and partly by looking at their websites and having a guess, a lot of them had some element of outdoor activity. A lot of them had food and drink. There was a large group that weren't multi activity. I don't know what a better way to describe those historic houses with other things going on, but there was a decent size of people or decent sized number of attractions that were tv themed and they were primarily a behind the scenes tour or something themed around a tele program. And we didn't have that. There was nothing like that in any of our categorisations. Paul Marden: So again, it just comes down to refining the questionnaire every year to try to improve what we've got. Give people the option to choose multiples and include some other groups. But avoid getting to a point when you look at all the categories we gave, because you mentioned, we gave lots of categories, there was a very long tail. There was a large number of the actual categories where it had one or two attractions within that grouping. And then it's like, is that a meaningful way of slicing and dicing the data? So we have to be really careful not to throw too many categories at it, but at the same time give people some choices. Kelly Molson: Yeah. You also have to feel that the people have to feel that they are included within this as well. So if those one or two people came along and they couldn't choose what they were, would they feel excluded from it? Paul Marden: Yeah. Would they drop out? Because this clearly isn't for me. Kelly Molson: Exactly. I'm all for having more choice in that. It's a tick box. That's fine. There's other stuff that we can take out, don't worry. Paul Marden: And that's because you're not looking at the data. Add more numbers. Kelly Molson: I'm all for cutting stuff out if it makes life easier for people and more people will be able to fill it in and that. But I think that one particular thing is not one that we need to cut back on. Paul Marden: No, I agree with you. Totally agree. Kelly Molson: Were all attractions who responded to the survey paid for, or how do those ecommerce results break down between those that have an entry fee and those that are free? This was a good question. Paul Marden: Yeah, it really was. In many of the questions that we've got, some people chose not to answer us. Within this group, there's a group of people in the whole set of data that chose not to answer this, either because they didn't know or they felt they didn't want to answer the question. But if we take everybody that reported an entry fee, 15% of those people were free of charge. So they ticked the box that said they had no entry fee. That's already a fairly small group amongst the whole data set. So we're asking questions here that zero in on a smaller and smaller group. This sounds like I'm giving excuses before I give you my homework. Yeah. But as the groups get smaller, then the role of chance and sample error means that the data becomes less and less reliable. Paul Marden: And I got to be honest, within that 15%, there was a large number of people that didn't tell us a conversion rate. So you're down into a very small number of people now. 85% of the free to enter attractions didn't tell us what their conversion rate was or said they didn't know or couldn't measure it. Kelly Molson: So that's interesting in itself, because this is some of the things that we've been talking about in terms of the conversion rate and how we measure that effectively, because some of those free museums obviously will have probably smaller teams, less budget, less ability, maybe just less understanding of what we're asking in the first place. My assumption is that they will use off the shelf ticketing platforms that they might not be able to get the conversion rate from. So you've got that limitation in the data that they can actually then supply us because they genuinely just don't have it, they don't know it. Paul Marden: Or because they're free. They don't think about the concept of conversion. But in that instance, how much does it matter the number of people that come to your website and then the number of people that actually buy? If there is no ticketing, if you're free to enter and you don't even need a ticket to pre book to enter, does it even matter? And I would argue absolutely, it definitely does. Because instinctively, I would believe that there is definitely a relationship between the number of people that visit your website and the number of people that visit your attraction. And if you can improve the ratio between those two, you'll get more bookfalls through the attraction. Paul Marden: And even if you're free to enter a considerable portion of the money that you make out of the attraction is going to be from donations, from people walking through the door. It will be food and beverage sales, it will be gift shops, it will be memberships that they join to get other things. All of those things need bums on seats, don't they? If you don't get bums on seats, you don't generate that revenue. But it can be hard, I think, to join the dots between that big number of people that visit your website, hopefully, and the number of people that are actually walking through the door and creating a correlation between, or creating a relationship between the two. Kelly Molson: It's when there's no purchase made from that thing to that thing, there's almost nothing to tie them together. Paul Marden: Yeah, but it makes it harder to think about which, when you're a small attraction in those sorts of circumstances, if it's harder to think about, then it's not going to be a priority for you. But I would argue it would be a super important thing to do because you tweak those. We're all about tweaking the dials, aren't we? We're all about trying to increase. Kelly Molson: Marginal gains. Paul Marden: Exactly. And in that instance, it can be hard to see the point. But I definitely believe there really is a point to it. If I go one more thing, I would say, and this is where the data. Paul Marden: I don't think the data is reliable, but were into this small group of people that we had, 15% of people say that they were free, and in that group we had a small number of people tell us what their conversion rate was, and it varied. There were some attractions that had a 1% conversion rate. There were some attractions that chose the 5% conversion rate, which was the higher end of the bracket, which was the average over the whole group. I bet you there's more data that would help us to understand what the difference between the 1% and the 5% was. Is it chance or is there something materially different between those two types of institution? I don't know, but there's a debate there. Paul Marden: And is it valuable for us to investigate that there's only so much time to be able to put to these things? Kelly Molson: Well, I think this is why it's important. Well, this is why we value people asking the questions about the report. This is why we encourage people to give us feedback and to send us these questions in, because it all adds to the conversation and it all helps us make this better and better every year because we can understand what you send us a question and then that gives us an understanding of what's really important for you right now. So we can start to incorporate some of the ways to get the answer to that question into the survey and the report for this year. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly Molson: So send us more questions. As a midway to this podcast, definitely send us some more questions. You can send them to me, Kelly@rubbercheese.com, or you can send them to paulm@rubbercheese.com but whatever you do, just send them in. And then we can again start to look at how we incorporate some of those questions into this year's. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly Molson: Okay, next question. It's around ticketing platforms. One question came in and they noted the apparent percentage drop in use of access gamma in the past year. So what we saw was Digitickets and Merack both seemed to kind of hold their share, and they're UK based. With over 70% of the 188 respondents UK based and about a quarter of European. We found it a little odd that there was such a drop here in such a short space of time and wondered if you had any further insight. Interesting one, isn't it, because we all noted that access had dropped off a little bit. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to caveat this again. I can go into more depth and understand the differences between the two, but I would caveat it that if we had more responsive, we could be more confident in the reliability of the difference across years. But we've gone from a large, but a sample in 22, a bigger sample in 23. The 23 sample included some of the 22 people. But really, I think what the question I was getting at is how many of those people actually switch ticketing platforms between that group? And I think that is unlikely to be the reason why we saw these changes. Yeah, of course people change ticketing platform, but it's the beating heart of the business. They don't change it on a whim and they don't change them dramatically very quickly. Yeah. Paul Marden: By the way, there's no evidence to this in that respect. There could be changes, but my instinct is it's unlikely to be a wild change on the basis of the number of people because it's just not that easy to. Kelly Molson: No. And we speak to agencies, our own clients have been through these processes, and we know how long they take and we know how embedded those systems are within an organisation and how difficult it actually is to switch from one to another and the time frame that it takes. So I would agree with you. Paul Marden: On the basis of that. I think the differences are more easily explained by we got more different people included. And we're seeing more of what the sector buys. Now, whether, when we get into 24, whether we see another swing again. Well, that's entirely plausible, because the sample sizes, they're not big enough to be statistically valid. They give an indication, but they will suffer from chance in some areas. And it could just be the group of people that we've got, we know within the year demonstrates the usage of the ticketing platforms within the group of people that responded within that year, but unlikely to be comparable across the years. Only 20% of this year's data were responses that had been given in 22 as well. Paul Marden: So we've only got a small group. Within that group the data has changed dramatically in that year, mainly with people telling us they chose an other not listed system. So it was not one of the big ones that were familiar with, and no one reported anything in that group last year. So this is where you know as well as I do, we get people asking us for copies of their data that they've submitted, because there's a big period of timing between when they submit stuff and the report being published, and then they want to see what they did, what they gave to us, don't they? So people remembering what they wrote last year and putting it in again this year, it's no wonder we see differences between the two year groups. Apart from other not listed, which was by far like a country mile than largest number of responses. Paul Marden: The biggest absolute change in the number of responses within the repeating group was digitickets. Digitickets had more people within that returning group saying that they were using their ticketing platform. Kelly Molson: And I can't remember this off the top of my head, but where people are selecting other not listed, are we giving them the opportunity to write who they are using? So did we give them an open. Paul Marden: Such an unfair question? I can't remember the answer. Kelly Molson: I genuinely can't remember. But if we didn't, well, then we need to, because that space, I mean, there's a lot of ticketing platforms already, but there are new ones popping up all over and there are ones that are specifically focused on accessibility for an example. There are ones that are relatively similar in terms of what they're doing to everyone else, just packaged up in a different way. So it would just be interesting to see some of the names that people were putting forward and where people are swinging to. Kelly Molson: We know that there's Tessitura, for example, and Spektrix that are used quite predominantly in theatre world now. People have always talked really positively about those two platforms and it would be interesting to see if they are looking to make that transition over into the attractions world.And maybe some of these people are starting to kind of move over to those. Who knows? Paul Marden: There's a few systems lots of people know about because they're not just pure ticketing, are they? They're ticketing. So they manage the ticket inventory, they do online sales, they do walk ups, they do EPOS, they manage a shop, they manage a catering, they do everything to operate the entire attraction. And then there were other systems that focus purely on ecommerce and the sale of the tickets themselves online. There are other people that focus purely on the EPOS offering. And actually, there's a lot of complexity within these systems that go to running the attraction itself. And maybe again, we need to give people more choice about what they choose and give them the opportunity to choose multiple things. Because we might say, do you use gamma or do you use Merac or do you use Digitickets? Paul Marden: And there may well be people that use digitickets for their e commerce sales, and they might use Merac for their membership, or they're running the epochs in the shops and their food and beverage. I don't think we give people the opportunity to have the nuance of selecting multiple things that they use. Kelly Molson: Yeah, for like, I literally just had a conversation with someone who uses Digitickets for their ticket in, but Merac for their K-Three, for their till. So, yeah, I totally see where we need to do that. Okay, good. Two more questions. Is there future scope to develop comparisons against other science centres? Paul Marden: Yes is the short answer, and yes, we have done that. It's quite interesting because you and I both have been talking about this year's survey at different places and the science centres one is a good example. It’s good because I was the one talking. Well, it's good because I was the one, but. So I went to the Association of Science and Discovery Centres conference in Belfast. I talked about that one of the pods just recently, and I had a table talk where I was talking about essentially observations that I found about the data about science centres. But you've done talks in numerous different locations. Kelly Molson: All over the place. I was all over the place last year. Here, there and everywhere. Paul Marden: Slicing and dicing the data to talk to the group of people that you were talking to. So you were in Ireland and you talked about comparisons of the attractions that we've got in both the Republic and Northern Ireland. And then you talked to know that's a different slice of larger attractions. And in both cases, were slicing and dicing the data and trying to find what made that group of people special or what were the observations that we had, weren't they? Kelly Molson: That was one of the nice things about the report this year, because the data set was so much larger, we could make the things that were talking about so much more specific for people. So the ALVA talk was really great, actually. So I was very kindly invited along to speak at one of the ALVA council meetings. And it was at Bletchley Park, oh my goodness. In their new auditorium that were the first group to speak in there. It was wonderful, such a good experience. Kelly Molson: But that was lovely because I was able to talk about how ALVA members are performing and give them a specific breakdown of the things that they're doing well, some of the things that they potentially not doing so well, and give them some real insight into how they can improve on the things when they're not doing so well. So that was lovely. And then the same at AVEA. It was great to be able to give, again, a breakdown of how irish attractions are performing in terms of the rest of the country, but also showcase attractions that are doing really brilliantly from those areas. So actually in the talks I could highlight a specific Irish attraction that was doing an absolutely phenomenal job in terms of great website, great conversion rate, all of those things. Kelly Molson: And it was really nice to be able to shine spotlight on people this year as well. Paul Marden: So pick out some examples of that. Yeah, so let's just pick out some of the examples from the science centre. So the ASDC members, it was interesting because ASDC members tended to have higher football than when you compared it to the whole group of respondents that we had. That surprised me. ASDC members tended to have higher entry fees than all respondents. ASDC members tended to have substantially higher mobile usage than all respondents. So you're up into 90% of traffic for ASDC members or ASDC members tended to have upwards of 89%, 90% mobile traffic, whereas when you look at the whole group of everybody, it was down into 60%. So still the majority, but not as big a majority. Kelly Molson: That's interesting. Paul Marden: So again, is this chance or is there something interesting about the audience that buy tickets to go to a science centre. Are they genuinely different than people that go to the all set? Kelly Molson: Well, yeah. Is this stereotypically because someone is really interested in science and technology, therefore they are more digitally advanced potentially as an audience. And that's why that's higher. That's interesting. Paul Marden: ASDC members tend to spend less of their gross profit on marketing. 18% of ASDC members spent more than 5% of their turnover on marketing, whereas when you look at the whole group, 24% of all respondents spent more than 5%. So it's interesting, isn't it, this difference in the outcomes and the difference for the inputs. ASDC members were much more likely to track their conversion rate, but most of them didn't track their cart abandonment rate. So they don't know how many people were giving up partway through. ASDC members were more likely to have a top level conversion rate. And of the ones that did tell us what their cart abandonment rate, it was more likely to be lower than the average. They updated their websites more frequently and they tend to spend more on their websites each year than the average. Paul Marden: So there was markedly different things that happened across the different groups when you looked at ALVA, much larger organisations. So footfall is higher because that's a minimum entry criteria. They spend more on marketing and they have better outcomes. They had better conversion rates than average. Kelly Molson: Unsurprising. Paul Marden: Unsurprising completely. But what was interesting was within that group, the averages marked quite relative poor performance. So there were some examples where there were attractions spending a large amount on their site, but achieving poorer conversion rates than the average. Kelly Molson: Hopefully those aren’t clients. Fingers crossed. Paul Marden: So yeah, there's group averages and you can see differences by the different groups. I think in future, wouldn't it be interesting if potentially we did this sort of analysis based on the type of organisation? If you're a museum, are you more likely to have a higher conversion rate than you are if you're all respondents? Kelly Molson: Well, this is the thing. Paul Marden: What's of interest? Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly. We can say, oh, this is interesting. Wouldn't this be useful to know? But actually is it useful to know for you? One of the things that we did talk about doing was doing a regional breakdown of how attraction is performing. And I think that's probably on the cards for the next month or so to get that out. We raised that and got some quite good feedback on having that. So that's definitely top of the list. Kelly Molson: But yeah, again, are these things going to be useful for you? We've always had the ethos that any kind of information or support documentation or essentially our marketing has to be useful for you. Right? What's the point otherwise? We need to know what you need. So more questions, please more. Do you have this? Can we have this? If we can't do it, we'll tell you, but if we can do it, we'll damn well work hard to get you it. Paul Marden: You can just imagine that some people find the full written port to be report to be really useful. It gives a fixed set of slices and dices and it gives interesting insights and it gives recommendation. But people might be interested more in more group comparisons or geographical comparisons with less of a large report and more of a. Well, I want to see a white paper about my sector or my location or what is special about me compared to everybody else, as opposed to telling me everything that is good in the sector. Where do we focus our attention to have the best value for people at the end of this? Kelly Molson: Good. Last question. Is there a correlation between conversion rate and visitor numbers? Paul Marden: It's really interesting because this got me playing with the data. I'm all over a pivot table in excel. All right, so I did loads of analysis. Kelly Molson: I am not. Paul Marden: No. We've got our strengths and weaknesses and complement each other very well, I think when I did this first time round and I was working with a team of people that were analysing data, but I was slicing and dicing in different ways and I looked at these things and I thought there was no great relationship. But when this question came in, I had another stab at reorganising the data. And actually I did a heat map version of what is your average sales conversion rate? And we've got like zero to one to two, three to four to five and more than five. And then what is your annual visitor numbers in groups? Paul Marden: And actually, the larger the annual footfall on site, the more likely you were to have a high conversion rate. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners, this data is quite difficult to visualise. We've got a graph, we've got some pre pictures that will explain this better, which we will put out on social media. If you follow our Twitter account, or if you're connected with us on LinkedIn, or follow our LinkedIn Rubber Cheese, or Skip the Queue LinkedIn pages, we'll put all of that on there. What we'll also do as well is when we edit this podcast, we always do a video. The videos don't get a lot of love, but there's loads of videos up on our YouTube. So head over to the Rubber Cheese YouTube channel and within this episode we will insert what we're talking about as well. So it's just a bit easier to digest. Paul Marden: So yeah, there is definitely a relationship between these two factors. The more footfall there is, the more likely you are to have a high conversion rate. Just intuitively, they must be related variables. This is not just a relationship between the two. There is somehow one is feeding into the other the more footfall you have, the more budget you're going to have, the more you'll be able to invest in marketing, the more you invest in marketing, you'll have more people focusing on different elements of your marketing and you'll have more budget to spend on digital people that can focus on conversion rates and marginal gains. I don't know whether that's true. The data doesn't prove that. That's just my instinct that spending money on people like me is probably a worthwhile investment. But that's just instinct. There's no proof for that. Paul Marden: The heat map shows there's a relationship, but there's loads of factors involved in what goes on. As I said to you before, spending more money does not guarantee you great outputs. And you have to measure these things, make regular changes, because just because you've got a large number of people coming through the door does not guarantee you a high conversion rate. And you need to graft to get to the point where your website is converting as best it possibly can. One major redesign does not an increased conversion rate may you need to do lots of little things regularly to nudge it in the right direction. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's just the start. Yeah. That comes back to what I said at the beginning about. I was just about to say we're at the end of the project. I'm like, no, we're not star of the project because the project is launching. That's the starting point for the rest of the process. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly Molson: Oh, this has been really good. Well, look, listeners, hopefully you found that useful. Hopefully some of the listeners that are listening, we've answered your questions as well. We'll send this out to all the people that did ask the questions specifically as well. But yeah, coming back to what we've said, is there something that is a burning question from you, from the data that we've already released? Is there something that would be so incredibly useful for you that we haven't released that we might potentially have? We just don't know. Or we don't know that you need it. And what does this year's survey hold and what would be useful for the survey and the report to hold for you this year? So we are at the point now where we're gearing up for the 2024 survey. Kelly Molson: Last year we launched it in May at the fabulous Museum and Heritage show. Plans are afoot at the moment for when we launch it, but nothing is diarised yet. So it's a really good opportunity to get involved and have your say about what you'd love to see in it this year. Paul Marden: Yeah. There's some key themes that have come out of our kind of retrospective. We've been belly button gazing and questioning what do we do next year? And there's obvious things that come out of it. One of our big things was we want to simplify 2024. We asked too many too complex questions last year and it took too long for people to submit their responses. And that's not fair. Kelly Molson: It's a big ask that we're asking of you to trust us with your data as it is. We don't want you sitting around for like half an hour having to fill it all out. Paul Marden: So we want to simplify, we want less questions, and we're going to look at potentially a different questionnaire platform. We've done different platforms each year in the last two years and I don't think we found the right answer yet. So that might be an area that we try and simplify things. My instinct of, and this is just based on my own struggles with life. Okay. I am struggling with Google Analytics 4 for everybody. All of my data has moved and I don't know how to answer my questions. And that data that's in GA4, it's the core of the questions that we ask in the questionnaire. And I'm thinking, if I do this every day, what must it be like for all of you guys listening? So what can we do to help you understand how to gather the data and how to submit it? Paul Marden: Because there's obviously going to be a disparity, isn't there, between people that do this every day and people that do this as part of a bigger job and they don't do it all the time and they need advice and guidance. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So one of the ideas that's been floating around is that we actually put on little workshop or little webinars, which it shows you how to go and get the data that actually is needed to fill in the survey. And then that's with you. It's a reference point. You can keep hold of that for the following years and the following, the subsequent years. And we might look at, we've got a brilliant circle of fabulous suppliers that we work with that are all attractions focused, and so we could potentially partner up with them and run the workshops and do something like that. Paul Marden: The questions that we're asking, the data that we're gathering is likely to be marketers' dream dashboards anyway. So it's not just of use to the survey itself, it's of use to your day to day month to month reporting and demonstrating the efficacy of what you're doing. We want to increase the number of people that are responding from large multi site organisations. So the plea call to action here for digital markets is in large multi sites. We were interested in talking to you about. If you've got 50 odd sites that you manage ticketing for and multiple attractions all over the country, filling in the questionnaire based form approach that we've given may not be the right way for you to share data with us. No, we're really flexible. We want data. We want to ingest more data because it improves the quality of the responses. Paul Marden: So we'll be completely flexible around what different large multi site organisations can provide and the method with which it makes most sense for them to provide it. Kelly Molson: So what are we doing? We're doing a vocal shout out here to National Trust, English Heritage, et cetera, to say if you want to be part of the survey and the subsequent report and the process that we're offering you, it doesn't work. You're not going to sit there 50 times, however many sites you've got and fill in this data. That's ridiculous. We can give you a better process of doing that and we can work with you one on one to work out how that works best for you as well. Paul Marden: Completely. Kelly Molson: If you do want to be involved, don't let the process of how we collect the data put you off. We can solve that challenge for you. Paul Marden: Shout out, call to action. Really for everybody that submitted last year and would be thinking about this year's survey is tell us what key themes are of interest to you. We have what we think is interesting and we'll follow our noses and ask questions and ruble around the data to try and find the answers. But we don't know what you want as well as you know what you want. So tell us, as you said, Kelly, ask questions about what you'd like to see, but tell us what you'd like us to do. We might be able to do something really easily based on the data that we've already got. We might need to ask another question. There was a question that somebody asked that weren't able to answer. Paul Marden: They wanted to know whether you were primarily educationally focused as an institution or primarily focused on selling tickets, whether that had an impact on your conversion rate. And actually, without us guessing, it's impossible for us to answer that question. And what's the point in us guessing because we're going to give you meaningless data if we ask the right questions. What's the primary focus of your website? What are the secondary focuses of your website? If we do that, then we might be able to slice and dice the data. So ask us the questions now because we can use that to influence what questions we include in the survey. Kelly Molson: I would add to also as well, if you are well, to say thank you. We had a phenomenal amount of support with the survey last year and the report. But for us, being able to move from 70 respondents in year one to nearly 200 in year two, the difference in that was all of the membership organisations that supported. It's a mammoth task. There's no way I could have done that on my own just by sending it lots of people and hitting people up on LinkedIn and posting across social media. The biggest difference there is the support we've had. I mean, ALVA, ASVA have been huge supporters of us from the start, which we're super grateful for this year. We had AVEA come on board and help us. We've had AIM help us. We had ACE help us. Paul Marden: We had ASDC. Kelly Molson: ASDC. I mean there were just so many. I've got a huge list of all of the attractions and all of the kind of Hampshire's best attractions and these smaller regional attraction organisations that have supported Devon's top attractions. Without their support, we could not have done that, made that happen. So I guess what I'm asking for is continued support, please, would be great. And are there any other organisations out there that we should be talking to? And if there's any listening that haven't been involved in helping us distribute the survey this year, if you're up for it, give us a shout. I mean, the benefit to your members is phenomenal, right? What we produce for them and it's all free. It's all for free. Come and get it. Paul Marden: That is a nice segue because yes, it's all for free, but it doesn't cost nothing. And actually what we would also like help with is sponsorship for 2024. So if there are organisations around the listening public, as it were, that would be interested in supporting the work that we do on this and would like to influence and help guide what we do, then we would be really keen on talking to people that would like to sponsor and that sponsorship could be gifting kind. So some people might be able to help us by doing things with us. Some people might be able to help us by financially supporting the data analysis or the production of reports or production of specific analyses of a slice of the sector that is of interest to them. Paul Marden: There's lots of ways in which people could support the work that we do. And obviously the more support that we get, the bigger we can make this thing, because it is. I mean, it's a herculean task that you dreamt up two and a half, three years ago, isn't it? And you did the first one and it was amazing and you got a decent number of respondents and I think you were both amazed at the number of people that gave us data and downloaded the report and interacted with us. And then were blown away in 23. But we need to do more. There's a market for this. There's a value in what we're doing. It's not just chance. It wasn't a crackpot idea you had three years ago to do this. Kelly Molson: It was not a crackpot idea about it at all. No, it wasn't a crackpot idea. It's really nice, actually. You've just given me a really good flashback, actually. The Museum and Heritage Show has played like a part in this for years, actually, because the survey itself launched last year at the MandH. But the previous year I sat down at the MandH and had a chat with Bernard Donoghue about. I've got this idea, Bernard, and I think this is good. I think this would deliver some real good value to the sector. Would ALVA be happy to help get the word out and stuff? And that was where it started. So isn't that funny that's a connection? I'd forgotten all about that. It's not crackpot. It is amazing and I'm so happy that we've been able to produce this. Kelly Molson: The value that it delivers to the sector, I get. People tell me about the value. So this is not me going, it's definitely delivering value. The feedback that we've had has been so incredibly positive on it and it's just been wonderful to be part of that. So let's make next year's bigger and even better. But maybe some less questions so it doesn't take you as long. Paul Marden: Yes, more rows in my spreadsheet, less columns in my spreadsheet. Kelly Molson: Less time taken up. If you can do it over a cup of tea and a biscuit, then that's perfect, right? Paul Marden: I reckon so. Kelly Molson: Hopefully that's going to produce some good value today and we'll see you next time. Paul Marden: Cheers. Take care. Kelly Molson: Bye. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| The future of the experience economy in a post-COVID world. With Ben Thompson | 24 Jul 2020 | 00:36:36 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese. Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode. Competition ends October 31st 2020. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references: COVID-19 and the enduring strength of the attractions industry The above article was written in collaboration by Ben Thompson, Carolien Nederlof, Klaus Hoven, Luca Liboa and Raymond Oude Groen. Since recording the podcast, Ben has joined Storyland Studios as their Chief Strategy Officer
Transcription: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative, and hopefully always interesting. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
In today's episode, I speak with Ben Thompson. Ben is chief storytelling officer at 9 Degrees West, a strategic consultancy specialising in brand and marketing strategy for theme parks, visitor attractions, and brand homes. An IAAPA speaker, Ben has previously worked at Mars, the Walt Disney Company and Merlin Entertainments. We discuss the future of the experience economy and how organisations may need to adapt in a post-COVID world.
Kelly Molson: Ben, welcome to the podcast. It's really great to have you on here.
Ben Thompson: Thank you very much, Kelly. It's great to be here. Great to be talking to you and the dog today.
Kelly Molson: Yes. So look, we are recording these in semi-lockdown or easing out of lockdown. So we're kind of at home, my dog is behind me.
Ben Thompson: And I've left my dog Barney at home. So I'm actually in a nice quiet office. So it's all good on my side.
Kelly Molson: I'm glad that you read the prep notes accordingly, Ben, well done. Well done for following instructions. So we're going to start off a little bit with a bit of a quick fire round, just to get to know you in a little bit of detail. We've spoken a couple of times previously, but we don't know each other super well. So I've got some quick fire questions for you. So, think I know the answer to this one already. Cats or dogs?
Ben Thompson: Definitely dogs. Cats are rubbish. It's all about dogs.
Kelly Molson: And what's top of your bucket list?
Ben Thompson: Oh, my word. I think it is taking a long trip to Australia. We've got quite a lot of relatives over there. I've never been, it's one of the few continents I didn't get to go to when I was traveling the world with Merlin Entertainments. So yeah, definitely probably going to Ayers Rock, doing some of the islands getting down to Tasmania and so on. I think that's probably, yeah, I need to do that.
Kelly Molson: Great choice, Ben. Do you know what actually, we got engaged at Ayers Rock.
Ben Thompson: Oh, really? Oh, fantastic.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's a really special place for us. Really, really special.
Ben Thompson: Or Uluru as I probably should be should be calling it, yeah. But yeah, no, I'd love to get down to Aussie and meet up with my... My mother's brother went out there and he had five children. They all got married. I think there's about 50 Thompsons that are out there now. So yeah, looking forward to catching up with them one day.
Kelly Molson: Oh, good. Well yeah, you've got a lot of people to visit out there. Sounds fab. Okay. Tell me one thing that you're not very good at.
Ben Thompson: Oh, my word. I mean, how long have you got? I'm really, really impatient. I'm an ENTJ in Myers Briggs terminology, so extroverted blue-sky thinking. So I'm brilliant on the future and possibility and what could it look like? I get very bored very quickly with what I consider to be the mundane administrative tasks. And I'm terrible at hiding my feelings. So if I'm bored about something, it's written all over my face. You definitely can't air this now, this is far too personal.
Kelly Molson: I'm really worried that I'm going to start looking at your face soon. And sense that boredom coming across as well, Ben, you're giving too much away.
Ben Thompson: Good question.
Kelly Molson: One last question. Tell me something that you believe to be true that nobody else agrees with you on. So what is your unpopular opinion?
Ben Thompson: Oh, my word. Listen, these questions are really good and terrible. Okay. So I believe that cricket is the very, very best sport in the world, bar none. And I have a really solid argument as for why that is the case and hardly anybody apart from a very tiny percentage of people agree with me.
Kelly Molson: Do you want to share that argument just in case we've got any listeners that share this opinion?
Ben Thompson: In a nutshell, it's the ultimate combination of the individual and the team game and conditions and everything else, skills and experience sort of wrapped into one and it has different formats. You can have a really short game, like only three hours or quite a nice leisurely version of five days where you can have a draw at the end.
Kelly Molson: Okay. I mean, I will agree to disagree on that one, Ben.
Ben Thompson: Well, there we go.
Kelly Molson: But maybe some of our listeners... Well, I mean, tell us, let us... Yeah. Tweet us and let us know if you agree with Ben, I'd love to hear. Thank you for sharing. I always like to do that. I think it's quite nice to get a little bit of an insight into people's mind. And also what I really enjoyed is that the thing that you said that you're not very good at actually showcased the things that you are very good at, which is talking about the bigger picture and the future and what things look like. And that's really one of the reasons that I have asked you to come on the podcast because you've got an incredible background in attractions and the experience economy, and it's challenging for many in that sector at the moment. And I'm really keen to get your opinion on how it's been and what you see the future to be. But could you just kind of give us what a typical project is for you, Ben?
Ben Thompson: Yeah. I mean, obviously the immediate answer is there's no such thing as a typical project because every client is different and that is true. The kind of golden threads that I get involved, it's all about storytelling. I call myself a chief storytelling officer and that is what I do. I've always loved books and narrative and kind of rich tapestries. I love Lord of the Rings as a kid, I loved all of the kind of The Hobbit, all that type of stuff. And I read voraciously and as I got kind of older, I read a lot of psychology books, really fascinated by how the brain works. And Danny Kahneman is my sort of absolute number one fan in the... He wrote a book called Thinking Fast and Slow, and Kahneman worked with a guy called Amos Tversky and Kahneman ended up being a Nobel Prize winner and basically invented kind of behavioral economics.
Ben Thompson: And I find all that stuff fascinating at the point where kind of story and narrative meets in a meaning, how we interpret the world around us. I think that story forms views, it forms culture, but it can also transform. So Joe Pine and Jim Gilmore talk about that they're at this stage of the transformative economy where the product is the change I see in me as a customer or a guest when I engage with your brand. And I think story has a huge role to play in creating those kind of transformative experiences. So that's sort of a big thread that runs through it. But back to my sort of personality and loving the new, I'm often working on new projects. So that could be like Tony's, which we released our beautiful video, which we produced with Storyline Studios.
Kelly Molson: So this is Tony's Chocolonelies.
Ben Thompson: Yeah, Tony's Chocolonely. Yeah, exactly. So that is an amazing brand that has got a fantastic story, wants to transform the industry in which it's working and wants to create a visitor experience to immerse people in that brand and to create advocates for their mission, which is to end slavery in the chocolate industry. And our role was to take that from very basic, "Okay, we want to do this and it's going to be kind of this size and it's going to be this location. Oh, and by the way, it's going to have a roller coaster." To, "Okay, how do we actually put an immersive narrative around that?" And what we've done successfully is this, it's either a great story when you stand back and you sort of, you think about it, it's so simple. Our approach to that was a three acts, heart, head, and hands. So we'd engage you with all of the joy and the fun of what chocolate is all about. Chocolate is ultimately about happiness and sharing.
Ben Thompson: So we do all of that great color, great richness, texture, and so on, but then we do a twist and we go into the head, which is about saying, "What's the bitter side of the sweetness of chocolate?" It's the reality of people working on cocoa farms in West Africa, Ghana, Ivory Coast, where it's a really kind of terrible situation. Then we educate. So how can it be done differently? That's the rest of the head piece. And then we move into hands, which is all about impact. That particular brand is all about engaging people to make a difference with their decisions, with their activism, all that kind of stuff that we do. And that's where we segued into the roller coaster. So when you get on the coaster, which we're going to call something like the impact express or whatever, you're actually going to be shrunken down to the size of a bar and fired out into the world to have an impact.
Kelly Molson: Wow!
Ben Thompson: Not literally fired out, health and safety will be taken into consideration here.
Ben Thompson: So that has been an awesome project. I have an amazing client in Brazil who are largest park operator out there, they run the Christ the Redeemer statue in Rio, they run the Equis Sioux falls down in the South of the country, which is the number one waterfall in the world, they have a big aquarium and so on. And there it's all been about kind of, how do you go from being an organization that's grown through acquisition, has around 6 million guests a year, but in kind of silo style businesses. And how do you create the sort of structure that sits above that? A little bit like Merlin, where you can get great synergies, get great best practices, and a lot of that's in your world of digital and get right structures and so on. So they can get the good data, make the good decisions and so on.
Ben Thompson: And we've got other projects that we can't talk about yet.
Kelly Molson: Of course, there's always secret projects.
Ben Thompson: Which is so frustrating. We've got two amazing, amazing clients that we're working on. One in Europe and one, a global company, but based on the East Coast where the work we're doing is just going to be incredible, but you're going to have to watch this space.
Kelly Molson: All right. Well, we definitely will watch this space. And that brings me to my next question, really, because I'd like to know if you're having to advise your clients differently at this point, because we are still in the middle of a pandemic. As we sit here, it's the 1st of July, attractions in the UK can start to open safely from this weekend, if they are able to. And we're seeing a really big demand, actually. We've seen a huge demand for ticket sales for London Zoo, Whipsnade Zoo, for example. And we know that Shanghai Disney Resort sold out its capacity in three minutes. So we know that there's demand there. We know people want to go back. And what are those conversations like at the moment with your clients that are looking to open their experiences in a year from now, two years from now? Are you having to talk to them very differently about things?
Ben Thompson: It's a great question. I think the first thing to say is, I'm not at all surprised that there's a massive pent up demand. And I think I've been fairly consistent with that, with my clients and stuff that I've written about. Disney have the most amazing metaphor for this, to explain why there would be this pent up demand and they call it the " Closing Window ". And as a parent of children, I can really relate to this. So the idea of the Closing Window is, if you have children, let's say you have two or three kids. You don't really want to go to the big park experience until they're sort of five or six, because they don't really get it. The rides maybe aren't quite ready for them, unless you go to Legoland of course. And by the time they get to be 15 or so, and I've got a 16 year old, so I can relate to this, parents are deeply uncool and they want to go off and do their own things.
Ben Thompson: So you've kind of got maybe eight or nine summers to go and make the memories that last a lifetime. And actually, that's not that many summers, so if you take one away, you're like, "Oh wow. I just lost a really big opportunity to go and do something amazing with my family." And if you think about the experience for parents with their children in parks, basically, it's the best you ever feel in the whole year as a mum or a dad. I think particularly as a dad, by the way, because you've put so much energy into it, it can be really expensive and it's a day that you'd never have to say no to your kids, typically. At least the way I try and do it. So you feel great, right? And those memories kind of reinforce your sense of yourself and the story that you tell yourself.
Ben Thompson: So that's the power of the industry that we work in, and if you close the doors on people and say, "You can't go," and then they open up again, no surprise, there's going to be a kind of a rush to the doors. I think indoor is going to be different from outdoor. I think outdoor's obviously going to have the benefit of it's going to feel safer for the more risk-averse folks out there, like my wife. But the thing about indoor is still a massive role for it. It all depends about whether you've refreshed the experience. A big part of our industry is about suspense, surprising people, "Oh, I didn't know they were going to do that. Oh, that's different from last time," or, "I want to go further into that experience than I could the time before." I think that's why escape rooms are such a great trend, because you want to do it quicker. Maybe they change a few things and it's a different experience each time. So I think for anybody who is still waiting to get open, please don't try and open with the same experience that you did last time, because I think people are going to be looking for something new.
Kelly Molson: That's really good advice. I guess there are some experiences that can't open at all at the moment, and that's a huge challenge. So I read last week about the Poster museum who is allowed, they are allowed to open and the restrictions have been lifted. However, they can't make it safe enough for people to come in because they've got restricted space and actually restricted space on the postal ride that they have, the actual experience. And so it is still really, really difficult for the industry. And I guess how can you advise... I guess you can't advise them if they physically can't look at the safety implications and they can't make it safe for people to come, that's a very different story. But so your advice to attractions is to refresh what they're doing. Don't just open as they have previously.
Ben Thompson: I think that's right. One of the most important things I feel is about empathy. So I engaged a few of my colleagues in IAAPA organization, in February I think, with an idea around how we might recognize our healthcare and key workers once we opened. We called the idea Healthcare Heroes, and actually a number of people have taken it on. People in China have done it, a load of the folks in Europe have done it as well. And the idea there was just simple way of... The first people who come through the doors of our attractions ought to be the people who put their lives on the line to help us during COVID. So doctors, nurses, people working in healthcare. Actually teachers as well, by the way, my wife's a teacher. Teachers get a bad rap most of the time, but they had to go back into their workplaces a long time before anybody else.
Ben Thompson: I thought that was a good idea for two reasons. One, is it shows that the people who are running that organization understand and care and empathize with what people are going through. There's a sense we're all in this together. Secondly, I think it allays risk. So if you are more on the kind of cautious, risk-averse side, if you can think, well, actually these guys are going to get healthcare workers are going to come through and they'll help them check out their facilities and run the rule over their sanitation measures and so on. Then you can have a double win.
Ben Thompson: So yeah, I think empathy is good, and I think just communicating with people, what you're doing and why. The guys over in Shanghai, when they opened earlier in May, I thought they did an outstanding job of just being right up front. Here are the guidelines, this is what we're following. We're not putting the full number that we can put through from the get go. I think they had the right to go up to sort of 25, 30,000 people a day, I think they put 5,000 in on the first day and then it kind of moved up to 10 and so on. And that shows a really, again, kind of a sensitive mindset. It's not all about shoving as many people through as possible to try and generate some revenue. It's a bit more caring than that.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Again, that's one of the things that we've been talking about in the office the last couple of weeks is we talk quite a lot about getting visitor numbers through the door, we've got an ebook, Double Your Visitor Numbers. You can't do that at the moment, so you've got to try and kind of maximize the revenue of the people that can come through, but also caring about their health and safety and making sure that they are safe is the fundamental thing that you need to be hearing about when you get those visitors back through the door.
Ben Thompson: Yeah. I mean, I think, again, I wrote another piece on this about guest centricity as opposed to customer centricity. I've always thought that the metaphor of the host at the dinner table is the right one for any kind of hospitality business. When you invite people to come into your home, you're treating them as if they are a member of your family. You do anything for them. You want to understand all about them, their needs, their preferences, whatever it is. I think in the article, I kind of used the example of so many of the CRM platforms where you get asked your name five times, or I have to fill in the same details, yeah. It's the equivalent of after the second course say, "Oh yeah, what's your name again?" And, "Oh, is your husband... Dave is it? Oh, James, oh, sorry." So I just think that mindset of being all about the guests and caring for them and their day will stand us in good stead.
Kelly Molson: See, it's really interesting actually. I think I'm going to hook you up with a past guest who's on our season one of the podcast. We spoke to Alex Book from Arcade. So they are a big VR agency and they actually talk about not calling guests, guests, or visitors. They talk about calling them players. And it was a really interesting discussion around how you engage with them and what that kind of message is. I think that the two of you should have a chat about that. That would be... Maybe on here. Maybe on here actually.
Ben Thompson: That'll be great. Language is important. One of the things Joe talks about is the idea of staging an experience. They say work is theater. It's not a metaphor. We're not saying, "Think of work like theater." They're saying, "It is theater." You go to work every day to play a role and when you have an organization that is like a theatrical production, everyone playing their parts, staging the experience for the guests, whether that's a pharmaceutical company looking after patients, or a retail organization looking after shoppers or Alton Towers or Disneyland looking after families and so on in the theme park.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. So on that note actually, with Disney, we were discussing last week about the Disney magic and how they still create that feeling. I mean, it's super exciting. I've been to Disney about four or five times when I was a kid and my parents love it, and there's not one part of that experience that isn't magic. I can remember my dad parking the car, even getting on the little tram that takes you into it. Every part of it is exciting. How do they keep that up with the measures that they have to have in place now?
Ben Thompson: Yeah. The funny thing about Disney, and I was trying to explain to people as you, with all the talk that we've just been talking about, guest centricity, you would think that Disney were the ultimate guest-centric company, but they're not. They're not guest centric, they're cast-centric. I went to the IAAPA Leadership Summit in March of this year just before lockdown happened, actually. And I attended a presentation and met with a lady called Chris Tyler. Chris is the operations VP at Disneyland, Anaheim, California. And she took us through the launch of Galaxy's Edge, and I'd had the kind of privilege of seeing Galaxy's Edge, both in Anaheim and in Florida and I think it's outstanding. Anyway, Chris just talked about the cast. She talked about the long lead-in to that opening and about how they invested in education, in programs to tell the backstory of the characters, the narratives, all the different movies, how they approach costuming, how they allow personalization of costuming, how they chose the staff, the cast who actually ended up taking up those frontline roles.
Ben Thompson: And then the launch event that they ran, and actually they did a fashion show where the kind of key Imagineers, people like Scott Trowbridge, Chris Beaty, Margaret Kerrison dressed up in the new costumes for Galaxy's Edge for Batu, the new world, which they've created. Or should I say the existing part of the Star Wars universe which they've brought to life, because that's what it is, it is an existing part. And so, basically the philosophy is about happy cast equals happy guests. That's the mantra of the Disney Institute, which is the external-facing management consultancy part of the organization who train companies all round the world. And if you're listening, guys, I'd love to partner with you one day.
Ben Thompson: But that simple principle is the reason why when you go into any Disneyland park, chances are 98 times out of 100, you're meeting somebody who is happy to be there, and they are super motivated. They believe in what Disney are trying to do, whether it's somebody who works in the janitorial department, whether they're doing the laundry, whether they're in frontline guest service, whether it's ride ops, whatever it is, they know they're there to create a magical experience and magical memories. And they're generally some of the happiest staff that you're going to find. And that, in my view, is the reason why Disney will endure, the magic will endure, because they've done a pretty good job of looking after people and they'll continue to do so.
Kelly Molson: I love that. Yeah, I love that. Happy team makes for happy visitors, for sure.
Ben Thompson: I mean, it makes sense, doesn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah.
Ben Thompson: So much of... Whenever I've done research on launching parks, and there's so much of... The fantastic experience comes down to staff. Probably 25% of the overall piece. It isn't the coast, it isn't the... Well, it is those things, but those guys make up so much a part... And we forget that at our peril.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, you're right actually, and I can draw a parallel to one of our clients for exactly the same reason. So we work with Eureka, the National Children's Museum and their team are called enablers. And every single one of them, every time I've been, is happy. They are engaging. They are genuinely really so delighted to be there and to welcome you and to help you. And it is just lovely. And that is part of the whole experience for me, that front of house team are so incredibly caring and dedicated to the people that are coming through the doors. And that is a big part of what that makes that experience brilliant.
Ben Thompson: Absolutely.
Kelly Molson: Big, big question for you. So what do you think the experience economy is going to look like post-COVID? Are experiences like Tony's, for example, are they going to need to have a different focus? Are they going to need to look at things that are more virtual continuing? We've seen a lot of that during lockdown. Virtual museum tours, virtual tours, virtual experiences, is that going to continue, or do you think things are going to go back to how they were?
Ben Thompson: It's a bit like the saying in the Hollywood industry, in the film industry. Nobody knows, right? You get a lot of people who'll say, "Oh yeah, it's going to be like this. The world's going to change." No, the world isn't going to change. It's going to be exactly the same. How do you say whether a film is going to be a success or not? Nobody knows. We do a lot of work benchmarking what we think are really successful brands who've understood what the transformational economy is all about, and we showcase their work. So good example, not in our industry specifically, but they are an experienced provider, Peloton. Peloton they provide the program of how you become a better cyclist. I actually think it's about becoming a better looking cyclist as well, by the way, because it's a very sort of sexy brand.
Ben Thompson: The products of Peloton is wellbeing, how I feel about myself. Yes, my fitness, but my sense of belonging, being in something part of in myself, bigger than myself. My sort of competitive juices flowing and all that kind of stuff. People who love the brand, they would not lose their whatever it is, hour in the morning or at the end of the day, or whatever, for anything. It's a sort of super positive drug, effectively, if you kind of think about it like that. Now, interestingly, that's an experience that's in-home. They connect it around the world through these super cool screens and you've got people from all different parts of the world, and that's sort of the point of the online community.
Ben Thompson: I'm sure though, that there's a version of that that could go from, in the home, to in a physical space with lots of other people. And a good example there would be eSports. So eSports has grown out of gamers sat in front of a screen like this, maybe one or two together, playing in multiplayer. Now you've got leagues, franchises. When the London resort launch in X number of years time down in Kent, there's talk of an eSports franchise, having their physical home. Like Arsenal or Chelsea Football Club. The equivalent of them having it there and having stadiums full of people, sort of watching the gamers. So the point is it can go both ways. We're talking about physical theme park visitor attraction, brand homes, museums being places where people go to and we're worried about will they kind of come back?
Ben Thompson: Well, I think lots of good examples of organizations creating virtual digital experiences and they're obviously revenue-driving opportunities as well. So we're about to do some work with the distillery industry, they are a provider, a curator, if you will, of really, really high-end product that, unless you tell the story... So bottles of whiskey or gin or whatever that are selling for hundreds and hundreds of pounds, you're never going to buy that in Waitrose. But if you wrap a story around it and talk about the provenance and the heritage and the characters who put that together in the years and years and whatever, then I think you're going to stand more chance of being successful. And all that can be done virtually just as well as it can in a... And often more effectively with some of the latest digital technologies.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely.
Ben Thompson: I almost certainly haven't answered the question, but I at least hopefully gave some thoughts.
Kelly Molson: Oh, I don't think the question can be answered, can it? It's impossible at the moment. It's like you say, we just don't know. At the moment we don't know what's coming in the next couple of weeks, let alone the next couple of years. So I think I really enjoyed your answer though. And distillery is something that we know a little bit about Ben, so I feel like, I feel like there might be something happening there.
Ben Thompson: Okay. Let's talk, let's talk.
Kelly Molson: Let's talk. Do you know what, we connected quite early on at the beginning of lockdown, and one of the things that I really enjoyed, you wrote an article, a brilliant article, actually on Blooloop. It was called COVID-19 and the enduring strength of the attractions industry. What I have really enjoyed about the content that you've been sharing and the things that you've been talking about over this period, is how unbelievably positive that you have been about the industry. And you've talked a lot about the overriding resilience that attractions have. I kind of wanted to know, that article came out right at the beginning of lockdown. If you could go back, is there anything that you would add to that now, having seen what you've seen over the past few months?
Ben Thompson: Well, first of all, I collaborated. It was my idea to write it, but I collaborated with four brilliant Dutch people. And we actually... We love the idea of putting a Zoom collaboration together. Obviously, we did it on Google Docs and whatever. So Raymond and Luca and Caroline, and I've forgotten the other guy's name. Oh, I'm sorry.
Kelly Molson: Don't worry. Let me know. We'll put it in the show notes. So there'll be..
Ben Thompson: Yeah, put it in the show notes. Yeah. So they helped me sort of put that together. I don't think I would change anything. If I had a bit more time, I would like to have gone more into the psychological drivers, the deep kind of reasons why... Joe and Jim have this experience framework. So you've got education, entertainment, aesthetic, which is the sort of art appreciation, and then escapism in this sort of four box grid. And then they overlay that with things like edutainment and escatainment. What I think is really interesting is why do we feel the need to be entertained? What happens when we appreciate art? In our mind, in our heart, in our soul, what's actually going on there?
Ben Thompson: And often it gets down to transformations. We as human beings, I think, are always looking to better ourselves. We have an idea of ourselves that's bigger, more perfect, better than the way we kind of realize we are, and we're always striving to try and get there. And I think brands that can help that sort of journey, help me understand my ambitions, achieve some of those ambitions, contribute to the world. I sometimes think... I oscillate between thinking we're all fundamentally selfish and we're all fundamentally good. And I think the truth is we're both. Successful businesses in our industry will be those who can really create the environment where we can be our best selves. Now, I've forgotten what the question was, but... Oh yeah, would I change anything about the article. I would love to go into more of that, kind of the sort of psychological approach to it, and what psychology can teach us in the entertainment industry, but the article was way longer than we started out, so.
Kelly Molson: There was a lot to talk about.
Ben Thompson: Charlie Read at Blooloop would probably have got his editing pen out.
Kelly Molson: Well, I'll ask him, he's coming on air in a few weeks.
Ben Thompson: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: We are coming up to the end of the podcast interview. I thoroughly enjoyed speaking to you, Ben.
Ben Thompson: Yeah, me too.
Kelly Molson: I think you've got a really great take on what things are going to be like future. I know we can't be so specific at the moment, but I think some of the things you're working on just sound so incredibly exciting, and I'm really pleased to see that there's still that kind of overriding resilience in attractions. They're going to come back bigger and stronger. We like to ask our guests at the end of the podcast, if there's a book that you'd recommend that has helped shape your career in any way.
Ben Thompson: Yeah. So there's two books, actually, if I can be cheeky-
Kelly Molson: You can.
Ben Thompson: If you have marketing in your job title at all, or you have any responsibility to do marketing, you need to read a book called How Brands Grow. It was written about 15ish years ago by a guy called Byron Sharp at the Ehrenberg-Bass Institute down in South Australia. I had the privilege of being trained by Byron and his team when I was at Mars. It's incredibly simple concept of how brands grow, obviously, hence the title, around mental availability, so that the memory structures that sit in your mind. So if I say Coca-Cola to you, now you're thinking about the colour red and swirls and the silvery writing and the shape of the bottle with the little glass pieces, which if you drop it on the floor, it's so recognisable that every shard will look like your worst Coke bottle.
Ben Thompson: That's mental availability. And physical availability is the concept of being at arms reach. Whenever the desire to purchase from that category is triggered, that's the concept. But the book kind of goes into much more depth than that. And then I think for anybody in our industry, they need to get the latest copy of Joe's book, Joe and Jim's book The Experience Economy for which I really should be on commission. So I think Joe, we need to have a word about that. I just think you can't operate in this space without having understood that. Authenticity is also a really good one, which is the followup to experience economy.
Kelly Molson: That's three books, that's super greedy, but I'm really glad that you shared The Experience Economy because it is a fantastic book. And I'm sure that many of our audience have read it. And if you haven't, you definitely need to. So what we like to do is if you'd like to win a copy, I mean, Ben, this is two books. So this is a double whammy. So if you'd like to win a copy of both of those books, then if you head over to our Twitter account, and if you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Ben's books," then you could be in with a chance of winning a copy of both of them. You've just upped my costs for this podcast, Ben.
Ben Thompson: I actually have several spare copies of How Brands Grow.
Kelly Molson: Oh, maybe Ben will send you one, personally.
Ben Thompson: So, I'll put one in the post, well thumbed.
Kelly Molson: Great. Ben, is there anything else that you'd like to share with us before we head off today?
Ben Thompson: I think we're good. This has been really, really enjoyable. Apart from all the skewering you did at the end and made me talk about all the things I was rubbish at. Which is good.
Kelly Molson: Just trying to get under the skin, Ben.
Ben Thompson: Yes, you did that. Definitely need to edit that out. No, no, it's been great. I think this is a fantastic industry. We've taken a bit of a punch, but there's no limbs broken, we'll come back stronger. We've been growing 3 or 4% Kager for the last 10 years and the industry, entertained a billion people last year, probably slightly more and strong growth across the regions. I think it's a great place to work and have fun.
Kelly Molson: That is a lovely place to end the podcast to us both today. Thank you so much for joining us, Ben. It's been a pleasure.
Ben Thompson: Pleasure. Awesome. Thank you so much, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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| How to build ‘digital things’ for GLAMs without a huge budget. With John Sear | 09 Apr 2020 | 00:55:20 | |
The hunger for immersive experiences is stronger than it’s ever been. For this episode of the podcast, we speak to one of the pioneers of this trend, John Sear. John describes himself as a Game Designer & Software Developer, Runner of Workshops and Maker of game-like things for public spaces like Museums, Galleries & Festivals. One of his most impressive projects includes a 500 player, feature-length, collaborative game played using laser pointers, which he won the Indiecade Developer’s Choice Award (referred to as the Sundance of the Games Industry). In this episode, we discuss John’s DIY tutorials for museums so that you can build exciting ‘digital things’ without a huge budget. If you’re interested in creating an immersive experience, then you’ll learn a lot from John’s story. With everything that’s happening in the world right now, this is a brilliant podcast to listen to explore what you can do to engage your audience when your attraction, museum, venue is ready to open again. A few things we talk about:
Heads up, this episode was recorded at the end of 2019, so some of the things we mention may be slightly out of context. Show references: https://twitter.com/MrJohnSear http://johnsear.com/diy-museum-tutorials/ http://www.theotherwayworks.co.uk/category/productions/a-moment-of-madness/
Transcript Kelly Molson: Today, we're speaking to John Sear, builder of magical collaborative experiences for public spaces. John Sear: We were trying to imagine what was coming in the future. What would collaborative play as a kind of visitor experience look like. Kelly Molson: John describes himself as a games designer and software developer, runner of workshops and maker of game-like things for public spaces like museums, galleries and festivals. John Sear: When you look at the kind of money people are willing to spend to go to the big experiences, the Punchdrunks and the Secret Cinemas, they're spending hundreds of pounds a night and when you start to mention those numbers, suddenly there are a few people in the museum where they go, okay, that sounds interesting. Different audiences and we could earn money from it, maybe. Kelly Molson: He's multitalented and incredibly creative. Developing projects such as A Moment of Madness, which is an urban game where players are on a live stake out in a car park and Renga, the 500 player laser game. Kelly Molson: In this episode, we discuss all of those things, plus John's DIY tutorials for museums, so that you can build exciting digital things without a huge budget. John Sear: That's what's good about in the modern age is that the tools are out there that are free and open source and a lot of cases that allow you to build these things very quickly and cheaply and then once you get started, it's kind of like the limits are just your own imagination. Kelly Molson: We'll take a look at John's approach for creating games that are fun, educational, and true to the venue and also learn the importance of storytelling. We really enjoyed speaking to John and we think that you're going to enjoy this too. John Sear: Get people excited first and then worry about the kind of educational content afterwards. Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast that celebrates professionals working in the visitor attraction sector. What do we mean by visitor attractions? Well, it's an umbrella term for a huge range of exciting organisations that are must sees. Think museums, theme parks, zoos, farms, heritage sites, tour providers, escape rooms, and much, much more. They're tourist hotspots or much love local establishments that educate, engage, and excite the general public. Kelly Molson: Those who work in visitor attractions often pour their heart and soul into providing exceptional experiences for others. In our opinion, they don't get the recognition that they deserve for this. We want to change this. Each episode we'll share the journeys of inspiring leaders. We'll celebrate their achievements and dig deeper into what really makes their attraction successful, both offline and digitally. Listen and be inspired as industry leaders share their innovative ideas, services, and approaches. Kelly Molson: There's plenty of valuable information you can take away and put into action to create better experiences for your own guests. Your host of this podcast, and myself, Kelly Molson, and Paul Wright. We're the co-founders of Rubber Cheese, an award winning digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for visitor attractions. Find out how we can create a better experience for you and your guests at rubbercheese.com. Search Skip the Queue on iTunes and Spotify to subscribe. Kelly Molson: You can find links to every episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. We hope that you enjoy these interviews and if there's anyone that you think that we should be talking to, please just send us a message. Kelly Molson: John, welcome to our Skip the Queue Podcast. Thank you for coming on today. John Sear: Thank you so much for inviting me on. Kelly Molson: Now your bio describes you as a builder of magical collaborative experiences for public spaces and I think that is probably one of the coolest job titles I've ever read. Can you tell us a little bit about that? John Sear: Thank you. I mean, yeah, I kind of flip and flop a lot really about what my job title should be because it's quite confusing as well as being cool. So at the moment I am a real world game designer. That's my kind of brief, but that kind of confuses people as well because it's making video games but via games that take place in the real world. And I know when I've explained it to people before, like half of my job is kind of tech, half of it is kind of design. John Sear: So I was at a tech conference recently talking about what I do and at the end of it the guy was like, "That sounds like a really nice hobby you've got there." And I was like, "Yeah, that's actually my job." Kelly Molson: Oh, gosh. John Sear: There you go. I confuse most people I think. But yeah, basically all it means is that I take my game design skills and my software engineering skills and sort of the kind of modern making and kind of put that altogether to build experiences that take place in the real world. So that can be things like escape games, immersive theatre, things that take place in museums, galleries, libraries, festivals, car parks, theme parks, all sorts of crazy places. But yeah, most people think my job sounds amazing, so I should probably not ruin that illusion for them. Kelly Molson: How did you get to where you are now? You've got a long history in game design, how did you go from that to what you do now? John Sear: Sure. So I'll do the short version and then you can decide if you want me to dip into the longer version, because it's about 20 years. So, I left university and did what I thought was my dream job of working in the games industry, Proper, the AAA games industry. So when we think of video games on Xbox and PlayStation and PC, so I did that for about four years and while it was enjoyable and I worked with some amazing people, it wasn't where I wanted to be. John Sear: So then I left the AAA world to go and work in academia. So I set up a degree course teaching people how to get jobs in the games industry. But with the caveat that I'd left the games industry because I didn't really enjoy it loads, and then while doing that, I had a few other companies on the side. John Sear: So I had a company that made iPhone games and Xbox games during the kind of first, there was a kind of digital download rush when the iPhone was first released in 2008, 2010, that sort of era. And then eventually it got to this where I was doing all these things. There was a big rush in the iPhone world, which produced a lot of wealthy people in a short amount of time. But gradually that space got very saturated and the games you can make in that space were kind of less interesting and you needed more money to do it, and there'd been this big rise in independent games. John Sear: So people that were experienced in making games, leaving bigger developers to go it alone. This was kind of the first time, that sort of period, like 2008 to 2010 where people could do that. They could actually make games for Xbox or PlayStation or iPhone without a big publisher behind them, and so it meant there were a lot of kind of indie developers then. And so I sort of tried to jump onto that bandwagon and I was kind of getting bored of making things for small devices like Xboxes or iPhones or Android tablets and wanted to make things that took place in the real world. John Sear: So me and a friend of mine started a business and we made a game called Renga, which probably gets mentioned somewhere on my website, which was a 500 player game experience that took place originally for movie theatres, but it got shown outdoors as well at festivals. And so that was my kind of, that's my transition really from doing things for indoor spaces to the kind of... We use different times in different industries that we would call that the out-of-home experiences- Kelly Molson: All right. John Sear: ... Or visitor attraction experiences. So the jump from making things for small scale to making things for festivals, and obviously I sort of left behind all of my knowledge from AAA world of how to sell boxed products or sell digital download games to suddenly having to sell games where people bought tickets for it or it took place in a cinema or took place at a festival, and so it was quite different. And I'd say that back then there were a lot of people from theatre who are making things that were more game-like. John Sear: So you might have come across people like Punchdrunk in the kind of immersive theatre world or Secret Cinema but there were very few people going the other way, taking their games knowledge and going into kind of theatrical things. And still, I think that's quite a niche thing. So from about 2010 to 2013 we built and toured this giant Renga game, and then since then, I've just been attracted by making experiences for public spaces, and that's really what's led me to work with museums and castles and art galleries because they have people and they have amazing spaces. So it kind of all makes sense. John Sear: Sorry, that was supposed to be the short version. It wasn't really very short, was it? But that was the transition anyway. Kelly Molson: That's perfect. Paul Wright: So can you give us a bit of an idea of what a 500 person game for a festival or cinema looks like? John Sear: Yeah, I should have done that really, but yeah, that's a good question. So Renga was built so that it still looks a bit like a video game, but it's really about how 500 people organise themselves. So we've shown this in lots of different spaces, but the classic is in an enormous auditorium in a movie theatre. John Sear: So you have 500 people seated, we give out laser pointers to the audience, the laser pointers are used to control the action that happens on the screen. So it's a 90-minute experience. I mean, it's quite a deep strategic game and it looks a bit like a space retro game when you're playing, but it's really an exercise in how do 500 people somehow collaboratively control the experience. John Sear: So it's quite unusual in the sense that people don't make these huge games, but from a technological point of view, it's a bit like turning the cinema screen into a giant touchscreen. So each of the laser points acts a bit like a finger that can kind of touch the screen and anything you want to do in the game you have to do as a group. So you have to somehow sort of self organise yourself just purely by laser dots of light on the screen into doing different things. Kelly Molson: Oh, gosh. John Sear: Yeah, it's quite unusual, and it's one of those things that people go, "I don't think I really want to play that." Until they actually start playing it and they go, "Oh wow, this is quite different to what I was expecting." It doesn't matter how many times I explain it. I never do a very good job, I'm afraid. But it's just a really interesting thing of like how you can get different experiences happening in theatres. John Sear: So we showed it at loads of film festivals because they would be showing traditional films, and then alongside that they'd go, okay, people are making games for cinema now. So let's have a look at one of those. And then what they would do is they would invite actually quite a lot of the top directors actually got to see this because we showed it at places like the New York film festival and the Toronto film festival and some of the bigger ones, and they would invite directors into the auditorium to go look what's happening, right? Because there's obviously there's a limit to sorts of feelings and experiences you can create with film and it's a different experience when people are playing a game. John Sear: So suddenly you've got people within the audience that love and hate each other and are high fiving and hugging and running around. It's very much like a midnight madness experience as people try and control it. Ultimately everyone's got an individual laser pointer. Everyone can do anything they want. No one's in control of them. But some people get the game a bit more than others and so they're shouting out a vice or standing up in front of the screen even to try and organise teams into doing things. Did that make any sense? Paul Wright: It sounds amazing. What other examples of games like that have you created? John Sear: I mean that's the biggest game I think I've created in terms of there's 500 simultaneous players over a 90-minute experience. Often I talk about the work I do as been a bit like escape rooms. So I started doing this stuff in about 2010 and we were trying to imagine what was coming in the future, what would collaborative play out of the home as a kind of visitor experience look like, and we dismissed experiences like escape games really back then because we thought that even though they didn't really exist on mass, there'd been a few experiments into them and it felt like people wouldn't be willing to pay the 20 or £30 a person for a one-hour experience that they absolutely are willing to pay, it turns out. John Sear: So we kind of misread the future direction but one of the advantage of escape games existing, I mean, I can just say, "Well the things I make are a bit like escape games." And with that, I do go to escape games. So I build large scale escape games as well. I think they're the closest things that I do to Renga in terms of 500 players. So for a number of museum conferences or site centre conferences, both in Europe and over in Asia, I built sort of 100 player escape game experiences. John Sear: So whereas in a normal escape game there might be six of you or 10 of you locked in a room, and it sounds like you guys have played a few of these. Kelly Molson: We have. John Sear: So I've built a number of pop-up experiences where you might have, I've made 10 tables in a room and each table has got a mini escape game on it, and then those mini escape games kind of interact with each other. So you might put I don't know 10 people around each table, and then as the game progresses, it turns out in order to complete the game, the tables have to kind of collaborate together. So I think the largest ones I've done of those are about a hundred people. Paul Wright: So older games and there are digital games on each table? John Sear: No, I mean, not always. I mean, because my background is digital, I use a combination of digital and physical or analog. Yeah, so most of the games I make have a digital element. So for example, most of my escape games would have probably at least a device such as a phone or something that is a phone, but is masquerading as some other piece of equipment, which might unlock parts of the story, or you might use it to scan things. John Sear: So I'm a big fan of technologies like iBeacons and Near-field communication. So you might use the phone to scan physical objects and that might play a video or play some audio on the phone as you're using it, but sometimes that phone is in a case. So it's some kind of piece of equipment that the players have found. It's a useful scanning device. It might be masquerading as a hospital scanner or something. So you scan a patient and then you get some readout, but essentially it's a mobile phone in a fancy case. Kelly Molson: John, one of the questions I had for you is, I know that you work with galleries, libraries, archives, museums, which are classified GLAMs. When you're talking to these venues, what do you think is the biggest benefit of them using you? What's the biggest benefit to them to having a game or some kind of interactive element in those venues? John Sear: I guess the biggest reason to what it means is because I'm kind of quite a nice person really. That's a good reason. Kelly Molson: You are John. You are, it's good enough for us. John Sear: I mean it depends what they're looking for, right? I build different things for museums. So sometimes I build what we'd call I guess an interactive, so it kind of stands alone experience that might be like a touchscreen or something that you interact with, with a camera, like a Kinect Sensor. And I did do quite a lot of collaborative touch table experiences for museums, particularly around Birmingham actually. There's still quite a few of those installed. That's a piece of technology I actually really like because I'm interested in bringing people together in these spaces. John Sear: So the idea that you can have an experience in a museum that you can't have at home I think is quite important, and things like large scale touchscreens allow that. So yeah, I build those kinds of things, one off interactive things. But I think probably what I'm more passionate about is building experiences that are a bit more kind of museum or gallery wide. John Sear: So one way you could think of it is a bit like a kind of a more high tech version of a trail. We are on a way that we take people, take visitors around the museum but in a different way to what they're normally doing and maybe get them to look at different things. John Sear: So while I'd like to use a lot of technology in what I make, generally I like to kind of keep the technology hidden away, which is why I often talk about it as being magical but mostly about not trying to detract from what's already there, like museums and galleries and castles and all of these places, they're already amazing scenarios, right? They're already incredible spaces. John Sear: So what I try and do is not to detract from that, but to enhance it with technology. So often I use a lot of audio in what I do. So perhaps the device, the technology stays in your pocket while you're still kind of walking around the space, that works quite nicely. I've been doing some stuff with the National Trust property, which is closer to immersive theatre. So a bit like an escape game, but you play it around the entire venue. And if you think of some of the escape games that are out there and probably some that you've played often what they're trying to do is they're trying to replicate these spaces that already exist in the cultural space. John Sear: So they might be trying to make the office where Sherlock Holmes is based or they might be trying to replicate a castle. Well in the cultural attraction world or the GLAM world, we've already got those spaces and they're already completely authentic because they all exist. So what I like to try and do is kind of layer a game experience on top of what's already there. John Sear: So one that hopefully will go in a National Trust property sometime next year is actually one where players are essentially spies. They're working for a secret organisation and they are operating within this National Trust property. But one of the advantages of being a spy is that the whole point is you're not supposed to get caught, right? So, you're supposed to be acting as if you are a normal visitor, and this is one of the problems, right? When you set a game in a space like a museum or a castle or a historic building, people behave differently and we don't always want them to behave differently when there's all these kind of priceless artefacts everywhere. John Sear: So using these themes whereby the whole point is you're not supposed to get caught and you're supposed to be like a visitor, but secretly you're a spy doing interesting things. That mechanism works quite well I think, and that we reuse it again and again. Paul Wright: I'd love to get a bit of an understanding of what happens with these venues, what do they decide? Do they decide they would need some immersive game in their venue and then they put a brief out there, and then you come up with ideas for that brief or is it, how does it work? John Sear: Yeah. Kelly Molson: How do they know they need you? Paul Wright: Yeah. John Sear: How do they know? They don't really. Often, I mean, I think probably some people see me talk at conferences and things or they might have used, I've got a series of kind of free tutorials online, which are designed to kind of help museums build their own things. John Sear: So I think most people talk to me first and then I try and convince them that they need me rather than they know that they need me and come looking for me, if that makes sense? Kelly Molson: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Paul Wright: Yeah. John Sear: Normally they say, "Okay, we're looking to build an interactive in a museum that does this." Or "We're looking to build an app that visitors use." And then that is normally the start of a conversation of, well, why do you need an app? Or why do you think you need an app? And what are you trying to do with that? And these are all the problems with that, and these are the costs of it and these are the other things you could do with the same amount of money and then people would normally look pretty terrified. John Sear: So yeah, I mean, occasionally some museums are aware of things like immersive theatre and they're interested enough to go, okay, how could we use these new types of experiences within our spaces. But I mean I think most places are kind of feeling that out at the moment. They don't really know they need it, they're not really sure they want it. There's a few places that are like, they can see the benefits, we can attract a different audience demographic or we can open at different times. John Sear: So with National Trust properties, typically they have a lot of business with a certain demographic during the day, but then those properties are closed in the evening. Well actually, at least a couple of nights a week, we could actually set a large scale immersive theatre piece in there, which would bring people in and you could also sell to them food and drinks. When you look at the kind of money people are willing to spend to go to the big experiences, the Punchdrunks and the Secret Cinemas, they're spending hundreds of pounds a night. And when you start to mention those numbers, suddenly there are a few people in the museum where they go, okay, that sounds interesting. Different audiences and we could earn money from it, maybe. John Sear: But there aren't many kind of big examples of that to look to. So it's definitely still early days in that sense. Kelly Molson: So I guess it comes back to something that keeps coming up over and over again in terms of using tech, it's about using tech to enhance the venue and engage with a different audience at different times. So essentially it is about driving more footfall from different people. John Sear: Yeah, I mean, that's obviously the appeal I think, and I think people realise they need something that's a bit more unique, that's a bit more attractive, and it's not just, okay, everyone has got an app now, we need to make sure we've got an app. Well, there's quite a lot of evidence out there that they're showing that's not really working, and generally it's a bit of a block, isn't it? John Sear: I mean, you've probably had experience with this, but like a museum produces an app because they feel like they need an app, and then of course, the problem they've got is how do they convince their visitors to install the app? And they probably haven't done it before they've arrived at the venue. So then they've got to get on the wifi and they've got to download it and then they have to use the most precious thing in the world, which is their battery life on their phone, right? Nobody wants to give up their battery life on their phone. John Sear: So, who knows? There's lots of issues with that an app is the solution to everything, and that's not to say that I don't use apps for some of the venues that I work with, but most of the time I will try and persuade them to also supply the phones with it. I mean that's always a difficult sell because the reason that museums love things like apps is because it means that I have to manage the technology- Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly. John Sear: ... Which is a huge headache. But if you want people to actually use it in really big numbers, it's much easier just to hand them a device as they walk in the building than it is to go, okay, we need to get you on the wifi and then you need to download this thing and then you need to set up an account and then you need to go, all of that. Each one of those things is a barrier. So it slows it down and you lose people. John Sear: So obviously we're seeing more people move towards just websites that allow people to hook straight into it and use things in conjunction with the space rather than the kind of full download of an app. Paul Wright: Or progressive web apps as well. John Sear: Exactly, yeah. Kelly Molson: John, you talked a little bit earlier about the game where you could pretend to be a spy, so it was kind of keeping people acting in a certain way. You also talk a lot about the importance of storytelling, which I mean that's important to us as well. It's one of the key things that we talk about in terms of your website. How do you work with the museums and the galleries to find those stories? Do you help them create them collaboratively? Do you suggest what would work best for their space? John Sear: Yeah, I guess it's a combination really. I mean that's one of the best things about working with cultural spaces, right? Is they have so much history and so much storytelling. I mean, it's what they do, why they collect stories from throughout the ages and they've got thousands to draw on. So really, I mean, the problem is, choosing from all of those when you've got so much, and so what are the stories that they've already got that fit in best with what we're trying to do? John Sear: I mean, there's no right answer to all of that. I mean, often the kind of shortcut I guess is that people are interested in people, right? So, normally if you can find a story that's got a good character, a good protagonist, a real person at the heart of it. That's normally where we start from I think. But yeah, the problem is choosing from the many varied stories rather than kind of building something from scratch. Paul Wright: If we go back to the game making, I'm really interested about this, about how you come up with ideas for games. Would you have any tips how to create interactive games? John Sear: That's a big question. I used to run a four year degree course on this very subject. Paul Wright: Oh, well. John Sear: So, if I can summarise that in 10 seconds. I think probably one of the problems I have, and I mean, my company is called Museum Games, which is a kind of like, it does what it says on the tin type name, but I actually find making games for museums is one of the hardest things because normally what we're thinking about, we're thinking about an interactive. John Sear: So a single place within the museum or cultural space where you go to and interact with a device of some kind. That might be a touch screen, it might be something with big buttons on it, it might be a camera based thing, so all of those, and for me the things that I'm most interested in about games is the kind of deepness to them. John Sear: They're quite deep experiences, they're really engaging, you can learn from them, but we're trying to do that in a public space, in museums, it makes it much harder. How do you get people properly engaged in the experience when potentially there's an audience around them watching what they do, that makes it quite hard. And also the museums themselves, as great as they are to work with, obviously one of their primary reasons is to educate the public, and so it's really hard to drop the educational part. John Sear: I mean, this would be, the biggest tip really for me, is to make games that are firstly fun experiences and less focus on the educational part. If you're busy playing a game for 10 minutes, you can have a really fun experience. You can have a great time, you might get some good photos out of it for social media but ultimately we want you to be excited and then keen to learn more about whatever the topic is we've chosen, and they, the tutor period or something, but I'm not going to build a game that's going to mean that you're going to learn all the kings of England, for instance. John Sear: And I think that's one of the problems and one of the barriers to working with museums is there's a kind of like, "Okay, there way this game needs to be all of those things that all these other games are, but it also needs to be educational." And you're like, "Well, if I sat down a player with the list of Tudor kings or something for the next 10 minutes and made them revise it, by the end of it, they probably wouldn't remember these things anyway." John Sear: So for me it's much more about let's make a thing that is fun and enjoyable and makes people want to spend time in the museum and makes people want to learn more about these things going forward. So if you used a particular character from history in the game and as long as afterwards there's some sort of direction that says, "Okay, you can learn more about this particular king or there are some interesting stories about this queen." Or whatever it is. As long as there's a kind of hand holding to the next thing, I mean that's the thing that I'm most happy about really. John Sear: Get people excited first and then worry about the kind of educational content afterwards. Sorry, I turned that question and there wasn't really a kind of tip on how to make interactive games. That was really my gripe I guess. Kelly Molson: No, it's great. I mean it really comes through how passionate you are about it. I guess it's again coming back to kind of making sure that whatever you're creating from a gaming or technology basis ties in with their culture and the heritage and the education side of the venue that you're in as well. So it's about in you're own too. John Sear: Yeah, you've said much better than I did actually. I think it's just very hard to make a game that... And games, the best part of them is how deep they are and how immersed you can get in them when actually people are walking through a space, and have only got a few minutes to play this game and actually from the museum point of view, we don't want them standing there playing a game for two hours because that uses up the device, the interactive. John Sear: So to make a game that's deep and also quick is quite hard. So, I mean, a lot of the games that you see in museums are really much more toy-like. They're these kind of little things you can have a little play with for a few minutes but really we need to get you on and moving around the space to see the next thing. Kelly Molson: So tell us a little bit more about DIY Museum Tutorials because you actually give away a lot of kind of free content and a lot of things to help museums do this themselves as well, don't you? John Sear: Yeah, I do. It's nice of me, right? Kelly Molson: It's very nice. John Sear: Well, I mean obviously there's other good reasons, right? To be sharing stuff and ultimately the stuff that I do on a day-to-day basis, I'm always learning and there's loads of people online that share their knowledge that helped me get to the place I am. So it's just sort of my way of contributing something to the kind of shared knowledge sphere, should we say? John Sear: So this set of tutorials was really designed for museums that can't afford to or don't have a lot of technological skills in house. I mean, most museums don't have a lot of money at the best of times. They might get money when they have a round of funding coming for a particular project, but the rest of the time they're kind of scraping things together. John Sear: So it was really about taking some of the projects that I've worked on where I've actually been paid to do them, and then trying to show people how you could build a kind of a simpler version yourself. Not quite to the same level, but without spending much money, and spending a bit of time. John Sear: So either you've got people in your museum who have got a little bit of an interest in tech or you've got volunteers in your museum that are happy to kind of have a bit of a play. And so these tutorials, there's about seven or eight now, they're very much geared towards smaller museums who have got no money but might have some volunteers, and that volunteer is happy to kind of get their hands a little bit dirty. John Sear: So I mean it doesn't go very technical, it's always designed. So the hardest thing is kind of using an app on a mobile phone. It's not even things like setting up a Raspberry Pi or setting up an Arduino, which I know is a big barrier. John Sear: I mean it's lovely for me that these get used so widely. I get fantastic messages from all over the world where people have set up one of these things in New Zealand or Africa or America, which is really lovely to hear about. I mean the most popular ones are the Babbling Beasts tutorial, and that is using a technology called NFC, Near-field communication to trigger media, and it started off as a project to kind of make cuddly toys talk. John Sear: So you basically take a cuddly toy and you put a mobile phone inside the cuddly toy and you record some audio, a bit like a kind of build the bear type thing, you record it straight onto the mobile phone, you put some NFC tags around your space, and if you've not seen NFC technology before, you've probably used it at some point because it's the same technology every time you go to Tesco's and buy something with your contactless credit card. It's that same wireless connectivity. John Sear: So all of the media, all of the audio stays on the device. So that means you don't need to have any kind of wifi access, which is great if you're a National Trust building or a castle where you've got big thick walls. And then it's just a case of literally you take the cuddly toy over to your tag, your marker and when you scan it the cuddly toy talks to you. And so you can do a serious version of that. It doesn't need to be in a cuddly toy. Your mobile phone can be in anything you like, you can put it in a little wooden box or you can make a little case. John Sear: We've had people, they've had knitting groups, knit cases for them, which has been lovely for some museums but essentially a way of just triggering audio or video but without even needing to touch the device. You just literally hold the device up to some kind of tag, and again, the tag can look like anything you want because the tag can stay behind something. So you can put it behind wood if you want to or behind a sign or you can put an array of tags out there. So any way you touched your phone against the whole display would trigger the audio. John Sear: So it's very much a thing of like let's get people in and using technology really quickly, and then once you've got the hang of it, you can see how far you want to go with it. So you can push it further and further. So there's some ideas there by, you can do multi-language versions of this toy if you want, where you can do a French version and a German version, an Italian version, as well as your English version, and so before the tour starts or at any point in the tour, you can scan a flag and then as you go round you get the tour in that particular language- Kelly Molson: Oh, that's brilliant, isn't it? John Sear: ... Or we've done versions with kids and adult tours, so that the tags are the same throughout, but one is told in a kind of more serious way, and another one might be told through a character, like a small dog or a cat or something. Kelly Molson: So I guess that's a really good way of trialing something, seeing what the uptake is. It's an MVP, isn't it? John Sear: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Kelly Molson: Minimum viable product. Try this out, see what happens, you can do this all yourself and then if it's brilliant and it gets the results you want, get us in and we'll do your bigger version of it. John Sear: Yeah, I mean, ultimately that would be nice. But at the same time I'm totally happy for people not to call me in to do it. If they've made something brilliant, great. And the idea being is once they've started doing it, they get a bit more confidence. They might want to make that more game-like or so it could be a Choose Your Own Adventure style thing, it could be quiz based. But yeah, you're right. John Sear: Some people do then call me and afterwards build a kind of a more advanced one. So I've just finished doing a National Trust version with a company called Outside Studios and that's running up at the Workhouse near Nottingham and that's using phones as kind of media players, and so as you walk around the space, which doesn't have a lot of interpretation in the space, a lot of it comes through the phone or the tablet. You can just scan things as you go, and so we've made a nicer version. It's a bit more flashy, it does a few more things. It's got better housing, different updates. John Sear: So, yeah, there's lots of ways that I can sort of do better versions for people, but you absolutely don't need to call me in for this. The idea is, yeah, build your own and if you're happy with that then great. Kelly Molson: I love that. Do you get people kind of sending you, look what we've done? John Sear: Yes. Kelly Molson: We've used your tutorial and look what we've created? John Sear: It's lovely, yeah. I love getting emails from people from all over the world telling me what they've done with it, and then yeah, like photos on Twitter, you just see kids with cuddly toys in museums and you're like, oh, it's brilliant. It's really nice. So it's- Kelly Molson: That's really cool. John Sear: ... Nice to be able to share and put something back. And so yeah. So the Babbling Beast one is popular. There's a touch screen one that's very popular as well. Like how to build really simple touchscreens, using PowerPoint. Most people kind of cringe a little bit when I say PowerPoint, but the good thing is, is that everyone can use PowerPoint or have been forced to use PowerPoint at some point in their life to create a horrible slideshow, but you can build interactives with it, and the latest version is really impressive actually. John Sear: I ran a workshop a couple of weeks ago, which was using PowerPoint to build projection mapped experiences in museums and the latest version of PowerPoint supports 3D models. So you can have animated 3D models and it also has quite a lot of motion graphics in there as well. So you can do some quite fancy looking interactives using PowerPoint and no one would ever guess that you were using it. But again, it's this idea of, let's say a minimum viable product, but just giving people enough confidence they can build a little thing with it, and once they've got over that first hurdle, they go, okay, what can it do next? Okay, how do we add video to this? How do we add audio? How do we add a 3D model? And it's just nice that you can build out really quickly and then build on that knowledge. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. Paul Wright: I've noticed in your bio you're interested in interactive fiction. John Sear: Oh, yeah. Paul Wright: Can you tell us a little bit more about that? John Sear: I mean, so interactive fiction covers a wide range of experiences. I mean originally it kind of meant the Choose Your Own Adventure books, if you've come across those? Kelly Molson: Oh yeah. Yep. John Sear: So I grew up with these and there's a number of different versions of them but I grew up with a kind of original Choose Your Own Adventure. I think more recently they're called Goosebumps, people know them as. But there was a lot of different versions of this and we've even seen it I think last Christmas through Black Mirror, the Bandersnatch. Kelly Molson: Bandersnatch, yeah. John Sear: On a side note, I actually, for that workshop I did recently showing people what you could do with PowerPoint. I built a mini version of Bandersnatch, as in, taking the video clips from it and I built that in PowerPoint to show you could do it. Paul Wright: Wow. John Sear: Sorry, that's a completely aside really. Kelly Molson: I love that. John Sear: But I don't work for Microsoft and I don't earn anything if you use it, but it's actually a really good bit of equipment, a really good tool these days, and it's got like [crosstalk 00:37:08]- Kelly Molson: Of the presentation software is available. John Sear: ... I'm sure it is. But just use that, definitely, it's too fine now, it's 30 years old. So it should be reasonable. So interactive fiction obviously started with people like Edward Packard, who's the kind of one of the fathers of these Choose Your Own Adventure books back in the kind of late 70s, early 80s, I want to say somewhere around then. And so they had the classic thing of, you'd read through a page or two of the book, and at the end of it you would get to make choices, do you want to go into the cave or do you want to leave and jump on a horse and ride out into the wilderness. John Sear: You'd make those choices and ultimately you'd have like a hundred pages and maybe 20 different endings you'd go through. And so, I quite enjoyed playing those, but they're quite a simple touch point that most people understand in terms of building things that are interactive. The simple choices you get to make as you go through is quite a commonly understood thing. So in the Babbling Beasts example, we could actually very easily make those trails, Choose Your Own Adventure style trails. But actually in more recent terms, I mean interactive fiction is a kind of it means a wider thing. John Sear: It means like any type of fiction or text based experience where you can have some kind of choice in it, and in the last five or 10 years, there's been some fantastic tools that have made this much easier. So in the old days you might have experienced like text adventures on kind of BBCs and spectrums and PCs, back in the kind of 80s and 90s. I don't know if you're quite as old as me, but these were the- Kelly Molson: We are John, we are. John Sear: ... Okay. so you might've experienced these things. But then more recently there's been some fantastic web-based tools like Twine. And again actually, I've got a tutorial based on this because I quite enjoy teaching people how to build their own interactive fiction stories, and Twine is an incredibly simple piece of technology to use. And again you start simple building Choose Your Own Adventure style choices, then as you get more into it, you can use more programming language variables and things to make it a bit more richer. But yeah, I've seen people do all sorts of interesting stuff in tools like Twine. John Sear: I mean that's what's good about in the modern age is that the tools are out there that are free and open source and a lot of cases that allow you to build these things very quickly and cheaply. And then once you get started, it's kind of like, the limits are just your own imagination. So, there's been a whole movement really with Twine where people that aren't really anything to do with games have come from different spaces and have been able to build really quite complicated and interesting games telling very personal stories, which has been really interesting, and every year there's interactive fiction competitions. John Sear: So you can look at the kind of things that people are making in this space. And then I did some work, we're trying to put these in museums. So if you go back through my kind of website history, you'll see me discussing this a few years ago, there were some fantastic experiences where you were in the museum while having a similarly related experience. So for example, there was an experience where you had a book that was written, it was a film script, and you could sit in the museum and read the script, and actually what they'd done is they built the set around you out of things that were in the museum. John Sear: So as you read about, I don't know like someone playing a piano off in another room. Actually there is a piano just off in another room and it turns out someone might be playing that at the same time or there might be a bookcase alongside you, and some of the books that are being referenced in the story you're reading are actually on that bookcase. John Sear: So it's something powerful about experiencing the story while you're sitting in the space. So I was actually trying to get museums to build interactive fiction games or stories while being in the space, using technology like Twine. So you might have, I don't know, a castle and actually you don't interact directly with the space at all, but you just stand or sit in the space while the story happens. John Sear: You can intertwine the real experience of you being in the real physical space with the virtual, which in this case, the interactive fiction games could be played on a touchscreen or you could play them on a website. So you could play them on your mobile phone, but it might be that in the interaction fiction game in order to progress, you might need to know the name of the painter in the painting in the far room. John Sear: So actually while playing the game, you have to physically walk into the fire room, look at the painting, and engage with it, perhaps look for something in the scene or look at who the painter was and then use that in the virtual game that you're playing as well. Kelly Molson: That's cool. John Sear: So we're kind of tying these two things together, but technically it was incredibly simple and if you want to do this again there's a tutorial available which teaches you how to and really simple and I just wanted to see more museums kind of play with the idea. Building games that are set in the space they're already in but without getting too worried about the technology. Kelly Molson: We will be for our listeners be linking to all of the things that John's been talking about today. So they'll be in the show notes and we will also be having this podcast transcribed as well. Kelly Molson: John, I want to ask you about a challenge that we keep hearing over and over and over again from kind of museum world and visitor attraction world and some of the challenges they have are obviously engaging with new different audiences, which we've talked about, but one of the biggest challenges that comes up is repeat visitors and how they can engage with the same people and get them to come back over and over again. What kind of advice can you offer in terms of how to bring people back to a space and then how often do you have to be looking at refreshing the game or the interactive activity that you've got to kind of reengage with the same people? That's probably a really long question. John Sear: It's a very good question. Yeah, because the repeat visitor thing is quite a hard one and there's lots of different reasons that people go back to museums or cultural things again and again. I mean a lot of this comes down to a problem that all of us face with building visitor attraction type experiences. It's just that people are generally quite time poor. They don't have a lot of time. Once they get through all the kind of day-to-day grind and work and family and commitments, often they're out seeking things that are kind of new and unique. John Sear: That is difficult obviously with the repeat visitor thing. I mean, the classic way that most of the larger institutes deal with this is obviously through their temporary exhibition spaces that you would refresh every three to six months or whatever to give people a new thing they come and see. And then obviously there's problems with that, which is often those are paid experiences and they're quite premium products unless perhaps you're on an annual pass of some kind. John Sear: I know a lot of the smaller museums, they make the basic stuff work really well, right? Like the cafes and things. The things that you're going to use again and again. So this is very technical obviously. So for us in Birmingham, we use two of Birmingham museum trust places a lot. We use the BMAG, Birmingham Museum and Art Gallery and we use Thinktank, which is the kind of science museum because of they've got fantastic cafe spaces and they're quite family friendly. So often we'll go in there knowing that it ticks those boxes and then we'll go and see other stuff. I mean, I'm going in there for the cultural reasons. The rest of my family, not so. John Sear: So normally we start off there with people having a coffee and things and then I'll drag them off to go see different things every time. But I mean that's more from a kind of personal point of view. From kind of the game wise thing, I mean it depends on the types of games you're making and who you're targeting it at. I mean obviously kids generally will play the same game again and again, whereas adults generally don't. We're constantly looking for the new thing. We're looking for the new show, the new film, we're not watching the same series again and again generally. We're waiting for the next series to come. John Sear: So we're expecting to see something new every time, whereas kids actually like the familiarity of doing the same thing again, which makes it quite difficult I guess to make something that's engaging for both parents and families. With games, there are different types of games, right? There are games which are much more a single play through, which might be a story based thing where it's about unlocking all of the story. But on subsequent play throughs you could have more things you can unlock, right? John Sear: So, I mean you can have side quests that you might not do the first time round, but the second time you might do, or we have things like score based games whereby you play the game again and again in order to get a better score. Yeah, I'm not sure whether those are enough reasons that people would come back again, and again. I'm generally happy if people come once and play the experience and often that means that some of the things I run will run at set times. So they might run as part of a festival. John Sear: That is the model that people like the funders such as arts council seem to be following now, which is we know that the visitors will come out for new interesting things, right? So again, talking about Birmingham and specifically, we're quite lucky that during the summer months particularly, we have different festivals happening just about every weekend and so then every time you come to somewhere like a museum, one of the big museums, there'll be a different offering because it's taking part in a different festival. John Sear: So there'll be a few of the front of house things are changing, but often that means is that some of the games that I build or I help people build are built very quickly with the idea they might only run for that one weekend or it might be used for a number of kind of temporary things, but that also means we can use live people to add to the game experience as well, which is quite nice. Kelly Molson: That sounds really fun, and I guess you've got quite a lot of flexibility in what you're doing because you're having to be a bit more agile about the time that it's on, the time of year that it's on, the venue space that it's going to be on and how many people are going to be coming in, and playing those games. John Sear: Yeah, I mean, with solely digital games. So some of the games I make are kind of entirely digital and they're not supervised. So you might pick up a tablet or something or a device that you play on, but then there's no involvement from anyone else. Well that means that game has to kind of work flawlessly all the way through and it takes a lot more work to do. John Sear: It needs to deal with all the cases where people get lost and aren't sure where they're going. The game needs to handhold them through it. Well, obviously if you're building something for a festival, for a short experience, the game doesn't have to be quite like a hundred percent proof because we know there's going to be people around to augment the game, but also to kind of help the players along. John Sear: So it means you can cut corners a bit. You go, well we think people would get lost on this floor at this point in the game, but we don't really mind because there's going to be loads of other people playing the game anyway and there's going to be some volunteers around the space who will kind of direct them in the right direction. John Sear: So yeah. So I find it easier and cheaper and quicker to make games that are kind of temporary than it is to make a game that's a hundred percent foolproof and works in every possible case. Kelly Molson: John, earlier in the podcast you mentioned immersive theatre. Is there an experience that you have at the moment that we could go and be part of? John Sear: Good question, you could actually. So there's a game I've been working on it for a few years now with a company called The Other Way Works and they are a theatre company who build interactive theatre and I'm a games company that builds theatrical games should we say, and together we've worked on a experience called A Moment of Madness, which is currently touring actually. John Sear: It's about to go to Lincoln as part of the Frequency Festival. It's been in Birmingham and London and up North to Stockton and hopefully next year it'll tour again as well. So this is kind of approach to immersive theatre and it's a hybrid immersive theatre escape game and it takes place in a car park. So, an urban stake out. John Sear: To give you the kind of rough overview, it's about a politician. He's called Michael Makerson. We think he's a good guy, but as with most politicians, he's got a bit of a- Kelly Molson: Who knows? John Sear: ... Shady past or a shady present, and what we know about today is that he is going to give some kind of press conference about a deal that he's struck with an electric car company, which is, it's good in this kind of post Brexit world to have connections with electric car companies. John Sear: So he's going to do an announcement about that in about 90 minutes time in the kind of run up to that. We know that he's going to have a meeting in a car park, which perhaps has got some kind of dodgy connotation to it. So that's the kind of starting point. The game is played by 24 players at any one time. They're split up into six teams of four and each of those teams is eventually assigned a car, so they're going to be staking out a car park. The car is stationary by the way. They're not going to be driving around after him. John Sear: People always ask me that, "How do you get insurance for people to drive cars?" I'm like, "They don't. They're on a stake out. They're supposed to be hiding." You buy a ticket and you turn up for the experience under the pretence that you're coming to a business seminar. So we are hosting a kind of fake business seminar in a conference centre and obviously then once they come in, they get their lanyard and things which actually assigns them to a colour coded team. John Sear: They come into the space and when the business seminar starts, the doors close, and actually we reveal the real reason, which as everybody in the room knows, we are working for MI5 and we're investigating this politician, Michael Makerson and what he's up to. So we're tasked with this mission of going into the car park, sitting in the car and kind of watching what he gets up to. Kelly Molson: This sounds great. I should get a ticket. John Sear: It is actually. I'm not trying to do a really good job of selling it, but it is a really good experience. Kelly Molson: I'm sold. John Sear: Okay. Come and do it. Come to Lincoln and do it. So yeah. So you spend the kind of middle section of the game, which is 45 minutes, watching what he gets up to in the car park, who does he meet and while you're kind of trying to see what he's up to, you've got a list of suspects essentially of who you might be meeting and who they are and you can investigate them. John Sear: So a lot of the story happens through a mobile phone as you can see the connection. I like using mobile phones. You find a mobile phone, a burner phone in the car along with the collection of items that the MI5 has left for you, and what it turns out is that working for us is his personal secretary who's called Andrea. John Sear: So she suspects he's up to something and she's working for MI5 as well. So what she's going to do is she's going to text us throughout the hour or so we're in the car and tell us what he's up to. Kelly Molson: I feel like you shouldn't tell us any more, John, because I want to- John Sear: Well, I'm going to stop before I get to the... Kelly Molson: ... You need to stop. John Sear: Yeah, because obviously there's a lot that happens and there's a lot that I'm going to give a talk on this actually later in the week where I do all the spoilers. But ultimately in this game you're having this conversation with Andrea, she's given you things to do, things to watch out for, keeps you posted as to what Michael is up to. But there are escape room style puzzles that happen. John Sear: So you're trying to collect information about him and because it's an immersive experience each car has kind of leeway to go down the investigation direction they want to go. So one particular car might investigate his relationship with his wife or another car might investigate, what's happening with him and his business partner, and so then ultimately you're going to come back together, and then the players, the MI5 agents, get to kind of present all the information they've got and then make a decision about whether or not to kind of, what should we do with this information? Should we try and stop his career or do we support him on his way to becoming prime minister? And so, yeah, we've been running that around the country, and actually one of the things the politician has is this kind of a blonde wig, which makes him very visible, and it wasn't the intention when we started out, but it ended up looking quite a lot like a certain prime minister we have now. Kelly Molson: Wow, wow. So current. John Sear: So he gets, yeah, it's surprising. All of that stuff that we wrote about four years ago is all coming true. So I think we take a lot of the blame for all of the mess of the political spectrum at the moment. Kelly Molson: John, thank you so much for sharing that. John Sear: But I should say because it's supported by the arts, this show, it's incredibly cheap to come to because we don't want to make the cost of attending a barrier. So whereas like an escape room of 90 minutes is often 50, £60 a person. This is normally £40 a car and in some spaces it's been entirely free actually, which is quite nice. Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. John Sear: So there's no barrier to playing normally. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. John, thank you. We have absolutely loved speaking to you today. It's been so much fun. As I said, we'll put all of the links to all of John's information and the DIY Tutorials and where you can go and buy those tickets in the show notes. But John, thank you for coming on Skip the Queue. It's been awesome. John Sear: No problem at all. Thank you so much. It's been lovely to talk to you both and now I can get back to talking about Tottenham, right? Kelly Molson: Maybe not. We'll save that for another podcast, John. John Sear: Thank you so much. Kelly Molson: You can find links and notes from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast or search Skip the Queue on iTunes and Spotify to subscribe. Please remember to leave a rating. It helps other people find us. Kelly Molson: This podcast was brought to you by Rubber Cheese, an award winning digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for visitor attractions. Find out how we can create a better experience for you and your guests at rubbercheese.com. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Creating connections in cultural organisations. With Marge Ainsley | 03 Apr 2020 | 00:49:26 | |
Today’s podcast guest has spent the last 12 years helping a vast range of museums, galleries, libraries and theatres to understand their audiences and develop insight. She was previously voted one of the top 50 freelancers in the UK, is a IPSE Ambassador of the Year Finalist and also helps to run the Museum Freelance Network. It’s safe to say that Marge Ainsley’s insight in bringing audiences and organisations closer together is second to none. A few things we talk about:
Heads up, this podcast was recorded in 2019, so there’s a few things mentioned that might be a little out of context. We experienced a few technical difficulties - nevertheless, you're going to learn plenty from this brilliant interview. Enjoy!
Show references: https://www.margeainsley.co.uk/ https://www.museumfreelance.org/ https://philbrook.org/visit/stay-connected/ The ‘great guy’ we mention at the end of the podcast who helped us with your survey is Adam Pearson, of Pearson Insight.
Transcript One tiny blooper - 0.08 we say Marge was voted top 500 freelancers in the UK, however it was one of the top 50. Still an incredible achievement! Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast that celebrates professionals working in the visitor attraction sector. What do we mean by visitor attractions? Well, it's an umbrella term for a huge range of exciting organisations that are must sees. Think museums, theme parks, zoos, farms, heritage sites, tour providers, escape rooms and much, much more. They're tourist hotspots or much loved local establishments that educate, engage and excite the general public. Kelly Molson: Those who work in visitor attractions often pour their heart and soul into providing exceptional experiences for others. In our opinion, they don't get the recognition that they deserve for this. We want to change this. Each episode, we'll share the journeys of inspiring leaders. We'll celebrate their achievements and dig deeper into what really makes their attractions successful both offline and digitally. Kelly Molson: Listen and be inspired as industry leaders share their innovative ideas, services and approaches. There's plenty of valuable information you can take away and put into action to create better experiences for your own guests. Kelly Molson: Your hosts for this podcast are myself, Kelly Molson, and Paul Wright. We're the co-founders of Rubber Cheese, an award winning digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for visitor attractions. Find out how we can create a better experience for you and your guests at rubbercheese.com. Search 'Skip the Queue' on iTunes and Spotify to subscribe. You can find links every episode, and more, over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast. We hope that you enjoy these interviews, and if there's anyone you think we should be talking to, please do send us a message. Kelly Molson: Marge Ainsley, it is so lovely to have you on the Skip the Queue podcast this morning, so thank you for joining us. Marge Ainsley: Well thank you for having me. Kelly Molson: Now we want to talk a little bit about ... Well, we want to talk a lot about what you do and how you work within the cultural, museum and visitor attraction sectors. So can you just tell us a little bit about what you do? Marge Ainsley: So I've been freelance 11 years this year, and I tend to work with museums, galleries, theatres, archives, visitor attractions, heritage sites, helping them with their marketing audience development and visitor research or evaluation work. Marge Ainsley: So I suppose if I gave you a sense of an every day or an every week, that could look like me going and working with, say, an independent museum who don't have in-house expertise in audience development or visitor research, and supporting them either strategically or very practically. It could be training them as an organisation as well, through to working on large capital projects. So I get involved in a lot of museum refurbishments where there needs to be a lot of upfront visitor research, especially with people who aren't using those places at the moment. Marge Ainsley: So I can be one day working with a collection in a very small, independent museum in the middle of nowhere, through to a really big, well funded organisation the next day. So it's a real big mix. Kelly Molson: And when you talk about kind of communication and evaluation work that you do for them, can you give us an example of how you specifically helped one of those organisations? Marge Ainsley: It could be something as simple as working with an organisation on their copywriting. So for example, whether that's their interpretation or whether it's marketing collateral where they don't have that kind of copywriting expertise in-house, or it could be ... For example, I worked on Silverstone Experience, which is about to open this year, working right before any of the concepts were designed for that new attraction on non-user research and user research. So that could be talking to potential audiences about what they want to see in that attraction and where they go now, how they would work out how to get there. All that kind of concept testing work. Marge Ainsley: So it could be something very, very practical with an attraction that's already open, through to looking at one that isn't open yet and what people want to get out of their experience. So it's a real range. Paul Wright: What process do you go through to do the research? Marge Ainsley: Sometimes I work by myself, but if it's a big project I'll work with a team of associates. And so it might be that we work with, say, an exhibition design company who come up with the concepts and we kind of scrutinise those and look at who the target audiences are. And then once we've worked out who the target audiences are, we would then go out to those. Marge Ainsley: So, for example, it could be ... I spend a lot of time sitting in [inaudible 00:05:55] with families. So I'll go out to particular areas where those target audiences are and just talk to them. So it could be me being in a soft play centre talking to families. For example, just [inaudible 00:06:09] the larger organisations. Marge Ainsley: I do a lot of work for libraries, so recently I've been going and talking to families about why do or don't they use their local library service. Did they know that there's an arts and cultural offer at their local library service? How do they typically find out about activities in their area? So that, for me, is one of the most enjoyable parts of my job actually; going out and talking to people who don't engage with us at the moment and working out what those barriers are. Marge Ainsley: So that practical process is from working out who they are, using data to inform where those people are located, going to those locations, drawing up a discussion guide with relevant questions and then going through that process of interviewing them and analysing the data afterwards and then presenting it back to the client. That could be anything from a library organisation, an archive, a huge capital project, but it's still pretty much the same process. Kelly Molson: So I guess if you're working with an organisation that's kind of already up and running, for example, you would be brought in if they had a challenge with engaging with people that aren't necessarily coming to their museum or their visitor attraction already, and they want to be able to put an offering together for them. So they might bring you in at that point? Marge Ainsley: Yeah, that's right. So a lot of the organisations I work for, they're kind of saying, "Well, we know we're getting this type of visitor coming through the doors. How do we either get more of them, or how do we get the kind of lapsed people to come back?" Marge Ainsley: So sometimes when I go out and I'm talking to different kinds of potential visitors, some of those may have gone to a museum or gone to a library as a kid years and years ago, or gone for a visit once and never gone back again. So it's about finding out what their perceptions are, why they've not been back enough. You know, you'll come up against perceptions such as, "Well, it was like this when I went as a school child on a school trip 25 years ago and I've never been back since." Or, "Isn't that the place that they have weddings? Why would I want to go there?" You know, they've just got maybe a mismatch in terms of perception, or they don't really understand the 2019 version of what that organisation looks like. Marge Ainsley: So, for example, a lot of the work I do with libraries at the moment is to kind of get that 21st perception about libraries out because a lot of people, I think, still perceive libraries to be those places where we have to be really, really quiet, whereas many of them have got a really vibrant cultural offer. Marge Ainsley: So it's just about kind of understanding what those barriers are and those perceptions, and then working out with the libraries ... And I suppose this is the other part of my job, kind of audience development, what we call audience development planning ... Working with them to create different kinds of strategies really to engage those people who don't have a level of awareness, or have an incorrect perception I suppose of what that place is like now. Kelly Molson: That bit must be quite exciting for you as well, because you get to see a real kind of change in perception and you get to see the progress that that organisation can make with the help that you've been able to support them with. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, that's right. And I think one of the most interesting bits actually at the moment is around the difference that these organisations are making to people's health and wellbeing. So you've probably seen a lot in the media and out there in terms of data around social prescribing and the fact that actually, people are now recognising the value that museums and galleries and other cultural organisations can have on our everyday lives and how important they are in terms of contributing to the amazing places that we live. Marge Ainsley: And so when I go and ... The other side of my work is evaluating projects, so I don't just do the kind of, why aren't people visiting? I do a lot of evaluation of projects as well. It's really interesting when you talk to people about the difference that these places and projects are making to their lives. So, for example, I was running a discussion group not so long ago where it was a group of people who were real advocates for this particular organisation. They were just talking quite frankly and openly with me about how they'd never left the house before, they had real anxiety problems, they might not even get dressed in the daytime and this particular place, they'd managed to be persuaded to go to this cultural activity and cultural provision that was happening, and how it had just totally turned their life around. Marge Ainsley: One gentleman had written on a card and left it at the workshop and it said this particular project had saved his life. It's those type of research groups that you just think, "Oh, this is why the jobs that we do in the art sector." So yeah, it is really interesting. You know, it's not always about the positives either. A lot of my work is about working out what's failed and why. That's an area I think we're starting to get a little bit better on in terms of evaluation and the cultural sector. It's still not quite there yet. Marge Ainsley: And what I mean by that is when I work with a client, often ... Of course they're interested in advocacy around their project as well and what's worked really well. But often, it's been a bit of a battle in terms of getting people to talk openly about what's not worked, and I think there's a few reasons for that. Some of it's around not wanting to be seen as failing. Some of it's around funders of projects not releasing the [inaudible 00:11:50] of money until you've submitted an evaluation report. There's a lot going on there, but we've seen a shift change in that recently. Marge Ainsley: And so a lot of my work is about looking at, "Okay, where were the challenges? Where were the issues on that? And what have you learned? What are we going to do differently next time?" And a lot of organisations as well, they're not just waiting to do evaluation at the end of the project. So more and more I'm encouraging people to really kind of use that what we call formative evaluation, so really looking across a project period. Say it's like 18 months, really looking right from kind of quarter of the way through, half the way through and all the rest of it at what's working well and not, and then actually reporting that back in to make a change during a project rather than waiting until the end when it's all kind of done. Marge Ainsley: So that's the other aspect of the work I'm really interested in. Yeah, I've worked with quite a few really interesting organisations recently who have been really up for that kind of formative evaluation process. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. That sounds very much like kind of our agile design and development process as well- Marge Ainsley: Yeah, [crosstalk 00:13:03]. Kelly Molson: Do a little test, yeah, and then reevaluate. So Marge, one of the large capital projects that you worked on recently has been for Silverstone Race Circuit, which is a brilliant visitor attraction, but could be quite different from the cultural sector that you're used to working with. How did you find that project? And [inaudible 00:13:23]? Marge Ainsley: I mean, it was so exciting for me working with kind of a large commercial organisation. And so it was really interesting in terms of just how the organisation works, but also just having the opportunity to conduct visitor research on a bigger scale. Marge Ainsley: So for example, for that project we, again, looked at who the target audiences were going to be for the new experience there, what the concepts were for the displays. But we ended up working for the whole of the Grand Prix weekend, so this is going back a couple of seasons now, right at the beginning, which was great. So we had a giant, huge marquee at the Grand Prix. Now, I'm not a massive motor sport fan, but just to have that experience of thousands and thousands of people there, so doing surveys. We had a roaming kit box that we took out and about. We got items from the collection were displayed in the marquee and we were talking to potential visitors about those were and what they found exciting and what they didn't find exciting. They were voting at that point on what the attraction might be called, what the kind of themes were. Marge Ainsley: It was just really great to actually be in that space where there was real, passionate motor sport fans who were just actually really keen to come and talk to us. I think we had something crazy like 5000 people that we interviewed that weekend. It was something bonkers. But just having that opportunity to be at a world leading, world stage event to do that kind of research. And of course, opening soon, I think it's the end of October 2019 they're due to open, just seeing all that research come together because often I'll work on a project, and it might be an evaluation report, for example, that I do for an organisation and then I kind of deliver it and then I move on, whereas with this kind of upfront user and on-user research, more exploratory research, it's really interesting to see how that then gets used by an organisation into a capital project. So I'm really looking forward to going down there and seeing what the final result is when it opens. Marge Ainsley: But it's the same with whatever. I mean, with the copywriting examples, you know, I worked on Merlin's SEA LIFE Centre that they're building over in Chongqing. There's these whole crazy, giant projects that I work on from afar ... I didn't have to go to China ... I work on all these really interesting, exciting projects and then I see them come to fruition. That's just a really rewarding part of my job. Marge Ainsley: But then I also get a lot of satisfaction from working with what I call the smaller organisations that have big ambitions. I mean I work with a lot of independent museums, like I say, where they're voluntary run. They may have like one part-time member of staff, but otherwise it's volunteers that run the whole site. So for example, I'm working with Calderdale Industrial Museum in Halifax. You know, the Shoreditch of the north I think we're supposed to say now, next door to the [inaudible 00:16:31], and it's a really ambitious organisation, but they just need that little helping hand with their marketing and comms work. Marge Ainsley: So I've got this privilege of working with those smaller organisations who have these amazing collections and amazing opportunities to engage audiences, versus those really giant, juggernaut organisations as well. And I guess that's one of the benefits of being a freelancer, isn't it? It's that variety and the different clients that you get to work with. Kelly Molson: It is, yeah. I think one of the things that we've always thought is how much museums in the cultural sector can learn from visitor attractions and vice versa. I guess that kind of ties in with what you're saying as well, is actually, it doesn't matter the size or scale of the project that you're working on or the organisation that you're working with, they actually do have exactly the same challenges which is why you're able to help them. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, absolutely. It would be interesting actually to talk to some of these museum organisations because some of them might not even see themselves defined as a visitor attraction. I think a lot of maybe the independent museums who are part of kind of Independent Museum Networks do, but I think a lot of organisations I work with just don't kind of categorise themselves as visitor attractions. I know that sounds a bit odd, but I just don't think they even use the same terminology. Marge Ainsley: You know, I've been talking to you guys previously and the kind of terminology around, how do we welcome our guests? For example. Sometimes visitor attractions talk about guests. Well that word itself is quite interesting when you talk to museums because I don't think ... I'm going to say we here ... But I don't think we would ever talk about ... Well, maybe we would, but we don't always talk about museum visitors as guests because it's very much about their place, their collection. Museums are wanting to try and give the welcome to visitors, audiences, users, whatever you would call them, that it's their collection, it's their place to hang out. You know? It's of them, it's by them, it's for them. Marge Ainsley: There's this whole campaign and initiative that I should mention really, called OF/BY/FOR ALL. It's run by a woman called Nina Simon over in The States, and it's this kind of concept about if you're wanting to be a real inclusive museum, you need to be of the people, by the people, for the people, that kind of thing. And so this whole guest terminology, I think, around visitor attractions doesn't almost maybe sit well with that because we don't want them to be guests. We want them to feel like it's theirs. I don't know. I don't know what you guys think of that, but I think there's something interesting there with the terminology between the two. Paul Wright: That's got to be difficult if you're writing copy for, say, websites as well, especially in terms of say SEO, search engine [inaudible 00:19:24] and what you actually say. It's a real minefield, I suppose. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, absolutely. And I think there's a big job to be done around tone of voice actually. Marge Ainsley: It's something I do help museums with in terms of their brand and kind of the copy and tone of voice and their values, because I think, again, it comes back to some of the challenges that particularly museums face that I work with. I mean, they're doing an amazing job with the resources they have, but if you imagine an independent museum that is volunteer run, that doesn't necessarily have marketing expertise in-house and then just layering on that even ability to copyright effectively on a website. Or not even thinking about the tone of voice element, just actually thinking about the fact that when you write copy for web, it's different to print. That's just not potentially on their radar. Marge Ainsley: So I think that is actually a challenge for a lot of the museums that I work with, just purely because they don't have that capacity and expertise. And you know, I'm not digital marketing expert, I don't do a lot of digital work these days, but we do still see that kind of approach by museums of like, say, with social media, "We must setup every single channel that we should do with social media," because again, that expertise isn't there, rather than just thinking, "Right, let's get our own website in order first and get that looking and working effectively on mobile," and those kind of things. Marge Ainsley: But it is purely down to capacity and knowledge. They have to prioritise looking after the collections and getting the doors open. Some of these places I work, they're only opening one or two days a week potentially and rostering on a whole set of volunteers to be able to open. So it's very different. You talk about, say, Silverstone where they've been recruiting for the new experience and they'll have a full team. That versus the kind of independent museums that I work with where there's just a couple of them. It's really, really tricky and I'm just dead proud of those ones for just achieving what they can and they're doing so much good work. But I guess that's where I come in, isn't it? In supporting them with it. Marge Ainsley: But yeah, tone of voice and the way that museums are selling themselves I think, and the USPs as well. So I do do a lot of work with museums where they might have five or six different sites all under the same banner. I spend a lot of time working out with them, "Well is it everything for everyone? Who's the target audience for all of these different sites? Is the messaging different? What are the features versus the benefits of those individual sites?" But yeah, I'm not sure that they would be referring to people as guests anyway. Paul Wright: How often do you review their copy? Marge Ainsley: It depends what the project is. I mean I'm working with a group of museums in Cheshire at the moment and we did a kind of a print audit the other day looking at their What's On brochure like, for example. We pull apart other people's brochures and we look at theirs and we think about target audiences, and we look at kind of the copy and imagery and what they're wanting to say. Marge Ainsley: But that's part of a whole program I'm working with them on audience development, so it depends on the project. If it's, say, like a training session I'll tend to run that. So I'll do training on copywriting, brand and tone of voice. That's kind of separate. But with audience development, that's just such a broad piece of work. Marge Ainsley: So for example, I might get involved in writing audience development strategy. People often get marketing and audience development confused, or they might think very differently about the two, and it all comes down to semantics. I mean, most people, if you were to ask them, would say, "Well, marketing is kind of the numbers. It's the bums on seats. It's the getting people through the door," whereas the audience development is not just more visitors, but diversifying those visitors as well, diversifying those audiences. Marge Ainsley: When we sit down and do an audience development strategy, we really involve everybody from across the organisation because it could be, you know, programming, it could be collections, it could be the comms, it could be anything in terms of the interpretation. It's a whole range, all those different kinds of things that I can do to diversify the audiences. It can be internal as well, so making sure the staff are trained. Marge Ainsley: So when I'm doing audience development strategic planning, the copywriting and the kind of messaging just forms one part of that piece of work which takes place over quite a long period of time. And then ultimately, it's either some kind of audience development manual or practical guide. Definitely not an 80 page strategy that sits on a shelf. It needs to be something proactive that that organisation uses. Marge Ainsley: So it's a real small part, whereas if I was working, say, on copywriting for SEA LIFE Centre Chongqing, their entire seahorse gallery for example, that's me just focused on that piece of work and it's just purely to do with copywriting or copy editing. So I'm kind of hopscotching around a little bit, but that's just reflecting my portfolio I suppose and the different types of work that I do. Kelly Molson: So you've been freelancing for 10 years now? Marge Ainsley: Yeah, 11. Kelly Molson: 11 years. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, don't forget that one. Kelly Molson: 11 years of freelancing. So we know ourselves from running a busy agency how complex it can be, how many balls you're juggling at any time. But one of the amazing things that you do is you actually set up the Museum Freelance Network. Can you tell us how did that even come about? Because it sounds like you're busy enough. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, I've got quite a few side projects, but then you ask any freelancer and they've got a list of side projects as long as their arm. But I didn't actually set it up. So it was Christina Lister and Laura Crossley set it up about four years ago and then I came on board quite soon after they started it to give them a helping hand really. Marge Ainsley: Ultimately, in a nutshell, the network was really setup to kind of champion and support and lobby for freelancers working within the cultural sector. So we specifically focus on freelancers working in museums, libraries, archives, galleries and heritage sites. Marge Ainsley: Gosh, the community's grown substantially in those four years really. We have an annual conference where we have around 80 to 90 delegates coming along to that. We run a training workshop every three months for people who are new to freelancing, or thinking about freelancing. We've been amazed how popular that is. Marge Ainsley: I suppose one of the things we do with Museum Freelance, we're collaboration rather than competition. So it's not about, "Well, I've done that. Why would I say to that person how I've done it?" It's about supporting each other. And so when you come to conference, or if you come to a training workshop, or indeed if you're on the community ... So we have like a LinkedIn group which has got about, I think it's 800 we've got on there now. We have regular Q & As on Twitter and on social media as well. If you get involved you'll notice that we're very much about thinking like a business. So it's not, even though it's specifically focused on freelancers within the cultural sector, it's very much about those broad business skills that everybody needs as a freelancer. Marge Ainsley: So at the conference, whether you're someone who's a visitor services expert, or visitor experiences expert, or whether you're an archivist, or whether you're a painting restorer, or a marketing freelancer, it doesn't matter. It's all kind of ... I don't want to use the word generic, that's not quite right, but it's broad. So we'll have talks about coaching and health and wellbeing. We'll have talks about finance. We'll have talks about staying motivated as a freelancer. Marge Ainsley: So it's really broad. And we set it up and have continued it because we just felt that that was missing in terms of specifically the cultural sector. And so we're there not to just support freelancers, but kind of do that lobbying behind the scenes as well that wasn't happening. And what I mean by that is making sure that we have a seta around the table when it comes to new strategies and new policies being developed by organisations such as the Museums Association, or the Association for Independent Museums. These kind of larger membership organisations. Arts Council England have got a consultation out at the moment on their next five year strategy, so how do we make sure that freelancers are part of that discussion? Marge Ainsley: One of the things that we're doing at the moment is we recognise that there isn't a lot of robust data and research out there about specifically museums and galleries and those kind of cultural organisation's freelancers. There's plenty there in terms of, say, creative industries around, what does that freelance landscape look like? Who are they? Where do they live? What kinds of people are they? What are they charging? What are they working on? But nothing really similar exists in the cultural sector. Marge Ainsley: So at the moment, we're working on kind of a mapping survey that we're going to be sending out which will hopefully give us that data we need, that shows us kind of not just what the demographics are like and what people are charging, but also gives us the opportunity to look at what the challenges are that are facing freelancers within our sector. And then to be able to use that data to be a bit more informed in terms of that lobbying, or informed in terms of our own evaluation. Marge Ainsley: So for example, with our conference at the moment, we don't know if the people coming to conference are representative of the museum freelance sector at large. So hopefully having a mapping survey that tells us more about those things will be useful for us as well as for other organisations working with freelancers in the sector. Paul Wright: The data from this survey, when is it going to be released? Marge Ainsley: So we're hoping to put the survey out in the new year. We're working on it at the moment, so yeah, watch this space. I should say ... And Christina will be listening to this, I'm sure ... She will say, "Don't forget, it's just us." We are volunteer run. We're not a membership organisation, so everything that we do with Museum Freelance, whether it's the conference, the kind of community side of things that we do, it's just me and one other person at the moment. Marge Ainsley: So we're tied to the time we have outside of our client work as to how much that we take on. But you know, we're both really passionate really about just kind of keeping it going and keeping support in the freelancers that are out there, because yes, there are the wider networks like Being Freelance and Freelance Heroes and Doing It For The Kids, and all of those that are there to support freelancers working across sectors, but there isn't really anyone there to fight the corner of cultural freelancers. Marge Ainsley: So things that everyone is picking up on, payment for freelancers and being paid on time and things like that, but also looking at how organisations within the cultural sector can work more effectively with freelancers as well. So this isn't us ... And we very much position ourselves like this ... This isn't us having a moan about freelancing at all. We do a lot of celebrating about freelancing. But it's also about mutualness, it's reciprocal, so we do a lot of work with organisations within the cultural sector supporting them in terms of how to write a decent freelance brief, understanding fees and what to charge, what the budget should be. Marge Ainsley: So like Christina, this week she's off to the Museum Association conference talking to museums there about how to work best with freelancers. So it's not just us supporting the freelancers, we also work with organisations as well on what they can do to help and how that can make their lives easier and their work more effective too. Kelly Molson: This is something that we've talked about at great length independently of this podcast, Marge, isn't it? When we met up in London a few months ago we discussed the tendering process, particularly around cultural organisations and how that could potentially be improved. So it's lovely to hear that you are actually actively involved in working with those organisations to be able to make positive change in that area. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, and I think we have to kind of recognise that some organisations, especially again, the smaller independent ones that I would work with, you know, they haven't got lots of experience in working with freelancers. They might not have written a brief before, so it is about helping them. And also thinking about stuff as a freelancer that makes sense to you around, "Well, I need two weeks to put a proposal together," or, "I should be interviewed on Skype. Do I need to be interviewed? What's the process between when the brief goes out to when I'm supposed to be starting the contract?" Marge Ainsley: That's normal to us. We know what our timescales are, but an organisation who isn't used to working with freelancers might not have the same understanding of that. Similarly just like that language as well. So one thing that we are doing quite a lot of championing of at the moment is making sure that organisations know that when something is a freelance role versus when it should be a paid full-time or part-time PAYE member of stuff. Marge Ainsley: So you'll see a lot of language around jobs or job specification, or you might see a brief that has a full long list of, "You must be here at this time and you must do this work," which will all fall foul of HMRC's, "This is not a freelance job. It should be an actual paid position." And that's not them necessarily on purpose trying to get away with a freelance contract when it should be in-house where they would pay for NI and all the rest of it. It's just, I would say, 99.9% of the cases we see, it's just naivety on behalf of the organisation just not understanding the difference between the two and the rules that exist around there in terms of HMRC. I won't go into those, but you know. Marge Ainsley: I think the organisations that we've supported with it and when we've done talks at conferences about it, the museums are welcoming that support because again, it's just not been there really. But there is only so much that we can do and we've got so many ambitions for the network. Yeah, watch this space. Kelly Molson: We absolutely will, Marge. Paul Wright: I'd like to talk a little bit about surveys. We've had a bit of experience lately trying to put one together and I thought it was going to be quite easy to do, but actually it was really, really, really, really difficult. Marge Ainsley: Yeah. Yeah, I mean I'm a qual rather than a quant girl, I have to say. Give me a discussion guide and a consultation group any day rather than a survey. Paul Wright: Yeah. Marge Ainsley: But you know, I find that within some of the work I do it needs a mixed methodology, so I do put together surveys and I do train people as well in terms of evaluation research methods. So I have a whole session in the afternoon about what makes a good and a bad survey. That's quite an eyeopening part of the session. Marge Ainsley: But I guess, for me, when I see a really awful survey, there's a few things. It's typically if someone doesn't actually have a really good grasp on what their research objectives are in the first place, what it is they're trying to find out. I always say to people, "Measure what matters. Why are you asking that question?" And I'll go through a survey audit with people if they've already got one and I'm like, "So what are you actually doing with the results from that question?" And they go, "Well, I don't know. It's just been like that since 2008." I'm like, "Right, okay." Marge Ainsley: It's about actually putting together that, what is it we want to find out? What are the research or evaluation objectives from the offset, and designing the questions effectively from that. So there's a little bit there in terms of sometimes people just kind of stick their finger in the air and go, "We'll ask this for no reason." Marge Ainsley: I also see some horrendous surveys in terms of the questions. So there might be double questions, or there might be questions that don't make any sense, they're in the wrong order, surveys too long and you give up, especially if it's on mobile these days. You know, people will design a survey on some free software and then bash it out and it's all you've got to do endless scrolling, or they put pictures in that never load up because they're too big. There's a lot to think about really in terms of the overall look as well as the questions and how it works across different platforms. Marge Ainsley: So that would be another thing I would say; think about where people are filling that survey in. Think about how long they've got. We'll see random introductions as well to surveys, or no introductions at all. So you must kind of tell people what the point of this survey is. You know, are you going to incentives it? If you are going to incentivise it, then you need to be looking at the Market Research Society's code of conduct around incentives and how that works. Are you collecting data from the surveys as well? Are you within GDPR? Marge Ainsley: There's so many things to think about and I think that's why often you'll get external or independent evaluators or research people to give you a hand because people will say to me, "Why are you charging me this amount of time to put a survey together?" And they're really surprised about how long it takes to design a decent survey. Marge Ainsley: And I suppose just as a final point on that, because I could go on all day about surveys, is to test it. The amount of time I say to people, "Did you try this out before sending it to a mailing list of 50,000 people?" And they're like, "Oh no, we've not done that." It's the best thing that you can do. You know, I've been writing surveys a long time and I still make mistakes in them in terms of maybe the wording isn't right, or a question isn't phrased properly, or maybe the order isn't quite right or the routing doesn't work. Marge Ainsley: So the best thing that you can do is test it, whether that's on a colleague or a member of the target audience you're aiming for, just to give it a bit of a sense check because without fail, there will be something. There will be something with it. Paul Wright: Thanks for that. I wish we had talked to you before. Kelly Molson: I have to say, we did ask the experts in the end. We got a great guy in to help us. Marge Ainsley: I might be able to guess who that is. Paul Wright: It definitely took us a lot longer than we expected. It was one of those things where we started it and then it was only until we got really deep into it we just realised, "We really need some help with this." Marge Ainsley: Yeah. I think that's the thing as well. And when I go and do the training, a lot of the projects that I work on I will always build in some element of training because ... And it might be doing myself out of future work, but the kinds of organisations I work with, they are being restructured, they are having their budgets cut left, right and centre and they're not going to be able to afford to buy in a freelancer or an independent or a consultant all the time, and so just having that training where they can embed those skills. If I can leave them with something sustainable, then that to me, that's great. That's what I want. Marge Ainsley: So a lot of the time at training, we pull those surveys apart, but I also give them the skills in terms of how to write it, what pitfalls to look out for, but also how to analyse it as well and how to write it up. Because I think the other thing with it is we're awash with data, aren't we? We're awash with giant 100 page reports and big data and all this data around us, but it's really hard to cut through that. And so a lot of the time I'm kind of teaching organisations about how to not just analyse their data, but how to present it and how to tell a story as well. Kelly Molson: So we're coming up towards the end of the podcast, Marge, but there's a few extra questions we want to run by you. One of the things that you talk about is about being really interested in creating connections. What we wanted to ask you is, from your understanding and research, what do you think that people really want from organisations in the cultural sector? And when we say people, we mean visitors. Marge Ainsley: I think it depends who the target audience is, doesn't it? I mean I do a lot of work with families who they are simply looking for a wet weather afternoon activity that is free. But it doesn't really matter which visitor you talk to, they're wanting that welcoming space. They're wanting somewhere where they can learn, somewhere that they can take time out. Somewhere where they can be entertained. Marge Ainsley: We talk a lot about motivation within arts and culture, and I think we can probably do a lot better in terms of tapping into those motivations as well. I mean, I'll give you a really good example. Recently, you might have seen it in the media, the Harris Museum in Preston, they have partnered up with their local NHS Trust ... So it's like an NHS Foundation Trust, and that particular branch of it's called the Lancashire Recovery College ... And every Monday now, they've partnered with them to basically work out of the museum. So on a Monday you can go and do all these different types of health and wellbeing activities, for example. Marge Ainsley: I think people ... I don't know if they know this or it's just us putting this on them, but I think some people are wanting this ... It's just that space that is within their community. So you know before I was talking about the OF/BY/FOR ALL, just changing the perception of museums not being stuffy, not being unwelcoming places, places that are for the likes of them. I think one aside of that is this sense of community. Whether you're going there for a social experience, having a cup of tea, whether you're going to do yoga, or whether you're going to do a kind of art and therapy event like this Monday at the Harris. Marge Ainsley: Manchester Art Gallery ... I'm talking to you from Manchester here ... They have a kind of an And Breathe space where you can go and just sit and contemplate the work. Those kind of safe spaces where you can just take a breather from busy lifestyle. Marge Ainsley: So think people are wanting different things depending on which target audiences they are, but I think more and more we are, and I think should be, looking at museums ... I'm conscious I've talked a lot about museums, but museums as spaces that the community feels are for them. I don't know whether that's answered your question. Kelly Molson: No, no, it does and it's a really interesting discussion. I saw something actually on Twitter a couple of days ago ... And I will find who Tweeted this and I will credit them in the show notes ... But they talked a lot about museums and cultural spaces opening themselves up as co-working spaces. And I thought, "What a brilliant idea." Marge Ainsley: Yeah, no, I was in on that conversation actually. Kelly Molson: Oh, great. Marge Ainsley: I linked in to Battersea, because Battersea Arts Center have opening up a co-working space. In fact, they were presenting at the IPSE National Freelancer's Day this last year about their work. Marge Ainsley: And so yeah, I think it comes down to the museum's purpose ultimately, doesn't it? And what they believe that they stand for. I'm not suggesting that every single museum and gallery is going to want to be everything to everybody, or behave in a particular way and become a community centre. But from my perspective, certainly with audience development and with getting people to engage with our collections and engage with us as organisations, we've got to be more open, we've got to be more responsive to what those audiences are looking and what their needs are. Break down these barriers around, you know, "Not for the likes of me." Marge Ainsley: We talk in the cultural sector a lot about audiences are hard to reach. I kind of stamp my foot a bit about that because I don't think they're hard to reach, I think we're the ones that are hard to reach, you know? So I think there's so many good projects and organisations out there doing amazing things in terms of audience development, but I think we've still got a way to go in terms of just changing that perception around what a museum could and can be. Marge Ainsley: When you go to somewhere like the Whitworth here in Manchester and they've got a beautiful park outside where they combine a visit to the park and poetry in the park with what's happening inside the museum and are linking the two. You go to other places and there's amazing events and workshops going on to help the local community members who've got English as a second language and they use the paintings and the collection to support that language development. There's so many good projects. But it is something that I know is going to be a hot topic in the sector at the moment about that sense of community. Marge Ainsley: If you want a good example of this, if you look up Philbrook Museum in Oklahoma, there's a guy, the director there spoke a big museum conference called Museum Next, and he spoke at this conference about how they've totally revolutionised this historic house in the middle of what is quite a deprived area in Tulsa in Oklahoma. Just little changes that they've made to make the community feel like it's a place for the, rather than a place that isn't and it's for people who are rich and have loads of money to go and visit. Marge Ainsley: Little things like when the director started, they weren't allowed food in the gardens. It's got these beautiful gardens around it. So he just turned that on its head and started doing barbecue burger Fridays, and they have hundreds of the local community go now. They're closed on Mondays, but then they put this kind of Me Time Monday into place where members of the local community could kind of pitch to come and spend the whole day in the museum by themselves, like whilst the staff are there. The whole museum's shut and they just can blog and they can draw and they can do what they want. Marge Ainsley: They've changed little things like the retail offers, so rather than selling stuff that no one wants they sell like paracetamol and nappies. Just really little changes, but it's revolutionised the way the community perceive that museum and it has made them feel like they're welcome there. Marge Ainsley: I think that's really what we need to do more of in the sector, and that's why I love working with audience development and audience development strategy because it's not necessarily the typical things that you would have on a marketing and communications plan. It's not, "Let's change the leaflet." There's a bit of that. There's a bit of, "Is the leaflet going to the right place? What are we doing with our website?" But there's a lot more in terms of audience development like going out to people, bringing the collection and taking it out to people, working with particular community partners to access different groups. So there's a lot more to audience development than just, "Are we distributing our leaflets in the right places?" Kelly Molson: And it kind of comes full circle to what we talked about earlier about creating connections. It is really about creating connections between those people and that organisation and that venue, and how they can use it to support them as part of their own personal development, which is just lovely. Marge Ainsley: Yeah, it's exactly that. I mean within a work context, for me, it could mean getting organisations to work better with their partners, or facilitating meetings internally to get teams working more effectively. Marge Ainsley: So another side of my work which we've not touched upon, it is a facilitation. So I will get asked to go and help on away days and meetings so that they can kind of just take a step back from actually running them themselves. So that connections could be just getting organisations to work better together as well, get better communication between the staff, or it could be like we've talked about; those connections in terms of getting museums to understand their non-user audiences a bit better by going and doing that research, or getting them to do the research. Marge Ainsley: I'm working some organisations at the moment where I've kind of given them some homework to go out to particular marketplaces and actually stand and talk to people. And you'll find quite a few museums do this now. It's kind of like back to the shop floor, because a lot of office staff don't have that opportunity to go and talk to visitors. So people will roster whatever level of the organisation you're on, you'll go and do a visitor services job for an hour every so often just because then you really do get a sense of what people are talking about, what they're struggling with in the museum and just have that connection with them. Marge Ainsley: I've always had this thing really around, whether it's my personal or professional life, about creating connections, and I suppose that's why I really enjoy what I do too. Kelly Molson: Marge, thank you. We have absolutely loved speaking to you today. We're going to write up all the show notes, everything that you've discussed and all the things that you've mentioned we'll link to and we'll give everyone shout outs too. But thank you for your time. We've had a great time. Marge Ainsley: You're very welcome. Thank you. Kelly Molson: You can find links and notes from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast, or search Skip the Queue on iTunes and Spotify to subscribe. Please remember to leave a rating. It helps other people find us. Kelly Molson: This podcast was brought to you by Rubber Cheese, an award winning digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for visitor attractions. Find out how we can create a better experience for you and your guests at rubbercheese.com. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Visitors are dead, long live the players! With Alex Book | 14 Feb 2020 | 00:49:04 | |
We're leaping into the future with today's podcast guest - talking to Alex Book, the Chief Operating Officer at Arcade. Arcade specialise in using augmented reality (AR) to help visitor attractions engage their audiences more meaningfully. They're experts at creating immersive experiences designed to guide, educate, entertain and, most importantly, connect us more to the world and each other. Alex is a big believer in "experience is king" - which we discuss at length in the interview along with why it might be time to say goodbye to the 'visitor'. We experienced a few technical difficulties with this recording - but nothing that takes away from Alex's insight. What we discussed:
Show references: Ready Visitor One….? Why it’s time to say goodbye to the ‘visitor’ https://www.lovecamden.org/index.php/Camden_Peoples_Museum Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Castle Howard’s love story with China - as told by Abbigail Ollive | 31 Jan 2020 | 00:46:39 | |
Castle Howard is a stunning stately home in rural North Yorkshire, designed by Sir John Vanbrugh back in 1699 for the third Earl of Carlisle. Since the 50s, Castle Howard has been a visitor attraction, welcoming around 300,000 visitors a year. In todays podcast, we’ll hear from Abbigail Ollive, Head of Marketing as she shares with us a beautiful story, of how China fell in love with the Castle, and how one wedding started a chain reaction of incredible events leading them to increase overseas visitors to around 60%. Castle Howard was one of the first attractions in the UK to install the WeChat pay solutions across shops, restaurants, ticket office and we’ll hear all about the challenges, success and specialist they worked with to make that happen. It’s a wonderful example of how implementing small things can make huge differences to a visitors experience, and we know you’ll learn a lot from their unique story. A few things we discussed:
We hope you enjoy!
Show references: https://www.castlehoward.co.uk/ https://www.capelatraining.com/china/ https://www.visitbritain.com/gb/en Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Priceless business strategy tips from the 'Millionaire Clown' - James Sinclair | 17 Jan 2020 | 00:42:36 | |
Today’s guest started his career at just 15 years old - since then, he’s gone on to build a thriving entertainment business, consisting of indoor leisure units, laser arenas, day nurseries, plus a 50-acre farm attraction, water park and web-based soft toy business! We’re talking to the multi-talented and hugely successful James Sinclair - otherwise known as “Jimbo the Partyman”. His hard work and passion for putting smiles on people’s faces has won him many awards, including Young Entrepreneur of the Year and Growing Business of the Year. He’s also a published author whose book “The Millionaire Clown” details his journey from a teenage children’s entertainer to multiple business owner, turning 8 figures and employing over 300 staff. Just a head’s up, we experienced a few technical difficulties on this recording, but James’ story is pretty engaging, so you probably won’t notice! Just a few of the things we talk about:
We hope you enjoy! Show references: https://jamessinclair.net/ Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| The science of creating an incredible visitor experience with Andy White | 30 Oct 2019 | 00:41:24 | |
Andy White is the king of “Themed Experiential Entertainment” - the process of bringing Brands and IP’s to life with big ideas and innovative technology, creating something that customers will enjoy and remember forever. His agency, Andy White Creative, uses skill and expertise to create entertaining and memorable experiences for all kinds of visitor attractions including; theme parks, resorts and retail destinations. He’s worked on some incredible projects including CBeebies Land Hotel, The Gruffalo River Ride Adventure and Sid’s Arctic Tours Ice Age Adventure. We learnt loads about Andy’s process in this podcast and we talked a lot about how design really needs to emotionally connect to the target audience to create a positive visitor experience. Andy is exhibiting at the Family Attraction Expo on the 6th and 7th of November 2019 - find him at stand FM 2350. What will you learn from this podcast?
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| 50,000 visitors within three months of opening? No problem for William’s Den owners, Tor and Christian Carver | 23 Jul 2019 | 00:46:49 | |
In this episode, we speak to Tor and Christian Carver, the founders of William’s Den - a unique adventure attraction in East Yorkshire. Five years ago, Tor and Christian constructed a plan to create a visitor attraction that offered children, and adults, the freedom to roam and play. The duo both grew up on farms and took inspiration from the time they spent endlessly exploring pastures, building dens and using their wild imaginations to entertain themselves. Since its opening in 2017, William’s Den has gained plenty of admirers and recognition. They were regional finalists in The Rural Business Awards North - and winners in the Remarkable East Yorkshire Tourism Awards (REYTA) and the RICS Awards (which showcase the most inspirational initiatives and developments in land, real estate, construction and infrastructure). What will you learn from this podcast?
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Inside Hertfordshire’s number one tourist attraction with Lynn Whitnall | 19 Jul 2019 | 00:38:57 | |
We speak to Lynn Whitnall - she's the Director of Paradise Wildlife Park, a Fellow of the Institute of Travel & Tourism and she also sits on the council of the British & Irish Association of Zoos & Aquariums (BIAZA). Paradise Wildlife Park is a much-loved and highly esteemed venue that’s home to over 800 animals, including the largest collection of big cats in Britain. As well as wallabies, wolves and white lions, they also have five adventure playgrounds and one of the UK's biggest and most spectacular animatronic dinosaur displays. They’ve recently completed Drive4Wildlife - an epic adventure around East Africa where they donated funds and equipment to several projects along the way, including the African Wildlife Foundation and Ugandan Wildlife Education Centre. What will you learn from this podcast?
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| What makes a successful escape room? We get the inside scoop from CryptX founder, James Ducker | 19 Jul 2019 | 00:47:57 | |
We’re speaking to James Ducker, the founder of CryptX Escape Rooms based in Cambridge. James worked in banking for many years - he was at HBOS during the crash and became a whistleblower when he grew disillusioned with the financial sector. In the summer of 2016, James took a family holiday to Barcelona, his children were eight, eleven, and sixteen at the time. Sick of hearing "Dad, we're bored" - James booked an escape room in the heart of the city, a move that would subsequently change his entire career from banking to escape room founder. What will you learn from this podcast?
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| What the heck is a brand proposition and why should you care? With Catherine Warrilow | 21 Feb 2024 | 00:49:06 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.theplotthickens.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinewarrilow/ Arival link - https://arival.travel/speakers/catherine-warrilow/ TikTok link - https://www.tiktok.com/@the5minutementor Catherine Warrilow has 16 years industry experience and runs The Plot. She creates brand proposition roadmaps for attraction and experience businesses who want to take a slightly rebellious approach to their marketing strategy.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today’s episode I speak with Catherine Warrilow, founder of The Plot, a brand marketing agency. Today we’re immersing ourselves in brand. I’m asking Catherine what the heck is a brand proposition, why is it important and who in the tourism and attraction industry is absolutely nailing it? Kelly Molson: You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Catherine, welcome to Skip the Queue. Catherine Warrilow: Thank you very much, Kelly. Kelly Molson: I'm really excited that you have come on to chat today. Catherine and I met in a toilet at a conference, which is where you meet all of the best people at conferences, I have to say. But I'm really chuffed that you've been able to come on and join us today. So thank you for your time. Right, we are going to start with our icebreakers, as usual. And I want to know, what would people remember you for that you went to school with? Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh. Probably the thing I remember the most, I don't know if anyone else would, is when body shop was at its height of popularity and all of their perfumes and stuff and their perfume oils. And I bought the vanilla one, which I was obsessed with, but I covered myself in the kind of the neat essence. So I spent a whole day at school smelling of ice creams with every teacher walking past going, "Why can I smell ice cream?". And everyone, "It's her.". So that is one of my standout memories. I think I was always quite creative and quirky, and I would braid my own hair like I'd been on holiday and put beads in it and come to school like that. Or smelling of ice creams. Kelly Molson: I love that. I feel like we're of the same era. And my lasting memory of the body shop is the Dewberry. The dewberry smell. You never smelt this any other time like that school time. And I had a friend who used to buy the oil and the shampoo and all, and she just smelt of that continuously. But that was my grandparents name as well, so it was really weird. Their name was Dewberry. Anyway, very od. Good memories. And I quite like that you smell like ice cream. I would love that about you. Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, it's worse things to smell of. Kelly Molson: Okay, second one, if you had to pick a fictional character to best describe yourself, who would you choose? Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh. My instant one that I would like to say, but I'm not smart enough, would be Matilda. I would love to be Matilda, but I'm not. So who would it be? A fictional character? Gosh, that's so difficult. Maybe like Thelma from Scooby Doo. Problem solver. Kelly Molson: Yep. Quick on her. Yeah, I can see that about you. Good one. You've got Matilda vibes as well. Don't dumb that down. You've definitely got Matilda vibes going on. Catherine Warrilow: Well, I'll keep trying to move things with my mind and I'll let you know if I have any success. Kelly Molson: Good. Come back on the podcast, let us know. Okay. What is your unpopular opinion? What have you prepared for us? Catherine Warrilow: So I think this is one that's going to resonate with a lot of people and it's unpopular but common that travel tech is shit. So I don't get it. I don't get why we are so far behind other sectors, especially with ticketing tech. We sell billions of tickets to some of the most interesting and amazing attractions in the world. Not just in the country, in the world. Yet we still have major attractions who are having to reconcile paper tickets either because they're stuck with their tech, because they've had it so long they can't get away from it, or they're just not sure how to, or it's so difficult or slow or expensive. There must be someone or an organisation who can fix this, right? Catherine Warrilow: And I know people are trying, like Okto are trying, which is great, but surely there must be an easier way to get the right people around the table and say, "Right. In every instance when you sell a ticket to a customer, it should kind of look like this.". But at the moment, everyone's got different systems. None of them talk to each other. Everyone's slightly different when they break. It could take months to fix. And ultimately it's the customer who loses out because we can't deliver a really effective service. Whether in OTA or an attraction yourself, it's the customer that's left with a bad experience, by and large, because the ticket you booked has vanished from your basket, or it was available 1 minute and now it's not. Or the price has changed, or something weird, you don't even get your email. Or it's confusing. Catherine Warrilow: Which is why there's so little brand loyalty in our sector, I think. Because people will hop about and just book with whoever's quickest, easiest, cheapest at the time. And I think we've got a real challenge on our hands to up our game when it comes to tech. I don't know what you think. Kelly Molson: Well, I'm nodding along for people that aren't watching and are listening to this, I'm nodding along probably from a different perspective because we deal directly with the ticketing that the attraction would use. So their ticketing platform for something. I think you're probably a bit more focused on the OTAs and that kind of ticketing kind of stuff. I am in total agreement with you. I am completely nodding along going that there's nothing amazing and there should be something amazing. Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, I think it's unifying it. I think there's some good tech out there, and I'm not going to names, but there's some good tech. There's some average tech and there's some awful tech. But for the OTA and for the connectivity partner at that level, and ultimately for the customer. How do you bring together what's good and make it accessible across the board? I think that's the challenge, isn't it? How do we unify things so it's straightforward and you know what that process for B2B process should look like. And I think we're making progress, but I think it's slow. Catherine Warrilow: And I think there has been so much change in the sector from a kind of customer perspective, from a trend perspective, from the impacts of COVID from the impacts of the cost of living crisis, that it always seems to get pushed back in the queue a little bit. Whereas it needs to be at the top of the list all of the time. But that takes a lot of time and resource and dev and investment. But I've heard whisperings of a few people who are doing quite interesting things. So I'll be interested to see what happens over the next kind of 6,9,12 months. Kelly Molson: I think that's a challenge, isn't it? There's quite a lot of choice and it seems like every day there's a new ticketing platform or another OTA that's kind of that started and for good reasons, because obviously there's things out there that aren't working for people. But a bit more collaboration might stop giving people so much choice and actually start working together to refine the ones that are already out there and just make them better. Catherine Warrilow: Potentially, yeah. Or give them one aggregated channel that they can all slot into in the same way. Because even when you aggregate systems, the way you integrate them is still different. I'm still trying to figure out where that ownership needs to start. Is it the attractions and experiences saying, "Okay, we have to be able to deliver this for the customer," because ultimately, starting with the customer need is the right place to start? But how do you layer that back through the process to figure out where to start fixing the right problems? Kelly Molson: And you're right in what you said about that brand perception, then it's on the attraction, it's not on the OTA really, it's on the brand. And they need to kind of own that relationship with their client, which is what we're going to talk about today. So tell us a little bit about your background and where you've got today. Catherine Warrilow: Yes. Which makes me feel old. Some days I feel like a spring chicken and other days I'm like, "How have I been doing this for like 15 years?". Kelly Molson: I feel that. Catherine Warrilow: So I got married in 2007 and shortly after we had our first son, which is all very exciting and challenging at the same time. And alongside that, I decided that it would be a great idea to start my own business with a newborn baby and that if I could do that, then everything from there on in would be a breeze, which was kind of ridiculous looking back. But I set up as a kind of freelance PR and marketing support and fell into travel totally by accident. I knew someone who was running the team at owners direct at the time, the holiday rentals company, and they wanted someone to come in and basically secure them pr coverage as being a great choice for booking holiday rental, mainly UK and Europe, but some further afield. And it just kind of spiralled from there. Catherine Warrilow: I realised that there was a massive opportunity to up people's game when it came to pr and content, and that was before everything was about content creation and social. It was on the cusp of, "Okay, we can use Facebook to reach people organically and people just weren't really doing that.". It was pre having to pay to play. And I started making a bit of a name for myself within travel and started working for home away, which is now Vrbo. People like hard rock hotels, great little breaks. And it just grew from there. And I grew the business to a very small agency in rural Oxfordshire of about six people. And that's how I kind of accidentally fell into travel. Kelly Molson: I love that. I had no idea that it was an accidental as well. For some reason I thought that was it. That was always going to be your focus. It's amazing how these kind of things happen that guide our career, isn't it? Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, it just happened. And then we pitched actually for the pr for Days Out With The Kids many years ago. And were up against some really big agencies and I was like, "This is it. This is our kind of big moment.". And we really held our own against kind of top Manchester, Birmingham, London agencies. And in the end, the CEO at the time asked if I would go in house to set up their marketing strategy, their brand strategy, hire a team. They'd not long bought the business and it was covered in display ads and it was a mess, but it was driving millions of organic visits every year. Catherine Warrilow: And it was a cliche sliding doors moment where I was like, look, I've spent nine years building up this incredible business and it's my baby and I love it and I feel proud to have built it up, but this is an incredible opportunity to do something amazing. So I ended up kind of selling the business and going into Days Out With The Kids, which was just such a great decision because it gave me probably what I was craving in terms of building effective teams and working for household name brands. And that was the start of me going into employed roles for about, gosh, another eight or so years. Kelly Molson: Great. And now you've set off on another new adventure. Catherine Warrilow: Yes, because we reinvent ourselves, don't we? And go where the opportunities feel most exciting. Yeah. So I lost my job with Days Out last September, which was gutting, because again, that passion for building the most incredible teams was real. I hired some of the best people that I have ever hired and we're still great friends now, but when I left there, I was like, "Okay, I will apply for roles and I will ask my network if they would like to work with me.". It was as simple as that. I will figure this out as I go along. You know me, I'm quite an honest, heart on sleeve type person. I'm a bit of an oversharer. So I went onto LinkedIn and said I was gutted to say that I wasn't with days out anymore, but that the world was my oyster. Catherine Warrilow: And then people just started popping up from connections I've had for years. Connections through things like Arival, through other podcasts that I've done in the past, through content I've created, through past clients, all sorts, right back to my very early career. And I was like, "Actually, I think there is a big opportunity here for me to go back out on my own.". And I knew from the start I didn't want to build an agency. I didn't want to hire people. I just wanted to use all of that experience I've built up over travel over the last 15, 16 years and help people solve brand proposition problems that they can't see themselves with a slight rebellious streak in the middle of working with people who don't want to just follow the crowd. They want to do things a bit differently. Catherine Warrilow: They want to stand up and be heard and it's just gone from there. So I took on my first paying client at the beginning of November and it's incredible and I bloody love it. And I'm so glad that I fell back into this way of working and I just feel very lucky that I've been able to stay in the sector that I absolutely love. Kelly Molson: I'm so touched for you. I've got a big smile on my face as you're saying. I've watched your journey and I've watched how it's kind of played out. It's really interesting. Someone said to me a little while ago, you never know who's watching you never know who's taking interest. And I kind of like that. And I think you are someone that I've always, we have genuinely only met once in real life, in a toilet at a conference. But I've followed you for a long time on LinkedIn, and I've seen how helpful and supportive you are to the sector, and I've seen a lot of your posts that go out and talking about other issues and things like that as well, very openly and publicly. Kelly Molson: I've always really admired that about you and I think you are someone who's super helpful and stuff like that comes back tenfold. So when you put that post out, I know how tough that was. Like, I felt the emotion in that post for you, but was just like, I'd read that post, I was like, "She's got nothing to worry about here at all.". And I could see people comment in and I'm going to connect you to the, "Oh, we should talk, we should do this.". And I was like, "There you go. Good people. Good things come back to in tenfold.". So it's lovely to see you in this position. Catherine Warrilow: And it was amazing. And that gave me, I think, the foundation I needed to get back out there and carry on attending events and carry on creating content and sharing my thoughts and ideas and all of that kind of thing. And it was funny because a while before that, I'd asked a handful of people from my network kind of, what am I known for? And would you recommend me? And what would you recommend me for? And someone came back and said, "You care more about the result than you do about people's opinions.". And I think that sums me up quite well because I want the best outcome, whether that's for me and my business or for a partner that I'm working for. And I'm happy to say things people might not want to hear because I know it will get them a better outcome. Catherine Warrilow: And I think that's so important. And I think hopefully that comes across when I either talk to people or I post online that I am authentically who I say I am and you will genuinely get the best of me regardless of how big the challenge is. And that's really important to me. I'd say that's kind of a big part of my values is to share authentic truth rather than either kind of saying what everyone else is saying or saying what someone wants to hear, which will put people off as well. And that's kind of a good screening process in a way. Kelly Molson: Yes. It's a good way to cherry pick who's the right client, definitely wants to work for me and they're going to get me as well. I love this. Right, okay, we're going to talk about brand today. We're going to talk about brand proposition. What the heck is a brand proposition for our lovely listeners? Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, and it's a big question. It's basically everything a brand stands for. Absolutely everything a brand stands for. And that sounds quite overwhelming, but really it's not. It's a combination of kind of vision, mission, values. So where are you trying to get to and what are you doing to get there and how are you being when you do that? So what are the kind of the morals and values that underpin the business and that foundation takes you through everything to the point which you sell a product or service to a customer. And that will be everything from your tone of voice and your brand personality, how your brand looks and feels aesthetically, the channels you use to communicate with people and sell through. Catherine Warrilow: So it really is everything that kind of makes up what matters about a brand and what makes it different and why ultimately a customer would buy from you versus someone else. Which is why I touched on the kind of the challenges with ticketing in our sector because that is a huge obstacle for lots of OTAs in managing their brand proposition effectively because it will have a real knock on effect on the perception their customer has of that brand. Kelly Molson: And that element of it is slightly out of their control as well, isn't it? Which is unfortunate. What I like about this is that we are, I think as a whole, we're kind of coming away from that thing where people used to go, "Oh, I've got my brand sorted, because I've got my logo.". No, that's a brand element. This is not what we're talking about here. Why is brand proposition so important to get right. Catherine Warrilow: I think brand proposition comes down to what you sell, who to and for what gain. And the gain is the customer problem. So what problem do you solve for that customer? So days out, as an example, were going after the younger end of the audience who just want to find something with bragging rights and book it quick with the trust and ease of use of real person customer service on Whatsapp and pay with Klana. So book it Whatsapp to make sure you've got your tickets right backs and forwards with a real human being in real time and then pay for it later. So we knew exactly who were, who for and for what gain for that customer. That's why you have to get it right. Catherine Warrilow: And I speak to a lot of people who, a lot of clients who say they fall at the first hurdle with the first question, which is, "Who are you targeting?" And they're like, "Well, everyone who wants to travel.". And you're like, "No, you're not." 100% not. You might want to be on the radar of lots and lots of people, and lots of people might buy from you, but most people won't because there is so much choice. You've got to know exactly who you are talking to and why you fit the needs and the values of that person. And those values need to be reciprocal because you will never create brand ambassadors otherwise. You will create transient customers who will buy from you once and then move on. And that's an expensive customer to have. Catherine Warrilow: Whereas if your brand proposition is spot on and everything in the way you do business and the way you communicate, the way your customer service team communicate is consistent, people will buy into that feeling as well as what they're paying money for. And the booking process is part of what they're paying for. And that is part of the reason they will pay more, because they know it's quick and easy and if anything goes wrong, you'll sort it and they will pay 5% more for the privilege of that. Which means your pricing strategy is healthier as well. So all of these different things make up the brand proposition, not just the way your website looks or your logo. If it's lairy and orange and pink and green, that is not going to stand you apart from everyone else. It might get you noticed once. Catherine Warrilow: But all of that substance of your brand proposition below, that is what will engage, retain a customer, create an ambassador out of them, i.e. They will leave a positive review, they will engage with your content, they will share your content, all of those things. Kelly Molson: That word substance is really important in this conversation, isn't it? Because a lot of people still, I think, view brand as very much the kind of aesthetic layer that sits on top of that. But it is about substance. This brand proposition has to run through the core of everything that you do. And it's not just about the visuals, it's about how you speak to people, your tone of voice, all of that kind of stuff as well. How do you start to shape that proposition? Where does an organisation start with that? Catherine Warrilow: Like I said before, it starts with that vision mission values piece. Because if you are not clear on where you are trying to get to, then how do you even start building things like content pillars, for example? And quite often there's a vision stuck up on the wall, in the office, in the meeting room, which no one could recite back to you and it actually doesn't mean anything. So having substance within the vision is the first point of call. The mission is how you get there and what you're doing to get there. And if you don't know that, you can't create goals, if you haven't got measurable goals, how do you define what success looks like? Catherine Warrilow: And that takes you into things like understanding your products and your revenue streams, because you might have really popular products and you're like, "Oh yeah, we're selling loads of these tools. They're so popular, everyone loves them. But why is that?". Is it because you're the cheapest on the market? And actually, if you look at your numbers, are you making any profit on that product? Because there's a massive difference between popular and profitable. So it matters because at the heart of the business is a need to be profitable. You want a product and service that people love and is profitable and that people rave about. And it drives you loads of repeat business and loads of new business through word of mouth. Catherine Warrilow: But to get to the point where you can set those goals that are measurable, you have to know where you're trying to get to. And what often happens, and what I find with a lot of partners is their vision is either ten years old and they're still kind of running around in circles trying to figure out how they get there. And it's not that anymore, because the market's changed, the customers changed, pricing has changed, they've got goals, but they're not measurable, or they've got customers and they never talk to them, they never ask them what they can do better or where else they buy from. So they've got no data, they've got a website that performs pretty well, but they never look at the analytics, so they don't know how they're acquiring customers or how much is costing them to acquire a customer. Catherine Warrilow: And that all of a sudden feels very messy and complicated, doesn't it? It feels overwhelming to start picking things off to make sure those things are happening in a sensible, logical order that takes you from A to B to make a profit. So I kind of break all those different things down into sections, create a roadmap specifically for the business, and bring to the table all of my expertise to start aligning those things. And what will happen is we'll find some massive gaps. The vision is totally wrong, or they're going after the whole market and they don't really know who their customer is, or so they're trying to talk to everybody, so their tone of voice is just beige, or their goals aren't the right goals, or they're not measurable, or they're measuring the wrong things. Catherine Warrilow: And you start to see where those opportunities are and you start to see the holes that need to be plugged. And suddenly brand proposition feels like a much simpler, tangible route forward, rather than this kind of crazy maze of stuff that you just don't know where to navigate first. Kelly Molson: Something you said at the start of that was really interesting, actually, as an aside question is somebody's mission or their vision, and the mission might be completely misaligned now it's been in place for ten years or so, and they're visiting it and the market has changed. How frequently should you look at those things? Like, I get my organisation together tomorrow, we set our new vision and mission. You would hope that we would be kind of checking in on that. Are we all aligned? Are we scenario? How often do you think that changes for people? And how frequently should you kind of refer back to it and go, "Is this still relevant?". Catherine Warrilow: That's such a good question and I think it should be in mind daily. And if a business is asked what their vision is and they can't recite it off like that, then it's not right or it's too complicated. And I did a big exercise with a client a couple of weeks ago, which was actually around their why and their purpose, because it was really important to them that they were running an ethical, sustainable business, that they gave something back to the community. But their why was about an, a four page long. And I challenged them on it and they said, "Oh yeah, well, actually the community part is really important to us and it wasn't in there anyway anywhere.". So what I did is an exercise where we distilled it down bit by bit. Catherine Warrilow: So we took out all of the filler words and had a look what was left and that came out as kind of care, community, making a difference and a handful of other things. So we stripped it right back and ended up with one sentence, which was about ten or twelve words long. I was like, that actually means something. And that is something you can look at every day and say, "Does launching this new product or service may give something back to the community?". Well, actually, no, it doesn't, because it's going to take us 20 years to fulfil that element. So do we scale it back? Do we make it simpler? Do we make it shorter? What do we do? Do we make it more accessible? Catherine Warrilow: I think if you can't look at least your vision on a daily basis and say the things on my to do list absolutely fit with that, then you need to challenge yourself on the tactics that you're implementing to reach that vision and the goals you've set for the business. So I think most people would hope, I would say quarterly in the team meeting. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's exactly what people hope. Once a year we revisit that. Catherine Warrilow: I don't think you want to change it more than annually. You might tweak it if you have to keep throwing it out every year and redoing it. There's something wrong with your business model. But if you can look at it, mine's up on my wall. Mine's really simple. It's rebel plans for travel brands, which basically means a bit kind of rogue compared to your typical marketing strategy. And my why is because you don't want to be the same as everyone else and I don't want to do boring work. That's it. Simple as that. So if I look at my to do list today and say, "Is that boring or is that going to make a difference, and it's not, then I need to challenge myself on what I am delivering for that client or for my own business.". Catherine Warrilow: Am I saying I haven't written a blog for ages, I should write one? If it's crap to fill a space, then I shouldn't be doing it. I need to challenge myself to put the effort in, to think about what I want to say on that topic, how my opinion is different, how I back that opinion up, what other people are saying, bring in other voices and your vision and mission should make you do things properly, they should make you do them to a much higher standard and they should raise the game of your business, your team and the industry, because that's ultimately where you need to be to succeed, isn't it? You need to be pushing for better. Kelly Molson: I think we're all getting a very clear picture of what it would be like to work with you, Catherine, from this interview. Love it. Catherine Warrilow: It's a great screening process, isn't it? Some people will go, oh, my God, that sounds horrendous. That sounds like an awful lot of work. No, thank you. Other people will say, "I think she could see where we're going wrong, where we can't see it because we're so entrenched in what we're doing.". Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm sitting here going, "She needs to come in and work on our brand. This is what we need.". Okay. How does the brand proposition translate into what the consumer or the visitor engages with? I guess. How do you get your brand proposition across to them in the right way? Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, I think it gets really overcomplicated in a lot of businesses, and that's usually because bits have been tacked on at different times to try different things and see how they work. It should translate to everything. It should translate to the hero strap line across the homepage of your website. It should translate to the bios on your social channels. If you still have business cards, it should translate there. It should translate to how you conduct yourself in front of people, at events, in meetings, in pitches with customers. And one of the things that often gets forgotten and is why it gets all confused from a consumer facing perspective, is it should translate internally as well. Behind the scenes, how your team meetings run, how your one to ones run, the culture and the atmosphere in the office. It should translate through everything. Catherine Warrilow: Because if it doesn't, how do you expect your marketing team, your sales team, your customer service team to get that across to the customer if your staff don't feel it themselves? And that's probably the only thing that I miss about working in house, is creating that momentum and energy within a team. And it is absolutely astronomical. What a difference it makes to productivity, to engagement, to buy in, to smoothing out bumps when you go through difficult periods of change or reorganisation or someone leaves the business, or whatever it is. You can weather those kind of things so much more easily if you start with the people within your business and making that vision and mission exciting to them. Catherine Warrilow: And that might be down to the fact that the quarterly team meeting is just so incredibly painful and dull that people just switch off so they don't absorb any of the information about where the business is going next, because it's delivered in such a static, boring way that you need totally transform that and it needs to be led by the teams or it needs to be designed as a quiz or something like just make it different, make it more fun. And I guarantee then it becomes very easy to translate that through to everything from the customer's perspective because it will come through in tone of voice and how you handle a difficult customer service query. It will come through in creating content on TikTok or whatever channels you use. It will just be ingrained in everything. Kelly Molson: Because your team are owning that and they've got such an input into the kind of division and the mission and the brand proposition, they then can sell that on to the consumers. So they're your internal ambassadors. We talked about ambassadors earlier. Catherine Warrilow: Yeah. Kelly Molson: And obviously that's going to help with recruitment as well. If you've got a really strong kind of brand proposition, more people want to come and be involved in that too. Catherine Warrilow: Yeah. And it brings confidence to everything. I mean, our job descriptions at Days Out attracted people who weren't even looking for a job because they saw the ad. They were like, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't even think I wanted to move and now I do.". And I had to apply because they were written by real people, designed for real people who just want to be in jobs which they love and they feel invested in and appreciated and rewarded and recognised. Catherine Warrilow: So it was less about, you must have five years of this, you must be able to do that and more about, do you want to come to work and actually feel like you want to be there and that you want to work really hard because you care about making a difference to that business because they are as invested as you are in the brand. And, yeah, recruitment is a difficult business and retention is a difficult business. So if you can bring together all of those things in such an incredible way across everything you do, then recruiting all of a sudden becomes a joy. And seeing people who want to work for you is incredible. Catherine Warrilow: So, yeah, it affects everything and you can see I get really excited about that because I think we so often forget that it's our people that will drive the success and we just go over that shiny thing over there. But actually, if you don't tell anyone else in the business what that shiny thing is and why it matters, then how on earth are you going to move mountains to get to that point? Kelly Molson: Totally agree with every single word that you're saying, Catherine. Totally agree with it. Right. We've talked about what it is, who's doing it well, tourism and attraction industry and why. Catherine Warrilow: Gosh. So I mentioned my time at doubt with the kids, and it was a very different beast when I was there, because were really trying to make fundamental changes in how we monetise the site, whereas now they've come so far, and I think I have to call out their content strategy and their content team, because in an incredibly crowded market, where you are competing for the attention of parents, the most time poor people on the planet, they have totally understood what type of content resonates with people, and they've understood how to keep people engaged in a community. And that might be anything from behind the scenes, an attraction, quite literal content. But that whole kind of. Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh, you won't believe what's round this corner at this tiny farm park and bringing to life the lesser known attractions that have huge amounts to offer customers through to stuff that's trending, whether that's pop culture or music, tv, film, just tapping into the mood of the nation. My definition of that is situational relevance. So how do you bring together a situation or trend that's important to people now with the relevance of your brand? And it goes back to what we're saying about tone of voice before. What's your perspective on that topic? Why would a customer engage with your brand about that topic if it's not literally trying to sell them a ticket to an attraction? Catherine Warrilow: And I think what they've done with channels like TikTok, for example, is they've absolutely understood, A, what problem they solve for the customer, but B, what's important to them now and what they're talking about right this minute, because that will be different today to it is tomorrow. And they are quick and they are agile and they are reactive to trends and topics, and they've understood how to have that conversation with someone within their audience demographic. And that's not easy. That is a huge undertaking of time and effort and research, and it doesn't take two minutes to create a decent TikTok that's going to engage people. People think it's like an instantaneous throwaway channel, but it's not. And you've got to hook people in about a second and a. So I think they're doing great things. Catherine Warrilow: When it comes to attractions, Cannon Hall Farm in Barnsley in Yorkshire, I think are epic. I think, again, they captured situational relevance by streaming things like lambing season on Facebook. Years and years ago, they started doing that and they were like, "Oh, we're on something.". People want to watch the lambs being born and how we care for them and how we bring new life into the world and how good that feels. And that led to them doing a whole series with Channel five. And I just think they had their vision and mission and products spot on. They had the foundations. They knew what they were delivering, who to for what gain. They were bringing people up close and personal with farming life in a way that just captured families. And I think they've sustained that, and I think that's quite difficult to do. Catherine Warrilow: I think they've evolved with the times, and they've carried on improving their products, and they've carried on communicating that to people who want that type of experience. So I think that they're brilliant. And then the other one would be Marsh Farm in Essex. Their understanding of events and how to capture people through events is out of this world. And what they do is they look, I don't think they intentionally do it, but what they've managed to do is create a triangle between celebrity. So someone like Daisy Solomon and how she celebrates Halloween, for example, and an experience that they can deliver that captures that to people in a way they can afford. Catherine Warrilow: So their pumpkin patches and photo moments around Halloween are mind blowing, because what they've done, they've looked at what people want to achieve at the celebrity level, but potentially can't cover their front doorstep in a million pumpkins and have ghosts coming out of every part of the. Kelly Molson: Catherine, honestly. Catherine Warrilow: But they can go and have that experience at Marsh Farm with their kids, take photos of their kids in a wheelbarrow surrounded by pumpkins, and feel like they've had a slice of that lifestyle. And they up their game with every single event they do. And it's remarkable. And the effort that goes into delivering that wrapped up with incredible customer service is second to none. And I think a lot of attractions can learn from how they deliver that experience. Kelly Molson: I totally agree. Marsh Farm is James Sinclair, isn't it? That's him, yes. Catherine Warrilow: And Aaron Oathman. Yeah. Kelly Molson: James actually came on the podcast.He was a really early guest on the first season of the podcast when me and my old co founder used to do it together. Actually, I think my co founder interviewed James on his own, actually. I don't think I was on that one. But we had seen James, he'd been on our radar for a long time. And he is a smart cookie. He really is a smart. I think he's probably a bit marmite for people, in all honesty. But that's a good thing, right? That's filthy. But I absolutely love his content. I love it. I can sit and watch it all day long and he's got so much to talk about and there's so much value that he delivers as well. So from a personal brand perspective, I think he's kind of nailing that as well. Catherine Warrilow: Oh, 100%. And that's something we haven't even touched on, is personal brand. That's a conversation for another day. But it fits in neatly with getting your people invested in the business vision, because they are your brand ambassadors. They are the people going out to events and selling the dream. And some people don't see the value of that, but the way they conduct themselves, especially if you're in B2B and you're in trade events and you're negotiating relationships with suppliers or trying to get people to come to your stand and talk to you about a product or service, they're not going to do that unless your personal brand has that magnetism. And you're absolutely right, James has that magnetism. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Which, again, is going to help with his recruitment and then building those brands and then vision. So it's all part and parcel of the same thing. Exactly. I love it. Great examples as well. Thank you for sharing those. What are your top tips that you'd like to share with our listeners today? Catherine Warrilow: So, the first one I won't labour over, because it's getting your people aligned with your vision, and we've talked about that a lot. It all starts there. If you can't get people to adore the plans of the business, then it's going to be hard work to get to that point. I think the second one is something we touched on early on. It's about authenticity. Whether you're customer facing and you're an attraction or an experience, whether you're an OTA, whether you're a res tech company. Authenticity, I think, is everything. If you can't do something, don't say you can. If you can't fix something, don't say you can. Be honest. Just be honest about everything, with your customers, with your teams, with your partners, and do your absolute best to find the right solution. Catherine Warrilow: So if you let a customer down, don't gloss over and say, "Oh, well, we couldn't have controlled that.". Say, "We're gutted that this has happened, we can't fix it, but this is what we're going to do to avoid it happening again. This is the problem we've uncovered.". Just bring it all to the surface. I don't understand why brands don't let people see in. Because we know as customers that the brands we resonate with and have an affinity with are the ones we trust. It's as simple as that. So why not let people into that world a bit more? And the way we use social these days allows us to do that, allows us to have a window into our world. So use that to your advantage. Show you're listening. Catherine Warrilow: Show that you take on board feedback, whether that's internally, externally or otherwise, and just be the best, genuine version of yourself and your business that you can be. And then the third thing I would say is, try new stuff now. So if you're not on TikTok and you're like, "We need to be on TikTok, but we don't understand it, we don't get it, we don't have the resource.". Don't put it off. You will never have enough resource for everything you want to do. You will never be a master at all things. But try them now. Don't have them on that forever to do list. Whether that's approaching a new partner or researching a new sector within tours, experiences and attractions, do it now. Catherine Warrilow: And if you're listening to this or watching this and you've had one of those things on your list, please do something about it this week and come back and tell us both what you've done, because I think you just need that push in the right direction. People wait for the perfect moment to try something new or do something new or launch something new. There is never a perfect moment. You will miss the boat. And then you have that constant frustration of, "Oh, those guys are doing it brilliantly. Why didn't we just dot.". Because if you had have done, you probably would be creating great content on that channel now. You probably would be in a partnership with that new wine tour. Just don't wait. Trends come and go. Just get on with it. Stop waiting. Kelly Molson: I feel like you've also just made us about 400 people's accountability partners there as well. So thanks for that. Catherine Warrilow: Okay, I'm going to rescind that last bit. Tell me what you've done this week. Kelly Molson: Take it, send and email us. All Catherine's details will be in the show notes. It's fine. You can email us both. Let us know what you've taken off your list and what you've gone ahead with. We want to know. I'm joking. All 400 of you and more. It's great tips. Thank you for sharing today. I've really thoroughly enjoyed this. Where can we get more from you? You're actually going to be talking soon. At quite a large event, aren't you? Catherine Warrilow: Yeah. So you can see me in person at Arival first weekend of March. So I'll be talking about everything we've talked about today, actually taking your mission and vision and values right through to monetisation and figuring out where those gaps are in the middle. So that'd be a really practical, hands on workshop. I'm a real kind of sharpie marker and paper type person, so you will actually get a physical roadmap to take away and fill in yourself, which I think is going to be really fun. I'm a massive oversharer, like I said, so you can find me on LinkedIn a lot, on TikTok a lot. I can't profess to be a TikTok expert by any stretch, but I am persevering because I think it's a brilliant channel to share quick pieces of advice and tips and hacks. Catherine Warrilow: So little things that you can do right now that will improve the brand strategy within your business. So, yeah, you can find me quite easily, I'm afraid. Kelly Molson: We will put all of Catherine's details in the show notes as well, so you just can refer back to there and you'll be able to find her. One thing I would say about Catherine's website, you have to go and cheque it out, because there's a little line on Catherine's website that I absolutely love. It says, "You need help, we're ready to fix your shit.". And I was like, "Yeah, she absolutely is. This woman is going to fix your shit.". Okay. I always end the episodes with a book that our guests love. So, what have you brought to recommend to our listeners today? Catherine Warrilow: So, it's ironic, actually, because my two book recommendations, the first one's called The Power of Doing Less, by an author called Fergus O'Connell. And this is about getting rid of all the distractions and noise. And it's a really simple, short book that you'll want to keep on your desk with post it notes in pages, because it's just a good reminder of things like, "Am I the best person to do this? Is there someone else in the business that is better at this and should be doing this? Do I need to do it now? Is it important right now? Or am I just doing it because it's the top of the list? Should I be doing it in the way I think I should be doing it? Should I be doing part of it and not all of it?". Catherine Warrilow: And it's just a great sanity cheque deck for not being a busy fool. And I love that. And it just keeps you sharp in terms of prioritising because nothing's ever urgent. It's either important or it's not. And then the second one, again, a bit ironic, based on my kind of love of bringing lots and lots of different things together, is called The One Thing by Gary Keller. Actually, it's not ironic really, because really, that's about the vision. Like, what is the one thing we are trying to do here and does everything else we're doing align to that one purpose? That is just such a brilliant book and it really helps you get focused and clarity on what you're doing and why. So, yeah, those are my two recommendations. Kelly Molson: Brilliant books, and they haven't come up previously as well. I love this. I always like it when a guest brings a book. I'm like, "Oh, that's gone on to my list as well.". Listeners, if you want to win a copy of Catherine's books, so as ever, go over to our twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Catherine's books and you'll be in with the chance of winning them. We also have a I'll put it in the show notes, but we have a brilliant blog on our website, on the Rubber Cheese website that lists all of these books that our guests come on and share. So it's become kind of a virtual library for people to go and refer to back to over the years. So thank you for adding to our library today. Kelly Molson: Thank you for coming on and sharing. It's been a great chat. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I love talking about brand. It is a little bit of my background as well, so I completely understand and embrace everything that you've talked about today. Good luck at Arival. I hope that goes brilliantly and I look forward to all of those emails that we're about to receive about people taking things off their list, doing them. Catherine Warrilow: And I'll see you in a toilet somewhere soon, hopefully. Kelly Molson: Probably. Like I said, all the best people meet in toilets. Catherine Warrilow: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| The Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses, with Emily Yates | 07 Feb 2024 | 00:33:05 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-rose-yates/ https://mimagroup.com/the-redesign-podcast Download: VisitEngland Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses Emily Yates is a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy living in Glasgow, Scotland. She loves to write, travel and is a real pink hair enthusiast. Emily has over a decade of experience as an accessibility consultant. Now the Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design at Mima, Emily has worked with large transport, culture and heritage and global events organisations such as Heathrow Airport, COP28, the Science Museum Group and the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games to further their physical, social and digital accessibility measures. She has also worked with the Council of Europe, international travel networks, and sat on equality boards advising various sporting, transport and travel organisations on their access and inclusion agendas.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today’s podcast I speak with Emily Yates, Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design, at Mima. Mima worked alongside Visit Britain to co create the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses, which aims to act as the resource for travel, tourism and hospitality organisations. Emily and I discuss how it was created, why it is such a vital resource, and how it will evolve over time. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hi, Emily. It's lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for coming on and joining me and at very short notice, too. Appreciate it. Emily Yates: Not at all. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here. Kelly Molson: Well, we're going to have a good chat today. I'm looking forward to this. Right, I am going to start my icebreakers with this question for you. Have you ever been told off by a security guard for touching anything in a museum that you should not have been touching? Emily Yates: What a great question. I don't think I have, but something that immediately comes to mind. It was a very embarrassing moment that I had at the Museum of the Future in Dubai a few months ago, where I touched something that I shouldn't have done. And what it was there was an interactive kind of tabletop interactive going on, and there were groups of people from all over the world who were visiting this museum and there was this one couple who were trying to sort their wristband to make this interactive work and I just figured that they couldn't do it. So I put my wristband on to help them and I changed all the information to me and they were so annoyed to me, in a massive grump. Emily Yates: Yeah, they just thought that I'd, like, nicked all of their information and their opportunity to do this activity and I was just trying to be helpful. Kelly Molson: That's the actual digital version of skipping the queue, basically. You wristbanded them out of the way. Emily Yates: I totally did. And the worst thing was that were on this group tour, so I had to stay with them for the rest of the tour. Kelly Molson: They were with you. That’s a little bit awkward, those group tours, aren't they? Because you never know if you're going to like anyone or if ones are going to get on your nerves. So you just made it even more awkward than it needed to be. Emily Yates: There you go. Kelly Molson: Right. I love it. Okay, there's a three parter to this question, but it's a good one. And actually, thank you, whoever sent this one in, because I genuinely can't remember who sent me this one, but I really like. It's the first time that I'm using it, too. Okay. So they say the formula for visitor attractions is one, a great view, two, a great brew, and three, a great loo. So I want to know where you've encountered your best three of these. They can be different. So best view? Emily Yates: Best view, I would have to say. Can it be international? I would have to say Sugarloff Mountain, Rio de Janeiro. Kelly Molson: Wow. Emily Yates: Absolutely incredible view. Yeah. Like nothing else. Best brew. Oh, I'm trying to think of somewhere that has a great cafe, the V&A Museum in Dundee has a brilliant cafe that also has a great view, I have to say. That would be my best brew. Kelly Molson: We like that one. And then three best loo. Emily Yates: Best loo. It would have to be somewhere that has a changing places toilet. And of course, I need to say that being an access consultant, I'm trying to think where does. But I know for certain that a client I'm working with, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, has one about to be kind of refurbished and all sorted. So I would say there. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Good choices as well. I love that you've got a Dundee one in there that was like two out of the three. I mean, there you go. There's a challenge for them. If they can up their game, they can get that third one from you as well. Emily Yates: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly Molson: Nice. All right, what's your unpopular opinion? Emily Yates: Oh, my unpopular opinion? Both heels and handbags are overrated. As a wheelchair user, I have never, ever worn a pair of high heels in my life. I'm 32 years old, so I think that's quite an accomplishment. And also pushing all the time. Unless it's a cross body one, I can never hold a handbag, so, yeah, I'm a Converse and rook sack girl all the way. Kelly Molson: Right. Because, yeah, it would get in the way, wouldn't it? You need to kind of have it across and then, I guess, tucked in a little bit and then what's the point of having something fancy if you're going to just. Emily Yates: Exactly. Kelly Molson: I mean, I'm kind of with you. I'm not a wheelchair user. However, my feet were not designed for high heels at all. I'm a flat scale all the way. Emily Yates: Maybe not. Unpopular opinion. Maybe there's just two camps, two very distinct camps, isn't there? Kelly Molson: I think probably two camps, but I don't think this is an unpopular opinion. Even in a camp of people that could actively wear those heels and might want to. I still think that there’s a. Emily Yates: There's a secret loo. Wish we didn't have to. Maybe I'm in a lovely position, that I've got a lovely excuse. Kelly Molson: Never had to think about this. Never had to squeeze your tiny feet into those awkwardly pointy, evil contraptions. Right, let's see. Well, let's see what everyone on Twitter has got to share with us on that. Thank you, Emily. I want to find out a little bit about. Well, I want to find out a little bit about your role and your background and then tell us a little bit about Mima as well. Emily Yates: Yes, sure. So, I am a wheelchair user. I was born with cerebral palsy. I'm, as you can probably tell from my accident, from a little town called Skipton in North Yorkshire. And I'm also a twin, and my twin lives in Spain now, so she's got the sunshiny life. There's definitely a tan difference between the two of us now, for sure. And I've always worked in the world of accessibility and inclusive design, from leaving a university, really. And it's led me to amazing opportunities to be able to travel a lot, to be able to see, I guess, the importance of my capabilities as a disabled person, rather than just my limitations as a disabled person. And I've brought that into my professional work as well as my personal life as well. So I now work for an amazing human centred design agency called Mima. Emily Yates: It stands for Micro and Macro, so details and then zooming out into the big picture, looking at that end to end journey. And I head up the accessibility and inclusive design team there. So whether you're talking about airports or train stations or of course, museums and galleries or even global events and sporting events, we look at auditing, facilitating lived experience, user groups, standards, policies, disability awareness training, all of that good stuff, and bring our design expertise into wider projects with us as well. And it's brilliant. Kelly Molson: That's how we got chatting, isn't it? Because you've worked with a really broad. We work with a hugely broad range of clients, as you've just said. But I think David and I started talking somebody I can't remember, it was a good friend of mine, it was Jo Geraghty. She introduced us because we had visitor attractions and kind of heritage and culture organisations in common. So we had a brilliant chat about this and then we had a chat and then this project happened that you've all been involved in, which is amazing. So this is what we're going to talk about today. Now, you'll probably agree with this, but I think when it comes to accessibility and inclusivity, I think it's fair to say that kind of travel tourism organisations, they want to do the right thing. Kelly Molson: There's a real desire to be able to do the right thing, but they often don't really know what that is and where to go and find the support to be able to do those things, like where do they start looking to kind of understand the checklist of things that they need to go through to make sure that their venue is accessible. The Visit Britain Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses aims to change that. Kelly Molson: I saw Ross Calladine, who's the Accessibility and Inclusion Lead at VisitEngland, speak about this a while ago, before it had launched. He was speaking at a Visit Hearts networking event that I went to. It is an incredible resource for the sector. Like, absolutely incredible. I've had a really deep dive into it and it is so useful and so full of incredible information. But you and Mima have been involved in putting this together with them? This has been a joint project. Emily Yates: Yes, absolutely. So we were the toolkit authors and I feel very honoured to have worked with Ross and Hannah at VisitEngland for the last year know. They're just a wonderful client and we've got on really well. And Ross, as you will probably know from hearing him speak, absolutely has his heart in the right place when it comes to accessibility and inclusive design. But I think really importantly as well, has his finger on the pulse of the business benefit of this, which of course is really important. And you very rightly said there that a lot of especially small to medium sized businesses want to do the right thing, but often don't know where to start. And quite a lot of the time that's to do with budget, it's to do with time, it's to do with resourcing constraints, all of that stuff. Emily Yates: And what we really wanted this toolkit to do was to provide some holistic tips and advice for those businesses that actually says, “We understand the limitations that exist.” We understand that it's not possible to just click your fingers and magic up a changing places, for example, that were talking about earlier. But it is possible to think about your staff training, your recruitment, your policies and your processes. Things like making sure that your access routes are clear of seating and clutter. Simple things that make a huge difference. But of course, I said seating clear of access routes, but of course there needs to be seating somewhere as well. That's really important. But these quick wins that you can make, that will make a huge difference to people. It's not always about just installing a really expensive piece of equipment. Emily Yates: It's understanding those holistic changes that you can make that will make a huge difference. And the toolkit covers so many different sections. It provides some information about the purple pound. So the spending power of disabled people in their households, which is worth, I think, 274,000,000,000 pounds per year to UK businesses alone. So that's what you're missing out on if you're not physically or digitally accessible. And then the toolkit also covers the different impairments and medical conditions that you might need to know about how to best provide that inclusive welcome that can often not cost anything at all. It's just about changing your mindset. Emily Yates: And then we talk about the importance of inclusive marketing, changes in the built environment, employing more inclusively, and then the next steps to kind of continue the all encompassing journey that can never really be finished, but will hopefully provide people with stand them in good stead for a future that's a bit more accessible. Kelly Molson: I guess that goes for the toolkit as well. This is going to be something that is never finished too, because it's always going to change and evolve depending on what the needs and requirements are. How was it created in the first place? What was the process that you had to go through? Because this is, know what you've just described. I mean, the resource is phenomenal, it's vast, the things that you can understand and go through with this documentation. So that in itself will have been a mammoth task to have pulled together. How did you work with VisitBritain to do that? Emily Yates: So the first thing that was quite important was thinking about what each of the resources were going to look like. So what I've just gone through there is the more holistic toolkit, the main piece, if you like. But in addition to that, we've also got documents that have 20 top tips for businesses. We've got action checklists where people can almost say, “Right, I'm going to make sure I've provided something in particular for an assistance dog, for example”, and put a timeline of when they're going to do that, give ownership to a certain member of staff, of appeasing that checklist, and then carry on that way. So there's also some action checklists and there's also some technical guidance as an appendix as well. Emily Yates: So the first thing was really thinking about what information do we want to provide and how are we going to segregate that information, so it isn't awfully overwhelming and is actually actionable. And then the second thing was making sure, and probably the most important thing was making sure that we'd co-produced this information and consulted with the correct people. So we've consulted with over 30 disability charities and disabled people's organisations, also trade associations as well as independent reviewers. So everybody from the Business Disability Forum who gave us some great advice in terms of inclusive employment, to self catering trade associations, to museum trade associations, theme parks and things like that, there's so many people that got involved with this and gave us some advice. Emily Yates: And also we wanted to make sure that the information wasn't just actionable, but it was really relevant as well. So we've also created lots of different case studies within the toolkit. So whether that's more independent small farms who've done something amazing in terms of their volunteering and how that can be more inclusive to a local pier, for example, that's made something that, let's face it, in the built environment, isn't all that accessible sometimes. They've made changes to help that out. Emily Yates: We've added those case studies. So as you're reading through the information and learning lots, you're hopefully able to also read something that's quite relevant, that almost sparks that interest and that aspiration and gives you an opportunity to think, “Okay, I can do that. This might be who I might get in touch with and this might be the action I take.” Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that. The case studies make it so relatable to different scales of organisation. And I think what I found was it was quite inspiring, actually, that, okay, it's a pier. There's always going to be some challenges with accessibility. However, we have gone to these efforts to do these things. So you might have a checklist of 30 things you might be able to cover off, 20 of them, ten of them you're never going to be able to do. But to be able to read and go, “There's still so much that I can do. Even though I don't have something that's all 30, I can still do these things and make it significantly better for a much wider range of people that will be able to come and use these facilities now.” Emily Yates: Absolutely, 100%. And we wanted to make sure that people really got that feeling and they were encouraged by the information rather than overwhelmed by it. And I think one thing that's also really important is that, let's be honest, when it comes to accessibility, we all think about wheelchair users and we all think about step free access, which is great for me as a wheelchair user. But actually it's not always about providing step free access or installing that really expensive lift. How can you think about the colour palettes that you're using to make sure that there's enough tonal contrast for somebody who's visually impaired, but it also provides an appropriate sensory environment for somebody who's neurodivergent? These are things that are so often forgotten or put down the priority list. Emily Yates: And these are the things that we wanted to say, "Okay, you can do these in a way that doesn't break the bank, that doesn't take all the time, but makes all the difference to a certain group of people." Kelly Molson: Do you think that they are harder to associate with because you can't see them? I mean, with the wheelchair it's a very obvious. You can see that person has a disability, you can see that they will need something very specific from you to be able to use your platform. But with some of these other things, you just can't see that trigger. So you don't think to think about it? Emily Yates: Absolutely. Yeah. I think one of the really pivotal points that we have in the inclusive design industry now is thinking about things that are less visible. So somebody who has dementia, for example, that might find really dark flooring looking like a black hole and might really struggle to go into that museum environment that's particularly dark. Thinking about that is just as important as how wide your doorways are. But as you've very rightly said, are so often not thought about or not correctly understood is probably the more correct way of saying it. Kelly Molson: You mentioned earlier about some monetary value for organisations to do this, but why is this such a vital resource from someone like you who has lived experience of this as well? Why is this so vital? Emily Yates: I think it's really vital because it's specific. First of all, so we've created something specific to people within that tourism travel attractions industry. In fact, we've focused specifically on accommodations, attractions, food and beverage and events. There are four main areas that we focused on. So what I really like about it is you read through as somebody who works in one of those businesses and everything is relevant to what you do, and I think that's really important. So often you look at accessibility resources and they've tried to cater to a huge audience and actually made a bit less relevance by doing so. I think that makes it really vital and a really innovative resource actually. By doing so, I think another thing is it allows you to focus on that end to end journey in its entirety. Emily Yates: So if you feel like you're doing really well in the accessibility that you offer your customers, for example. But you want to focus now more internally on, "Okay, what's my culture look like? How inclusive can I be as an employer? What about my marketing? What about my website? I focused on the built environment, but what about what the information I'm putting out there?" All of that information is in there as well. So regardless of where you are on that accessibility journey, I'd like to think that there's something for you within that toolkit. Kelly Molson: There absolutely is as well. You definitely need to go and download it. So we're going to put a link directly to it in the show notes for the show as well. So don't worry about rent searching for it, just go to the show notes. You will find it very easily. How is it going to evolve? Because we said this is not a static thing. It's out there now. Needs requirements are going to change, policies are going to change. What does the roadmap for it look like for the next kind of couple of years, five years down the line? Emily Yates: So I'm doing quite a lot of work with Ross at the moment to think about how we're making sure that people are aware of it and they know exactly how to use it as a tool. Because, of course, with anything like this, it's all well and good writing it, but really it's only as successful as its uses. So we've gone already to the AA and the VisitEngland assessors who go into different hotels and restaurants and review these, and we've made sure that they're aware of the toolkit. We've given them a bit of a presentation and a few exercises on how to use it. We're going to do similar with visitor attractions as well. And then Mima. We've got a bit of a contract with VisitEngland for the next couple of years that focuses on providing updates to this toolkit. Emily Yates: So we will be going out and training different people, but also we really want people to write into us and give us feedback and tell us where they think certain improvements could be made or if they've got a great case study of something that's only happened a couple of months ago. All these things, we want to hear about them so we can make sure that it continues to be an updated, best in class resource. Kelly Molson: Oh, that's good. I love that little shout out. Right, if anyone's listening and something good has happened, you've got something to shout about. You know how to contact Emily. We'll put a link to Emily's LinkedIn profile on here so you can give her a shout out and about. And what do you hope that it's going to achieve? What do you hope that this will bring? Emily Yates: Oh, that's a great question. I think the number one thing I hope, and this is probably quite a personal, selfish plea, is that I hope it encourages businesses to be honest about where they are in their journey. By that, I mean it is no good somebody calling you up and saying, "Hi there. Do you provide step free access and accessible parking?" And you going, "Oh, yes, we do. That's absolutely fine." And somebody like me getting there, and there's five steps up to the front door. There's nothing heroic about not being honest about where you are in your journey. It just complicates matters. Emily Yates: So what I would really love businesses to have the confidence to do is have a statement on their website that details exactly where they are on that journey, is really honest about the things that they've done well, the things that they're still improving, and therefore gives disabled people, older people with access requirements in general, that autonomy to be able to make the decision for themselves, whether this place is suitable for their needs or not. And I think if we can master that and if businesses can do that would be an incredible thing for the industry in general. Emily Yates: And it puts, as I say, that autonomy back on disabled people, back on the audience to say, "Right, this is great, I'm going to go here, I'm going to tell all my friends about it, and this could be a great case study for this business to learn a little bit more from, et cetera." Kelly Molson: That is such an important message, isn't it? The message of honesty? Because that seems like a really simple thing to do. Okay, look, none of us are perfect. None of us are perfect. We all have a long way to go to make things as accessible as they need to be. However, this is where we're at. We've got this. We're back to our checklist again, aren't we? This is our 30 step checklist. We've got ten of those knocked off already. And these are the things that we're doing. This is what we are hoping to achieve, and this is the time frame we're looking to achieve them. And I've just been through this process with the fire safety regulations that were brought out last October. So making sure that I've got. Yep, okay. I've got 90% of those. There's 10% that need to be looked at. Kelly Molson: This is what we're going to do. And this is when we're going to do it by. It's exactly the same message, isn't it? Emily Yates: Exactly. Kelly Molson: Do you not see that from many kind of tourism and attraction organisations then? Do you find that is quite a challenge for them, to be quite honest about where they're at? Emily Yates: I still see being very honest with you, I still see quite a lot of fear surrounding disability and accessibility and this real desire to do the right thing. All of this is coming from a good place. There's a real desire to do the right thing, but as you said right at the very beginning, no idea of where to start. And I think sometimes it's very easy to over promise and under deliver, and that is the worst thing that you can do. Equally what I want to say to caveat all of this is if you offer something that's amazing, please shout about it, please tell people about it. Because equally outside of the coin, I see actually museums in particular that for all of these amazing things, be as a sell tours, touch tours, tack tile objects, nobody has clue that they even exist. So I’m asking really for both things. Kelly Molson: Balance. Emily Yates: Absolutely. Be honest about what you don't have. Celebrate what you do. Kelly Molson: Another great message, Emily. Okay, what are your top tips? Like I said, this is lived experience for you. What are your top tips around disability awareness? What would you shout out and say these are the things that you need to be looking at. Emily Yates: Okay, first thing, it's quite a philosophical point, but it's quite an important one. I think we need to change our mindset when it comes to accessibility and inclusive designs, especially in the disability space, because each and every one of us at some point in our lives will have experience of disability. Hopefully it's just through old age, but it may be through injury, through something else. And it's important to think about not disabled people and nondisabled people, but disabled people and not yet disabled people. And I think if we changed our mindset around that, suddenly there'd be a lot more movement when it comes to accessibility and inclusive design. So I think that would be my one top tip, my one plea, if you like. I think the second one is to think bigger than wheelchair users. Start thinking about how to design for neurodiversity. Emily Yates: Start reading documents such as the new PaAS 6463, design for the mind. If you are, for example, a contractor or a designer working in these kind of spaces, that's really important too. And I think wherever possible, bring lived experience into your work. If you are working in a gallery and you've got this amazing new exhibition coming out in the next couple of years. Think about how you can represent deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people within that exhibition. Can you have a space where you have an access hub that has BSL, tactile maps, portable stools that people can take round with them? And even more so, can you have part of the exhibition where some of your interpretations, some of your objects are to do with deaf, disabled, neurodivergent creators? That would be incredible too. Kelly Molson: So making sure it's woven through every part of that experience and not seen as an add on at the end. Emily Yates: Absolutely that. Absolutely that. Kelly Molson: Great tips. Thank you. Let's talk quickly about the podcast. So at Mima there's a podcast called Re:Design. Actually episode five does feature Ross. Again, he's the Accessibility and Inclusion Lead at VisitEngland, and he comes on and talks about how do you create a seamless customer experience. So again, this comes back to a lot of the points that we've covered today. I mean, great topic. Congratulations on starting the podcast. In the first place there, what are the hopes and aspirations for Mima? What are they looking to achieve by putting this podcast out there? Emily Yates: I think what we're hoping for is that multidisciplinary design, human centred design, inclusive design, really gets its place on the map a little bit more because it's something that, especially inclusive design, it's spoken about a know you will read articles a lot, I'm sure, Kelly, that mention it and the importance of it. But there's a difference between mentioning it and knowing what to do with it and actually speaking to people that have done it. And I think that's what we're trying to do, really pull out some pearls of wisdom from different individuals that have gone through different scenarios, whether they've travelled a lot for their work, whether they've focused on inclusive internal culture change as one of our episodes focuses on, whether they focus specifically on the importance of inclusion within aviation, whether they're looking at a seamless visitor experience. Emily Yates: We want to hear from people that have experienced that and been through it, and are able to then give a bit of advice to people that want to learn more about a subject that everybody should at least have a bit of a basic understanding of. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Right. We will link to that podcast as well. So that is definitely one for you to go over and subscribe to. Emily, it's been so good to have you on today, and I know that we've had to keep this one short because everyone's got appointments that they need to get to. But this is such a key topic. Kelly Molson: My aspiration is that everybody that listens to this episode goes and downloads that accessibility toolkit and shares it with their network as well. Please. So that's a personal plea from me to you listeners. Go and download it and please give it a little share because it needs to get out to as many different people as possible, as many organisations that it is relevant for as possible. What about a book that you love, that you'd like to share with us today? Emily, I'm intrigued if you've gone on topic or not. Emily Yates: I think I have gone on topic about this. Sorry if I've been a bit one dimensional. Kelly Molson: Not at all. Emily Yates: My book of choice is one that I read recently and one, funnily enough, that I'm running a bit of an internal workshop on at Mima in a couple of weeks. We've started a bit of an inclusive book club and it's called the View From Down Here by Lucy Webster. Lucy is an amazing journalist. She's disabled. She used to work for the BBC before going freelance, and she writes this incredible memoir about what it's like growing up disabled, but really importantly as a disabled woman. Emily Yates: And she talks about so many different scenarios from trying to get into a nightclub on a Saturday night when the difficulty of doing so in terms of the gaze that you so often experience as a woman, but as a disabled woman as well, her thoughts on motherhood and how complex and nuanced that is as somebody who's disabled, friendships, professional lives, all of these different things. And I think it's just such an incredibly powerful, confident, but also very vulnerable account of the realism of what it's really like. And the thing that it made me realise, or the thing that it made me remember, should I say, is that we're not going to solve accessibility by just making sure that all of our train stations are step free. It's much more holistic and nuanced and complex than that. Emily Yates: And it's about human nature and human design and all those holistic things that we so rarely think about. And I would just urge everybody to read it. It's angry, it's sad, it's beautiful. It's just a wonderful book. Kelly Molson: Wow. What a book. I feel quite moved by just hearing your account of it, let alone reading it. Right, that's going top of the list. Listeners, if you would like to win a copy of that book, which, I mean, let's face it sounds like everybody needs to read that anyway, so do throw your hat into the ring for this one. If you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Emily's book, then you will be in a chance to win it. But aside from that, go and buy it and absolutely head over to the show notes download the VisitBritain Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses. You will not be disappointed, I can assure you of that. Emily, it's been brilliant to have you on today. Thank you. I'm sorry it's short and sweet. Kelly Molson: I'm sorry that you've got to dash off to an appointment and you're leaving me, but it's been so amazing to chat. I would love for you to come on and talk about some of the case studies, maybe with some of your clients at some point, because I think that would be a really interesting discussion to talk through some of the processes and the steps that they went through and just showcase that this is for everybody. This really is for everybody. Emily Yates: I would absolutely love that. Thank you. We're working with the National Railway Museum at the moment on their Vision 2025 master plan. So maybe when that's starting to wrap up next year, maybe that would be an amazing opportunity to talk about that. Kelly Molson: I think that would be brilliant. I'd love that. All right. Thank you ever so much. Emily Yates: Emily thank you, Kelly, thank you so much. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Improving inclusivity at Kew Gardens, with Julia Willison | 24 Jan 2024 | 00:47:10 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-willison-22347a10/
Julia Willison is Head of Learning and Participation for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is passionate about engaging people – young and old and from all walks of life - in learning about the importance of plants and fungi and the need for sustainable development. Julia is responsible for schools, communities and access, families and early years, outreach, youth and volunteers at Kew Gardens. She previously worked with botanic gardens internationally to advocate for and establish education programmes for the benefit of local communities and the environment.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today’s episode I speak with Julia Willison, Head of Learning and Participation at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. We discuss Kew’s inspiring manifesto - their 10 year strategy to end extinction crisis and protect nature. Julia shares with us the 5 key priorities, and we focus on Kew’s desire to improve inclusivity and what initiatives have been formed to support the organisation in doing this. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Julia, it's really lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. Julia Willison: My pleasure, Kelly. Thank you for inviting me. Kelly Molson: So we're recording this right at the beginning of January. It's the 9 January that we're recording it. So icebreakers have got a new year's resolution theme because I thought we should talk about this. I want to know, do you set them? If so, what have you set yourself for this year? Julia Willison: I do tend to set them in my own mind. I don't often share them, but I do set them. And this year I've set the resolution. I want to start learning to play the piano and I've actually had my first lesson. I'm really pleased with that. Kelly Molson: I love this. So we just had a little chat about this off air, because that was one of the other icebreaker questions I was going to ask you is, what's the one thing that you've always wanted to learn? And then we had this conversation and you're doing it already, and I was like, "Oh, this is great." So you've had your first lesson and how did it go? Julia Willison: Well, I found myself apologising to the teacher profusely because of my lack of ability to play the piano, but it went really well and he was absolutely delightful, very supportive, and I learned quite a lot in the first lesson, so I'm looking forward to the second lesson now. I've got a lot start playing and practising every day, which I'm enjoying doing. Kelly Molson: That's the thing about learning something new is that you've got to make it a habit, haven't you? So you need to kind of. This is the thing that I did about the gym, is that I had to diarize it, so I had to make sure that it was like in red in my diary, immovable. At the same time, on those days, that I could go so that you could do it. Are you going to do that with your lessons and your training? Julia Willison: Well, the lessons obviously will have to be in my calendar, but I have almost crossed the threshold where I made a decision to play the piano. I've got a long term goal that in maybe ten years time, I'll be able to play in a group or something like this. So I'm really committed to wanting to learn. So we'll see. You have to revisit this space. Maybe in five years time. See if I'm still doing it. Kelly Molson: Right. I'm popping you on the list for five years to make sure that I check in with you, that you've achieved your goals. Okay. What is the worst thing that you've ever eaten or drunk? Julia Willison: Well, eaten for me is mussels, because I'm allergic to them. Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Julia Willison: I only learned that through, obviously, eating mussels and even just a small piece just made me incredibly sick. Drinking advocaat. How do you say it. Advocaat? Kelly Molson: Is that what goes into snowballs? Julia Willison: Yes. I can't think of anything worse actually. Kelly Molson: I love snowballs. I had one over Christmas. Julia Willison: You can have mine. Kelly Molson: I'll have your mussels. And your advocaat. What a mixture. And probably not at the same time either. Julia Willison: No. Kelly Molson: Yeah. My friends did a Christmas party and we had a snowball and it was, "This is so retro." I can remember my grandparents drinking these when I was a child. I remember if you ever come to my house for a Christmas party that you are not to have snowballs. Julia Willison: I'll bring my own, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Okay. Right. What's your unpopular opinion, Julia? Julia Willison: What I do feel, I suppose, strongly about is that, and I arrived at this opinion after talking to my children, after I had done this. And it says, I don't think that people should post pictures of their children and friends on social media without their consent. Kelly Molson: Yes. Yeah. This is an interesting one, isn't? Oh, ok. And actually, at what point do you ask their consent? Because I post pictures of my daughter. She might not be comfortable with me, she might not be happy with me, her face being over my Twitter account or my Instagram account. So, yeah, I guess at some point we'll have that conversation. If she says no, that's it. No more pictures go up. Julia Willison: Oh, sad. And the thing is, you can't take down the ones that you've already put up, can you? Kelly Molson: No. Well, I guess you can go back and delete them from an Instagram account or delete them from your Twitter account. So you could go back and delete, but then they're out there, so that doesn't mean that they're not elsewhere in the ether. Julia Willison: Interesting. Kelly Molson: It is interesting, yeah. But I think you're right, I think. Absolutely, for other people. I've definitely had this conversation with a friend of mine about. We've been out together with our children and we've both taken pictures and she's actually asked my permission if she can post the pictures on her social media, but her platforms are quite. Her Instagram is a private Instagram account, for example, so she's happy to post pictures of her daughter on that, but she's not happy for other people to post those pictures if they're not private account. It is a huge debate, isn't it? Well, it'll be interesting to see what people think. How do you feel about this? Kelly Molson: People on Twitter, which is where we do a lot of our talking about this podcast, how do you feel about posting pictures of your children or your friends and your family on social media without having their consent? Let us know. Could start a little Twitter debate there. Julia Willison: I'd be interested to read it. Kelly Molson: Right, Julia, tell us about your role at Kew and what a typical day looks like for you. Julia Willison: So, I'm Head of Learning and Participation at Kew Gardens and what I'm responsible for is providing leadership in this particular area at Kew and wanting to position Kew as a centre for excellence in plant and fungal science education. And under my remit comes formal learning. That's all the schools programmes and teacher training. So we've got about 90,000 school pupils that come on site each year and we engage with about 200,000 online. We have a youth programme which is growing. There's a lot of demand there for young people to get involved environmentally as well. Families, in early years, we run programmes for families, but up to seven year olds, specific sessions. Julia Willison: We run community engagement, and that includes community horticulture. I'm responsible for the access programmes across the site as well. That's for people who may have sensory needs or different access needs. We have a national outreach learning programme and then slight anomaly is that the volunteers also sit with me. So we've got 800 volunteers across Kew Gardens and Wakehurst, and the central function of that sits with my remit. So looking at some of the strategies around what we're doing with volunteers and diversifying our volunteers, et cetera, that's my remit. Kelly Molson: They’re quite a bit. Julia Willison: Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I'm very lucky. And there's no one typical day, but you can imagine. Well, I get going with a cup of coffee every day and sometimes I'll spend one day a week working from home. Julia Willison: But the rest of the time, I like to be on site. Kew has got to be one of the most beautiful locations to work. Kew has got to be one of the most beautiful locations to work. I am so lucky. I know that. Julia Willison: And I've probably got the best office in Kew. If you come and visit Kelly, you'll see that the office I have looks out over the Palm House of Kew, which is the most iconic glass house. It was a glass house that was built between 1844 and 48 and it houses the tropical plants, so it is just the most amazing place to work. I attend a lot of meetings, as you can imagine, with my teams and staff across the organisation about operations sometimes, and strategy and new and exciting projects that we're looking at what we can do. I sit on cross organisational steering groups and committees that focus on public programmes. Julia Willison: We have a strong focus on equality, diversity and inclusion across the organisation. And safeguarding. Well, I still am the designated safeguarding lead for Kew, so I'm involved in that still. And I also lead the steering group for Kew on the outreach strategy and the schools learning strategy. And then, as well, I often work on preparing project proposals, because funding is a major issue for our organisation, and so funding and reporting and then talking to potential donors. So that's my sort of typical day, really. Kelly Molson: I feel quite privileged that I get to speak to so many incredible women that have these hugely varied roles and do so much in a day. Very capable people that I get to speak to. It's quite humbling. We're going to talk quite a lot today about a manifesto that Kew implemented. I'm just going to take you back. So I think it was in March 2021, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launched a ten year strategy to end extinction crisis and protect nature. And it's a really bold and incredibly inspiring manifesto. I'm just going to read out the ethos of it. Kelly Molson: So, the mission of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well being of people and the future of all life on earth. Our aspiration is to end the extinction crisis and to help create a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably. So this was back in 2021. How has the manifesto been implemented within the organisation? How did it get created in the first place, and how does that kind of get explained and put into practise? Julia Willison: Good question. We started in the pandemic, looking at the need to build a new strategy, because our older strategy was coming to the end, and over the years has been a building of staff in Kew, talking about wanting to see more urgency in the work that we do, or to describe it in a more urgent terms, what we're trying to do at Kew. And so the pandemic, while it was a terrible time, it was a time that Kew took to step back and look at the bigger picture and then come together around this urgency of climate change and biodiversity loss. And there was a lot of consultation, a lot of iterations of the strategy that went out to staff to feed into this. Julia Willison: It was a significant job, and there was a team, a small team of people that were working on it, taking the consultation back in centrally. And then what emerged through the consultation were five key priorities that we then agreed, or was agreed then for the next ten years. And that was agreed then by the executive board and signed off by the board of trustees. I'll mention the five priorities, and I can give a few bits of examples of some of the work we do around those. The first priority is deliver science based knowledge and solutions to protect biodiversity and use natural resources sustainably. Kew is primarily a scientific and horticultural organisation, and we struggle sometimes that many people see Kew Gardens as the gardens and don't see the science behind the gardens. Julia Willison: The gardens are essential and they contain precious plant collections. There is also science and research behind that. We've got over 400 scientists and about 150 horticulturalists. And so it's the bedrock accused contribution to ending biodiversity and maintaining sort of healthy ecosystems. So there are lots of examples that I could give. People probably don't know this. We have a resource centre in Madagascar, scientific resource centre, and scientists there are working with the rural Malagasy people on food security and particularly on conserving yams that are native to Madagascar. We work in over 120 countries, working with partners in Ethiopia to reduce biodiversity loss. The Ethiopian economy depends very much on coffee, and something like 25% of the population rely directly or indirectly on coffee for their livelihood. And so Kew is working with partners to maintain traditional forest based areas where coffee grows natively. Julia Willison: And that is proving vital for sustainability, for livelihoods and also for biodiversity. Close to home. We have scientists here at Kew working on the chemistry of nectar and pollen, because many bee species in the UK, there are around 240 different species of bees in the UK. So honey bees are just one species. There's lots of different bumblebees, lots of different native bee species, and they're under threat because of climate change from disease and parasites. So what scientists here are identifying plants that have compounds in the nectar and pollen that could help bees themselves manage their own diseases more sustainably. So that's an important area of research. Kew is also, as part of manifesto, we're digitising our collections. We’ve got a wrap quarter a way through digitising 8.25 million preserved plants and fungal specimens. So it's an enormous task. And 200,000 botanical illustrations. What else we're doing? Julia Willison: We have a sister site. I don't know if you know this, Kelly. We have a sister site at Wakehurst. It's our wild botanic garden in West Sussex and it's a site of excellence, really, in conservation and science. It's home to the Millennium Seed Bank, where we've banked something like 2.4 billion seeds from more than 40,000 plant species. And so there's the project being run at Wakehurst called Nature Unlocked, and that's using the landscape of Wakehurst, which is about two kilometres squared, as a living laboratory. And the idea is to collect high quality scientific evidence of the value of biodiversity in the soil as well as in the landscape. This evidence to inform land management policies and practises, so that can then key develop. Decision makers can then use this evidence to make informed decisions about what they do around the land. Kelly Molson: That's just one point. Julia Willison: I'll be quicker with the other. Kelly Molson: Please feel free to share. Don't hold back. But it's quite mind blowing, isn't it, how much that you do that people just aren't aware of? Julia Willison: Yeah, this is just a very small snapshot. I mean, I could have taken any one of hundreds of examples of what scientists here at Kew are doing. The second priority is inspire people to protect the natural world, and that really is threaded through all our public engagement work. And that's going from our festivals, our exhibitions, all the interpretive panels we do, the website, our social media, all the learning and participation programmes we do. So we use this as a lens to look through and to make sure that the work we're doing is all checking ourselves, that we are inspiring people to protect the natural world. I mentioned earlier we have a national outreach programme and this programme is inspiring communities to take action for biodiversity, specifically through transforming their local spaces with UK native plants. Julia Willison: So community groups we know will grow other plants, but we also encourage them to focus also on UK native plants as well. Another plan in the manifesto is to create a carbon garden, and that's to communicate stories around how carbon is captured in plants and soil, and how we use this to mitigate climate change, for example, through planting trees and also looking at different carbon related services, such as biofuels. And we have the plans for the garden. It's in planning permission. It's gone for planning permission at the moment and we're waiting to hear. And as soon as we hear, it'll probably take us about a year or so to build the garden, but we'll use it then very much for learning and communicating about the importance of carbon, so people know. So that's priority two. Julia Willison: Priority three is train the next generation of experts, new scientists and horticultural is critical to the future of life on earth. And so Kew has accelerated its work in this. And we offer three month PhD placements for anybody across the UK who's doing a PhD. Part of their PhD often includes a placement. So we offer those placements at Kew and we're very keen to attract PhD students. We also are working in partnership with a couple of universities, Queen Mary, University of London and the Royal Holloway, University of London, to run in partnership master's courses. MSc courses. And we've got three courses that we run. MSc in biodiversity and conservation, an MSc in plant and fungal taxonomy, diversity and conservation. And then the newest MSc is on global health, food security, sustainability and biodiversity. Kelly Molson: I can imagine that the world that we're in now, there's actually a lot more demand for those courses as well. I imagine that they're oversubscribed multiple times. Julia Willison: Yes. And they're open to international students, so we get quite a lot of international students coming. So that's really good. We had 60 students starting this year on the courses, but on a master's course, taking 20 students, it's quite an intense course. And I know that Kew has, like you say, there's a demand to study further in this area, and so there are still developing the possibility of new courses with universities. That's good. Julia Willison: But one of the things for my remit that I'm very keen about is that there's a pathway and that Kew considers its pathway from very early years, attracting kids to become very interested in nature, and then going through and providing school programmes that then encourage children to then take science as a possible career choice, or be informed about science, which is one of the reasons why we launched the Endeavour Online programme to make our resources that focus on educational resources that focus on Kew, science and horticulture, but make them available to schools across the UK. Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. And that's a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today. What point are we at? We've done point 3. Julia Willison: Okay. So extend our reach. Kelly Molson: Extend reach. That's right. Point 4. Julia Willison: That's about cubing a go to place for anyone and everyone to explore the importance of plants and fungi and how they add value to our lives. And we're working hard to expand our digital resources to make sure that we can engage with as many people as possible. But we also recognise that there are large numbers of the population that would love to visit Kew or either have never heard about us or don't see Kew as a place for them. So we've set down a target to increase tenfold the number of visitors from underrepresented communities to the gardens. And one of the ways that we've done this straight away is to introduce a one pound ticket for people who were on universal credit or pension credit, and that's to remove the economic barrier to visiting. Julia Willison: To date, around 50 - 60,000 people have taken advantage of the initiative in 18 months. However, we have a very ambitious director and he feels that we should be able to dial this up to about 100,000 per year. So that requires us then to go out specifically targeting people who are on universal credit and pension credit and say, "Look, we want you to come to Kew." But on top of this, we also run a range of programmes specifically for people who face barriers to Kew. And that's not only economic, that could be social barriers, psychological or physical barriers. That's priority four, which I think we're going to go into more about some of that. Kelly Molson: Three and four we're going to focus on. Julia Willison: Yeah. So the fifth one is influencing national and international opinion and policy. So in order to do that, we need to encourage debate and shape decision making. And Kew works with a lot of policymakers. Kew is a large institution. Julia Willison: We've got about 1400 staff that work at Kew and 800 volunteers. We have lots of different teams and departments. We do have a department that focuses specifically on working with government and policy makers. And the idea is to support them, to provide the evidence that Kew brings to the table so that people can make well informed decisions. One example is about Tropical Important Plant Areas, those TIPA for short. Kew is working with six countries across the globe and the idea is to work with partners in the countries to help them identify important plant areas so that these areas will then be conserved. That involves an enormous amount of negotiation, discussion, and to date there's three TIPAs that have already been established, so that's really important for conservation of those areas. Julia Willison: And, of course, we work closely with Defra, that's our sponsoring department in the UK government, and they've recently asked you to take the leading role as a strategic science lead for a new institution, I suppose, that has been set up. It’s not a physical institution. It’s a consortium. It’s been called the Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate. So what Kew will do is write the research strategy that will define the key themes for funding calls that will be given money, and then the projects that will then provide the evidence to feed into policies that will then help make decisions about the impact of biodiversity on climate and people's livelihoods. So that's a really significant thing that Kew's done. Kelly Molson: This is such an eye opener for myself, having been a visitor to Kew, appreciated the beautiful gardens and the plants that you have there, but actually really having no idea about all of the things that happen in the background. So this is just like you say, the attraction is just one very small part of this huge organisation. There's so much that you do. I hope this is eye opening for people that are listening to this as well, because there's a lot going on here. The points from the manifesto, the key priorities for manifesto are, I mean, each one of them you could take and break down into a different podcast episode. What we're going to talk about is points three and four. We're going to focus on those today. Kelly Molson: So point 3 was to train the next generation of experts, and point 4 was to extend our reach. We're going to focus on them because there's a huge desire at Kew to improve inclusivity, and so we're going to kind of break down what is happening within those points to actually help support do that. So you said that one of the key changes that Kew has committed to achieving by 2030, I think this is to increase tenfold the number of visitors from the presently underrepresented communities to the gardens. And obviously the gardens facilitate the start of that learning journey. Right. That it's exposing people to, I guess, a world that they might not be familiar with, plants that they definitely won't be familiar with, or even just certain job roles that they might not have thought was for them. Kelly Molson: How do you begin to change the kind of views and attitudes from the general public who don't think that Kew is for them, a place for them in the first place? Julia Willison: Well, our aim is to break down that perception. So I think one of the things that has happened to be able to start on this journey is an organisational commitment to include everyone and bringing everybody on board, that we are really intent, we really want to do this. So that's involved training our visitor facing staff and our volunteers so that they provide a warm welcome to anyone, regardless of their background. We've trained our staff in accessibility and safeguarding and then diversity and inclusion. And this year we will roll out more diversity and inclusion training to staff across all areas of the organisation. So when people come here, it's making sure that they feel safe and they feel represented in the gardens. But just providing a welcome is not going to be sufficient. Julia Willison: We do need to reach out and connect with different communities to tell them that Kew exists. We have people visiting Kew from our local boroughs that have never heard of us, which is extraordinary, really. So we really try and encourage them to visit. So we have teams of staff who, in different teams, will visit the different groups and they'll run workshops with the groups at their venues so that groups can find out about Kew before they visit. They realise that the people that come to visit them are really quite friendly and really excited about them coming to Kew. And also, people have said that Kew is a very large place when you come here. I mean, people come and visit Kew, they come for a day, but you never see everything at Kew for a day. Julia Willison: So people feel that it can be a bit intimidating, especially if they've not visited before. So when we bring people on site for the first time, when we've made connections with community groups or other teams, what we do is we'll offer a programme or a tour, so that when they come to visit us, that they make them feel comfortable about returning on their own. Kelly Molson: Sure. So it gives them that level of familiarity by doing the tour that they can then come back and explore. They can do that again, or they could go and explore the different areas that were particularly appealing to them. Julia Willison: Yeah. So we have all sorts of different programmes and we have a community access scheme as well as the one pound ticket. We have community access scheme. So any groups that provide services to people who face barriers from visiting Kew, which I said earlier, sensory, psychological, social barriers, they can join our community access scheme and they can get 60 tickets for 36 pounds. So that works out about 60 pence a ticket and they can always top up as they go along. And then as part of the scheme, they all receive a newsletter and that informs them about the community activities that we run. So that's another way of connecting groups to feel that Kew is a place for them to come and visit. Kelly Molson: That's lovely. I was going to ask about the community access scheme and what initiatives have been formed to kind of support the organisations to do that, because I guess it's one thing the welcome is great, right. But that means that people have to come and get the welcome. So there's so much outreach that has to be done to bring the people to you in the first place. So the community access scheme, what kind of organisations would that be relevant for? Julia Willison: All sorts. We have about 350 members on our access scheme. When I first started at Kew, most of those groups, there were fewer number of groups, but most of those groups were, I would say, for third age people, different groups, but mainly servicing older people. Now we've got all sorts of groups, so we've got LGBT+ groups, we have deaf groups, asian women's groups. We have a whole different range of groups that see Kew as a place that they could join and come and bring with their members. And one of the things that we do run is continuing professional development training for group leaders, specifically for those leaders, so that they then feel confident to come to Kew with their groups on their own and will provide resources for them to use in the landscapes and enjoy with Kew. Kelly Molson: And that adds to that, I guess, like what you were saying earlier about, you want this to be the start of the journey. You need it to be the start of the journey for those groups as well, don't. You don't want to encourage them to come along once and that's like a box that they've ticked. They've done Kew. You want them to come back and keep reengaging with the environment there. So that's brilliant to then be able to train those leaders to take that bit on themselves. Julia Willison: I was just to say, a few years ago, we started a community open week, which is a free week for community groups, any community groups across London. In fact, some groups come from further afield, but we put on a range of workshops and tours during that week for groups to come and just experience Kew and the idea is, if we can, is to try and encourage them to sign up to the access scheme and continue, as you say, the journey and come back and find out more. Kelly Molson: I guess that's the community access scheme. And obviously you've got kind of partnerships going ongoing with kind of local community. What about national community groups? So how do you kind of expand your remit into the wider audience of people that aren't located near Kew? Julia Willison: Yeah. That's a good question because that costs money, doesn't it, for them to come to Kew. So we have had people come from Birmingham and people can join. We've initially contained it within the M25, so a lot of people coming within the M25, but we've just removed that barrier now, I mean, it didn't need to be there. And we have seen some people, some groups coming from outside. We don't have bursaries to be able to provide, sadly, to groups to come to Kew. They are, of course, very welcome. I think one of the things is that we've just brought somebody on board this year who is doing some more community outreach to going out and trying to connect with new groups to visit Kew and part of that will involve producing some marketing materials that can then travel further than just our confines. Julia Willison: So we'll see. We may then receive other groups in from much further afield, which would be great. And also Wakehurst, our sister site, has set up a community access scheme as well, so they will hopefully then encourage those organisations and groups in further south of London. Kelly Molson: Amazing. How is Kew helping to remove barriers and improve access to nature for children and families, both kind of on site and off site? Julia Willison: We've been running an early years programme since about 2018. Before that, we had a family programme and we've made connections with children's centres in our local boroughs. Every borough, every county in the UK will have a children's centre or multiple children's centres. And the aim of the children's centres is to try and help those families that may slip through the net to be able to ensure that they don't. And so what we have done is we have a recent project which is to work with children's centres in London and we're working in five boroughs with different about ten children's centres. And the team is going to the children's centres running nature based play sessions in the children's centres. And then over the summer, we invite the families to come to Kew. We give them funding to do that. Julia Willison: We refund their travel, we run activities on site and then later in the year, we've been running training sessions specifically for the children's centre leaders so that they can then take this work forward when Kew has to step back from going to the children's centres. And we've got this project running for about three or four years now, which is great. But on top of this, we also run on site sessions for early years and half of them are paid for sessions for those families that can afford to pay for earlier sessions. And then the money that we use from that, we then subsidise those families from children's centres, community groups that can't afford to pay. So we try and get a balance, because we don't ourselves have an endless pot of money and we're constantly looking for funding to try and support this work. Kelly Molson: It's really hard, isn't it, to get that balance right. There is a commercial aspect here, right. You have to make money to be able to do all of these incredible projects and initiatives that you have, but you also need the funding to be able to support the incredible initiatives that you're running, to be able to allow everybody access to it. So it's like a vicious circle. What about schools outreach? How are you kind of broadening your reach to engage all schools? And how does that become more inclusive against the manifesto? Julia Willison: So we've been very intent on saying that we want to extend our reach to embrace all schools, sort of all schools in different areas, but also, at the moment, we have about 60, 70. Well, it's now changed to 60% of pupils that come on site are from primary schools. We want to increase the number of secondary school pupils that we engage with. Children make career decisions around their GCSEs and their A levels, and many children from certain schools from more deprived areas will go for general science rather than triple science. And all the research shows that if children choose triple science, they're more likely to do science at a levels. So looking to try and influence those children in their career choices is important for us. And that means that we want to increase the number of secondary schools that we engage with. Julia Willison: And we also have an intent on increasing the number of schools that have higher pupil premium, because in London, pupil premium is, you probably know, is that those children who are generally on those children, on free school meals, the school will receive a bursary from the government to try and reduce the attainment gap between those children on free school meals and those children on not. Julia Willison: So we have had bursaries, we don't have any at the moment, but we have had bursaries then to attract specifically those schools on much higher pupil premium, and we've shifted the dial on this and we have higher numbers of schools with higher pupil premium students and those schools, then we try to influence and think about science as a possible aspect that they can consider further in their careers. So, in planning permission at the moment, we're looking at building a new learning centre at Kew, which would be really exciting. And we're going through ecology reports at the moment before we can get the planning permission through. Julia Willison: But part of the learning centre will include four science laboratories, and so pupils can come on site to Kew will be able to come on site to queue and do science experiments in the heart of a scientific organisation. And all pupils doing GCSE and A levels have to do practical science experiments. We know from all the research that teachers don't necessarily feel confident in teaching about plants. So this is something that Kew really can uniquely offer schools to come to Kew and bring their pupils and get hands on with plant and fungal science experiments. Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness. That would be incredible. Julia Willison: Yes. And also it will provide us with the facilities to be able to do CPD online as well. So that's something that we're really keen to do. Kelly Molson: That's a really interesting side of this, is because I know that one of your goals is to engage with all schools. Now, all schools aren't local to Kew. My school definitely wasn't local to Kew. So how do you do that? How do you make that jump from engaging with local schools that can actually access the site? What can you do digitally that can engage with more schools and more people, regardless of location? Julia Willison: And one of the reasons that we are committed to engaging with all schools is because Kew is a national institution and we are funded partly. About 28% of our funding comes from the government, so it's paid for by taxes by people all over the country. So our commitment is to make our resources as available as widely as possible. And so we have an online programme called Endeavour, and that's a bank of resources specifically for teachers on all sorts of different. It's strongly linked to the national curriculum, but all sorts of different activities that teachers can use then to teach about plant science and fungi. But it straddles the natural curriculum not only in science, but for the primary ages. Julia Willison: It will also look at history, it will look at geography, et cetera, so that we can try and make our resources as relevant as possible to teachers. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that is a phenomenal resource that maybe more teachers need to hear about that. I think I would have been really excited. I did do Science at school. I can remember. I'd have been really excited about doing something that was connected to Kew Gardens. There's quite a big buzz about that, you know what I mean? I don't know why there's a connection to that organisation that I think would have been really exciting to know that you were working on something that had been created by Kew. Julia Willison: That's nice to hear that. We have a youth programme, which I'm very proud of. I think that the youth team is phenomenal, as are all the teams, but we run a youth explainer programme and that's on site, and young people come for a training programme every Saturday for six months and they go behind the scenes. They meet the horticulturist scientists and they learn communication skills. And what they do is we bring a game designer on site and they learn how to design their own game to play with the public about endangered plants or habitats. And the young people have to work together in groups and they produce this game. And then six months after, once they've finished their training, they then become explainers in the glass houses. Julia Willison: And the public, actually, they love interacting with young people and they bring a real buzz about it. So that's been a very successful programme. And on the back of this, we've developed a young environmental leader award. And the idea is that young people will develop their project and they will evidence different dimensions of leadership through their project. So they'll keep a portfolio and they have to evidence how they've developed their leadership skills during this journey. And then we award them with a young environmental leader award, and that's something that we do in house. But then the possibility is then to scale that, to make that available to young people outside Kew as well. Kelly Molson: That would be incredible, wouldn't it? Yeah, that would be a really special thing to be involved in. Okay, so we said earlier we're recording this. It's January 2024. Wow. How is Kew delivering against the manifesto after its first full two years? Julia Willison: Well, Kew is nothing if not ambitious. There is a real strong commitment to ending the extinction crisis. I mean, we can't do this alone and we have to do it in partnership. But I would say that we're firmly on the way to achieving many of the deliverables in the manifesto. And there's a real. People have really bought into. The staff have really bought into the manifesto, and you see that through. We run a staff survey every year and ask for feedback about whether what people think about the manifesto, do they feel their work is contributing to delivering it? And we get very high scores on that consistently we have since the manifesto was published. One of the deliverables in there is to revision the Palm House that I sit opposite in my office. Julia Willison: And we want that to become net zero and engage new generations with science and conservation work and make our data available to everyone. So we are moving towards that. And we've got some seed funding to be able to do this. I'd say that the bricks are in place and the foundations have been laid, and much of the work requires external funding and partnerships. But we have a vision, and I think people and organisations recognise what Kew's work is as vital. And I don't think that's overstating it, but that helps to open doors for support. So I think we're moving forwards, and I think there's a very positive feel about the work that we're doing. We're very fortunate. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it sounds very positive. And like we said earlier, there's so much to cover in this, Julia, and thank you for coming on and just talking about a very small element of all of the incredible things that are actually happening at Kew. So we always end our podcast by asking our guests to recommend a book that you love, something that you love personally or something that's helped shaped your career in some way. What have you chosen for us today? Julia Willison: Well, I chose a book that is a phenomenal book and by a woman who is phenomenal, and it is related to my work. But I chose the book because I think it is so inspirational. It's a book called Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard. And we awarded her the 16th Kew International Medal for her work and her devotion to championing biodiversity in forests. She's worked in British Columbia all her life in Canada, and she was the pioneer of the theory that plants communicate with each other through a huge subterranean fungal network. And the book reveals how trees connect and cooperate with each other, and that each forest contains hub trees. So mother trees. And that these trees in the forest play a critical role in the flow of information and resources. Julia Willison: So I feel that the book will change the way people look at forests. They're not simply a source for timber or pulp, but they are really part of a complex, interdependent circle of life. And I think it's a magnificent book. Well, if one reader reads it and enjoys it, I think that will be brilliant. Kelly Molson: Do you know what? I have to read this book. So this is the second podcast, interestingly, where. Oh, not the book. The book has never been recommended before. No, this is a completely new one. So David Green, Head of Innovation at Blenheim, was on the podcast a couple of episodes ago, and he talked about how trees communicate with each other, and that was a new thing for me. I had no idea that trees talk to each other, and the way that he described it was really interesting. And now this has come up in this as well. And I feel like someone is sending me a message that I need to read this book. So that's going to go top of my list, right. Kelly Molson: Erveryboday, listeners, you know what to do if you want to win a copy of Julia's book, then head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Julia's book and you could potentially be learning about how trees communicate with each other and are a vital part of an ecosystem. Thank you. That's fascinating. Everything that you've talked about today is so exciting, and I know that there's so much work still to be done. Thank you for coming on and sharing about all of the things that you do there and all of the things that you're hoping to achieve. I have no doubt that you will do them. It's been an absolute pleasure. Julia Willison: Yeah, it's a real privilege. Thank you very much, Kelly. Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Interactivity for visitor attraction websites, with Kelly and Paul from Rubber Cheese | 10 Jan 2024 | 00:28:26 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/ Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show. As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we'll talk about how you can make your site more interactive and the tasks and costs associated with that. You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hello. Back for a fourth time. Paul Marden: Hello. Kelly Molson: What attraction have you visited most recently, and what did you love about it? Paul Marden: Do I go first? I always go first. Kelly Molson: We've got a format now. Don't break the format. I'm comfortable. Paul Marden: I went to the Titanic Museum just recently. We were exhibiting, actually, at the Association of Science and Discovery Centres at their annual conference in Belfast, which was actually at W5 in the Titanic quarter of Belfast. And I could talk loads about W5, which I will do in another session. But the place that I went to that I was most kind of emotionally moved by which I'm a bit of a geek and I'm fairly concrete in terms of my emotional stuff, for me to feel moved. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's normally me that's got the blubbing. Paul Marden: Yeah. So I was blown away by the experience at the Titanic Museum. I've never been to a museum with so few artefacts, which, of course, is because everything was lost at sea. And so the whole museum is about telling the story through reproductions and immersive experiences, which was all amazing. But then you stumble upon one of the original artefacts as you're wandering around, and there's only a handful of them, but it hit me like a brick wall when I actually came across them. So there's a life jacket. There's only twelve of those left in existence, and they've got one of them at the museum. And you walk into this room, where all of the names of the victims of this tragedy are on this massive wall. And it's a darkened room, but lit in the centre of the room was this one life jacket. Paul Marden: Amazing. And then you walk around and there's a section talking about the root cause of the accident. And there are the keys to the binocular store from the crow's nest, which happened to be in the second officer's pocket. And he had to get off the ship in Southampton and he didn't get back on, and so there were no keys. And so the people that were in the crow's nest couldn't open the box with the binoculars that would have led them to see the iceberg. Kelly Molson: Wow. What a story. That wasn't in the film. Paul Marden: No, it wasn't in the film. So it's really impactful. And then the storytelling was amazing, but completely lost on me. So I was chatting to. I made a new friend, Lucinda Lewis, the CEO of Catalyst Science and Discovery Centre, and we would, like, both say how amazing it was, how impactful it was. And she was like, "Yeah, and the dominoes." And I'm like, "Dominoes? What dominoes?" Paul Marden: And she was like, "Did you not see when you were looking at all of the root causes, they wrote them on these big pillars that were toppling, showing you the domino effect." I was like, "Okay, yeah, that was completely lost on me." Kelly Molson: So lesson for you is you need to pay more attention to the interpretation next time. Paul Marden: Completely clueless to the subtext of what was going on around me. But the story was amazing. Kelly Molson: Story is really cool. Yeah. I have never heard that before. That's really impressive. I think that picture that you painted of all the names with the one kind of life jacket in the middle of it is so powerful. I can see it in my head, but I've never seen it. Paul Marden: That was only one of a dozen kind of really powerful memories that I've got of being just blown away by their storytelling and how they communicated what happened. It was just an amazing place. Kelly Molson: Nice. I've got it. I missed that I couldn't make it to the conference this year because I was elsewhere. Paul Marden: Absolutely. What have you been doing recently? Where have you been? Kelly Molson: So this is a very recent one, literally last week, last Thursday, I was very kindly invited to go and visit the Ashmolean Museum, which is a free to enter museum. But what I really liked is they have a very large donations area as you first walk in and you've got card donations. Beep. So easy. I never have cash, so that was a big thumbs up for me. The museum is brilliant. I mean, it has some brilliant exhibitions in it that are there. They're always there. But I was really keen to go and see their colour revolution exhibition, which is all around Victorian art, fashion and design. Some of you might not know this about me, but I was a graphic designer in the past, actually. Probably. Actually, loads of you people know about that. Loads. Kelly Molson: I was a graphic designer once upon a time and I was a packaging designer and just design and colour. And also I've got a real passion for kind of interior design as well. So all of these things just, I have a big love of. So this exhibition for me was like, "This is the one. This is a big tick." What I found really fascinating is that Victorian Britain has this kind of connotation of being really dull and dreary, and the exhibition was kind of exploring that. It's absolutely incorrect, but they start with Queen Victoria's morning dress, which is a really powerful image. So after Prince Albert's sudden death, she plunged into a very deep grief. And she actually wore. I didn't know this. She wore black for the remaining 40 years of her life. I had no idea that she. Kelly Molson: I mean, I knew she mourned for a really long time. I had no idea she never wore another colour again. So she's obviously such an iconic image, an iconic person of that era, that image probably sticks with you, which is why it adds to that illusion of Victorian’s love in the dark completely. But they didn't they really love colour. And they love to experiment with it. And they have a big thing about insects and animals and bringing that into the colours that they wore. And the jewellery, like, some of the jewellery, like this beetle necklace, was just incredible. And there is a lot of. I know that they have a lot of that in their kind of fabrics and their kind of artwork from that time as well. But what I really loved is really small artefact in the museum that I totally loved. So it was a very early colour chart, like a paint sample colour chart. So this is quite current for me at the minute. Kelly Molson: My office is full of furnishings because we're renovating a cottage in Norfolk and it's not ready, but I've had to order all the things for it or find them off Facebook Marketplace and eBay and charity shops and vintage places and my office. So colour chart and all of that kind of stuff is, like, right up here at the moment. But anyway, there was an 1814 Scottish artist called Patrick Syme, and he tried to solve the problem of how to describe colour by giving each one of them a name. But he draw nature to do this. So you have, like, mole's breath now from Barrow and ball and lighting green and those kind of stuff. Well, this is where this started in the Victorian age, so it's absolutely beautiful. I posted it on my LinkedIn. Kelly Molson: But this colour chart is just gorgeous and it gives a number for each colour. So number 54. Its name was Duck green. The animal that it was named after is the neck of Mallard. I actually thought the colour was neck of Mallard, which I was like, that's absolutely brilliant. The vegetable that it was similar to is the upper disc of yew leaves, and the mineral is. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this Ceylanite and I Googled it isn't green. I had no idea what ceylanite is, but it's not green. Paul Marden: Yeah, I'd struggle to identify a yew tree, let alone the upper disc green of a yew tree's leaf. Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. Honestly, I loved it. I loved every minute of it. It was really interesting. And that for me was like, I know it's a really small artefact, but it was the standout one for me because it just connected with some of it is so current for me at the moment. It was £15 pounds to go and see this exhibition and that is money well spent. It's open now until the 18th of Feb 2024. So totally get yourselves along to visit that. And also their restaurant and food is top notch. Paul Marden: Was it good? Was it really okay? Kelly Molson: We'll talk about that another time. Paul Marden: We've done a few of the Oxford Uni museums, but we've not done the Ashmolean yet, so that needs to be on my list of places to go. Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely worth a little visit. Okay. Right. We're going to talk about interactivity today. Making your website more interactive can improve engagement which is more likely to improve your conversion rate. But very few attractions have interactive elements, which is quite surprising, actually. So we're going to talk about how you can make your site a bit more interactive and immersive. So one, the stat from the survey is that, 53% of visitor attractions survey don't have any interactive elements on their websites. Kelly Molson: So that's like. I'm quite surprised about that because during the pandemic, went all in on interactivity. We had to. It was the only way that you could kind of get people to your site and get people engaged in what you were doing. And we're talking about things like virtual tours, interactive maps, or even just integrating video and audio on your site is a way of making it interactive as well. So, yeah, I was quite surprised that it was so low, actually. Paul Marden: Yeah, it surprised me as well, because a lot of the people that we talk to want that kind of interactive content added into their sites. Kelly Molson: Do you think. And I'm not trying to make us idiots here again, because we did enough of that on the last episode, but do you think that people understand that video and audio is an interactive element? Paul Marden: That's a good point. Kelly Molson: Or is our expectation of it to be more. Because audio and video, do we see that as a standard thing now? We don't see that as a special element. Paul Marden: That could be absolutely true. And we talked a lot about things that we could do to improve the survey for next time. There's a real risk, isn't there? Because you could ask a lot more very detailed questions. Do you have a virtual tour? Do you have an interactive map? Do you have video and audio on your site? And now, all of a sudden, we've gone from one question to three questions, and we're asking too much of everybody when they fill stuff in, so you end up having to have broader questions, but those broader questions themselves become a little ambiguous. So maybe there's an element of. It could be that there's a bunch of people in that 53% of people that don't have interactivity, that may have stuff that is video or audio that we would consider to be interactive, but they don't. Kelly Molson: Do you think as well, that because life has gone back to relative normality for the majority of us, that we just are not engaging with those things as much, or they just not seem to be as relevant anymore? Paul Marden: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? We talk about audience personas and trying to personalise the site to give people exactly the content that's relevant to them. Who is the target audience for the virtual tour? Is the target audience for a virtual tour the people that are going to come visit? Is it a way of enticing people to come and physically come on site? Is it a way of extending the reach of the attraction, or let's say it's a cultural or museum kind of setting? Is it a way for them to extend the reach of their collection to people that can't come. Understanding what the interactivity is there for and how it enables the audience to achieve the goal that they're trying to achieve. And for the clients, the attraction themselves, to be able to achieve what their goal is for that audience group is interesting. Paul Marden: Interactivity for its own sake doesn't help anyone if you're not really thought about why you're putting it there. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I was just trying to think. I've got a really good case study of this and I've forgotten the name of the place. I want to talk about it, but I've forgotten the name of it, so I'll give you an explanation of it instead. Years ago, so. Oh, God, I think this is. In 2015, Lee and I went to Australia on holiday. Lee actually asked me to marry him in Australia at Ayers Rock. It was very romantic. Paul Marden: Oh, wow. Kelly Molson: But one of the best, I should say that was the best trip, obviously, that was the best trip, but one of the other best trips that went on while were there. When were in Melbourne, I've gone to the island and I've forgotten the name of the island. It's come off totally out of my head. But went to see the little penguins, so the penguin parade that comes in. These penguins come in to shore every night and you can go and watch them come in. It's like an army of miniature penguins. And it genuinely is the most magical thing I've ever seen in my whole life. And you can't take photos because it hurts their eyes. So you're immersing yourself into this experience and it's all up here in my head. Kelly Molson: Well, during the pandemic, they started live broadcasting it on Facebook and I was like, "Shut up. This is amazing." Because it's an expensive trip back to Australia, but I'd love to do that again. I would absolutely 100% go back and do that again. But this was like a magical opportunity to see it in my home office and watch it as well. So those kind of opportunities, I think, are pretty magical. Paul Marden: You reminded me of in the middle of lockdown, I was obsessed by watching the webcam at Monterey Bay Aquarium. Kelly Molson: I just got something else that got obsessed about a few weeks ago, which is I watched the webcam Sandringham have got. No, is it Sandringham or Balmoral? One of them have got a webcam with the Red Squirrels. I think it's Balmoral. And I got absolutely, totally obsessed with it. Had it on in the corner of the screen just while I was working, just going, "Is it there yet? Is it back yet? Red squirrel. Red squirrel." Paul Marden: I think it might be. The two of us were looking at penguins and sea otters during the height of the pandemic when were desperate to travel. Now, watching Red squirrels on a webcam might be, might not have the same justification for the rest of your day's life. Kelly Molson: It's really cool. It's really cool. You don't get to see red squirrels very often. Paul Marden: No, you don't. Kelly Molson: Anyway, apologies went off on a total tangent, but you can see, look, we've got really animated about this, so you can totally see the value of having those kind of experiences on your website and being to engage with different audiences. Paul Marden: Should we do a stat? Should we talk about some numbers? Kelly Molson: Yeah, what's the benefits? Paul Marden: Yeah. So HubSpot again. We talk about HubSpot data all the time. But HubSpot found that interactive content like quizzes, assessments and polls can increase time spent on a website by 80%. That one's lifted straight out of the survey that we put into there. But there's some more. The Content Marketing Institute shows that 81% of marketers agreed that interactive content grabbed more attention than static content. But that chimes with the data that we gathered from people, doesn't it? Because a lot of people do think that this is important stuff. Maybe not quite to the same level that the Content Marketing Institute found, but obviously people in the results set from our survey thought that this was important. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think it depends on what that interactive content is. So, interestingly, when we did the live webinar for the report, we had someone on the webinar mention that they were a bit worried about distraction. So we talk a lot about focusing people's attention on the job in hand, which is ultimately showcase what your attraction does, get them to buy a ticket. And this person said, are we distracting them from those journeys by doing that? But I don't know if it's part of the purchase journey. I think it might be post purchase. It feels for me like post purchase, getting them to come back and engage in your site, repeat visit stuff, just those things around quizzes and assessment and polls and stuff like that. And also this example that I just gave about the little penguins. Kelly Molson: I absolutely will go back to that place one day and being able to engage with it keeps it front and centre of my mind to go. When we go back to Australia, I'm going to take my kid to see that because she will love it. I'll make sure she loves it. And I don't know if it's part of the first point of engagement. I think it's post purchase engagement. Paul Marden: That's interesting. Yeah. What the problems say? Kelly Molson: Anyway, problems? Sustainability. Paul Marden: Yeah. Shall I share a bugbear of mine that I share regularly in meetings all the time. But a lot of interactive content, especially the stuff that uses video, can be inherently unsustainable. Video uses bandwidth. And a lot of people don't think of the impact that websites can have on CO2 emissions. Yeah, it's a link that I don't think many people make. I certainly didn't until there's been a lot of talk around in our industry about this in the last couple of years and it's really opened my eyes up. It's easy to understand if you work for an airline, you can see the CO2 emissions coming out the back of the plane, but if you build websites, you don't see it necessarily, but video consumes bandwidth and bandwidth takes all of these things, the compute power to produce the video and publish it out onto the Internet. Paul Marden: And then to shift all of that data across the Internet ultimately uses energy, and that energy comes at the cost of producing CO2. So one of the obvious ways, if we're just talking about video itself, because video is one kind of more interactive element, avoiding autoplaying videos, which is my absolute bugbear when you land on a home page of a website. And the video autoplays that for me, now that my eyes have been opened to the impact of it, I only used to see the conversion rate benefit, but now the cost associated with that is clear in my mind. And I think if we can avoid doing that and find other ways to increase conversion, I think that's really important. But also doing things to make sure that we understand what the sustainability impact of the web pages that we produce. Paul Marden: So as we make our web pages more complex, they will produce more CO2 as a result of doing that. And I think as people become more aware of this, the world is going to change. At the moment, the people that buy from us, this is not something that is front and centre of their minds in the buying process, I think, at the moment. And there's a lot of power in the hands of the marketers and the procurement people to make it so that technical people like us that build things are required to take that sustainability perspective into account when we're building things and making sure that we build things sustainably. Kelly Molson: And then there's accessibility. So interactive elements can be really great for people that can't visit your site, for one example. However, the digital aspect of that means that you could intentionally put something on your site which actually is less accessible for people who have visual impairments or hearing impairments, for example. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. If you've got video with audio, have you got subtitles? If you've got video, do you have audio descriptions that describe what the video is showing? If you've got an interactive map, how would you provide a more accessible way of being able to see the interactive map? If you've got a 3D, interactive, immersive virtual tour, how will you interact with that? If you can't see it, to interact with it, those are all things that people need to be thinking about. And many of the institutions that we work with will have a statutory obligation to think about it as well. It's not just a nice to have, it's a statutory obligation to do it as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so who's doing it well? I think we should just caveat this one by saying that our report and a survey and subsequent report are all anonymous. Kelly Molson: If we ever share anyone's information, that is, in relation to the report data. We have asked for their express permission. Prior to this. Prior to sharing. In this instant, we've just gone out and found some stuff on people's websites and gone, “We really like this. This is really cool.” So we're not talking about these institutions in relation to survey data? Paul Marden: No, absolutely. Should we talk about. The first one in our list was Mary Rose Trust. And the Mary Rose Museum has got an amazing array of interactive artefacts that they've listed off the bottom of the seabed and made it available on the website so you can come. Kelly Molson: With your mouse, you can turn it around. Not with your hand. Paul Marden: Not yet. The technology isn't quite there yet, but, yeah, you can interact with those artefacts and I think that's pretty amazing for an organisation like them, to be able to share those, because they've got an amazing collection of Tudor artefacts and to be able to share those with the outside world is really impressive. Yeah. Kelly Molson: So that's like a simple technology where you can kind of 3D model the artefact and you can spin it around and you can click on elements of it that will tell you a little bit about this part of it or where it was found or the condition of it, et cetera. So that is super cool. What was the other one on this list that you were like, “This is great.” Paul Marden: I really loved the Museum of London's Victorian Walk. It's a 3D tour affair and obviously they've scanned, taken photos and composed this together into this really cool 3D tour system that you can just move around and experience what life is like on a Victorian walk. I was blown away by, you were talking about the colour of Victorian England. Yeah, it was a really colourful experience. So in my mind, it was a bit like going into diagonally in Hogwarts in the Harry Potter world. It felt that kind of side street of London kind of thing. But you really got into it. It was very cool. Kelly Molson: Oh, that's one for me. So I should go and do that and do a little comparison of how colourful it was based on my Ashmolean experience. Paul Marden: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: Okay, next steps that someone can take if they're thinking about stuff like this. So assess what you can do really quickly and easily. So what do we already have? Paul Marden: Yeah, a lot of people are already going to have stuff, aren't they? So what video have they got? What audio have they got? Were they like Mary Rose and had a bunch of 3D scans of their artefacts that then you can stick into a tool and put onto your website. Obviously, if you've got a large collection and you want to 3D scan everything and put it onto your website, that's not a trivial undertaking, is it? But if you've already got the 3D scans of stuff and you need to then make it available on the website, then the step might be relatively much simpler than scanning your whole collection. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So have a look through your video, your audio, your 3D elements. What do you already have, what can you make more of? And then what can you easily add to your current site? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of websites can add video and audio just straight out of the box. I'm going to get a bit geeky and talk about iframes, but essentially an iframe is a little cut out area of your website that you can post a little bit of content into that a lot of different interactive tools on the web will enable you to do so. The 3D models. There's a tool that you can create 3D models of the world in that we've used on a number of different projects. And then you just embed it as an iframe, which is essentially take a URL of your 3D scan and you pop it into your website and it comes out and works on the page as is. It's pretty awesome. And takes so little effort for your developers to be able to add it to the site. Kelly Molson: Cool. And then think about what you could commission or think about some of the things that you could potentially look at as a larger piece of project work. Paul Marden: Yeah, I mean, there's a brainstorming exercise, there, isn't there, of trying to get lots of people together and come up with creative ideas and think about what you can do. Some of the other stuff that we've talked about. Easy. Doesn't take a lot of effort. You've got the assets already or it's relatively easy to add them to your site. But what else could you do? That takes a lot of effort and planning. Kelly Molson: Ask your visitors. Ask people what more they'd like to see. Paul Marden: Yeah. Figuring out what your audience wants and how do you get them to that is step number one, isn't it? Kelly Molson: Okay, and then what kind of budget are we looking at for some of these things? Paul Marden: How long is a piece of string kind of question? This one isn't. It's really hard adding interactive maps onto your site that are fully accessible and easy to use. I guess you're looking at a few thousand pounds to be able to do that, potentially less depends on what you want to put into your interactive map, video and audio. If your website already supports it and you got a whole library of this stuff that you want to share with the outside world, it could cost you nothing but the time it takes you to add it to the site. And then you get into some of the more complex elements like the you can imagine that creating a 3D kind of immersive virtual walkthrough, that's not a trivial job. Paul Marden: If you want to go and photograph an entire exhibit, walk around the whole floor plan of your museum and create an amazing virtual tour. That's going to take some effort, both in terms of getting the right people to turn up with the right kit to be able to do that photography, and then in terms of the technology that's needed to turn that into a virtual tour, and then the effort to embed that into the website itself could be amazing. Probably not a cheap exercise. Kelly Molson: No, substantial investment, and just need to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons and for the right audience as well. Also podcast if you are thinking about doing a podcast for your museum or your attraction, which I think is a genius idea, give us a shout and we'd be happy to share some of our kind of top tips. Kelly Molson: I think we did an episode on it back in the day with Paul Griffith from Painshill Park, who actually, he interviewed me on this podcast and we talked about some of the reasons that we did it, how we set it up, and some of the kind of costumes around that as well. So it's worth having a little bit through, dig through the archive, but if you got any questions on that then yeah, give us a shout. Good chat again today. I enjoyed this. Paul Marden: Been good, hasn't it? Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'll see you next time. Paul Marden: Thank you. Cheers, mate. Bye. Kelly Molson: Bye bye. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| How Blenheim Palace uses data and AI to predict, and not just report on past performance | 20 Dec 2023 | 00:45:54 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.blenheimpalace.com/ Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace David Green is responsible for driving innovation at Blenheim to deliver value from the implementation of novel business methods and new concepts. His role involves building a culture of continual improvement and innovation, bringing together and contextualising novel datasets through a data and IoT network infrastructure, and identifying opportunities to enhance customer experiences. David leads the research and development at Blenheim, cultivating university partnerships, that helps fuse specialised knowledge with Blenheim's diverse landscape and practical challenges. Moreover, he initiated the Innovation and Continual Improvement network, fostering collaboration among sector leads to share expertise and address common challenges.
Associate Director – Key Account Manager With 10 years of experience in SaaS Account Management and 6 years at Vennersys, Joe works closely with visitor attractions to optimise system performance and internal processes. He acts as a conduit between attraction managers and Vennersys, helping facilitate constructive communication to further develop and improve Vennersys’ own services based on customer needs or industry trends. In his personal life, Joe can either be found playing hockey for his local club or taking long, refreshing walks in the hills and fields near his home.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today’s episode I speak with David Green, Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace and Joseph Paul, Associate Director - Key Account Manager at Vennersys. We’re talking about data - but not just the importance of it (we all know that right?). David and Joe share the exciting data and AI reporting systems that Blenheim have created, allowing them to predict, and not just report on past performance. This is a really interesting episode and if you’re been a little bit put off or a little bit scared about AI up until this point, this might be the episode that changes your mind. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: David, Joe, it is lovely to have you both on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me on Skip the Queue. David Green: It's great to be here. Joseph Paul: Thanks for having us. Kelly Molson: That sounded very positive, guys. Thanks. Feel the enthusiasm. David Green: Let's see how the first question goes, shall we? Kelly Molson: Listen, everyone worries about these icebreaker questions. It's just we're just in a pub, in a coffee shop having a little chat. That's all it is. Right, I want to know. We'll start with you, Joe. What was the last thing you binge watched on your streaming service of choice? Joseph Paul: Gosh, that's a very good question. The last series we binge watch was a series called Bodies on Netflix, which is about a murder that happens in four different time periods and four detectives are trying to solve the murder. Very good if you haven't watched it. Kelly Molson: I have seen this and Joe, it hurt my head a little bit. Joseph Paul: Yeah. It is hard to keep track of some of the plots through the different times, but there's a very good ending worth watching if you haven't, David? David Green: I don’t think I have. I didn't get a chance to watch TV. Kelly Molson: So same question to you, David. That's a really good series as well, Joe. I thoroughly enjoyed that, although it did hurt the backwards forwards bit a little bit, was a bit mind blowing. Same question to you, David. What was the last thing that you binge watched? David Green: Well, the last thing I probably binge watched was probably Breaking Bad. That just sort of shows you how long ago it was. I binge watched anything, but I'm desperate to watch it again. It was so good. I was just hooked on the first episode. I just loved every single minute of that. Kelly Molson: Have you seen that, Joe? Joseph Paul: Yes. Very good series. Probably one of the best of all time. And the question back would be, have you watched Better Call Saul? David Green: Yeah, but I didn't find it as good. I say I didn't find as good. It was still great. I'm very fussy in the Greenhouse song. Kelly Molson: I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who's not watched Breaking Bad, which is this is quite controversial, isn't it? Everybody says that I would love it and I should watch it, but I feel overwhelmed that there's so many series to it and it would take up all of my TV viewing time for months and months. It would be the only thing that I could probably watch for the entire year and that feels too much. Joseph Paul: It's well worth it. Absolutely. You should do it. Kelly Molson: Dedicate 2024 as the year for Breaking Bad. David Green: I'm going to own up. I've not watched a single episode of The Crown either and some of it was filmed at Blenheim. So I'm really embarrassed to admit that on this podcast. Kelly Molson: That is a statement in a half, David. See, this is why I do the icebreakers. You never know what dirt you're going to get out. David, we're going to start with you with this one. What is the one food or drink that you cannot eat and you can't even think about without feeling a little bit queasy? David Green: That's cheese pastry straight away. I remember when I was at school, we had a home economics club. I remember making these cheese straws and I took them home and I was so environmentally ill after these cheese straws ever since, I just can't even look at cheese pastry. All these nibbles that people without for drinks can't bear it. Cheese and pastry together is wrong. Kelly Molson: This is really sad. I love a little cheese straw. I feel sad for you that you can't eat a cheese straw, David. I feel sad for you. Joe, what about you? Joseph Paul: I can pretty much eat anything and I'm not overly put off by much. I think the one thing that turns me away from food is horseradish and any sauce. That's probably my only sort of food that I won't go to and puts me off eating anything that has. Kelly Molson: Just horseradish or sauce in general. Are we talking like, sweet chilli dip? No? Joseph Paul: Just horseradish. So anything that has that in it, I will stay away from. But apart from that, I'll pretty much eat anything anyone puts on my plate. David Green: I think you're missing out, Joe. Kelly Molson: Do you know what's probably really nice as well? Is a cheese straw with horseradish. Joseph Paul: But cheese straws are the best. David Green: I'm going to have to leave the room in a minute. We could talk about cheese straw. Kelly Molson: Sorry. All right, let's move on from that. Right, I want to know I was quite kind to those ones. I want to know what your unpopular opinions are. Joe, let's start with you. Joseph Paul: Not sure this is going to go down too well, but my unpopular opinion is Harry Potter is an overrated film series. Kelly Molson: Books or films or both? Joseph Paul: Films, predominantly. Kelly Molson: Wow. I mean, my husband would absolutely agree with you. So I got him to watch the first one and then we got halfway through the second one and he paused it and looked at me and said, "Kelly, I just can't do this. Sorry." And left the room. That was it. Done. Joseph Paul: I can understand. So in our household, we alternate between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. So we compromise. We have a Harry Potter, then a Lord of the Rings, then go through. Kelly Molson: Is your partner Harry Potter, then? Joseph Paul: My wife is very much a Harry Potter fan. Kelly Molson: Interesting. That is quite controversial. How do you feel about that, David? David Green: Very disappointing. Joe, actually. Joseph Paul: Sorry to let you down. David Green: We might have to end this now, Joe. Kelly Molson: This beautiful relationship that we're going to talk about. End over Harry Potter. David Green: Harry Potter and cheese straws. Kelly Molson: David, same question to you. What is your unpopular opinion? David Green: Didn't think I had any unpopular opinions until I started really thinking about it, but I have to say, my original this is really good either, really was dancing, non professional dancing. I mean, I'm not a dancer, I've got a body of a dad. I am a dad and my wife and my daughter are very good dancers and I think it's just years of standing by a bar at a wedding with that person, go, "Come on, get on the dance floor, come on." And they drag you up and then busting moves is probably the wrong description, but it's just looking around the room on the floor with other people sort of bobbing around awkwardly looking, and all the blokes tipped you looking at each other going, "Oh, get me home." It's that awkwardness, I find really difficult and I'm going to be cheeky. And another one, because I just remembered that concerts is another one, so you spend a fortune going to a concert. David Green: I took my daughter once to Ariana Grande and I'd just been dragged to Arctic Monkeys and we drove hours and hours to this place and my wife had got Rose lead, I think, which was I needed binoculars to even see the stage. I was absolutely freezing, completely freezing. I didn't dress appropriately, I was dressed in a shirt and tied, typically, because that was Arctic Monkeys. Kelly Molson: You went through a shirt and tied Arctic Monkeys? God said, "Well". David Green: I remember walking down to the bottom of the stadium, I'm freezing, I have to go and get some clothes, and they let me out and I had to buy Arctic Monkeys merchandise and I came up the steps wearing an Arctic Monkeys hoodie. Number one fan to my wife and daughter, absolutely laughing hilariously. David Green: And I had to listen to the music for 2 hours and then I got home about three in the morning and my wife had promised me dinner out, went to Wild Bean Cafe at 01:00 A.M. on the way home. Kelly Molson: What a treat. David Green: Dancing and concert. Laura just sneaking next to one in. Kelly Molson: Well, no, I love this. I mean, it's like an elongation of it, isn't it? They go hand in hand. I would be that person at a wedding, they're trying to get you on the dancefloor. Which made me start laughing and then I lost it. Shirt and tie at an Arctic Monkeys gig. What were you thinking? David Green: I don't know. Kelly Molson: I think that's my favourite unpopular opinion yet. Amazing. Thank you both for sharing. Shall we talk about some serious stuff? David Green: Have you cried on a podcast before? Kelly Molson: Before I've had a cry, I've definitely had a cry on the podcast, but a cry of laughter, I'm not sure that's really got me today. Right, serious stuff. We're going to talk about data today, which is very serious stuff. We all know the importance of data. We've talked about data hundreds and hundreds of times in various different guyses. On this podcast, however, we're going to talk about reporting today, but with a twist. So reporting is often usually about things that have already happened. We're looking at past visitor numbers, we're looking at how many visitors came and how much they spent in the cafe on a particular day, what the weather was like on a past particular day. So we can predict whether it might be like that this year. Kelly Molson: But Blenheim are doing something completely different with reporting, which, when we had a chat about it prior to this episode, it blew my mind a little bit. And it's such a brilliant case study. You need to share this with the world. Firstly, though, I want you to just, both of us, tell us a little bit about your role and your background. So, Joe, can you start first? Tell us a little bit about your role and how you came into it. Joseph Paul: Yeah, of course. So I've been in the industry for six years now within the visitor attraction industry, working at Vennersys, and my role is a Key Account Manager. So I work closely with our clients throughout the lifetime of their contracts, so making sure they are getting the most out of the system and that sort of return on investment they've put into the software they've purchased. So I've worked closely with David and the Blenheim team for about six years now, and prior to that, I was also in account management as well, within a software business. Kelly Molson: Great. David, over to you. David Green: Variable history with Blenheim. I think next year will be the 30th year when I first walked through the doors. So when I was studying at college, it was my first sort of part time weekend Christmas job, and I was a bubble up for the 11th Duke and Duchess, and that was great. If I got I know stuff. Kelly Molson: I feel like there's a podcast episode on its own about that part of your career. David Green: I'm not sure I could speak too much about that, but I remember when I finished college, my mother said, "What are you going to get a proper job?" And the phone rang and I ended up working at Blenheim. Moved into the clock tower at Blenheim. That was my first flat. It was quite incredible, I have to say. But after leaving when I was 21, I just changed direction. So I became a developer, so I learned to programme and I worked for a little agency in Abingdon for two doctors who were both very bright guys. Yeah, I just put the hours in and learned to programme and really, that probably led to where I am today. I learned very quickly to problem solve and learned very quickly how to develop things. David Green: So when I finally joined Blenheim again, full time enabled me to sort of trial new things very quickly, fail fast. And that kind of led to our first real time reporting platform, which I developed myself. Kelly Molson: Amazing. David Green: This was really a combination of seeing that the business had lots of data and seeing that a lot of the data was inputted in manually. So being able to develop something that could contextualise data in a better way, but get people looking at the data in a much faster way, I think that's where it started from. Kelly Molson: And that is what we're going to talk about today. You've got a really interesting job title. So you're Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace. Are there many other heads of innovation in the sector? Because there's lots of kind of I mean, ALVA, for instance, brilliant organisation, they do lots of kind of individual meetups. So heads of marketing meetups, CEO meetups, head of visitor service meetups. I haven't seen them do a Head of Innovation meetup yet, so I question how many of you are there? David Green: I don't think there's very many at all, but the title is becoming more and more known, I think, across multiple sectors. And it was really the sort of creation I was Head of Digital at Lent for eight or nine years, and it was really the creation of Dominic Hare, our CEO, who saw the need for research development. The role is really about hunting for problems, and as much as we're well known for our visitor business, we have a thriving land business and a thriving real estate business. And I get to work across those three tiers, which is really exciting, hunting for problems. I get to work with universities, so we have a really strong university partnership, both at Oxford Brookes and the Oxford University. David Green: And this really allows us to bring in the latest research academics into a real world environment to solve problems together. So that's really exciting. But then the sort of second thing I work on as Head of Innovation is live data, so I have a data background, so it meant that very quickly I could bring all of our data into one place to drive greater insight. And then the third tier is looking at sort of customer experience changes. So if anyone sees my post on LinkedIn, you'll see we've brought in a new returnable cup scheme of all of our cups are RFID enabled. So looking at eradicating single use cups right the way through to a transformation project around implementing digital wallets and pulses. David Green: So there's lots of different things right the way through to encouraging our visas to come by green transport, which is very much tied into our 2027 pledge to become carbon neutral. Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Yeah. That's really interesting that you sit across so many different facets and it's not just about data and reporting and digital, really. So what we're going to talk about today is a particular project that you've both been involved in, and I'm going to kind of split this into two, because there's two areas that I kind of want to focus on. I want to hear about what the project is and all of the things and benefits that it's brought to Blenheim, which David's going to talk about. Kelly Molson: And then, Joe, I want to then come over to you and talk about how you kind of made this happen from a supplier perspective and the things that you need to work through together with your client and maybe some of the things that you've had to change and implement to be able to support your client, to do the things that they want to do with your system. So, David, I'm going to start with you. Can you give us kind of an overview of what this project is like, the background to it and then what led to that project happening? David Green: Background is like many organisations in this sector, we have lots and lots of data. Often we report out of proprietary systems, we then contextualise our data very well and I wanted to bring all the information to one area so we could really apply context but also look at in that data. So this sort of built off our first real time reporting platform that were able to get data into the hands of the operations teams, other teams, really quickly. But it wasn't really supportable just by me here at Blenheim. So were looking at one, finding a platform that we could utilise to allow us to get data out to feedball in a much more secure way. I was handling all the visualisations and things and there's better tools for that. So that's one of the reasons. David Green: The second thing is looking at data, I wanted to try out using AI to identify patterns. So what's the correlation between certain data sources? There's one, a group of visitors wearing wet coats. Does that have an impact on the environmental conditions? What's the optimal number of people that retail space to maximise their understand all those sorts of things were unanswered questions. So I engaged one of our Oxford Brookes relationships that we already had and we applied for what's called a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. So a KTP, which is match funded, that's Innovate UK match funded, and I highly recommend them as a starting point. And what that does, it brings in an associate who works full time. David Green: This project was, I think, 32 months, but also you get access to different parts of the university and in our case, we had access to the technical faculty as well as the business faculty. So you've got real experts in the field working with an associate that's embedded here, Lennon, that can help us solve that problem. And we're fortunate enough to win the application and the grant money and then we cloud on. So we called it a Smart Visitor Management System. That's the headline and really the two key subsystems of that was the customer insight and prediction. So we wanted to look at how we could predict business numbers. We know all of the knock on impacts of that in terms of better planning, reducing food waste, all those sorts of things. But then we also want to look at the visitor flow. David Green: So that's almost saying, "Well, where are visitors right now and where are they going to go next?" But they're the two sort of component parts. Kelly Molson: Such a brilliant introduction to AI as well, because I think it is such a current topic right now. And I was at a recent ALVA meeting where there was a phenomenal speaker talking about the implications of AI and the opportunities that it could bring. And I think there was a 50 - 50 split of the audience of 50% of them were terrified about this new technology and what it might potentially mean. And then 50% were really inspired by it and see these huge opportunities from it. But I think this is such a brilliant case study to show how it can be used to your advantage in a very non-scary way. David Green: I think with AI can be scary, but actually it's all about governance at the end of the day. And actually what we're doing is using machine learning to identify the patterns in large data sets to help us be better informed. Kelly Molson: What have been the benefits of implementing this kind of level of data reporting? So what have you been able to do that you couldn't previously do? David Green: Well, predictions is one. So ultimately we all budget. The first thing to probably say is that when we do contextual reporting, normally we access our data from a proprietary system and then bring it into some sort of spreadsheet and then try and tie it into a budget. That's sort of the first thing. It's really getting all of your data sets in a early. So we had budget, we had weather, we had advanced bookings, we had ticketing from different sort of platforms. And the starting point, before we talk too much about end benefits, were developing a data strategy in this centralised concept of a DataHub. So all of our data is in one place, and we're using APIs and direct connections and data signature Vennersys to bring data into one place. David Green: We also looked at platforms, environments, so were looking at Azure, we’re a Microsoft business. So actually we decided Azure was the right sort of plan for us and we came up with a very broad strategy that said anything else we procure in the future has to best in class or it talks to the DataHub and often if it's best in class as an API. So you can get that information into one place. So that's the first thing. The joy of using something like Microsoft and other platforms are available, I would say, is to access the power platform. And the Power platform sort of answered the problem around how do we visualise our data, how do we automate some of our data and what data is missing and how can we collect it? David Green: So using things like Power BI and PowerApps, I think was really crucial. Once we had all of our sort of data organised, we had the pandemic and of course, one of the sort of big issues around predicting, certainly when you've got lots of data sets, you're trying to look at patterns in data and your data is finely structured, then you get hit by something like this and where are the patterns? What's changed? The business model completely changed. We were a 10% advanced booking business. Suddenly were either zero or 80 or 100 and then sort of now about 65. So that was a bit of a challenge as well. In terms of then looking at the missing data. And we'll talk a little bit maybe about sort of the centre network and how do we measure things in remote places. David Green: But ultimately the core of this project was the DataHub, the ability to bring everything into one place, ability to push that data out. So answering your question in a long winded way is really about getting the data into hands of people, to allow them to plan better, to be prepared for the day, what is likely to happen today, what are the patterns in that day? And this is where we develop things like a concept of similar day. So a similar day might be one that has similar number of pre bookings, has similar weather. We look at weather in terms of temperature, wind and rain. It might have a similarity in terms of an event day or a weekend or similar budget. And that concept allows us to look forward, which is great. The predictions tend to look at other things. David Green: So we have one naive prediction that looks at previous performance in terms of pre booking to predict forward. And then another one, we have what we call an adaptive prediction, which allows us to look at advanced bookings and then see the change in advanced bookings over time against budget, to then alert us to the fact that we might experience more visitors than expected on that particular day. Kelly Molson: Gosh, that's really powerful, isn't it? Does that mean that your team have access to kind of a dashboard that they can look at any given time and be like, “Okay, we can model next week based on these predictions?” David Green: Data is pretty much everywhere, so we have one really nice thing and we have this. When I built search platform was TV screens across all of our staff areas. We have a ten OD voltwim across Blenheim. Everyone has access to that data. And that could be how traffic is flowing on the driveway. We use ADPR to look at how busy traffic is outside of our park walls. We look at car park capacity. We look at how happy our staff are using what we call a mood metric. So we put those smiley buttons in staff areas to determine how well they think the day is going. So we have access to all of this sort of information, but also then sort of more business reporting through Power BI. David Green: So we have a series of what I've called sort of visual representations of activity, but also sort of data that we can export into Excel. So we do a lot of finance reporting as well through Power BI. Again, all reporting from that single source of the truth, which is the DataHub. And if anyone's going down this route, I always describe it, I call it the product hierarchy. I always describe it as the giant coin sorting machine, which means that we're comparing apples with apples. So if you've got a particular product type, let's say annual park or House park and gardens, or park and gardens, you budget against that item, against adult, child, concession, family, young adult, whatever, you create a product hierarchy that matches that to your actual ticketing sales. David Green: And it doesn't matter then who sells your ticket, you're matching to that same product hierarchy. So think of it as a giant column sourcing machine that then every five minutes builds that single source of the truth in a database, then can be report out either through digital screens locations or Power BI. So, lots of tunes. Kelly Molson: It's incredible that level of access that you can give people now that must have improved how the team feel about their working day. It must have really helped with kind of like team culture and team morale. David Green: Absolutely. One, it's about engaging. Our teams are really important. People are the most important commodity we have at Blenheim. So having a series of management accounts, they never see their impact of engaging our businesses and giving our business a really good time, focusing on that Net Promoter Score, giving them access to that information. So, well done, look at the impact is really important. So, yeah, it's been fairly transformational here at Blenheim. Kelly Molson: Wow. What do you think has been the biggest impact? David Green: I think access to the data, better planning, there's more to do. We're embedding these tools, people that trust these tools. It's no mean feat. So getting good. What's nice to see when things aren't coming through quite right or car park speeds and we say it is, it might be data pipeline that's got awry. People very quickly come to us and say, "It's missing." So, seven days a week our team is sort of monitoring and seeing people use it. Moodmetric is great. Our cleaners now, they clean our facilities based on usage because they can see how many people have used the loo’s by using our sensor data. So that's again, it all impacts that Net Promoter Score. And I will say on Net Promoter, love it or hate it, Net Promoter Score is all about looking backwards. David Green: Typically what we try to do is to create the equivalent to on the day. What can we do about it right now? How busy is traffic flowing on a drive? Do we need to open another kiosk? How busy will the cafe get? Will we run out sandwiches? So we've got alerting looking at that comparison to similar day and are we trading above or below that? So again, we can send an alert to say, “Make some more sandwiches or do something else. The loos need a clean.” All of these sorts of things are built into the visitor management system to allow us to really optimise not just the visitor experience, but our staff engagement and experience as well. Kelly Molson: So you've got this really proactive approach to it, which actually makes you reactive on the day because you can move quicker, because you can make easier decisions about things. That's phenomenal. I love that the team have taken real ownership of that as well. I think embedding something like this, it can be quite challenging, right. People don't like change and these things feel a bit scary, but it feels like your team have really engaged with them and taken ownership of the system. David Green: Absolutely. It's no mean feat. Two challenges embedding something new like this. Absolutely. That's change management. The second thing is data pipelines, ensuring all of your sensors and everything is online and working. And when you're dealing with such high volume of data sets coming in, you really need to be absolutely on it. Second to the sort of broader and maybe more granular reporting, one other thing we've devised is a series of KPIs, which pretty much any attraction. David Green: Most might already have a series of KPIs, but KPIs to look forward. So actually in this moment in time, are we trading ahead or behind versus this time last year? So if you start comparing apples with apples at this moment in time, what was RMR's booking? We share these KPIs across the whole site and that could be relation to bookings or even spend per head versus budget spend per head for the next 30 days. David Green: Visually, we put these on all of our digital screens very quickly can identify when we need to do something, be driving that by marketing activity or celebrating success. We've got a very clear picture and that means everyone's along for the ride. Everyone gets access to this information. Kelly Molson: That's absolutely phenomenal. Joe, I'm going to come over to you now because I can only imagine what you were thinking when David came to you and said, "Right, we've got this idea, this is what we want to do." And you're one of the platforms. Vennersys is one of the platforms that has been working with him. I think it's quite a long relationship. Is it? It's about 16 years. Joseph Paul: 16, 17 years now, I think. Long relationship. David Green: Yeah. I was five. How old were you? Joseph Paul: Wasn't conceived yet. Kelly Molson: Wowzers. That is a long relationship. Okay, so I kind of want to know from you, Joe, to make this happen, what have you had to do differently as a supplier? So how have you had to interact with your clients’ needs and what steps did you have to go to kind of understand what the outcome was going to be? Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think firstly that the system has an enormous amount of data in it and I think the first step for us was to understand exactly what Blenheim were looking to get out of the system and plug into the sort of the DataHub that David was talking about. So that kind of comprised of some initial conversations of what they were trying to achieve. And then following that it was all about workshopping and making sure were going to present the data in the format that David and the team at Blenheim Palace required. Joseph Paul: Yeah, I think fundamentally it was just working closely with the team there and getting those requirements in detail and making sure weren't missing anything and really understanding everything they were trying to achieve and pushing that in a simple and easy format for the team to then push into their views and into their KPIs that they required. Really the main focus for us was pushing that data out to David and the team into that DataHub in that format that was easily accessible and sort of manipulated for them. Kelly Molson: I guess there's so much it's understanding what are the key know, what are the variables here, what are the key points that we need to do this and how do we go about doing this for you? Joseph Paul: Absolutely. Because there's a number of options and a number of different ways that data can be pushed to clients. So it's understanding what the best is for that client and their resource because that's also important. Not every attraction has unlimited resource or the expertise in house to sort of obtain that data, but also, even if they can obtain that data, they might not have that sort of resource to then create their own dashboards and create their own reporting tools from a repository. So it's really understanding every kind of asset and every level to that sort of client and then working closely with them to achieve their goal. So it might be more resource from our side or working closely with the expertise that they might have in house. Kelly Molson: Or suggesting that they might need to get extra expertise. So this is something that we talk about in terms of API integration all the time, is that it absolutely can be done with any of the systems that you have. If they have an API, yes, you can integrate it into whatever other system that you want. But who takes ownership of that internally? And do they have the capability and do they have the resource and do they have the capacity to do that? And if that's a no, who can be trained to do those things? And how do we facilitate that as well? Joseph Paul: Yeah, absolutely. And in this case, as David highlighted, he's clearly got the expertise himself and others around him to produce all these fantastic sort of views and dashboards that are displayed all around Blenheim Palace. So in this sort of example with Blenheim Palace, it was all about getting the data to them and making sure it was in a format that they could work with easily. Kelly Molson: And you've worked together, Joe, you said about six years. You've been at Vennersys now, but the organisation has worked with Blenheim for over 16 years, which is testament to the relationship and the product that you have. Has this process that you've been through together, has this changed or strengthened the kind of relationship between supplier and client? Joseph Paul: Yes, I think from our point of view, we like to see it as a partnership. I think David would agree, and we want to be a part of their journey, but also Blenheim and want to be a part of our journey. So we're helping one another to achieve our individual goals as a partnership. So that relationship goes from strength to strength and we continue to have those conversations, whether that's myself or others within the business, to Blenheim and pass around things that we're coming up against in the industry, but also vice versa. So if David's got his ear to the ground and has a suggestion around how our platform could be improved, that's fed back to us. Joseph Paul: And we have that back and forth between client and supplier, but we like to see it as a partnership and work closely with them to achieve their goals and also our goals together. David Green: I don't want to make Joe cry, because I've already made you cry, Kelly, but seriously, over that course of 17 years, and I'm sure lots of people listening to this podcast will realise that it's always challenging working with other suppliers. You have your ups and you have your downs, but we've had way more ups than we've had downs and our business has changed massively. We went through a process of becoming a charity, so suddenly gifted all the admissions was really important and Joe and the team really helped us achieve that. David Green: Vanbrugh was not a very good forward planner in terms of he was a great architect, but actually, we have a single point of entry and to try and gift aid so many visitors, we have a million visitors a year coming to them to try and gift aid such a large number on a driveway is really difficult. So actually, working through that gift aid at the gate process, we're looking at that gift aid opportunity was one of the key projects, really, that we work with Vennersys on. Kelly Molson: But that's where the good things come out of client supplier relationships, is that you're both challenging each other on what the objectives are and what the outcomes potentially could be. So you work in partnership together and then everybody gets the better outcome. When we first spoke about this topic, what I thought was brilliant is that you have such a great case study, you have such a great showcase piece here, both of you, for how you've worked together and what you've been able to develop. I've absolutely said that you need to pitch this as a talk at the Museum and Heritage Show because I think it's an absolutely brilliant topic for it. It's so current and something that other organisations can go away and kind of model on. Kelly Molson: I don't know if you saw, we had Nik Wyness on from the Tank Museum last season who came on and basically just he gives away his kind of process as to how they've developed their YouTube following and how they've developed kind of a sales strategy from it. And it's brilliant. He's great at kind of coming on and going, "Yeah, this is what I did, and this is what we did, and this is the process and here you go. Go and do it." And I think you have an opportunity to do that together, which I think is lovely. David Green: Isn't it nice though, that we don't feel in competition and we can work together? We created what we call The Continually Improvement and Innovation Group which we have lots of members who have joined from all different places, from Chatsworth to Be Lee to Hatfield Outs and so on and all that is a slack channel. It's a six monthly meeting where we all come together and we discuss our challenges. You talked about are there many head of innovations? Well, may not be, but actually sharing our insights and sharing our lessons learned is incredibly important and that's not just Blenheim, lots of other attractions are doing lots of brilliant things as well and we can learn from them. So really exciting, I think, to do that. David Green: And again, very open, I will say, and I'm not going to plug a gift aid company, but there's something called Swift Aid that we're just looking at and wow, can we do retrospective gift aiding? Is it worth lots of money for lots of attractions that have gift aid on their admissions? Yes, it is well worth looking that up. Ultimately they have a database of 8 million centralised gift aid declarations that you can utilise there's commission but it's well worth looking at. If anyone wants information, please just LinkedIn with me and we'll discuss them. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Again, this comes back to what we've always said about how collaborative and open to sharing information this sector is. What we'll do is in the show notes listeners, we will link to both David and Joe's LinkedIn profiles. If you want to connect with them, feel free and then actually David, Joe, if there's anything you want to share that we can add into those as well that would be useful for listeners. Then we'll pop them in there as. Kelly Molson: Actually, David, I've got one more question for you on that Slack channel, which I think is really interesting. It's great that you've set that up. I think those kind of platforms are really good at just facilitating conversation and it's really good to understand what people are doing from a supplier perspective. Do you have suppliers as part of that conversation as well, or is it purely attractions? David Green: I've kept it, I'd say non commercial, but we have invited speakers into the group to come and talk about it. But at the moment it's a closed environment. I think most people are more comfortable having sort of open conversations, but what it's really good at doing is it could be a question about compliance or sustainability or returnable cuts is a good one. It could be varying topics and we can just provide access to the right people here at Blenheim and vice versa, and other organisations if we've got questions. So, yeah, it works, it's growing, it's open, it's not ours, it's everyone's. So if anyone wants to join it, then we'll stick a link at LinkedIn maybe on the plot cups at the end of this. Kelly Molson: Oh, Fab, that's brilliant. Yeah, great. I think that's a really nice way of doing it with suppliers as well. It's difficult, I think Joe and I would probably say all of these conversations are really interesting for us because it helps us understand the challenges that the sector has and it helps us understand how we can make the things that we do so much better. So it's hard sometimes when there's closed environments like that, but the sector does so brilliantly at putting on conferences and organisations that we can all be part of as well. And again, platforms like this where we can come on and share the things that we're doing. Kelly Molson: That brings me back to the last question for you, Joe, is about has this process between the two of you and what you've been able to build together, has that helped Vennersys as a supplier build out other services that you can then offer to kind of the wider sector? Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think through this journey we've realised that data is really critical, but we also realised, as we kind of mentioned before, that not everyone has the resource to build their own visualisations of data and linking those to their sort of key performance indicators. So we work with Power BI as well on behalf of our clients, so we can also visualise that data that's within our systems. And that's really to help them get the most out of the data that is in our system, but also in that sort of more real time scenario, rather than having to extract a report, put it that into an Excel and get that information out. Joseph Paul: So that's one service that's kind of come out of that relationship, but also expanding on our sort of open API as well. So additional endpoints so that clients can also extract that data in real time and that continues to grow with other clients as well as we sort of go down that journey with some other clients. So, absolutely. It's helped us sort of open up another avenue which has benefited other clients in the past couple of years, but also moving forward as we sort of expand on it. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. And that's the sign of true partnership, isn't it? There's been some incredible wins for both of you involved and it's brought new opportunities to both of the organisations. Thank you both for coming on and sharing this today. So we always end the podcast with book recommendations from our guests. So I wondered if you've both been able to pick a book that you'd like to share with our listeners today. What have you got for us? Joe, we'll start with you. Joseph Paul: Mine's a little bit out there. David Green: We know it's not Harry Potter, Joe. Kelly Molson: Absolutely not. Joseph Paul: Well, that would be a curveball if I started to plug the Harry Potter series. Hey. So recently, I was in Albania in Tirana and I was on a guided tour. And they were talking about the Ottoman period. And I realised I know nothing about the Ottoman history and I was interested about it more. Joseph Paul: So my in laws purchased a book called Lord Of The Horizons, which is all about the history of the Ottoman empire. So that's my current read at the moment. And if you're into your history and into your sort of empires, it's definitely worth a read. So that's my recommendation. The Lord of Horizons. Kelly Molson: Nice. Joe, we just got a little insight into some of your hobbies there and your likes that we didn't know about. Good. Okay. Thank you. David, what about you? David Green: Mine is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wallaban. It's an incredible book. Now, I read lots of strategy books, data books. My wife thinks I'm really sad. This book is not any of that. This is about how trees communicate and I was absolutely enthralled with it. So this talks about them like arousal networks, how trees communicate through their roots, the noises and the sounds that trees make when they're struggling, when they're thirsty. It led to a lot of laughter on holiday with my daughter drawing pictures of trees with ears, but trees can actually hear. And from that, I was able to come back and look at one of our land projects where we're building a small solar farm at the moment, actually looking at the sort of benefits to soil health while we're putting solar on sort of fed degraded farmland. David Green: So we're using something called soil ecoacoustics that will allow us to listen to the sound of soil. So listen to soil for ultimately to index how healthy that soil is. So this one book has led to me reading a number of different research papers, cooking up with the universities to then test and trial something completely brilliant around identifying health through acoustics. So book is absolutely brilliant. There's a follow on book, but if you look at Peter Wallabin, he's written a number of books. Absolutely fascinating. Kelly Molson: Okay, wow. One, what an incredible book. I had no idea that trees could hear or talk. That's blown my mind a little bit, especially as someone who's a bit of a tree hugger. I'm not going to lie, I made a statement. I was with a client yesterday and were talking about AI. And I said, sometimes the conversations around AI just make me want to go outside and hug the tree in my back garden, take my shoes and socks off and just put my feet on the grass because I just want to connect with nature again and just get out of a tech world. So there's that. So I'm definitely going to buy that book. But two, how your mind works as well, how that book has taken you on a journey of innovation again into something connected but completely different. David Green: Again, it's really data. So you're welcome. We'll happily show you that site and put some headphones on you and we'll make this public as well, so hopefully we can share the secret sound of soil and other things as well. But really fascinating. Kelly Molson: That to me sounds like a David Attenborough show. Maybe we'll make it another podcast episode at some point. I'd love that. Thank you both for coming on and sharing today. As ever, if you want to win a copy of Joe and David's books, go over to our Twitter account, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Joe and David's books and you'll be in with a chance of winning them. Wow. Thank you for sharing. It's been an absolutely insightful podcast. There's lots of things that we're going to put in the show notes for you all. And as Joe and David said, please do. If you've got questions around what they've talked about today, feel free to connect and we'll pop a link to that Slack group in the show notes too, so you can join in with these conversations. Thank you both. David Green: Thank you. Joseph Paul: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Personalisation for visitor attraction websites, with Kelly and Paul from Rubber Cheese | 06 Dec 2023 | 00:30:39 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/ Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show. As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're discussing personalisation and what attractions can do to make their websites feel more tailored to their audience. You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast. Paul Marden: Hello again. Good, isn't it? Back here for a third time. Kelly Molson: It is good. You're lucky. Right, let's start the podcast as we do with this one. What attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it? Paul Marden: Yeah, I was pretty lucky the other day because I went to the National Maritime Museum, because I'm a Trustee of Kids in Museums and we had our Family Friendly Museum Awards and we held it in their lecture theatre at the Maritime Museum up in Greenwich. And I'd been to the Greenwich Museums before. I'd been to the top of the hill where the observatory is, but I've never been to the bottom of the hill, which is where Maritime Museum is. And so I'm just there with all the great and good of all of the museums around the country that have been shortlisted for the awards, which was brilliant. Paul Marden: But the bit that I really loved was that I was there in the daytime during the midweek, so peak school trip season, and it was just amazing to be in this place with all these school kids there doing their school trips, which is something I'm really passionate about, the value of those school trips. It was something that really got the kids lost out on when COVID hit and everybody was working online and then they went back to schools, but the schools had to be really careful about what they did and there were no school trips. That's such a magical part of being in primary school that they were just robbed of. So seeing all those kids in that amazing place was just wonderful. I got to rub shoulders with the great and the good. Paul Marden: I met some Skip the Queue alumni at the event as well, and I had a lovely cup of tea and a piece of cake in the cafe with our Project Manager, Becs. Did you imagine a better day? Kelly Molson: No, it's a perfect day. I was just thinking as you were talking about the school trips, it's like a rite of passage at school, isn't it, to be walking around a museum with a clipboard to draw a picture of it? Go and find X and draw a picture of it. I just got really vivid memories of doing that . Paul Marden: They were all just herring around, doing exactly that and loving life and buying their little rubbers in the shop and things like that. Kelly Molson: You should collect rubbers, kids. All the cool people do. Okay, I need to give a big shout out to National Trust. We are really lucky where we live. So we've got like a triangle of National Trust venues near us. So we've got Wimpole, Ickworth and Anglesey Abbey, all within like 25 minutes, half an hour, a little bit longer for Ickworth. Each one of them is incredible. They all have a different adventure. They've got great play areas, beautiful historic houses and beautiful walks. And we have spent a lot of time in the last two years at National Trust venues, walking, pushing the pram. But now Edie's toddling around, we're into the activity areas and all of them are phenomenal. Wimpole has just redone their outdoor play area, which we're yet to visit. Kelly Molson: We're just waiting for a dry day to get back over to that one. But it's just the membership. So I think the membership is such superb value for money. Paul Marden: It really is. Kelly Molson: I cannot speak more highly of it. It is such good value for money and we get 45678 times the amount of value from it every single year we have this membership, so much so that we gift it to people as well. Kelly Molson: We were really lucky. We got given some money for a wedding gift and we said, rather than think when people give you money, it's lovely, but you can put it in the bank and you forget about it. Or it just gets spent on stuff. And were like, “Right, if we get given money, we'll spend it on a thing and we can say we bought this thing with it.” And so that we bought the National Trust membership with it. Paul Marden: That's a cracking idea. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it was really good. Really good idea. But then it's such good value that we've then bought membership for my parents. Paul Marden: Really? Kelly Molson: Yeah. So I think it was like a joint. I think Father's Day and my mum's birthday are quite close together, so it might have been a joint one for that. They go and they go on their own and then they go and then they take Edie as well. And it's absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, well done, National Trust. Well done, Wimpole. Especially because pigs. Someone, the tiny person in my house, is very happy about pigs there. I don't mean myself, I mean Edie. And also, I just want to give a big shout out to one of the volunteers. I'm really sorry I didn't get the volunteer's name at Wimpole. He is one of the volunteers in the farm. Kelly Molson: I am a little bit frightened of horses. I think they're beautiful but really big. I saw an old next to the neighbour get kicked by a horse once. Paul Marden: You've literally been scarred for life. Kelly Molson: There's a block up there, but I'm a little bit frightened of horses. And there's a huge Shire horse at Wimpole who's a big old gentle giant. I think he's called Jack. But I am a bit frightened and I don't want that fear to rub off on Edie. And so I very bravely took Edie over to meet the Shire horse. But the volunteer was wonderful. This guy know told us loads of stuff about the horse and he was really great with Edie and she managed to stroke his nose and even I managed to stroke Jack's nose. So, yeah, thank you man whose name I didn't get. It was a really lovely experience and you helped put me at ease and my daughter at ease. So there you go. National Trust and the value of volunteers. Paul Marden: And National Trust volunteers, we've talked about this before. I've been to a couple that are local to me and they just tell the most amazing stories and they engage people in a way that to be so passionate about the thing that you care about and that you want to do that for free to help people to enjoy their experience is just amazing. And there are some, I mean, there are diamonds all over the place in all the museums and places that we visit, but there's plenty of them. When you work that Natural Trust membership, you get to meet a lot of volunteers, don't you? And they are amazing. Kelly Molson: Working it hard. Okay, let's get on to what we're going to discuss today. So we are talking about personalisation and what attractions can do to make their websites feel more personal. So this is an interesting one and I think that we've probably got to put our hands up and make a bit of an apology here. Very few people who took part in the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Survey actually implement personalisation, but there's a lot of evidence that personalisation improves conversion rates. So there's some stats that I want to read out from the report. Only 6% of respondents personalised their website experience for customers, yet 85% of respondents thought personalisation was highly important. So, question for you, why do you think so many people think it's important, but so few are actually implementing it? Paul Marden: This is where we hold our hands up, isn't it? And we say, I think the answer to that is because we didn't ask the question properly. I've touched base with it. There was a very small set of people, as you say, 6% of people said that they were personalising their websites. But the language that we used in the question was a little bit confusing. And when I reached out to a handful of that 6%, they were like, "Oh, no, that's not what we thought you meant. What we thought you meant was that". So one person said to me, "You could personalise your experience at the venue by buying different things, not personalise the website experience." Yeah. And when you read the language of the question again with that answer in your head, it's obvious why they answered it in the way that they did. Paul Marden: So there's a lesson to be learned there about trialing the questionnaire, making sure that people understand what it is that we're saying and that we agree with the language of what we've used. The fact is, I think a lot of people didn't understand us. So the answers that we got back, the disparity, is clearly confusion based. But even if weren't confused, even if we had the data, my instinct is that there would be a big difference between the two. And that boils down to the fact that I think that personalisation is hard to do and that actually the reason why a lot of people aren't doing it is because it's hard and costly in some cases. But we need to get into the guts of that and understand why. Kelly Molson: Okay, so lesson learned for next year. We need to give more clarity over the questions that we ask. So thanks for the feedback, everybody. We will do that. What do we actually mean by personalisation then? Paul Marden: Yeah, that's a good question. I think that what we mean by personalisation is developing the website in a way that means that you show different contents to different audience members depending on different things. There's lots of different ways in which you can do that. There's a very simple perspective which is around not automatically showing different content to different people, but writing content for your different audiences and making that easily discoverable. It doesn't have to be technically complex. Paul Marden: Yeah. It's really about writing the right content for the right people and making it so that they can get from where they are to where they want to get to and get that right answer. Most of us do that intuitively. Most of us, when we're writing content as marketers, we do personalise the content to the end audience, even if we're not doing that in an automated way. Kelly Molson: I think with this, though, my interpretation of it is the next level onto that, which is, that's true personalisation, because I think those things, yes, that's a very simple way of looking at it, but that for me is not enough when it comes to how we answer this question. So it's the tracking behaviour and showing personal content that to me truly personalises an experience. I can think of things that we've done in the past in terms of tracking where someone tracking the IP of the person that's looking at the website and offering them up content that is in English, UK English or in American English for example. Paul Marden: Absolutely. So it could be about time of day, it’s trite. I'm not going to convert somebody but saying good morning, good afternoon, good evening, based on where they are. We did another site a few years ago which showed videos of an experience in the daytime or an experience at nighttime, depending on when you were looking at the website, and then you could switch in between them, which was pretty cool. Kelly Molson: I like that. Paul Marden: Yeah. So you could do time of day, you could do location, like you say, interesting is understanding, building an understanding of somebody fitting an audience profile based on what they've looked at across the site, which gets a little bit creepy, doesn't it? If you're tracking and you use that tracking information without lots of care, you could look really creepy. But if you use it really carefully, then you can adapt the content of the site based on the more that somebody looks at the Schools section of your website and they look at news articles that are related to schools, maybe they're a teacher or maybe they're interested in running a school trip to your venue and you can adapt the recommendations that you make to them based on that understanding, that they show more interest in the educational aspects of what you're doing. Kelly Molson: So this leads us to really to what some of the benefits are. And ultimately, I think the more personalised the site is, the easier it gets for users to meet their needs. You're kind of getting them from the start to their goal quicker and hopefully makes their lives easier as well. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So I found some data. No, as you know, this came out of the report. Actually 80% of consumers. This was a stat that we pulled out in the report. Kelly Molson: It's from Hubspot. Paul Marden: Yeah. 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from brands that offer a personalised experience. So from that perspective, personalised sites are more likely to convert. There was other stats that we didn't put into the report itself, Boston Consulting Group, found that brands that create personalised experiences, combining digital with customer data, so that the true personalisation you were talking about, increased revenue by 6% to 10%. That's pretty impressive. Kelly Molson: It is pretty impressive. But then that brings us to risk, doesn't it? And that kind of creepy aspect of this and whether it's. Is it okay, hon? Paul Marden: Yeah, I mean, the obvious one is privacy isn't know. We live in an age where people value their privacy and there's laws around that as well. So in the UK we've got GDPR, there are laws all over the world in relation to personal information and tracking somebody's behaviour around your site, what they do and what they look at and being able to associate that back to an individual themselves is definitely data that would be in the scope of the Data Protection Act in the UK and GDPR across Europe. So you have to be really careful about what data you're collecting, how you attribute it back to a natural human, and then what do you do to protect that data? Kelly Molson: And then you've got complexity of managing multiple sites, managing large volumes and multiple sources of data on top of that as well. Paul Marden: I alluded to that earlier on as my kind of. The reason why I think a lot of people don't do this is when you get into the true personalisation, when you're managing a website, there's a lot of content on there, you've got to think about what everybody needs. You got lots of people in the organisation wanting their content put onto the website. You're the editor and you're responsible for that thing. And then somebody says to you, "I think it's a bright idea. We've got twelve audiences and we want to have personalised content for all of those audiences.". And now you don't have one website to manage, you've got twelve websites to manage. Paul Marden: And when it goes wrong for one particular person, when the CEO is looking at the website and it shows them something really weird and they report it to the editor and the editor is like, “Yeah, how do I know what it was that went wrong? Because I don't have one website. I've got twelve websites that I've got to manage.” The level of complexity and the effort that you go into this, if you're not careful, if you're not doing this in a sensible way, it can become quite hard to manage and get your head around. Kelly Molson: I'm just thinking of the horror of trying to support that from an agency perspective as well. When you've got support tickets coming in and the support ticket from the client is. So this person is not happy because they've seen content that isn't okay for them or oh God. Paul Marden: Yeah, if not managed properly, you got this potential explosion of content. You've also got the potential for all of that personal data about the people that are going around the website to be trapped. So now you've got to manage a load of data in volumes that you'd never really thought of before. Where does the customer data come from? If you've got, do we want to show personalised information for people that are members? Where do we hold our membership information? Do we hold that in a CRM system? Okay, so now we need to plumb the CRM system into the website so the website knows if the visitor is a member or not. Do we show different information to somebody that is not a member but they have visited before or how do we know that? Paul Marden: Oh, we need to plumb in data from the ticketing system now. And this can be amazing. And that's how you arrive at that high conversion rate, is that you've enriched the experience with loads of knowledge about the person. It's not like somebody's walking into the gates of the place and you know nothing about them. All of a sudden they're walking into your website, they're interacting with your website and they're not just the same as everyone else, they're special and everybody wants to be special, but to get them to that special place you have to know a lot about them. It can be amazing when it's done well, but it's not trivial. Kelly Molson: So we always at this point, talk about who is doing it well. And this is a really difficult one. Tricky one, because ultimately we haven't asked the question properly in the survey. And because of the nature of personalisation, we don't know who's doing it. We don't know really. So what would be great is if you are an attraction, listening to this episode and you're out there and you are doing it well, we'd really love to talk to you. So we have these little slots that we have between Paul and I. We've got a load of things that we can talk about, but if there's an attraction out there that is doing personalisation really well, we can open up one of these slots for you to come on and have a chat with us and just talk about some of the things that you're doing. Kelly Molson: We'd love to hear some really good success stories for this and some case studies. So yeah, feel free to drop me an email and kelly@rubbercheese.com and let me know. So skipping over the fact that we've got no one to talk about who does it well. Hopefully we will soon. What are the steps that people can take? So what's the starting point? If you are thinking about personalisation, what does that journey look like? Paul Marden: Yeah, first of all, you need to understand the audience, don't you? Or the audience is. And just talking from our own perspective and our process that we follow, that's an early part of the kind of research that we do when we're building a new site is to dig into who the audience is and trying to understand them in as many ways as you possibly can. There's loads of stuff written about this online. There's some brilliant examples that I've looked at before far TfL, who share their audience personas and how much detail they've gone into understanding who the different people are that interact with the TfL website and what their goals are and what makes them special from the perspective of an attraction. You could think of families with young kids that are coming. Paul Marden: You could be thinking of maybe if you were a museum, the people that are running school trips, the teachers and so forth, that could be running it. Maybe the volunteers for your organisation or another audience member that you need to think about and understand who they are, what they look like in terms of their demographic information, the way they think and what they do and how they interact with the world, markers that you could use to be able to help target that. So figuring out that audience persona for each of the people that you want to target, I think, is a crucial job. Kelly Molson: Definitely the starting point. And sometimes that's done internally and sometimes we support with that externally. I think then you have to kind of think about the tools that you've got, what is available to you and how you can use them. And we focus on three main ones at Rubber Cheese, don't we? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So we focus on WordPress, Umbraco and HubSpot. And it's interesting because each of them have different functionalities in terms of personalisation. And it's been weird, isn't it, to try and think about the tool before you think about what you want to do, but really it's about not trying to put the cart before the horse. If you know what the tool can do, then you can figure out how you can use it. Kelly Molson: Yeah, and I think from a cost perspective as well, it's thinking about what you already have in place that you can manipulate rather than starting from scratch. Paul Marden: HubSpot is a good one to talk about because straight out of the box it's the most capable in terms of personalisation. And it's a bit obscure because a lot of people think of HubSpot as being a CRM package. They don't think of it as being a content management system website tool, but it has that functionality and that's kind of evolved over the last five years into a fully formed content management system. Paul Marden: But because you've got this bolted together CRM and content management system, they've obviously spotted that an opportunity for them and they've put those two things together. And so straight out of the box you can build out personalisation, you can create these what they call smart rules. To say in this section, I want to show this content dependent on this particular factor. So that's pretty awesome to get that straight out of the box I think. Kelly Molson: I struggle to get my head around that just because I do view HubSpot as our CRM. I'm in it constantly. It's my source of truth for all of my clients and networking contacts and suppliers. It's where my sales pipeline is. I can't get my head around it. It's a content management system as well. Paul Marden: Completely. But you can think of, when you're building out a website and it doesn't have to be built out in HubSpot itself. Sorry. In HubSpot's own content management system you can still do a lot of this using their CRM system bolted onto other content management systems. But you can create contacts as somebody becomes a real person. Then you could create that contact inside HubSpot and use the knowledge about that person on the website. You can use the deal functionality inside HubSpot to track when somebody has bought tickets for a place and when they've actually completed the deal. You end up with lots and lots of data going through HubSpot when you do all of that order information going through there. Paul Marden: But that's how you enrich it with the ability to target your existing customers with different content to prospective customers that have never bought from you before. Kelly Molson: What about Umbraco and WordPress? Because this is not something that they do like out of the box. Is it off the shelf? Paul Marden: No, absolutely. So Umbraco doesn't have it straight out of the box. There is a really capable personalisation system called uMarketingSuite which you can buy. It's like annual subscription product that bolts into Umbraco itself. It's been built so that when you're in there and managing all of your audience personas and the content that you want to adapt, it's all in that one package. So once you've got it in there, it does feel like it's all Umbraco because it's been designed in a really neat way. The challenge is you've got to buy it. It's a paid for add on, but the benefit that you get is well worth the investment. But it's not a cheap investment to make in that tooling. And also there's elements of the site needs to be built with that in mind. Kelly Molson: You can't just plug it on at the end and hope for the best. You've got to think about that long. Paul Marden: No, it's not a plug it on. You can retrospectively add it into a site. Yeah, but it will probably cost you more to add it afterwards than if you'd have thought about it at the beginning and done it. So it definitely can be added on later on. But if you think about it in advance and you do it all at the same time, the total cost of the project will probably be lower. Kelly Molson: Okay, so that's a good one to think about. If you are planning new website projects for the new year, you are really happy with the Umbraco platform. There's something to have a conversation around that. And then WordPress plugins. Paul Marden: Exactly. So as with everything WordPress related, hundreds of people have solved this problem. So there are lots and lots of plugins out there. There's a couple that I would mention that came up when I was doing some research around this. There's one called if so dynamic content. There's one called Logic Hop, both of which enable you to adapt your content based on certain rules that you define. So, pretty much like the smart rule functionality that's in HubSpot, you can achieve that natively inside WordPress once you add these plugins. And the cost of those plugins was negligible. Yeah, you're talking under 100 quid for a year worth of setting that up. Kelly Molson: Well, that's good to know. So what are we talking about in terms of budgets for stuff then? So there's effort involved in understanding your audiences first. So that's going to be something that you talk to your agency or you bring in an external or you do internally. You carry out your persona work, you really understand who your audience is. That cost is really variable. It could be workshop based. You might have all of this information internally anyway that you just kind of need the time to pull it all together. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And you can imagine that could be a day's effort to just pull together a few things that already exist. It could be several weeks worth of effort spread over a longer period of time. I was having a chat with Matt, our Creative Director, about this the other day and literally just scribbled on a piece of paper. But he was like, “Paul, you need to understand this.” At the one end of the spectrum you could spend a little time researching this stuff. At the other end of the spectrum you could spend a lot of time. And what do you get when you go in between the two? You make less assumptions the further down the road you go. So if you can deal with kind of a minimal research and making some broad assumptions, then that's a sensible thing to do. Paul Marden: But if you want the confidence of knowing that you're not making too many assumptions and there's lots of data underlying the things that you're saying, then obviously you need to invest more effort into that research to be able to find that out. Yeah, kind of obvious, but it helped when you drew me that kind of framer. Kelly Molson: So let's look at the tools then. So let's do HubSpot. We talked about HubSpot first. What's the cost involved in that? Because my assumption, I mean, I've used the free version of HubSpot for years. There's a paid version of HubSpot. My assumption was the paid version of HubSpot was really expensive. Paul Marden: So costing HubSpot is a complex thing because there's lots of different variables involved. There's lots of features. The more features you add, the more it costs. But in order to do this personalisation you need a pro version of their content management system and you're looking at about 350 quid a month to be able to do that. So what's that, about four and a half, 5000 pounds a year to buy that in? That is not just for that feature, that is for the whole of that HubSpot content management system and all of its hosting included as well. And it is top grade, highly secure or highly available infrastructure that you get bolted in that. So the cost of personalisation is not just the 350 quid a month, that is, the all in to get that pro package is 350 quid a month. Kelly Molson: And then there'll be dev costs on top of that to implement it. Paul Marden: Yeah, to a certain extent, actually a lot of the personalisation, because it's core to HubSpot, you can achieve a lot in a normally designed and built HubSpot site and then just manage the content in that. So let's say, you've got a panel where you want to show a particular piece of content that says, "Hey, you're back again." Because you're a returning user, you wouldn't necessarily need a developer to be able to make that available to you. Those smart rules would be built in by the content management system. So there's obviously going to be things that you want to do that. You will need to have a developer to be able to do that. Kelly Molson: You need someone that understands logic. This is not a job for me. Paul Marden: Well, in the right hands, you don't need a developer to be able to do a lot of the personalisation in HubSpot. Kelly Molson: All right, what about Umbraco? Paul Marden: Yeah, there are some free tools. There's something called personalisation groups. But if you want to go for uMarketingSuite, which I think is where you're getting into, really see it would be a proper personalisation territory with lots of great functionality, you're looking at about 400 quid a month for the package to be added into your Umbraco instance. So that's not comparing apples with apples when we look at the HubSpot cost, because that was an all in cost for the whole of the platform for HubSpot. Whereas for Umbraco uMarketingSuite is 400 quid a month to add it to your instance. And that depends on the amount of traffic on your site that does vary. Kelly Molson: And then WordPress is cheapest chips in comparison. So plugins, you're looking at costs of around about 150 pounds per year depending on what one you go to. Obviously you've either got somebody internally that can integrate that for you or you've got your dev costs on top of that. But if you've already got an existing website in WordPress, then actually could be something relatively inexpensive that you could start to try out. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And then on top of that you've got other personalisation systems that you could plug into any of these systems with your kind of Lamborghini style sets of functionality. These are starting costs for the packages we're talking about. Yeah, we're talking 150 quid a year for WordPress, but that would be basic personalisation. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay, good chat. So just to reiterate what we said earlier, sorry, we were idiots about the question and of course some confusion. Apologies, we'll do much better next time. But now you've listened to this episode, if you do have a story to share and you are doing some really interesting things, we would love to give you the platform to share that. So do drop me a line, kelly@rubbercheese.com and we will make that happen. All right, great. Same time next month. Paul Marden: Awesome. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| The transformation of process and people at an 180 year old attraction, with Dominic Wray | 22 Nov 2023 | 00:42:09 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-wray-a1b52766/ Dominic Wray is the Parks Director of Vectis Ventures, the parent company of the Isle of Wights two leading attractions; Robin Hill, and the UK’s oldest theme park, Blackgang Chine.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. On today's episode, I speak with Dominic Wray, Parks Director at Vectis Ventures. We talk about Blackgang Chine, the 180 year old attraction, and Dominic shares his three top tips on transforming processes and developing superstar people. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Welcome to the podcast, Dominic. It's great to have you on today. Dominic Wray: Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it. Kelly Molson: Everyone says that at the start, and then I give them icebreaker questions, and they hate me. But this is how the podcast always starts, so you have to do them. Right. If you could enter the Olympics for anything, what would you be Olympic level at? And we're not talking it doesn't have to be sports here. It could be like baking or Olympic level complainer. Anything goes. What's your Olympic level at? Dominic Wray: I think I would actually answer the sports based question answered that. I always, when I was growing up, wanted to play in the NBA. Basketball was a big passion of mine. So I'd say I'd want to enter the Olympics as a basketball player. Kelly Molson: Okay. And do you play now? Is this something that you are actually good at? Dominic Wray: Not so much now, no. I don't want to use the old adage if I got injured, but I did. Kelly Molson: Oh, no. Dominic Wray: We'll never know if I could have made it or not. Kelly Molson: Good one. Have you ever been mistaken for someone famous? Dominic Wray: Yeah, actually, yes, twice. Someone once said to me I look like Joel Dormot. I think he's a comedian. And some of the team seemed to think I look like Mark Wright. Kelly Molson: I know this one. So I saw the picture that Laura Baxter posted of your LinkedIn. I have to say, I did a second look, Mark. Dominic Wray: Yeah. I mean, I'll take it. I think Mark Wright’s the right looking chap, so could be worse, I suppose. Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. A final one. What one thing would you make a law that isn't already? I've got a good one for this. So if I could be in charge of laws, I would make it a law that nobody could just stop in the middle of the pavement and look at their mobile phone, or walk upstairs with their mobile staring at their mobile phone, not actually looking where they're going, because it just makes me want to swipe people's legs away. Because they just stop in front of you or they walk really slowly up the stairs. That would be one of mine. Dominic Wray: I'd go with, everyone needs to learn how to go through security at an airport. There's nothing more frustrating when you get there and the person in front of you isn't aware of how to go through and then there's a bit that delays the queues. Kelly Molson: Good one. That's a really good one. They get quite shouty, the security people now, don't they? When you're queuing up like, they're shouting at you about your liquids and your jackets and you take your belts off, and I'm like, "If I take my belt off, my trousers are going to fall down. I'm not even halfway there yet." I like that one. Okay, what's your unpopular opinion? Dominic Wray: My unpopular opinion is that motorists ruined the road for cyclists. Which I'm sure will be incredibly controversial. Yeah, that's my unpopular opinion. Kelly Molson: This is going to be a controversial one and I really want to know what you think about this one, listeners. Yeah, I don't agree with you, but you are a hardcore cyclist. I’m going op guess. Dominic Wray: I do pay my road tax, drive a car myself, but yeah, someone that very much enjoys road cycling. Yeah, that is definitely my viewpoint on other motorists. Kelly Molson: I think there needs to be made room for both on the roads. There's not sufficient cycle lanes in areas where there should be sufficient cycle lanes. Although I live just outside Cambridge and Cambridge is pretty good for cyclists. If this was me, I would ban cyclists from cycling through the city centre of Cambridge, because the amount of times I've nearly been run over by cyclists in the city centre is quite a lot. Dominic Wray: I will say. Not every cyclist is respectful of most receivers. It is a two way street, quite literally. Do you understand that? Kelly Molson: I like this. Right, okay, listeners, what do you think about the unpopular opinion? I feel like I've just got myself in hot water with all my Cambridge cycling friends as well. Dominic Wray: They're all going to be kicking off. Kelly Molson: We're all in trouble. We're in trouble together, Dom. It's fine. Right, tell us a little bit about your background, because you have come into attractions not from an attractions background, and I always find this quite fascinating, how people end up within the sector. You've come from banking, right? Dominic Wray: Yes, yes. I started off my career when I left school selling houses, and then I moved into banking after that. I used to work for Lloyds Bank and one of my clients was our current HR director here, lady called Paula, and I used to see her every year. She'd come in, talk about this great place that she worked and all these fun projects she was working on and how magical it was. And I remember sort of sat there thinking, "Gosh, your job sounds really interesting and you're working on these varied projects and you're getting to experience loads of cool things." She was talking to me about fireworks events and dinosaurs and cowboys and pirates. I was thinking, "I'm saya, talking about savings accounts and loans and boring stuff that comes to banking." Dominic Wray: And then one day I saw an advert in our local paper on the island for a Park Manager role for Blackgang Chine. Which is the park that Paula worked at, and I read through it and I thought, “Okay, yeah, I can do this. It sounds like I've got the skill set to do this.” Not really knowing anything about running a visitor attraction at all. So off I went to the interview, got my job and I thought, “Oh, great, yeah, if I can sell houses and I can run a bank, the only I could run a visitor attraction.” It's just taking those skills and applying them across into a different sector. Dominic Wray: Eight or nine years later, still here now and lot of a big learning curve along the way, but yeah, not a traditional route into it, but Blackgang on the island is a very iconic visitor attraction. All the children on the island have been there, had very fond memories of coming here as a child and I just thought, “Wow, what an opportunity to wake up every day and go to work in a fun”, magical place that's the complete opposite from the confines of a bank. So I thought, “Yeah, I'm going to back myself and go for it and do it.” Kelly Molson: How weird is that? Knowing that you went there as a child as well and now you actually run the place. That's massive, isn't it? Dominic Wray: Yeah, when I'm walking around, there's lots of areas of the park that are still the same and happened for many years and they carry great sentiments or walking through certain areas and they hear certain sounds or certain smells in the park and it takes you back to being a kid every day. So it's quite a magical place to work. Kelly Molson: That's really sweet. And so what was that transition like? Because I've just got this vision of you kind of like rocking up on the first day and going, "Where do I start?". Dominic Wray: Yeah. So on day one when I arrived, the gentleman who was doing the role beforehand had left. So I had a laptop set of keys and they sort, "Off you go.. And I was like, "OK, I've got to have to work this out", which I did. I was lucky enough to go to IAAPA in Orlando and I went on a week long training course, management course there around Park Management of Visitor Attractions, which I think was really interesting, really useful, gave me a great insight into the attraction space. And then I've worked through that by learning about the various different departments and functionalities of the business along the way. But it was a big change for me to go from working for a large corporate company to moving to a family owned company. Dominic Wray: Blackgang Chine has been owned by the same family for 180 years, which is the Dabell family. So it was a big shift for me from having multiple layers of people and it taking weeks to get a decision to just having to go and speak to one person as long as they say, "Yes", you're on your way. So it's enjoyable working for a much more dynamic organization where you can pivot more quickly. And that was sort of one of the surprising things, having come from a bigger company, how quickly things can move and change. But I think that's a real positive fallout. Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. I love that you did like a crash course, you did like your crash course, your driver's course, you didn't do those week intensive course, you did your weeks intensive course of being a park manager and that was it into the job. So what does your role cover then? Because I know you operate across two parks at the moment, so you've got Blackgang Chine, you've got Robin Hill. What does that look like for you in terms of your role? Dominic Wray: So my role sees me overseeing the parks and the strategic position. So I look after the business of the group as a whole. I was previously the park manager of Blackgang and then over the last twelve months transitioned to a new role, Parks Director, which sees me overseeing the group from more of a strategic position. So everything from opening calendars, pricing strategy, events that we're running, health and safety, you name it, all falls under my room within the business. Kelly Molson: I love that. I guess all of those things must have been the steep learning curve from banking where you clearly are very senior role, but probably not juggling quite so much in a day. Dominic Wray: Yeah, I liken it to running lots of micro businesses. We've got a retail business, food and beverage business and events business, health and safety compliance element of the business. So yeah, lots of micro businesses within the big business as a whole really. But yeah, the regulation from banking around strict processes and procedures does translate quite nicely into business and also into health for safety as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And there's some of the things we're going to talk about today. So we've got three topics to cover which I'm really interested in. We've got processes and systems, we've got peer learning that we're going to talk about and then we're going to talk about people and team development. So what you just said there about what you've brought, that's one of the things that I'm really interested in terms of the processes and systems because you've been through quite a transformative process in your organisation with kind of people and process actually. What have you been able to bring from banking into the attractions world that's kind of helped you with those processes and systems? Dominic Wray: I would say I learned a lot from working in a bank. One of the things was how not to do things, I'd say. In terms of life in a bank is very black and white. It's almost sort of a computer says no culture. And that really taught me that actually in real business you've got to operate a bit more in the gray. And it's much more around how can we actually make things happen and how can we do things rather than actually that's not possible. So I always say to feeling, great, well, how are we going to work around that? How are we going to make that possible? So, since I've joined the business, we've gone through quite a large transformation. Dominic Wray: It was fair to say that when I joined, the business was very much running in a sort of historic, family orientated way of we've always done it that way. That was a phrase I heard quite a lot when I first started this. I know we've done it like that because we've always done it that way. There's sort of a lot of, "Okay, explain to me why we've done it that way and what's the approach to that?". And then over the years, we've moved into using far more digital systems. So I'm big on making sure the team can see at the various levels of the organisation, the bigger picture. And I think that then helps them understand exactly what's going on in the business as a whole. And I think that through digital optimisation of systems and processes, that really helps them do that. Dominic Wray: So, for example, on the ride side of the fence, we bought in Mobaro, which is quite a well known safety system for our daily inspections. And that just gives far better visibility right the way from the ride operator, the person checking the rides, to the duty manager, all the way up to our owner if he wants to go in on a day and see what's gone on at 10:00 before the site opens. So it's really been around pivoting the organisation into becoming early adopters of technology and systems and processes. Dominic Wray: We've also recently joined the LEAP scheme, which was quite a big jump for our industry to move away from a historical scheme that had been in place for a number of years. And were some of the first, well, one of the first parks to join that scheme. Kelly Molson: For our listeners, what is the LEAP scheme? What does that mean? Dominic Wray: So we have our rides basically inspected by an independent inspection body. And LEAP is the scheme that then oversees and checks off the regulation of that inspection body in a sort of basic format. But it had historically been done by a different organisation and LEAP have come into the marketplace. And taken a different approach to how that is done, which gives far more transparency to the operators and also the customers that are coming into sites to visit as well. But it was quite a big thing for us to say, "Okay, we're going to move away from that historic way of doing it into a newer way of doing things.". But I think as a company, because we can make decisions quite quickly, we don't have a big gain of sign off to go through as a team. Dominic Wray: We can move quite quickly on things such as that as well. Kelly Molson: I really like that kind of transparent approach that you talked about because it feels like that would help with kind of unifying the kind of organisational culture as well because people have a bit more visibility about what's going on behind the scenes, so to speak. Dominic Wray: Yeah. And I think giving people the most amount of information you can give them within their job role and position within the organisation, that level of transparency just allows them to do their job better. Because if they understand what the key metrics that they're working towards and how they're performing and actually how decisions they make on a day to day basis impact the bigger picture of how the attraction performs over a 12, 24 month ongoing period, that makes them feel much more empowered. Because then they can see, actually, I've made this change over here, and that made an impact onto the bottom line over here. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It gives people that sense of ownership about what they're doing as well, doesn't it? Dominic Wray: Definitely. Kelly Molson: So what do you think have been the biggest transformations that you've been able to make over that period? Dominic Wray: I would say collaborative working. The organisation used to very much be I look after food and beverage, I look after retail, I look after operations and we don't talk to each other. That's my lane. Kelly Molson: So those little micro companies just kind of like they worked in their little silos and didn't really talk. Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. Whereas what we've done across a number of years is change the structure of the way the parks run on a day to day basis. So each of the heads of those departments do take turns of doing duty management shifts. So that gives them the opportunity to experience the park as a complete 360, interact with different departments, understand how other departments work and function. Most importantly, that gets them in front of customers in different areas of the business as well, then that helps them understand, okay, in retail or operations, we're allowing people into the park in this way. If we do this is a domino effect that then actually knocks onto something that could happen in food and beverage later on. Dominic Wray: So I think again, that goes back to giving them that bigger picture of what's going on in the company and for them to think that actually we are all one team and what someone does in one department does have a knock on effect and impact onto other departments as well. And I think that's really taken place by opening the business up a lot more. Historically, were quite closed off as an organisation, and I've been very big on getting the staff out, seeing other attractions, going, speaking to other people in other attractions, finding out how things work in other parks, other businesses. Dominic Wray: And I think that's really then enabled us to open up a lot more and we've done that also through being members of BALPPA as well, which has been quite a key point of being able us to open up the business a lot more and experience the team, to experience things outside the company as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So peer learning is one of the things that I'd love to explore a bit more, because I think just going back to what you said about those organisational visits, you've got a few team members that are really active on LinkedIn, so I see a lot of the things that you do as an organisation, and it's really impressive. So you do strategic team visits to other attractions to look at how they're operating, how their attractions are running, what events. You even go to some of their events and see how they've been put on. And that comes back to this whole thing about the sector being really supportive and collaborative with each other, because that never used to happen in my world. In agency world, we are far more open now than we ever were. Kelly Molson: But I couldn't imagine ten years ago me rocking up to someone else's agency and going, "Could I just sit in on your team while you work through this project and see how your project management process works?". Piss off. I would be able to do that to a number of agencies that I know there. They'd be really happy to share, but it feels like it's kind of always been that way in the sector for attractions. Is that the case? Dominic Wray: Yeah, 100%. I mean, that was one of the biggest things that shocked me coming into a new career, was actually you can go and ask people for help and ask them how they do things and they're more than willing to share the challenges and issues that they have, but also sharing the solutions to those problems as well. I mean, when I worked at Lloyds, I can't imagine ever walking over the road to Natwest and going, "Hi, can you explain to me how you do this?". They’d say, “Bugger of.” Kelly Molson: You all will have exactly the same problem. So working together to solve that problem surely helps the greater good, rather than. Dominic Wray: Everyone has the same problems. They just have it on varying scales of economy, so we might have it on this scale. You go to a bigger park, they've got the same problem, just magnified by ten. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. But you mentioned BALPPA, which I know is an incredible organisation that you're members of. How has being kind of a member of that organisation what's it brought to the attraction and to yourself? Dominic Wray: I think it's really been transformational for the attraction, myself and the team. I think having an organisation that these business and individuals completely immerse themselves in from a learning standpoint is so valuable to me. I think it's almost like a black book. It is a black book of other attractions that you can gain access to for their knowledge, experience, processes and procedures. And as someone that came into the industry having not worked in it previous to that, I found the organisation so valuable in terms of my own personal learning and the learning of the site as well. So as an attraction, we've massively benefited from being members of BALPPA. We hosted the summer conference this year, which was a big deal for us. Dominic Wray: So everyone BALPPA came to the island and they spent a day at Blackgang Chine and Robin Hill, and we hosted a gala evening dinner at Robin Hill, which was fantastic. And that was great to show it off to peers and people within the industry and for them to kind of understand about what we do. Because obviously I go along to a lot of events with a lot of the other team and we're all sort of banging the drum about the company. But it's great for people to come and experience that firsthand as well. So I think it's helped broaden the profile of the business and also the individuals within the team as well. I think that's been brilliant for the team's personal development, but also really for their learning. Dominic Wray: The fact that there's people in the organisation that you can go and talk to about everything from ticketing strategies through to mechanical issues you've got on rides, or the fact that people are so open that you can ring them up and say, "Hey, I've got this issue with this, how do I fix it?" I'll bring this chap, he's the person you need to go and call about this. Or, I'm a bit stuck for this spare part. Yeah, phone this person, they'll be able to get it to you quicker." And everyone's so supportive and willing to help each other. It's quite amazing to see, as I said, coming from a space where that is the complete opposite of that. It's brilliant to be involved in an organisation where if all the attractions are winning, the space is winning and the industry is winning. Dominic Wray: And I think everyone's mature enough to realise that we've all got our own individual niches and we're not all competing against each other. So actually, by helping each other and people having amazing experiences across all attractions, it just benefits the industry as a whole. Kelly Molson: Yeah, completely. It just comes back to that whole working in partnerships and not in silos again, doesn't it? You mentioned about people, this is the other thing that I really want to talk about, because you've got brilliant people that work at your organisation and you call them superstar people, which I really love. I guess BALPPA is one of the things that you've put in place to kind of help them because like you said, other team members, not just yourself, can go along to these meetings and they can benefit from the peer to peer learning that you get at those events. And actually just the networking, not even just I've been to a BALPPA event. And what struck me about it was the knowledge that was shared at that meeting. Kelly Molson: And what struck me about it was the knowledge that was shared at that meeting, it was so authentic and so transparent, actually, that you got a lot from just the talks, but actually you get even more from just networking from people that are in the same position as you, at a different attraction again, have those same kind of challenges and same kind of things that they need to talk about. And being able to just have them on speed dial is so beneficial. What else have you kind of put in place to help develop some of your superstar people there, though? Dominic Wray: So, as you mentioned, I think the team going along to BALPPA events has been a big thing for them. I think when you're doing your day to day job, you're running at 100 miles an hour, it's quite hard to sort of benchmark yourself against other people in the industry. And I've noticed that when team members have gone along to BALPPA events, they sort of come back with a sense of,” I could hold a conversation with someone from a bigger park. I'm competent at knowing what I'm doing”, which I know that they know that, but I think that helps reinforce confidence within them as well. And I just think they're fantastic spaces for developing the team's personal confidence and, as you said, their wider personal network as well, and knowledge and understanding. Dominic Wray: I mean, we've seen some of our team members, Laura, who's one of our superstars in our marketing team, she did a keynote speech on Christmas, at the BALPPA marketing conference. And it was so good. I was so proud to see her go there, deliver that, she'd been in the office working hard on it, and then just to stand up and absolutely smash it and see people's reactions to her explaining about that piece was just brilliant. And James, who oversees our site and services, he's due to do a talk on the install of our new rides at the latest BALPPA for Health and Safety Conference that's coming up as well. So I think it's brilliant for the team to be able to be on that platform and develop themselves as well. Dominic Wray: Other things that we do in an organisation as well. I think I'm really big on giving the team space to be able to do their job safely. I think it's good to allow them to give them the space to they're the experts in that area. I very much see my role is overseeing that and making sure all the pieces are coming together. But quite often I will say to them, "Guys, what do you think about this particular thing? Or how should we approach that?". Because ultimately, they're the experts within the business, within their chosen fields, and I'm big on giving them the opportunity to be the experts in those areas. I also think it's great to take some time out to learn more about them as individuals and their roles and their interests within those roles as well. Dominic Wray: So, for example, when Laura joined the business, went on a two day marketing course together. It was a conference that she wanted to attend, but I said, "I'll go with you. I'm keen to learn more about the in depth elements of marketing and I think it'd be a good shared experience for us.". And I think that then just enables the team to feel, actually I'm interested in their department and how they work and operate. And I think there's always something that you can learn from everyone that you meet and interact with. So I'm big on doing that. And then the final thing I'll say is really let them be a star in their area and promote that. Dominic Wray: I mean, the example of Laura with the marketing conference talk was brilliant. It was great to see her on stage representing the business, but also the spotlight was on her and it was about her in that moment, which was fantastic. And I think that's really good when the team feel like they can be superstars in their own arenas of their chosen fields. Kelly Molson: I love that. I remember that talk really vividly. It was really heartwarming, actually. And there was a really personal element to it as well. And you could see how much she was connected to the subject matter that she was speaking to as well. This is something that we talked about prior to coming on today, about how you've kind of supported your team as well as they kind of move through their careers and they move through what they're doing at the attractions. And one of the things that you've really helped them start to develop is their personal brands. Such a hot topic. It's one I love talking about. Kelly Molson: It's something that I've really tried to do as best as I can over the last kind of I think just prior to the pandemic, actually, I kind of started to think about what is it that I want people to remember me about, what's important to me? And if I've got a platform, how am I going to use it to talk about the things that I think are important and that other people should hopefully find as important as me. Kelly Molson: And I think what you've done there is kind of facilitate that for your team, which is really lovely to see because everybody, like you said, is working for the whole of the organisation, but they all have their own kind of individual specialisms. How have you kind of helped people or encouraged people to develop their personal brands? What are the kind of things that you've done there? Dominic Wray: I've encouraged them to get out there, engage with other people, engage within different networks. I think LinkedIn is a great tool for that as well. I think the team all do lots of amazing things every day that we all see and know that they do. But I'm big on encouraging them about, shouting about that. I think as general British people, we're quite sort of we don't like self promotion too much, don't like talking about ourselves too much. And I think having Laura, to be fair, join the team earlier in the year, who's big on her LinkedIn content and big on talking about what's going on out there, has really helped the team and pushed everyone forwards with doing that. And I've really encouraged them. Dominic Wray: You might not think anyone's going to take value from the content you're putting out or discussing that, but actually they will because there's probably someone somewhere looking at that thinking, "How do I overcome that problem?” Or “I've got a similar ride to that we're just in the process of refurbishing, maybe I can reach out to them and find out how they're doing that." So really believing in themselves and that they really are superstars in their area and they should be promoting that and talking about how great they are in the businesses that they work for. Kelly Molson: Have you seen that encouragement kind of help with some of the team's own self confidence as well? They're kind of braver about putting themselves forward for certain things. Dominic Wray: Yeah, yeah, massively. James, who oversees both of our sites from the site and services viewpoint, started off within the maintenance team one of those sites and he's worked his way up through the business. Now he's responsible for health and safety across both of them. He oversaw the install of our new ride which went in at the beginning of the year as well and it's been fantastic to see him grow and his confidence grow and develop within that. And now he's been asked to go forward, as I said, to do a talk next month about that ride install going ahead, which will be his first sort of public speaking gig, and I'll be very much there to support him along with that as well. So it's been great to watch the team develop and grow along with that and their confidence as well. Kelly Molson: That's really lovely to see. Well, I think in the past, people probably haven't wanted to highlight certain people, do you know what I mean? If we put these people out in the world, other people might steal them from us. But I think you have to develop your people and you have to let them shine in the roles that they're in because they'll just get better and better and better. So it's really lovely to see that you're encouraging that. I think it's such an important part of running a successful organisation now. Dominic Wray: Yeah. And I think the team are happier from that. I think if you give them the freedom to go out and experience other attractions and speak to other people at various different levels of organisations, they feel happier where they are. I think if you kind of constrain them and say, "Oh no, we can't allow you to go and speak to these people. We can't allow you to go and visit them because they might poach you or they might offer you a different job." Then they're going to be thinking, "Actually, maybe the grass is greener on the other side.". Kelly Molson: This is not the company for me after all. Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. And I think there's nothing wrong with them being having their own personal brand within the wider brand of the business. I think that's good for them. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think so too. It's really brilliant to see what you've been developing there. Right. I would love it if you could share some top tips for our listeners. We always get our guests to share top tips. Three top tips on processes and people development that you'd encourage other attractions to adopt. Dominic Wray: My first one would definitely be, and I've already mentioned it, but get your team out visiting other attractions. Can't express enough how much they'll learn from those experiences. I think if you set it out in the right position to say, "Okay, guys, we're going to go and visit this event, this is what we're going to be looking for. This is what I want us to take back from that. When we come back, we're going to have a clear debrief to go through key learnings of that and how we're going to implement that into our business. You can still obviously have a great enjoyable experience." Dominic Wray: That's one of the best things about working in this industry is going on an R & D trip, but getting to go on a couple of roller coasters and get scared, go to the scare mazes or whatever else you're going to be doing. I think it's great team building as well. It's great for the team to go and see that. And what I find amazing is it can be anything from the way a site manages its waste or the layout of a queue line or actually I liked on the way in how this person upselled this ticket for me. There's so many things you can gain from that. Dominic Wray: I think when you're going into an attraction, looking at that from that perspective, I just think it's brilliant and there's no kind of training course that you can send anyone on that will deliver that value that they get from going and experiencing it firsthand. Kelly Molson: I'm just laughing at the excitement about waste as well like, "Yeah, we could see how they process their waste." That is exciting. Dominic Wray: That would be something that James would probably come back to say to me. But that's what I mean. Everyone of the team's interested in different things, so it's good. Kelly Molson: On this topic of the visits, do you always go to places that are quite similar to yours as well? Or do you do visits that are in complete contrast to what you do as well? To see the difference. Dominic Wray: We'll do a bit of both. Probably a good example is when we set up our Halloween event over October, when we very first did that, went to visit Tully's Farm, which was sort of, in our eyes, as the gold standard of scare attractions. The first time went there, we just went to see what is it as an attraction? How does that concept work? The overview sort of headline of that. And then over the years, as we've developed Terror Island, which is our Halloween event, which we run here, over October, we've been back to Tully's on numerous occasions. We've had Stuart, who runs that, come down to the site as well, and we're then looking at that from a different perspective. Dominic Wray: So then we moved on to, "Okay, how do we look at improving through, how do we look at improving guest experience? How do we look at upselling F&B? Where are the entrance and exit points of the mazes in relation to the broader site? How's the actual site laid out?". So we're then going back and looking at it in a sort of more detailed layer of that. But no, as a team, we'll go to much larger parks, much smaller parks, because I think there's things you can learn from all different sizes of attractions. We went to Hobbledown last year, which was an interesting experience, and we saw their water pillow there, and we actually put one of those into Robin Hill this year, which was one of our most successful attractions. Dominic Wray: So the guys there were fantastic at explaining about the pros and cons of that attraction, which then enabled us to make an informed decision as to whether to purchase one of those or not. But, yeah, I think there's things to be learned from all different types of attractions. If people are going to them with the right mindset of thinking, “What am I going to learn?” Kelly Molson: What's the objective here? What's the takeaway? Okay, great. So that's top tip one. Dominic Wray: Top tip two would be celebrate personal wins for the team and then let them be stars in that moment. I think when someone in the team does something really well and they've achieved something, it's really important to broadcast that to everyone, let everyone know about that and let them shine in that moment. And for it to be about them as an individual, not so much about the company as a whole. It's them in that moment, and you want to make them feel valued and positive about whatever the experiences that they've achieved. Kelly Molson: Nice. Good tip. Dominic Wray: And then my third one would be let people make mistakes in a safe manner and learn from it. I think in a working environment, people are quite often aware when they've made a mistake or something's gone wrong. They don't leave someone jumping up and down. Yeah, exactly. You know, when you're like, "That didn't work. I know it's not worked well," but I think allowing them to make mistakes in a safe, controlled manner that they can then learn from, because I think quality people understand when something's gone wrong, and they equally understand how to fix it and put their hands up and say, yeah, that's happened. But we're quite quick to acknowledge that and move on to how we're going to resolve it and not allow that to occur again. Kelly Molson: Excellent tips. Okay, as an organisation, what's your biggest opportunity and also your biggest challenge as we head into the winter months? Because I think you're coming to do you close over the season? Do you close down? Dominic Wray: Yes. So Saturday is our last operating day, and we close from November and we open in March. Kelly Molson: Wow. Gosh, you really are coming up to the end of the season. Okay, so what's your biggest opportunity and your biggest challenge as we head into that time? Dominic Wray: It was quite a big challenge, and opportunity for the company is that we made a difficult decision to put one of our sites on the market and we're looking to sell Robin Hill. So that will be the biggest challenge and opportunity for the business in recent years, to be fair. I think it presents a great opportunity for the business to double down and invest further into Blackgang, which is 180 years old this year. So it's a big birthday year for us. Kelly Molson: Incredible. Dominic Wray: And I think that will enable us to be here for another 180 years. Not that I might still be around at that point in time. Kelly Molson: You certainly won't look like Mark Wright at that point. Dominic Wray: No, look like a very aged Mark Wright. But I think it's the biggest challenge for the team and myself personally as we reshape the business and pivot into a new direction, but I equally think it's an exciting one to see what will come out on the other side of that as well. Kelly Molson: It is exciting, isn't it? I can imagine that having two parks to oversee can be a stretch at sometimes in terms of resource and also in terms of strategy and how things work, because I guess that they work similar but different. So, yeah, I can see that as a huge opportunity and something to I guess it's kind of a nice thing to focus on for the start of the new season as well, that's kind of progressing. And then you've got this really big opportunity to focus on this one thing and make it as the very best it could possibly be. Dominic Wray: Yeah. And the team have really taken to it. They're really passionate about driving Blackgang forwards and are very excited about the changes and the plans we've got for the next year and coming years as well. So it's been well embraced by them. Kelly Molson: Good. And I guess you're ending the season on a high as well, because we talked a little bit about your Halloween event, but it has been a really successful Halloween event this year, hasn't it? Dominic Wray: Yes, it's gone down really well. We made the sun top ten events for Halloween attractions. So yeah, it's been really well received. It's a personal favourite of mine. Absolutely love it. It's been a complete passion project for the team, and the team are always up for every event we do, but this is one that they really get behind and are in every possible conceivable bit of detail. And as someone that never used to like horror films and hated being scared, I now absolutely love going through scare attractions and love scaring other people even more than that. Complete 360 for me as well. So you don't know what you like until you try it. Kelly Molson: Exactly. You just never know where you never knew where this role was going to take you, did you? When you started this, Dominic, you never knew you were going to end up as a horror fan. Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. Now I'm like, "Oh no, we need to make that person over there look more dead. Or how loud we need the chainsaw louder, or that guy doesn't look scary enough." Way more interesting than ices and loans. Kelly Molson: I love it. A massive learning curve and 180 years old. I mean, that is a phenomenal achievement. There can't be many other attractions that are coming up for that age. So this is really incredible. I think you've had a really brilliant year. Can't do this podcast without talking about Radio One as well because I've been aware of Blackgang Chine for quite a while, but I think it maybe isn't on the radar of many people because it's Isle of Wight, it's not on the mainland. But I was driving back from the gym one morning and I listened to Radio One. Kelly Molson: I listened to the Greg James breakfast show on Radio One in the mornings and they were doing this thing where they had to find one of the presenters and all the presenters were hidden up and down all over the country, and they were talking about the Isle of Wight and they kept saying, Blackgang Chine. And I was like, they're talking about Blackgang Chine. Let Laura know. I need to pull over and let Laura know. Obviously she already knew that you were being talked about, but I think how many times did he say Blackgang Chine? It was a lot. Dominic Wray: It was a lot. I think it was over 50 times. I mean, my phone was going mental, mate. If you've got the presenters because it's because we have an area called Area Five with large animatronic dinosaurs, and they thought we'd hidden them down there and they were like, "God, you're really good at keeping a secret. I can't believe you haven't told us this.". And I'm like, "No, honestly, they're not here.". I don't want to actually believe me. Well, clearly no one did. Kept ringing up Radio One to talk about it, but that was a great bit of brand profile for the business and I guess sort of showed that people were associating the element of dinosaurs to the park as well. So that's obviously positive for us. Kelly Molson: It was really good press, even if we didn't have the presenter there. It was absolutely brilliant. Dominic Wray: Yeah, it was fantastic. And then everyone was almost like, they should have been here. Kelly Molson: They should have been here. We should, we need to get Greg James back over, don't you? I mean, he said it enough, so you should get him there for a visit soon. Dominic Wray: Greg, if you're listening, come down. Kelly Molson: I mean, I'd love it if Greg listened to this podcast, but it's highly unlikely. But if you are, Greg, would you like to come on? I'd love a chat with you. I’m just around the corner of Bishop Stortford. That's where you were born, right? We could be friends. Dom, thank you for coming on the podcast. It's been brilliant to chat today. We always end the interview by asking our guests to share a book that they'd like to share with their listeners. So something that you love can be work related or it can be personal, whatever you fancy. Dominic Wray: Well, I was going to think about saying the Highway Code so people can understand how to overtake cyclists, really, but I won't. My favourite podcast at the moment is a podcast called the Big Fish that's presented by Spencer Matthews. Kelly Molson: What? Hang on. Dominic Wray: Oh, sorry, my second favourite. My second well, obviously ones that I listen to after yours. Kelly Molson: Thank you. Well recovered. Dominic Wray: Once I've listened to the latest episode, I move on to Big Fish after that. Kelly Molson: Sorry, say it again. Big Fish. Who's it by? Dominic Wray: Big Fish by Spencer Matthews, who used to be on Made in Chelsea, I think, and now owns a company called CleanCo, which is a non alcoholic brand, which is quite interesting. But I like it because he interviews lots of CEOs and business owners. It's got a bit of a sports mindset focus to it, but it's also very much around the culture in those businesses, how they've built the businesses and the challenges they face within them as well. So it's quite an interesting one. Kelly Molson: I like the sounds of that. I listen to quite a lot of podcasts like that. All right, I'm going to put Big Fish on my list. Well, there you go, listeners. You can't win a copy of this podcast because I can't give it away, but I encourage you to go and have a little listen. Maybe it'll be your number two podcast as well, who knows? Dom, thanks for coming on today. It's been lovely to have you. Congratulations on 180 years and best of luck with everything that comes next. I think you've got a really exciting new chapter that's about to start and maybe you'll come back on in a year or so and tell us how it's all gone. Dominic Wray: Yeah, sounds good. Thank you very much for having me enjoyed it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Mobile optimisation for visitor attractions, with Kelly and Paul from Rubber Cheese | 01 Nov 2023 | 00:29:58 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/ Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show. As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're talking about mobile optimisation, why it's important and what you can do to improve it. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Hello, we're back. Everyone will be sick of us by this episode. Paul Marden: I give it a couple more. We've got some interesting stuff to talk about hopefully, hopefully. Kelly Molson: We have. Okay, so let's start as we usually do then, with what attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it? Paul Marden: Well, there's one that you and I both visited recently, and there was something I really didn't love about it. We went on what was it called? Was it Mandrake Mayhem? It's the new Jumanji ride. Chessington World of Adventures. Kelly Molson: Mandrill. Paul Marden: There we go. If you are a roller coaster nut, would be amazing. But yeah, within 2 seconds of the ride starting, I realised it was not the ride for me. Kelly Molson: I like roller coasters. Yeah. So we sponsored one of the awards at the UK Theme Park Awards. And it was brilliant. It's fantastic. Paul Marden: It was such a great event. Kelly Molson: Really good event, brilliantly organised. It was absolutely brilliant to see so many attraction friends there. And it was at Chessington World of Adventures, which was super cool. I also want to talk about Chessington because I had forgotten how good it is. So I haven't been to Chessington since I was really small, and I think I'm pretty sure I only visited once or twice because we actually lived closer to Thorpe Park and were like in the Thorpe Park Rangers camp. But what I'd forgotten about Chessington was the animals. Yeah, I was really lucky. I drove down the night before of the awards and got to stay at the hotel that night. I didn't get to stay in any of themed rooms because budget did not allow for that. Kelly Molson: However, what I'd forgotten was that when you're having breakfast, the animals are literally right outside where you're eating. And I'd forgotten about it to the extent that I went up to the buffet to go and get my lovely, delicious English breakfast, which I was really looking forward to. And I could see people looking out the window and I was like, "Oh, what are you looking at?" And they went, "Giraffes? Yeah. Wow." Actually took my breath away a little bit. It was a really great experience. It's not often that you get to eat your breakfast whilst looking at giraffes and zebras as well that were out there. So, yeah, that was really great. And I really enjoyed the roller coaster. Despite someone's screams in my ear. Paul Marden: I heard this screaming noise all the way around and about three quarters of the way around I realised it was me. Kelly Molson: There was quite a bit of a screaming, to be fair. Paul Marden: I watched it back. I found a video on YouTube to show Millie, my daughter, and I was like, "Oh, my God, it's horrific. You get to the end and you're just dangling on the side for about a minute and then it changes direction.” And we watched it on YouTube, it barely stops at the top of the ride. It gets up to the top, gets to a hole and then drops back down again. Now, to me, in my memory, that was a solid minute. We were hanging over the side of the hole. Kelly Molson: It was just a minute. Paul Marden: Anyway, I did enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Yeah, big thumbs up to Chessington. It was a really great experience. So, thank you. A big thumbs up to the UK Theme Park Awards organisers as well. It was a great event. We'll be back next year. Paul Marden: For sure. Kelly Molson: Right, we're going to talk about mobile optimisation in this episode. We're going to talk about why it's important and what you can do to improve it. And we've got some really interesting stats to share from the Visitor Attraction Website Report about this. But did you know optimisation is no longer a nice to have? It's a necessity, because Statista forecasts that retail sales from mobile commerce are expected to surpass that 100 billion mark by 2000 and 2400. Paul Marden: Crazy, isn't that? Kelly Molson: I started my career in digital, in ecommerce as well, which is crazy. So it just feels really I know, back in the day, so I always say it was my last proper job before I founded Rubber Cheese, which then has been like, what, nearly 21 years. So it was the last proper job that I had before I set that up was for a really early startup, almost like Shopify, but back then. So this is like 23 years ago. Paul Marden: We've got employees younger than that. Kelly Molson: Let's look at it. But it enabled sellers to go and build their own shop. It was called iShop. It was an absolutely incredible platform of its time. And back then, I just about had an email address, let alone did everything, could pretty much run my entire organisation on my mobile phone now. It just blows my mind how much things have moved on. Paul Marden: It's crazy, isn't it? Kelly Molson: Anyway, I digress. So our Visitor Attraction Website Report shows that attractions understand the importance of mobile optimisation for their websites, but there's really huge areas that could be improved. This, for me is the most shocking stat from the entire report. It's blown my mind slightly. 96% of the respondents stated that they had never conducted any user testing for their mobile sites. So that's nearly all of the 188 attractions that took part said that they've never done any user testing on their mobile, which I just don't understand. I've been banging on about testing on your mobile, testing your mobile site for every talk that I've given for the past two years. Paul Marden: Well, that's having a big effect, isn't it, mate? Kelly Molson: Isn't it? Maybe I should talk louder. Yeah, I'm really gobsmacked at it. What was really interesting, though, about it, I mean, it's a shocking stat in itself, but what we did this year with the report is that we asked attractions to kind of self-score their website. So we asked them what they felt their design scored in terms of design, so they could give it a one to ten score. So we asked them to do the same about different areas of their site, and one was mobile optimisation. So 31% gave their site a score of nine out of ten for it, and 24% gave their site an eight out of ten. Paul Marden: They think it's pretty good. Kelly Molson: Yes, and this is the problem. So they think it's good. That indicates that those scores are based on internal assumptions, not potentially not tangible user centred data, because they haven't asked the people to test that their mobile sites are a nine out of ten or an eight out of ten. So I just thought that was really interesting, that a lot of your judgement can be based on your assumptions rather than actually asking the people that are using it. So yeah, I think that's really important that people do that. Paul Marden: I was looking at some stuff that was related to this, but not the same area of the stats that you were looking at there. So I looked at how many of the group actually did any user testing on their site. Okay. And obviously that's a really in comparison to other stats where there's a big wide disparity between different sorts of people. The vast bulk of people reported that they weren't doing any user testing, but the ones that did, all sat in the top range of conversion rate. I'm not saying that one causes the other, but there is a strong relationship between the group of people that are user testing their sites. And all of that group of people also had a conversion rate right in the top of our data set, and that ranged in size as well. Paul Marden: So we're not just talking about the big brands that are doing this. And when you looked at that set of data, there was a big brand in there. Everybody would know it. There was quite a few big brands that weren't in there. So for me, they were conspicuous by their absence because I'd seen them elsewhere in the data set that had been reported. But there was a small brand in there as well, a small organisation. I'd not heard of them before. They had between 5 to 10,000 transactions a year, which in comparison to the people at the top end of the scale, that's at least an order of magnitude smaller organisation. But they were reporting that they were doing user testing and they had a conversion rate right up there in the top end of our data set. Paul Marden: Even more surprisingly, of those that have done user testing specifically on mobile was a very small percent. And this bit you will be pleased about because some people are listening to you, that consisted of a very high proportion of Rubber Cheese clients were in that set of people who were doing user testing specifically on their mobile experience. Kelly Molson: Yay. Yay, Rubber Cheese clients! Paul Marden: Somebody is listening to you. Kelly Molson: High five to all of you lovely people. Yes. So it's interesting, isn't it? Because user testing for me, so we talk a lot about marginal gains at Rubber Cheese, about trying to make something that 1% better, 1% better, 1% better. And the only way you can actually do that is by doing user testing because you just don't know what to make better. You don't know where people are finding those barriers, you don't know where people are maybe confused about something or being blocked by something as well. For me, it's the number one thing to do if you want to start making those tiny adjustments that will start to then have those incremental and larger effects later on down the line. Paul Marden: I think it's so difficult to put yourself into the head of that person that knows nothing. We all come to the party if we run the testing, whether it's us at the attraction or us as the agency. We come to the party with lots and lots of knowledge that the average person that comes to the site and just doesn't have. And it's really hard to put yourself into that position and the solution to that is getting them to do the testing for you. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And when it comes to testing, I think I kind of split it into two. Because for mean I've said this before, but most of my browsing or purchasing is done in a very short window of time in front of the telly when I'm supposed to be watching something that Lee and I have decided that is the one thing that we can watch with the hour of telly time that we get together each day. But actually I'll be trying to watch that whilst also doing ten other things on my phone and I'll split it into browsing and purchasing and most of that happens between about 9:00 and 10:00 for me at night and it will always be on my phone. Do not make me go, I'm not going to go back into my office and crack open my laptop at that time. Kelly Molson: So everything has to be on my phone. I'm really time poor, clearly. So page load speed for me is really important. If I'm trying to find something, I need to find it quickly. I want to read something that's engaging, but not at the expense of not being able to load that page that I want to read. So things like compressing your images is really important. This is a difficult one when it comes to video is that I love video. I think there is nothing more engaging than video on your website, especially if you're a visit attraction to sell that experience. But lose the video on mobile or reduce it, reduce it, reduce it down because that's going to wipe out a load of bandwidth speed and it's going to make your page loads really small. Paul Marden: I've got beef about it in terms of it's autoplay video. It's not an environmentally sustainable thing to do. We don't often think about the environmental impact of websites but it's right up there in terms of industry generating CO2 emissions and it's not the main cause of it, but it's one area where this is prevalent is in the use of autoplay video on homepage. The website. People go to the site, the video plays whether they want to watch the video or not and that is just burning through bandwidth which is ultimately generating CO2. So I'm not anti video. I think video is an amazing thing and as you say, it can really engage you. I sat this morning talking about engaging video to try and get people to want to love the attraction to a client. So I'm totally for it. Paul Marden: But it should be something that user opt into, not something that autoplays for them. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I agree. And content as well. So we know that people read content online differently than they do in a book or a magazine or a newspaper for example, but actually they read it differently than they do on desktop to mobile too. So you actually need to think about if a certain article you have or a blog or event or whatever it may be, is going to sit in the demographic of people like me who is a 45 year old woman with toddler has 1 hour in front of the telly a day to do all of her purchashing and scrolling and anything else she needs to do on her phone. Paul Marden: Superheroes you make. Kelly Molson: Where is my cape? That content really needs to appeal to them and it needs to be in the shortest form possible because I don't have the time to read all of the engaging content. I just don't. So you need to kind of think about, is your content formatted differently when it's from desktop to mobile as well? And then when it comes to purchasing this one's, a little bit trickier for attractions, I think, and there's lots of different reasons for it. We're probably going to talk a little bit longer about this one, but the number one thing that we're always asked to review on attraction websites is that booking journey. And the thing is, we can only do the review of it if that booking journey is owned by the attraction. Kelly Molson: What I mean is if it's been designed and you are integrating with your booking system via API, so your agency or your internal team have designed that journey up to the point of you know, the tickets in the basket and gone. If you're using a third party system, an off the shelf ticketing platform that isn't integrated via API, there's not a lot that we can do about of once a guest is into the purchasing journey, they're with that system. The things that you can think about if you are going to go down the design and at your own route, you need to think about big buttons, you need to think about less clutter. I want arrows, don't make me type stuff into small form, free form boxes on mobile. You just need to be able to select things really quickly and clearly. Kelly Molson: So you want to kind of just strip out all of the noise and just get people to focus on the one thing that you want them to do, which is go through that journey and buy that ticket. What was interesting in the stats that came out of the report is that 75% of the respondents to it still expect customers to complete more than five steps to purchase, which hasn't changed from last year, that's similar to last year. And again, the reasons you might not be able to control that, you might be unable to control that because of the system that you use. So this is a really challenging one, but if you can reduce it, you can actually make some quite significant financial gains. So you looked at the impact of bookings on conversion rate, which is quite significant. Paul Marden: I got really excited working this number out. I reckon these numbers are conservative as well because these are on the basis of ticket prices and lost ticket sales. For me, I think this number could be higher for most attractions because the value of somebody coming to an attraction is bigger than just their ticket price. We talked about this the other day when were chatting. When you go there's, the meal that you eat, there's the gifts that you buy when you leave. So the total cost of somebody arriving at the attraction is probably higher than I'm estimating here. But using some stats on what the fall off rate is in ecommerce transactions, we've worked out that each step that you add to your checkout flow, it costs. Paul Marden: For our average attraction in our data set that we reckon it costs about 8000 pounds a year in lost sales. And for our top performing attractions it could be worth in the range of a quarter of a million pound a year in lost sales for each step that is included in their checkout flow. You think if you're in one of those top performing attractions with five steps, a quarter of a million pound in lost sales just in year one, that's a lot of developer time that you could buy to simplify your checkout workflow, isn't it? The return on investment for that, for a big organisation of simplifying your checkout workflow I think could be huge. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it could. There's so many other factors to think about. We have clients that have API integrations, we have clients that use off the shelf booking systems. In one way, I've always been really in the corner of designing and owning your own booking journey, but you have to be realistic about what that puts on the organisation as well, and what size your organisation is, whether you have the internal team to be able to manage that, the infrastructure to be able to manage that as well. Paul Marden: There's a total cost of ownership issue, isn't there, that is beyond just the buying price of the website in the first place. You've got to be able to maintain the thing going forward, haven't you, and that's pricy. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. But I think if you are thinking about your booking systems at the moment, then having the conversations with the providers about what their mobile journeys look like, ask to get them to demo it on mobile so you can see it for yourself. And ask them what the roadmap is in terms of mobile optimisation for the booking journeys as well. So just go into these conversations with those thoughts in mind so that you can get an understanding of what that looks like. And if their purchasing journey is six steps at the minute, ask them what are your plans to reduce that to five steps and how could we work with you to make that happen? That could start to take those conversations in some really positive ways. Paul Marden: Honestly, this stat, I'm going to sound like such a nerd, but this stat has stuck in my head ever since we worked this one out. And I can't get out of my head what the impact is of the lost opportunity, the lost sales that are happening because of these steps. And I've been thinking, what is the absolute barest minimum? Because lots of attractions, when they're going through their buying journey, I'm thinking, what on earth do you need to ask me? This is a rhetorical question, by the way. I know the complexity that is going into a lot of these things, I do understand it, but why is it that you actually need to ask me to take these five steps to get through, to get me to actually part with my money? Paul Marden: And I've been thinking about, for me, what is the absolute barest minimum you could get away with asking? Well, there's no way that you can affect a payment card transaction without knowing the card details. So you've got to ask the card number, the postcode, the CDC number and the surname of the person holding the card. So you have to have those. And if we can't give the ticket to somebody, we've got to have a mechanism getting the ticket to them, so we need their email address. Those five things are the absolute barest things I could get away with. But of course, that would only sell you, could only sell an undated, untimed ticket with that. Paul Marden: And I've been thinking about this back in COVID, so COVID and lockdown, and then the gradual release of lockdown was what introduced for many attractions, timed and dated tickets, wasn't it? And that was a complete transformation because we had limited capacity, we needed to make sure that we didn't oversell that capacity and create a problem at the gate. But is it necessary now? I completely understand that there's lots of benefit to the attraction, to guest services and people like that, of knowing exactly how many people are coming into the attraction and being able to metre that. But I wonder what impact having timed tickets and dated tickets is having on the number of people that give up buying because there's just too many steps in the process. "I can't be bothered with this. I'm going to not do it." Kelly Molson: This is quite controversial. Paul Marden: Isn’t it? Completely. And I'm thinking back to that podcast episode that you did with Roman Baths where you were talking about variable pricing and dynamic pricing and of course you can only do those things if you have dated and timed tickets. So if nothing else, there is a creative tension there, isn't there, between if I ask the absolute barest minimum, I will sell more tickets, versus if I date and time my tickets and I could be really flexible about my pricing. Everybody wants lots and lots of information because who wouldn't want all the information you could possibly get about your customers versus the more I ask, the less people will buy. Harsh, isn't it? Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm in the camp of pre booking as well, so this is uncomfortable for me. I'm in the camp of pre booking and I don't mind time ticketing either. I think there is absolutely a place for it and I think for organisations, for attractions, it just makes their life so much simpler. Paul Marden: Completely agreed with you. But I guess there's this at one end of the scale, you've got the absolute barest minimum that you could ask that will get more people, take their money, take money off of people and get them through the checkout flow as fast as you possibly can. Versus if there's two ends to this spectrum and both make us both feel uncomfortable, Where's the middle ground? Do you need to know where my address is? You don't need my address to be able to sell me a ticket. You need to know my postcode so you can do the credit card transaction, but you don't need my whole address to do that. So maybe that's where the compromise sits. That doesn't make either of us feel uncomfortable. Kelly Molson: Maybe. I always think there's a way to get more data out of people at a later stage as well, if you really want it. And maybe that's something that we need to look at in a different episode, is that you don't have to ask for all of these things at the point of purchase, but you can ask for more stuff afterwards as well if you're really engaging with that audience. Paul Marden: There's also one more thing just on that point, there were tools that could simplify this as well. Because if you have a clever use of Apple Pay or Google Pay, both of those checkout flows, people have all of their personal information plugged into Apple Pay, so you don't need to ask me anything about me. If you have a clever checkout flow with Apple Pay, then you could take my money and then get my personal information from Apple rather than make me having to type it all in. How much easier does that make the process? Kelly Molson: When I posted about this on LinkedIn, it must have been a couple of months ago now, and I asked people what their biggest frustrations was with booking journeys. They said lack of Apple Pay. They said it's a necessity for people. They don't want to think about their details. They don't know their card details. They haven't gotten again, they're sitting on the sofa like I am, their cards are upstairs. They're not going to get off their bums and go and get their cards. That was the number one thing that kept coming up over and over again. And then the second one was around clear and consistent pricing so that they don't feel like they're being ripped off as the deeper they get into that journey. So that's two really interesting things to think about there. Kelly Molson: On these episodes, we often highlight people that are doing it. Well, we've decided not to do it in this episode. And there's a couple of reasons for that, is that it's really hard to compare between people that have an API integrated designed booking journey and people that are using off the shelf systems. And there will be very specific reasons for why they have chosen to go down either of those routes. And you can't compare them because the reasons are uncomparable, I feel. So we've decided just to take that step out for today, but we are going to talk about what next steps that you can take. So I think the first one is going back to what you've just referenced is thinking about what information you actually really need from the customer. Paul Marden: Yeah, if you ask less, you'll need less steps. The less steps, the more people will make it through the checkout site. Kelly Molson: So what can you remove and maybe what could you add in later in addition to that. Paul Marden: Completely. Kelly Molson: And then test on mobile. Test again. Didn't I end last episode with saying just test, test on mobile regularly, but go through the entire process from start to finish. Paul Marden: And then the fix the stuff that doesn't work. So I had an interesting conversation when were at Theme Park Awards with another podcast alumni. We were chatting about prepping for the report and where were going and what were doing and all that kind of thing. And he told me a story about a site, fairly large attraction, where when you try and check out the only way if you're doing it on mobile, you can't select the number of tickets when you hold your mobile up. Now, the attraction has tested, they know it because they've written a message at the top of the page and it says to be able to book your tickets, rotate your phone to the side and then you get the ability to be able to choose your numbers. Paul Marden: So great, they're doing some testing, but how many people don't bother reading that message, how many people are stymied by the idea that, "Oh, well, I can't choose the number of tickets?" Not only have you got to test it, you got to fix the stuff that doesn't work as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah, gosh, how frustrating is that? And is that the system that they're using? So they've got no control over it. And if that is the system that they're using, then they didn't get them to demo it on mobile, did they, when they purchased it? Paul Marden: I think it's a combination of the two. I think there was something very special about the ticket descriptions of that attraction. That meant that they wrote quite a lot in the descriptions and when you wrote quite a lot in the ticket description, it just overflows off the side of your mobile, unless you've got a massive tablet. Or you rotate it on the side. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's not great. Asking them to do something that they're not expecting to have to do is challenging, isn't it, asking all your users to think, well, they don't want to think either. They don't want to think at that point. They just want to do the doing. Okay, what kind of budget are we looking at for some of these things? It's really difficult to say. Paul Marden: Yeah, as you've just said, or to remove steps out of the checkout flow. It could be impossible for many people, because if they have an off the shelf ticketing system that they call out to that they don't have control over, then they might not be able to do anything about that. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's lots of things with those off the shelf ticketing solutions. Many of them are very flexible about the steps that you take through the checkout flow. So it can be very highly configurable and it could be in their control to just take it out without any need for developers doing things. It could just be a case of how do they use their third party ticketing system and changing that slightly. Paul Marden: So it could be possible, or it could be something very practical that they could do themselves. Kelly Molson: It's worth saying that we as an organisation have lots of conversations with lots of the ticketing providers and they are very aware of improvements that can be made or would like to be made to this. Kelly Molson: So I think that there's definitely a movement in the ticketing world of acknowledging that this is challenge and knowing that they can do something about it. And I know that there are a few that have got kind of plans to make change in this area as well. So that's great to see. Paul Marden: It's a really competitive space, isn't it? So it's interesting to see how that's going to play out. Kelly Molson: Yeah, very much so. Okay, well, look, listeners, this is us for another month. What we'd really like, though, is to understand what you'd like to hear from us. So we've got loads more topics that we can talk about from the report. We have got loads of things that come up on day to day basis, things that we work on that we can talk about. But if there's anything that you would like us to discuss, any questions that you'd like to ask us, we can happily make those into a podcast episode. So send me an email. It's kelly@rubbercheese.com. Just let me know what you're having challenges with. Yeah, any questions that you just would like us to cover as a topic and we can make that happen. Paul Marden: Awesome. I'd love to. I'm enjoying it. Kelly Molson: Me too. It's lovely to have a fellow guest. Fellow host. Paul Marden: I just got downgraded then. Kelly Molson: Who's the real host? Me, of course. It's lovely to be joined by a second host. Thank you, Paul. See you next month. Paul Marden: Bye. Bye. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Philanthropic thinking for funding of new projects, with Rhiannon Hiles | 18 Oct 2023 | 00:51:03 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhiannon-hiles-4469784/
Rhiannon Hiles is Chief Executive of Beamish, The Living Museum of the North. Rhiannon leads the talented team of staff and volunteers, and is responsible for strategic development and operations at the award-winning County Durham open air museum, which brings the region’s history to life. With over 30 years’ experience in the culture sector, Rhiannon has extensive curatorial, commercial, operational and development expertise, combined with a great passion for museums, heritage and the North East. Working with national and international museum colleagues, Rhiannon is at the forefront of leading open air and independent museum practice, focused on sharing ideas, knowledge and supporting talent and progression across the sector. Rhiannon has a background in architectural and design history and an MA in Museum Studies specialising in social, rural and folk life studies and was an antique dealer and museum volunteer early on in her career. Her professional experience includes the prestigious Oxford Cultural Leaders Programme, SPARK Association Independent Museums (AIM) senior leaders programme, appointment to the board of the Association of European Open Air Museums, North East Chamber of Commerce Council member, National Museum Directors’ Council, Museums Association, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, and the Association of Independent Museums. She has been a school governor and is currently a Museums Association mentor and Director of the Melrose Learning Trust.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today's episode, I speak with Rhiannon Hiles, CEO of Beamish Museum. We talk about wiggly careers and finding opportunities that use all of your skills. We also discuss philanthropic thinking and how to use this approach to support the funding of new projects. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Rhiannon, it's lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm very excited that we've got Beamish back on, if I'm honest. So I know that we've had lovely Matthew Henderson, one of your past colleagues, came on not too long ago and talked about creative ideas for driving commercial income. Kelly Molson: But I've recently experienced Beamish, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on in the podcast. So I'm really tough to it's lovely. Rhiannon Hiles: It's a pleasure to be here. I've been dying to talk to you as well. So this is great. We had that initial conversation, didn't we? And so to be talking to you again today, it's brilliant. Kelly Molson: Well, hopefully you still feel like that after I've asked you these icebreaker questions. Let's start. Okay, I want to know what's the worst gift that you've ever received but you had to try really hard to kind of be grateful for. Rhiannon Hiles: Well, I used to have a black and white collie when I was growing up. We had a small holding and we always had collies. And I had my favourite collie was called Woody. I loved Woody. Woody came everywhere with me, black and white. And I was out somewhere once and I said, "Oh, she looks a bit like a badger." When they asked me what she looked like. And then people kept giving me badger stuff all the time. And my house was getting full and full. I was a student at the time and had a student house that's full of badger things. And I was always very polite because I was brought up to always say, "Thank you. Thank you very much for the present." Inside I was going, "Not more badger things." Rhiannon Hiles: And when I eventually thought I was moving and I thought, I'm going to put all those badger things in a box and take it to a charity shop, and I did that. Kelly Molson: And somebody would have loved that big box of badger rubbish, wouldn't they? Rhiannon Hiles: Somebody. Kelly Molson: You get this if you've got a sausage dog as well. So we used to have a sausage dog. The minute you have one of them, everyone thinks that you are a dachshund mad and you're not. You've just got a dachshund. But they buy you everything that I've got so much stuff with dachshund. I don't know if the person that bought me is listening to this. I've got like makeup bags with dachshunds on I've been bought, like, shopping bags and things like that. And I'm like, "Yeah, she's cool and all that, but I don't need to dress myself in dachshunds and paraphernalia". For now, anytime that anyone buys me anything rubbish, I'm going to put it in the badger box. Right. I love that. Kelly Molson: Okay, well, this is definitely not going to be badgers, but if you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick? Rhiannon Hiles: It's not really very sustainable and everyone who knows me will be like, "You are." It sounds so vain, mascara. Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. No, I'm with you. Rhiannon Hiles: Sorry. Kelly Molson: No, don't apologise. Mascara would absolutely be on, like, my desert island diffs. If I was put if I was sent away somewhere, I would need not Desert Island Discs. What am I talking about? If I was on a desert island and I could take one thing, I want my mascara. Rhiannon Hiles: When I was pregnant and packing, you packed the bag, ready to go to hospital, and I was like, "Have I got everything in?” And I was like, “Have I got mascara in?" And everyone's like, "You will not want that or need it." And I was like, "I will." And to be fair, I'm not actually certain that I did care, but I was safe because it was in there. Should I need it? Kelly Molson: Yeah, at the time. Things like that are really important. Are they? Have you ever had the fake eyelashes put on so you don't have to bother with it? Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, not to that degree. When I was a teenager, I was a goth and I thought I was Susie Sue. So this is 1983. And I really thought I was Susie Sue. And I'd spent ages studying the way she had her ticks and her eyeliner and her eyebrows. So I spent ages perfecting that and I couldn't get the eyelashes to work in the corners to what I wanted. So probably from Superdrug or the Equivalent in 1983, because I can't remember where it was in Durham. I'd snuck in with my pocket money and I bought these stick ones to go along the top. They didn't stay on for very long. Rhiannon Hiles: I've never had the ones that people actually have physically put in, but then when I see people and maybe one of them's come out, I'm like, it looks a bit odd. Stick with your own eyelashes. Kelly Molson: I can't do the put them on yourself. I'm not very good with stuff like this at all. I'm not very good with makeup, but mascara is my go to because.. Rhiannon Hiles: That's easy, isn't it? Opens up your eyes, away you go. Kelly Molson: All you have to play like a new woman. But I have had the ones that someone puts in professionally before, which were amazing, but the only downside is when you decide that you don't want them any, have them taken off. Your own eyelashes look so rubbish. That you look a bit like an alien because you’ve got not enough lashes, because you had loads before with the extra on. So, yeah, little tip for you, everyone. You'll look like an alien. Rhiannon Hiles: I'll remember that. Kelly Molson: Right. What is your unpopular opinion for us? Rhiannon Hiles: I listen to your podcasts and I love hearing what people's unpopular opinions are. And I listened to the one with Bernard Donoghue and the other two brilliant chaps, and one of them had nicked my unpopular opinion and now I don't want to share it because they didn't nick it, because they didn't know that I was going to do it. But I used to live in the museum, I used to live in Beamish, and it was brilliant. At the end of the day, when visitors weren't there, it was amazing. Kelly Molson: Oh, this is what Paul said. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Kelly said that the best thing about the attractions is when people aren't there. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. Now, like, during the day, I would never think that or say that, because I love being amongst all the people, but when I lived in the museum, when everyone went, when the trams went, when it was deadly quiet, it was like yet another place, and it was like, "Wow, this is amazing now." And it was so different when the people weren't there. But I have to say that, for me, is an unpopular opinion, because, obviously, visitor attractions work when they're full of people. And although I used to think, I think, “Oh, it's so lovely at nighttime, or when everyone's gone”, but then when it went into lockdown into COVID, it made me sad when the people weren't there. So then my unpopular opinion kind of shifted. A very simple unpopular opinion is that I really don't like mushy peas. Kelly Molson: I'm with you. I don't like peas of any form at all. No, I'm absolutely this might not be so unpopular because I've got, like, a group of friends that are pea haters like me, and I have passed it on to my little girl as well, which I'm trying to yeah, I know she's not great. She's really good with fruit, not good with veg, and I'm trying to kind of retract that a little bit, but she's heard me say peas and make the face and now she's like, “Peas, yucky mummy.” Yeah. I'm trying to get her to go back, but I draw the line. There's no way I'm having mushy peas in my mouth. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think it's like the husky bit. Sometimes they're not really mushed and there's still a bit of husky pea shell in and I'm like, I don't like it. Kelly Molson: It's actually turning my stomach, thinking, well, let's see, whose side of the coin are you on? Are you on the pea lovers side or the pea haters? Come and join us on the haters side. Rhiannon Hiles: Vote now. Kelly Molson: Right, I want to know a little bit about your background, because I know that you've been at Beamish for quite a while. But what did you do prior to that? Rhiannon Hiles: When I was at school, I was really into horse riding, I had ponies and I set my sights from about the age of ten, probably to be a riding instructor. And so I was determined that's what I was going to do. But I was always a very good artist and I used to love drawing buildings and animals, not always in the same picture, but I loved the shape of buildings and I was just very interested in them. And I used to travel quite a lot with my grandparents and we used to always visit museums on the continent in particular. We used to go to open air museums loads and I just loved them. We always went in the summer, really loved them. But I still thought, I want to be a riding instructor, just want to visit those museums and have fun. Rhiannon Hiles: And then as I went through school, you flick around, don't you, a bit, when you're in school? Because I love drawing, I love sketching clothes. And I was a bit of a gothy punk when I was a teenager, and I used to make my own clothes. But I also was really into how the interiors of buildings looked. But I continued to ride horses and I did train to be a riding instructor, but I soon discovered there's no money in that unless you've got really wealthy parents with your own riding school and everything. So I continued to ride, still love horses, but knew I just went on a bit of a quest and I did quite a lot of commissions of drawings whilst I was studying, while I was doing art at college, and then I went on to do architecture and design at university. Rhiannon Hiles: And while I was at university, I met some people who said, "Have you ever thought about studying this and have you ever thought about doing some work in museums? And what about open air museums?". And I thought, "Well, I've always visited them, and I love them." So I started doing some voluntary work in museums and at the same time supplementing my living by buying and selling antiques. So I was antiques dealer for a while, which is good fun, actually. I quite enjoyed doing that, but I wasn't the greatest antiques dealer because I was more interested in the history of the things than the money that I was making from them. Sometimes I'd be like, "Do you know where this is from? And I just want to buy it". I was like, "But it's really interesting." Rhiannon Hiles: So I love doing that and I think it did give me a really good grounding. So I would really like scrabble around and things. I would go into skips and get stuff out and I'd sometimes knock on people's doors and I'd say, "You've got this really interesting table in the skip, can I have it?". Sometimes I would just pass a skip and go ask paper, put it in my car, and then I'd do them up. And one of my mum's friends used to buy and sell student housing in Durham, and she used to get me to help her to get the houses ready. And she'd say to me, "I'm going to leave you.". This is in, like 1987, 88. She'd leave me with a hammer and she'd say, can you knock out that set pot in the corner? Rhiannon Hiles: And when I come back, I'll just take you home, no PPE or anything. I'll stand there with the hammer thinking I was like, I was 18, I was like, I'll just hit it everywhere. But funnily enough, I think that gave me quite a good understanding of the ins and outs of older buildings. And I just really knew that I wanted to be involved with telling the stories of people who might have lived in those older buildings. So when I started doing that voluntary work, I did it in a museum in Durham first, which is brilliant, great grounding. It was the Oriental Museum in Durham. There's loads of work in their stores. And then my uncle's friend was a curator at Beamish, and my uncle said, "Give Jim a ring, see if you can get some voluntary work at that Beamish." Rhiannon Hiles: So I rang that Beamish up and I said, "Could I get some voluntary work?" And it kind of started from there, and I thought when I went, I was like, I've always visited here. Didn't really cross my mind you could work here. And I just kind of loved it right from the start. I became immersed. I found a picture of me recently when I'm a bit older. I'm 21 by then, and it's just before I started working at the museum, because it's when I was doing my undergraduate degree, and I'm like, I'm in one of the cottages and I've got all my glass stuff on and I think I'm dead cool. I've got my camera, but I can tell in my face that I was like I'm like, "Wow, I'm in the opening.” Kelly Molson: This is amazing. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So I think I had a bit of a, like, I don't know, was I going to be a horse rider, was I antique stay there, was I an artist? But then when I went into open air museums, I just knew I just had this fire in my belly, whatever you want to call it. I was like, this is where I need to be and this is what my quest is. This is where I want to lead one of these I want to be responsible for one of these fantastic places. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God, what an incredibly wiggle. I love that. So I really like hearing about where people I think the skills that people have and how they then apply them into the roles that they've ended up in. I was so shocked when you said about antiques, because I love that. I love nothing better than a Sunday morning mooch around a vintage shop or just like, scouring charity shops for any kind of bargain that I can find. And I was like, "She's literally living my life. That's amazing. I’d love to do that job.” Rhiannon Hiles: I think, briefly, because I used to go so a friend of mine who was at university with, he said, "Well, if you're dealing in antiques, why don't we set up together? Why don't we get a van together? Have you got any money?". And I loaned 500 pounds off my mum and I said, "I'll give you it back." I don't think I ever did. And we bought this really tatty van, bearing in mind this is, like, in the late 1980s, and we used to do, like, Newark. We used to go up to Isntonton in Edinburgh near the airport. We used to go around the country doing all the really big antique spares and camp and sell our goods really early in the morning to the dealers and then all the public would come in. Rhiannon Hiles: And then I started to be like, semi all right at it. And a friend of mine had a pub with a little what had been a shop attached to the pub in York, and she asked me if I wanted to sell some of my antiques in that little shop attached to the pub. So I did that for a little bit and then I thought, I think it's not quite working for me, there's something not quite right. And it was because I wanted to tell the stories of the things. So I enjoyed doing it and I learned lots doing it, but I wanted to be a curator, basically, and I hadn't clicked at that point. And then when it did click, I was, "It's clicked. That's what I'm going to do." Kelly Molson: And then you stayed at Beamish and you've just progressively worked your way through all of these different roles, up to CEO now. Rhiannon Hiles: I know. That's amazing. Kelly Molson: It is amazing. But you hear that quite a lot, don't you, where people, they find the place and then they stay there because it's got them basically, it's just got them hooked. And I totally understand this about Beamish. Were talking about this just before we hit record, but I visited Beamish a couple of months ago and had such an emotive reaction to the place. It's an incredible experience. It's the first living museum that I've ever been to. I knew what to expect, but I didn't know what to expect, if that makes sense. I knew what was there and I knew what was going to happen and how were going to experience the day, but I was not prepared for how completely immersive it is and how emotional I got, actually, at some of the areas. Kelly Molson: So can you just give us an overview of Beamish for our listeners that haven't been there. What is Beamish? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, I think you've described it really well there about it being immersive and emotional. So those elements will perhaps occur for the visitor. They might not. It depends what people want to get out of their visit. But you and I were talking about how increasingly, as we have more living memory that we represent in the museum, that people will have emotive responses. And I think that goes back to one of the founding principles of why Beamish was originated. So our first director, Frank Atkinson, in the 1950s and 60s had traveled around Europe looking at different types of social history museums. He was a social history curator and he'd come across open air museums in Scanson, in Stockholm, in Malhagen, in Lilyhammer. Rhiannon Hiles: And he was just mesmerised by how they told the stories of the people of the locality in a meaningful way that represented the normality, the ordinary, the typical, rather than being the high end stories of lords and ladies in aristocracy. And he wanted to recreate something similar back in the north of England because he had seen disappearing stories and communities and lives. And he foresaw that there would be more of that disappearing as he foresaw that coal mines would begin to change or close. And people laughed at him sometimes when he said things like, "I want to recreate a slag heap of coal.". They went, "Why would you do that? There's lots." And he said, "Because there won't be any soon." And he was right. Rhiannon Hiles: So the reasoning behind the creation of Beamish was to tell the stories of the rural, the industrial, the social history of the people of the north of England in a similar way to those that are told about the fork life, which is the lives of the people that you see in museums on the continent. So that's what inspired Frank. And Frank's founding principles have stayed strong throughout the museum's ups and downs. And I've seen ups and downs across the years. The 27, 28 years that I've been at Beamish, I've seen lots of ups and downs. But if ever I'm thinking, what should I do next? I always think, what does the visitor want and what would Frank think? And I don't always agree with what Frank would think. Sometimes I think," Would I agree with Frank?". But I always have those two things. Rhiannon Hiles: I think, what would Frank think and what does the visitor need to see now? And I was watching there's a YouTube film called The Man Who Was Given the Gasworks, which is about Frank and his ideas. It was filmed in the late 1960s and it's really funny to watch, very BBC when you watch it, but it tells you a lot about where the ideas came from. But some of the things that he's talking about and the people that he's meeting in Scanson in the continent and he's interviewed by Magnus Matheson as a very young man, which is quite interesting. They still ring true and they still have this philosophy that all school children would visit from the locality to their open air museum. Rhiannon Hiles: And that's still a strength that's still very important to myself, but also to our museum, but also to other open air museums that I know. So Beamish kind of evolved as a concept, and then Frank found a site to build this big open air site which would tell the story of the people of the north of England. He was shown lots of different sites around County Durham. And the story goes, and I've talked to his son about this, and his son says, "I think that's what dad did." His son's about the same age as me. So he wasn't born when Frank had this idea, but apparently he got to where you come in at the car park underneath the Tiny Tim theme hammer. Rhiannon Hiles: The story is that when Frank arrived there and the trees hadn't grown up at that point, that he looked down across the valley and turned to the county officer who was saying, "Do you want this site?". And said, "This is it. This is where I'm going to have a museum of the people of the north." He said it was the bowl and the perimeter with the trees, so it could be an oasis where he could create these undulations in the landscape and tell the stories through farming, through towns, through different landscapes, through industry, through transport. He did at one time have a bizarre idea. Maybe it wasn't bizarre to flood the valley and tell the history of shipbuilding. I'm kind of pleased that didn't happen. Kelly Molson: Yeah, me too. It's really spectacular when you do that drive in as well, isn't it? I got this really vivid memory of kind of parking my car, walking across to the visitor centre and you kind of look down across the valley and the vastness of the site, the expanse of it is kind of out in front of you and it is just like, "Oh." You didn't quite grasp how big that site is until you see it for the first time. It is really impressive. Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And actually, I'm taking trustees, our new board of trustees. I'm taking them on a walkabout. And that's one of the key things. You just explained it perfectly. I'm going to use your quote tomorrow morning. I'm going to say, this is the Kelly Molson view, because I'm taking them to that point and I'm going to say, "Look across the vastness of the museum and the woodland. We look after all the woodland, all the footpaths through the woodland.". So it's the immediacy of where the visitor comes into the museum is more than that. And so I think we are a visitor attraction and we are self sustaining, but we're sustaining environmentally as well, in terms of what we do, looking after all that woodland and farmland as well. And I think that there's a lot more still that the museum has left to do. Rhiannon Hiles: I think it's almost like it will continue to evolve and change. There'll be ever changing. Someone who I know, who runs a museum on the continent, I was saying to them, "What are you going to develop next?". And they've done a lot of development very quickly and they get some very good funding, which is brilliant for them, but they have to stop developing because their site is so small, they can't develop any further. They're in the middle of a city and they represent an old town and their site is constrained by its size. And they said, "We're very jealous of Europe Beamish, because you've got so much space.". Kelly Molson: Just carry on. Well, the self sustaining thing is actually it's part of what we're going to talk a little bit about today. So think it was last season we had Matthew Henderson, come on, who was the former head of commercial operations there, and he talked quite a lot about creative ideas for driving commercial income. So all of the amazing things that Beamish have done to really kind of expand on the Beamish brand. I mean, I'm sitting here today and in front of me I've got Beamish sweets, I've got a tin of lovely Beamish jubilee sweets sitting in front of me. And Matthew talked a lot about the things that you did during lockdown and how to kind of connect with the audience when you couldn't be open, but just expand on that whole kind of product base that you have. Kelly Molson: And that was something that I was super interested in when I came to visit Beamish as well. Because your gift shop is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. But all the way around the sites as well, the things that you can buy we talked about that immersive experience, but you can buy products where the packaging of those products, it hasn't just been created. It's been created from things that were in use and used as kind of branding back in the 50s and back in the18 hundreds. And that is just amazing. I guess I want to kind of just talk about Christmas. So we're on the run up to Christmas now, aren't we? Rhiannon Hiles: We are. Kelly Molson: I want to talk a little bit about how you drive revenue at what is often considered quite a quieter time of year for attractions because you've got quite a good process of doing that. Is that part and parcel of the hard work that you did during the pandemic to get these products developed? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So just prior to the pandemic, Matthew and I, and Matthew talked to you about this. We had started to think about how we would turn the museum into a really good profit centre without us looking like were selling the collections, because obviously you've got to be really careful, we're a designated museum and all the rest of it. There are really easy ways to do that without it being a barrier. And we came up with all these sort of ideas and then went into pandemic, into the pandemic, and it sped it all up for us. The things which we've been thinking about, would we do it or would we not? We just said, "Look, we're going to do it because what else have we got to lose?". And Matthew did talk to you about that. Rhiannon Hiles: So we entered into this, what are we going to be doing? What are we going to replicate? Who are we going to work with? What are the things we've already got? And Matthew had been working on, for example, the monopoly, he'd been working on that just prior to the pandemic. We just sold out of that during the pandemic because everyone was at home and wanted to buy board games. So we had thought, everything will sit on the shelves, but it didn't, it flew out. We didn't have an online shop, but then we suddenly did, like, overnight and so we talked about having an online shop and were sort of getting there and then went into pandemic and like a lot of folks, it just sped everything up. It really did. Rhiannon Hiles: So some of the work which we've been doing, which was taking us quite a lot of time, I think the pandemic silver lining and people talk about the negatives and the positives of the pandemic. The silver lining for our retail and our product ranges was that it really allowed us to move swiftly through ways of helping the museum to be self sustaining through our immersive sales. When you were in the museum, you'd have been on the town street and we have stalls in there. It's a market town, you would expect to see stalls outside. And all of the products on there are all Beamish products and they've been made either in the museum or they've been made by local suppliers who then are only selling through us. Rhiannon Hiles: Our ice cream is produced by a local ice cream maker, but the method and the flavours are only sold at Beamish. You can't get them anywhere else. So it's bespoke to us, but I'm thinking about how we move us into the next phase, which is all those things which we only sell. For me, there's a lot more that we can do in terms of we've talked about brand licensing, things like that, but in terms of the Beamish reach. So during lockdown, the Harrods of the North, Fenix contacted us and said, "Can we sell Beamish products?". And were like, "Yeah, Fenix have rung us up.". We were like, "Fenix are on the phone, we're so excited.". And we thought, "We're going to sell through Fenix.". Rhiannon Hiles: But for me, that's the start of what we can do with our brand name becoming a high street name, but a high street name that has got some gravitas behind it. So I would want to make sure that we didn't sell ourselves out, we'd want to place ourselves in appropriate places, if that makes sense. So what I wouldn't want to see is that our brand became lessened because we'd maybe chosen the wrong partner or whatever that happened to be. But I think that the Beamish Museum brand is strong and I think it could stand on its own, two feet as a brand, not just at Fenix, and it does at Fenix, so that's brilliant. But elsewhere as well. Rhiannon Hiles: And I've got some conversations lined up with folks to do with High Streets and how we can link up and partner with High Streets locally and perhaps that grows and develops as well, but also in terms of what we can do through our online sales, because we've lessened our impact there, I think. But that's probably because the items which people were buying at home during the lockdown, they can now go out and get, they can come into the museum and buy and they want that in the museum experience. But I think there's other things that we could do, like we have a lot of enamel signs and posters. We wouldn't need to hold all that stock in the museum. Rhiannon Hiles: We can work with companies who can then just download that and then sell that, rather than us having to say we have this massive space where we just hold loads of stock. And for any museum, that's a challenge. Where do you store things, let alone where do you store shop stock as well? So I think at this stage we're on the cusp of something quite exciting, but we don't know what it is yet. But we've got showed Jamiejohn Anderson round, he's a good friend of ours, he's the director of commercial at National Museums Liverpool and he's brilliant. I use him as a bit of a mentor. He's great and I was walking around with him and he's done work at Warner in the past with the Butterbeer and all the can. What can we do? Rhiannon Hiles: There's just so much lists and lists of things that you could brand license and you could sell and that would bring that in. Kelly Molson: Does that make it harder, though, to make those decisions about what you do? Because there's so much it's so much that you could do. There's not an obvious kind of standout one, there's just vast reams of things that you could do. Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And we've got a commercial manager who took over after Matthew left and she's brilliant and she's still in touch with Matthew. They talk a lot about how we would move this forward and which product comes first. And our collections team are really excited. I mentioned just now about the post, the railway posters and the enamel signs that we have. People would love those. And the collections team are like, "We need to do those first because they're brilliant and they're easy and we could do them.". So it does make it hard. And everybody has their own version across the museum about what they think we should do first. So, yeah, it is tricky. And we've just dipped our toe in. And there's other sides of things. Rhiannon Hiles: When we enter into our accommodation, which will be the first time we've done this at the museum, we've done overnight camping at the museum for a while, and that's really successful. But to have our own self catering accommodation is coming on next year. And I would like to feel that if you're staying in one of those cottages that the soap, the welcome pack, the cushion, whatever that is, that you would be able to get that, but that it's bespoke to us. But you will be able and it's not at a ridiculous price either, that it's accessible to people, but that people will be able to get those items should they wish to. Kelly Molson: This was something that was really exciting to me when I came to visit. Well, there's two facets to this. One that was were taken round a I want to say it was a 1940s. It might have been the 19 hundreds, actually. So forgive me if I've got this completely wrong, but there's an artist's house, 1950s house. Sorry, I've got it completely wrong. I said 40. So were taking around the artist house, and what struck me is how the design and the interior design of that house, how similar it is to things that I see now. So interior design is a bit of a passion of mine. It's something that I spend hours scrolling at, looking at, on Instagram. But there were things that were in that house that are now back in fashion. Kelly Molson: So things, they just come full circle, don't they, with design? And so that was really interesting to me. And I remember at the time having a conversation and saying, "I'd buy that wallpaper that was on the wall. I would buy that wallpaper. I would buy that rug that they've got, that throw that was across the bed.". And it was just like, "Yeah, I absolutely would do that.". I know so many other people that would do that as well, who really want that authentic look in their house. I mean, this is a 1930s house that I live in, but I would love to have more kind of authentically 1930s elements to it. Art deco, mirrors, et cetera. Kelly Molson: And you can kind of imagine that not only being popular with the people that come and visit, but actually extending that into, well, interior designers that are styling other people's homes. They haven't necessarily been to Beamish, but they know that they can get this incredible thing from Beamish because they know how authentic that's going to be. And then that translated into Julian telling me about the overnight stays. And I was like, "But I want to stay here now, I could stay potentially in this room.". How amazing would that be? That would really fulfill my interior design passions completely. So that's the next step for you? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it is. It was the number one thing that came out of the market research that we did with people when were looking, just before we launched Remaking Beamish over ten years ago now. When went out and asked people what they would like to do, what's the most important thing to you? They all went, we want to stay in the museum. We want an Immersive, we want to be in it. So we thought, well, okay, we can do that. We thought about where that might be and it went through lots of different sort of ideas as to what it would be. It was going to be a hotel. And then we thought, "Is that going to work? Is it a hotel?". And then we had some buildings which had been unused and weren't part of any future development plan. Rhiannon Hiles: A beautiful row of workers cottages and some stabling and courtyard up Apocalypse, which were outside of the main visitor area with already a courtyard, stabling and cart shed. So I thought, "Well, let's do it there.". Talked to the lottery. They were over the moon with that idea, because it's more environmentally sustainable, because they're existing buildings, brings more of the existing museum into the public realm and it gives us an opportunity to use areas which, to be honest, how would we do something with them going forward, but also enables people to stay in the museum. So a night at the museum, literally be it's going to be phenomenal. There's so many people saying, "I want to be the first tester of the first one that's open.". There's like a massive queue of people who want to come and be the first to stay. Kelly Molson: I want to add my name to the list. I don't need to be the first. Put me on the list. What an amazing experience. I mean, you've lived in the museum, so you've actually done this yourself. But yeah, I just think to be able to extend your visit to do that would be phenomenal, because I know that you're building a cinema at the moment as well. So come in. Come for some dinner to the cinema. Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly. Kelly Molson: Stay overnight. Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly. And we had some European museum friends across. We run a leadership program across the continent and ourselves, myself, Andrew and some others in Europe, and some of them were over last week and we did a lovely dinner for them up at Popley. And I didn't know if you got time to go up to Popley when you visited. It's beautiful up there. It is magical up there. And we have this young lad, he's been a trainee chef and he's brilliant. He loves historical recipes, he loves preparing in the old style. But to make it edible, to make it something which can then be eaten in a venue. And he spent ages thinking about what we would eat and how we would describe it. And it was beautiful. Rhiannon Hiles: And as the light was going down, I thought, "This is what's going to be like for those folks who were going to be staying just across there, just right near Popley.". So I started thinking about all the ways we could make additional revenue. People will want to pay for this. They'll want to pay to have Connor come in and do them a period dinner while they're staying. There's so many other additional add ons that we can attribute to the overnight stay, should people wish to. I think that the list is endless. You've mentioned the cinemas, cinema nights, there's music, there's dance, different experience of different cuisine as well. I think there's so much that people will get from the overnight stay. Not least that you're going to be inside an exhibit staying overnight, which is really exciting in itself, isn't it? Kelly Molson: It is magic when you think about it. And I think what's nice is the way that you talk about that. There's so much opportunity, but it's the opportunities that people want. You do a lot of work about, we're not just selling things for the sake of it. What does our audience really want? And you ask them and you get their feedback from them, which is absolutely vital. Something that you mentioned as well was the lottery. So you spoke to the National Lottery about funding for what you were doing, which is brilliant, because one of the things that we said we'd talk about today was, I always struggle to pronounce this philanthropic thinking. Rhiannon Hiles: Philanthropic thinking? Kelly Molson: Philanthropic thinking. I had to say that slowly, so I got it out right. So we know what philanthropy is, we talk about it. It's charitable works that help others as a society or as a whole. What does philanthropic thinking mean to you? And how do you use this approach to support the funding of new projects? Because that's vital for you, isn't it? Rhiannon Hiles: It is, absolutely is. It's vital and we can and need and should do much more of it. And it's something which I'm exploring further. We have got a new Chief Operating Officer, we've got a new board, and I've talked to them about this and how this will help the museum to prosper for the future for our people. It'll allow us to invest in some of the what I would see as perhaps enough of us might say as core activity. So our learning program, our health and wellbeing program, our environmental sustainability. But to me, those are the things which make Beamish. They're the things which are about our communities and about our people. Rhiannon Hiles: So if we can have partners who will invest in us to work on those strong elements of what makes Beamish then that will help us substantially because that will enable those programs to grow, to develop, to add value to people's lives. While we can then use our surplus that we make through our secondary spend, through our admissions to put into those things which people don't find as interesting. And I don't like the word when people say, "Oh, it's not sexy.". But people don't find toilets that interesting. But if you don't have good toilets in a visitor attraction, if your entrance is clunky, if the admissions and if you're walking around and everything looks a little bit like it looks a bit tired. Rhiannon Hiles: So I think that all those things which are so fundamental to enhance the visitor operation but need to have that money spent on them, will be able to be spent on because we will have developed those other relationships. And I've seen really good examples just recently that have made me feel that there's a lot of opportunity out there. The Starling Bank has been sponsoring the whole summer of fun activity for National Trust. There's the wonderful philanthropic giving from a foundation to English Heritage to fund their trainees and apprentices. That's amazing. Kelly Molson: That is amazing, isn't it? I've read about this numerous times now and I just think, one, it's a fantastic opportunity for people that are going to be involved, but what an incredibly generous thing to do. So those traditions don't die out? Rhiannon Hiles: No, not at all. And I just feel that when there's more and more competition for less and less grants and foundations, which I get, and I understand that there's no point just sitting around feeling sorry for yourself on your laurels because all that will end up in is blah. And I've been in the museum where the museum sat on its laurels and expected things to happen and expected people to come and it didn't. And it had a downturn and you've got to be proactive. You've got to be the one who goes out there and talks to people and expresses what you can do, that you're a leading light. Rhiannon Hiles: We're seen as a leading light in the north of England and that's because of the work that we do with our communities and the fact that we are a little bit we'll take risks, we're entrepreneurial and we're always thinking about how we can improve the museum, improve the offer and also be there for our people. Because fundamentally that's what we're about. Right at the beginning of this conversation, were talking about unpopular opinions and how when nobody was there, I was like, "Oh, it's quite nice." But then during COVID when nobody was there, it was awful because that's not what the museum is about. The museum is fundamentally there for people. People are what brings it to life. The hug, the buzz. It's about all of that dialogue that happens on a day to day basis and that's so important. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think we already have folks who get really excited by what we offer. The Reese Foundation who are from an engineering firm, which is in Team Valley, already fund our STEM working program, because they get that. They get the work that we do. So that is an element of already successful pocket giving that we've had in the museum and I want to do more of that. We've got opportunity over the next period to really turn that around. And I think when you talk to Funders now, they expect a proportion of that to be happening. The Arts Council are talking to us about how you can be more philanthropic or work with philanthropic partners. And so even before were thinking or aware that they thought like that, we'd already had that in our mind, that's how we would work going forward. Rhiannon Hiles: And I think that it isn't just about taking money, it's about having that relationship with the partner and showing how what they've invested in. And generally it'll be something that means something to them and that's why they've made that decision to do that. So if you can show back to them we've been working with a brilliant social enterprise locally called the Woodshed at Sacrosant, which is about getting young lads and lasses who aren't in mainstream education as they come out of skill, or maybe for them, it's not working. And they have done great work together and we have been doing work with them back in the museum. Rhiannon Hiles: So those 1950s houses that you went into, they've done some of the woodwork inside there and they did the pitch and put golf and then they came along to the opening of the 1950s and two of the lads came up, they were like, "I like, you yelling. ". And I said, "I am. How are you doing?". They said, "I feel like this might be what you would call it, a graduation.". And I was like, "It's my last weekend.". And I thought, "Oh, it's exciting.". For him, it's also sad. But he said he was moving on to get another placement with a joiner. And I was like, "That's brilliant.". Another lad's gone on to do Stonemason up at Raby Castle. So it opens up pathways, it opens up journeys, it has so much benefit. Kelly Molson: Oh, goodness, do you know what? That's so weird because that kind of goes full circle to what were talking about at the beginning, doesn't it? And you had all these different skills and then you brought them together and actually they all fitted really well into the museum sector. You've just done the same with these kids who have now got these skills and they're going to take them back into the heritage space. That's amazing. Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it's dead exciting. And sometimes people say to me, you're opening up opportunities, people are coming along and learning, and then they move on. And I'm like, "That's okay, that's absolutely fine.". If they come and learn here, and if there is something for them here, that's brilliant. If there's not, or for whatever reason they choose to go elsewhere, they're taking that skill set and they're still contributing to the economy, to their community, and that is brilliant. So I never look at it as kind of like, "Oh, why is that?". I look at it as like, "That is a real opportunity for them", for the museum and for the economy, for the region as well, for the visitor attraction. Kelly Molson: Ultimately, with that in mind, that you want to get more people on board is a big part of your role actually going out and talking to organisations about what Beamish is? And if they don't know about you already, I'm sure that you are incredibly well known around Durham, but you have to go out and engage with those organisations to kind of see where those connections can be made. Have you got like, a targets list of.. Rhiannon Hiles: I want to go and talk to. Kelly Molson: In front of these people and have these conversations, but I guess that's a creative element of what you do, isn't it, is making those connections and kind of looking and seeing how you fit with them? Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think there's other elements which are really critical for museums, for charities, for the sector, with regards to how those conversations can better enabled and how businesses can feel more comfortable in then donating or becoming part of. So some friends of mine who are in Denmark, it's very usual for big money making businesses, when they get to a certain threshold, they've got no choice. It's a government responsibility that you then have to choose a charity or a museum or a culture sector organisation that you give money to. So my friend Thomas, who runs a brilliant museum, has had a lot of his developments funded directly through a very big shipping company, who I probably won't be able to say now, but a huge shipping company fund their development, basically. Rhiannon Hiles: And I was like he's like, "Oh, does this happen for you?". And I was, "No." Kelly Molson: We have to go and hunt these people down. Rhiannon Hiles: I was, like, brilliant. Could you imagine? Look, but for me, Bernard's brilliant because he can get in there into cabinet and he's a lobbyer and I think there's some additional work that we as individuals in the sector can do. So I've talked to Andrew at Blackcountry about this and what our responsibility is to help to change policy. And if nothing else, if you're part of that change and if you are able to voice how that will then impact on people's lives, then that is so important and so critical. It just depends on different parties approaches to what that impact on lives means, I suppose. Rhiannon Hiles: But at the moment, with all the parties conferences going on at the moment, we've got the ideal opportunity to go along and listen, but also to have a little pointer in there and say, “Don't forget, and this is how important we are.” Kelly Molson: That's a skill, isn't it, in itself? I can remember a conversation with Gordon Morrison from ASVA. Sorry, formerly from ASVA. He's now ACE, when we talked during the pandemic and he talked a lot about how he'd kind of taken some learnings from Bernard in the sense that Bernard, he's quite strong politically and he's a really good campaigner. And Gordon said that they were skills that he'd had to learn. He wasn't a lobbyer, it wasn't his natural kind of skill set. And I think it's really interesting that you said that, because that might not necessarily be your natural skill set either, but it's something that you've now got to kind of develop to be able to shape policy, because if there's an opportunity, take it. Rhiannon Hiles: That's right. And it's not my skill set. But when you have a strong desire to see something work through change, and you can spot how that change can come about through having the right conversations, it's who you go to for the right conversations that can also be the skill set. So that can be quite tricky. And when were looking for our new board of trustees and when were looking for a new chair, one of the key things were looking for was somebody who would have that kind of skill set. And we have got that in our new chair. He really does know how to do that. So I constantly feel like, "Where's he going to now and who's he going to talk to next and who's he going to get me linked up with?". Rhiannon Hiles: And that's brilliant and he knows how important that is. But we also know that we have to take it at the right gentle time. Yeah. So he can open doors. And I think that's so important. And our trustees, we've got a really strong set of trustees who can open doors for us. And again, that was deliberate in our approach that we took, to have a very diverse and representative board, to also have board members who can open other doors that we wouldn't normally be opening, because we have a strong set of doors. We open regularly and close regularly. But also the pace of it is so important that all of this is really needed. Because we're an independent museum, we got to make sure that we are self sustaining. Rhiannon Hiles: Our main money comes from what we make on the door, but if we want to develop, we've got to make sure that we continue to get brilliant secondary, spend brilliant revenue. But on the other hand, we've got to make sure that we bring our people with us, whether they're the staff, the volunteers, our visitors. We don't want to be garping so fast that they're not behind us when we worry about Crown. So it's very exciting times. Kelly Molson: Isn't it? Lots of exciting changes happening. Well, look, we can't have this podcast without talking about MasterChef either. Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, yeah, that was brilliant. Kelly Molson: So that's an incredible opportunity. So you're recently on MasterChef, where they came to Beamish. What an opportunity. Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, it was amazing. But the thing was, they said, "You cannot talk about it, you cannot say anything.". So, literally, for months, were like, were dying to say that we've been a MasterChef. And they were like, you can't tell anybody. But I don't know how this managed to keep under wraps, because there was literally over 200 staff and volunteers were eating all the stuff that had been prepared. How they managed to keep that under wraps is beyond me, but at the minute seemed to work. Kelly Molson: How long was it from recording to that going out as well? Rhiannon Hiles: It was from February up until just the recent airing. So that's quite a long time to keep it to yourself. Kelly Molson: Well done that team. Rhiannon Hiles: It was really hard. Like I said, "Julie, when are they showing it because I can't keep it in any longer ", because it's Julie, who you met, who was nope. They've said, "It's tight lit, but it was brilliant.". And it's great for us, for the museum. It was great fun taking part, don't get me wrong. And I was in the local court recently and the lady behind the counter kept looking over and she went, "Are you a MasterChef?". Kelly Molson: I wasn't cooking, but yes. Rhiannon Hiles: Yes. So I think my new quest now, I'd like to be a presenter on Master Chef. I don't want to cook, but I'd quite like to be a presenter. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I could do that. I could do the tasting, not the cooking. The cooking under pressure. It's another level of stress, isn't it? I like to take my time, read the instructions. Rhiannon Hiles: Don't need the pressure. It looked lovely, though. They'd used the school, they'd taken out all the benches that are in the school, in the pit village, and it turned into it looked beautiful. They'd use really lovely. I suppose they wouldn't call them props because they brought them in, but they were in keeping with the school. It looks so lovely. I mean, you probably watched it and that scene of all the staff of volunteers coming in to sit down to their meal, the lovely tables, the bunting they put up. It looked right. It was brilliant. Yeah. They had some interesting takes on some local cuisine as well. Peas Pudding ice cream was one strange one, but got peas in it, Kelly. You don't want it. Kelly Molson: Giving that one a swerve in that one. Right. What book have you got that you'd like to share with our listeners? Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, well, one of our trustees called Rachel Lennon, has written a really brilliant book called Wedded Wife, which is a great book, and I've just started reading it's about the history of marriage, and it's really interesting, so I would certainly advocate that one. I have a favourite book, which I go back to quite regularly, which is a childhood book and perhaps nobody ever would read it, but I love it and it kind of sums up for me what I was like as a child and what I continue to be like as I've gone through my career. It's called Wish For A Pony, and I really wanted a pony when I was between the ages of six and seven, and then I wished my wish came true. And from then on in, I believed that anything I wished for would happen. Rhiannon Hiles: And I still have that kind of strange, I often think I'm just going to wish that to happen, but I think it's not just that, it's holistic. I think if you really want something and you set everything towards it, yes, of course some people might say, but then you potentially set yourself up for great disappointment and failure. But I kind of think that you can't do something without taking that risk. So I just tend to think if you want it and you wish for it that much and that's what you're really aiming for, just go for it and do it. And perhaps the environment in which I've been brought up has enabled me to do that. And I completely understand that for some people that is probably difficult and challenging. I do get that. Rhiannon Hiles: So I feel that if I can help others who maybe haven't got that kind of environment to help them like those lads and lasses from the Woodshed at Sacrosanct and folks like that if we can provide spaces where they really want to try something but they're not sure how to do it then I think then we've achieved something. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's lovely. Do you know what? So I'm reading the book at the minute I've read the book Manifest, and it is about visualisation and the power of our thoughts and how we talk to ourselves and the things that we kind of want to bring into our lives. And there was a little bit of it that I was kind of going, "Is it the power of the universe?". It felt a little bit way woo to me, but then I kind of reflected on it a bit and went, but this is about taking action, really. It's about going, "I want this to happen in my life.". And it's not about sitting back and hoping that it might happen just because you've put a picture of it on your wall. It's actually about going out and doing the bloody hard work to make it happen. Kelly Molson: So have those conversations with the right people who are the people that can open the doors for you. Go and meet them, ask out to them. And I think that's a really important element of the whole. Yes, you can wish for something to happen, absolutely. But you've got to put the legwork in to make it happen. What a great book. All right, Wish for a Pony. Rhiannon Hiles: Wish for a Pony. Kelly Molson: Listeners, as ever. If you want to win a copy of Rhiannon's book, if you go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter and you retweet it with the words, I want Rhiannon's book, then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. I'm maybe not going to show it to my daughter because I'm actually terrified of horses. Rhiannon Hiles: You don't want a horse to appear in your garden. Kelly Molson: Her cousins have got a pony. She can do it with them and not at home here. Rhiannon, it's been so lovely to have you on. Thank you. I feel like this is one of those chats that could go on and on for hours. So I want you to come back when the accommodation is open. Yeah, because I want to know all about that. I'm going to visit that cinema. But, yeah, I'd love you to come back on and tell us how it's gone once you've had your kind of first guest and stuff. I think that'd be a really great chat. Rhiannon Hiles: I'd love that. All right. Kelly Molson: All right. Wonderful. Thank you. Rhiannon Hiles: Super. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Digital Sustainability and the Elephant in the Room | 03 Jul 2024 | 00:39:51 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast. Competition ends on 17th July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesliweb/
Tools for Sustainability: https://www.websitecarbon.com/
James Hobbs is a people-focused technologist with over 15 years experience working in a range of senior software engineering roles with a particular focus on digital sustainability. He also has many years experience building and running high-traffic, global e-commerce systems while working at Dyson, where he headed up the global digital technical team.
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. The last twelve months have been the warmest of any twelve month period since records began. And while over 70% of attractions have a sustainability policy, only 12% have actually tested the CO2 emissions of their website. In today's episode, we're joined by James Hobbs, Head of Technology at aer studios and a member of the Umbraco Community Sustainability Team. James shares some easily actionable tips to reduce the emissions of your website. Paul Marden: James, welcome to skip the queue. Lovely to have you. James Hobbs: Thanks for having me. Paul Marden: So we always start with some icebreaker questions. So it would be unfair if I didn't inflict the same pain on you. James Hobbs: Go for it. Paul Marden: Let's start with a nice one, I think. What actor would you want to play you in a film about your life? James Hobbs: I mean, instinctively, I'd say someone like Jack Black. Just think he's really funny. A lot more funny than me. I'm not sure how much of a resemblance there is. He's got a much better beard than I do someone. Yeah. If there's gonna be an adaptation, I'd like it to be funny. Paul Marden: I like the idea of that one. I think I'd struggle with that one. I'd struggle to pick. Yeah, you know, it's gotta be an archetypal geek that would play me in the story of my life. I'm not sure who that would be. James Hobbs: Not John Cena or something like that. Paul Marden: So the next one, I'd say this one I found really hard, actually. What was your dream job when you were growing up? James Hobbs: Oh, okay. So I can answer that one easily because my parents still take the Mickey out of me for it. So when I was quite young, I told them very kind of certified. When I grow up, I want to be part time mechanic, part time librarian. Paul Marden: Well, that's an interesting job, shed. James Hobbs: Yeah, it's really random, I think, because I like, I love books. I love reading. Did back then, still do now. I also like dismantling things. I was never very good at putting them back together and then continuing to work. But, yeah, that was my aspiration when I was a kid. Paul Marden: I remember going to careers advisors and just some of the tosh, they would tell you. So everybody was told they could be an undertaker and you got your typical finance jobs. But I really. I desperately wanted to be a pilot. And I was told by the optician I couldn't because of eyesight, which was nonsense. But actually, I couldn't have done the job because I have a zero sense of direction. So later in life, when I trained for my private pilot's license, I got hopelessly lost a couple of times. The RAF are very helpful, though, when that happens. James Hobbs: They come up, fly alongside you and tell you to get out of their airspace. Paul Marden: They don't like people invading the Heathrow airspace. And I was dangerously close to it at the time. James Hobbs: Nice. Paul Marden: That's another story, though. But no, they sent me from my work experience to work in the local council finance department. Department, which I don't think could be more different than being a pilot if you actually tried. James Hobbs: I mean, it's not the most glamorous, I mean, it's important, but, you know, it's not quite Top Gun, is it? Paul Marden: No, no. Exactly. There you go. Tom Cruise. That can. He can play me in the film of my life. James. So we want to talk a little bit about digital sustainability. So I thought it'd be quite nice for you to tell the listeners a little bit about your background in digital and more specifically the stuff that you've been doing more recently in digital sustainability. James Hobbs: Okay, I'll give you the most succinct property history I can. So I guess my background 15, 16 years ago started off as a developer, not a very good one. And since then I've worked for a range of different sorts of organisations. So everything from a local council, national charity, global manufacturing company, and then two digital agencies. For the last ten years or so, I've been more in leadership positions, obviously have to stay close to the technology. And in more recent years, one of the big passions of mine, I suppose, or something I'm really interested is the sustainability side of digital, because I think it's interesting and that we can make a massive impact, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point. James Hobbs: But my current role is I'm Head of Technology at a creative technology studio called aer studios, who also share my enthusiasm for sustainability. So I'm excited to do some work there. Paul Marden: Yeah. And my background stalking of you told me that air does some work in the attraction sector as well, doesn't it? So you work with a few attractions? James Hobbs: Yes, that's right. Yeah, we've got a few. Paul Marden: So there's some form here. James Hobbs: Yeah, I would say so. Paul Marden: Cool. One of the things that I know that you've been working with is so we're both. We've spent a lot of time in the Umbraco community, and Embraco is a content management system that a few attractions use not many, but some tend to be larger organisations that use Umbraco typically. But we've both spent time in the Umbraco community going to lots of events and talking to a lot of people. But one of the contributions you've made over the recent period is joining the Umbraco Sustainability Team. What is it, what does it do and who's involved in it? James Hobbs: Okay, so the Umbraco has this concept of community teams, which I think is a, Umbraco is a very unique organisation. Anyway, you know this because you're part of community as well, but they have a very strong connection and link with the community of developers. And not just developers, anyone who has anything to do with Umbraco and works with it. And the sustainability team is one of the several community teams that exist. The idea is that it brings together people from Umbraco's and people from the community who have a shared passion in something relevant to Umbraco to help steer it, share knowledge, and ultimately achieve a goal. And for the sustainability community team, the goal is to, I guess it's multifaceted. Firstly to make Umbraco as a product more sustainable, which is brilliant. James Hobbs: Secondly, to raise awareness of what organisations or individuals need to do to be able to improve the sustainability posture of whatever they're up to, which is brilliant as well. So there's a very umbraco focused side to it, but there's also a wider kind of awareness raising, educational side of it too, because this is a very, its a quite a new, say, it's a relatively new thing. I think digital sustainability as a concept completely hasn't really existed for that long, unfortunately. But now it does. Paul Marden: Yeah, exactly. And theres been some impact as well that the team has had on the product and the direction of the product isn't there. James Hobbs: Yeah. So and again, this is, there's several of us in this community team and I want to make it really clear that like a lot of work's gone on. It's not just me doing it. So we've managed to achieved a few things. So first of all, the Umbraco website, they launched a new website a little while ago. Its sustainability posture wasn't great. So we've worked with them, people that internally built that to improve it, and that's made a massive difference. Paul Marden: Excellent. James Hobbs: It's gone from being dirtier than a large majority of websites to being cleaner than most, which is great. We've pulled together some documentation for covering all sorts of areas from front end, back end development, content editing and so on, to educate people on how to build more sustainable websites. And some of the team members as well have built an Umbraco package, an open source package that you can install into Umbraco, and it will advise you in terms of the pages that you're making, whether they are good from a carbon footprint point of view or not. And we'll give you a rating, which is superb because it brings that whole thing in much closer to the end users who'll be making the pages. So that was a really nice piece of work. And on top of that, we do appear on things like this. Do webinars and talk at conferences and stuff. Paul Marden: Yeah, and I think Andy Eva-Dalefrom Tangent is one of the members of the team. And honestly it was Andy who totally opened my eyes to this whole subject when I first started seeing him talk about it and giving some stats, and we'll talk a little more about those later on. There's definitely an impact that the team is having and it's really weird, isn't it? I mean, I don't want to geek out too much about Umbraco and the community, but there is something quite special about this commercial organisation that has open source software that gets given away for free, that collaborates with the community to build a product which is easy to use, pretty cool, really effective, but also sustainable as well. There's not many organisations that work in that way. James Hobbs: Yeah, it's unique and I love it. I think it's great. It just shows you it's possible to run a business and make money, but also have a really engaged community of passionate people and work together. I think it's brilliant. Paul Marden: Look, let's just take a step back from geeking out about Umbraco. Then I want to set the scene. Longtime listeners will know that Rubber Cheese run a visitor attraction website survey. We've done it for two years in a row. This year we simplified the survey down to make space for some more questions. And one of the key questions we've talked about is Sustainability. We are still just over the halfway point of the survey period, so there are still lots of responses coming in. But based on the data that we've got so far, we know that 72% of attractions in the current survey have got a sustainability policy, but only 12% of attractions have ever tested the CO2 emissions of their website. And we'll come to in a minute why we think the measurement and focusing on CO2 emissions in digital is important. Paul Marden: But whilst very few are actually testing their site, nearly half of all of the respondents so far have attempted something to reduce the CO2 emissions of their website. So there's clearly action going on, but it's not necessarily driving in a coherent direction because there's no clear benchmarking and target setting and retesting. So I think what I'd like to cover today is for us to understand that a little bit more, get under the skin of it a little bit, and then talk a little bit about how we can actually reduce the CO2 emissions, how can we actually make things different and why we might want to do it. Because it's more than just kind of the ethical, we all should be doing something. There were some real business benefits to it as well. My next question, without stating the bleeding obvious. Paul Marden: Okay, why do you think digital sustainability matters? I mean, the obvious answer is just because it does. But it's important, isn't it, as a contributor to global warming? James Hobbs: Yeah. So, I mean, there's lots of statistics knocking around, one of which I think it shows you the scale of the impact of the digital industry is. I think the total carbon footprint emissions of the digital industry is greater than global air traffic. And if you go and look on something like Flightradar or Skyscanner or whatever, and look at how many planes are in the air at any given moment in time, that's a pretty sobering statistic. There's lots of other ones as well, in terms of the amount of electricity that's being used, and water compared to even small countries like New Zealand. So we are generating a hell of a lot of carbon directly and indirectly, by doing all the things that we do. James Hobbs: And every time you hold up your phone and you load up Instagram or TikTok or download something, there's a massive disconnect cognitively, because it's just there and it just works and it doesn't feel like it's using up electricity and so on, but it is. There's a whole massive supply chain behind all of the lovely things we like to do on our devices that is hungry for electricity and generates pollution and that kind of thing. Paul Marden: Yeah. So my background was at British Airways and I was there for ten years. It really wasn't that hard to spot the fact that environmentally, that we have a challenging problem. Because when you stood on the end of Heathrow Runway, you can see what's coming out the back end of a 747 as it takes off. But I don't think I ever quite understood the impact of what I do now and how that's contributing more to CO2 emissions than what I was doing previously, which. Yeah, I just don't think there's an awareness of that more broadly. James Hobbs: No, yeah, I'd agree. And it's complicated. Paul Marden: In what way? James Hobbs: I guess it's complicated to quantify the carbon impact of the type of work that we do in the digital industry, because I guess there's what we're shipping to end users, which is one thing. But most modern websites and applications and stuff are built on a big tower of cloud services providers, and all of their equipment has to be manufactured which has a carbon impact. And rare earth metals need to be mined out of the grid. All of that stuff. There's a big supply chain backing all this stuff and we can influence some of that directly, but a large chunk of it we can't. So it makes choosing your suppliers quite important. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So if you're going down the road, if you accept the premise that this is a big contributor and making small gains on any of the stuff that is of interest to us and marketers who are owning websites attractions, I think for me, probably the first step is testing and trying to figure out where you are. Do you think that's a useful first step? Is that important as far as you're concerned, James? James Hobbs: I think it's important because with any sort of improvement, whether it's related to sustainability or not, I think quantifying where you are at the start and having a benchmark allows you to see whether you're going in the right direction or not. And improvement doesn't always go in one direction the whole time. There might be a two steps forward, one step back, depending on what you're doing. But I think without measuring where you are, and ideally regularly measuring your progress, it's hard to say what impact you've had and you might be going in the wrong direction and bumping up the wrong tree or whatever. So I think it's important. Paul Marden: Yeah, it's super important. And is it something that marketers themselves can do, or is this something that only a sustainability consultant can do, or is there somewhere in between? Is it the techy geeks that run the website that do this? Or is it a little bit of all of those things? James Hobbs: Well, that's a really good question. So I think this is still quite a new kind of industry. There are some tools out there that you can use to help you quantify the carbon impact of what you've got out there in the wild now. So the big one that most people talk about is websitecarbon.com, which is the website carbon calculator that was built by, I think a combination of an agency and some other organisations come up with an algorithm. It's obviously not going to be 100% accurate because every single website app, it's slightly different and so on. But as a consistent benchmark for where you are and a starting point for improvement, tools like that are really good. Ecograder is another one. Those offer non technical routes to using them. James Hobbs: So for the website carbon calculator, you just plunk a website address in hit go and it'll run off and tell you that's not very scalable. If you've got a 10,000 page website, or if you've got a large digital estate, there are also API level services that are provided that might make that easier to automate. But again, you then need someone who knows how to do that sort of thing, which raises the barrier to entry. I think what I would like to see is more and more vendors building carbon dashboards into their products and services so that the rest of us don't have to run around and build this stuff from scratch. Azure, for example, Microsoft's cloud platform, has a carbon dashboard that is scoped to your resources. That's really interesting and useful to see. James Hobbs: The stuff I mentioned about what we're doing with Umbraco and building a sustainability package, we're hoping to get that built into the core product. And again, the idea being that if you're a content editor or a marketer, you shouldn't have to know how to wire up APIs and do all this stuff, you should be able to see at a glance. Okay, well, that page I've just built actually is a little bit on the heavy side. Maybe I need to look at that. So I think the way to democratize it is to make it easier to do the right thing. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So these tools are giving you, they're giving you a grading? Yeah. So some of them are like a to f. I think it is for Website Carbon, Ecograder gives you a score out of 100. I think it is. Are there any advantages to one or the other? Or is it a good idea for people to use both of them and see the differences that the two different tools can give you? James Hobbs: I think it will come down to, well, for me anyway, I think using a tool in the first place is a step forward from what the vast majority of people are doing currently, which are not even thinking about it. So in many ways it doesnt really matter. I think it will depend on what people find easier to use. I think when people start to integrate this sort of sustainability measurements into their build pipelines, for example, release pipelines. That's where you will need to maybe think more carefully about the kind of data that you're interested in and what criteria you want to look at. Because, for example, at the moment, a lot of organisations who write software, hopefully their developers, will be writing some unit tests. And if the tests fail, then you don't deploy the website that should fail the build. James Hobbs: I think it would be good to move to a world where if your sustainability posture regresses and gets worse than similar things. There are other tools outside of those websites that we've been talking about, though. So there's an organisation called the Green Web Foundation, a nonprofit who do a lot of work in this space. And they've created a couple of tools. One's called CO2.js, which you can integrate directly into your website that can actually be a bit more accurate than the carbon stuff. And they've also built a tool called the Grid Intensity CLI. And without going into loads of horrible detail, what that is, essentially it knows when the electricity grid is at its most, what's the right word? At its most pollutant. When it's generating the most carbon. James Hobbs: So you can use that to figure out when to run background jobs or do lots of processing. You can do it when the grid is at its most renewable. So there's things like that as well. There's lots of options out there. You can go deep as you want. Paul Marden: Amazing. One thing that you just mentioned that I thought, oh, that's really interesting. I've never thought of that before, is the idea that you can drop a URL into Website Carbon or Ecograder and it will give you the score of that page. But actually, if you've got lots of pages on your website, you need to be testing across multiple pages. That should never occur to me before. James Hobbs: Yeah, because I think a lot of people plunk the homepage in and go, cool. It's a. I guess it's effort versus reward thing. No one's going, well, hopefully no one's going to spend time manually entering 10,000 website URL's into a tool like that. Not least because it would probably take the tool down. There are probably better ways of doing it than that. And also, homepages are typically quite different to the rest of a website. It serves a different purpose. So I think testing a representative portion of your digital services is probably the way to go. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I've been wondering recently whether buyers should be thinking about this as something that's part of the requirements of a new website. So if you're going out to tender and buying a new website, oftentimes you and I will both see requests for proposal that have accessibility requirements in them. But I genuinely don't remember a time that I've ever seen an RFP say, “You must achieve grade c or above on website carbon across the majority of the pages on the site.” And I think when buyers start to do that you'll begin to see agencies doing more of this sort of stuff. I think baking it into contracts will make a big difference. James Hobbs: Yeah, yeah and it's that kind of selective pressure isn't it? Clients start requiring this stuff, then agencies will have to step up. And it's unfortunate that might well be the catalyst but actually I don't care what the catalyst is as long as we’re going in the right direction. Its the main thing really, which is lessening our impact. Yeah absolutely. But yeah that whole supply chain thing is huge. That’s one way we can make a big impact is by mandating certain things. And there’s actually a certification, a green software engineering certification. It's offered for free that developers or technical architects can go through to educate them a bit on green software engineering techniques and things like that. James Hobbs: And that's the kind of thing that hopefully in the future companies who are putting RFPs out might say, “We want your engineering team to be aware of green computing techniques” and so on and be able to prove it. Paul Marden: Yeah, I wouldn't be surprised as well that it gets legislated for as well. So in the same way as you know, public sector bodies have got to meet certain accessibility requirements. I would not be surprised if we enter a world soon where there's a statutory obligation for these things to be done in a sustainable way as well. James Hobbs: Yeah. Paul Marden: So getting your act together now is a really good thing to do because there's going to be less work later on when you've got no choice but to do it. James Hobbs: Exactly. Get ahead of the game now. Paul Marden: So we've made the case, people have bought into it, they're going to go and do some testing and they realise that they've got a smelly, polluting, rich website. What can they do next? How can your average head of marketing, head of digital influence their website to get better? James Hobbs: Yeah. Okay, so this is where I think there's a really nice angle here. We did talk about this earlier on, but there is a fairly close link between the things that will make doing the things that will make your website, your digital services more sustainable and kind of KPI's and metrics that will probably make it more commercially successful as well, depending on what you're doing, with a bunch of caveats that I won't go into. So, for example, sustainable websites are typically lightweight, they're fast, they're optimised for getting the right things in front of the user as quickly as possible, which can include everything from content delivery networks to optimising images to a whole host of stuff. Doing all of those things will also typically positively impact your search engine optimisation, positively impact your conversion. James Hobbs: Because if you look at Google's guidance, Lighthouse guidance, the different things it looks at and so on, it's very clear that fast, relevant websites are what get prioritised and what Google's looking for. Fast, relevant websites that are served from locations close to the user are also likely to be sustainable. So there is a link there. And what that means is there's a built in business case for doing the sustainability stuff. James Hobbs: So if you've got a hard nosed suite of executives who couldn't care less about the planet, not that I'm saying that's what everyone's like, but, you know, the commercial world that we live in, it's a hell of a lot easier to sell this stuff in by saying, “You know what as well, like we can do an MVP or a pilot and we're confident that we might be able to improve conversion by 0.1%, 0.5%”, whatever it might be. It's also typically a good way to save money by being smarter about what you're computing and where and when and using some of those tools that I've talked about, you can save yourself potentially a bunch of money as a business, which again, is a commercial win. James Hobbs: So I think whilst the ethical side of it is really important, and, you know, none of us want to be boiling to death in 50 years time because we've ruined the planet. Making small changes in digital can have a massive impact because the amount of people that are using them. And I think it's easier to sell in because of the commercial. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So I'm guessing there's stuff that you can do at key stages in the design and development of a site. So what are the things that people should be thinking about during the design of the site that could make it more sustainable? James Hobbs: So, okay, so that's a really good question. So this is a huge topic. So I can give you some examples of the kind of things you should be thinking about. So. And I guess we could divide them up into two sections. So when we're designing a website. There's how it looks and how the user experience work. There's also the technical design. As with anything, the further, the earlier you start thinking about this kind of stuff, the easier it is. Crowbarring in. It's a bit like accessibility, you know this, try and crowbar it in the last week of the project, it's not going to work. So from a design point of view, and some of this stuff is difficult to quantify its impact in detail, but things like not having massive 4k full bleed videos at the top of your webpage. James Hobbs: So being very careful and intelligent use of things like that, because they are large, they have to be transferred from wherever you're serving them from to the user. There's a big energy cost associated with that, not using loads and loads of external dependencies on your web pages. And that could be anything from fonts to JavaScript libraries to the vast myriad of tools that are being used. The more things you're throwing down the pipe to your end user, especially if your hosting infrastructure is not set up in a distributed way, the more energy intensive that thing is. You can even go as far as looking at the color choices that you're using. So certain darker themes are typically less energy intensive. Yeah, because of how OLED screens and modern screens work. Again, very hard to quantify. James Hobbs: And then we go down the rabbit hole of yeah, but where does the electricity that charges my phone come from? And you try and quantify all that stuff, it gets very head explodey. But there are things you can do in that sense. Some of them are easier to quantify than others. The weight of the page is a very easy thing to measure. If you keep that low, it will be easier to cache, it will load quicker for users, it will better for SEO, and faster pages tend to have better conversion. James Hobbs: And that works whether you're selling things from an e commerce point of view or you're trying to register interest, whatever it might be, from a technical angle, I think one of the most impactful things you can do, beyond making sure that your code is optimised and is running at the right times, at the right place, is simply to consider using a Content Delivery Network. And for your listeners who aren't familiar with a content delivery network, a CDN is something that all of us have interacted with at one point or another, probably without realising in the traditional way of serving or having a website, you've got some service somewhere, in a data centre somewhere. When someone types your website address in, it goes and fetches that information from the web server and back comes a web page in the simplest sense. James Hobbs: Now, if your website servers live in Amsterdam and your users on the west coast of America, that's a big old trip for that information to come back and forth. And it's got to go through lots of different hops, uses up lots of energy. A content delivery network is basically lots and lots of servers dotted all over the planet, in all of the major cities and things like that can keep a copy of your website. So that if someone from the west coast of America says, “Oh, I'm really interested in looking at this website,” types the address in, they get the copy from a server that might be 1020, 50 miles away from them, instead of several thousand across an ocean. James Hobbs: So it loads quicker for the user, which is great from a user experience, SEO, all that stuff I talked about, but it's also great from an energy point of view, because it's coming from somewhere nearby and it's not having to bounce around the planet. That's one thing that you could do that will make a massive and immediate impact commercially and from a sustainability point of view. Paul Marden: So you get those kind of performance improvement for the people all the way around the world accessing the site, but it's going to take load off of the server itself, so you might need less powerful servers running. One of the big issues that attraction websites have got is that it's such a cyclical market. The people that, you know, James Hobbs: Spiky. Paul Marden: Exactly when the Christmas meet Santa train is released at an attraction, or the traffic to the website is going to peak. If you can keep some of that traffic off of the web server by using that Content Delivery Network instead, you're going to be able to withstand those really peak times on the website without having to spend lots and lots of money on improving the resilience of the service. So it really is a win win win, isn't it? James Hobbs: I think so. And also it can help potentially avoid things like the dreaded queue where you log on to a website that's busy and it sticks you in a queue and you're 41,317th queue or whatever. Exactly like you say. If you can leverage this tech to take the load off your back end systems and I, you'll be delivering a better user experience. Paul Marden: One of the measures that I know a lot of the algorithms that are assessing CO2 emissions look at is the type of hosting that you use. So they talk about green hosting. What is green hosting? And is all green hosting the same? James Hobbs: No. So yeah, again, this is a big topic. So I guess hosting generally runs the spectrum all the way from kind of one boutique sort of providers who can set up VMS or private servers or whatever all the way through to the big goliaths of the Internet, the AWS and Azure and so on and everything in between. So green hosting is broadly hosting that is carbon neutral, powered by renewables, that sort of thing. So in theory shouldn't be pumping more pollutants into our atmosphere than it's saving. So if we look at the big cloud providers initially, so they've all made some commitments in terms of improving their sustainability posture. And this is really good because when one does it, the other one has to do it too. And obviously there's Google Cloud platform as well and they're doing similar sorts of things. James Hobbs: But it's almost this, I like the competitive angle of this because all it means is the sustainability posture of all of them will get better quicker. So it's good. So for example, I'll try and do this off the top of my head, you should check yourselves. But Azure and AWS and Google all have some pages that talk about their commitments and primarily they're focused on carbon neutrality and using renewable electricity. Aws have done a good job of that. So in certain AWS regions the year before last, they were completely 100% renewable powered, which is brilliant. Paul Marden: Really. James Hobbs: Yes. Not everywhere. Azure are going down a similar path and they've made the same commitment in terms of the year when they're going to hit renewable powered everything. They've also made commitments to water positivity. Enormous amounts of water are used during the operation of data centers and there are a lot of these data centres. So they've made commitments I think by 2035 or 2040 please double check to be net water positive, which is great. And the other thing that people don't think about, and this is I guess the supply chain thing I was talking about earlier, all those servers got rare metals in them. They've got all kinds of stuff in them thats been dug out of the ground, often in areas where there's a lot going on from a human point of view. James Hobbs: So Amazon, AWS, Google, et cetera, they're looking at that angle too. How can they keep servers in commission for longer so they don't need to be replaced as often? Where are they getting their materials from, et cetera, all that kind of stuff, because they're not just a computing company know they're invested in the hardware and getting this stuff out of the ground and manufacturing it and all the rest of it's a very big operation. So that's something we can't influence beyond pressuring them as consumers, but it is something that they're doing something about, which is great. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And if we go back to that point I made earlier on, buyers are in control of this. If they are choosing to include that in their contracts to buy new web services, that it needs to be green by offsetting or green by using 100% renewable power, then that drives change, doesn't it? Procurement managers drive change through that kind of thing. James Hobbs: Yeah, absolutely. And just one final point on the greenhosting the Green Web foundation, who I mentioned earlier, the nonprofit who work in this space, they maintain a list of green web hosts. So hosts that are known to be green that you can use without having to worry too much. So it's worth looking at that as well. And it's a kind of impartial list. Paul Marden: Excellent. Do you think this is a story that attraction should be telling? So they're going to be, we're hoping that people are going to become energised by this and they're going to want to go on a digital sustainability journey. Do you think that is that something that they could be shouting about? James Hobbs: I think so, if done in the right way. Obviously, you've got to be careful of the sort of, we planted some trees and now everything's fine, because I don't think that's necessarily the case. But I think talking about it in the right way, which is we know we're not perfect, but we're doing something about it, and this is our plan, and being transparent about it, I think, is a good thing. I think it will also foster competition between different attractions, and everyone's a winner, really, because it will make everyone more sustainable. Paul Marden: Yeah. James Hobbs: And yeah, I don't see why you shouldn't talk about it. I think its something thats important. And to your point earlier about consumers being able to influence some of this stuff, I really, truly hope that the generation of youngsters that are coming up now are going to be more hyper aware of this sort of thing, and they're going to care a lot more because it's likely to affect them more than it will us. So I would like to think that they will be selecting products, services, attractions, whatever it might be that can demonstrate that they're actually doing something to lessen the impact of their operations. James Hobbs: I've got two relatively young children, and I can already see them asking questions and being interested in this kind of stuff in a way that wouldn't have occurred to me when I was a kid, just didn't think about it. I cant change that. But what we can do is try and improve the world that were going to be leaving to the the youngs. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So, one last question for you. Is there anything. Is there anything happening in this space that you think is really cool and interesting to think about? James Hobbs: That's a good question. I mean, like, I hope this isn't a non answer. I think the thing. The thing that is exciting me most is that more and more people are talking about this stuff. More and more people are asking questions about this stuff and I've done a lot of talks and webinars and things on this topic and the thing that really makes me feel positive and excited about it is that nearly all of them afterwards, people come up to you, they message you and say, “I just didn't realise.” The fact that we're able to raise awareness is brilliant because we can start to build up a bit of momentum. I think the thing that. I think I mentioned it earlier, products and services, building this sort of stuff into their platforms in terms of helping users use their services more efficiently, I think that's the area that I'm most excited about, because otherwise it's people kind of hacking stuff together. I think it should be a first class part of any solution, really is like, carbon impact of what I'm doing. That's what I'm probably most keen to see more of. Paul Marden: James, thank you. One last thing. We always ask our guests for a book recommendation and you've already said you're an avid reader, so no pressure, but I'm quite excited to hear about this one. James Hobbs: Well, there's two and I thought I'd just make the decision when you asked me the question about which one to recommend. So I'm going to go with my legitimately favourite book, which is the Player of Games by Iain M Banks. It's part of the culture series of novels and I'm a bit upset because Elon Musk has been talking about it. I feel like he's tarnished it slightly. A magnificent series of novels. I remember finishing the 10th one and sadly, the author died a while ago and I genuinely felt slightly bereft that there weren't going to be any more of them. It's a brilliant book. It's exciting. Yeah, it's exciting. It's so creative and inventive. It makes you think differently about things. It's definitely not one for children. James Hobbs: You know, there's a lot of violence and all kinds of other things in there. But it's a fascinating book. All of his books are fascinating. My favourite author. So if you're going to, if you think about getting into his books and specifically the culture novels, that's a great point to jump in at. It's accessible and it's absolutely brilliant. I love it. Paul Marden: That's quite the recommendation. So, listeners, if you want to get into this culture series of books, then when we post the show notice on X, get over there and retweet the message and say, “I want James's book.” And the first person to do that will get that sent to them. James, this has been brilliant. There's a couple of takeaways I want people to go and think about, one from me, which is go and test your site and then jump into the Rubber Cheese website survey. Paul Marden: Go to rubbercheese.com/survey, tell us all about your attractions website and one of those questions will be about have you tested the CO2 emissions of your site and have you done anything about it? The more we understand what the sector is doing, then the more we can understand how we can all help and improve things. Paul Marden: James, you had one idea of a place where people could go and find out more about this sort of stuff. James Hobbs: Yeah, I mean, there's some organisations that I mentioned. So the Green Web Foundation is one that's got lots of interesting material on there, both tools that they've made, but also they fund research in this space, which is really important. It should be treated like a specific discipline. I suppose they're doing some great stuff there. There's the Green Software foundation, which confusingly similar name, doing some good work in this space. There's also lots of interesting groups on discord forums that are out there. I guess my main message would be we're all learning more about this field. No one has all the answers, but there are organisations out there that you can come and speak to that can help you understand where you are currently. James Hobbs: And I definitely encourage you guys to fill in the surveys, Paul said, because the more information that we've got, you know, the better we can understand where things are. Paul Marden: James, this has been a lot of fun and really interesting. Thank you ever so much. Thank you for joining the podcast. James Hobbs: Thanks for having me on. Thanks a lot. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Content, design and navigation, with Kelly and Paul from Rubber Cheese | 04 Oct 2023 | 00:44:34 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/ Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show. As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're talking about the impact of design, navigation and content on selling tickets and how to go about testing if your design is working or not. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: We're doing something a little bit different on the podcast this season. So alongside the usual guest interviews, which we'll have each month, me and the Rubber Cheese CEO, Paul Marden are also going to be recording an episode on a different digital related topic. So we're going to do this once a month. Kelly Molson: Each of the episodes, we're going to share insight around design, user experience, content, accessibility, SEO and loads, loads more. We're going to talk a little bit about what's possible, give you some ideas about how easy or how hard that topic is to implement. Kelly Molson: Maybe what kind of budget that you might need to look at and what some of the next steps are to take if you want to implement some of these things. We're even going to call out some of the best in breed websites, people that are doing things really well within the sector. Kelly Molson: So I've been hosting the Skip the Queue podcast since July 2019. Goodness, that's been a long time. Five seasons in now. This is season five. You all know me already. So I am the founder of Rubber Cheese and my background is in design. Kelly Molson: I co founded Rubber Cheese back in 2003 after learning about ecommerce when I worked at a very early kind of Shopify type startup agency. The person that you don't know quite as well as me is my fellow host on this podcast. That's funny to say, that my fellow host is Paul Marden. So. Paul. Hello. Welcome. Paul Marden: Hello. Kelly Molson: This is strange. I'm going to have to share the spotlight for a while, that's very uncomfortable for me. No, it will be fine."It will be fine", she says. Paul, I would love it if you could give us a little intro to yourself. Kelly Molson: I know your background and I know you very well. We've known each other for about, I think it's about 14 years now. It's been a long time, hasn't it? Paul Marden: Yeah. Not long after I started doing this as a proper job. Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. Tell us about what your proper job is. Paul Marden: Yeah, so I'm the CEO of Rubber Cheese now, alongside another agency that I run called Carbon Six, which we merged Carbon Six and Rubber Cheese just over a year ago. My background is as a geek. I'm a developer by training. I started out ten years at British Airways, all over the airline, doing all different sorts of IT related jobs. So I saw lots of operational side of things, commercial sides of the airline, say, selling tickets, that kind of thing. I don't know if I've told you, but my first visitor attraction job was a long time ago, because when I was at Uni, I did a placement at the National Botanic Garden of Wales when it first opened. So I was there when it was a hole in the ground and I helped them write their IT strategy. Paul Marden: So my visitor attraction experience predates my involvement in Rubber Cheese. Kelly Molson: I did not know that. So you've done geek stuff for attractions. Paul Marden: For a long time. Yeah, it was amazing. I can still remember I was in an office in a farmhouse as they were building the giant glass house. It was just the most amazing place and I've not been back for a long time. It would be amazing to go and see the place, how it's transformed in the, what is it, 24 years since I was there? God, I really sound old now, don't I? Kelly Molson: You do sound old. I'm just wondering if they still use the IT plan that you put in place for them. Paul Marden: Probably not. I was only a student at the time. It can't have been amazing. Kelly Molson: So what we normally do on the podcast, listeners, as you well know, is I ask my guests a series of uncomfortable questions, icebreaker questions, which they very graciously answer beautifully for me. We're not going to do that on this episode. Ha. So we thought, yeah, Paul has wiped his brow in a state of relief there. But what we thought we would do is Paul and I both visit a lot of visitor attractions, both professionally and in our personal life as well. We've both got daughters at very different ages, so Millie is coming up for I think, 9. Paul Marden: 10 in two weeks' time. Kelly Molson: Okay. And my little one is 2. So we're going to very different visitor attractions right now. But we thought we would talk about the attraction that we visited most recently and what we loved about it, and we thought we'd ask each other that question. So I am going to ask you that question first, Paul. What attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it? Paul Marden: So we just finished the summer holidays, so went away for just over a week to the Netherlands. We did visit a few different attractions whilst were there, but went to an amazing place. We went back to it, actually, it was one that we've been to before called Burger’s Zoo. So I loved the whole experience of going there the first time around and we wanted to go back there. It's an amazing place. But the reason why I was going to call it out today was a conversation that we've been having and something that we've done with Kitten Museums in terms of the food offering. Because when you go to Burger’s Zoo, the restaurant is amazing. We've talked recently about the sorts of food that you get at visitor attractions and your frustration around this. Lots of fried food. Paul Marden: There's never any healthy food. So went to Burger Zoo, we had lunch and of course, there'd be obligatory portion of chips there if you want to have it. Lots of kids food there, but I was able to have a massive great salad. It was in enormous and it was lovely and healthy and really enjoyable and it didn't cost the earth when you were there. And it's so unusual to talk about going to an attraction and getting that kind of quality of food without spending the earth in doing it. So, yeah, that was pretty cool. Kelly Molson: That is cool. This is probably a whole another podcast episode to talk about that. I think actually, in your intro, you forgot to mention that you are a Trustee for the Kids in Museums, which is quite a new role for you, isn't it? But it's one that kind of immersed you into the world of attraction. I think that's been a good one for you. They have set up a brilliant scheme, which is kind of an accreditation scheme for attractions to go through, just to check into how healthy and how great their food offering actually is, which I think is brilliant. It's really weird. Kelly Molson: The day that they launched it, I was having a like, literally the day before, I was having a conversation on LinkedIn about how atrocious the food offering had been at an attraction that I went to, which is one of the top ten most visited attractions in the UK. It's a great place. It really is a brilliant place, especially if you've got toddler. However, the food was pretty horrendous and I've got an unusual toddler in that. Well, she will eat chips now, she will eat chippies, but she won't eat fried stuff or battered things or anything like that. She's just not interested. Paul Marden: Nothing beige. Kelly Molson: Not really, even pasta has to be, she should have been an Italian, she should have seen the amount of pasta that she wolf down when were over there. But it's got to be good. Kelly Molson: It's got to be good. Yeah, she is particularly fussy toddler. But just for myself, I mean, just the range of food that was available that day was just dreadful. I mean, the healthiest thing that was on the menu that Lee and I both had was jacket potatoes and I think I took a picture of it somewhere and it was too awful to put on social media. So, yes, that is well needed and I'm glad that attraction stood out on the food front for you. Paul Marden: What about you? Where have you been recently? Kelly Molson: I've been to lots of different places recently, but this one I can't stop thinking about and so I want to talk about it today and it's not one that I visited with Edie. It's one that I visited with a fellow attractions professional a little while ago, but it's the Beamish Living Museum. I honestly can't stop thinking about it. It's the first living museum that I've been to, so it's the first experience of that for me. And I had such an emotional reaction to it. I'm a bit embarrassed, actually. So I went to meet a couple of people. I met one person that I'd met briefly at a conference before, and then I met one of their colleagues who I'd never met before in my life. And I actually had a bit of a cry to this colleague because it was so emotive. Kelly Molson: If anyone who hasn't been to Beamish Living Museum, there's lots of different areas that you can visit, and one of them is a 1950s area and they essentially recreate what it was like in the 1950s, where the museum is located. And it brought back so many memories of my grandparents, both sets of grandparents, for different reasons. The house was very similar to my grandparents on my father's side and just down to some of the things that they had in that space. And I just got overwhelmed by it. It was so wonderful to go back and see that. And in my head all the time I was thinking, well, both my sets of grandparents are no longer with us. They passed away when I was in my early twenties. And so Edie will never get to meet her great grandparents on that side. And I thought, God, how amazing would it be for me to bring here and say, show her some of the things that great granny used to have in her house and yeah, just lost it. Paul Marden: It's interesting, isn't it, that you can become so immersed that even now the emotional attachment that you've built when you were there takes you straight back there. Because there's a risk, isn't there, with those sorts of places of it feeling a little bit plastic and fake, isn't it? But this clearly had an emotional impact on you. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think for me, I was worried that it would be people in costumes. It would feel like that. And it did not feel like that at all. It just felt so authentic. Anyway, you've got to go. I don't want to cry for the rest of this podcast, but yeah, it's definitely a must visit for me, it was something really special. Paul Marden: Excellent. Kelly Molson: Should we move on to what we're going to talk about? And I'll compose myself, shall we? Paul Marden: Okay, moving swiftly on. Kelly Molson: Let's. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the impact of design, navigation and content on selling tickets and how we go about testing if it's working or not. So this episode actually launches on the 4th of October, which is one day after we release the 2023 Visitor Attraction website report. There's data that has come out of this year's report that is so insightful and I cannot wait for everybody to get this year's report. It dives deeper into a lot of the topics that we talked about in the first report last year, but there's just so much more to it and I'm very excited about it. Kelly Molson: Anyway, looking at the data from the report, a 100% of the attractions that took part think that having consistent design and clear navigation is important, which is brilliant. Big tick there. However, many of them don't think that their site meets the need and some of them think it does, but they don't test that it does. There's some really interesting stats about testing that we're going to talk about in a minute that have actually blew my mind a little bit. But one good stat around the design is that 76% of respondents believe that their websites were consistently designed despite using multiple platforms in their customer journey. Kelly Molson: And this is something that we talked about quite frequently in that sometimes there's a big disconnect if you are using if you've got your website that's built and designed in WordPress for example, and then you've got your ticketing platform and the two don't look like each other, they're not consistent, they're incongruent. That can be a bit of a challenge for people in terms of trust and how they feel about your brand. Paul Marden: It can be a jarring experience, can't it? Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Responses this year once again saw that websites that look good and are easy to use are doing far better than those that don't prioritise consistency. So I'm just going to read out this snippet from the report. We saw that websites that were high scoring for their design and navigation made more sales over the past twelve months. So those successful websites had around 200,000 to 500,000 completed transactions. Whereas on the other hand, websites with lower design and navigation scores didn't do as well, stating that they had below 50,000 completed transactions in the last month. That's quite fascinating, isn't it? Paul Marden: It is. This is not just a handful of people that are answering, is it? Because there's a large number of people that are answering that this is important to them and that they think they're doing quite well. And then you see how their perception of doing well correlates really strongly with the actual outcomes of the site itself. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think that the way that we asked the questions this year is interesting as well. So when I talked then about we said that websites that were high scoring for design and navigation, we gave respondents the options to score their website. So we gave them how well designed do you think your site is? Between 1 and 10, 10 being the highest. So we allowed them to kind of self score. But it's interesting because some of those self scores don't correlate to the data that we then took. So those scores, they're based mostly on assumption, which is always a difficult, challenging place to be. But I think, Paul, you had some insight here around the conversion rate and design and how they tally up. Paul Marden: So the stats you just talked about were about the volume of transactions. You could say that having good design leads you to have more transactions flowing through your website, but you could also say that the organisations that have more transactions flowing through their website can afford to spend more money on design. But what I found interesting was that when you ignore the absolute number of sales that they make on the website, if you actually look at what their conversion rate is on the website, the attractions who think they have good design tend to have a higher conversion rate by about 1% or 2%. Now, that could be on a low base. Paul Marden: There could be a fairly small attraction that has fewer people coming to it, but they still perform relatively better than those attractions that didn't think they had good design but could be massive organisations with large numbers of transactions flowing through. And what I found interesting is we started to work out what is the value of 1 or 2% extra conversion rate, because it doesn't sound like much. Really. There's somebody in the business that doesn't necessarily understand the technology side of it that doesn't sound like a lot. So we started playing with converting that into money. What could that actually be worth? So we played around with we tried to model what is our average attraction and what is the absolute top performing attraction. Paul Marden: And even for our average, an increase of 1% in conversion rate could mean tens of thousands of pounds of extra sales that they make. But for the top performing attraction, it could make the difference of hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra sales just by squeezing 1 or 2% of extra conversion rate out. I think that's absolute gold dust in terms of insight that we've drawn out of this data. The organisations that think they have good design tend to have a conversion rate of 1 or 2% more, which could equate to tens of hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra sales that they make. It makes you begin to think that investment in the design of the site could actually be really worthwhile. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. And information like that helps the marketing managers build the case for good design and investing in good design. Paul Marden: Yeah. And before you say, "Oh, the large organisations with the big budgets, they can afford to do this, what about the small ones?" The smaller organisations with small budgets who had good navigation tended to be the ones that would have the better conversion rate amongst their peers. So you don't need to be a nationally recognised attraction brand to be able to invest an appropriate amount of money in design and get a return on that investment that you make. Kelly Molson: I always think that the best use of budget is on the pre planning side, which is unusual coming from a designer, I think. Yeah. But Paul, you're really data driven, aren't you? You're super data driven. Paul Marden: Such a geek. Kelly Molson: Yeah, you are a massive geek. Massive nerd. We're very complimentary, but I never used to be very data driven. I was always far more visual driven. But actually well, I'm not going to share it on this podcast, actually, because I'm going to share it at a talk that I'm given. But I've got a really good story around why user testing is very important. We'll come a bit more onto that later. And why you should be driven by the data and the stats and not just by what something looks like. Okay, let's talk about navigation quickly as part of this design section. So it's really interesting. So we've actually got some findings from the Journal of Market Research. Kelly Molson: So they state that, when websites are easy to understand and navigate, individuals have a lower cognitive load, so fewer things to work out, and therefore are more likely to have a positive experience to go on to purchase. So having a consistent and well designed website can really help people make complete purchases with your visitor attraction. What I've always said, it's about trying to stop making people think, give them something that is really easy. So I think when we worked with Eureka!, and this is back in 2016, when we first worked with them, we did some research around what people wanted to find out about attractions, what were the first things they needed to know about. And it was literally, when you open, how much do you cost? How can I get there? Kelly Molson: So, if they're the three things that people desperately need to know, they're the three things that really need to be highlighted front and centre when you arrive at the site, wherever you arrive at it, whether that's the homepage or what. And it's the same with navigation. People need to understand where they're being taken and why they're being taken to certain places. So we're working with an attraction at the moment, we've just about to start work with them. They have got some really key, really strong elements to their Nav, but then they've got an area that says more, and there's a load of stuff that's been added onto the more section, and things like this happen over time. Kelly Molson: When you've got a website, people will say, “I need this to be featured on the site, I need this page to put up there”, and it gets added to, and ultimately you end up with all these things that haven't been thought about from the start, about where they're supposed to go. So they get kind of bundled somewhere, and a more section kind of feels an obvious place to put them. But what is it? Users don't understand what's in there. And they're not going to go searching for hours to find something that they want. They need to find it quickly. And so that for me, is a huge no about bundling stuff into these kind of sections. That just so ambiguous, you don't know what they are. Paul Marden: I think that figuring out what people are trying to do, what are they trying to get out of the website? I think that bundling exercise, putting lots of things onto the site that happened over time or putting it in a bucket of more is often there's so many people in an organisation that want their content heard and seen, don't they? Everybody wants their content on the site. It all goes on there. And sometimes you have to step back and think, what's the point? Who is it that's coming to the site and what are we trying to get them to do? We want the customer at the end of it to think, now that you've read this, what are you going to do next? But we don't always think about that journey. Paul Marden: We think about the snippets of information that we put onto the site, but we don't think about what the journey is they're going through. Attractions are really lucky. I think a lot of the people that go to their sites are really motivated to buy, a lot more motivated to buy than the average ecommerce site. So how do you get out of the way of those people so they can just buy stuff? And then for the people that are less motivated, they don't necessarily want to know how, when and how much they still want to be sold on the idea of going to the attraction, then maybe you need to give them more information. Paul Marden: But identifying who those people are and giving them a journey to go through and coming up with a navigation that makes it really easy for those people to navigate along that journey, there's a lot of psychology that's hard. That's your prep work, isn't it, before you do the design? Kelly Molson: Yeah, and it's the hardest part of it. And I think that's where the most amount of time needs to be spent there and the wireframes really, the design. If you've got good brand guidelines in place, the design ultimately becomes a simplified process at that point. But the pre design work is really where the time and effort needs to be spent. And I think it is a challenge for attractions. So there are attractions that are, if you compare a Chessington World of Adventures, for example, a theme park orientated to a historic museum that you're coming to visit, that not only is an attraction, but obviously has a lot of historical information to share and learning and education plays a big part in them as well. You have different audiences for those. Kelly Molson: So I think one part of that process is you need to think about all the different audiences you have and what are their motivations for visiting the site and what do you want them to do, what actions do you want them to take? But I think when you are working, this has gone off a bit of a tangent, but when you're working with an agency, I think what's really core for the attraction is to make sure that you've got key stakeholders from each of those areas of your attraction that play a part in those early conversations. So you don't want the site redesign to be driven solely by the marketing team for the attraction side. You need someone from the education side to be part of those conversations as well. Kelly Molson: You need visitor experience to be part of those conversations because if you're planning content, each of those individuals will have a different need for what content they need to showcase on the site. So they all need to be talking to each other about how that's going to look. I'm talking from experience because this has not happened in the past. Paul's nodding his head at me because he knows that we've had this challenge previously. Paul Marden: Yeah. Kelly Molson: So yeah, and I think that kind of leads us nicely onto content, really, and about the need to frequently update your site and keep it refreshed. So once you've done all of that hard work of working out what content is going to be on it doesn't stay static. So in the report we have a stat that says 31% of respondents said that they updated their online content multiple times a week. That's good. Another 31% said that they did so at least once a month. Good. However, 22% of respondents said they had infrequent content updates or didn't update their content at all. Not updating your content at all. Paul Marden: That surprised me, that one. Yeah, I was surprised that there were 31% of respondents updated it multiple times a week. I was really impressed by that. Yeah. That takes some work, doesn't it? To be able to produce that level of content change, but to do it infrequently or not at all, that surprised me. Kelly Molson: I guess it depends on the attraction and what their offering is as well. Thinking about one of our clients, Holkham actually, so we know that Holkham update their website frequently. They have a lot of different events, they write a lot of really incredible content about what happens across Holkham Estate. So they're engaging with the audience from the perspective of someone coming to visit and what they can do on the day and what they can come and see. But they're also talking about their wider sustainability efforts across the state and what they do and how they focus on that, which again, might be for that same audience. Might be for a slightly different audience as well. Kelly Molson: So the volume of content that they produce is a lot higher than potentially Thorpe Park as a visitor, they will talk about what's on that day and maybe an events that they're running, but they might not talk about the same things that are going on across the Estate that Holkham would, for example. So I think, yeah, it's what your attraction offers. Paul Marden: Holkham's a really good example because they can take inspiration from the place. They're very diverse, they've got lots of different things that they do at that location. It's quite a large location, but there's lots of different things going on and those things are inside and outside. They can take inspiration from the season. So there's a lot of inspiration that you can take there and produce. Just off the top of my head, I could think of lots of different stories that you could tell and changes to the site that can be inspired by the season. But then I think about a theme park where there's lots that goes on. I think I've done lots of trips to Legoland. There's Legoland at Halloween. There's Legoland in Spring time. It changes through the seasons and there's a lot of story around that. Paul Marden: I wonder if you're an indoor attraction, if you're Heritage Museum based, there's going to be lots of stories that you can tell about the items that you've got in your collection. But it might be harder to tell those stories influenced by the seasons, which can be a real driver for telling varying stories throughout a year, can't they? Yeah, but I don't write a lot of stories for those sorts of organisations, so maybe I don't have the right view of the world, but I would imagine it would be a lot harder to write lots of content varying through the year for that sort of organisation. Kelly Molson: Yes, probably so I'm just thinking about it would just be a change in topic, wouldn't it? So I know Blackpool Pleasure Beach, who Andy Hygate, the Operations Director, came on the podcast a couple of seasons ago, actually, and he talked about the experiences they've developed around walking up the big one and the rise that they have there. And actually, I think for people that are interested in theme parks, there's probably a lot of content around how things are built and how they're developed and that kind of side of stuff that people would be really interested in. So it's not talking about seasonal stuff, it's about the things and how they're constructed and how they're designed and kind of stuff like that. Kelly Molson: So, yeah, again, it comes back to just knowing your audience and what are they interested in and how you can engage them and what are your potential new audiences as well, and how can you develop content that attracts them. There is a correlation between content and purchases, though, which is quite interesting. So our report shows that those who were deliberate in ensuring their content was kept fresh and engaging saw an average of 25 to 50,000 completed website purchases a year, whereas those who didn't, on average, had around 10,000 completed purchases. In the same time frame. That's interesting. In addition, of the respondents who recognised the need for regular content updates but weren't action in them, 23% stated that their average sales conversion rate sat between one and 4%, which is below the benchmark for the sector. Kelly Molson: So the sector benchmark is 5% now, so that 1% is significantly low. Paul Marden: Absolutely. Shall we move on and talk about some testing? Because I know you think this one really is. Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah, I really do. So there is a statistic in the report that I had to reread a few times, actually, to believe. So last year's survey and report, we had about 70 attractions take part. This year has been significantly more than that. We got 188 attractions from up and down the UK and Europe take part, which was incredible. Paul Marden: And one in North America as well. I was really excited when I saw that one. Kelly Molson: Yes, we went international. That was exciting. Okay, so think about this: 188 attractions took part in this. 70% of the respondents have never conducted user testing of any kind on their website. 70%! That's actually not the worst stat though. I'm going to save the worst stat for another episode, but that's not the one that shocked me the most. But this one is really surprising. We've talked a bit about making assumptions about how well your website is perceived by people. Kelly Molson: Hard data from actual users is the key to designing a website that has an improved user experience because it can clarify problem areas and identify where most effort is needed to create a really great online experience. So if you're not asking your users how they're interacting with the site and do they like it? Can they buy things well? Can they find what they want? How do you know if it's good or not? It's blown my mind. Paul Marden: It's really hard, isn't it? Really hard. Kelly Molson: And I think it's really you wrote this down, actually. It's really important to be aware of a familiarity bias. So just because you think your website is easy to navigate doesn't mean other people think is it's because you're familiar with it so you understand where things are. Which is really interesting. Actually, I've just been reminded of a conversation that I had with somebody when I was at an attraction. Now I can't name this attraction, we're working with them and we're under NDA, but they asked me about a website that we'd redesigned. They said, "Oh, you did this website, didn't you?" I said, "Yes", "I can't find this thing anymore that I couldn't find. It took me ages to find it before" and I was like, "All right, what is the thing?" And he talked about what it was. Kelly Molson: I said, "Oh, well, it would be in this area". And he said, "Yeah, which makes sense. But before it was over here and I knew where it was and it just feels a bit weird now." I said, "Do you think it was in the right place before?". "Oh, no, shouldn't have been." Okay. So it's just because you know where it is doesn't mean it's actually in the right place. It's just what you get used to over the years. Paul Marden: It is incredibly hard to put yourself into the position of the person that knows nothing about your organisation. Trying to imagine what the customer is going through takes a lot of effort and I think that you can get data to be able to do that. But a lot of there's kind of levels of kind of understanding of that, putting yourself into that customer's position, the empathy that is required. Lots of people that we meet and work with will talk about how they want their site to be structured and what makes sense to them. Some people then will go the next stage and think about what they think their customer wants. And then there's a stage beyond that which is not even trying to put themselves into the customer position, but actually test what the customer thinks. Paul Marden: It's really hard to have the empathy to understand. If you know nothing, what would you do? And there's loads of stuff that you can do. I'm sure we'll come on to that later on to try to understand and test. But just sitting somebody down and watching them go from zero to hero and buying your tickets is a valuable thing that you could do, couldn't it? Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Now the report on the survey is anonymous. All the data that we get from it, we don't talk about the people that have submitted it and we don't talk about them. There was a number of websites within the data set that were doing really well in terms of both design and navigation and the impact that they were having on their conversion rate. So we reached out to these organisations to ask if we could talk about them today. And all of them were very happy for us to talk about it. So we have had their permission. I think I'll hand over to you, Paul, because you've been doing the analysis over on these sites. It's really lovely to see that Roman Baths are on this list. Paul Marden: They’re on the list. Kelly Molson: Because they have been on the podcast and they're our podcast alumni. So that was good. Paul Marden: Yeah, more than once, I think, as well. Kelly Molson: Yes, they have been. Paul Marden: What I went looking for were who were the organisations that thought that they had good design and navigation in their site? But I didn't think that was really enough because of course you could think that it was good and it isn't very good. So what could I dig into the data to try to pull apart the people that thought they had good design and following through from that good design actually had good outcomes. And Roman Baths was up there in that top set of organisations that had they thought they had a good, consistent high quality design, but they also had a conversion rate up there in the top ratings that we had inside the data set. Obviously, Roman Baths really well known organisation, lots of international visitors will be going there. Paul Marden: There was another that I pulled out in the data set, which was also a really high profile brand. London Zoo came out in that top set. Kelly Molson: Also past podcast guests. Thank you. Yes, lovely people. Paul Marden: So they also thought they had good, consistent design, but coincidentally also had good quality conversion rates up there in the top performance in the data set. But to avoid you saying to me, "Oh, but all these are all big, internationally recognised brands. What's design got to do with it?" Up there we've got Roman Baths, London Zoo. Big, well known brands. But there's also some organisations that I wasn't familiar with in that data set. So there were organisations that are probably more regional, less internationally well recognised brands. And one of those that considered that they had good quality design and they also had high levels of conversion rates. Alongside that were Smithwick's experience in Kilkenny in Ireland. It's an attraction that is a brewery tour. I thought that one was really interesting when I went and looked at it. Paul Marden: It was really easy to navigate around the site, ridiculously easy to go and buy tickets. You go onto the site, it's right there to be able to buy those tickets, to go to that experience. So I think that told me that you didn't need to be a big, well recognised brand to be able to devote the time and attention and budget that's needed to get a good design, which then has the impact on your conversion rates. Yeah, this is not just for the big brands. This is also for other brands, smaller, regional brands that can maybe not devote the same levels of investment to it that a large organisation can, but they can still have good outcomes and good design. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think it's fair to say we do ask questions in the report about budget, but we don't ask them specifically. So we haven't asked. We don't, for example, know the investment that Roman Barths, London Zoo or Smithwicks have made in their website to get it to where it is now. We literally have no idea. So their budgets could be phenomenally big, they could be phenomenally small. We have no idea whatsoever. But we know that they have invested in good design and they've done it to a really great standard, which means it's easy for people to make purchases. Therefore their sales are sitting at a really great level. Kelly Molson: The Roman Baths I just a little shout out to Simon Addison, actually, because Simon did come on to the podcast a couple of times now, and actually he came onto a recent episode where we talked about the value of this report and the survey that we carry out. And this is its second year now and we can see the value in terms of the data that we've been able to glean from it is so much more insightful this year. The key insights themselves are much more in depth than they were last year. But one thing that Simon mentioned is that we don't work with Roman Baths. I've made that clear on the last podcast. We didn't design their website. We've not worked with them. Kelly Molson: They did use the report to inform some of the decisions that they made about designing their website and making changes to it, which I think is so great. Right. The report is actually actively doing what we set out for it to do. Regardless of whether anyone comes to work with us or not. Someone can take this report and use the insights from it to inform their current agency to make changes to their site that are going to make a significant difference to their bottom line. Well done, us. Paul Marden: Well done, us. But well done, everyone that's responded as well. Kelly Molson: Whatever. Well done, us. Well done, everyone. Thank you. Paul Marden: So I just think it's really impressive, isn't it, that we've got what was it you said? 180 something respondents from across the sector. Kelly Molson: 188. Paul Marden: It's so hard in a tough industry. There's lots of industries where people would not work together. And this is a collaborative exercise in sharing your data that takes a certain confidence within the sector to be able to be willing to share that information so that then somebody like us can then do the graph that aggregating that and seeing the interesting stories that people can then use to make things better. There's so many places where you would not see that happen. Kelly Molson: It's a wonderful part of the sector, that collaboration and that willingness to share and be open about things. Right, let's talk about next steps then, because we've talked about some of the items within design, navigation, testing. We've talked about who's doing it well. Let's wrap this up with next steps that you can take. Kelly Molson: If you think some of these things are relevant to you and you want to do something about them. Do some testing. Do some testing and you can do that in a variety of ways. Paul Marden: Do you want me to test some stuff? Kelly Molson: Let's do some testing. Let's test. Look, there's loads of ways that you can do user testing if you're going through the process of a redesign at the moment. Go back to your wireframes, make them interactive. Do some internal testing, do some external testing. You can do this in multiple ways so you can do focus groups, get bums on seats in front of computers and give them some things that you want them to do on your site. Don't tell them how to do it, but just give them some things that you want them to achieve. I want you to buy a ticket. I want you to tell me how easy it is to go and find the interactive map. I want you to find a blog post and can you get from the blog post to buying a ticket, some of those things. Kelly Molson: This doesn't need to cost you a huge amount of money, right? You all have an asset in that. "Hey, would you like a free ticket to our venue if you come and do some testing for us?" Put on a little bit of lunch, put on people are really happy to help and give you feedback in that way. So that doesn't need to be a huge cost at all. You can use online tools, so we use tools like UserTesting.com. You can select a certain demographic that you want to test out and you upload what you want them to test. And then they go off and they do it, and they record videos, and you can see how they interact and they talk through what they're doing and how easy it was for them to do those things as well. Kelly Molson: They are not a huge, costly I actually don't know off the top of my head. There will be a fee to use the system, which will be a monthly fee and then there'll be a fee probably for that will cover X amount of tests within that monthly fee. So it will probably be from what, 150, maybe a month, something like that, maybe a bit more. Paul Marden: The cost depends as well on factors, how many factors you place on the do you only want people to do user testing that are of a particular demographic and age? If your attraction has mainly parents with young kids coming, do you want your user testing to be done only by parents with young kids? When you add more constraints to it, the cost of doing it becomes higher. But arguably the quality of the data that you get back from the testing is more relevant to you. Kelly Molson: You can do this with I've talked about going back to the wireframe stage. You can do this at any point. So great, do a load of testing before you go ahead and release something to the world. But if you've got something that's up and running now, do some testing. So you can do user testing on what you already have. You can do exit surveys so you can ask people once they've bought a ticket, you can ask them how easy that was. What did you find difficult? What were your challenges at the end of your purchasing journey? So there's small little things you can do there. Paul Marden: The world has changed a lot, hasn't it? In the last few years we've moved to almost exclusively online sales beforehand. So we've got this massive pool of data, of contact information of the people that have bought your tickets. That's such a great resource that you could use, which in previous years pre pandemic it would have been a struggle because a large chunk of your people would have been walk ins who you didn't necessarily it wasn't easy to capture those sorts of contact details and follow up with them. Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly. And then I think there are things that you can do in terms of looking at your user experience and the design side of things. We do things like UX reviews for people. We actually offered one as a prize for all of the people that entered the survey this year and the lovely people at Cheddar Gorge won that. We're going to be looking at that in a couple of months for them. Paul Marden: Back near my home proper, that's Cheddar Gorge is where I went as a kid, like, so that's exciting to be. Kelly Molson: In that we'll be carrying that out later on in the year for them. So, yeah, there's things that you can do in terms of working with an agency to look at what your user journeys look like. Are they correct for the audience that you have? Does your design flow? Where are the barriers that you're seeing? And again, if you're looking at some of the data of where you're seeing people drop off, is that a design issue, is that a function issue? How do we work those things out? Paul Marden: There's loads of tools, isn't there, as well, like Hotjar that you can stick on, which doesn't cost a lot of money. And it's not just Hotjar, there are lots of other tools just like it which would give you insight into the behaviour of the users on the site. It's just a snapshot that you get for free, but that snapshot could really help inform decision making about maybe I need to make it easier for them to find the button because they're finding it hard to book tickets or whatever. Kelly Molson: Because they can't see where they need to book their tickets. Paul Marden: Yeah. Kelly Molson: So, yeah, I think in summary, do some testing is what I'm going to end this podcast episode with. Do some testing, come back and tell us what you find. Paul Marden: Exciting. I'd love to have those conversations. Kelly Molson: As ever, if you want to get in touch with either of us, all of our contact details are in the Show Notes. If anything has sparked your interest that we've talked about today, we're really happy to answer any questions and things like that. So if you do want to ask any questions about any of the kind of stats that we've talked about, again, just our email addresses will be in the Show Notes. And also, if you haven't downloaded the report yet, why not? Because it's out. It launched yesterday. We did a webinar. Did you come to it? Why not? If not, but if you do want to go and download the report, we'll put the link to that in the Show Notes as well. But just head over to the rubbercheese.com website and you'll be able to find it. We'll see you next time. Paul Marden: Awesome. Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| 20 years of the Visitor Attractions Conference, with Bernard Donoghue OBE, Ken Robinson and Paul Kelly | 20 Sep 2023 | 00:55:34 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
THURSDAY 5TH OCTOBER – QEII CONFERENCE CENTRE, WESTMINSTER https://vacevents.com/committee/
Bernard Donoghue OBE CEO & Director, ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Mayor of London’s Culture Ambassador. Co-Chair, London Tourism Recovery Board. https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-obe-0aa9b97/ Bernard has been the Director of ALVA, the UK’s Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, since 2011 following a career in advocacy, communications, and lobbying, latterly at a senior level in the tourism and heritage sector. In 2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appointed Bernard to be the Mayor’s Ambassador for Cultural Tourism and a member of the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board. Bernard is Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. He is also Chairman of LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre; Chairman of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world, and also of the People’s History Museum, the Museum of Democracy. He has been a member of the UK Government’s Tourism Industry Council since 2016. Bernard was named by Blooloop in 2020 as one of the world’s 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic.
Ken Robinson CBE FTS - Founder of VAC https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-robinson-cbe-fts-bb811312/ Ken is an independent adviser who speaks and writes on tourism topics. As a "tourism enthusiast" he aims to be a pragmatic pioneer of new initiatives, strategies and solutions to optimise the economic, cultural and social benefits of tourism. Ken’s Consultancy companies completed over 1500 assignments, mostly in the UK but also several hundred international projects, beginning over 50 years ago, before the days of mass tourism. He was a founding member of the Tourism Society and supported the formation of the Tourism Alliance, both of which organisations he has served as a board member and Chair, as he has on several other Tourism bodies. Specialising initially in visitor attractions, Ken initiated and subsequently chaired the National Visitor Attractions Conference, VAC, and has been on its Committee ever since. In addition to many clients in the public, private and third sectors, he has advised the UN’s International Trade Centre, on national and regional Tourism strategy development. His current focus is to move the industry’s thinking from marketing to the critical need to manage future tourism for the benefit of host communities, and to optimise tourist’s experiences. Ken was appointed CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014.
Paul Kelly Chief Executive, BALPPA, Chair of VAC https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kelly-2714a922/ Having been with BALPPA for 11 years and working with VAC for that amount of time as well, Paul started his career in the attractions sector at Thorpe Park in the 80's and then moved on to the London Eye for its opening around the millennium. He has always been involved with visitor attractions. Several more years working within Merlin followed both in the UK and abroad, mainly on business development. Being a BALPPA member for 30 years means, being Chair of the organising committee at VAC keeps Paul in touch with all aspects of the attractions industry.
Liz Terry MBE Managing Director, Leisure Media Group https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizterry/
Janet Uttley Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetuttley/
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Season 5 kicks off today with not one, not two, but three excellent guests. On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Bernard Donoghue, Paul Kelly and Ken Robinson, founders of the Visitor Attractions Conference. You also know Bernard as, Director of ALVA and Paul as CEO of BALPPA. VAC celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and I'm finding out where the idea for the event spanned from, how it's changed and developed over the years. And we take a look ahead to what 2024 has in store for the attraction sector. Unfortunately, fellow Founder; Liz Terry, the Managing Director of Leisure Media Group, and also Janet Uttley, Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland, were unable to join us on this episode. But stay tuned for lots of insight and to find out how you can get your ticket for the VAC conference this year. Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Bernard, Ken, Paul, it is a treat to have you all on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. I think this is the first time I've had three guests as well, so this could be interesting. Bernard Donoghue: And three men as well. I mean, it's like a really bad testosterone banana rama, isn't it? Really. Kelly Molson: I’m just a little flower in the middle of you thorns today. Yes, it's a real shame. So, unfortunately, Janet Uttley and Liz Terry couldn't make it along to join us today, which is a shame. But I'm sure that they will get lots of mentions as we talk through some of the things that we're going to chat about today. But first, as ever, I want to start with a little icebreaker. I'm going to ask you all the same thing because I'm intrigued as to whether you ended up doing what you thought you might. So, Ken, I'm going to start with you first. When you were at school, what did you think that you'd grow up and be when you were older? Ken Robinson: I didn't know. Kelly Molson: Had no clue at all? Ken Robinson: No, I didn't have a clue. I was lucky to have a good education. I didn't work at school. And then I got into a job, which was I was very successful at it and it was very boring. So I left. And when I discovered tourism and visitor attractions, it took me over. I didn't decide to do it. It told me that was it. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. It's like a calling. Ken Robinson: At the time it was, I was actually sitting in a turret room which had been vacated by Lord Montague. His desk used to face in and I liked that because I didn't have to look at the faces of the visitors going past who might complain, because in those days, buli was very expensive. And then one day I thought to myself, these people are investing their hard earned money and leisure time in making a decision to come here and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. And I turned my desk round and I looked at them all day long and the moment I turned my desk round, everything changed. Kelly Molson: I love that, because you could see the whites of their eyes and how they were engaging with the venue as they turned up. Ken Robinson: Well, it's just such a failure, isn't it? If you've got somebody who makes a choice and spends their time and money, a family decision for many people, and it should be a highlight. And if it isn't, whose fault is it? It's probably the fault of the visitor attraction, given that the person has chosen to go there in not communicating well enough with them about what they've got and what they would find interesting. Kelly Molson: This is such a brilliant story and that wasn't where I was expecting this to go either, Ken. I love it. Paul, what about you, Paul? Paul Kelly: Yeah, I mean, when I was at school, I was interested in sports and that was it, really, and luckily, that dragged me through the various places I went to. But what I was going to end up doing sports. I think once you get into sports quite seriously, you realise fairly quickly that actually you're not going to make it, so you have to find something else. So, laterally, I decided that business was a good idea. So I started doing business studies up in North Wales and for some reason were doing a sandwich course in those days, I think it was called that. One of those, I got placed at Thorpe Park. I don't know why particularly, so there's a group of six of us went down to Thorpe Park to work there and I actually started working on the rides. Paul Kelly: I'm not sure what it had to do with business at the time, but I'm glad somebody thought it did. And I couldn't believe that was a job that you could do, you could be paid for, because I came from the north at that point and there wasn't an awful lot going on in the 80s and actually be paid. Everyone enjoyed themselves, fantastic atmosphere, parties every night. I'm sure it's still like that. And it was just amazing. And from that moment on, regardless of what happened after that, including other colleges, other bits and pieces, effectively, I never left. Kelly Molson: It's always going to be in that sector. Paul Kelly: Yes. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Great. Bernard, same to you. Bernard Donoghue: Well, this may come as a surprise, but my grandfather was in the Irish Guards, my father was in the Grenadier Guards, my brother was in the Royal Marines, and I had a very large collection of action men. I genuinely thought I would probably end up in the army. And actually, I got an offer after university to go into the Household Cavalry. I don't think I've ever told anyone this before. Anyway, it just clearly I didn't pursue the application. It wasn't for me at all. Got really into politics. So I started working in the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and then I've just been in sort of lobbying, campaigning, political world ever since. But I still miss the uniforms. Can't deny it. Kelly Molson: I think we'd like to see you in that uniform, Bernard, if I'm not going to lie. So from the lobbying aspect, which is obviously a really big part of the role that you currently have, how did the attractions bit kind of slot into those? Where did the two join up? Bernard Donoghue: It's a really odd coincidence. I was trustee of a charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, was a patron of, and I was working full time for a charity that she was a patron of. So when she divorced Prince of Wales, now the King, she reduced her patronages down from 187 to six. And I happened to be involved with six of them. I went to work for her as a deputy private secretary, press secretary. But of course, the moment she died, which was August 31st, I had no job. Suddenly I was unemployed. And I got contacted by a woman who Ken will certainly know, probably Paul will, too, by Sue Garland, who used to be Deputy Chief Executive of VisitBritain, who'd heard me speak at something and said, "Well, we're just about to create this post of government affairs liaison. Would you be interested to working on the role while working on what you do next?” Bernard Donoghue: And that was in August 1997. And here I am still. Ken Robinson: But also, can I add something to that? Because I was lucky enough to be sitting in the room on many occasions when Bernard would give his briefing at meetings that were held by VisitBritain. And it was always a highlight of the day because Bernard, in those days, never pulled his punches. I'm not saying he does now, but he would just explain to everybody in the room what was going on with all of the political parties, which we never understood, and explain what we ought to be doing in order to best put our case. So it was really no shock when he turned up at ALVA, because I would say this if he wasn't here, he was the star of the show there, and that expertise that he showed has blossomed in the job that he's doing now. Kelly Molson: This is lovely, isn't it? Aren't you all nice? Bernard Donoghue: This is love in.. Kelly Molson: Probably why you all work together, right? You will get on so well. Right, back to you, Ken. Unpopular opinion, please. Ken Robinson: Most visitor attractions do not deliver full value for money to most of their visitors. Kelly Molson: Okay, Paul and Bernard, do you agree with this? Will our listeners agree with this? Is this an unpopular opinion? Paul Kelly: Did you use the word most, Ken? Ken Robinson: I did. Paul Kelly: I'll go for some, not most. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah, I'll go for some as well. One of my favourite programmes is Yes, Minister. And whenever you'd hear something off the wall, bonkers, they would say, that's a very brave opinion, Minister. That's a very brave opinion, Ken. Ken Robinson: Now's not the time to justify it. I'll do that on another occasion. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we will invite you back and we can do that one on one, Ken. Paul, what about you? Unpopular opinion? Paul Kelly: Well, I'm guessing that anybody that's worked in a theme park will probably have the same opinion I have. So I worked at Thorpe Park, which was 450 acres, two thirds of which was water. And at the end of the day, when you were walking out, and in those days, that could be 9, 10 o'clock at night, it was beautiful. On a late summer's evening, calm waters, walking through a park which had just been cleaned and tidied and ready for the next day. It was fantastic. And we all had the same opinion once were down the pub discussing the day. It's just a shame we have to let people into theme parks because it's the absolutely beautiful place without them there. So sometimes people let the parks down. Kelly Molson: That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And you don't want to let them in to see the beautiful bit either, do you? Because then there'd be people there. It wouldn't be serene. Paul Kelly: No, I mean, those evenings, if there was still time, we'd go windsurfing on the lakes, cable water ski around the back. And it was just a shame that all these people came in every day and messed it all up. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that most people who've worked in theme parks aren't going to disagree with you on that one, Paul. Good one. Bernard, what about yours? Bernard Donoghue: Even though I chair a theatre and I know how important the revenue is, I'm not a fan of selling drinks and food to people in theatres because they just make a noise. I can't bear it. I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends if it's a panto or something like that. Completely fine. Ken Robinson: Oh, no, it's not. Bernard Donoghue: It kind of allies to what Paul was saying as well, which was I don't know whether it's an unpopular opinion. I think it's probably a popular opinion. But visitor behaviour, whether it's in a theatre, a museum, an art gallery or wherever, has completely deteriorated post lockdown. Some people's behaviour is getting worse and it's very difficult to know what to do about it. Kelly Molson: Yes, agree. I don't think that's going to be very unpopular at all, actually, considering some of the things that we've seen recently. Thank you all for sharing. Okay, let's get back to the serious bit. The Visitor Attractions Conference. It's 20 years old this year. If you are listening and you're not familiar with it, one, why the hell not? And two, you need to grab a ticket today. It's the leading networking and learning event for visitor attractions across the UK. And I first visited in October 2019 and it was the first sector specific conference that I had been to. We'd been working in the sector for probably about three or four years, had never really at that point kind of gone all out on our like, "This is what we're going to niche and this is what we're going to specialise in." Kelly Molson: So I was kind of doing a bit of a fact finding mission really, and I came along and it absolutely blew me away. I think it was one of the friendliest conferences I've ever been to. I think you'd created an environment where everybody was really welcome, no stupid questions. Everyone from speakers to guests where kind of felt like they were all on the same level, really happy to answer questions that you had, really happy to talk to you. And I think that was for me. I came away from that event, I went back to my team and said, "This is where we should be. This is the event for us, this is where we should be attending, these are the people that we should be speaking to." And I've absolutely loved every minute of that. Kelly Molson: I mean, the next one I went to was a virtual one. So it was very different to the 2019 event, but still excellently organised. So firstly, thank you for making that happen. But where did the idea for the VAC come from in the first place? How did this come about? Ken Robinson: So we have to remember that the world was very different over 20 years ago. Really, really very different. Not just a question of internet or pre COVID and all those things and pre Olympics, but just very different. And attractions in those days thought and acted and communicated in their sectoral associations. Historic houses talked to historic houses, curators of museums talked to curators, bishops talked to priests, zoologists talked to botanists, but they didn't talk across the sectors. There were two exceptions to that. One was that in Visit England or English Tourist Board, there'd always been a committee there which was across the sectors, but the other one was ALVA. Now, when ALVA was formed, it was a 1 million visitors plus club for attractions, with 1 million plus visitors a year. Ken Robinson: Subsequently, groups of attractions, particularly English Heritage, National Trust, were involved originally associates, but it was a 1 million plus club and that's only 1% of the attractions in the United Kingdom had over 1 million. And it was very London centric. And ALVA had a five objectives, four of which were about government. And the interesting thing was that I was very good friends all through this time with Lord Lee, who know a very big part of the early success, pre Bernard of ALVA. I said to John Lee, “Look John, could you not change your name to ALVA and be involved with all the visitor attractions because they badly need something which glues everybody together and we need to get across this away from this sectoral stuff.” Ken Robinson: And everybody was talking about historic houses, talk about the house museums, talking about the continents of the museum but they weren't talking about visitors. They weren't talking about how you communicated with the visitors or what they were motivated by or how you could better manage things for visitors, give them better they weren't doing that. So John agreed with this and I've got the original papers here. I looked them out that I was asked first of all by ALVA in December of 2001 to write a paper on the future of ALVA which is headed: ALVA in the Future Representing All Visitor Attractions. Then after that the conversation went on and we realised that if were going to have some kind of overall event we couldn't do it without the National Tourist Board, we couldn't do it without Visit Britain, Visit England. We needed their input. Ken Robinson: We needed them to talk to DCMS and make sure it would happen. And also we wanted to do this not on a commercial basis but being by the industry, for the industry, run by the industry, not for profit. And that was a problem because we wanted to do it in the QE II Centre because we wanted to be in the centre of everything and that was going to cost an extraordinary sum of money and there wasn't that much money that could in that first year come originally from VisitEngland. So the partners in this, the partners being ALVA, BALPPA, Paul's organisation, Leisure Media the wonderful Liz Terry and her magazine which has forever been behind this event for no recompense whatever and myself put up 5000 pounds each security in order that the thing would happen. Ken Robinson: You said, "We'll stand the risk, let's do it.". So in 2004 I wrote the briefing of the first conference and I found from a 2003 the government asked for a list of topics that would be discussed in order they could work out whether or not they might like it and it's still here. What I like about it is it would do quite well for this year's conference. All those topics are still relevant. So that's where it came from. That's where it came from. We wanted it to have at the time the lowest possible attendance fee to get the highest number of people there. We wanted to involve everybody. Ken Robinson: And the cast list for that 2004 event, my goodness me, absolutely fantastic cast list in terms of the people we had for an initial event and you can imagine when it was announced and everybody was behind it ALVA was behind it. BALPPA, I should have mentioned that Colin Dawson, Paul's predecessor was an absolute stalwart of the conference in the early years he stood by know, when times were tough and that's where it came from. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. It was really putting your money where your mouth is, isn't it? By all of you actually personally investing in this thing to bring it to life. You don't hear many things happening in that way anymore, do you? It's all about getting investment and asking other people to make the commitment to it and take the risk. Ken Robinson: Well, we have a company now, I should say. We have a company called VAC Events, and we are all equal. The four of us are equal shareholders, that's to say, Bernard and ALVA, BALPPA and Paul, Liz and myself, for no benefit. Martin does it for us, but we are the people that carry the can, if you like, and I don't think we've ever had anything out of it apart from a nice lunch at Christmas, but apart from that, it's a great feeling of doing something. When you say everybody is very friendly and talks to one another. That's why they're all in the same business. Bishop, curator, zoologist person running a heritage railway, they're all in the same business. Kelly Molson: Obviously, the first event was a success. You've been on and you've done many, what, 20, 20 events since that first one. How have you seen it kind of change and develop over the years? So what did that first conference look like compared to what this year's will look like? And how have you kind of evolved it over that time to keep it relevant to your audience? Paul Kelly: Well, I think so. My involvement directly has been the last ten years, so I'm halfway through chairing for this one, but I was actually there at the early ones because I worked at that time. I was working at the London Eye, just across the river, and I was good friends with Colin Dawson at the time. I'd worked with him at Thorpe Park and he for some people, may well remember Colin as entertaining Princess Diana on a log flume in 92, 3 and 4. Paul Kelly: And I was there. It's hard to tell, but I was actually there. I'm not in any of the photos in Paris Match and all of those places. I have a couple of myself here. I didn't get anything signed by Princess Diana and sent over to you know, bitterness takes a while to and I've joked with Colin over this many years. Colin was there, but if you look closely behind the scenes, you'll find I was there too, but so I was great friends with Colin over many years and still am. He was obviously contacting everyone he knew about this conference. He was working for BALPPA at the time. I was working for the Two Swords Group, had the operational contract for the London Eye. Paul Kelly: So I went to the first one and I suppose my impressions of the first one was for somebody who hasn't been there before, the QE II is extremely impressive as a conference center. I don't go to many that look like that around the UK. Most of them normally the ones I go to are in attractions, they're slightly different so it was hugely impressive both on its location and what was across the road and how things went and I was a little bit starstruck I suppose, for the first one. Now I get the opportunity to sit on the stage and look out at everybody and have a slightly different view on it all, but still think it's an extremely impressive environment to do that. Paul Kelly: And I think the biggest change for me, and I think we may cover a little bit later, is how we've broken up the afternoons into separate segments and sections where people can go along to a smaller, informal group discussing a topic that they particularly want. And I think the thing I also like about that is the amount of people who want to go to more than one of them that are on at the same time and are almost complaining there's too many things to go to, which I think is hilarious, which means it's really good. And hopefully that means that next time they'll really think about which one do I want to go to, obviously I want to go to more than one, but I'm going to pick my best one. Paul Kelly: So I think for me, that's probably the biggest change over time. But what doesn't change for me is the team that we have putting these things together, which we're actually relatively slick at. Everyone gets the chance to put their opinions and I'm glad we don't record those meetings and it works out really well. And I think as a team, it's amazing how long we've stuck at it and stuck together. Kelly Molson: I'd love to be on a little fly on the wall for those meetings. Have you ever had a fallout about something? Bernard Donoghue: Yes, we're frequently violent. It's a visitor experience in its own right, I think. Kelly Molson: I’ll pay for it. Bernard Donoghue: We reflect the madness that some of our visitors demonstrate on site so in that case I think we're rooted in the industry. The first one that I went to was in 2011, so I just joined ALVA at that point. And the first one I spoke, it was in 2012 and I've been doing the same kind of slot ever since. I do a kind of State of the Nation in the morning because ALVA obviously gets loads of data and information and we publish all of our visitor figures and all the rest of it, and actually we collect and commission much more data now than we ever used to. So I share all of that in the kind of Donoghue half hour copyright. Bernard Donoghue: What's lovely I mean, Paul's absolutely right is that over the last twelve years I think we've seen a real move from people desperately wanting to speak about their successes to being really open about what hasn't worked, which of course is far more interesting and useful. So there's been a really lovely shift from people saying, "No, I don't have to do the propaganda stuff.” Actually, I'm going to tell you what it was like, why it was a disaster and what we learned from it. And that's so useful. So you do get this real honesty coming from the speakers who know that's what they find useful too. So why not share it? I think the other one is I do a presentation about, is there core behaviours of successful visitor attractions regardless of type? Bernard Donoghue: And there are there's about ten of them, but one of them is the ability to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. So the presentations that are most fascinating for me is where a visitor attraction, it doesn't matter whether it's a cathedral or whether it's a museum or gallery or theme park, have teamed up with someone that you wouldn't expect them to team up with to tell the story of their people and places and collections in a new, innovating, exciting way. And those are fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I love those. There's much more of that. Kelly Molson: Fantastic. Well, on that note, I want to know from each of you who has been the most inspiring speaker that you've had at the conference over the past 20 years. Ken, let us start with you. Who do you think would be on your list for that? Ken Robinson: I had a look through the programs going back to 2004 and came up with the following names which surprised me, actually. I think originally our first most inspiring speaker was Simon Jenkins, the columnist of the Times, who had very strong views, which didn't necessarily agree with what government and others were doing. He did give a very inspiring presentation and then there are some people who perhaps we would expect less. The most single most surprising speaker was somebody called Tristram Mayhew, who titles himself as the Chief Gorilla of Go Ape and in a room full of suits and quite smart dresses and trouser suits, Go Ape shambled onto the stage in a car key shirt and proceeded to explain how he'd done things differently. And frankly, it was riveting. We had a chap called Tony Berry from the National Trust who gave presentations. Ken Robinson: His first one was just stunnning, you know, in the days when HR was less popular, Tony Berry would tell you why you should be interested and he was absolutely amazing. And Sue Wilkinson, incidentally, of the National Trust, who was the person responsible really for dragging the Trust from its sort of old form to its new marketing orientated thinking about its supporters future success? She was terrific. And the other person I would mention another Tony, I don't know whether or Tony's there's Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life, who again, when Bernard was talking about people talking about doing things differently and it inspires you. Some of those examples are very interesting, but not easy to copy. Ken Robinson: In other attractions, we always look for things that do go across the piece, so anybody can learn from the lessons within the example that we're talking about. And incidentally, we do have arguments in meetings, it's about whether particular speakers and particular topics are the way of doing things. And generally speaking, when we all have a good go at it comes out better than it did when anybody said, “Well, I know what the right answer is. No, you don't. Let's all talk about it. So that works.” So you get these people that actually inspire and they light up the room, not because of clever graphics and not because of a forceful way, but they light up the room because of the originality of their ideas. Now, I'll come to my number one. Ken Robinson: I'm sorry about this, because he's sitting on my screen down there, and that's young Bernard, who since he joined our there you go. That's the top half that works. You should see the bottom half doesn't work. He's just had pins put in it. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners here, Bernard is given a little muscle strong arm salute on screen here. Ken Robinson: Bernard combines the latest immediate knowledge of talking to people across the industry with an absolutely amazing gift of the gab, with a power of communication. And he's unstoppable. And we wouldn't have stood him for all these years if he wasn't. So of all the years and all the speakers, the consistent best is Bernard. But we have had other people, often surprising, who take know, you don't expect it, you think you're going to listen to ordinary session, all of a sudden it takes fire. Kelly Molson: Bernard, what have you got to say to that? Bernard Donoghue: What I say to Ken is there are packets of cash going from London to the south coast with immediate effect. Delighted. Thank you very much. It's really lovely, actually. I've tried to change things every year to do partly political, but also partly about good practice and who's doing what and who's interesting. I'll tell you what, one of my favourite speakers, and it was in a conversation, one of the things that we've introduced is a sort of conversation with slot, which works really well, actually, because a bit like this, you're off script, you respond to people. Liz chaired a conversation last year, so were in Birmingham last year and it was all about HR issues and of course, it know, coming out of COVID and cost of living crisis and recruitment challenges and all of those kind of stuff. Bernard Donoghue: And Tina Lewis is the director of people at the National Trust. National Trust, getting great repertoire here. She came out with an idea that they're doing at the National Trust and I've implemented it in the three organisations that I chair and it's made the biggest difference. So the National Trust, they will pay the rent deposit for your flat if you need them to. So if you're going through a cost of living crisis and you can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. You can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. That was such a transformational thing to hear. You could almost hear the gasp in the room of people going, "Oh, my God. Yeah, if we can, let's do that." Bernard Donoghue: And I've now introduced it. As I say in the organisations that I chair, not many people have taken it up, but the fact that we've said it has made such a difference to people. I mean, as it is at the Trust, actually, there's been a relatively small number of people at the Trust who've taken it up, but the very policy decision, the very communication of it, just spoke volumes about an organisation that cares about its staff, and particularly those staff who are on really limited budgets. So there's been loads and loads of speakers over the course of the last few years, but that for me was a nugget which has changed people's lives and has been implementable. Kelly Molson: I think that's the key to that part, isn't it, is that it's an incredible thing that they've done, but the fact that it can be implemented someone has listened to that talk. They can take that away, take it to their board, take it to whoever needs to okay that, and they can put that into action like that straight away. That's the power of a really good initiative and a good speaker to be able to deliver that as well. Paul, what about you? Please don't say Bernard. I think he's had enough praise today. Bernard Donoghue: No, keep going. Kelly Molson: No. Paul Kelly: You're OK, Bernard? We'll leave that one where it is, shall we? If we can squeeze Bernard into the room next. Right, so one special mention I wanted to give, actually, which is one of the years not too long ago, we invited Simon Calder to speak, the travel journalist, and I have to say I wasn't convinced, because clearly he's not working in one of our attractions and doesn't necessarily know the industry pretty well. But I have to say, he was hugely entertaining, had done his homework, was hugely knowledgeable, and so he was absolutely excellent. But I think the most important thing for me is that he left us and he said to me, “Enjoyed it so much, I'll come back later.” And I said, “Yes, of course you will.” Paul Kelly: So he went away and he came back at the end of the day to talk to all the people that he'd seen early in the day, because he loved the atmosphere and he wasn't required to do that. And he came along. And for that I have to put a special mention in one for myself to actually listen to the others when they say, “This will be good”, and secondly for him, for actually doing a bit and actually coming back later. And he was a fabulous addition and outside of our industry. So my inside the industry one is somebody I ended up working with because I was with the Two Swords group and then they were bought by Merlin with Nick Varney and his Merry Men. Paul Kelly: So Nick and his team had obviously been in the industry a very long time at this point, dipped in and out of theme parks and attractions. But Nick didn't actually do many talks. You wouldn't actually hear him speak about too much. I'd heard him speak over in the IAAPA trade show held in Orlando every November, and he was absolutely brilliant. And then Ken managed to get him to speak at VAC one year. And again, he was absolutely excellent. And this fits in nicely because now that he's retired from Merlin, he's speaking again this year. So I think that will be really interesting because he's absolutely excellent. Ken Robinson: And by the way, guys, just to show you that we know what we're doing here, this is 2004, okay? And it says here the recipe for success. Nick Varney chief executive, will talk about the components for commercial success. And that's before. So we've got him first and look what happened. Kelly Molson: I'm really looking forward to that interview, actually, and I think it would be really interesting to see how he differs now. He's kind of outside of the sector, and I think that the format that you've got him in. So that's the interview with Liz, isn't it? On stage? I think that's going to be a really great format as well. I've seen that work really well in the past where she's interviewed people and it just feels really comfortable and really conversational. I think that brings out the best of people. Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, do you want to know who's been of most variable quality? Kelly Molson: Oh, yes. Bernard Donoghue: Tourism Minister. I mean, without doubt. I mean, we've been going 20 years now, therefore we've had 20 tourism ministers, had one a year, like Christmas cards. And some of them have completely got the industry completely understood. It delivered a barnstorming speech, and then the next year you'll get the annual Tourism Minister pop up and they'll read something flat, banal, uninteresting. And we're so torched by the experience that we don't invite the one next on the year. So we're always banging on about this. Tourism is very good at job creation. In fact, we've created 20 Tourism Minister jobs in years, but they are of variable quality. Ken Robinson: The best we ever had, Bernard, I think, by far, was John Penrose, when he had completed his review of the industry and got very clear views, which he put to government. Unfortunately, government didn't do it, as they usually don't, but he was good and people liked him and gave him a high rating. I think the next best was probably Margaret Hodge, who was very good and spoke from the heart. But as you say, when we look at every year, we look at a rating of every speaker and the meeting after the event, we go through those ratings and decide, those that got good ratings, why did they get it? Was it intrinsic to their character, their nature, their topic? Was there something special? And those who didn't, why was that? Was it our fault? Ken Robinson: Did we not brief them properly? Or was it never going to be any better? Ken Robinson: And that way we managed to manage the conference. So know the attraction sector. We sometimes forget that over half of all visits to visitor attractions in the UK are free of charge. We forget that the majority of visitor attractions are medium and small businesses. We forget that there are charitable and commercial attractions. We must be able to bring this whole sector together and move our thinking forward in the way that Bernard has just explained in terms of what he does with ALVA. And the other thing that Bernard mentioned was ALVA's research now. Ken Robinson: 20 years ago, you had to wait until the annual book came out from Thames Tower and then eventually from the centre of luck look to page 16 and there would be numbers, but very little interpretation of what those numbers meant. Now, Bernard is behind much of the work that is done now with ALVA. But the key to it is it's not just numbers, it's interpretation. And because of the communication skills, when ALVA put out a message, it is interpreted. It says why it was a successful year or what was mitigating against that. And that's so important in trying to move our case forward. Kelly Molson: But it's important in improving the content that you give your audience at the conferences as well, right? If something isn't working and you've got a process of evaluating why that hasn't worked and how you improve on it for the next one. Let's just focus on why should people attend VAC this year? What is in it for them? What's on the agenda? What have they got to look forward to and how can we get them to book a ticket? Bernard Donoghue: I'll happily go first and go quite niche, actually. One of the things that I do now outside of ALVA, or because of ALVA is that I co chair the advisory board for VisitLondon. So essentially chair the London tourist board. And I do that with Kate Nichols of UK hospitality. And we created the London Tourism Recovery Group during COVID So my suggestion would be Sadiq Khan. So we've managed to get the Mayor of London to come along and speak at this anniversary conference. And it's not just because he's the Mayor of London and it's the 20th anniversary, but it's because he's the first ever Mayor of London that hazard one of his four political priorities, culture and tourism. That's number one. Bernard Donoghue: Number two is that he put his money where his mouth was and he funded the Let's Do London Recovery campaign, which was both domestic and international with the industry. We delivered it with London and partners, but he put up the lump sum behind it. And third, he completely gets that tourism and heritage and culture is both where you grow jobs and we're very good at it, but it's also where you grow people. It's where you grow people in terms of their cultural literacy or their sense of community or their independence or their sense of history. And therefore knowing where you come from enables you to be a better future citizen, if you like. Bernard Donoghue: So my quick blast would be we've got him doing a welcome, but also saying why visitor attractions and tourism are so important to him and to the economy and the politics of London. So that's not to be missed. Kelly Molson: That is a big draw. Absolutely a big draw. Paul, you mentioned earlier about the variety in splitting up that second session, that second part of the day with the seminars and the smaller talks that you do as well. That for me, as an attendee, is really valuable because you can kind of pick and choose what's relevant to you and go along and see lots of different talks. What do you think is the draw for people to come to the conference this year for you? Paul Kelly: Well, I was just jotting down, thinking about it's a little bit. An extension of what Ken was talking about is that it's the variety of what we do in one place is greater than anywhere else. And all the conferences I do because of the nature of what we do each end of the spectrum. So we've got talks about people who run charities to people who run hugely commercial operations. We've got people doing talks on which are free to get into those who are quite expensive, but focus on value for money. And you've got those that are indoor, those that are outdoor. When I spent my time business development at Merlin, they were always focused on a balanced portfolio. And a balanced portfolio meant making sure that right across your business, you have every aspect covered. Paul Kelly: So everything balances indoor, outdoor, UK, Europe, USA, whatever it is. And I think with our conference, that's what we try and do, we try and balance all of those types of different types of operations so that everything is covered, not to the point where it's too thin and you don't learn anything. And that's the key to it, is that we go into the depth. And the depth, I think, is greater now because we do those breakout sessions and we've got time to do in fact, we double up for those three different areas just for that afternoon. So I think those are the things, if anyone asks me why they should come, it's about the variety. Kelly Molson: Regardless of size of your attraction as well. And actually, from my perspective as a supplier to the industry, it's just as valuable to come along and learn and understand what's going on in the sector. You don't have to be an attraction to come along and take part and be educated about what's happening in the sector. What about you, Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I think that those of us who have stood on the stage at the QE II Centre and looked at the people who have come can see that there aren't any slumbering faces out there. There are people making notes, people nudging the person next to them, people looking round when we ask a question. We now have a sort of red and green card system for, do you agree? Don't you agree? Which we sometimes use, which is very interesting, engaging the mood of the room. And I think that the thing about VAC is don't be lazy if we're going to come to VAC. Don't be lazy. If you're coming to VAC, l And jot down what questions you might like to ask those people or what you'd like to learn from that session. Write it down, don't think you can remember it at the time. Ken Robinson: Bring it on a note with you when you come and then you will find, and we all know this, that the networking that happens at the end of the day and in the breaks at VAC it's like a family wedding in a way. I mean, everybody wants to talk to everybody else and it's so valuable. I think everybody who goes away from VAC should have a good few things that day, which they say, “I wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't been there”, or even, “I disagree with that”, but it's made me realise what my true opinion about that is equally valuable. But don't be a lazy attendee. Come and participate, come and enjoy, come and learn, come and take back benefit to everybody that works with you. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that thing about not being scared to ask questions is really valid as well, Ken, because this happened to me, actually. I went to one of the seminar sessions, and this is back in 2019 and was really inspired by one of the speakers about it was Julez Osbek, who was at Continuum Attractions at the time, and she talked about marketing segmentation, but had a completely different perspective on it in terms of not doing it demographically, just talking about age brackets and things like that. And it was really interesting. I didn't get a chance to ask a question during the seminar, but I found her afterwards and she was very approachable, very happy to answer my question. And then I stalked her on Twitter and got her to come on to the podcast afterwards to talk about it. Kelly Molson: But that's for me, what VAC is about. It's the openness that people are really willing to share. So don't be afraid to go and find the speaker that you've been inspired by and go and ask them the question afterwards, because everyone's really happy to talk about their topic and they're really happy to help people. That's my little key takeaway from it anyway. Right, so it's going to be on Thursday, the 5th October. This podcast episode is launching on the 20th September, so you haven't got long to go and get your tickets, so make sure you do. It is the 5th October, the QE II Conference Centre in Westminster. The website address is vacevents.com. That's Vacevents.com and you can get your ticket there. All of this information will be in the show notes, so don't worry if you didn't get time to scribble that down. Kelly Molson: While I've got you all, though, because you all are in the sector and you've got lots of insights to share. I want to know from each of you what you think that attractions should be focusing on and what 2024 might look like for the sector. Paul, what about you? Start with you. Paul Kelly: So I've been chatting to some of our operators. We have some very large operators around the UK asking them how it's going? And unsurprisingly, you could have said the same question 20 years ago, what's our biggest challenge? It's the weather. It's not actually the cost of living crisis, it's not COVID you can put plans together for those things and you can work on it, but the weather always is a little bit of a challenge. So this summer inverted commerce has been quite hard to focus on what we can deliver when the days have been half decent. Actually, we've done quite well, we always do relatively well, certainly in our sector, I'm sure the others will agree, in a recession. Paul Kelly: So the key seems to be, and I'm going to put it out, I haven't quite found the right words for it, but I'll develop this once I've spoken to a few more. What every attraction for me has to have is an opportunity for people to downgrade what they did slightly. What they're doing is they're ringing it up and saying, "Can't afford to do this, have you got something that's almost like that?" But whether it's a slightly different experience, less time, one day less so whatever the packages are that people are offering, there has to be one rung lower than it was before to still encourage people to come along because they're not able to reach the same heights at the moment that they did previously. But they still want to have that family experience that day out, create those memories. Paul Kelly: All of those things are still relevant. And if you don't have that opportunity, then they'll either go elsewhere or they won't go. So, again, it's managing. So I'm not talking about huge discounts, I'm talking about being relatively clever in what you package and what you put together to make sure they still attend and they still get what they perceive to be value for money. But unless you have that option then I think they won't come. Kelly Molson: Really great advice, Paul. Thank you. Bernard, what about you? Bernard Donoghue: Like Paul, actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. Actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. So it comes back to Paul's point about kind of ensuring yourself against the excesses of the weather and making sure that you're still particularly a family attractive visitor attractions that'd be one. Second is cost of living crisis, certainly for the average customer, but also the energy costs for visitor attractions too. Bernard Donoghue: Just crazy amounts of money that visitor attractions are now paying i If you're a zoo or an aquarium you can't turn down the temperature of your botanics you're a living reef. So we're going to have to find some way out of that. And that means that actually for many organisations it's going to be as financially challenging over the next twelve months as it has been over the last two. And then I think the third, and this is a continual for me and Kelly, you and I have talked about it before, but it forms the last session of the day at the VAC conference which is diversity and inclusivity. And my feeling is that every visitor attraction should be critically honest about who comes, who doesn't, why they don't come and what are you going to do about it? Bernard Donoghue: And in particular those organisations who in receipt are government money or public money or who had COVID loans from the UK taxpayer. If their visitors don't look like the community in which they're housed, they have a moral question at the heart of their business. That's it. If you want to take public money you need to have an audience that looks like the diversity of the public. And that's a challenge. I get that, I completely get that. But I think that making sure that we are as accessible in every conceivable way, economically, physically. Accessible to people and that they see their stories and themselves reflected in their collections and people and staff and volunteers and board members, I think that's the biggest challenge of the sector as it is indeed to many other sectors. Bernard Donoghue: But I think we're doing some amazing things and we need to shout about it and we need to share and we need to learn from each other. Kelly Molson: Absolutely agree. And that session is going to be a really great session. That's one not to miss. Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I would say two things. First of all, as far as our visitors are concerned, I think there is a bigger polarisation now than there ever has been between those who have money and can still afford to do things and are not much impacted by the current circumstances, despite everything. And those who haven't and those who haven't have got to find ways of saving money, getting more for their money. There are so many things they can do that are free and alternatives that charged attractions find it difficult. I think we have to remember that the biggest number of attractions in the United Kingdom are heritage based attractions and they weren't purpose built like many of Paul's members, the attractions are purpose built for entertainment. But heritage attractions have got a bigger responsibility or museums housed in historic buildings. Ken Robinson: And all the time they're having to cut their costs and finding life difficult. Money isn't going into maintaining that National Heritage. And that's a real big long term challenge, one that government can't ignore. So government has a vested interest in the health of our businesses because the more healthy they are, the less will fall back on the state eventually. One last thing, I would like to mention Martin Evans and the tourism business. Ken Robinson: For the last I don't know how many years, Martin has been the person who has put together this event for us. He has to do the heavy lifting. He is backed up by our conference organisers, who are also very efficient. And the other person that I wouldn't like to miss from this, because if she could have been here today, you would have got a different flavour, is the wonderful Liz Terry and the support that her organisation. That's Liz's Organisation, her hard work in Leisure Media Group. She publishes Attractions Management magazine. Ken Robinson: She has never asked for anything from this conference and she gives it great support, without which we wouldn't have made 20 years, as I said earlier. And also a big shout and a screen for Liz. Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Thank you. I'm sure Liz will very much appreciate that. We won't forget her. Don't worry, she'll be on the credits for this podcast. I always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation for our listeners. So a book that you've loved, a book that you've enjoyed as part of your career growth can be absolutely anything. So, Paul, what would you like to share with us today? Paul Kelly: Oh, I tell you what, books are a bit highbrow for me. Yes, Bernard agrees with that. So I'm from the north, so I used to travel a lot when I was working North America. Commuting a little bit. So I did read a little bit then, but I very quickly swapped over to podcasts things that I download. I watch Silent Witness from the 90's, early 2000s repeatedly. I like Meet Marry Murder, which is one of the cable channels, so I'm quite simple. So I don't really have a book recommendation. I think when I have time to read, I will look forward to reading what somebody else recommends. Kelly Molson: Well, I will take Silent Witness as a recommendation because I love Silent Witness, Paul. Oh, so good. Never miss an episode, ever. So, OK, they go I mean, I can't give it away as a prize, but go and check out Silent Witness if you haven't. Bernard, what's yours? Bernard Donoghue: Well, I've been on this before and I remember my recommendation and it sounds really facile, but it was absolutely true, was Ladybird Books when I was a kid, and then that's how I got into history and heritage and storytelling and absolutely loved them. And I've still got loads of them, which is a bit sad, actually. I'm currently confined to home with a broken ankle. So I've been going through my big Bernard book of books, of all the ones that I haven't got around to reading, and the one that I've enjoyed most and has really surprised me is Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie. Absolutely fascinating. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew all about her. I know all of her characters, I've watched every conceivable film and TV program, but what a fascinating woman. Bernard Donoghue: So that's the one that I've loved this summer. Kelly Molson: Great recommendation. Yeah. I wondered what were going to get from you, actually, because you've had a lot of time on your hands to go through that book pile. Bernard Donoghue: It was either going to be Agatha Christie or the Argos catalogue. Honestly, it could have gone. Kelly Molson: It's not Christmas yet. You only do the Argos catalogue at Christmas. Ken, over to you for our last recommendation. Ken Robinson: Well, the best book quite hard to get hold of now, but I can supply copies is Action For Attractions, the National Policy Document, written in 2000. But if you want something other than that, then I have just finished reading a book which everyone else read years ago called Sapiens, which is about this thick, that's to say two and a half inches thick. For those of you listening. It's by somebody, I've just had to look him up because I couldn't have remembered it, by Yuval Noah Harari. And it's entitled A Brief History of Humankind. And what's so interesting about it is it goes through segments explaining the great moves that have happened to us humans since we appeared on this Earth. Ken Robinson: And I found the whole thing fascinating to read in one go what took me a long time, particularly the last bit, which talks about how commerce has changed the world and what we're all doing, and that's, after all, what we're doing at VAC. We are engaged in the kind of commerce that is to entertain, amuse and give enjoyment to our visitors, and at the same time keep the heritage of the country going and keep an awful lot of people employed, so I recommend Sapiens. Kelly Molson: Ken, that's a great book. It took me a really long time to read as well, but it is an absolutely fascinating book. I would totally back up your recommendation there. Have you read the next one as well, Homodeus? Ken Robinson: No one a year is enough for me. Kelly Molson: Well, I've got a toddler, so reading doesn't come easy for me right now. But Homodus is next on my list to read because that's the next one on from Sapiens and it's supposed to be a really good read as well. Right, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of Ken and Bernard's book, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want the Vax books and you will be put into a prize drawer to win them. And also, do go and watch Silent Witness, Paul's recommendation, because it is blooming brilliant. I love it. Thank you all so much for coming on to join me today. I've really appreciated it. It's been a fascinating kind of deep dive into the Visitor Attractions Conference. I genuinely love this conference. It is one absolutely not to be missed. Kelly Molson: I mean, there might be a speaker called Kelly at this one. This is so I'll be there. Come and see me too. But no, thank you. It's been wonderful. As I said, we will put all of the info in the show notes. We'll put all of the connections to Paul, Ken and Bernard too. So if you've got any follow up questions that you want to ask them, I'm sure they'd be really happy to help. But it's vapevents.com. Go and grab your ticket now. Thank you, guys. Ken Robinson: And I have to tell you, Kelly, we are going to spend our time at our next committee meeting thinking of impossible questions for you for when you're speaking at VAC. Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Do it. I love impossible questions. Put me on the spot, Ken. I'll enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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| Harnessing potential and creating a great working environment at the Scottish Crannog Centre | 26 Jul 2023 | 00:40:47 | |
EPISODE NOTES Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends August 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://crannog.co.uk/museum-development/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-benson-22953833/ If you would like to support the Scottish Crannog Centre, please donate via Just Giving page. https://justgiving.com/campaign/crannog
Mike Benson is the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Mike spent 28 years in the steel industry before working in museums. Mike left British Steel in 2004 to become Director of Ryedale Folk Museum in North Yorkshire. He then went on to be Director of Bede’s World and interim Director at The National Coal Mining Museum For England before starting work as Director in January 2018 at The Scottish Crannog Centre. Mike has a track record of leading organisations through transformational change.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Mike Benson, Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Mike shares with us the truly unique working environment at the centre and the variety of opportunities they're able to offer young people who struggle with mainstream education. We talk about the devastating fire back in 2021, but all the positivity around building back bigger and stronger than ever. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: All right, Mike, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. It's lovely to see you. It's been a long time since I saw you. I think last year I last saw you speak at an event. Kelly Molson: So I'm delighted that you've been able to give me a little bit of your time today to come on and chat. As ever, I've got some stupid icebreakers to start the podcast with. Right. I know that you've got a dog. What is the stupidest thing that your dog has ever done? Mike Benson: Well, she does it most days. If you don't give her treat or her, she will sit and just stare at the wall with her nose against the wall. If we go anywhere that she doesn't like, she just walks straight up to the wall and just sits and looks at the wall. Kelly Molson: Oh, like a protest. Like, I'm not happy here, protesting? Mike Benson: Yeah, absolutely. At first you feel really bad, but it's one of those protests that wears a bit thin, I'd imagine. But she keeps doing it a bit like a toddler does kind of thing. But she's getting an old dog now, so she's a bit more pronounced now. She will just sort of shift her head up a little bit, waddle over, bang her nose against the wall, and just stare at it until the situation is more to her liking, whatever it is. Kelly Molson: She's a diva. What a diva. It could be worse, though, Mike, couldn't it? Because it could be a dirty protest because some dogs do a bit. Mike Benson: No, she's more intellectual than that. She's Belgian. She's Belgian. So she's quite philosophical and intellectual. Kelly Molson: I like a style. Okay. If you were to participate in karaoke, what would be the song that you would blast out on that microphone? Mike Benson: Take the ribbon from your head, take it loose and let it fall. Hold it soft against my skin like a shadow on a wall. Kelly Molson: Oh, Mike. I did not know we're going to get a rendition. That is amazing. Mike Benson: Pre karaoke. I used to go quite a lot to Beer Colours, where there'd be a guy on an accordion and you would ask him for a request, then you would sing while he played. I don't know if you ever went to them. And that was always my song. So the guy on the accordion, wherever it was, will be playing away now. Can you play? Help me make it through the night and then I would sing it to much acclaim. I can't sing a note, to be honest, but there you go. Kelly Molson: Oh, that was quite delightful, Mike. And if I was not expecting that. Mike Benson: You moved to tears, I can tell. Kelly Molson: This will be the second time that you've moved me to tears, Mike, but for very different reasons. We'll come to that later in the podcast. Right, I want to know what is your unpopular opinion? So something that you hold dear and believe to be true but not many people agree with you on. Mike Benson: Yeah, I've just asked Kathy, my partner, that one, because I couldn't really think of something she was saying. My background was in British Steel. I spent 27 years on the shop floor there, 28 years. And she thinks, one hand, I'm very disciplined and I like everybody to get to work on time and all that boring stuff. On the other hand, I expect everybody to be creative and I don't think that's unpopular or people don't agree, but that's what she's told me that I should say. So I'm going to say that. Kelly Molson: I see you're quite contradictory in that sense. Mike Benson: Yeah, well, in everything. Kelly Molson: Let's get into our chats. There's loads that I want to cover today. You are the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are now? Mike Benson: I think, as I said, I left school at 16, went straight into the steel works in Middlesbrough where I stayed, and it's where I always wanted to work. Very proud to work there. And my first day in work was maybe 100 lads in there and this great big guy got on the stage and said, "Welcome to Bridge Steel", kind of thing. You're following in the footsteps of giants that have built the world and all this stuff, and I still believe it. So it's it kind of did the trick. So, yeah, and I stayed there and stayed there and loved it. Towards the end of my time, I start to do an Open University degree when I was in my late 30s, just basically so because I could help the kids with the homework and stuff, I suppose. Kelly Molson: Wow. Mike Benson: I don't know anybody from my school that went to university or even to college. We all went to work. So, yeah, that was that. And then doing my stuff for the Open University start to go to get a different idea of what museums could be. Started to realise that nobody was really telling in our story very well, the steelwork story, where I lived, the locality and everything. So we set up a little group around our shift and with a couple of volunteers called Iron Owe AWE, which I thought was quite smart at the time. Kelly Molson: Very Good. Mike Benson: Yeah. And went into schools and we got funding to make films. We did fantastic film with the first strikes, really, with 400 kids all marching down the streets, demanding to only work 8 hours a day and all the rest of it, which was really great. Mike Benson: Anyway, to cut long story short, we'd been asked to go down to London. We'd won this award, which was really funny because we had a few beers on the train going down and we get to London to go to the Strand where we'd won this Roots and Wings award. Beat loads of posh museums and the guy in the door would let us in because we didn't look like museum people and there was no more. He thought we're just trying to plug in for the wine or whatever. So I turned to a phone box. There was no well, mobile phones wrote, but I didn't have one early days and to ring the lady up and say, “Your man on the door won't let us in.” We're not the right type. Kelly Molson: Amazing. So you never really fitted the traditional museum mold. Mike Benson: And it's still exactly the same fully enough. And on the back of that, on the way home, we got back early doors, and I was six till one shift. And when I got in, there was a message on the phone from the National Park. North York Moose National Park. Just asking me if I was interested in applying the director of Ridell Fort Museum, which is a rural museum in the North York moors. So I went for it, don't know why, and got the job. I don't know how. Then I had the big decision whether to leave all my friends that we'd been to each other's 18th, 21st, weddings, all the rest of it. That was a huge decision. I always remember I only ever had one good bus at British Steel. Mike Benson: All the buses were crap, but I went in to see him, guy I really trusted, and he just said, "You've got to go, there's thousands of lads here that would chuck the right arm off to do a job like that." And I went over to the museum and there you go. That's how I kind of ended up in this sector, really. Kelly Molson: That's amazing. And it literally all came from you going back to do an Open University course to help your kids. It wasn't necessarily about you and a new career and changing your part. Mike Benson: No last thing in my head. Kelly Molson: I think that's really motivating to hear because I think a lot of people think that by the time you're 30, you should have it all together. Mike Benson: I'm 60 and I can go together. Kelly Molson: 45, no clue. But do you know what I mean? I think that there's a lot of people out there that kind of by that point they think, “Well, you should have your career sorted by then. You should know what your trajectory is and what you're doing”. And it just goes to show that there's an opportunity to change your life whenever you decide to. Mike Benson: Yeah, you need look, I think you need a lot of look. I've been lucky in that sense, I think, as I say, and my plant is still going, so I would be retired now, which is a bit of a reflection on a bad decision made now, looking back. There you go. And it was a completely bloody h***, completely different world. I'd never met a vegetarian before, ever. Kelly Molson: So culturally it took you into a place that was so far from what you know. Mike Benson: Yeah, I was lucky enough to I've been doing the job about a year or so and I was lucky enough to win a Claw Fellowship, which is like a high level training thing, they send you around the world and all sorts. It's brilliant. I went and stayed with a fantastic guy, a First Nation Canadian chief on the Pacific Coast. Anyway, but I'd gone to this place and again I got to this really posh spot down in Kent near Seven Oaks and said, “I'm in the right place”. And the lady said, "I don't think so". I'd driven all the way down Milan Bretta with sidecar, so that was interesting. And we'd gone out for a meal somewhere, myself and the other Claw fellows, and we had a bit of a chord thing going on. Mike Benson: I think when I was at British Steel, where if you were a little bit skinned, if you'd gone out for a drink or for meal or whatever you would say you'd pay with your credit card and the ladder would think, “Oh, bloody Ollie skinned”. So we'd all chip in. Anyway, I goes for this meal and my fellow Claw fellows at the end of night all put the credit cards on the table and I thought, bloody h***, everybody skinned. So I ended up paying for offering to pay the bill, which I did, which then left me skinned and then I cut and done. That was just the way things were because again, you would never use your credit card. It was just like something that you very rarely would use, but in the real world, everybody uses their credit cards all the time. Kelly Molson: What a brilliant story. Mike Benson: Yeah. And another one is when I first went into the an interior deal, there was a guy there and I'd asked him to do something and he said, "No, it's not my job". And at British Steel you were kind of saying, "I'm going to give you 5 minutes to think about it, I'm going to send you home". So I give him his 5 minutes and I sent him home. And then I had a gaggle of trustees coming in about an hour later saying, "What you doing?” “Listen, I give him his 5 minutes and I sent him home". And they were like, "what?" Kelly Molson: Doesn't work like that here? Mike Benson: What planet did you come from? Kelly Molson: Wow. So you changed your life. And then you went through quite a lot of crisis learning experiences. Mike Benson: Yeah, to learn a whole new lexicon. And after so long, I thought it just be yourself. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I think you're absolutely right, because you bring something quite magic to everywhere that you go, and I've seen that from the way that you've spoken and the way that other people have spoken about you. Right. Let's talk about the Crannog. Let's talk about the Crannog Centre. So you're the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog. So you're the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. What's a Crannog for our audience that are listening? What is a Crannog? Mike Benson: Well, I've googled it. Kelly Molson: So did I, Mike. Mike Benson: I Googled it because it is many things to many different people. I Googled it and it's an artificial island that people might have lived on. It might have been a wooden structure. So basically, particularly in Scotland and in Ireland, you'll see as you're going around the lochs, you'll see little clumps of stone in the middle of the loch or to one side with a tree in or something. And at some point that would have been an artificial island that somebody made into a dwelling. So I think if you Google it yeah, for Rose and interestingly, after the fire, it's a symbol of home, it's a symbol of community, it's a symbol of what can be achieved. The engineering was unbelievable. The joinery skills were unbelievable. The candunas, you think two and a half thousand years ago. Mike Benson: It must have been bloody freezing and everybody was sat in a cave and all this stuff. And actually there they were building these beautiful homes, places, whatever, and there could be places of prestige and what have you. But there were a home and inside there they will have been playing a seven stringed musical instrument. We've got evidence of that in the collection. They will have been trading with this is before Brexit, they were trading with Europe, which is a continent that's very near to was just over the water, that's really easy to trade with, used to be. So all that stuff, and it's become a place where everybody can contribute, everybody can learn a skill and kind of inspired by that notion, whether it's romantic or not, that everybody has a part to play. And that's how you get a flourishing community. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners who may not have visited or you may not know what the Crannog. Just for our listeners who may not have visited or you may not know what the Crannog Centre is for. What is the Crannog Centre's purpose? Has it been created to kind of showcase? Mike Benson: Yes, it's literally on the straight level if you like. To tell the stories of the crown of dwellers, the day to day lives of what the best we can. We don't know exactly. That's the beauty of it. Half of what we say is based on certainty, the other half is based on opinion, because we can only go on the evidence that we have a number of archaeologists at work, and you get three archaeologists, you get four theories and it's like that every day and constant learning that goes on. So on that level, it's to tell a story of those kind of dwellers from two and a half thousand years ago. But also, I think, to be relevant for today, to look at sustainability, to look at the learning opportunities that people have. Mike Benson: We have a thing on the wall at work where we put on the questions that the public have asked that week. One of them was from a little girl asking how far the Christmas would get in because there isn't a chimney. Kelly Molson: Good question. Mike Benson: Yeah, the best one was but bearing in mind we employ 23 people, are you all related? Kelly Molson: Wow. Is that because it all feels like a family or is it all yeah, you all bitter like a family, maybe. Mike Benson: Yeah. But we kind of rub along and get there and we all cover each other's backsides and we work really hard or try to, but yeah. Kelly Molson: That's a nice question. Mike Benson: I'm hoping it was done in the right way. Kelly Molson: I love that. So I can remember very vividly. It was the 16 June and I was on a webinar which was for ASVA members, and you came onto the webinar and shared the news of what had just happened. And I genuinely was so moved that I had to switch my camera off and have a little cry. It was a really difficult thing to watch you talk about. I can only imagine what you were feeling at that point. But would you be able to just take us back and explain what happened on the I think it was the morning of the 16th, wasn't it? The early hours of the 16th or the evening? Mike Benson: Yeah, it was just a couple of days before then. I'm still a bit raw and I was in two months whether to do that call, really, but I didn't realise I thought, yeah, I'll just go and tell them about a fire. But I didn't really yes, it's still quite raw when I think about it. Kelly Molson: Can imagine. Mike Benson: So at 11:00 at night when you look at the CCTV, there's a little tiny glow inside the Crannog and then by 6 minutes past it's gone. And Rich, one of the assistant directors there, drank me up hours in bed, asleep, rang up and said, "Mike, the Crannog’s on fire". And I said, "Yeah, that's fine, I'll sort out in the morning", went back to sleep and he rang me back again. " "Mike, Mike, it's really on fire." And I could hear all the fire engines and everything going behind him. So of course I raced down. By the time I got there, it was gone. I think there was five fire engines, lots of police and all the rest of it. And yeah, it was quite difficult. The chair of trustees was there, he was bereft, he got there before me, obviously, lots of tears. Mike Benson: There was a couple of members of staff who'd locked themselves in the car, were crying. So basically we made a few calls, got everybody on site round about half one in the morning, I think at night, so it's still black and the lights are still flashing. I just said to everybody, "You know what, nobody's been hurt. Thank our lucky stars nobody's been hurt. We're going to do exactly what the crown of dwellers would have done. We're going to pack up our things, which froze is the collection, the precious things that they've left for us, and we're going to move". And I exaggerate this a little bit, but the reality was, on the following morning at 09:00, we sat there and we had no money, we had no plan, we didn't quite know what was going to happen. Mike Benson: By about half ten that morning, were starting to have a plan and we'd fortunately had already, through a community asset transfer, which is where a community group can make an application to local authority or to the government to buy something at a reduced price. We'd already bought the new site on the other side of the loch through community asset transfer. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Mike Benson: And by the second day, I think over 50,000 had come into the just given page. Kelly Molson: It was an incredible outpouring of community spirit, wasn't it? The support that you got was I mean, it was local, national. Mike Benson: Yeah. Yeah. People ringing in to offer volunteer time, money coming in. We had the politicians involved. We were charged by Scottish government, not straight away. After a couple of bit of time, maybe a week or so, were asked to try and come up with a plan that was realistic, that wouldn't cost too much, that would get the organisation away, it wouldn't be the full monty, but it would get us up and running. We presented that plan to Scottish government and they've agreed to support us, as have other trust foundations and everybody else. So we've started work on the new site, March. So in less than two years, we've got through planning, which anybody knows we're planning isn't easy, and even though they were sympathetic, they had their protocols to go through. Mike Benson: We raised the money, we hit January this year and were a little bit short because of everything that's gone up with inflation filled that funding gap and we're hoping to open in November. Kelly Molson: That is magic. I think what we have to remember as well is this was happening still during while the Pandemic was going on. So this was 2021 that this happened. So were still in a position of places not being fully open, still having all of that own kind of personal impact that were struggling with, as well as having something like this happen. I can see it in your eyes now. I can hear it when you're talking. The emotion about that day is still kind of with you. Kelly Molson: You hold it still there, but the way that you were able to, the very next day have a plan in place is testimony to, I think, yourself and the people that you have surrounding you and how much they love that centre that you've been able to kind of come back so quickly and make this happen. Mike Benson: Yeah, I mean, we opened four days after the fire, obviously with no crown of a bit like the Van Gogh Museum without any Van Goghs, and we didn't think we'd get many visitors, and they just powered in. Kelly Molson: Amazing. That's the power of telling great stories, Mike. People still want to come. Mike Benson: Yeah, that's all it is. Without getting my little hobby horse. Maybe it goes back to the earlier question about your opinion. I think museums still have a long way to go, really, in how they work. And it's just really simple, really. Just you're telling a good story that people want to listen to and hear, and we kind of do that best we can. Kelly Molson: Yeah, no, you really do. Mike Benson: We're a little bit wonky on the edges, but that's allowed. Kelly Molson: That's what people love. That's what people love. I think that there's such a level of authenticity about how you speak and the way that you do things. And that's, for me, what I find really engaging. Kelly Molson: I saw you speak last year at the Scottish Tourism Alliance conference. I think it was last November. No, it really was slick, but I really enjoyed it. So Mike did a really clever thing, so he was billed as the speaker, but he actually got other people to speak for him, which I thought was genius. I'm going to use that at some point whenever I'm asked to speak. But it was great. You spoke about the Crannog Centre, but you talked about how you've harnessed potential and created this really great working environment. And you've done that by building a really diverse workforce and volunteers and people that come along and just help and support you. And I think it is such an amazing story. Kelly Molson: You have a lot of young people that come and work and volunteer at centre while they were speaking for you and sharing their experience of working there. I was just blown away by all of the amazing opportunities that you can offer them. Like, bear in mind, this is a relatively small centre that we're talking about. We're not talking about the VNA, we're not talking about the London Transport Museum here. The variety of what those youngsters can do there and what they can learn and what they can be part of is incredible. And I think you help a lot of youngsters that are struggling with mainstream education by offering them a different way of learning, a different way of being involved with things. And talk to us about how you've managed to create this incredible working environment. Mike Benson: Yeah. Again, I think I can't take any credit for it, really. It's kind of what I grew up with as well. When you went into somewhere, there was quite a diverse workforce that worked in British Steel or wherever. Part of the learning and part of your reflections are certainly within the task of what a museum is. If you want to engage with diverse audiences, you need to have a diverse workforce. People need to be able to come into that museum and see people like themselves, not just there, but actually having agency, being able to make decisions, being leaders, being able to flourish, being able to be themselves. We talk about freedom of self, that ability to really be yourself at work. Another word kind of made up is that feltness. Mike Benson: We call it feltness, where people can just come in and feel that there's something there that they can just feel there's love or hard work or graft or academic rigor or all of those things thrown into the pot. And that diversity is that you can feel it. And again, time and time again, when people come and we ask them what the feedback is, they can just feel something there that they can't quite put the finger on. So we called it feltness. Kelly Molson: It was a lovely way of defining it, but that's a really hard thing to create. Like, how do you create that? I guess it's a mixture of the people and the characters that you have working there and the things that they can do and the things that they are allowed to do, I guess the autonomy that you give them. Mike Benson: Yeah. And being aspirational and wanting to be the best that we can be. So I think that notion of creativity aligned to discipline, that unleashing of folks, we're all hemmed in nowadays by all kinds of barriers, and we're kind of shuffled along, I don't know, like, through amaze almost, and sometimes almost uncontrollably, we end up somewhere. I just think to be able to just break all that down and just start again is no bad thing. And so that's what we've tried to do with the Crannog Centre there and take that inspiration, as I said, from that notion of a community that could flourish. Everybody must be able to contribute. Kelly Molson: How have you done that? Did you set out in your mind when you went to the Crannog Centre? Did you set out and go, "This is what I want. I want to be able to offer all of these different experiences to young people who are struggling with mainstream education?" Or is this something that's just kind of happened naturally, that you've attracted people? How have you set out to kind of do it? Mike Benson: Yeah, that we set out to do it that way. So my interviewer said we would set up an apprenticeship program where we'd set up blah, blah, create a framework for success and depends what you call success, whether it's footfall, whether it's donations, people making donations, whether it's how much you sell in the shop, whatever that your success measures are. So each of the museum that have been that, we've done something similar with the apprenticeship program, with the diversity, and I think here we've managed to take all the learning of what we've done so far, if you like, and put it all into practice and it doesn't always work. And sometimes you think to yourselves, go up and much easy just to get a load of. We interviewed some folks that were getting a craft fellow funded through Hess. Mike Benson: That's somebody who's going to learn traditional skills. And the amount of young people that came to that with two degrees and a masters and a half a PhD and stuff, I just think it must be really hard to get your break into this game, into the museum world, if we can create different routes and that. I was asked by trustees, "What would make you happy in ten years time?" And I said, "For one of the apprentices to be the director." Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Mike Benson: And I think having that approach, I think and it happens in business all the time, I think the museum is still stuck around hierarchy and prestige and a certain type of knowledge and a certain type of person. But, yeah, I think that's kind of where were going with that. Kelly Molson: That's really lovely. But you are a small team, right, Mike? There's not thousands of people at this museum that help you do this. So what you've been able to achieve with the relatively small team is incredibly impressive. Who heads up the program? Is that you? Who defines what the kind of apprenticeship program looks like and the structure? Mike Benson: Yeah, I kind of keep my paws out with that, really. I'm really good at talking, a good job. I don't actually do anything. Kelly Molson: You’re a leader, Mike. Mike Benson: No, honestly, I'm not good at anything. I am not good at anything. Kathy, my partner, will say I can't put a screw in the wall or anything and I'm literally no good at anything. But, yeah, I think we just create an environment and again, we get bogged down with business planning and all that all the time. I did a talk to some community groups the other day and I just used the image of a sunflower, because quite often you'll consultants who come and say, you need that business plan, it needs to be really hard. And yet a sunflower doesn't really have much of a business plan. It just follows the sun and soaks it all up and grows where it's best. And I think just sometimes you can be a bit too. Mike Benson: All I was saying to him is than these folks in town to get stuffed if they think it's nonsense. So I think, yeah, I'm what Lenos? I always do. I think it's just as I say, create an environment. And it's really hard. It's much harder to create that environment than it will be to have a straight structure. Straight, linear. You report to him, you report to him, nothing happens until he's signed that off. So it's chaos. It's bloody chaos. Kelly Molson: But is that partly because you're not asking people to come in and fit your mold, you're almost asking them to come in and then you're flexing your mold to how they need to grow and adapt. Mike Benson: So you've got wobbling all the time. Yes, it really is. And it's not for everybody. It's really hard. So it's not for everyone, particularly those trained within the museum profession, that likes straight lines. It's really hard. Or anybody that likes to work in duchess museums in general, it's not for everyone, some folks to come and work with us, and it doesn't work for everyone because they want to see that comfort, really. It's that comfort of that straight line and somebody's going to tell me what to do. I have no clue what's happening at work half the time. Not when they say, we decided to do this. All right, this guy's turned up, he's going to do this. Smashing. Kelly Molson: But that takes a lot to be that flexible, though, doesn't it? Like you say, sometimes as humans, we kind of like a plan. We like to see the trajectory, we like to see what the next step is, and not being able to see that is uncomfortable for a lot of us. So to have an organisation that's so fluid, that's not for everybody at all, you have to be quite I think you've got to be quite a special person to be able to lead an organisation that is structured like that. Mike Benson: Hence the baggy eyes. Kelly Molson: Yes. What does the future look like for the Crannog Centre? So you've had a grant from Scottish government and it's being rebuilt on the new site, which is directly across the loch from where? Mike Benson: Twelve times bigger. We're building it as a nine edge village as well. So we're doing it the wrong way around, kind of. Instead of building the Crannog, first, we'll build a nine edge village. So what's next is we'll try and get that done. This was always project one. As I said, we needed to have something that would get us up and running. And then Project Two will be to build a proper museum. So at one end of Scotland's most powerful river lies the VNA in Dundee, and at the other end of Scotland's most powerful river, Batte, will I our new museum as well. As we go into Project Two, hopefully the deeper sense of belonging in more heft he says, “Don't quote me on that.” Mike Benson: And it will be a different type because I think the VNA will probably be one of the last of the big concrete, super duper designed museums. Not critical at all. I think as the world's moved on to a more stable models, there'd be maybe a different approach to how public buildings like that are built in the future. So that's what's coming next, if you like. Whether I'm still there to do that or not, who knows? Kelly Molson: Well, one of your apprentices will be director by then, probably, if you get your way. What does that look like in terms of time frames, though? So what are we looking at in terms of the new centre being open across on the other side of the loch? Mike Benson: So we hopefully going to do a soft opening in November. So it's all about, as I've said, home and feeling safe and being yourself. So that opening will be potentially we'll have the Mary Hills Refugee Choir there, we'll have bands there and everything else. And we may be looking at how we can have on the old site some instruments there and some instruments. And now we're sad. And they talk to each other across the loch. Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Yeah. To share the stories of the older and the new. Mike Benson: And then the log boat will probably come along with a torch and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, everybody's talking of different things. We'll pull it all together. So, soft opening in November and then we'll go larger. Kelly Molson: And you talked a little bit earlier about sustainability, is that right? I think I read this is that the centre is aiming for its new incarnation to become Scotland's most sustainable museum. Not just about carbon count, but about the kind of the craft and the skills and the sustainability of materials. Is that about how it's being built and constructed, as well as what you do there? Mike Benson: Yes. So we've got some brilliant folks on site now. So we've got Julie, Laura, Jordy, who are women carpenters who are working away Chaz again, carpenter. Jim, our Stormwall builder, and then Brian, our Thatcher, will be joining us once he's finished the job up north. And while they're there, they're sharing the plan. Is that all those skills? Oh, I forgot him. Ash. He's building our he's built the first one up. It's a hazel, six meter high hazel roundhouse. It's gorgeous. He's nearly finished that working with Nelly. Anyway, give him all the name check. So the idea being that those skills are shared across the Crannog team. So in future years. The idea is that the Iron Age village that we're building now, the buildings were only ever intended to last seven years, ish seven to ten years. Mike Benson: Then they'll go back into the earth and the caym across the road is a hill called Drummond Hill. And that's where we'll be starting to copies to grow the materials that we need to build these. So we employ Yein, the copieser and we'll have Jenny, the forest gardener. So all the materials and the timbers, the stone, the reed for the thatch the heather is all within walking distance of a crown of dweller. Kelly Molson: This seven year cycle is that what would have happened back then? Mike Benson: So yeah you entered the coppers in cycle you see I'm no expert on this, it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, I don't. However Ian the copies guy does and Jenny the forest gardener does. So within the forestry land services are taking out the large disease come in the hill opposite hopefully we'll take over some of that land where we will copy some and start to plant the materials that we need for the future. Hazel seven years then the York and everything else will take a bit longer but in years to come that'll be totally sustainable and you literally will cross the road and take a tree down and build a building out of it. Kelly Molson: That is magic, isn't it? That is really. Mike Benson: And that's what's happening now. So the timbers that are coming on site are within walking distance and the buildings that are going up is all the stone is just locally sourced, everything's just from over the road. And that requires a different skill set. Rather than just getting a timber from Norway or something from juicens, learning how to use local, local materials and making these buildings stay up and stand up and all that sort of stuff is a task in itself. Kelly Molson: For me, it's that idea of those crafts never dying as well. We don't want that guy to be the last copieser. No those skills have to be transferred in a way that they are shared with the younger generation. I'm thinking about my two year old one day how lovely would it be to come and bring her and show her the way that people used to build houses back in the day and we don't forget those things, that's what's important. Mike Benson: And the fact that you can make a living out of it. So when people come to see us they are supporting, keeping all that alive and that's part of thinking around that will take the buildings that we're building now down in seven or eight years time because that's how you'll learn to build them again. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I guess of course because then the new people can learn, they've learned their skills, can learn to go through all of that process. Mike Benson: And the apprentices that are there now learning will be the ones that are teaching. Kelly Molson: Yeah that's really cool. Mike Benson: It's an old model but it's just how it is. Kelly Molson: And in a way you forget the simplicity of that, don't you? You just forget. Mike Benson: Yeah and then within that sustainability as well if we become the sort of organisation that people want to partner with and work alongside and also a place that people want to visit and support so you've got the skills, materials, those four elements and then we think that will create a sustainable model. Kelly Molson: What more help do you need, Mike? So you've had a grant from Scottish government, you've had a huge outpouring of support from the general public when we had the fire. Kelly Molson: You mentioned a little while ago about a funding gap. Obviously, cost of living crisis has probably affected that, the rising cost of materials, et cetera. What can we do to help you? Or is there still a live kind of go funding part that we can all go? Mike Benson: You can still go onto our website and donate and I understand how hard it is for everybody just now as well, by the way. So we are still writing little applications here, there and everywhere just to try and cover those final bits. And it's really hard because what we've tried to do, what we could have done is just close the current site, build the, you know, get the main contractors gone in and put the drains in and the car parks and all that stuff in then we could. But we tried to keep everybody employed and keep the apprenticeship going and everything else and that's been quite a challenge. Mike Benson: Obviously we haven't got a Crannog even though we're still getting we've improved our visitor figures to last year, just but it's really hard without that central point and the old site is looking tired, which is where we always intended to move. So I think if anybody did want to help us in that way, that would be great. And also just share the word, really, and just tell folks to come and visit us if they can. That's the best way to help. Just paying your seven pound to come in and see us and just be part of it and keep a little bit of that love in your heart when you leave. Kelly Molson: Oh, Mike, you're going to make me cry. This will be the first time that you've got me. We are going to share in the show notes to this episode. We're going to share all the ways that you can still support the Scottish Crannog Centre. So we'll put a link to the website, we'll put a link to the donation portals and yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's all about just encouraging people to go along. Seven pounds is not a huge entrance fee to go and experience some of these things that you will never have seen anywhere else. You might learn about a craft that you might never see anywhere else. That's not a huge amount to ask for people. So please dig deep if you can and help them create something that is going to be truly transformational for generations to come. Kelly Molson: Not just for people that visit it, but for the people that go there and do these apprenticeship schemes and learn the trades and develop themselves into something that their wildest dreams couldn't have imagined. They could have achieved. Mike, thank you for sharing today. I'm so grateful of everyone that comes on to talk to me on the podcast, but your story really did touch me. I was eight months pregnant at that time, Mike. I'm not going to lie, I probably would have dropped, probably would have cried if the dog had come in here and looked at me funny. But you did break me that day and it's really lovely to hear all the positive things that have happened since then and all of the good things that are happening. Right, what about a book? Kelly Molson: We always ask our guests to come on and share a book that they love with our audience. Can be anything you like. Mike Benson: Well, because I am a museum director and an academic, I'm going to go for the Thursday Murder Club series. Kelly Molson: I knew this was not going to be a business book, Mike. Mike Benson: No, I've not planned them all. See, a book with leadership on it. I don't know if you've read any of them, but Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Abraham are just so stupid and funny and English and gentle. It's just lovely. So I've been plowing my way through all those I mean, the plots are way for thin the whole thing's nonsense, but it's just really good stuff to kind of remind you what human beings are. Kelly Molson: Yeah, a lovely good escapism as well, aren't they, those books. They are great. Well, as ever, listeners, if you want to win a copy of Mike's book, you know what to do. Go over to our Twitter account and hit the retweet button with the message, I want Mike's book. And we'll put you into the prize drawer to win a book. And that is for the last time this season, because this is the last podcast of this season, which is crazy. We've had so many guests on, so many amazing stories, so many initiatives that have been shared with us and so many learnings that I've personally taken away. Thank you all for listening. Kelly Molson: We will be back again in September after we've had a little summer break, because, let's face it, you are going to be way too busy for podcasts over the summer, visiting, having all of your guests visit. So, Mike, thank you again. It has been an absolute pleasure. I'm really glad that you came on the podcast and you didn't send somebody else to come and do the podcast. Mike Benson: I was in two minds. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Thank you for coming on. Like we said, we're going to put all of the details on how you can still help the Crannog Centre into the show notes today. Mike, it's been a pleasure. Thank you. Mike Benson: You'll take care now. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Why taking part in the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is so important, from The Mary Rose Museum and Roman Baths | 05 Jul 2023 | 00:36:43 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report Survey - https://www.rubbercheese.com/visitor-attraction-website-report-2023
Andy Povey, Managing Director UK & Ireland for Convious Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/andy-povey Convious: https://www.convious.com/ Andy Povey Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrTicketeer Andy Povey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypovey/ Andy Povey joined Convious in November 2021 as managing director for UK and Ireland. Andy has worked in the attractions industry since the early nineties when he began as a ride operator at Chessington World of Adventures. He stayed with the Tussaud’s company and later Merlin Entertainments for another 18 years, working in a variety of operational jobs at Rock Circus, Madame Tussauds, and central support, where he was responsible for the group’s ticketing systems. After Merlin, he worked for Gateway Ticketing Systems for ten years, opening and then overseeing their UK operation, before transferring his experience to the Convious team. Outside work, Andy enjoys visiting attractions of all shapes and sizes with his family.
Simon Addison, Heritage Business Manager at the Roman Baths Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/simon-addison Roman Baths: https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/ Simon Addison Twitter: https://twitter.com/addisonsimon Simon Addison LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonaddison/ Simon Addison is the Business Manager, Roman Baths and Pump Room, Bath, and heads the finance and business planning functions at the Roman Baths. He is responsible for business analysis, pricing strategy and leads the benchmarking work. Simon started his career in the financial services industry, where he qualified as a chartered management accountant with the Bank of New York. He moved to the National Trust in 2012, where he held roles in the finance team. Latterly he was responsible for the Trust’s finances in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. Simon joined the senior leadership team at the Roman Baths in 2017. Simon joined the Board of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions in May 2022.
Dominic Jones, CEO of The Mary Rose Museum, and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/dominic-jones The Mary Rose: https://maryrose.org/ Portsmouth Historic Dockyard: https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/ Dominic Jones Twitter: https://twitter.com/DominicJonesUK Dominic Jones LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicejones/ Dominic Jones was recruited to the Mary Rose in 2019 ago as Chief Operating Officer, and became CEO in 2021. He brings an excellent background in commercial visitor attractions (Disney, Merlin) and creative visitor experience development. During his time at the Mary Rose, he has already driven an excellent commercial and operational performance and worked closely with previous Chief Executive to create the new Portsmouth Historic Dockyard joint venture with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which launched successfully in August 2020.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Today's episode is a little bit different. I speak to Dominic Jones, CEO of the Mary Rose Museum and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Simon Addison, Heritage Business Manager at the Roman Baths and Andy Povey, Managing Director, UK and Ireland of Convious. Dom, Simon and Andy share with you the merits of taking part in the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Survey. We talk about how the report has shaped their digital strategies and what that's delivered to their attractions in terms of increased revenue and improved customer experience. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: So I've got Dominic Jones, Simon Addison and Andy Povey here. All past guests, all good friends. We don't need to do icebreakers here because we all know each other pretty well now. But we are going to do a little mini round of unpopular opinions again, because, let's face it, that's why people listen to this podcast. Dominic, I'm going to start with you. Dominic Jones: Why would you start with me? That's so unfair. It's obvious that Simon is your favourite. We can know this is how it works with Bath. He gets all of the good stuff and you come to Dominic first. I used my best unpopular opinion last time when I talked about not mentioning the weather. And I always think my unpopular opinion should be work related. So this one is an interesting one and I wonder whether you will disagree with me, let alone Simon and Andy. But I think when doing discounting, online or in person in our industry. You shouldn’t use percentages, and you should use physical pounds, because I think people who use percentages can really confuse people. And also, I just think it's bad form. Kelly Molson: I should throw this one over to Andy, really, because he's pricing expert man, isn't he? Andy Povey: I go that far, Kelly. I actually agree with Dominic, but from a geeky technical perspective. Dominic Jones: Love Andy, always loved Andy. You know what, he's one of those guests that you just love. Simon Addison: Dom, is this just an unpopular opinion because you just can't do percentages, you just want to know how many pounds to take off. Is that what it is? Kelly Molson: Percentages are hard. We're not all like numbers people like you, Simon. Dominic Jones: We're not all born with a calculator. The other thing is that actually, the great British public, our international public, they don't want to be working out. They want to enjoy the day outside. They want to enjoy the Roman Baths, they don't want to be sitting there working out, “What these percentages off mean?” Simon Addison: Dom, you not listen to my podcast on pricing strategy. We don't discount. Andy Povey: But that was going to be my point. Simon Addison: Yeah, we should be confident enough to the quality of our own products, Dom. That will be my unpopular opinion. We shouldn't discount as an industry, but that's not what I've prepared. Andy Povey: Discounting just seems like a really easy, quick thing for marketeer to do when they're desperate. And I think we should be a little bit more confident about what we're doing and actually use better tools and better ways of communicating the value of what it is that the attraction is doing. So slightly more unpopular, I suppose, Dom, would be let's not do discounts at all. Doesn’t matter weather it’s 4 pounds or percentages or whatever, then just don’t do it. Kelly Molson: So, I’m just gonna come at this from a car boot perspective, which I have to skip randomly. But I love a little bargain. I went to a car boot sale. I'm renovating a cottage in North Norfolk at the moment and I'm trying to furnish it with as much second hand things as possible. So car boot sales are my friend right now, and if I had gone up to the stall and been like, "What's your best price on this?". And they said, "You can have 10% off", I'd have been like, "But what does that mean? It's 05:00 in the morning and my brain can’t work this out". But two pounds is yes. Dominic Jones: And it works. And also, there's an element of, you do need to put discounting in, because you've got to look at reaching different audiences. You’ve got people like Kelly who want to bargain. So you need to put out a decoy pricing in. So they think, "Oh, I'm not paying that for tickets, but I got 2 pounds off, aren't I lucky? I like that.” The problem with percentages is it's people trying to be too clever and it's marketeers trying to be a little bit too clever. And I've never liked it. It’s not as bad as the weather. I hate the weather being used as an excuse, but my second one is using percentages in discounting. Kelly Molson: Okay. I'm glad that you changed that quickly to discounting and not marketing because there's a lot of percentages in my report, which we'll discuss later. Right, Simon, moving on to you. Simon Addison: Yeah, okay. It's nothing to do with work. Camping is not a holiday. There's no way that camping is a holiday. But I love the outdoors. We're going on holiday to Pembrokeshire in a couple of months, we'll be outside most of every day. We will walk in the cross paths in whatever the weather. But at the end of the day, we got a little cottage that we are renting to come back to for a shower that haven’t got to queue for. We're not sharing a toilet block like camping, washing up, cooking, they're disproportionately hard work, and that's assuming it's sunny. If it rains, it's just miserable. Simon Addison: We can go out and get wet and we don't have to worry about whether we're ever going to get dry for the rest of the week in a tent. The kids will wake up. I haven't finished yet. Kelly. In a tent, they'll wake up at five in the morning when it gets light, and that means just the suffering of the holidays extended over an even longer day. And worst of all, the red wine is too cold and the white wine is too warm. Just miserable. Dominic Jones: Do you not have a fridge when you do camping? Simon Addison: Dom, I don't camp. You might have got that from there. Dominic Jones: I go camping. I have a fridge. I have a blow up tent. I have all the cons. Kelly Molson: Do you take your bed like the glastonbury dude? Dominic Jones: Well, I try and turn up late to someone else that can turn it all up, but it's very nice. Kelly Molson: Simon, I'm with you on this. I love the outdoors. I'm a big nature girl, but camping is a no no for me. It is miserable. Even glamping. I went glamping on a friend's hen doo once and even that was just a step too far for me. Everything was grubby. It rained, everything was then damp. Everything was damp. Like, everything was damp. It was horrible. Cottage all the way. Hello. I've got one in North Norfolk coming up, available for rent in September. If you're interested in a holiday in beautiful North Norfolk. Dominic Jones: You should go to car boot sales. I believe they've got some great deals at the moment. Kelly Molson: Yeah. They do have some great bargains, Dominic. Simon Addison: Will you offer me a percentage discount on your cottage in North Norfolk? Kelly Molson: Right, I like that one. I don't think that's going to be that unpopular, if I'm honest. Andy, over to you, final one. Andy Povey: When you first broached the idea of coming back to the podcast, I was really excited and the fact that I was going to join probably my two favourite podcast guests was really exciting. So my unpopular opinion is hopefully it's going to be borne out or proven by this episode of Skip The Queue, in that Dominic Jones isn't going to be number one on the Skip the Queue chart by the end of next week. Dominic Jones: That’s so harsh. Now, what have I ever done to hurt you, Andy? Andy Povey: You've not hurt me, Dom, you're not. It's just a little friendly competition. Simon Addison: Is Dom number one? He's never mentioned it. I've literally never heard him talk about. Andy Povey: I don't know where you'd get that from. Dominic Jones: I'm a very shy guy. Am I number one? You're joking me. Really? Kelly Molson: Yes, you do not know? Dominic Jones: We should tell people about this. This needs to get out there before it changes. Kelly Molson: So I said, if Dominic is still number one at Christmas, I'm going to send him a gift. I'm going to send him something commemorative for this at Christmas. So he was number one last Christmas. You were the official Skip the Queue Christmas number one. Dominic Jones: Amazing, I did not know that. Wow. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I know. It is amazing. I'm sure you've not mentioned that before. Andy Povey: You never talked about it. Kelly Molson: We're just at the end of June where we're recording this, so there's still a fair few months to go. We do have our summer break coming up, the season five will start in September. So we've got from September to December for someone to topple you off that number one slot. Dominic Jones: I'm happy to be toppled. And joking aside, both Andy and Simon's podcast were amazing and I love both of them. And actually all of your guests are really I do really love Skip the Queue. It's one of those treats you get to looking to the new Skip the Queue podcast. So if I get toppled from number one, life is okay. Kelly Molson: You are very kind. Right. Thank you for sharing those unpopular opinions. What would be lovely listeners if you follow us over on Twitter, you can just search for Skip the Queue. I'd like to know who's unpopular opinion you preferred the most out of those three, please. Maybe I'll do a little poll on Twitter next week when this podcast episode launches. Right. This is completely unscripted and this is really last minute for the guests and so I'm super grateful that you could come and join me today. Now, it is a bit of an unusual episode for me because I actually don't tend to talk about the stuff that I do or Rubber Cheese does on this podcast. Maybe tiny little snippets of it here and there, but we never kind of dedicate an episode to the things that we do. Kelly Molson: We had a free slot and I thought, I wanted to come on and talk about the initiative that we started last year that is now running in its second year. So bear with me while I explain a little bit of a background about it. So back in May 2022, Rubber Cheese, my agency, launched the first national survey of visitor attraction websites. So I've been asked to speak on a webinar by the lovely team at Kallaway PR, who have also Will Kallaway has been a guest on the podcast. They asked me to come on and talk about cart abandonment and ways that kind of design and UX can help prevent it. So I went away, put my slides together, tried to search for some data that would back up a few theories that I had. Kelly Molson: And that was when I kind of hit a bit of a brick wall. Yeah, brick wall, that's what I'm trying to say. Couldn't find any specific data for the sector. I could find data about cart abandonment rates for all kinds of ecommerce sites, all kinds of pharmaceutical companies. Anything and everything that you could think of was out there except visitor attractions. And I realised that I think the data gets a bit skewed for them because they were kind of getting put into hospitality or tourism in general, or hotels sometimes, I think outdoor and sports. So I wasn't kind of able to back up theories that I had with the data. So that led us to setting up the survey. Kelly Molson: And were really, really lucky to have some amazing bunch of people like the teams at ALVA and ASVA who totally supported the initiative and shared it with their members. Last year, we had a brilliant response. We had 70 leading attractions from up and down the UK take part. And in November last year, were able to launch the very first Visitor Attraction Website Report, which saw us set the first digital benchmarks for the sector. So the sector now has benchmarks for add to basket rate, basket abandonment rate, bounce rate, conversion rate, load times and then the report, because of the kind of questions that we asked, we got loads of key insight into user experience, booking journeys, mobile experience and loads, loads more. Kelly Molson: But more importantly, that report, since its launch, has enabled attractions to make improvements to their websites, which makes their service better for their clients and makes their digital presence better. So it's been such an exciting thing to be involved in and it is a real passion project for me. I've loved every minute of setting it up. This year, we are now in our second year of running it and we've got a brilliant partner in Andy and the team at Convious, which I'm thrilled about. Say thank you. So I've asked you all to come on today to talk a little bit about the survey and the report and what it has enabled you to do. I want to start a little bit with Dominic and Simon, really, and ask them the questions, because they are in the position of being senior leaders in a visitor attraction. Kelly Molson: They've both publicly spoken to me and said that the report has enabled them to do some really exciting things. And I think it's probably important for me to state that you're not our clients, like Rubber Cheese is not. We don't work with either of you from a client perspective. I'd definitely count you as friends and obviously Skip the Queue podcast alumni now as well. So, Simon, let me come to you first. What has the report enabled you to do at Roman Baths and why has it been important for you to kind of take part? What's it delivered for you? Simon Addison: Sure, I think the report came out at a really important time for us because were already in the midst of a website redesign project. So what the report enabled us to do was to look at the findings in the report, the stats in the report, and ensure that were building our new website in a way that optimised that sort of user experience and customer journey. But I think also in visitor attractions, our websites are often trying to do two quite different things. So, on the one hand, it's sort of the gateway to a visit. It's the first place that people go when they're planning their visit and they want to maybe buy a ticket and come to Bath. Simon Addison: At the same time, it's also telling sort of our more engaged audience, information about the collection and information about the history of the site or research that we're undertaking. And we want to be able to really quickly segregate those two audiences, because one audience we want to keep there for as long as possible to delve into the stories that we want to tell them and to really sort of effectively convert them from a very transactional relationship, which is buying a ticket to one of more of a supporter where they might donate in future. They'll become engaged in our program. And so designing a website that on the first page helps to divert visitors from that sort of more engaged, we're here to learn from, “We want to buy a ticket for Saturday”, and sort of get them on their journey quickly, efficiently and as few clicks as possible. Simon Addison: So I think having that endorsement of the importance of the user, the journey, how many clicks is optimal before people start abandoning and giving up, that was so helpful in the way that were designing the website. Kelly Molson: Amazing. That is such a good testimony for what we've done. And obviously we can't do any of that unless people take part in the survey and submit their data. And so we can understand and learn how websites are performing in the first place. But for me, it's really exciting to hear that because I guess having those kind of baseline benchmarks is a starting point for the industry. And that's, for me, what was missing completely in that we can talk about how we want them to improve and how we want the sector to move on. And I think, Andy, we've had a conversation before where we kind of feel like the sector is a little bit behind, where other industries are probably about four or five years, potentially behind in some areas. Andy Povey: I'd go even further than that, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah. Andy Povey: Generally people don't pick up the phone to me and ask me to come and talk about their ecommerce platforms if they're perfectly happy with what they're doing. So maybe I'm seeing a different side of the market. But it astounds me how many attractions there are that aren't able to monitor their performance, to look at their conversion rates, to look at their basket abandonment rates, all that kind of stuff. It's astounding, which is why I'm really happy to be working with you on the survey this year. Kelly Molson: Okay, well, let me go to Andy now. So, Andy, introduce yourself for your role at Convious. Andy Povey: So I'm responsible for everything we do with Convious in the UK and Ireland. So job title is MD, UK and Ireland. Kelly Molson: So Andy and I got introduced quite a while ago, actually, now. I feel like it was a Ticketing Professionals Conference. Was it there? Andy Povey: I think it was Dominic Jones that introduced us at the Museums and Heritage. Kelly Molson: Yes, it was Museums and Heritage. It was. Andy Povey: And it did indeed. Dominic Jones: I can't believe you forgot that. Kelly Molson: Yes, it was with the Sarcophagus. Dominic Jones: I brought two great people together. I mean, I feel like I don't get the credit for this introduction. Thank you. Kelly Molson: I'm sorry. Dominic Jones: You do? Kelly Molson: Yeah, it was you. You're actually really good at introducing people. Dominic Jones: Talented people. Talented people to each other. Kelly Molson: Yeah. You grabbed me at this year's Eminet show and introduced me to multiple people, actually. It was very kind of you. What a kind man you are. Dominic Jones: It's a pleasure. Andy Povey: Isn't he? Kelly Molson: So this year, well, I mean, I guess this is thanks to you, Dominic. So Dominic introduced Andy and I. Dominic Jones: You are welcome, by the way. Welcome. Kelly Molson: Why is it important for Convious to be part of what we're doing this year with the report? Andy Povey: Well, it's actually more important to me on a personal level, I think, Kelly. I'm a massive fan of attractions have been for my whole working life, which is there have been quite a lot of years in that so far, and I just want to see attractions doing better than they do at the moment. We've shared lots of conversations about really awful booking experiences, not just for attractions. Booking tickets to my kids, after school clubs. Personal bear of mine is dreadful. Don't ever do it if you don't have to. Andy Povey: So I find that really frustrating. It upsets me to see attractions getting it wrong and some get it really wrong. So having some benchmarks, having some industry standards where people can go, actually, we're not doing what we should be doing. And why aren't we able to measure that? And what does it mean to our business by not measuring that? It's really important. Kelly Molson: It is really important. It's been phenomenal to have the support of Convious and specifically Andy and Mirabelle, who I've worked very closely with over the past few months on this project. What it's also allowing us to do, and hopefully this will grow year on year, is that it's opening up to a European audience as well. So, Andy, Convious is a Dutch company originally. Andy Povey: Yes. So we're headquartered in Amsterdam. Germany is actually our largest market in terms of volume of customers, but we also have significant presence in France and Belgium, Netherlands and Bedelux area. Kelly Molson: So we have had a number of submissions this year from European countries. And that's all down to Convious. Andy Povey: Thank you. Kelly Molson: We would hope over the next few years that this can start to grow and grow and become something that isn't solely focused on the UK market, which would be really exciting. We did actually have a Canadian zoo take part yesterday, which was quite exciting. So the message is slowly starting to spread out worldwide as well. An international survey. That's exciting, isn't it? Andy Povey: Absolutely, yeah. Dominic Jones: It was a game changer. That's what you've done. You've created something that is a true game changer. I remember getting very excited about the results and sitting at the back of the London Transport Theatre or wherever you launched them, and then just getting depressed every single slide. I was like, “Oh, no, we don't do that, or, we don't do that well, or, that's not great”. But it was fantastic because actually, for the first time ever, were able to compare ourselves and think, “Right, so if this is the industry standard, how can we make that better? How can we adapt that at the Mary Rose in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard?” and things like the five steps to make a booking and all this other sort of stuff that you were putting out. And I remember writing my book and thinking, “This is awful. This is absolutely awfu”l because we are performing way worse than that. We're still not fixed it. Dominic Jones: We've got some money to look at websites and we put some new websites in and we're still developing it. But even little things like we changed and had a microsite last summer, we had one of our best summers ever, but we did that because of your data. We were looking and thinking, “We've got too many steps to making a booking or It takes too long to load this page, or actually we need to.” So I think you've really been a massive game changer, and if now you're getting the Canadians involved, I mean, it's going to be fantastic. I can't wait to see what they've got to say. Dominic Jones: So I do genuinely think you've made a big difference and I can't wait to see this year's results and next year's results. And I hope this is something you keep doing forever because you've made a real difference. You really have. Kelly Molson: Dominic, you're so kind. That's really kind. Thank you. That's amazing feedback. What I love about what you said is that you've actively been able to take the data that people have supplied and go, “We are here. We're not performing to that point yet. But if we make these changes, we can get to that point.” And that's what I love. This is what this is all about. It's about marginal gains. It's about making those tiny little 1% improvements every day and getting better and better. We couldn't ask for more. That's what we hoped. Dominic Jones: And before I get kicked and hit by all my colleagues, there were lots of things that were doing great as well. But actually, you don't talk about them, do you? Don't say, “Oh, well, we're doing okay because we're very British, we only really talk about the things that we want to improve or we're not doing right.” But I do think it's a phenomenal game changer and it's the sort of report that you can use as a toolkit to really sort of check where you are and where you want to be. And I genuinely can't wait for the next one. I hope we get a preview for doing this podcast. Did we get an early release? Is that part of the deal? Simon, did you sign something like that? Simon Addison: Yeah, signed it all. Dom, did you not get the paperwork? Dominic Jones: Of course you did. He's got people. Kelly Molson: If you've taken part in the survey, you will get it exclusively before it is released to the general public. So, I mean, I can confirm that you both have, which is a relief. Dominic Jones: Of course we have. We're early adopters, we love it. Simon Addison: I did check before we came on this afternoon that we completed it because I thought that would be really awkward. Dominic Jones: You probably won the Convious prize, right, for being one of the people that completed it all. The 100th person to complete. I saw all that online, honestly. Andy Povey: I think everyone got one by you, Dom. I don't know what it was you've done to upset Mirabelle in our marketing team. Dominic Jones: I think you're taking this podcast thing a little bit too seriously. Simon Addison: Just to go back to what you were saying, Kelly, about marginal gains, I think that is where the value of this is, because most of us have got websites that are capable of selling a ticket. But when you operate a visitor attraction as successful as Dom’s, or you get hundreds of thousands of people going to your website or to your attraction each year, millions of people to the website. Simon Addison: And if you can achieve a 1% shift in a customer behaviour, the returns on that are really significant. So you don't have to suddenly come up with a revolutionary new website. You have to focus on what are the things that are just holding you back a little bit, removing those pain points from the customer journey. The uplift is so significant of just achieving a small percentage change. I know Dom doesn't like percentages, but that is what we're talking about here. Dominic Jones: No, with that terms, I do, absolutely. And you're absolutely right. And even little things like how it looks on a mobile as opposed to looking on a desktop. Simon Addison: Exactly. Dominic Jones: Change our way of thinking. And you've got to keep doing it because that's what's going to make this industry and where we all work and the amazing places that we work in even better. It's brilliant. Kelly Molson: Well, we absolutely will continue to do it. So this is the second year that we're running it and we have no intention of stopping. Just going back to what you said, Simon. I think what you said about making what you already have better in terms of your website, I think that's a really important point to push is that it has been a really weird few years. And this year I think all of us were kind of hoping this would be a year of normality. And let's face it really hasn't, has it? It's been another odd one. Kelly Molson: So we've started off the year, there's an awful war happening, there's a terrible cost of living crisis, there's all kinds of stuff happening that is affecting attractions. Yet again, affecting all of us, really, but affecting attractions in terms of whether people are going to come, how much they're going to spend, what they're going to do. We know that marketing budgets were going to be probably drastically cut this year by at least 15, 20%. That was the message that was being given when I attended the ALVA Heads of Marketing meeting before Christmas. So I think that being able to look at the report and use it to implement changes to what you already have is really important. You may not have the budget to go out and start again. Kelly Molson: You don't necessarily need to, but if there's improvements that you can be made to your site in terms of the performance or the speed, all of those things are going to help. They're all things that will add up over time and ultimately make the performance of it better and make the customer experience better. So think that's quite an important message to talk about. Another thing to add is that this year we're doing it again. We're asking the same questions that we did last year because obviously we need the same data set, but it's more so it's bigger and better. We'll get feedback on whether that's too much for people, but we're asking questions around Usability, whether you're collecting feedback. We're asking questions around kind of promotions and discounts and how people are measuring their traffic sources and whether they're doing user tests. Kelly Molson: So there's so much more that's going to be in it from this year. And one really exciting thing which you touched on, Dominic, is that everybody that takes part in the survey will get exclusive access to the report before it's made public. But actually, as soon as you've filled in the survey this year, you get a little mini report. And what it does is benchmark you where you are now against the benchmarks from last year. So it will give you a little report to identify how your website is performing based on last year's benchmarks that we identified. Now that's really important. So you could be underperforming, you might be performing too, you might be overperforming, you might be doing better than those benchmarks from last year, and those benchmarks may change dramatically from last year to this year, we don't know yet. Kelly Molson: So that's like a little added bonus. If you're on the fence about taking part, you will get something that's actionable as soon as you've taken part in the survey this year. This year the report will launch towards the end of September. We will release dates and be a bit more specific once we've closed the survey. But this episode is going to launch on the 5th July. That means that you've just got one week left to take part. So one week left before the survey closes on the 12th of July. So if you are thinking about it, stop thinking about it. Go and do it. It will literally take 20 minutes. You're going to need your Google Analytics open or other analytics tool that you use. You can find the link to the survey in our show notes of this show. Kelly Molson: You can head over to Rubbercheese.com and you will find the link to it on the home page. Or you can search for the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report and you will find it. You can head over to Convious and you will find it on Convious website. It's everywhere. Go find it. Do it. Take part. These guys did it. Made a big difference. Dominic Jones: Best 20 minutes of your life. Just do it. Just do it. Honestly, what else can you do? So much value in 20 minutes. There's not much else you can do. Kelly Molson: I worry about how you spend your time. If that's the best 20 minutes of real life. Dominic, that's a concern, but, I mean, he's not wrong. Dominic Jones: I mean at work, not like in real life. I do amazing things in my normal life. Kelly Molson: If you could talk to all of the visitor attractions that are listening now, what would you say to them to encourage them to go and take part? Simon Addison: I would say that if you're not already looking at the things you need to fill in, then you should be looking at them anyway. So you say it takes 20 minutes, Kelly, to fill them in? I'll be honest. I didn't fill them in for the Roman Baths, our Digital Marketing officer did. And I think Dom's blank face when you're talking about the mini report also tells me that he didn't fill it in for Mary Rose either. But it's 20 minutes. But it's all data that you should be looking at. And if you're not looking at it's probably a prompt that you or your teams need to be looking at it anyway. Simon Addison: And getting that report allows you to either make the case with your trustees or your board to invest if you need investment, or it provides an endorsement of the quality of the website and the offer that you've got. Either one of those things is really useful and we know how hard it is to get investment. Kelly, you talked about marketing budgets at the moment. If you want to get money to invest in your website, having this evidence will help convince your CEO or your Trustees that's the right thing for you to do. And equally, if you don't need to, then this is confirmation of that. So that's what I'd say. Kelly Molson: Thank you. That is brilliant. How about you, Dom? Dominic Jones: I'd agree and I'll come clean. I didn't fill it in either, but someone did do it. But it's not the filling in, it's the reading it and using it that counts. Right? That's what matters. It's about receiving it and doing something with it. I actually think it's really useful to get as much benchmark data as possible in this industry. And actually what you do is you give us this for websites, you give it for ecommerce and it's fantastic. I wish there were more people doing it in all the areas of our industry because actually this visitor attraction to get benchmarks is quite rare. So it's fantastic to get that. So I really appreciate that. And I would say if you're listening and you work in a visitor attraction, why wouldn't you do this? Dominic Jones: Because like Simon says, you can understand where you are. You can use it for funding, you can use it towards getting revenue, you can use it towards recruiting some extra people in your team. You can use it to how you performance manage your team. You can use it for so many things. It's such a good document. I can't stress enough, I might not have filled out the form, but I definitely read it and I definitely used it and I do definitely love it. Kelly Molson: Wow. So appreciative of your fabulous comments. Thank you both. Andy, what would you add to that? Andy Povey: Well, I don't know that I can, but really it shouldn't really take you that long to complete this because you should be all over this kind of data anyway. If you're a digital offer in any business and if you're not looking at this kind of stuff, then it's probably time to really start managing your business in a much better way. And really, just to reiterate the point, that an incremental improvement, just a 0.5% improvement in the results in this kind of area can deliver you hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds extra additional revenue over a twelve month period. So what else is that you could do in your business in 20 minutes that's going to potentially deliver that kind of result? Kelly Molson: Wow. There you go. I think you've said it all. Well done. Thank you. I really appreciate this. I threw this at you literally a few days ago to come on and they've had no time to prepare whatsoever. So I'm super grateful that you've given up a little bit of time for me to talk about it today. This is something that I'm so passionate about. I bloody love this podcast. I'm so lucky that I get to talk to such lovely people. And I think, like you've all said, just like, I mean, like echoing what Andy said, being able to make this industry better is something that is literally like at the core of me right now. I just want to see good people doing really good things and having really good results. Kelly Molson: So if everyone could please just go out and fill the Blooming survey and I'd be really grateful. Thank you. Right, books. Have you all prepared a book today? I didn't ask you to. I've got a book, but I feel like you might have. Right, throw it out. Dominic Jones: So I've got a book called The Alignment Advantage Transform Your Strategy, Culture and Customers to Succeed. Now, I love a good strategy book, so the last time I was on the podcast I recommended Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, a great book about strategy. I did bill it as the best book on strategy. Scrap that. It's the second best book on strategy. This is now the best book on strategy because it talks about how you have to align your culture and as a strategic enabler, your strategy and your experience. And for people who listen to Skip the Queue or fill out the Rubber Cheese Website Survey or work with Convious, one of the best people to work with in the world, they will love this book. It is incredible. The only book to read on Strategy by Richard Nugent, The Alignment Advantage. Fantastic. Dominic Jones: There is also an interview with a great guy from the Mary Rose in chapter two, I can't remember his name. I think it rhymes with Dominic Jones. I can't remember it fully, but it's very good to read. Kelly Molson: I knew that there was something like that coming. I knew, Dominic. Amazing. Thank you for another number one strategy book. Simon, what would your book be and have you featured in it? Simon Addison: I can say I have not featured in this book. Unlike Dom, I don't read a lot of business and leadership books. I tend to read for escapism and relaxation. But I have picked a workbook and it's probably the only workbook I've gone back to and reread portions of. And it's called Leadership: Plain and Simple by Steve Radcliffe. The book was a foundation of a leadership course that I did when I was at the National Trust, which was called Future Engage, Deliver. And it was centered on the idea that in order to be an effective leader, you need to have clarity of your vision for the future. You need to engage your colleagues and your teams in that future and then collectively, you need to work together to deliver it. And it sort of broke that strategy and leadership piece into those three distinct portions. Simon Addison: And it had some really helpful models in there for self reflection, for getting meaningful feedback from teams and developing techniques to engage stakeholders in the delivery of your vision. I would recommend that obviously it's not the first or the second best book on leadership, but maybe it's the third. Who knows? Kelly Molson: Love that. What's really interesting is these books. Both neither of those books have been recommended on the podcast before, so I always like it when a new ones come up because I add it onto my little wish list on Amazon. Dominic Jones: I'm going to read that book. I've not heard of that one, Simon, but that sounds amazing. I do love the book recommendations. I do the same. I go buy them. Except for the Harry Potter one. Kelly Molson: I already had and you knocked Geoff off as well, didn't you? Dominic Jones: Did I knock Geoff off? Kelly Molson: Yeah. Geoff was number one for quite a while. Dominic Jones: Is he no longer number one? Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: No, did I not tell you that you are number one? Simon Addison: Once you edit this out, kelly, this is going to be a really short podcast episode. Kelly Molson: I'm leaving all of this in. Andy, what about you? Have you got a book that you'd like to share? Andy Povey: A book I'll keep going back to is The Experience Economy by Joe Pine. And I don't know whether someone else has recommended this in the past, but for me, that whole life chain value thing, the graph where you talk about a thing becoming a commodity and everything moving into the sort of experience space, really fits with what we're doing in our industry. It really fits with what we do at Convious. The reason I enjoy what we do. Kelly Molson: It's a good book. I'm going to ask Joe if he'll come on the podcast. Andy Povey: So I saw him talking at the Blooloop conference a few years ago. Absolutely compelling. Dominic Jones: Could he maybe talk at the January? Why don't we get him on 2025 podcast? Let's do that, right? Kelly Molson: Yeah, let's discuss it off the pod. Yeah, we'll discuss that later. Thank you all. I'm so grateful. Oh, as ever. Sorry, listeners. If you want to win a copy of those books, head over to our Twitter feed. You know what to do. Retweet this podcast announcement. But more importantly, go and fill in the survey. Be so grateful. Andy Povey: Fill in the survey. Kelly Molson: Fill in the survey. We have got, actually a podcast exclusive. Let me tell you how many attractions have taken part so far. Last year, 2022, 70 attractions from up and down the country took part. This year with a week well, actually, it's two weeks today, but a week to go. When this podcast launches, 129 attractions have taken part. So we've nearly doubled on last year. I'm so thrilled. But, yeah, if we could get that to 140, that would be amazing. Imagine 140 attractions being able to improve their websites this year, being able to improve their customer service, being able to improve their bottom line. That's what it's all about. Thanks, guys. You've been amazing. Simon Addison: Thanks, Kelly. Dominic Jones: Incredible. Andy Povey: Thank you, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Lilidorei - the story behind the world's biggest playpark, with Ian McAllister | 28 Jun 2023 | 00:44:32 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.alnwickgarden.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianjmcallister/ https://www.itv.com/news/tyne-tees/2023-05-24/worlds-biggest-play-park-set-to-open
Ian McAllister is the Strategic Head of Marketing and Communications at The Alnwick Garden and Lilidorei. His route into attraction marketing wasn’t an obvious one – from not joining the RAF (based mainly on eyesight and petulance) he dabbled in recruitment ( based mainly on proximity to his flat) then television (based mainly on flatmate work envy). He manages a team of marketers who deliver all marketing, PR and communications to these two attractions based in Northumberland.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode I speak with Ian McAllister, Strategic Head of Marketing and Communications at The Alnwick Garden. Ian shares with us the magical story behind Lilidorei, logistics of creating a play structure over 26 meters tall, snot ice cream, free Fridays and the impact this will have on the local area and children. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Ian, I'm so excited to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for coming to join me. Ian McAllister: No problem. Kelly Molson: Let's start with some icebreakers, shall we? Ian and I, we had a little pre podcast chat a few weeks ago and we established that we're both from sunny old Essex. This could end up quite messy, really, couldn't it? Because I tend to whenever I'm speaking to my Essex kinfolk, my accent goes, very Essex. This might get messy. Ian McAllister: The good thing is, living up here, people don't know my real accent, but once they hear that, I'm sure that it'll come out. Kelly Molson: They will after this, Ian. Right, okay, icebreakers. I want to know, topical, what's the worst Essex nightclub that you've ever been in? Ian McAllister: Tots, Southend. But it was so bad that I used to go every Friday. It was bad for the sticky floors and for the people that were there and for the music they played and everything about it was terrible. But every Friday I would still go up there. I don't know why. Kelly Molson: So bad. It's so good. I can remember driving there from my part of Essex and going out Tots. Someone broke my big toe into Tots. Literally, like, stamped on my big toe and broke it. Ian McAllister: Do you remember? There was a place called Ritzes, which I think was in Romford, and went there one night, and this was back in the day, where people thought if you were wearing trainers, you were going to cause trouble, so you weren't allowed to wear trainers. And a mate of mine, Paul Mayo. I had two good friends in Essex, Paul Mayo and Ross Gherkin, so they were the three of us. But Paul Mayo went up to the club and they wouldn't let me say trainers. So he left the queue and went around the corner, took his shoes off and took his black socks off, put his trainers back on and his black socks over his trainers, and they just let him straight in. Kelly Molson: Wow. Ian McAllister: Yeah. Which made Moonwalking brilliant, because he had a really good sock that he could moonwalk across the dance floor. Kelly Molson: That is ridiculous. That's ridiculous. So sorry, we just need to go back to your friend's names as well. Mayo and Gherkin. Are you joking? Ian McAllister: Mayo and Gherkin? No. So, I mean, I was always Mac. So I was always Ian Mac. Then there was Mayo and Gherkin. So they were the three of us that used to kick around together in Essex. Kelly Molson: That is chaos already. Ian McAllister: There you go. Opening question. Kelly Molson: This is an ethics thing as well, right? Everybody has nicknames, don't they? You know the Gavin and Stacy thing, where you got Smithy and what? Chinese Allen. That's the thing. That is so Essex, it's ridiculous. Ian McAllister: My nickname for ages was I wasn't a good looking chap growing up. And I had a brace, a demi wave, and I had these big reactor like glasses and I don't know if you've ever seen the National Lampoons European vacation, but the sun was called Rusty Grizzwald. So my friend Gary decided that I was just called Rusty, so he still calls me it to this day. So I'm still just Rusty. Kelly Molson: Oh, God, that's so weird, because my next question was going to be, if you ever been told you look like someone famous, who was it? Ian McAllister: Yeah, but that's not a positive thing. Kelly Molson: No. I wasn't expecting Rusty from National Lampoons to come up. Ian McAllister: I mean, lots of people to try and compare themselves to you, like some Brad Pitt and George Clooney, whereas I'm going for 15 year old Rusty Grizzled. Kelly Molson: Humble. I think that's quite humble, isn't it? Right, final one. I feel like the ice is well and truly broken, melted. What is your best scar story? Ian McAllister: My best scar story is a very recent one. Last year on New Year's Day, I took the kids for a lovely walk to our local woods with the dog. And me being me, I challenged them both to climb a tree. And it was a tree that was like one of these trees that's too good not to climb, do you know what I mean? It was really big branches and big trunk. So I've got twins, 14 year old twins, a boy and a girl. So my daughter was like a whippet and she went up the tree and then my son, with a bit of encouragement, went up the tree and he got his foot wedged in, like the V of the branch, about seven and a half, eight foot up, so he couldn't get out. Ian McAllister: So I climbed up behind him and I held onto a branch either side of him. I said, "Right, all you got to do is just wiggle your foot a little bit". So he obviously didn't hear a word I said. He yanked his foot out, so we both fell out the tree. So I grabbed onto him and he landed on me. And as he landed, I heard ankle snap. So I'm at the top of a woods, probably a mile into the woods. So the kids that week before have been at Scouts and they learned about what three words. So we had to phone an ambulance and they did the what three words and this, that and the other. Ian McAllister: So the ambulance had to then he couldn't drive, so you had to push the stretcher for a mile, pretty much up an incline to get to me. Had to take a breather because it was so far up, put me on the stretcher, but then the ambulance had to drop, so it's just me and the kids that live here with the dog. So the ambulance then had to drop the dog and my kids at my house before they took me to hospital. So turned out I completely broken my ankle, so I had to go for an operation. And I had a metal plate pulse, ligament and wiring all around my ankle. Ian McAllister: So I've got a treat of a scar on my ankle that they also cut through two nerves, so I also can't feel from a nerve down from the little toe, from a knee down to the little toe at the minute. Kelly Molson: I feel like we're going to have to put a warning on this podcast episode, if anyone's like a slightly queasy disposition. Wow. I was not expecting that. Ian McAllister: Yeah, it's a lovely story, isn't it? I think I've learned the lesson. I made a blue plaque on photoshop about Ian fell here and I went back to the tree afterwards and pinned it on the tree. Kelly Molson: It's a special moment. Ian McAllister: That tree will always be in my memory. Kelly Molson: But well done, your children, on learning the skills to get you out of a very tricky situation. Ian McAllister: Yeah, it was great, but they loved it because they got riding an ambulance, so their Snapchat stories were filled up that day with pictures of them and the dog in an ambulance on a muddy New Year's Day. Kelly Molson: Great story. Thank you for sharing. I feel like we've started the podcast on high. Ian McAllister: We can't really go any lower than this, can we? Kelly Molson: Not really, no. Your unpopular opinion, Ian. I dread to think what this might be. Ian McAllister: Had a few and I was trying to think which one would upset the least people. So I had a few. I was trying to think which one upset the least people. So this one's cake. And I hate cake. And I've always hated cake, really dislike cake. And I think people say to me, "what is it you don't like about cake?". And I think I've narrowed it down to the taste, the texture, the smell and the look. Because just everything about a cake, I don't like. So when it comes to birthdays, the kids obviously get me a birthday cake because they can eat it themselves, but I just don't like cake. I've got a bit of a funny not so much now, but I had a funny food thing. I'm sorry in advance. I didn't eat yellow food for about six months. Ian McAllister: It was anything yellow, even to the point where if I got a packet of M&Ms, I wouldn't eat the yellow ones. Kelly Molson: Can I just ask what age you were? Was this 30? Ian McAllister: Probably worse than that? It's about 35. Like my late 30s. Genuinely, genuinely developed an aversion to yellow food. So my friend Steven, who's head of HR at work, he went through a phase of thinking to try and reeducate me. So every Friday he'd go through Steven's adventures in food. It was all the food that I probably should have eaten by the time I was, like, 40 years and hadn't. So things like sushi or porridge. Every Friday he'd bring in something and it would be a chart, like a reward chart. And he'd put a little sticker on if I liked it or didn't like it. Just because people don't know I'm a 47 year old man with two children. Kelly Molson: Oh, God. And have you eaten a banana since? That's what I need to know. Ian McAllister: Yeah, since I started re eating yellow food, I'm all over it. I like a banana, like a bit of pineapple. Cheese is great. We just have the argument because people would say to me, and this was my bugbear, and they get really irritated with this. It's a what about chips? Chips aren't yellow. They're like a beige. So chips were allowed. Kelly Molson: Okay. And pasta as well. They're all in the beige category rather than yellow. Okay. Ian McAllister: Yeah. So can you imagine presenting me with a yellow cake? Yellow cake? That'd be my idea of h***. Kelly Molson: That's your worst nightmare, isn't it? Jaffa Cake. How do you sit about that? Is that a cake or a biscuit? Ian McAllister: But food of choice would always be a chocolate hobnob. No question. Kelly Molson: Great biscuit. Yeah. In the fridge. Ian McAllister: Great biscuit. Crunch. Good for the dunk. Always in the fridge, yeah. Chocolate. What do you think about this chocolate? Does it live in your cupboard or in your fridge? Kelly Molson: Fridge. I like a crunch. I like it to go crunch and then I like that it then melts in your mouth. It's like two different sensations in one. People will argue about this. This is not an unpopular popular opinion, by the way, but people will not be happy about this at all. Ian McAllister: No, but I mean, the people that aren't happy with it are wrong. Kelly Molson: They are. Agreed. Oh, my goodness, what a start for this podcast. Okay, how did an Essex boy end up in Northumberland? Tell me a little bit about your background, because you're not from attractions background at all, are you? You come from a completely different sector. Ian McAllister: Yeah, when I got married, which since divorced, but when I got married, my best man suggested it was witness protection. That's what kind of brought me 350 miles north. But the fact was I was working, I'm from Essex, as we've previously mentioned, and I then went to university in Surrey. I went to Kingston and I was working just locally, really, just in pubs and clubs. And I went downstairs to my flat and it was a redeployment, so I thought, it's time to get a proper job. And it was literally under my flat and I ended up working there, mainly because it was under my flat and it took about 10 seconds to commute to it. So I spent a bit of time in recruitment and at the time I was living with two flatmates weirdly, both called Marcus. Ian McAllister: So Marcus One and Marcus Two both worked in TV. One worked, I think Channel Five and One was a BBC or ITV. And I kept telling how good their jobs were and how great their life was, and I thought, "Well, you know what, can't beat them, got to join them". So I did actually beat them. So I wrote to MTV with a really cocky letter saying how much it be their big mistake if they didn't recruit me and this and the other. So I went in for my interview and the guy said, I've got you in because you're either really good or really cocky. And I don't know which one it is. So eventually they gave me a job. So I worked in media in London and I think I was there for two years. Ian McAllister: I just got sick of the rat race and it was just the commute to London. It was an hour each way and I was fed up of it, and I was fed up with the people and I was fed up of the busyness. And I met my then wife, who is from up here, but she had a flat in Edinburgh. I just thought, "You know what, I've got no real commitments down here". I don't have any kids or pets or any of that sort of stuff. So I just chose to order and we moved to Edinburgh and I kind of flipped around in recruitment and odds and ends, moved to the north and set up a property company. So were renting properties to students. Ian McAllister: Then I went to work for a marketing company and then I ended up working where I do now, The Alnwick Garden part time doing marketing and then just kind of worked my way up from there. I couldn't remember what the question was. Was it your background? Kelly Molson: Yeah, you answered it well. Yeah. Well done. Ian McAllister: Thanks. Definitely didn't come from tourism, but I kind of came from marketing kind of sales. And I think I've always been one of these people that might be clear by now that could just talk. Kelly Molson: That's coming across. Definitely getting that on this episode. But I like that you sound like someone who makes their own opportunities in life, which I like. You just go out and get what you want and what's going to fit for you. Tell us a little bit about Alnwick Garden because we're going to talk a little bit about something attached to Alnwick Garden. But Alnwick Gardens itself is quite spectacular. Think it dates back is it 1996? It dates back to is that when. Ian McAllister: It was originally about 1890s. We can date it back to. So it was the original garden kitchen garden for the Alnwick Castle. So it was throughout the two World Wars, it was what fed all the local farmers and the local community and this, that and the other. So come the 90s is when the Duchess of Northumberland, who lives in the castle, was married to the Duke. That's when she took it on as a bit of a project. And she got in some designers from, I think Belgium called Vertz Design. So it's a Vertz design garden and she took it over as a garden and she always wanted it to be she always said it was going to be a stage for people to do whatever they want in, so we can put on events. Ian McAllister: We've had random things, like we've had mixed martial arts in the garden and then we've had Peppa Pig characters coming in. So it's a real variety of things that we do in the garden. But, yeah, so it's been open for 20 odd years now. We're a charity, so we're just about celebrating the 20th year of becoming a charity. So, yeah, the Alnwick Garden itself is a garden, as you'd expect. It's got world's largest Taihaku cherry orchard outside of Japan, got Poison Garden, it's got the world's largest treehouse, which is a restaurant. It's got all these kind of unusual things that you wouldn't necessarily put in, like an RHS garden or a queue garden type place. And it's a great big open space that we market, people come and we do weird events in. Kelly Molson: So it's quite special in its own right, isn't it? But then, about twelve years ago, Jane Percy, the Duchess of Northumberland, she had another idea, didn't she? And that's what we're going to talk about today. Do you all get a little bit worried when she says, "I've got this idea?". Because this one's been a pretty mental one, hasn't it? Spectacularly mental one. Ian McAllister: Yeah. It's kind of that first glimmer of, "Oh, God, what's it going to be now with the backup of the thing is that when she has an idea, she sees it through". And I say this, I know a lot of people chuck this phrase around loosely, and I don't mean it this at all. She's a visionary, because she has these completely off the wall ideas, but has then got the determination and the team behind her to actually see them through. So the new project being the biggie, which has been years in the making and years in the planning, and I'm sure do you want to introduce it or do you want me to say what it is? Kelly Molson: Well, what do you do it. The world's biggest children's play park. Ian McAllister: Yeah. So it's called Lilidorei, which every single thing in it is from her head. And she's got this really creative outlook on life, and she's then pulls in the right people to kind of bring them to life. So she imagined this place where kids could just be away from technology, where they could play and actually play like we used to when were little. And we'd go out making dens and kind of making up our own stories. And it's called Lilidorei,. So the concept of the place is that it's a Lilidorei, village and there's nine clans that live in this village and all of the clans worship Christmas. So you've got good clans and you've got bad clans. Ian McAllister: And it's weird talking about this in a normal way now, and I've seen construction staff talk about this, and it feels weird to be saying things like the elves and the fairies and the pixies. But it got to the point when were building where you'd see the big construction workers and the joiners fags in their mouth, talking about pixies houses and fairies and elves. But the concept is that some of the clans are really good, like the fairies and the pixies, and then some are a bit more troublesome, like the goblins and the hobgoblins and the trolls. But at Christmas time, they all come together to worship Christmas. So whilst it's Christmas themed, it's not Christmas all year, apart from the gift shop, which is fully Christmas at every time. Ian McAllister: They can buy a ball tomorrow if you want, but we've also got the world's largest play structure. So the place structure was built by a company called MONSTROM, who are based in Denmark. And it's one of these things that's got to be seen to believed, which makes marketing it quite tricky because you can't really feel it until you stood underneath it. But local landmark, the angel of the north, is always a good point of reference. So our play structure is 6 meters taller than the angel of the north. And there's a slide from the top, so it's a 26 meters high structure and there's a slide that comes from 20 meters up. Ian McAllister: But to get to this slide, you go around this really convoluted system of walkways and corridors and climbing up uncomfortable spaces and squeezing through things and climbing up nets, and that's just part of it. The rest of it is all these clan houses. So it's a really fascinating place. Kelly Molson: It's amazing, isn't it, that all of this came out of her head? So I watched the ITV, did a publication on your launch, which was it was only a couple of weeks ago, wasn't it, that it opened? The presenter of the snippet, he went up the slide and came down it and he was talking it through and he was saying, 26 meters. And I was like, "Yeah, that's quite high, isn't it?". But you can't really grasp when someone says that. To me, I couldn't really kind of grasp what the height of 26 meters actually looked like. So when you said that comparison that you've just given about the angel of the north, that's really big. Ian McAllister: But there's no point. It's all enclosed. So, like, you've got open netting and this and other but there's nowhere that kids can actually fall off, if you like. So I think kids, it tests their bravery. It's handy for us from an insurance point of view, health and safety, certainly, but kids like, test themselves. So you'll see them start the session and they'll just be on the little swings at the bottom or on the little spinny mushrooms, and then by the end of the session, you see them at the top running around like it's no one's business, just testing bravery. I think that's the big thing. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I love the idea that it opens your imagination. You can be any part of that story. You've got that underlying story of the clans and that they worship Christmas, but then you make your own part of that story to go with it, and based on where you interact and where you go and where you climb or what houses you go into and all of those kind of things. It is pure magic, isn't it? Ian McAllister: It is. And we've got a team of people that work. They're called secret keepers. So they're sitting in their outfits and costumes, but they're really extravagantly dressed with feathers in their hats and all sorts. Their job is almost to facilitate the play. So it was almost a marketer's dream when I started off because we couldn't really talk about what it was because people didn't understand until it was built, couldn't see it. So I came up with a concept, which is the most lazy marketing you'll ever think of and the whole tagline which is carried through is, what's your story? So really what we're doing is we're encouraging people to make their own narrative and to make their own story, which saves me the job for a start, but also we don't want to dictate that. Ian McAllister: Well, that clan looks like this because you can't see the clans, you can see the houses and you can imagine how they are, but you can't actually see anything. So when you get there, it's all brought together by this immersive sound we've got. It's like a million quids worth of sound system for each clan. House has got its own immersive sound system that kind of gives you implications or ideas as to what that clan might be up to or what's happening inside the house. So you can look into their house window and you can see how it's all set up. So it kind of starts to build this picture and then the secret keepers are there to encourage that with the kids and, "What do you think they look like? And could you hear that sort of noise?". Ian McAllister: And it gives this underlying narrative for every kid that comes, is obviously going to leave with a different picture of what a particular clan or a particular circumstance is like. Kelly Molson: That's amazing. So you don't have the characters. They never see what the goblins look like, for instance. They have to make all of that upload in their own minds. Ian McAllister: Yeah, I mean, we've got this sort of narrative in the background. We've got an idea of what Duchess has imagined the Clans to look like or the Clans to do, or the Clans to kind of be like. But we never tell the kids this. It's all about provoking thought and provoking story. There was books that I used to read when I was a kid, and they would choose your own adventure books, and it was kind of you make your own adventure. So every even if one kid came to Lilidorei, five times, they might have a completely different experience each time just because of their imagination and the sort of stuff that the secret keepers have fed them, if you like. Kelly Molson: I love that. While we're talking about secret keepers, you've got ahead of Play, haven't you, Nathan? I don't know any other organisations or attractions that have got ahead of Play. How did that kind of come about? Ian McAllister: So to give me his full name, it's Nathan Bonk. Kelly Molson: Excellent name. Ian McAllister: Nathan Bonk, he's come over from America specifically to organise the play and the secret keepers and this. So that's his kind of creation, if you like, in conjunction with the Duchess. So he was meeting with the duchess virtually daily to make sure he's on the right lines, and she was happy with what he was doing, but to kind of put an extra element of weirdness into the story, which in case we haven't had enough weirdness in the podcast already in the Garden going back two or three years, I'm friends with a guy called Stewart who's the reigning Mr. Gay World, and he's only reigning because they disbanded the competition after he finished it. So he kept title. He's kept that. So he got in touch to say that he wanted somewhere to host Mr. Gay England, which is like a pride initiative. Ian McAllister: And it's not just a catwalk, it's education and it's exams, and then the winner of it ends up representing the gay community to go to Parliament and lobby Parliament and speak in schools and this and the other. So I said, well, the best place, really, if you think of the most sort of unusual place that you could think of in a really rural town where there aren't many people of any persuasion, would be Alnwick. So we put it in the middle of the garden. The cat walks right down the middle of the garden, and we've rebranded that entire day, which we're doing again this year, Gay Day. So what we do is we have Gay Day, and it's everything. We've got market traders, LBTQ+ friendly market traders and face painters, and we do trails and all sorts of things. Ian McAllister: So anyway, last year we had Mr. Gay Europe and Nathan's friends with Stewart. So Nathan came over to help with the competition. Mr. Norway had COVID, so couldn't turn up. So there were one person short. So Nathan ended up weirdly representing America in the Mr. Gay Europe competition. Kelly Molson: Wow. Ian McAllister: If you get to know Nathan, as you'd understand, he's always got an outfit of two just stashed away just in case. So he came out with like, the short camouflage shorts and the face paint and waving the USA flag. Anyway, after Gay Day, he went home and he'd fallen in love with Alnwick. And it was just it wasn't New York. He lived like a six minute walk to Central Park. So it's totally different. But he fell in love with the place. And he sent me an email, a bit of a video explaining why love Alnwick and if there's any opportunities that came up, and this, that, and the other. And the only thing that popped in them ahead as soon as I saw his video was the head of play, and I just knew that he would be the person for this role. Kelly Molson: But was it a role that you were looking for or did you create. Ian McAllister: It for the role we discussed? We always discussed that we needed someone. It was going to be it's almost like a head of operations for Lillidorei, but that sounds far too boring. So we always knew there was going to be a role for somebody. I don't think we quite realised to the extent of how influential this role would be in creating the entire story and the entire visit. So Nathan, with his ideas, he's opened theme parks before. He's been in stunt performances in various theme parks. He opened, like, the Harry Potter experiences in Orlando. So he's done all this stuff already. But I remember he Zoom called me one morning. He said, you're never going to believe it. I've got an interview with the Duchess at lunchtime. Brilliant. So I gave him a few bit of background and what were working towards. Ian McAllister: About 2 hours later, he zoomed me back. He said, you're never going to believe it. I've got the job. They sort me out a house. I'm flying over next week, and I've got a tea at the castle with the Duchess. It's like every American film you've seen where they tried to represent England in a completely fictional way. He was living it. Kelly Molson: What a life. Wow. Ian McAllister: And that was it. And he's been here since. And he loves it. He's absolutely settled. He's incredible. He's got this team of amazing people who do things like juggling with Diablos and teaching kids that go on balance boards and hula hoops. Their job is to interact with everybody that comes in and just create the atmosphere. Kelly Molson: And that's what makes the place so special, isn't it? It's that interaction from the people and the encouragement of the ideas that the children have to explore them that makes it a magical place. Ian McAllister: It is. It's incredible to sit as a construction site. All of a sudden. And now to see 600, 700 kids running around each session screaming and laughing and coming out with ruddy faces and wet trousers, it's everything we wanted it to be come to life, a Kelly Molson: It sounds magic. And I've seen those faces, I've seen the kids faces on the ITV clip, which we'll put in the show notes, actually, so you can have a look at it if you haven't had a chance to go up there yet. I want to talk a little bit about, because you've said a few times now, Alnwick want to talk a little bit about, because you've said a few times now, Alnwick, it's relatively rural, a small community, there's not a huge amount going on there other than this spectacular Alnwick Garden and Lilidorei that's just launched. You offer Free Fridays. And I saw the Duchess talk about this. It's for local children, school children, to come for free on a Friday so they can experience what's happening there. What impact do you think that Lilidorei is going to have on the local community and the children there? Ian McAllister: I think so. Two elements to that, really, then, the creation of the attraction itself. We've always estimated roughly, or looking quite accurately, based on recent figures, that it's going to bring an extra 200,000 people a year into the area. And that's going to benefit, obviously, it's going to benefit us, it's going to benefit the Alnwick Garden Trust, it's going to benefit the Alnwick Castle, which is another attraction up the road. All the local restaurants, pubs, hotels, everyone's going to benefit because what we're hoping to do is turn AlnwickAll the local restaurants, pubs, hotels, everyone's going to benefit because what we're hoping to do is turn Alnwick into a multi day destination, so people won't just come for one of the things and go back to Newcastle, back to Edinburgh. They'll do it as a day trip. So we're hoping that it will really kind of drive the local economy. Ian McAllister: So in terms of local economic benefit, I think that's kind of nailed, really. The figures are already quite obvious. In terms of the Free Fridays, then you don't have to go that far out of Alnwick, particularly if you went to South Northumberland and there's quite a lot of people that are in all sorts of various situations. There's schools in different areas, there's kids that just would not be able to afford to come otherwise because it's comparable to other attractions. But it's still not a cheap day out, it's not three quid to go to the local soft play. So there's a lot of kids that the Duchess particularly just didn't think it was fair, wouldn't be able to experience it, hence Free Fridays. Ian McAllister: So the idea of Free Friday is that every school child in Northumberland, and then eventually, when we've kind of been running for a bit, we'll widen it to Tyne and Wear into Newcastle. But at the minute, every child in Northumberland should be able to experience Lillidorei without having to pay. So we've opened up this application process where local schools can apply to come to one of the sessions and that's for any Friday throughout the year. So already the mini uptake has been phenomenal and there's schools that you see that you think, you know, I know exactly what area that school is in and without making too many judgments, you know, that they just would not be able to afford to come, so we're giving them the opportunity to come. Ian McAllister: So that's part one of Free Fridays, which is well underway at the minute, and I think we're almost booked up for the rest of the next twelve months with Fridays. Kelly Molson: That's amazing. Ian McAllister: But the next part is that the Duchess is to now do other initiatives to try and put money into a ring fenced account. So then eventually when that account builds up, we'll also be able to start to subsidise travel. So if you've got a school that's an hour's journey away, hopefully this pot of money, they can apply to it to pay for their hiring of a school coach or a minibus or whatever it's going to be to actually bring the kids up. So it's an entirely free day and there's different things like she's doing private tours, we're doing packages where you can have a nice meal at the treehouse and then come into Lilidorei afterwards. So like I say, that's all going to be ring fence specifically for transport from Free Fridays. Kelly Molson: That's incredible. What an opportunity. And like you say, for the kids that just would not have that opportunity to be able to go and experience it. It's just such a wonderful thing to be able to do. Ian McAllister: It is, it's incredible. And I think a lot of the feedback we saw before we opened, because again, as I say, it was quite hard to explain the concept of it and what you actually got for your 15 quid entry fee. So a lot of people say you've outpriced us and we can't afford it and this, that and the other. And that's why it was really good to then say, "Look, if you want to bring your kids, just tell your kids to speak to their teacher and get the teacher to speak to us and we can facilitate them for free". So it's making a difference already. It's incredible. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I guess then it's about selling what that 15 pounds gets you the benefits of that 15 pounds. Yes, it's a relatively higher price point, but you start to break it down about the experience that they get there and the magic that can actually happen that they can't get anywhere else, and then it starts to become slightly more appealing purchase. You can stay there for quite a long time, right? You've got that dwell time as well. So when you work it out, cost per hour, it actually seemed quite reasonable. Ian McAllister: And I think having two kids myself, I think what am I going to compare this to? So you can't compare it to going to local council run park because it's nowhere near the same, it's not just a climbing frame. And then I think, "Well, what else would I do for the kids for that time period on a Saturday if we're bored?" Probably get the cinema. So the cinema is going to be 1520 quid to get in. And then, sweetness, you got 2 hours of sitting in silence watching a film and then you come out, go home and that's done. Ian McAllister: So to compare it to that, to Lilidorei, you've got a three hour session where you can come in, whole family can interact and it's running free and it's fresh air, I mean, it's not fumbling, it's always fresh air and by fresh I mean probably freezing most of the time. But you've got this it's a completely different experience and I think where people were just looking at it as it's a climbing frame, well, I could just go up the park. So it's trying to explain to people that it is different and yeah, it doesn't work out a really cheap day if you've got two parents and three kids, for example. But what we have done, we've introduced, and we're going to look at this after some holidays, we introduced the founder Lilidorei membership. Ian McAllister: My idea with this is always it's got to be for the child focused. So it's the child that has the membership. So little Johnny could have a membership for him and an adult, or him and two adults, and that means they could bring in mum and dad or they could bring in Nanny Granddad or they could bring in whoever they want. But it's always for me been the child that dictates this whole thing. So we always say that well behaved adults can come in with a responsible child. So we've kind of flipped the narrative a little bit there. And in terms of the membership itself, I used to read the Beano when I was a kid and the only thing I ever wanted grown up was Dennis the Menace fan club membership. Ian McAllister: And with that it cut a wallet, a membership card and a badge. And so for me, Lilidorei membership, you get a wallet, a card and a badge. So all these founder lidorians walk around proudly displaying their badge because there was a limited number of to be the very first people to be these members. But it's empowering the kids. The adults are allowed to come if the kid says they can come. I almost wanted to wake up on a Saturday morning and the child go, "Right, mom, you've been good, you can come with me. Dad, you got to wash the car and do the dishes". Kelly Molson: I love that. I love that giving them the choice of who they take and to take Granny as well. Yeah, it's a really good point about the memberships, isn't it? Because it is generally tied to the adult and the children that they have. But I love that you've empowered the kids to make that choice. Yeah. So you've got to be the kid. The parents have to be good all week. Ian McAllister: Exactly. That's to end the story points. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, we're going back to your food eating and your little sticker chart, aren't we? That's what you need. There you go. Sell that in the shop for the adults to buy their sticker reward chart, whether they get to come back or not on the next visit. Ian McAllister: That's a great idea, talking to the shop, actually, just briefly, because you may. Kelly Molson: Segue listen, I'm on fire today, Ian. Segue into the shop. Ian McAllister: My good friend Matthew Henderson, who anyone who listens to podcast will have heard him before. He has been incredible. He's been absolutely amazing. It was him that put you and I in touch in the first place. We bought him in to get the shop ready. And to say it's shop ready is the biggest understatement of the century, because I've never seen anything like it. The people that work in retail, a retail manager, Tracy, to coin a phrase, and not sound corny, it's like all the Christmases have come at once, because she's always wanted this shop that she's proud of, that she's selling things that she believes in. It's all been sourced specifically for her. And Matt has done just what a job. It's incredible. Kelly Molson: He is such a great guy, Matt. So Matthew came on our podcast. It was only a few episodes away, actually, ago, actually, and Matt used to work at Beamish and now he's out on his own. He's a consultant now and helps lots of attractions work out their special offering, the uniqueness when it comes to products. And I have seen a photograph of the shop and, oh, my God, it looks like an attraction in itself. It looks like something you'd pay to go visit in itself, like a Santa's Grotte or say. It's just incredible. Ian McAllister: It's phenomenal. And he was also fundamental in helping us with all the food and stuff that we're doing across site, but mainly in there. You know about the ice creams? Kelly Molson: I know about the ice cream. Tell us. Ian McAllister: So there's three flavours. I mean, you've got a vanilla, but then you've got the other obvious choices. You've got Troll Snot ice cream and you've got fairy dust ice cream. So fairy dust is like a raspberry ripple with popping candy. And Troll Snot is pure bright green, but it's sour apple, which sounds vile, but it's actually really nice. But I've got pictures of him with a hair net at the ice cream facility, which I keep telling him should be his next Tinder profile. He's got so involved in it, he's been instrumental in the whole thing. I don't think we'd be anywhere near where we are now without Matthew. Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Well, that is a massive compliment to Matthew in itself, isn't it? No, he's a great guy. And I think it's something that sometimes gets a bit overlooked when it comes to shop. And you often go to places and you see the same things. Exit through the gift shop, you see the same things, and it genuinely just feels like, and I can only say this from the photos, but it just feels like you're stepping into such a magical world as an extension of the magical world that you've just come out of. Ian McAllister: It really is. It's surreal because on Press Day, we had a launch day a couple of weeks ago, it was so hot. It was a beautiful day. I clearly have the sunglasses on all day, caught a nice tan. Apart from the work stuff, it was a really nice day. But then you do, you exit into the shop and it's like you've already sudden fast forwarded six months and you're in the middle of Christmas. There's Christmas trees and candy canes and balls, not to mention the ridiculous amount of old fashioned sweet jars with trolls fingers and different fudges. And it is surreal because then you've had this 20 minutes Christmas experience in the shop and then you're back into 24 degree heat again. It's bizarre. Kelly Molson: You opened on was it the 25th of May? Is that your opening day? Ian McAllister: Yeah. So a couple of days before half term, were supposed to have a lot more testing than we had, but because of construction issues, we ended up with two testing days. We were supposed to have at least a month or two months testing, but we had to literally do it all in two days. So we opened a VIP date and then we opened for the public on the Thursday. We would never have predicted this, the Thursday Friday, and then the full half term, every single slot was sold out to the point where after a couple of days, we made a judgment call to up capacity and then we upped it again. And it's been full, absolutely full. Kelly Molson: And have you kept that capacity as well? Ian McAllister: Because I think we didn't want the risk of opening, saying, right, we're going to get 800 kids in per session, and then all of a sudden there's 800 people trying to go down a slide. So we didn't want to ruin the visitors experience with queues and with too many people and crowds and this and the other. So we opened with 300 capacity, which was, I mean, once 300 people are on the play structure, you kind of see it. It's like you can't hear them, you can't see them, they've just vanished like ants. So we upped it to five and we're looking at up in it again to, I think, 750. We're going to maybe try and push it up to for some holidays. Kelly Molson: Gosh, that's incredible. So safe to say that it's been a successful launch, then. Ian McAllister: You know what, we couldn't have asked for more. We've had the weather, we've had the publicity. Everything has been going so well. It's been a really positive experience. It was touch and go for a bit where we're all sort of walking around a few days before launch. S***, there's a bump there. There's a thing here. And the construction team, I've never seen anyone react like it like the lighting team would pretty much work until 04:00 in the morning. So they'd work all day. But then they'd want to test their lights so they'd have to wait until it got dark. But then they'd work all night till 04:00 the next morning, go home for a few hours kip and then come back again. Ian McAllister: And we've got a big thank you party tonight at Lilidorei to thank all of the staff, volunteers and construction team for everything they've done to a few hundred people coming tonight. And it's been overwhelming how everybody's got involved, even contractors that might be there for a week doing something. It's been almost like a pride project for them. Kelly Molson: It's amazing. Well, but that shines through in what you've created, right? Everybody that's touched it has taken some kind of ownership of it. What a lovely thing to do. Just throw the party as well to say thank you. It's June now. The story behind Lilidorei obviously involves Christmas. I'm really intrigued as to what you might have planned for Christmas. Are you allowed to talk about any of that yet or is it embargoed? Ian McAllister: I can talk about it a little bit because I've seen it. So we had a sneak peek. So for the last two years, we've been followed around by MGM who have been filming the documentary for Channel Four. So Channel Four documentary goes out, I think, August. So there's a six part Saturday night documentary going out all about the Duchess. It's called The Duchess, but it's all about her leading up to this project. So their last filming day was VIP press day. Kelly Molson: Wow. Ian McAllister: About three days before that, we had a preview one night at 10:00. We would like to go onto site to get a preview of Christmas. I don't even think I can come up with the words. And I'm quite good with words. I can't even put together a sentence that explains quite how magical it is. It's just the lights, the sounds, the atmosphere. And this was a summer's night at 10:00, so I can't even think what it would be like when it is actually Christmas. And we've got three Santa's grottos. To talk, you kind of back a little bit. Ian McAllister: You've probably seen the picture of the big Lilidorei entrance gate. So when you get to the gate, you've got sounds. You've got a troll talking to a pixie and who wants pixie, wants to let us in and the troll won't let her. So you stand there and you can hear this immersive sound and they won't open the gate. So what you have to do is kind of find a way around and go through a hidden tunnel. At Christmas, those gates will open and it's like, all of a sudden, Christmas is there. So you come in, every Christmas tree is going to be lit, and bear in mind, we've got 1400 Christmas trees. Every Christmas trees got fairy lights in. The atmosphere was just phenomenal. It sounds like a cop out, but it's got to be seen to believed. Kelly Molson: Well, I look forward to that, because that sounds right up my street. Ian McAllister: You know, you're welcome. You're more than welcome. I'll even treat you to some troll snot ice cream. Kelly Molson: How could I possibly say no to that? Ian McAllister: It's the Essex charm, isn't it? Kelly Molson: Just wins me over every time Ian, thank you for coming on. So we always ask our guests to recommend a book at the end of a podcast. What have you got for us today? Ian McAllister: And it was post, COVID I read it and someone had recommended it. So I went and bought a copy and it's got to the point now where I've probably funded about 90% of the book sales because I'll keep buying copies and saying to someone, you love this, I've given them a copy and it's The Midnight Library by Matt Haig. Have you read it? Kelly Molson: Yeah. Great book. Ian McAllister: For me, I think I am where I am now and my career path, my life path, everything was based on decisions and sometimes it's easy to sit and think, that's a bad decision. If I hadn't made that decision, I'd be much happier now. And The Midnight Library, for anyone who hasn't read it, is all about going back and retrospectively looking at your decisions that you've made in life and you get a glimpse of where that decision took you. And I think for me, what it did was instead of me constantly going back, not depressed or anything, but you kind of sit and dwell sometimes instead of thinking well. Ian McAllister: So, for example, I nearly joined the RAF when I was 17 and I wanted to be military police, but because I've got terrible eyesight, they said, well, we can't give you a gun because you probably shoot the wrong person. So they offered me dentistry. So, looking at the time, I was typical Essex. Toys were out, the pram, I'm not doing this, I don't want to do it. So I went to uni and did all that stuff. But I often think back, I think, you know what? If I'd have gone in the RFN and had paid to train me as a dentist and I've done the service, I could have come out and sat me in dental practice and this, that and the other. Ian McAllister: And I often think, would I be happier had I done that and done that as a career path and been a professional, if you like, because I still don't consider myself a professional. But then this book almost made me reframe that a little bit and think, you know what, I might not have done that. I might have hated it or something else would have changed and I wouldn't have had my beautiful children, I'm a stupid dog, or wouldn't have any of that sort of stuff now if I'd have taken that career path. So in a nutshell, for me, The Midnight Library is a really good read. It's quite an easy read, I found, because I was really invested in it, but it made me reframe a little bit. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's a great book. I've read it a couple of times now and similar to you, it's made me look back at not so much choices but events that have happened to us. Me and my partner, we've had a load of people this is quite public knowledge, we've had a load of trouble having children and we lost quite a few along the way and multiple rounds of IVF and all of that malarkey. And I think that book made me reflect on some of those things that had happened because you start to question, am I a bad person here? Or like, why are these things happening to us? We're good people, what's wrong? Kelly Molson: But some of those things that have happened regardless, despite them being really difficult and quite awful, they've led you to other things that are magic and they've given you gifts of something really tragic happened. Has been able to give us the gift of being able to talk about it openly, which has then gone on and helped other people be able to talk about it or share how they are or just given someone found them, someone that they can talk to. And I think you have to just kind of look back at those things and I don't know, it's a long winded way of saying I completely agree with you and it's a really good book. If you're feeling a bit reflective about your life, it's definitely one to go and have a read of. So yeah, good read. Ian McAllister: I think it may me kind of start to think about the ways I've handled things and how I sort of shape things moving forward so that my best friend died when were at college and my nephew died when he was eight. And all these things in your life that at the time are the worst thing that could ever possibly happen and you could either go one way or the other and it almost explained or kind of put into context a little bit. I think that these things happen not necessarily for a reason, but the way that you cope with it and deal with it and move on after it. That's almost like the learning that you take from it. But this is a different podcast altogether. This is like a griefcast, so we'll do another one. Kelly Molson: This has ended on a complete opposite spectrum than it started, Ian. Anyway, listeners, if you want to win a copy of that book, I'd highly recommend you go and do this. So go over to this podcast announcement and retweet it with the words I want Ian's book. And you will be put into the draw to win a copy of The Midnight Garden. Kelly Molson: Midnight Garden? Midnight Library. Midnight Garden is a whole different book, kids book Midnight Library. Kelly Molson: Ian, thanks for coming on today. It's been brilliant to chat to you. We will put all of the information about Lilidorei and Alnwick Gardens into the show notes so you can have a little look for yourself. But those tickets for Christmas are going to sell out quickly, people, so get yourself on the mailing list. That's all I'm going to say. Ian McAllister: Thank you, Kelly. It's been so nice to talk to you. Living this far north, it's nice to establish my roots with an Essex person again. Kelly Molson: Well, always welcome. Six months check in, right? Ian McAllister: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Attraction Marketing: Find out the Number 1 thing all attraction marketers need to focus on in 2023 | 14 Jun 2023 | 00:47:37 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
Homepage: https://navigate.agency/ Work: https://navigate.agency/work/ Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/navigate-agency/ Ant's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonyrawlins/
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. In today's episode I speak with Ant Rawlins, CEO of Navigate Agency - the marketing agency for the tourism and conservation sectors. We discuss how to position your attraction as essential, the number 1 thing all attraction marketers need to focus on this year and, a podcast exclusive. Ant shares an exciting new initiative with us, listen out for Wildling. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Ant it is so nice to have you on the podcast today. I have to say, I'm so delighted that you're on because you are genuinely one of my favourite speakers to listen to. So I'm thrilled that you're on today, and I know this is gonna be a really exciting conversation. Ant Rawlins: No pressure then. Kelly Molson: Absolutely not. I always like to start with a little bit of pressure on. And that takes us very nicely to our icebreaker questions. So when you were 6, what did you want to be when you grew up? Ant Rawlins: When I was 6, it was probably pretty cliche. An archaeologist or a fighter pilot. I probably say a fighter pilot more. Kelly Molson: Is this Top Gun? Ant Rawlins: It is tTop Gun. And I'm pretty sure top gun was released when I was 6, and my brother then went into the REF. So I kinda wanted to be my brother and a fire pilot. But, you know, there you go. Kelly Molson: He got there first, basically. Ant Rawlins: He did. He did. Kelly Molson: Actually, archaeology, so that's really interesting because it does kind of fit with some of the that you've done, doesn't it? In a holistic kind of way. We'll talk about that a little bit more later. Okay. If you could be in the Guinness World of Records, what record breaking feet would you attempt? Ant Rawlins: That's really mean. I have no idea what that would be. I don't think that I'm gonna be in the Guinness book record. I've never allowed myself to entertain that. Kelly Molson: Do you have, like, a weird talent? Ant Rawlins: Not really that we can broadcast. So this is gonna sound really silly. It would be best dad. Kelly Molson: Oh. Ant Rawlins: I'm not necessarily convinced by that, but there you go. We'll see. Kelly Molson: Tough critics around, I'm gonna say. Okay. Interesting. Thank you. And if you could have 1 extra hour of free time every day, what would you use it for? Ant Rawlins: Reading. It would be reading because I really do not enjoy reading at all. I can't stand it. So I would force myself to do that. Kelly Molson: That was unexpected. I thought you were gonna tell me that you're a bit of a bookworm, but you do consume knowledge. I know that you consume knowledge because you're incredibly knowledgeable, especially at the top that we talk about today. How do you consume it? Are you more of a podcast? Do you want more audio? Ant Rawlins: Very much audio. Again, I don't enjoy reading, but I read a lot. I just find it really challenging medium through which to get information. It's very one dimensional. Whereas, actually, if you can show me documentary, I'll get a lot more info from that, but that's a huge debate. Right? So. Kelly Molson: Yeah. That's really interesting. So it's a really good answer to the question, and it would be my answer as well because I don't get time to read. Reading for me is a way of going off into a different world. Whether that's reading something historical or reading something fictional, it just takes me away to a different place for a while, and I've kinda lost that. My time has been sucked up with toddler, so I've kind of lost that a little bit. So that would be a nice time to go on in a bit. Ant Rawlins: Do you know honestly, as I said, I don't like reading, and I absolutely never read fiction. It's always non fiction. It's always work, it's always research papers or documents or business books or how to be a CEO and not throw yourself off a bridge, that kind of stuff. I rather than a lovely story. I mean, I hit previously, but Wilbur Smith and Barry, stuff like that, but I'd start at the time. So that's what I would do with my hour, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Good answer. Good answer. Thank you for sharing. Right, unpopular opinion, what have you prepared for us? Ant Rawlins: Email, either test email as well. This is not going to be a negative as it sounds. We're getting it out of the way now. We will be super positive going forward but I hate email. And I was thinking about this, obviously, running a strategic digital marketing agency. That's professional suicide saying you hate email to a certain degree. But I do hate it because it's a terrible thing. It delivers great results. But imagine your email be a letter box. And through this letter box, you get information from the government, information from healthcare providers, tax information, essential business correspondence. But also, those t shirts that you don't want, these pair of shoes. I've inherited a lot of different pots of money from foreign countries where I just need to provide my account details. And they will release 10 percent of the £45,000,000 to me. Your email, as the collater of all of this, how do you escape today? Crazy. We need a better system. Kelly Molson: You're right. You are right. I don't think this is gong to be a massively unpopular opinion. If I'm honest. I think you've hit the nail on the head there. I actually know an agency owner. Sorry, he's an agency founder and now runs an agency kind of collective support network. He just doesn't use email at all anymore. He's posted it down it. Just not it just doesn't communicate by it. He’d rather use WhatsApp or Slack or those kind of channels for it. And I think it's so hard, isn't it? Because it's like a necessary evil. Yeah. But the time that it saps away from you is just. Ant Rawlins: I know. And there's loads of productivity hats. You can activate around it, but, you know, goodness me. It's best not to do that. Yeah. And and I do apologise for being pretty tame. But, I had about a 1000 things for you, and I wasn't allowed to say any of them. One of them has my wife. Yeah. You can't say that. You can't say that. So there we go. Kelly Molson: We'll discussed those ones off air. Ant Rawlins: Definitely. Kelly Molson: Okay. Right. Founder of Navigate, Tourism And Conservation Marketing Agency, fabulous agency. Lots of wonderful things that you do for your clients. What brought you to the world of attractions, tourism, and conservation? How did you end up here? Ant Rawlins: So I studied biology at Bristol. And fairly quickly, during my degree, I realised there was no way in the planet I wanted to be a biologist. Because fundamentally, my life would be spent staring down a microscope looking at, I don't know, either sperm or stool samples, which is where a lot of biology originates or comes to at the end. So I kind of thought, “Yeah. I'm not gonna do that with my time”. So I kind of I've always been interested in in, generally, in science, I've got quite a strong science background at all my levels of science than, obviously, a science degree of Bristol. The master's in science at Bristol as well. But I kind of thought I wanted to do something on my own and and see how I could do. Ant Rawlins: And I just decided to set up a business straight out of university. I'll add a disclaimer here because I often get labeled with this being a very brave decision. It wasn't a brave decision. It was purely a logical decision. I had no money. So I have nothing to lose. Sucks. So you just go for it. What's the worst that could happen to me? Add a little bit more debt to the burgeoning student debt I had anyway. So, yeah, set up the company and off you go. It started in a different iteration. But, fortunately, as I've learned more about business and people, I've been able to direct that to the things that matter to me. And here we are now, tourism and conservation. Kelly Molson: The things that matter. It's really interesting that you set up. I didn't realise that you'd set up so early on in your career, actually. And I just come from a conversation about a very similar topic. We set up our agency when we were about 24. I've worked in various different places prior to that. I never really found anywhere that I settled. But it's exactly the same thing. There was no risk then. It was “Okay. Well, I need to earn enough money to pay my phone, put some petrol in my car, pay my monthly rent”. That's it. It's not a brave decision. It's like, I don't have any there's just nothing to lose here, so I may as well just give it a go. It's a really empowering place to because now if I was thinking about doing it again. There's a lot more risk. A lot more overhead. Ant Rawlins: It's terrifying. It's terrifying now. Those are the brave people. The ones that have responsibilities and financial commitments and go, “Do you know what? I've known this way of life for this amount of time. I'm gonna stop that. I'm gonna give it a go”. I predicted I would not have the courage to do that 10 years down the line. So I thought, “Oh, I'm just gonna do it now”. Kelly Molson: I love that. Well, I'm glad that you did because it's brought you to where we are today. And I wanna talk a little bit about where we are today. So just from the attractions perspective, it's been a bit of a weird year, hasn't it? 2023, I think. The last few years, a bit weird. Let's face it. They have kind of, a massive whammy throughout the pandemic. Can be open one minute, can't be open the next minute, restrictions, all kinds of stuff going on. And then come through all of that and are smashed in the face with economic chaos, cost of living crisis, war in Ukraine, not really understanding whether visitors are gonna be able to afford to come to them this year. Kelly Molson: And so it feels a little bit like everyone's been steering headlights and going, “We just we really don't know what to do. We're absolutely exhausted from the last 2 years. We don't know what to do”, and we know that visits are about 80 or 90 percent of pre pandemic levels. What's your take on where we're at the moment of where things are going? Ant Rawlins: I think your analysis is spot on. That is where we are. It's challenging times. We are finding organisations are taking longer to make decisions because they're cautious naturally. I'm also finding that there's a bit of a reticence to invest in kind of marketing and revenue generation. From the point of view of almost thinking, “Well, it's not gonna be great this year. So let us not spend budget on not having a great year”. It's quite upside down thinking, in my opinion. But that is what's happening. And I know this because I I speak with clients very openly and honestly. We work with quite a few businesses that we feel the responsibility to turn their fortunes around. The the organisations I love working more than anything or where they've got a big problem, a seriously big problem. Ant Rawlins: So a number of our clients last year or the year before might have had to make redundancies. Serious stuff, reduction in headcount, reduction in visitor numbers as we know it's been happening. And they just wanna get back to the levels they were or even just ride the ship so we get involved and we help them do that. And I'm proud feel a very profound sense of pride when we do that. And we do it. We're serious about doing that, and I love it. Kelly Molson: You do it really well as well. So, some of your attraction plants are really bucking this trend, and that's kind of what we're gonna focus on today along with something very exciting, which is coming later. But I wanna kinda talk about strategies and methodologies that attractions can implement right now to increase their marketing success. I think this is what they want to hear about. But can you kinda set the scene for us? So what are some of your clients achieving in terms of visitor numbers and revenue? Because you've got some really impressive stats around that. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. So I'd like to think that, our clients are kind of booking a trend looking at some of them are 10 to 15% above pre pandemic levels. Some of them are at pre pandemic levels. But then, again, some of them are below because we've just got them on board, and our job is to convert them and increase them back to where they were or beyond. And our aim is always, let's take them beyond where they were. So yeah, whenever I sit down with a client, I always look at what their targets are, then I set my own internal target of usually 10 to 15% above that. And say and Navigate, we craft the strategy to overdeliver so that, classic aim for the moon at least you'll land amongst the star strategy. Ant Rawlins: If we aim big, do a good work there, then it massively mitigates the risk that you're not gonna hit the target. But invariably, we go beyond it and it works. And what I do find fascinating at the moment is we're kind of feeling that because of the lack of impetus behind rolling out big marketing campaigns and investing in marketing because people are being very conservative with budgets. That does mean the people that we're working for, they're flying. So they're growing well because, actually, if people are holding back and we're going all in, then they're not constantly getting the visitor numbers and of revenue. It's just, stats, isn't it? It's just gonna be the case. We make more noise people see our clients more, they visit them more. Kelly Molson: That sounds really simple. When you say it and budgeted for. Ant Rawlins: I know. I know. Kelly Molson: The listeners that listen to this podcast are at all different sizes. So attractions of all sizes. And Some of them may be at those lower levels right now and starting to be, slightly concerned about what summer may bring or may not bring. What would be your advice to attraction marketers that is kind of struggling to focus on what the priority should be right now? Ant Rawlins: Yeah. That's a good question. So this isn't rocket science at all. It's quite straightforward. The very first thing attraction marketers could should do is ultimately just deliver really good digital advertising. It's the most straight line method for visitors. It really is. When I say digital marketing, yeah it's digital advertising activity. That needs to be good. It should be the best. It is the creme de la creme marketing activities that can be done with immediate impact. That's completely measurable and transparent for me. It doesn't really make sense to invest budget anywhere else. Even projects that I work on independently at Navigate my own initiatives or innovations as, we might talk about it later, we would only do digital on that. Why would we ever think of anything else? There's just simply no requirement, and we can't track it. We can't measure it. We can't optimise. Ant Rawlins: So the very first thing any attraction should do is what are they doing on digital and just do that more and do it better. And yet, despite the pandemic, believe or not, I still speak to some attractions that direct 80% of their marketing budget towards traditional marketing print leaflet, bus shelters, this and the other. Kelly Molson: Wow. Ant Rawlins: And I just I can't rationalise it in my head. I don't understand. It does not compute. Kelly Molson: That's a huge percentage. That's really surprising. I mean, I can understand some of their budget going towards it, but, you know, 20%, not 80%. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. And so when you were talking about, the growth in visitor numbers that we're delivering for a lot of clients, it's because we charge into executing a digital advertising and marketing strategy immediately and it has immediate effects. Literally month long. It's so, yeah, that's what I would do. And it doesn't matter what size you are. Because I would say if you're above 50,000, then you can implement what I'm talking about to the scale that it's required. If you are a 100,000, then 100,000 business plan and then it's viable. Anything above that, you have got the visitor numbers and the marketing investment and resource to deliver a highly effective activity that will give you the visitor numbers you want. Kelly Molson: There's something else that you've been talking about quite a lot recently, which I am a big fan of. I've quoted elements of this blog piece in numerous talks and numerous pieces online. It's about positioning and attraction as essential. Ant Rawlins: Right. Yeah. Kelly Molson: You spoke about it brilliantly at the ALVA heads of marketing meeting back prior to December. And it was perfectly timed because at that point, attraction marketeers, we knew we're looking at maybe a 15 to 20% cut in their budgets this year because of the cost of living crisis and having to look at kind of smarter ways to use their budget and smarter ways to talk about why their attraction is somewhere that people should, people need to visit, not just want to visit. Can you talk us through a couple of those pointers from that blog piece because I just think it's so invaluable to our listeners to hear about this. Ant Rawlins: Sure. So yeah, this came about actually and credit where credit's due, Richard Huntington, who's a strategy director -- Sachi and Sachi, the first put this forward when I was presenting at an event with him. And we spoke about this, and he suggested that attractions need to position themselves as essential. So all I did was, write on his coattails and say, “Alright. Well, this is how attractions do position themselves as essential”. So we come up with a various ways of saying, “This is how you should communicate in order to position yourself as essential”. And if you permit me to rewind for a moment, the reason we need to position an attraction as essential is because when reviewing the likely economic impact of the cost of living crisis on visitors, individuals, pockets. Ant Rawlins: They're ultimately gonna be putting everything apart from essential activities. This was the theory 6 months ago when we were talking about this. And, to a certain degree, we have seen this. So that's why we need to be essential because it's almost the only ring fence budget in a consumer's pocket where they go, “Okay, that's essential. I'm not giving that up.” How does an attraction do this? How does it position itself as essential? And there's a number of different ways of doing it. As you've said, you can look at the blog that we created for it. And it's really interesting. Ant Rawlins: I think one of the nice ways of maybe picking one good strategy of this apart is making memories. Because our friend Bernard Donoghue at ALVA regularly highlights that attractions are so important because they are these places that create memories. They create moments with people. And I absolutely agree with Bernard, of course. But what I think converts a memory to something essential is time. As a grandparent, it's not about you as a grandparent, not being there forever. It's about as a grandparent, those kids aren't gonna be little kids forever. They're gonna be, horrible moody grumpy smelly teenagers before you know it. Apologies to any teenagers listening to me. I'm sure you are not all like that. I certainly wasn't when I was a teenager. You've gotta just look at it a slightly different way. Ant Rawlins: And it's essential, therefore, for the grandparent to spend time with that little four year old, because she's not gonna be four next year. She's not gonna be 4 in a few years' time. Don't worry about where you are. So, surely, a day out and a memory with a grandkid at the age of four. That's such a different experience at a kid age seven because I've got both, which is so different again from a kid age nine because I've got one of them too. And, it's kinda like memories are memories at different times as well. And at this timing that you're happy, you know, you really need to try and leverage that. And if you can do that, then, yeah, it's essential, isn't it? You wanna spend time with them young. Kelly Molson: That's the one that really hit home for me, actually. So I have a young daughter, she's just coming up for 2. My parents, we've had her a lot later in life. Her grandparents are a little bit older, so they're 71 this year. And they feel this. So they feel that they have got a set amount of time to make and form those memories with that little girl. They're already planning. She's not even 2 yet. They've already said to me, “By the time she's 5, we're going to Disney. This is what's happening, we're going here. We're gonna make this big memory because we need to do that”. My dad needs to do that before he's 80. So I can't do it any later than that. Kelly Molson: So, they've got this time limit on these things. The other thing that really struck me about that blog was how you position what things cost. So there was an element in there about making comparisons between everyday things and what you'd actually spend on an attraction. So I made a comparison between paying I think it was something like £7 to park all day. This absolutely incredible attraction has the most fantastic kids play area and family area to make all of these wonderful memories. Take your kids' bike there, teach them to ride. 7 quid is 2 flat whites. Save yourself 2 flat whites a week, and you can go and do this amazing thing. And I thought that was a really strong message to push out for attractions. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. I think that we've gotta get across a value message. Again, as everybody's talking about this, I think that the marketing speak that you'll hear me say, it's not new stuff for anybody I imagine that listens to this because everybody that listens to this is good at, it is good at marketing. They've got a sense of the understanding of the principles and the concept here. So showing demonstrating value for an attraction visit is essential, and a lot of attractions. Not all, by the way, but a lot of attractions do deliver fantastic value. And so you really need to kinda leverage that because, yeah, we spend a lot more money on a lot less stuff than memories than these moments and these shared experiences. Kelly Molson: We do. And we need we need a good reminder of where our money's being spent and where it's important. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. And, again, I think there was a really good output around this. It's like, buy memory is not stuff kind of thing. It was really good. Yeah. Kelly Molson: Okay. Number one thing that all attraction marketers need to focus on for 2023. Ant Rawlins: Yes. So I've been thinking about how to kind of, distill this into one thing for you. And I believe it is to generate revenue digitally. Three words. Bear with me on this whilst I unpick it a little bit. We gotta generate revenue digitally. Now that actually covers a lot of different things. First of all, it covers digital marketing. Investing in digital to drive visitors, donations, memberships, whatever you want. That will help you generate revenue digitally. But more than that, your online shop and ecommerce growing revenue from that, which many people became pretty good at during the pandemic. That's generating revenue digitally. You can sell digital products. Many membership programs from organisations, might be a magazine which will probably immediately go into the recycling. What about digital product, so you can develop these digital products that will be essential. Ant Rawlins: That is, again, generating revenue digitally. Coupled with this, generating revenue is also kinda growing profits. Because you can actually deliver a lot of your functions now with technology in a really good way. We know how stretched attractions marketing departments are, how much work attractions marketers actually do on a daily basis, creating content here, coming up with a strategy there, firefight in this, solving that problem over there. It's crazy. When I look at the volume of work that attractions marketers do, it is massive. That there aren't any coasters in this industry that'll be working really hard. And they need to use technology to make their jobs easier or not even make their jobs easier so they can elevate the work they do rather than scrambling around doing a little bit here or a little bit there. Ant Rawlins: We should be using ChatGPT to create attractions marketing content continually for our attraction. We should be using really good email automation to solve that. And there's so much good tech out there that this will save you money and, again, grow profits, which is generating revenue for you. Finally, as part of all of this, all these bits because they're all digital, and it's all tech. They should all connect. You should be able to track. You should be able to look at this digital ecosystem you created and understand how it into links and then how you can optimise that conversion. And, again, some of the bigger conversations we're having with, the some leading kind of attractions in the UK are very much about. “Right, we've got this area that's doing this digitally. We've got this digital activity pulling this in here. We've got an opportunity to increase efficiency by implementing some tech here. How does this all work together?” Ant Rawlins: And and that's exciting. That's what we should do. And that is probably very daunting for smaller attractions, and that doesn't matter. It's daunting. Yeah. And you have to face it head on because it is only going in that direction. I guarantee it. And you will not be here in 5 or 10 years if you do not do this. It's that simple. It's inevitable to quote Agent Smith. Kelly Molson: However, however scary it might seem. It's okay because Navigate just launched something that is actually gonna help the attraction marketers perfectly with this, which is your attraction marketing playbook. Ant Rawlins: I was not expecting your segue way there. And the thing that's quite interesting about that, I wasn't expecting it. So I thought you're gonna disagree with me, which I was getting well excited about. Okay. Let's do it out em up, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Let's do this. No, I absolutely agree with this. I think you've nailed that advice there, but I think what you said about it being a really daunting task. I think it can actually be daunting for larger attractions as well, actually, because let's face it, marketing teams are small. Regardless of the size of agencies, they are really small, and they wear lots of hats, and they juggle a lot of different things. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. They're small and also the industry well, not the industry. Our society doesn't have the digital skills and capabilities that are required to capitalise on the technology we currently have. They're they're not available. We've not trained these people yet. And those people that do have those skills are incredibly short supplied comparatively. I was at the app to travel marketing conference last week and there's this company that specialises in travel recruitment called Gail Kenny. And I've kind of known him a bit there. They're good, and they gave a really decent analysis of this digital skills gap. And I just say, yeah. There's a huge issue. Anybody in digital marketing, digital advertising, CRO, CRM. All of these skills are just in desperate need across the industry. We just don't have the candidates. Ant Rawlins: We don't have people doing this because they're all taken. So it's a skills issue as well, which makes it really daunting because there are other people with that knowledge. But you're right. That's I suppose that's why we kind of created the Visitor Attraction Growth playbook in that, it's a decent sized document, you know, 50 or 60 page is that really just breaks down the kind of 5 or 6 core activities you should be looking at to grow your visitors and revenue this year. And, yeah, we've literally just said all the things we think you need to do. Kelly Molson: It's a lovely playbook, actually. And it's a really good thing just kinda take you away for an hour or so. Just kinda work your way through, work on it, put your plan together, but then come back and revisit as well. We're gonna put a link to this in show notes. So anyone listening, don't worry. You don't need to go and find it. Literally, just go to the show notes, and you'll be able to download it for there. Because, actually, it’s free to download for anyone for a period of time, isn't it? Which is lovely. Very generous. Ant Rawlins: Oh, well, it is very generous. I had a battle with my marketing manager about this. And he's like, “No, Ant. We're not even gonna email gate. And I'm like, “What do you mean we're not even gonna email gate?” “Well, no. We're not. We're just we're not on a website. Click download done. I might well, hi, mate, your call.” So there we go. Kelly Molson: Lovely, lovely good people, you. Ant Rawlins: Don't thank me. Thanks Olly, the Head of marketing. It's him. It's not me. Kelly Molson: Thanks, Olly. You are a lovely person, actually. Ant Rawlins: He is. It's very easy. Kelly Molson: But talking about lovelyness, let's talk a little bit about Navigate as an agency because you have got a really good ethos in the way that you grow your agency, the way that you hire, the way that you just the way that you run your organisation. And that kinda comes through really beautifully in the fact that you've recently gained B Corp status. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Just give us a little bit of a snippet of what B Corp means for our listeners that aren't aware of what this is. Ant Rawlins: B Corp is ultimately a movement of businesses that have kind of agreed that the nature of doing business needs to better. And, therefore, we assign certain standards on ourselves in doing that business. So, for example, we have to have specific environmental policies. We have to show improvement in that. We have to have certain culture. We have to have a certain mentality towards our team and treat our team in a certain way. It's governance, it's environmental impact, it's social impact, and it's rigorous. It takes 2 years to become a B Corp. And we literally got it a few weeks ago. And, yeah, it's great to be one. I mean, if you look at some of the, I wouldn't say, coolest, but I think they're cool. Ant Rawlins: Because that's what I think cool is being successful and being good for me. That's cool. So if you look at them serious brands, people like Patagonia and what have you. The kind of, the darlings of a good business, invariably, you'll find that a lot of them are B corps or on that journey. And I I'm very proud of of being a B corp, and at the same time, it's not an external thing for me. I think quite a few people use it as a “Oh, we're the B corp, so buy something from us”. That I mean, that's a bit ridiculous in my opinion. I think that it's about saying, “Well, listen. Going forwards, business needs to do better. It needs to better. It needs to hold itself the highest standards”. Ant Rawlins: There are multiple ways businesses can be profitable and make money. And all I'm saying is on top of that, you need to apply being good with it. And I think it's one of the fundamental requirements we have to impose on ourselves because we won't have a planet in about 200 years time if we don't. I mean, we will have a planet. We just probably won't be very happy on it, and it won't be very happy. Kelly Molson: I know this is, I mean, you've talked about it from a business perspective, but I know that this is a bit of a passion area as well, especially around kind of sustainability and being outdoors in nature. And, actually, I mean, I'll put this on the in the show notes, but Ant sent me, he emailed me a picture. He emailed it to me. So he doesn't hate email, really. He emailed me this wonderful picture of himself this week out on a walk whilst listening to the podcast. Ant Rawlins: Don’t share that. Kelly Molson: It was such a great photo. Okay. I might share this photo. I'll put it Twitter. It was a fabulous photo where it's outside in nature. But, look, this is you. Like, you are what you talk about. It's you personified. Everything that you love is all around nature and being outside and being connected to the environment and being sustainable, and that really does across in the way that you run Navigate, also the personal projects that you have. Now you mentioned earlier that you have your own kind of innovative projects on the go. You've got something quite exciting to talk to us about today, which is a podcast exclusive, people. He's not talked about this anywhere, and Ant talks a lot. He really does. This is a new thing. He's not discussed this with anyone. So I wanna hear about it. Ant Rawlins: Well, I have discussed it with a few people. It's not been broadcast, Kelly. Just actually, some of the people listening to this podcast, I know who they are, and I know them. And you know them, and we know them. And, actually, they’re gonna be like, “Wait a minute. He spoke to me about that.” So I've got the caveat. Some people know. Okay. But, no, it's not been announced on the industry yet. It's not been broadcast. We've not launched it yet. Yeah, it's exciting. As you can tell, it already started increasing the speed of my conversation. So, yeah, do you what did you want to just dive in? Kelly Molson: I wanted to dive in because I say that I didn't know about this prior to this conversation, and I'm really excited about it. This is something that I am gonna use. And I'll tell you what, I'm gonna use it daily. So I'm really excited about it. I need you to share it with the podcast. Ant Rawlins: Alright. You're so kind. Okay. So, yeah, we've created what we think is quite a disruptive business for the industry. And when I say disruptive, well, yeah, in a really, really positive way. I consider it a conservation technology business is how I see in my head is what it is. And in its simplest form, it's a mobile app. What we've done with our app Wildling is we've created an app that collates all of the UK's great nature places in one format, in one place. And we geolocated that information so that you, Kelly, can go to this app on a Saturday morning when it's a lovely day or not a lovely day, whatever because nature's ready, whatever the weather. You can go to the app. You go, “What am I gonna do today?” Ant Rawlins: And you can look at it and it'll geolocate all the nature places that you can go and visit near you. It gives you the facility's information, the visitor information that you'd need, the opening times, gives you directions, and then there's more. So in the first instance, It's a free to download app. We want everybody in the UK using this. We want it downloaded everywhere. We've got a pretty mega network of people are already gonna broadcast this when we launch. I think that the total email they size is about fifty million people so far. I'm gonna get emailed this by our part. Place. Yeah. It's a bit mad. Kelly Molson: But email's okay, folks. Not rubbish. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. It's a bit mad. Oh, and, also, I came up with this idea with Tim Smith. So Tim, who created Eden Project, it won't be here without him. You know, me and him have talked about this for 2 years. We've been working on it together. We've been speaking about it 2 years, and he's guided me a lot on where we can go with this. So, yeah, he's a legend, and he's my kind of my industry hero, really. But Yeah. So myself and team just thought it is. It's collectivising nature. It's all these great nature places you can go. And it's solving a problem that I had, Kelly. Ant Rawlins: 6 years ago, I moved to Dartmouth from Bristol, and I wanted to find out all these great places near me. And I had to go to about 20 different websites, and the information then was, a bit rubbish on some of them. Some of the mad images, some of them didn't, some of other visitor information. I couldn't tell. So this way, I've got my app. Wherever I am in the country, I can find nature reserves from the RSPB, English Heritage, National Trust, Forestry, England, all these great nature organisations with nature places and 20 seconds more. Our aim here is to put £1,000,000,000 into nature over the next 15 to 20 years. £1,000,000,000 into protecting native nature in this country. Ant Rawlins: And the way we're gonna do this is the way that it should be done because people won't care. They won't protect what they have an experience. That's Adam Brewer's line, and it's true. So we want to get them into nature. And when they're there, because they've used our app to get there. We're gonna be able to actually communicate with them given the information of that specific place that they are. But also suggest they might want to donate to help protect that place. And we can do it when they're actually in the environment or just shortly after they return. It's not, a random email on a Wednesday evening when you've not been to a forest for 3 weeks. Ant Rawlins: It's when you're there, when you're having that time, we're gonna be able to prompt you to tap to love nature and then send those funds out to the fantastic nature organisations that we'd be having this country to help them continue their good work. So, yeah, £1,000,000,000 15 to 20 years. That's what we wanna do. Kelly Molson: It's such a good idea. That's a good idea. I love it. I'm genuinely buzzing about this. So this is all of the lovely things that I like to do. And I think like, you kind of you know what's on your doorstep. But you don't know enough of what's on your doorstep. We are really lucky. We live just outside Cambridge. We've got 3 or 4 National Trust places around us that we spend a lot of time. But, also, we spend a lot of time there. Right? You're looking for new things, and you don't always know the first place to go. You might kinda know some of the bigger things that are around. We've got Bedford Forest 45 minutes that way and, I don't know, Brooksbourne Woods another 40 minutes that way. But what really is here? Kelly Molson: What can I do to support these brilliant things and keep them moving and keep them conserving the natural environments that were that are around us. It would be something that I genuinely would use. And I can't believe no one's done it. It's one of those ideas that you go, “Does this not exist? Wow.” Ant Rawlins: There's a reason nobody's done it. It's because it's been a pain in the ass, if I’m honest. Kelly Molson: A labour of love? Ant Rawlins: Getting all the content, getting it all done. There's a reason it's not been done, and it's because it's a hell of a lot of leg work. But, you know, yeah, there's just so many beneficiaries of this that I'm really happy about, first of all, and everyday people thinking, “What can I do today, Joe?” “Alright. We'll go there. Get outside”. We know it's better for them. We know we know it makes us healthy. We know it gives us perspective. We know that, what's going on in various different parts of the world doesn't need to affect our day right now today. Ant Rawlins: We know we can go away and escape from it all, and it's not always Netflix and bills and this and the other, there's more to the world than it gives us perspective everyday people. But the challenge people have is always it just seems really difficult for them. When I speak with one of the organisations that we do through Wildling, it's really the interesting the number of people that will go on a day out to nature, go to a Forestry England place or a National Trust location or somewhere like that, park up in a car park, and then sometimes just stay in the car park. Or have their picnic, like, 10 meters from their car. The distance people go from the from the point that they actually get into these nature places is very small. Whereas me, I park in and just zoom out. I'm like, right, how far come from this car park point can I get and go and explore? But there's a fear it doesn't feel easy. It feels unnatural. This is what how ironic that being in nature feels unnatural to us. And so our app needs to do one thing. It just needs to make nature easy for people, and that's what it's doing. Yeah, as well, of course, protecting it because we'll want people to donate afterwards. Kelly Molson: I see. Ant Rawlins: But, yeah, in the final point I'll make on it, Kelly, because you know talks. I know you've got me on this one. I'm sorry. I think it's also gonna be pretty big for domestic tourism in general because you're right. On your doorstep, you can find out what it is. But do you know what, Kelly? Maybe you've always wanted to visit Norwich. Maybe you've always wanted to visit there, and you like -- Kelly Molson: One of my favourite places. Ant Rawlins: There you go. Yeah. I'll get an Airbnb, and then I'll use it. I cannot find all these great places around me. The fact is wherever you are in the country. You're gonna find these places are with the volume of places we have on here, you're never gonna be more than a few miles away from a really great nature place that you can go and visit. So, again, it's free. It's for everybody. Final point, I was speaking with Josh Croft, who's their CEO of UK Inbound the other week, and Josh is a great guy. And he said from an inbound tourism point of view, he thinks it's gonna be really big as well. He thinks that people coming into the UK using this app to it explore our natural environments, it would be fantastic. Ant Rawlins: And one of our clients actually does bring about two million people into the UK per annum. And we know from the analysis and research that we've done that some of the primary reasons, particularly when entering the northern part of the UK, is for nature. And a lot of them, heading then they head up to Scotland and around Yorkshire. But, one of the draws which I was a little bit surprised about. One of the draws of Europe near European visitors into the UK is nature and natural environments and wildlife. So, yeah, it's great for inbound tourism as well. As domestic tourism, not to mention it's making us all healthier. Kelly Molson: That's really interesting, isn't it? Like, having everything in one place, I hadn't thought about how useful that would be to tourists to the UK. They haven't got to slightly like you were doing, spending hours on 20 different websites trying to find all the different things around you. They literally go to one app, and it's all there. It’s genius. Ant Rawlins: We're not we're not stopping in the UK, Kelly. I'll tell you that. Kelly Molson: I mean, I know this was coming. Ant Rawlins: Yeah. Yeah. We're not stopping it because I want to use this app for me when I don't really know much about France. So I wanna get over to France. I don't wanna be able to use my app to find all the fantastic nature places that I can go and, experience there. I'm in Germany, I'm in Spain, and so on and so forth. Kelly Molson: What I really love about this is it's a wonderful example of you're you know, it's the combination of the passions that you have and the skill set that you have in the agency as well. And it's just it's an absolutely perfect design or what you can do to support nature, but, you know, what you can also do to help the attractions from the tourism organisations that you work with as well. So it's just brilliant. How can we find out more about it? So it's not launched yet. How do we find out more about it? How can our listeners get involved? Ant Rawlins: Well, I'm pretty confident that when it's launched, any people are connected to Skip the Queue podcast will probably get a lovely email from Kelly. It's here to download. So that solves our audience here. Yeah. It will be ready soon. I mean, it'll just be available on the App Store. It's called Wildling, and we're gonna be there in a few weeks. Okay. Well. Kelly Molson: What we'll do, we'll put a link to as soon as it's launched, we'll put a link in the show notes again. And, yeah, look, listeners, you will definitely hear from me about this. I'll be all over social media with it. Maybe email because I don't mind a bit of email, but definitely Twitter. Maybe some LinkedIn. This is brilliant. So this might be an interesting question for you because we normally end the podcast by asking our guests to recommend a book, but you don't read that much. So do you have something that you would like to share with us? Whether it's a book, a podcast, an audio book, what would you like to share with that listeners? Ant Rawlins: Do you know what? I will recommend a book and to end and probably just, correct the blemish on my character, Kelly. I do read a lot, but I hate it. So that's the difference. And I'm happy I'm missing it. There you go. It's it feels slightly sadistic in the end, really, reading, but there you go. The book I would recommend is called The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, and I think it's amazing. It's pulling my favourite book. Kelly Molson: Reason why? Ant Rawlins: I mean, Naval Ravikant, a bit of a legend. I mean, he is incredibly successful, but his book is really succinct short advices. It's a collection and expansion of tweets that he've created over time. And he splits the book into 50, 50, 50 percent is kind of wealth creation and all that kind of stuff. And the other 50% is happiness. And it just expands these points, but it's just so digestible. Each little nugget is “Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. We should do that. I should do that.” So so I love it. Just I don't I do not need fifty pages to tell me something when five words will do. And so I love it for that reason. The Almanack of Naval Ravikant, I it's pretty good. Kelly Molson: This is a book absolutely for me. And has not been recommended on this podcast as well. We're building up such a great list of recommendations from our guests. That's a good one. Okay. I'm gonna put that on my list. Listeners, if you wanna win a copy of that book, you know what to do. Head over to our picture account, retweet this episode announcement with the words if I want answered, and you might be in with a chance of winning it. This has been such a great chat. Thank you. You've given such good advice to our listeners. We will put all of your contact details in the show notes. So if any of our listeners wanna get in touch and talk about some of the things we've discussed today. I know that you're always super help happy to talk to people. Kelly Molson: We've put the marketing playbook download in the show notes too. So, honestly, go and get a copy of that. I'm sure that Olly's not gonna let you have it for free for much longer, so grab it while you can. Before you have to give him an email. Ant Rawlins: And if you don't mind, Kelly, I'll be invoicing point about always happy to speak to people, but particularly have to speak to people of in a bit of a fix. I'm more than happy with the half hour count saying to you guys, do you know what? We'd be doing this, this is where I would go by the you just if it helps. Kelly Molson: There you go. Look. They're such good guys. Look at them. Ant Rawlins: I've learned this from my business partner, Simon. He's the nicest guy. Simon Jones is the nicest guy. I'm not very nice compared to him, but he just super nice. Kelly Molson: Yes. He is very nice. Ant Rawlins: There's a lovely industry. You know, there's a lot of nice people, isn't there, which is great. Is why a lot of us here probably know each other. We've spoken to each other, and we like each other. Kelly Molson: It's a lovely place to be. As is as you Skip the Queue and now, you'll Skip the Queue of them tonight. So well, welcome to the even lovely, a little segment within it. So thank you. It's been lovely to chat. You're a superstar. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Is the procurement process broken? With Sarah Bagg | 31 May 2023 | 00:47:55 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://reworkconsulting.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/sarahbagg/
Sarah Bagg I’ve spent 24 years working in the Attraction, Leisure, and Hospitality sectors, from hands-on front-of-house roles to senior commercial and operational positions, before honing my knowledge in ticketing/membership/Epos/CRM software. As a supplier, I led the strategy and delivery of sales and marketing, development roadmap, as well as client engagement and retention. Through ReWork I now combine the experiences and knowledge I gained as an operator, with those of a supplier. It’s these lived experiences, and dare I say it, navigating the bumps in the road, that provide clients with the knowledge and confidence to plan for future growth. ReWork helps leisure and attraction operators and software partners to get to where it needs to be quicker, with a clear focus on the long-term relationships that play a central role in commercial success. ReWork Consulting will help you find the optimum tech partnership.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Sarah Bagg from ReWork Consulting. We're talking about the procurement process and asking, is it broken? Sarah shares her top tips for both attractions and suppliers entering into a new process and we also discussed improving long standing partnerships. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: Hi, Sarah. Sarah Bagg: Hi, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue. It's lovely to have you here. Sarah Bagg: I know. Thank you for having me. Kelly Molson: We're going to start with some icebreakers. So I would like to know I like this one. What strange food pairings do you love that nobody else understands? Sarah Bagg: Oh, that's a good one. I don't know. It's probably not a food pairing anymore, but how you used to live off a budget when you're at uni and the strange things that used to have and I remember when I was really skinned, I used to have a bowl of couscous because you don't even need to cook that with ketchup and Worcester sauce. Kelly Molson: One, that is disgusting. Sarah Bagg: It's disgusting. Kelly Molson: But two, I'm laughing because mine also involves, like, a grain and ketchup as well. Sarah Bagg: Surely there's five a day in there somewhere. Kelly Molson: Ketchup is good for you. Of course it is, isn’t it? Sarah Bagg: It's bound to be. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Sarah Bagg: A bit of carbs. Kelly Molson: How gross. So mine is really similar, actually. So it was, you know, the bags of white rice that you can get that you put in the microwave. So one of them whack it in the microwave. A tin of tuna and ketchup. Sarah Bagg: Ketchup makes everything better. Kelly Molson: Protein goals. Sarah Bagg: Yeah. Your head is in that space where this requires washing our pizza. Bonus. Kelly Molson: Good. Just while we're on the topic of things that we ate, what about cold baked beans straight out of the tin? Yes, isn't it? Sarah Bagg: Yeah. When I was again at uni, we went to Prague on a trip and went on the coach. So it's like a marathon journey. And loads of us were eating cold beans. Kelly Molson: So delicious. It's the best thing ever. My daughter loves baked beans. She's baked bean fiend. But that is the first thing that as soon as that tin is opened, I'm getting a couple of spoons of those down. Right, good. Learnt a lot about each other there, didn't we? Sarah Bagg: We're on the same wavelength. Kelly Molson: Okay, attractions related. What are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop? I love this question. Sarah Bagg: I am a massive fan of postcards. Not because I send them anymore, because it feels a bit like and I mainly go I would say my choice of visitor attraction would be like a gallery immersive type of attraction and it always stays on my fridge. Or it's not just something. Maybe you can frame it and make it into a piece of artwork rather than some tap that's just plastic. Kelly Molson: That's nice. Thought you were going to start dissing rubbers then. Sarah Bagg: Big fan of fridge magnets, too. But they always have to be, like, of something that looks nice and tacked. Kelly Molson: Yeah, like a model of that. If you went to, like, a historic house. A model of the house. Good, postcards. And thought about that. That is quite a nice one, isn't it? Okay, last one. What one thing would you make a law that isn't one already? Sarah Bagg: Well, technically it is. It's about finding people, though. My biggest bugbear about anyone in life is dropping litter. I can't stand it. Makes me feel I turn into a big old moany person. I figure it's a good thing to moan about. It will be a way of being able to find people and find them on the spot for dropping letter. Kelly Molson: See, that is a thing, though, isn't it? But who does that? Who does it? Who does the finding? Yeah, that's a good one. Okay. Sarah Bagg: Because there's no point in having a law if you can't implement the law. There's signs all over the Brighton Seafront saying, “You'll get fined if you drop litter”. But who's the litter patrol person that's going up and down? Kelly Molson: There's a job there, isn't there? There's a job there. Good. Okay. Thank you very much. What is your unpopular opinion? Sarah Bagg: This might spit the room slightly. I guess that's the point of an unpopular opinion. It'd probably be unpopular for most marketing professionals and web designers. Watch out, Kelly. Absolutely hate pop ups on website. Kelly Molson: That's okay. I'm with you. Sarah Bagg: Absolutely hate them. They're, like, the worst invention. I don't understand why they're still on website. Like, I'm just browsing. I'm literally been on somebody's site for, like, barely 15 seconds, and you're asking me whether I want to subscribe to your newsletter about your company yet? Why are you asking me to subscribe to your website? Kelly Molson: Yeah. So there is a good user case for them. I hear where you're going. They are annoying, but there is a good use case for them. But I think it's about timing, isn't it? Sarah Bagg: Right, yeah. Kelly Molson: It's about time and place again. So not when someone's just come on and is browsing, but if they're in your blog right. And they're invested in some of the things that you're talking about, then absolutely. That's the time to with a little pop up. Sarah Bagg: Definitely. You're right. It's about timing rather than enough time to blink. There should be some way of it's, either certain pages or the time that you've been on. Kelly Molson: What are you annoying? Are the pop up adverts that you get on local newspaper websites? Have you ever gone on, there must be, like, a Brighton local news website. Sarah Bagg: Yeah, the Argos. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God. They just drive me insane to the point where you just can't read. You can't read the article. Sarah Bagg: No. Kelly Molson: I'm not okay with those. There you go. Well, let's see, listeners, let us know. Pop ups.No pop ups. Is Sarah's opinion that unpopular? We should see. Tell me about your background, Sarah. What have you’ve done previously and where that brings you to now? Sarah Bagg: So, I have spent ridiculous amount of years working in the leisure and hospitality and attractions industry. I don't say attractions because it hasn't just been attractions, but I guess before my management career, which started probably about when I was 23, I'm 46 now. Sarah Bagg: Keep on saying 45 for keeping forgetting I've added another year. I probably spent all my working life in leisure, hospitality and attractions. From the age of 15. I was working in Green Leisure, which is theme park in Somerset, where I grew up from, working in the Swan Theatre in High Wickham, where I went to uni, and then part time roles in Australia. When I was travelling in the Sydney Maritime Museum, I managed a hostel over there. Sarah Bagg: So I've always been in customer facing leisure operation roles. And then when I came back to the UK, after travelling, I moved straight to London. No offence to Somerset, I still love my home county, but I needed bright lights and excitement of London, and I guess you could say I honed my management craft and skills in the pub business. So I was a really young manager, I started working on nails, which is a whole I talk about that for about an hour. We haven't got that time, kind of by accident. And I remember a guy saying to me, look, if you're going to be here, I know this is a part time gig, but you might as well get trained in management while you're here. Sarah Bagg: And O'Neill's, for people that don't know it, and the overseas listeners, it's owned by a company called Mitchell's and Butler, so it's a big corporation and they used to have a very good management training programme, almost like fast track learning on the job, but also lots of assessments. And I think four months after I started, I was managing the pub that I took a part time job in. And it's a massive learning curve for managing stock, cash people, public drinking, massive issue, obviously, profit, events, you name it, you can learn it in the hospitality and pub business. And then after a few years working there, I went to Monopolis. Sarah Bagg: Again, people might not know it, but it's a wine tasting and events company in London Bridge, London, three and a half acre site, and I was head of operations there, and I looked after about 120 staff, my responsibility, and that led to me getting a role at Chelsea Football Club. So I, for about five and a half years, managed the stadium tours and museum there, as well as two Capex museum redevelopment projects. So, yeah, that was when did I leave chelsea, 2013, something like that. So I spent all of that time in sort of London, in that area and then went to sort of the supplier side. So I went to work for the visitor attraction company first. They were opening a series of attractions throughout the country. And I went in as a contractor, head of ops for them. Sarah Bagg: And then I went to the technical supplier side and worked for a UK ticketing provider. And initially I was doing some business consultancy for them and then the owner offered me a full time role that was sort of sales, marketing and customer success and I was there for about seven and a half years. And then got promoted to a directorship where I helped the owner in a more strategic direction of the company in terms of development, roadmap and recruitment strategies, et cetera. And that was up until April last year, actually, a year. Kelly Molson: Oh, it's a year, it's your year's. So Sarah and I, we met actually at your time at Tour. I think that's how we got talking, didn't we? Because we had a client that was using the system. Actually, I think that's how the conversation started. But you have branched out on your own as an independent consultant now and you doing that has kind of formed the topic of this conversation because it's kind of what you help your client base with. So tell us a little bit, the company is called ReWork. Tell us a little bit about what it is and who you work for. Sarah Bagg: Yeah, so maybe a little bit different to some consultancies that support attractions. I support attractions or leisure operators and tech suppliers. Basically the main aim is to increase revenue, grow their businesses, that's the end goal. But for attractions or leisure operators it could be procuring use solutions and finding the right partnership with whatever tech suppliers the requirements for. But it also might be helping them with their current partnership and improving it. Because my experience, the easy bit is the procurement, it's maintaining the partnership for the years to come where there's obviously lots of areas for improvement and many of the reasons why people jump ship deciding to go and find another supplier is because the relationship has gone down the swannie. And then with suppliers, I've been helping them with their sales and marketing strategy. Sarah Bagg: Either new suppliers that are coming into this market and want to understand visitor attractions better than the marketplace and where it stands or where there's improvements to be made, I think lots of suppliers, everyone's guilty of it. You get in your own headspace, don't you, of you keep on doing sales demos, you keep on doing processes and just take somebody that has an external view. As a consultant, you're in a perfect position because you get to see loads of attraction, loads of suppliers presenting and doing demonstrations and responding to RFIs and RFPs. So actually going in there and reviewing that process for them to improve their sales conversions is part of my offering. Kelly Molson: So we're going to talk about procurement today, and it is a word that I think probably fills suppliers and attractions with dread. It's a daunting process, it can be time consuming. It's kind of a necessary evil, isn't it? I'm a really realistic supplier in the sense that there's a lot of agencies out there. Well, there's a lot of agencies out there, and there's a lot of people that will advise you to not don't go through procurement process, don't do it, you shouldn't pitch for stuff. And one hand, I totally and utterly agree, because it is painful. And some of the things that make it painful, we'll talk about today. But unfortunately, it's a necessary evil in the sectors that we work in. Sarah Bagg: Yeah. Kelly Molson: It's the process that is followed and so you kind of have to play the game, but the procurement process has to be run in the right way. And I think that is why I believe that procurement process has broken down quite drastically over the last God knows how many years. Sarah Bagg: Yeah. And I think when some people, some suppliers say, I don't get involved in public procurement, for example, it's so labour intensive. I was involved in one which people were nameless not so long ago, and they were using the same kind of procurement processes as when I was involved with a supplier, maybe like I don't know, must be like, ten years ago, even references to things like fax machines. It's like, God, like you no one's updating this process from the government side things. Obviously, that's where they're getting their forms. But on the very flip side of that, you might have a private attraction, leisure operator, but I've seen procurement done on one sheet of A4. That's their basis of spending tens of thousands of pounds on a solution. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And neither makes sense. Right. So we have to find a process that works. So I feel we have to find a process that works and the whole industry adopts that process. That's what I think would be. Anyway, I want to ask you, what are the biggest challenges for an attraction when it comes to the procurement process? Sarah Bagg: Well, definitely, I don't know about top, but the most pressing one, which you get from whatever organisation takes it on, is time. It's very rare that you would ever find somebody that's like, "Right, I'm going to procure a new solution and I'm going to recruit a new member of staff to run that whole process for me", that just doesn't happen. Sarah Bagg: And then there's obviously downsides to that too, because that person doesn't understand the organisation. And yet that sometimes there's a perception that as soon as the solution goes live, that's it. It's fine, we don't need to put any time aside now. Maybe you've got an administrator or somebody that does administrating for the system, putting new tickets on or creating new events or retail items, but the emphasis on time suddenly goes, which I think is all wrong, because the partnership should start from the moment somebody says hello all the way through the life cycle of that. Kelly Molson: So you mean that relationship isn't managed past the point of the solution being implemented, that then the relationship isn't managed in the correct way. Sarah Bagg: And I know the term partnership gets floated about so much and some suppliers, it might be ticketing, but it might be something else entirely. Some do turn up and action things that make partnerships great, others just use that name as a selling point. But I think the key thing is that the person that's procuring the organisation, that's procuring the solution and working with that supplier and the supplier have a 50 - 50 ratio responsibility for making that partnership work. And I don't know if that is anywhere evidenced. I don't see any evidence of that within our sector. And I guess that's where I feel like I've got a good, I'm in a good position to see both sides because I'm working with the suppliers to hopefully raise the standards and I'm working with a leisure operation, Attractions, to raise the standards. Sarah Bagg: So hopefully, although I'm only one person right now, in time that will have some impact. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay. So biggest challenges for attractions we talked about, you mentioned time resource because lack of time and you potentially need someone to run this process for you that you don't have. And then the challenge of how to get the most out of that relationship once the solution has been implemented, it doesn't stop there. What about because you sit very much in between the attractions and the suppliers? What do you think are the biggest challenges when it comes to suppliers about the procurement process? Sarah Bagg: Well, I would say that they both have similar stresses. And the second one I was going to say, apart from time, is knowledge. There is maybe a lack of awareness about how much the process of procurement matters to the end result, as in who you're going to choose. Sarah Bagg: And that's about if a consultant is on board, you're expecting them to have market knowledge. So obviously awareness of the actual sector, but also market knowledge of what technology providers are out there and which are suited to that particular client, but also what process works the best to get the best result. And I don't think that emphasis is strong enough. And I think that also impacts the suppliers. Sarah Bagg: So if they don't have most of the time, they don't have any say, apart from maybe how they turn up to a demo about the process at all, and it totally impacts them and how they can perform. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I totally agree. A lot of the procurement processes that you are part of are for ticketing and for systems or platforms, maybe. And I kind of come at it. We're slightly different in that. Yes, it's a digital offering that we have, but it's a website, so it's it's more of a it's not like a plug and play kind of kind of thing. But I think the biggest challenge that I find is lack of conversation early. So give you an example. Tender comes in, a brief comes over, looks really exciting, looks absolutely up our street, read the brief. There's no opportunity for me to have a conversation with them about the brief. I can send questions, I can email questions over. Kelly Molson: So there is a dialogue, but it's not a way to it's not even about building relationship, if I'm honest. It's about that two way street. Kelly Molson: Should you be like, can you work, should you be finding out early enough if you gel? Is there a relationship there that could be developed? Kelly Molson: Are we right for you? Are you right for us? Kind of thing. I think the thing that I find the most frustrating about the process is that complete lack of conversation at the start of it. Sarah Bagg: And I think that opens up massive issues because I wrote a blog post, an article recently about I can't even say the word ambiguity. It's really a hard word to say because when you're relying on the written word, you read into things. Whereas actually, if you just get on a call and say, right, these suppliers, you don't need to names who ask what questions, but these are the answer to all those questions, and somebody then might say to you, "Oh, that's great, because that makes that much clearer. Can I ask another question?" And it's just there you clarify everything exactly really well, whereas you wouldn't be able to do that so easily. Back and forth, back and forth. Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly that point. And then the other one is open tenders. I've talked a lot about this, actually. Sophie Ballinger from Eureka came on, I think, last season, actually, season three, and we had a good talk about it. So Eureka is a client of ours. That's public knowledge. When we first started working with them, were lucky enough to have eyes on a tender that had been sent out, and it was a public tender. They put it out to they did send it to a few people, but anyone could find this tender and potentially put in a proposal for it, and that's what happened. So they had 40 tenders come back in, you know, 40 proposals for their brief. This is a weird one, in that were one of those 40. Kelly Molson: We'd been up to meet Eureka, we'd been up to see them and ask questions. They were really kind. They gave everybody that wanted time with them, time whether that was on the phone or in person. So it was a really good process. We got shortlisted and we won that tender. Right. So, in one hand, I can't knock that process because we have the opportunity to work with an incredible client that we still work with today. They're amazing. However, I questioned Sophie and said, "Would you do this massive open tender again?" Because surely, respectfully, you have to read 40 briefs, 40 responses that come back right, and evaluate them. That's a s*** load of work. Sarah Bagg: Yeah. Kelly Molson: It'd better to do your research first, pick, like, three or four that you think are a really good fit on paper for you. Do a little bit of groundwork and then just send it to those. Yeah, she was really torn because she was like, "Yes, one hand that would have been sensible, but then they wouldn't have found us through that process". And that's why I kind of raised it as I'm really torn about this, because we wouldn't have got that opportunity if it hadn't been an open tender. But also, does it work? I don't know if it works. Sarah Bagg: No, I know. I honestly believe that if you rush the process, even though you say you short time, you're only going to cause yourself more grief and you're investing in a system that isn't like a couple of hundred quid and you really want to be with them. I know technology is moving faster. And I could argue for the fact that these old legacy systems now, where they have the, “Oh, we've been working with this client for 15, 20 years”. Well, have you been doing a really great job, or is it just too much of a pain to change because it is so ingrained in your organisation? It's obviously all the cloud based solutions are much easier to sort and change over anyway, that's a side topic. Sarah Bagg: I think that if people can do a step by step process, whether you call it RFI or RFP, whatever, somebody said to me last year, "Sarah, I just don't have time to sit in. These suppliers want me to sit in on a demo for like, two and a half hours". And I was like, “Yeah, that's quite reasonable”. If you can't put time aside, and that means changing how your organisation is for weeks or months, whatever, to give you some support, or you bring in somebody that's going to help you through that process, you do need to put in time, otherwise you're going to be making the wrong decision. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I totally agree that two and a half hours seems quite insignificant in the grand scheme of things, that you're going to spend, like, potentially hundreds of thousands of pounds on this system over the year, that two and a half hours. You kind of really need to know if it will do what it says it does for you. Sarah Bagg: For people that don't really understand the market and how massive it is, even though whenever I talk to people about that aren't in our industry, and I tell them what ReWork does, they're like, "Wow, that's from a niche, isn't it?" And I'm like, "Yeah, it's amazing how we've got a niche of ticketing." And when I say ticketing, this obviously gets confusing sometimes, because ticketing does encompass membership, I call it retail. Catering does it? Because some organisations that are smaller want a system. They might call it a ticketing and CRM system, but it does everything if you went up a scale. And they might be looking at a best breed solution, which has got higher functionality in ticketing, but they don't have catering or retail, et cetera, and they might integrate to another best agreed solution. Sarah Bagg: But the market review I did earlier on this year for a global entertainment organisation had 25 ticketing suppliers to the visitor attraction sector. So with somebody that has no knowledge, how do you work out where that 24 are going to be shortlisted to the first stage, let alone second stage? And you might be missing out on an amazing supplier if you don't. Kelly Molson: Because you don't know how to evaluate from between them. Yeah, I hadn't thought about that. That's a really hugely daunting process and probably why people should use a consultant, Sarah. We talked a bit about that partnership piece. How do you evaluate what a good partnership is? Sarah Bagg: I briefly touched on it about the fact that people think about partnerships as the ongoing process, but it starts at the very point of contact. So whether that's me as a consultant doing a Q and A with some suppliers, I'm acting on behalf of that client at the end of the day. It's not, "Oh, you're a supplier" it's, "we turn up together, we're in this together." We, as attractions operators or leisure operators, understand some of the stresses that suppliers have to go through, and suppliers also understand the stresses and the challenges that the operator has to go through, because without being open and honest about your businesses, how are you going to be able to work together? Kelly Molson: Yes, good point, isn't it? You have to understand the intricacies of each other's businesses. And we probably don't do that enough, actually. There's been times in the past where we haven't asked enough of the right questions. Being brutally honest, I'm sure there's plenty of suppliers out there that have done exactly the same as us and we haven't understood the intricacies as well as we should have. So we do make sure that's a focus now, because if we don't, we can't build the solution that works for them and works for the level of understanding they have of certain technologies or just the level of resource that they have, like this thing that we're going to build for them. Do they actually have the internal capability to work with it? That's a question you need to ask. Kelly Molson: But what I guess we don't often do is flip that on its head. So we as suppliers probably don't go, "Well, look, this is our team, this is our capabilities." We also have X amount of suppliers and this is how our we just probably don't go into the level of detail that we need to about how we operate so that the attractions can understand maybe some of our limitations as well. Sarah Bagg: Exactly. And I think once a solution goes live, if you're talking at that kind of handover period between implementing and then going live, suppliers also need to discuss and make it's vitally important for them to make this partnership work. If they don't, they'll be losing that contract. So how can you put something in place? And it's not just saying, we'll do account meetings whenever you feel like it. What actual credentials can you put? There evaluation processes to say whether the partnership is working. And I know that suppliers issue SLAs, but then their SLAs, like, "Is the system down?" those kind of things. And that's not really about the partnership, that's about the solution actually working, like you're being paid on a service contract. Kelly Molson: So you mentioned SLAs. I'm laughing because one of my other bugbears is actually sometimes it's not just for instance, we work with attractions, we have a partnership with the attraction, but also we need a partnership with whatever ticketing solution they have. Right. Kelly Molson: Because we're controlling the website that their ticketing solution is attached to and to a certain extent vice versa if it's API driven. So we'll have our SLAs, ticketing provider will have their SLAs. Again, we don't know what they mean, but we get given it's with support and it's an SLA level of XYP and we're like, " Again, we don't know, but we get given it's with support and it's an SLA level of XYP and we're like, "Great, what does that mean? When do we get a reply then? Because the clients coming to us, there's an issue. Are we going to get a reply in an hour or is that a 16 hour?” I don't know. It's define what those SLAs are and actually share them with everybody. Sarah Bagg: Yeah, exactly. So if you took the example of like, say it wasn't all in one ticketing solution and it was best to breathe and there was a ticketing supplier, a retail supplier and an F and B supplier, you would want to know that all of those three know which, how they all operate. Kelly Molson: Yes. Sarah Bagg: Of the account meetings that you have them. Kelly Molson: I totally agree. This came up on a panel discussion at the Ticketing Professionals Conference a few weeks ago, didn't it, about who's in control of that user journey when it comes to ticketing and websites. And that was one thing that we kept saying, is actually, it's not about them and us. We all need to work together for the best solution for the client. And that does mean all speaking and all having those open conversations about stuff. Stuff goes wrong, it's always going to go wrong. But it's not about who's at fault here, it's about how do we rectify it and how do we make it not happen again. And you can't do that unless you've got all the right people in the room at the same time. Sarah Bagg: I go back to my days at O'Neill's, we used to have a mystery shopper scheme and it used to put on everyone on edge, like, "Is that the person that's shopper?" And it's like a snapshot of your business, wasn't it? It's like one visit every quarter and then suddenly you're given, like, this result and it's like, "Well, that's not really fair because most of the time, this may run really well. Why have I got 80%, 95 or whatever?" But if there was something in place that you could see over a period of time, not like, “Oh, the ticketing supplier isn't doing great this week”, every quarter you could sit down and say, "Here's the benchmarks, what are we doing well? What is Supply doing? Well what is the attraction doing well? Are they getting the responses back to me quickly enough?" Sarah Bagg: If a supplier has got an issue, an attraction has got an issue with the system, and they've reported it to support, for example, but they haven't been clear about what the issue is, then it causes frustration for the supplier because it's like emails back and forth or help desk portals with massive long lists of questions. So it does take the attraction also to turn up and give the right information for that supplier to investigate the issue properly. Kelly Molson: Yes, that is a very good point, actually. And that, I know, can be a challenge because attraction teams are often quite small. Sometimes ticketing can sit with marketing, sometimes Ticketing can sit with visitor experience, operations, and those teams are pulled here, there and everywhere. So, yeah, that's a very good point, is that there's an element of more triaging that needs to be done internally before it goes out to the ticketing or the web agency. And that comes down to good account management, right? Sarah Bagg: Yeah, 100%. And how you obviously there used to be a high turnover of staff. Now, at the moment, the recruitment is really hard for most attractions out there. How do you, with your supplier record issues, report back issues to management, make sure the member of staff that's actually using the system on the front desk is accountable to X, Y and Z, but that actually manages the partnership. So the structure within your organisation as an attraction really matters in terms of how the partnership works. Sarah Bagg: Because if you've got loads of casual staff on a Saturday and Sunday and the manager that manages the partnership doesn't work Saturday and Sunday, something needs to be in place for that communication to be clear and the supplier to get the right information and therefore investigate and get back to the person and the organisation as quickly as possible. So I just think it's a 50-50 level of responsibility, but we've always thought this kind of it feels like suppliers are down here somewhere and it's the client, you're up here just because one's paying for the other. Kelly Molson: Yeah, no, I get that and I've felt that in some circumstances, it's good to highlight that. Okay, few more questions. What would be your two top tips for attractions when it comes to the procurement process? Sarah Bagg: Definitely would be to if you want to get advice, and this should be for any consultant out there, too. Is that even if you don't think you need because you've got great team to manage the procurement process, get some external advice early, even if it's just like pay for one day's consultancy in the grand scheme of things, that's going to be like a tiny pin brick in the big budget. And it might allow you to go if you start the project, say, for instance, in 2022, and thought, I need a new system, but I can't afford it till 2023. Have the conversation with the consultant early. They all should be able to give you an indication of timelines. Sarah Bagg: So therefore, then you can work back and know when you've got to start the process, because no one everyone always underestimates how quickly time goes, holiday, absence. Then you've got to rely on getting all the suppliers ducks in a row in terms of organising demos and presentations. And then people within your organisation. Who is going to help you because you can't do it all on your own? Through the procurement process, you're going to be sick on holiday. You're going to be sick on holiday. Sarah Bagg: You've got a million other projects to go. There needs to be more than one person and ideally, it would be a project team, people, different departments, but somebody that is accountable to take that support and to take it forwards. Kelly Molson: Yeah, great tips. Same question for suppliers. What would be your two top tips for suppliers going through the process? Sarah Bagg: I think, in terms of procurement, listen to the brief and respond to the brief. Don't just put out some blanket template response. We increase sales by X to X so that when the references come up, you can go to that client and say, "They're saying that they've helped you increase sales by X." They're like, "Yeah, they did. The previous system was shocking and our relationships are really great now" because anyone can say, airy Fairy sells waffle, as I call it. Give the potential client some facts where you've actually helped. But even if you can, got two examples, that's better than just coming up with sales waffle, in my opinion. And I would say, get somebody to review your processes. Sarah Bagg: When I started working for Tor, in that consultancy period, I reviewed all of the tender processes that were going on in the organisation and in the end, obviously, I started working, so I had to put my words into practise. But I think getting somebody to look at it from an outside perspective, sitting in on some demonstrations and seeing it from a new perspective always helps. I'd probably say that, to be honest with you, for any organisation, occasionally, it sometimes takes a new person starting, doesn't it, to go, Why are we doing it this way? Kelly Molson: Yeah. Because we've always done it that way. Sarah Bagg: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Can't we do it a different way? Good advice. Yeah, I like that. And to be fair, you probably answered my last question is, why is it important to work with a consultant? You answered an element of that briefly in that get an outside pair of hands, getting outside view sorry, on what you're doing. Also, I guess you've got knowledge of systems that they may not be aware of, so you're keeping up to date with the current trends and the current things that are happening within the industry. What else would you say was a reason for working with a consultant? Sarah Bagg: Many people will think, "I can't afford a consultant", so they see it as a cost to the project. Whereas, and I know people will say, “Well, of course you're going to say this because you're a consultant”, but I've always thought consultancy and expert impartial advice is a cost saving because it's filling the gaps that you don't have. Like, even that global entertainment company didn't have ticketing expertise to be able to do a market review. They identified that in their business. So actually, if they had moved forwards without putting that step and getting that independent person involved, they wouldn't have been able to move forwards with clarity and reassurance that they're making the right decision. Kelly Molson: Yes. Sarah Bagg: And those decisions end up with lengthy contract terms unpicking a mess, which I'm sure everyone at home is nodding, going, "Oh, God, I've been there". Kelly Molson: For sure.Well, they make the decision that actually they don't have the time, capacity or the budget to go ahead with the project anyway, so there's that to consider too, isn't there? Offer what we call a discovery session, discovery workshop, which could be it's exactly what you were saying about getting someone in just to do a day or two consultancy with you to give you an overview of where you're at and what actually would be the right steps to move forward with. And that's kind of what we do as well. And it's a really good way of evaluating, actually, can you do this project at this point? Do you need to do it now? Do you need to put this on hold for six months? Do you need an X person in? Kelly Molson: Do you need this person to be in the role before you go ahead with this project so that's invaluable? Sarah Bagg: Or do you even need to do it at all? Because I think sometimes there's a tendency to have blinkers on, not because anyone's fault, but because you've just been dealing with the day to day grind and actually, has anyone tried to make this partnership work? I know it should be suppliers. So this is a shout out to all suppliers there. Don't sit back on your laurels with contracts. I heard somebody say a while ago, somebody that I met, a conference, they were like, "Oh, it's great, I haven't had to deal with my supplier for weeks, months now or something, ages." And I was like, "Is that a good thing? Is that a good thing that you haven't heard from your partner, ticketing partner, for such a long time?” Yes, it means the system's not down or whatever, but surely there should be more engagement. Sarah Bagg: Are you getting the most out of the system to engage with your customers and make you more money? Kelly Molson: Yeah, that to me says that isn't a healthy relationship, though. That sense I get from that is that you're hearing from them because stuff is going wrong. You're not hearing from them, so nothing's going wrong, but that's still not right. No, you should try and to engage and improve. Sarah Bagg: And I think this sort of sits outside procurement, but one thing leads to another. Is that my biggest piece of advice, and I said this at the Ticketing Business Forum the other week when I was asked that suppliers need to and whether it's ticketing or whatever is to really target decide which part of the market they are targeting and as I call it, pick a lane. Because I honestly don't believe you're trying to be everything to everyone is going to service the industry well. Your current clients will soon be left behind because they're not important enough anymore. Because another group is. Do you really have a big enough development team to service all these requirements from all stretches of our sector? And it doesn't help when you're trying to shortlist because all this supplier says they're everything to everyone. Sarah Bagg: How does that help anyone try and push if he wants to, I don't know, develop your membership area? Is that important to that supplier? In terms of their roadmap? Kelly Molson: Yeah. So niche within a niche, Sarah. That's what they say, niche within the niche. Sarah Bagg: There's enough suppliers out there, 24 plus that actually everyone could have a niche and everyone could be doing it really well and there won't be any niche or a flat there. Kelly Molson: That's good advice. And we don't need to send out RFPs to maybe four of them. Yes, all 24. Amazing. Thanks, Sarah. I could talk about this topic all day long. I think, as you're well aware, I've got lots to this conversation, but I would like to know what book you'd like to share about to our listeners. Sarah Bagg: For those of you that haven't probably seen on LinkedIn, I'm also a life coach and it feeds quite into a lot into consulting about how I ask my clients questions. And I love this book, it's all about time. It's called Four Thousand Weeks and it's about the average we have this time on the planet and how we should use the time. And what I love about it is it's like lots of time management books always like they make you try and let's eat out every minute and productivity hustle harder. I feel I'm like exhausted listening to, whereas this really takes quite a reflective view of what's important to you and take a step back and I think we can all learn massive lessons from that in this ever fast paced world that we live in. So, yeah, Four Thousand Weeks would be my recommendation. Kelly Molson: Great book. I like that. I think I might go and check that out there. I think I might go and check that out there. Not going to lie. Hectic is the word that I'll describe the beginning hectic and I could do with taking a bit of a step back and evaluating how I spend a lot of time. I'll add that to my list. Listeners, if you want to win a beam with the chance of winning a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words, I want Sarah's book, then you might just win it. Who knows, you might get lucky. So, it's been lovely to chat. Thank you. Sarah Bagg: Lovely to have me on. Kelly Molson: I will see you at an industry event very soon because we always bump into each other and it's always a pleasure. But yeah, thanks for coming on and sharing about the procurement process. We will link out to all of Sarah's contact details and her website in the show notes. So if you do want to get in touch for a chat book that day of consultancy, go ahead and do it. Sarah Bagg: Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Transformative Public Programming. How a bold approach has transformed the calendar at Chelsea Physic Garden. | 03 May 2023 | 00:44:24 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://twitter.com/ChelsPhysicGdn https://www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/frances-sampayo-6a4939100/
Frances Sampayo is the Deputy Director of Chelsea Physic Garden. In her day to day role she leads visitor experience, learning & public engagement, volunteering and interpretation. Ensuring that these areas are central to the organisations strategic vision. Frances has worked for galleries, museums, heritage attractions, palaces, and now a botanic garden. She brings to life completely unique events at each site, ensuring they are rooted in people. This includes visitors, staff and collaborators. For Frances, the places she works often have many barriers for visitors, and programming offers the chance to break these down. You may not feel a botanic garden is for you, but why not start with a music night instead? The more complicated and creative the event, the better.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode I speak with Frances Sampayo, Deputy Director (Visitor Experience) at the Chelsea Physic Garden. We discuss the transformative journey the garden has been on with it’s public programming calendar, and the exciting and unexpected outcomes that’s brought the organisation. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: Frances, it's so lovely to have you on the podcast. Thank you for coming to join me. Frances Sampayo: Oh, thank you so much. A longtime listener. So thrilled to be here. Kelly Molson: Always lovely to hear. Well, will you be thrilled after the icebreaker questions? Who knows? Let's go. Right, I want to know, when you go out for dinner, are you a starter and a main kind of gal or main and a pudding, or all three? I mean, you can have all three. Frances Sampayo: I think it's pudding, especially if it's Tiramisu. That's it. Decision made. Kelly Molson: Okay, so Tiramisu is on the menu. That's the one you're going for. That's it. That's the focus. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, I'd probably just have that over the main, to be honest. Kelly Molson: Do you know what? There is a pudding. Yeah. So there are pudding restaurants, though, aren't there, where you can go and yeah, there's one in Cambridge. I walked past it last week while were in town and it's basically just puddings. Frances Sampayo: Oh, great. Kelly Molson: You can have a main pudding, a starter pudding and a pudding. Frances Sampayo: I will never go there. That's too dangerous for me. But, yeah. Kelly Molson: Open invite to come and join me. I would go crumble all the way. Frances Sampayo: Oh, nice. Kelly Molson: Okay, good. If you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick? Frances Sampayo: Probably something really boring like sunblock, because I am so pale to that. That would be really handy for me. Kelly Molson: Well, we should all wear sunscreen. Very important. Doesn't matter about being pale. More important to not have skin cancer. Frances Sampayo: Very true. Very true. Kelly Molson: Okay, good. Final one. If you could be any fictional character, who would you like to be and why? Frances Sampayo: That is a great question. I would love to probably go into, like, a Regency novel, but I wouldn't want to be a main character. I'd probably just want to be someone on the sidelines who gets to see everything and just kind of fly on the wall and kind of see everything that's happening in these amazing worlds. Yeah, that would be great. I like it. Yeah. Kelly Molson: What's the draw to that kind of era? Is it the architecture? Is it the clothing? Frances Sampayo: Can I give a real kind of sector answer? Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Frances Sampayo: Part one would be we so often use as filming locations, so there's a lot of Regency dramas. That would be great to see something like this happening in one of these spaces. And the second is, I once duty managed a kind of 18th century themed party at a site I worked where everyone was in fancy dress from the era. And it was amazing sharing people were just sheivelling as the evening went on, stockings were falling down, men had rouge on, all of those amazing things. And just seeing that come to life was amazing. So I'd love to kind of get to see it kind of happening in actual Regency time period, as opposed to just kind of as an event in the 21st century. Kelly Molson: I love that. Really kind of sets the tone for what we're going to talk about today as well, the events. All right, that was an excellent answer. Thank you. Right, Frances, what is your unpopular opinion? Frances Sampayo: So I'm not a fan of false Jeopardy, which is a big component of reality TV, particularly cooking shows, where someone will take a bite of food and then just the camera pauses for what feels like five minutes and they do all the close up shots of everyone looking really tense, and I just, "Oh, I hate it". So I know it's something very popular, it's in all the reality TV shows, but I always skip that bit, look at my phone or do something else. Kelly Molson: Just get on with it. Just get on with it. Frances Sampayo: Get on with it. Kelly Molson: Or you don't we don't need the drama or the tense. Frances Sampayo: Just put this poor person out of their misery. And you think it's better than anything, like, I could have ever even imagined I cooked. And you just dragging this poor person's emotional journey out. So, yeah, just think just get over it. Just do it. Tell them whether it's good or not. Kelly Molson: I like it. Yeah, I would like that. I'd just like to know yes or no. Don't keep me hanging around. It's like it causes more anxiety than you need it to be. Kelly Molson: I'm definitely one of those people. If someone says, can we have a chat on Monday? I'm like, can we just do it now? Do we need to wait over the weekend? Is it good or is it bad? Because I will just think about this continuously now for the week. So let's just get it out of the way. Frances Sampayo: Let's do it now. Yeah. My team liked me to do if I book in a catch up. We had to catch up, good thing. Catch up, constructive thing, just to help. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that’s really useful. Frances Sampayo: Because, again, it is that forced Jeopardy thing of, "Yeah, oh, no, I've got to wait the whole weekend and I don't know what this meeting is about". “It's a good thing. Ten minutes. It's fine, don't worry.” Kelly Molson: That's a really good positive tip, isn't it? Yes, but what if it’s not a good day? Frances Sampayo: Then I'll call it something else. Kelly Molson: Okay. Catch up. Not okay. Frances Sampayo: Yes, catch up. It's all gone wrong. Kelly Molson: Okay, that is an excellent tip, I can say that. Share that with the team after our call. Thank you. We've got so much to talk about today. I'm really excited about this chat. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about what they can expect at the Chelsea Physic Garden and then just a little bit about what your role is as well? Frances Sampayo: So Chelsea Physic Garden is a four acre garden. We're in Chelsea, as the name suggests, and we've got over four and a half thousand plants that you can come and see. So we've got a living collection. Most collections in museums are behind glass, but us is living, we have to take care of it and we've got an amazing team of gardeners that do that. So we call ourselves London's oldest outdoor classroom because we've always been a place for people to come and learn about plants. So we've got a really fantastic learning team, but we've also got a really dynamic engagement programme, which helps people connect in different ways to plants, because it can be quite intimidating, I think, particularly if you grew up in a city you don't know much about nature, you might not have had a garden. Frances Sampayo: So we've got a really dynamic programme, giving people lots of different entry points. This year, we turned 350. So in September, we're opening glass houses that have all been restored with support of the National Heritage Fund. So if you're going to come and visit and you've got a restoration project coming up, September is a great time to come to the garden. But we always say, whatever day you come, that's the best day to come, because you're going to see something no one else gets to see, because flowers can change one day to the next 1 hour to the next. So it's a really special place to come and just connect with nature, really. So that's a bit about the garden now, a bit about my role. I've got quite a broad role. So we're a small site, we're a small team. Frances Sampayo: And I think when you have a small site and a small team, you get jobs that actually have quite a lot within their remit. So I, as Deputy Director of the organisation, was brought in to bring a cohesive visitor experience across the site. And that meant I lead different teams that look after all of our people touch points. So visitors learning, public engagement volunteers and then everything that sits behind that holistically to give people a great visit or to support them in a different way. So safety, security facilities interpretation, that comes under my remit as well, because it's supporting that visitor experience ultimately. So it's quite a kind of unique role. It's really dynamic. Every single day is different. Can go from planning our ten year strategy to what's going to happen in the next ten minutes because the toilets have all overflown. Frances Sampayo: So it's really dynamic role and just like the garden. So it's great fun here. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it sounds it as well. So I think that when we spoke a few weeks ago, I came away from the call just thinking, wow, the remit of what you have there is quite phenomenal, the different things that you can be doing all the time. But I also thought, what a privilege it must be to be there, because, like you say, it is a living museum and it just must be incredible to see it change, literally on a daily basis. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, it's amazing. So we're recording this just after our Easter weekend, and I had a great time on Sunday, were out in the garden helping people do their Planet Hero trail to learn about how to be more sustainable. And the tulips just got a little bit of sun and suddenly they all opened up and they were just really expressive, dancing kind of around, and then a cloud came over and they all closed up again and you just think, I don't have a garden, I didn't grow up with a garden, grew up in a flat. And so you just get to see things that you never get to see before. Frances Sampayo: And it's been a real privilege to get to learn how the garden operates over the year and to see there are plants now that I think I can't wait until May, because I'll get to see that in flower and it's really amazing. Kelly Molson: Wow. Well, that's kind of what we're going to talk about today, because as an organisation, you've been on a bit of a transformative journey with your public programming, and a lot of that is about kind of education and getting people to kind of understand what you have there and how things grow and how that all works together. But I kind of want to just go back and talk about, what the starting point for this journey? How did that come about, where did that start? Frances Sampayo: Yeah, and it really has been a journey. So I joined the garden back in 2018 and we had a really established programme of walks, talks and workshops. So quite a formal learning programme. And it was really great, really established, always sold well. And I went on a conference with LEAF, which is the London Environmental Education Forum, and as I was talking to people, they heard I was from Chelsea Physic Garden, and they go, “Oh, I love that workshop you do. We do one similar.” And I started to understand that actually, our programme had been an inspiration point for a lot of people, which is great, we love a bit of professional learning, but of course, that's our competitors. Frances Sampayo: So that was a starting point for me to think, we need to think about something new and then we have the kind of emergence of the experience economy. And we had retailers on the King's road, like Anthropology, running wreath making sessions, floristry sessions. And it really alerted me to the fact that, actually, if we didn't diversify our programme, if we didn't start thinking a bit differently, not only were our competitors going to catch up, but actually other sites that we would never have thought of as competitors because of the new kind of economic model. So, yeah, it was a really important moment for us to start thinking differently. Kelly Molson: That's crazy, isn't it? Because that's the comparison that was made quite a lot, I think, during and after the pandemic, is that attractions, you're now competing with things like Netflix, and you would never have considered that before. So that's really interesting to hear you make that kind of comparison to retail. And that's not something that I would have considered before either. Frances Sampayo: No, it was amazing. I wanted to sign up for a lot of these in person classes. I'm the kind of heritage person and I'm being taken by the retail model, so I've got to try and bring it back. So, yeah, that was a big starting point. And, yeah, as you say, kind of Netflix. You can sit and watch, you could sit on YouTube and just watch a plant grow and on a time lapse for 20 minutes and you say, “Oh, no, actually, you want to get out into nature. So how are we going to get those people here?” Kelly Molson: Yeah. So what kind of objectives did you set for the programme? Frances Sampayo: So I've got to be honest, I'm not the best at kind of setting formal objectives, particularly, I think, because this programme was really around culture change and I think whenever you bring people into doing a cultural shift within an organisation, they're going to bring new ideas. So I didn't set kind of formal objectives and say, we're going to achieve 20% increase in this or that. I've done that in other areas, but it didn't feel right to do that with our public programme. So what we did instead was talk about giving people more kind of creativity to create new programmes. So kind of, what can we do that's new that we haven't done before? What have you always really wanted to try but haven't been able to? Because this is the time for us to try and fail and learn and adapt. Frances Sampayo: And actually, what sits behind that the kind of team don't always pick up on, is you're introducing a feedback cycle and you're saying, actually, we're going to evaluate everything. And we haven't necessarily had that culture where we listen to what people responded to within our sessions that they liked, that they didn't like. So we wanted to start that feedback loop and then ultimately, we wanted to future proof our programme. So we need new audiences, we've got to diversify our model, become financially sustainable. So those are the kind of key areas I really wanted to push, but I didn't kind of set them as specific objectives. They all kind of developed naturally as more people get involved, we're able to expand the ambition. Frances Sampayo: And now, five years on, we've got our own public programme manager, so it's really become embedded and they're going to again challenge us and push us up a whole other level. So it's been really brilliant to let it grow, but set a kind, of course, I guess, for how we want to deliver it and how we want to change. Kelly Molson: I'm really interested to know what's changed. So what was a kind of typical programme previously and what does your programme look like now? Like, how brave have people been? Frances Sampayo: Yeah, we've been pretty brave. It's been a big change. So I think the first area where there's really been a shift is moving away from an academic forum. So being a learning space for 350 years, that really carried into our learning programme and all of our public programmes. So even sessions where were getting people to do botanical soap making, that started with a formal lecture, really, about what the botanicals were you were going to use, why they were so brilliant. So we've really shifted away from that and we put that same information into our sessions, but not in a formal way. It's much more informal, much more exciting, and people learn through connecting with the plant itself, as opposed to being told with a presentation and some slides, this is how brilliant lemon is, or things like that. Frances Sampayo: So that shift away from the academic has been really fundamental, but you might not necessarily notice that kind of straight away with the session that's more in terms of the content. We've also looked at our accessibility, so we've got a broader range of price points now, a broader range of length of sessions. So we used to have sessions that were a full day or a half day and that was it. Now people are a lot more time poor, so we've got some sessions that are an hour, some that are 2 hours, a full day or even multiple days, but people can select now what they want and there's a much better variety. So we're seeing we get a lot more visitors come onto a kind of two hour session instead of a four hour half day. Frances Sampayo: And our youth panel also talked to us about the different price points and making the journey a lot easier to buying a ticket. So we've got lower price points now. And also you don't have to buy a ticket to the garden on top of buying a ticket to an event, which has been a big shift. So those are kind of some behind the scenes things, which are pretty bold, but not the kind of glamorous thing. But in terms of that kind of more dynamic programming, we did a lot during the pandemic because of being an outdoor attraction, so we had some ideas that were kind of on the back burner that were able to bring forward. So were able to launch Plant Fair when outdoor retail returned, which was brilliant. Frances Sampayo: We were able to introduce a series of concerts on the lawn called The Lawn Session, so those music nights have stayed, and also Family Theatre, which we hadn't done before in the garden, so we now do that every year. So were able to bring in some really new programming, which was really bold for us as a site, because we hadn't really connected with those audiences or felt like audiences that would go to a music night would come to the garden. So that was really great fun. But the most bold programme we launched was our Dash of Lavender programme, so that's LGBTQ plus History Month celebration, and that happens in February. So we've got an exhibition in the garden and then lots of different events, from poetry nights to drawing workshops. Frances Sampayo: And this year, our volunteer guides also got involved and they launched tours around the garden to tell people more about LGBTQ history and horticulture, which was really fantastic, because that, again, is an example of growing support for the programme bit by bit, and people saying, “Okay, now I understand what this is. I want to get more involved.” And we've been supported through that by an amazing partner called Sixto, who runs Queer botany, who's just a great presence within the sector and doing amazing things. I'm sure everyone wants to work with them now, which is really frustrating for us. Frances Sampayo: We love Six, though, but, yeah, that's been the kind of most dynamic programme that we've introduced and has had the biggest impact, but because we'd done all of those smaller steps, that it felt like a really natural progression for the site to do this and it's been really accepted and understood. Whereas previously, if we'd said we're going to do a History Month celebrating LGBTQ plus individuals, people really wouldn't have understood it. So it's made a huge impact. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal to hear. It's really interesting. As you were talking, we just go back to the start of this section where you were talking about the soap making, and I thought, “Oh, that sounds really interesting. I'd probably like to do that.” But I probably wouldn't have booked onto the previous incarnation of it because I would have thought, "Maybe this is just a bit not for me". I'm kind of doing it because I'm interested in the fragrances and how you make them and that kind of side of it. I'm not sure I want to be lectured about the botanicals themselves, so it might put me off, so I guess it might put a lot of other people off. So have your audiences changed since you introduced the new programme? Kelly Molson: And it would be interesting to know if you set out and defined what you wanted those new audiences to be and how if you've achieved that. Frances Sampayo: Oh, great question. So we did do some kind of planning of new audiences and who we wanted to engage, but we also wanted to make sure we brought our existing audience and our members kind of along with us and make sure that they felt really taken care of. So, in terms of our existing audience, particularly our members, they're 50% of our visitor profile post pandemic, and they're predominantly white, female, cisgendered, able bodied, or potentially have kind of corrected sight through using glasses. They're retired. So that's our kind of core audience, if you will. So we wanted to make sure that we really supported them as well, so they have had some new benefits introduced, like a quiet hour at the garden in the morning, so kind of private access before everyone else comes in. Frances Sampayo: We also started running coffee mornings for them, social isolation is a really big challenge within the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea. So we've got some older members of our membership community, so that helps them get involved. And they also get early access to a lot of our member events or a lot of our public programme events. So they feel like they're getting a lot of special treatment, but it's a lot of stuff that we would have been doing anyway. And I think that's helped them kind of come with us on the journey as we've brought in a lot of new audiences. So people under 40, families, people living within walking distance of the garden within a 30 minutes catchment, that's actually really quite a disruptive audience to bring in against that traditional model. Frances Sampayo: So we've got people who live in Wandsworth, Lambeth, Vauxhall, all really local to us, who wouldn't see the garden as a place for them. We've got people living in Battersea who are part of the new, amazing community in Battersea with all these developments, but they've got the park right next to them and we're on the other side of the Thames, so why do they want to come here? So it's really helped us establish we are here for local people. We've got things that interest under 40s, we've got things that interest families, but throughout all of that, we've really considered how we're going to bring our core audience on that journey with us. So, yeah, we've tried to balance it, but it has really changed. Kelly Molson: Were you worried about how, when you talked about what your existing kind of demographic was for your members and your audience, were you quite worried about how they might react to some of the new ideas that you were bringing in? Frances Sampayo: I wasn't really worried, if I'm completely honest. I think I knew that we were going to take care of them and I knew that some people would appreciate that and some people would really enjoy coming into the garden for a quiet hour in the morning or coming to a coffee morning. So I knew that some of the visitors that are part of that membership community would really enjoy that. And I thought, if they don't, that is kind of up to them to self select and not come to the garden. But ultimately we have to change because you can't exist for 350 years by standing still. And I think that is quite brave, I think, to say that. And it's not dismissive of our kind of core audience or our existing audience, it's just saying there's space for everyone, there's space for more people here. Frances Sampayo: And if you're not okay with that, you've got your quiet hour, you can come then. We're trying to accommodate you. But actually, if you want to come to Chelsea History Festival weekend, where we've got circus performers and a military band in the garden, come along to that. That's great. You're going to really have a good time if you want. So we kind of accepted that we might lose some visitors and I, unfortunately, sometimes get complaints from people about, "I've ruined the garden or I've ruined the atmosphere", but for every complaint I get like that, I get 20, "I would never have come here if you weren't doing this. And I discovered the garden because you had a poetry evening and I thought that was amazing, or I came on the lawn sessions for a date and now I'm coming back to see the collection in the day." Frances Sampayo: So it really is worth it and you just have to be kind of resilient and true to what you're doing and why and stick to it, because we're kind of here for people and we want as many people to enjoy the garden as possible. So there has to be a bit of disruption and a bit of change. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I mean, we all like to say that we don't like change, though, don't we? You're always going to get somebody who really don't like change and it's really uncomfortable for them, but you can't stay the same for those people. How do you think? Because this has all happened over quite a short period of time, really, hasn't it? I mean, we can throw COVID into the mix and I think it goes without saying, really, that everybody became a bit braver during that time, because it was a time of, "Well, let's just try it. What else could go wrong?" Right? But what do you think that you've been able to kind of change and adapt so quickly? Frances Sampayo: Yeah, so I think it's all about people. We've got a really amazing team here and they're really committed to what we're doing. I kind of label it as persistent, professional radicalism, which people enjoy, but that's kind of what we're doing. We want to make change, so we have to be persistent. We'll consider the fact that some visitors might not like it, but others will, and we've got data to support us and then we're kind of radical because that's just what we're doing, being really bold as we approach things. And this team of people that I get to work with, really kind of support that and want to work in that way. At the start, weren't all saying we're being radical at work and we're being really bold. People weren't necessarily comfortable with that. Frances Sampayo: So there were a lot of conversations that needed to have with people around, giving them permission to explore new things and say, "What are you excited about that we've never done in the garden before, that you think would be really cool that you'd want to come to, or what do you want to do?" And gradually people started understanding that actually there was permission for them to try new things and to work in new ways. So one of the learning team really wanted to learn more about podcasting. So brilliant. There's a training course on podcast. You go on that, you tell me why it would be good for the garden and if you can convince me, I'll back you up and we'll make sure that we kind of get this going and get you the equipment you need and the space you need. Frances Sampayo: So were able to do that and now we've got a really great podcast that's available in all good podcast places that you can listen to about the garden and it helps people that aren't here connect with it. And that just came from a mad idea from one of the teams saying, "Actually, I'd really like to learn a bit more about this, and were able to just kind of go with it." So empowering the team has been really key to that. And then also for me, I'm really lucky that our director, Sue Medway is really supportive of kind of what we're doing. And our trustee board as well have kind of become used to me coming in and saying, “Oh, we're now teaching children how to make broomsticks for Halloween.” Kelly Molson: It's such a great idea. Frances Sampayo: So it's so great and it's a sustainable way of using twigs, things like that. So we use all kind of organic well, all materials from the garden. They learn how to make them and yeah, cool, they get to pretend that they've got magic powers and can fly around the garden, but also they can take that home, they can help with the housework, they know a bit more about sustainable cleaning, don't have to buy a new broom. So there's all kinds of things that we're doing and people have just kind of accepted now that we're going to do things a bit differently. And when they open their kind of board papers, there might be something a bit mad in there, but they really enjoy it. So it's great. Kelly Molson: That is a brilliant idea and it kind of sums up the ethos of the whole place, right? You're teaching children to do something really fun with the things that you have there and they're learning about sustainability. It's absolutely perfect. Yeah, I really love that. I should probably book onto that podcasting workshop that you talked about as well. Add that to my list of things to do. When we talked a few weeks ago as well, I think you mentioned, I think you kind of mentioned, like, the 80 20 rule that we talk about quite frequently. About 80% of what you do is kind of in fixed once the programme is decided, but you have that kind of 20% of flexibility where if something is relevant, you can go, “Hey, we've got a little bit of space here, let's put something on.” So it's nice to be able to have that level of flexibility and kind of agileness about what you do. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, definitely. So, again, when I first joined, actually, that was something that were kind of not confident in. So by November, the whole following year would be planned and then the walks, talks and workshops, leaflets that were produced would talk you through the whole year. So we'd printed the whole year in advance. That was it. This is the programme, we're sticking to it. So now we kind of print only kind of two or three months in advance. And we also use QR codes a lot to say just check our website for what's happening. And that really gives us the space to be agile. So we now programme 80% and then it gives us that space that if you pick up a really amazing phone call from someone, can do an event. Frances Sampayo: We get a lot of really interesting artistic projects, we also get some really amazing kind of sell out events and it's actually we've got to have capacity to run that event again because it was so popular. So, yeah, that's been a really big shift, is just having that kind of 80 20 and it also helps the team with capacity management, I think, because sometimes when we get approached for things like we had this really amazing approach for kind of a shadow puppet theatre to come into the garden and it was a really interesting opportunity for us. It would have been a bit of a kind of learning curve, but we just didn't have capacity. Frances Sampayo: And it was really good to be able to say to the team, “Actually, we've already factored in five new events in the next four months, so do we think that we can build this one in as well? Because those are five new events that we haven't run before.” So it just made us a bit more kind of structured in our decision making process of what we could take on and couldn't. And so that went on the back burner and we said we potentially be available in the future. But yeah, it just makes us have decisions that are kind of really grounded, I guess, from what I'm saying. It seems like we just say yes to everything, but sometimes we do say no and think about whether something's right for us or whether we've got capacity for it. And 80 20 has really helped. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that felt like a considered no, not a reflex no, but actually with other things that we have on, we don't need to do this right now. We'd love to, but we don't need to. And that's a good position to be in, to be able to make that kind of decision. I would love to know what you've learned about it all and what's the one thing that surprised you the most about the process that you've been through? Frances Sampayo: Well, I've learned a lot. It's been a really amazing journey and obviously I've learned a lot just about our collection and from our horticultural team. But aside from that, it's really been about listening to people that your team are going to make you better, they're going to make your programme better, and sometimes you have to listen to challenge and critique just as much as you have to listen to positivity. I think that gives you a lot to learn from. And again, that's that feedback cycle and loop from earlier, I think it's really important to be excited and that makes your team excited about things and want to go the extra mile and put in the energy that it takes to get these things off the ground. Really about empowerment, that's been the key to the success, is just having an empowered team. Frances Sampayo: And I think particularly recently, I've been reflecting on just how important it is to be grateful. And I think I've learned a lot about being grateful not only to the team, but also to our visitors and our audiences that come here and the fact that they've chosen to come to us and making sure that we're grateful for that. So those have kind of been some recent learnings that I've been reflecting on. And then in terms of surprise, well, I think something that I wish I could have used as my answer to your earlier question about objectives and kind of what you set out to achieve actually came as a surprise to me. Frances Sampayo: So we've had at least three staff members and more volunteers cite the public programme as the way that they discovered the garden and also as part of their motivation for joining and wanting to apply. Yeah, so it's been really interesting, and I wish that I'd kind of gone into it at the beginning and kind of said, "Well, yeah, well, this is going to lead to an increase in applicants for jobs and diversity of applicants for jobs", but I just didn't really consider it as an outcome. And it's been great. And actually, one of our Cafe team who cited the Dash of Lavender programme as a motivation for joining went so above and beyond. During Dash of Lavender this year, they had the inclusive pride flag all over. Frances Sampayo: We had a whole range of lavender themed, like macaroons and desserts, and they really took it to another level, because they felt like we, as an organisation, were accepting of this programme and therefore would just really support them to deliver what they felt was their interpretation of the programme. And we did, even if that did mean having to have lavender themed macaroons every day, which is a really hard life. Kelly Molson: That sounds really tough. Frances Sampayo: Oh, no, what a shame. But, yeah, it was just brilliant because they really took it and ran with it and that just makes us better and hopefully our visitors will enjoy that as well. But, yeah, that was completely unexpected. Kelly Molson: That's such an amazing outcome, isn't it? And like you said, completely unexpected that they've really taken ownership of it. They've taken ownership of the programme and put more into it than you ever could have imagined. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, because I could never have done that. And I think I'm really lucky every single day here, because I work with such amazing people. I get to say, "Oh, brilliant. I get to represent everything that people have done and achieved and come up with". And that's just one of those completely unexpected outcomes, which is delicious and great fun. I think they even created a cocktail for out of hours events that transformed. So the cocktail started pink and then they poured in a blue gin and then it turned into a lavender colour. Kelly Molson: They really thought about it. Frances Sampayo: It was amazing. And then the visitors that came here, it's just such an added benefit. So, yeah, creativity comes from everywhere and it's brilliant to see. Kelly Molson: That is brilliant. Yeah, that's another question, actually, is unexpected outcomes. So that was one of the unexpected outcomes, which you had no idea that it could have been an objective that was achieved. But there's been some other things that have come out of this as well, hasn't there? Can you tell us a little bit about them? Frances Sampayo: Yeah, and it comes back to that idea that 80 20 and just having space to pick up the phone and have those conversations. So we do a lot more working in collaboration than we've ever done before. And I think it's maybe because we've caught people's attention as a partner and people are interested in what we're doing now, not just from that kind of LEAF forum, but a lot more dynamic organisations, not just kind of botanically rooted organisations. So many plant puns. I have to apologise, it's just what. Happens when you want to kit. Kelly Molson: We're pun agnostic on this brilliant show. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, one of my favourite activities that we've launched is the Chelsea History Festival, which we run in collaboration with the National Army Museum and the Royal Hospital, which are our neighbours along the Royal Hospital road. And the three of our sites are really different. We have really different audience bases, but we've come together for this week long festival each year and because of that, we've had a military band in the garden that would never have happened if we didn't collaborate and weren't open to collaborating. We've seen a real kind of increase in visitors because of that. And what's been interesting is a lot of visitors go to the National Army Museum because they have a soft play, so there's a lot of families that go there who now come here afterwards, and so they're actually going to both sites.Yeah. Kelly Molson: Oh, that’s great. Frances Sampayo: Whereas before, they might have just gone to the Army Museum and not known that were here. So it's really brilliant for us to be doing that work in partnership. And the Royal Hospital are doing more and more to open up. Obviously, their primary function is to be a care home for the Chelsea Pensioners, that's their priority. But they are doing more to connect with the local community and so we're able to facilitate that, maybe host some things for them and just continue to work as a trio of sites as opposed to three independent institutions, which is really exciting moving forward. I think it's really going to change how we all operate. And so that's kind of one collaboration that we just wouldn't have happened if weren't open to working in that way. Frances Sampayo: And we've also launched Crossing the Floors with David Hingley, who's been on the podcast. I'm sure many people know that initiative to kind of link up front of house teams to get experience of working in different sites. Kelly Molson: Such a great idea. Frances Sampayo: It's such an amazing idea. And we're kind of completely different as a site, as an outdoor site. So a lot of people working in places might never have got to come to an outdoor site before. And they get to kind of see how we programme things, how we deliver activities in a very different way, very seasonal way, as opposed to kind of exhibition, programme driven. So that's been really interesting. And, yeah, other collaborations have just come from picking up the phone. We do a lot of work with the University of Westminster now to help blind and partially sighted people have a multisensory experience in a botanical garden, which doesn't sound you think? Well, yeah, of course it's multisensory being in a garden, but actually, you can't touch a lot of our collection. A lot of it's poisonous. Frances Sampayo: It's going to do you a lot of harm if you touch it. So, yeah, how do we kind of layer that in a safe way? So there's so much that can come from collaborating with different sites and, again, that just is going to improve everything we do here and we learn a lot. Kelly Molson: That's so good, isn't it? And I guess all of those things, by changing the programme, you've changed the profile of the garden and you've raised your kind of perception, or changed the perception of it to so many different audiences. And now those audiences will go to the attractions and the places that are next door to them, and yet you don't suffer any visitor loss from that. And likewise, because they're now coming to two of the different ones on the same day, it's just perfect. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, it's great. And hopefully in the future we'll be able to keep building on that as three sites and continue to work together. We're an independent charity, so every kind of penny we earn, we have to earn ourselves. NAM have got a different funding model, as have the Royal Hospital, so we've got a lot to learn as well from each other as organisations of how we approach things and what we need to consider, so it's even better for organisational learning as well. It's just going to help elevate everyone. And as you said earlier, I think people became a lot bolder following the pandemic in terms of sharing and wanting to help each other, whereas before were all very isolated, so that's really helped things. Kelly Molson: It's brilliant. Thank you for coming on to share this with us today. It's been so lovely to talk to you about it. We always ask our guests to share a book that they love, so have you prepared something for us today? Frances Sampayo: Yes, so that was a really hard question and I thought about the book that I've gifted the most. So last year I read Black Tudors by Miranda Kaufman. I don't know if anyone's recommended it previously. Kelly Molson: No, I don't think so. Frances Sampayo: So it's a really fantastic history book. And as someone who's worked at sites with kind of Tudor history in the past, it completely blew my mind to hear about how dynamic the range of black people were in Britain and beyond in the Tudor times, because we really don't get to hear about that. I think, kind of in traditional academic circles. So it's a great read and I think I gifted about five copies of it last year, so I think people would it's just brilliant and I hope someone gets to enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Well, listeners, as ever, if you want to listen, if you want to win a copy of Frances's book, you know what to do. Head over to our Twitter account. And if you retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Frances's book, then you might get the chance for us to gift you us to gift it to you, not Frances. She can save her pennies. Thank you so much for coming on. It's been such a pleasure. I don't know, you've sold it to me. I mean, I want to come and make a broomstick and some soap. Frances Sampayo: Yeah, soap and a broomstick. Kelly Molson: That's like my perfect day out. Frances Sampayo: That's our tagline for 2024, actually. Just visit garden. Soap and a broomstick. Kelly Molson: Sold. I'll order my ticket in advance. Thanks, Frances. Frances Sampayo: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| How to develop a creative career in the Theme Park industry - and the mindset you need for it, with Mark Lofthouse | 19 Apr 2023 | 00:52:48 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/miloft/ https://thebusinesscreative.com/
Mark Lofthouse is a themed entertainment creative and digital designer. During his 16-year career within the themed entertainment industry he's had the opportunities to work with theme parks, heritage sites and leisure facilities across Europe - creating fantastical experiences that wow audiences. His background spans varied roles from operations management of theme parks and head of business for a manufacturing business right through to the lead creative for scare mazes - this combination of creative and operational knowledge has helped him carve out a varied career that now sees him working with the biggest names in theme parks! The Business Creative are a Creative Agency specialising in entertainment experiences that connect an audience to a brand, in a real life environment.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative and hopefully always interesting. In today's episode, I speak with Mark Lofthouse, an Immersive experience specialist. We discuss the career path Mark took to work in the sector and the four pillars you need to succeed as a creative designer in the theme park industry. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: It is so good to have you on the podcast. I feel like we've been talking about doing this for ages and we're finally here. Welcome. Mark Lofthouse: Thank you so much. Yeah, it does seem like it has been forever ago, doesn't it? Actually, that we started talking, but we're here, life is good. That is all we can ask for. Kelly Molson: Exactly. And we're going to have a good chat and good things are going to come from it. But first, I need to ask you some icebreaker questions. So what ingredients would you go for in your perfect sandwich? Mark Lofthouse: You know what I'm a bit of a fan of? I like chicken, but spiced chicken. I love a bit of cake in my life, so I'd have that. I'd have jalapenos on it, turkey, bit of lettuce, some onions, a bit of chorizo, if they've got it. Yeah, but that's like my perfect sandwich. And lots of chipotle sauce. The Southwest chipotle sauce is like to die for. It's my favourite thing ever. Kelly Molson: I love it. Mark likes a bit of hot stuff there. Yeah, you had me at chorizo. Not going to lie, you had me at chorizo. All right. Okay, good. If you could enter the Olympics for anything, what would you be Olympic level at? And when I say anything, I'm saying, like, the Olympics could be, like you could be like the Olympic baker or like, the Olympic complaining champion. What would you be like Olympic level at? Mark Lofthouse: I think I'd be like maybe jumping to conclusions. I think something like napping. Do you know what I think? Genuinely think that would be the best Olympic sport ever, wouldn't it? Kelly Molson: Olympic level napping? Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, because you know what, I work that much and I'm always on the go all of the time when I have a nap, I feel like I'm the best person ever at napping. So I think I genuinely would be the best at that. I'd win gold. Kelly Molson: Are you like one of these people that a nap anywhere? If I said to you, now you can go and have a 20 minutes nap if you want, you'd be like, yeah, I've done. And 20 minutes later you'd wake up, because it would take for me if someone gave me 20 minutes nap. I'd be like, oh, I've got to think about that for a while. And then I'll lay down. But I might look at my phone and then I might get a five minute nap out of that 20 minutes. Mark Lofthouse: Yeah. If you give me the opportunity to go and have a nap because it doesn't come around very often, I will be very good at that. I'm a very efficient napper. Kelly Molson: Okay, good. I like that. Efficient napper. Olympic level napper. Mark Lofthouse: Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. Gold medal. Kelly Molson: All right, final icebreaker. I would like to know what your favourite visitor attraction is. It's a really horrible question that I ask people who come on a visitor attraction focused podcast, but I'm intrigued to know what yours is. Mark Lofthouse: Right, I have two kind of contrasting ones. I'm always a fan of theme parks and specifically Fantasy Land in Germany is probably my favourite. And I think it's because it's quite hard to get that true immersive, which obviously that word is batted around so much, but to get that true escapism feel is really difficult to come by. But the park seems to do it seamlessly and I think I've always been such a huge fan and in admiration as well, of what they managed to achieve. So that is one of them. But I also love going to kind off the beaten track places that you think, you know what, let's give it a go, let's go and try and do it. And then it becomes one of the best places to visit. Mark Lofthouse: So one of them, as much as it's a visual attraction, it's kind of a natural attraction as well. So the fairy pools in the Isle of Skye, now, it's becoming more and more popular because of Instagram, but it's literally just a little ravine that comes through off the mountain with water coming through it. And it was the best day out I've ever had. Literally spent the entire day jumping in and out of natural pools and waterfalls. And honestly, it was just the best visitor attraction I've been to. But it was such a natural setting. It was completely natural. Wasn't man made at all, apart from the car park, that was it. And it was just the best. So if you're ever in the Isle of Skye, you have to go and do it. Kelly Molson: That sounds absolutely a bit of me, Mark. What an amazing place. Mark Lofthouse: Yeah. And the photos that I've got are just the best as well. I love them. I love looking back at them. Kelly Molson: Instagrammable moments it is all about. Oh, good. All right.All right. I like that. Okay. Your unpopular opinion I'm going to feel. Mark Lofthouse: About for saying this, and my connections on LinkedIn, please don't judge me for saying it. My unpopular opinion is that I'm much more excited about the products and experiences that Universal are creating over Disney. I know that it is quite controversial. So, again, this is kind of splitting hers because I love both of the companies, but I think from a proposition point of view, that the level of detail, the type of attraction, type of experiences that Universal are working on as a creative team. Not just in the park, but now they're opening this Halloween Horror Nights experience in Las Vegas, where it's nowhere near their park and the new park that they're opening in the States as well. I think it's just so exciting for that company. They just seem to be growing and growing and opening new avenues of business. Mark Lofthouse: And I think I love Disney, and that is an understatement. But I'm so much more excited about what Universal are putting out there at the moment. But it is an incredibly unpopular opinion when you voice that because there is such this tribe mentality between Universal and Disney. But there we go. I've said it. It's out there. Kelly Molson: All right, listeners, we need to know what your opinion is on Mark's. Are you agreeing with them or is this an unpopular opinion? Tweet us and let us know. Brave man, Mark, for the industry that you work in, brave. Mark Lofthouse: I probably just shot myself in the foot there. Kelly Molson: Maybe a tiny bit, but tell us what you do. Mark Lofthouse: I kind of a jack of all trades when it comes to visitor attractions and themed attractions, really. So, by heart, I'm a creative. I've been based in this for about 16 years now, working as a freelance creative for theme parks, heritage sites, leisure facilities. And that will be anything from coming up with marketing material, graphic design, digital design, right through to project management, event management, and overseeing creative concepts for them specifically in events, primarily. So, yeah, I've been doing that for 16 years now. So it covers such a wide variety of things to do. So one day I might be working with the Business Creative, who's an amazing creative agency who I work with a lot, and coming up with kind of concepts for Haven and Tui and these kind of leisure facilities. Mark Lofthouse: But then the day after, I might be working on a terrifying horror attraction in the USA, coming up with a branding, coming up with the proposition and what that is. So it's so varied, the work that I do, but I'm kind of an operational mindset in a creative body is the best way to explain it. Kelly Molson: It's a really weird combination. When we first got into contact, I kind of very much saw you as like a designer, like a graphic designer kind of thing. And I was like, “Oh, well, I can really relate to some of the stuff that you do because that was my background as well”. And then when we started talking, I was like, gosh, your role is really complex and quite unique in what you do. Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, absolutely. I think I've kind of just collected skills over the time that I've been working. So it's things from I've been a digital designer for a company and that's all I did. I created Decks, I did graphic design for companies and then the job I got after that was the operations manager of a theme park. So it's just that leap and that jump is really hard to explain to people. But I've got quite analytical mind and I've got quite a, like three put is my thing at theme park. So always having to look at efficiencies, especially in operations. So it was really weird for me to take the leap from creator to go, “do you know what, I'm going to go and do that”. And I just did it. Mark Lofthouse: I took a leap of faith, did it, thought I could do it, and it turned out really well for me. And it was such a I learned so many skills by doing it that it's kind of second nature now. So I've got a kind of desired skill set, which is operational mindset, but somebody who understands creative, who also understands the operations of it. Because it's the same with many companies where you have these incredible creative people who work there but it's really hard for them to understand how their creative idea can actually form a live experience because it's so different to go yet that works creatively on a piece of paper or on a computer. But then to actually go, well, that won't work because the corridors are too narrow to have that amount of guests passing through it and things. Mark Lofthouse: Whereas I kind of do all of it from beginning to end, which is a lot of work. But no, it's really good. It's just things that I've started to pick up and do and it's just kind of second age of doing now. It's just what I know. I don't know how to do any different apart from do that really it's brilliant. Kelly Molson: And I love talking to people about how they take their skills and how those skills kind of form their wiggly career path. What we're going to talk about today is about developing a creative career in theme park industry. And we're going touch a little bit on the mindset that you probably need for that as well. So my creative career started at I was at school. I had to pick what I wanted to do for my GCSEs. There was a media studies module that I was like, "Oh, this is really interesting for me". So there was an element of design. I was always kind of like into art very much on the kind of design, like the graphics and kind of illustration side. So there was a graphic design module, there was a photography module. There was like a media studies module. Kelly Molson: So I guess it was like really early filmmaking and things like that and all of those things. I was like, "Yeah, this is great". On from my GCSEs, I then focused on graphic design. So went to the local college, did my BTEC National Diploma. And then after you did that, I could either go and do the HND which was you apply to go to university or back then, this is quite a long time ago. It wasn't as difficult to get junior designer roles without those qualifications. So you could kind of, “What do you want to do? Do you want to go and do another couple of years at Uni or do you want to go and get a job? Kelly Molson: And I chose to go and get a job and kind of then my career went blah, blah, and we can talk about that another time. How did you with your mixed kind of bag of skills, how did you kind of start your creative career? Mark Lofthouse: It's really scary how similar we both are. So I in school was the same, got to buy options. I'd always since being a child, I've been obsessed with theme parks, always. And it always takes back to I always remember going to it was when Morecambe Frontierland was open, so we're talking early 90s. And I've got such strong core memories from that time going to theme parks. We used to go there quite a lot. Every summer we used to head over that way to the lakes and I've always been obsessed with it, so I always knew when I was in school I wanted to get involved somehow. Don't know how, I couldn't even predict how that was going to happen, but I was going to be involved. I was determined. Mark Lofthouse: I knew I was going to be involved within the themed attraction industry specifically. Don't know how, but I got to choose my options same as you pick graphic design, because I knew I was all right with the computer, I knew what I was doing, kind of found the way around. I did my entire coursework. Everything was on a theme park, branding theme park, obviously branding a theme park, currently park, marks park, collateral and that type of thing. I did really bad in my GCSE, I will admit. I didn't do the best. I didn't knuckle down when I needed to. I didn't spend the time regrettably. I wish I would have, I wish I'd have kind of focused more now, but I'm not hugely academic. I like to learn through experience and I do think it's just a mix, isn't it? Whether you're one or the other? Kelly Molson: Well, yeah, it is. And actually it's okay if you don't do that well in your GCSEs. And I think what we're going to talk about proves that it's absolutely okay to not do that well in your GCSEs. Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. I've got two cousins at the moment and they're kind of going through that struggle, go with the like, “Oh, we did really well, but we can't find this and that and the other”. I'm like, everything works out. Everything happens for a reason. Everything works out. I'm a firm believer in it. Set school didn't do the best. And then I was like, right, I'm going to go to the local college. I did media production, funnily enough, and it was during them two years that I realised I hated it and didn't want to do it anymore. I finished, I got my coursework, but I was in that weird time there where I went, “What now what do I do? Where do I go? I didn't want to go to university”. I said, I'm not academic, didn't want to go. Mark Lofthouse: But what I had been doing, kind of simultaneous with the college work, was I got in touch with a company who produced Halloween attractions, because I love theme parks, I love Halloween events, halloween is my favourite time of year. So I got in touch with a company who was kind of prevalent in the UK, and they still are, called Atmosphere Scare Entertainment, and they just produce Halloween events primarily for clients all over Europe. And I got in touch with them and I became a performer for them for one Halloween, which was literally me sitting in some sheets, jumping out of people. That's my extent of performance. Everyone's got to start somewhere. Mark Lofthouse: But I got hooked and I got hooked into seeing visitors reactions to something that you'd worked on, something that you did and how you interacted with that, and I got really hooked in it. So I then got my qualifications, left college and then just started working with the company more and more. So it became I was a performer for the first year and then I had a bit of design work the year after. Bit more, bit more, and eventually ended up scaling up to I was working freelance for them, but I was the Deputy Creative Director of the company by the age of 21. Kelly Molson: Gosh, wow. Yeah, that's a great turnaround from someone a minute ago was like, I did really badly in my GCSE. I'm Deputy Creative Director by 21. Mark Lofthouse: The only thing that got me there was well, it was two things. And it was that undetermination. I knew I was going to do it. I enjoyed doing the work I was doing, I don't know, the same as everyone. When you enjoy doing something, you put more of yourself into it. There's a really beautiful Greek phrase called Meraki, which is to put yourself so much into something that it becomes part of you. And it's kind of just a philosophy I've always run with and I love the idea of it. So I kind of just scaled up with the company and that was kind of it. And that's how it happened. I left the company in 2017, I think it was where I became the event manager of a safari park, just because I had kind of event background and knew what I was doing. Mark Lofthouse: And then I had the opportunity after two years to go to Dreamland Margate to look at operations and have a look at guest experience. And I moved all the way down to Margate, lived in there for a season until the end of 2019 and then came home and the inevitable happened in February. So what happened to themed attraction? Isn't sure. What happened to entertainment? It just ceased to exist, obviously, when the pandemic hit. So I became the business operations manager of a manufacturing business, which I never thought I'd do, which was manufacturing hand sanitising liquid, which as you can imagine during that period was a very difficult job to be in. So, yeah, I did that and then that kind of leads me up to where I am now. Mark Lofthouse: I started working with the business creative a year back, looking after sort of the operations creative operations, and then now I'm a creative partner with them. So I develop the concepts, I work on branding, I work on decks, proposals, that type of thing for them, and help them kind of get into new business avenues, which themed entertainment, Immersive Entertainment, Immersive Theatre is primarily one that we're looking at. So that's kind of a little bit of a whirlwind tour of me. Kelly Molson: Gosh, I love that. Yeah, that's been really wiggly, isn’t it, if we're talking about a wiggly career. What I liked is that one of my questions was going to be, did you always think that you would work in the sector, but obviously from a really early age you were quite focused on that was going to be your thing. And I think it's really interesting because a lot of it's not. It's definitely not what I did. I didn't ever think I thought I wanted to be a designer and I'd love to be a graphic designer, but I never actually pinpointed a specific sector or a specific role, even within graphic design. And it's interesting how something that you've focused on can really define where your career goes. Kelly Molson: But even if you don't, actually, you can kind of come to it a little bit later with the skill set that you gain along the way. Because if I look back now, if I hadn't worked in all the different roles that I had, I probably wouldn't have made it to running my own agency because I wouldn't have had the kind of variety of skill set that I needed to kind of do that, and I wouldn't have seen all the different ways that certain agencies run and how they operate to be able to get to that point. Mark Lofthouse: Definitely. I think you can't learn enough. You can always absorb, you can always take advice, you can always work on yourself. And I think you don't know who you're going to bump into along the way. Like, there's some clients that when I was 17 and 18, doing graphic designs from my laptop on my knee when I was watching TV, like, we've all been there. Some clients I met there are now just incredibly huge companies who are doing entertainment around the world. And I think you don't know who you're going to bump into. You've just got to make sure that you're presenting your positive, happy, good, self and reliable to work with. Because, trust me, the person you meet when you're 17, you don't know where they're going to be in ten years. Mark Lofthouse: They could be owning the biggest company on earth and you don't know. And I just think it's so important to make sure that any connections that you make, you try to keep them good. You try to keep a good connection with people, because you definitely meet people who you would never expect to see them again. But actually, they probably hire your services again in the future, or you might hire those. So it's so key, I think, just absorb and learn everything you possibly can from people. And so important. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So it's not just about what you're learning, it's about the connections that you're making along the way as well. That's really important from asking for feedback and asking for support from people. What I wanted to ask is, what kind of support did you get along the way? So you spoke really highly of your kind of ex manager that really supported you into that role at a considerably young age to be in that role. What kind of things did they do to support you on that journey? Mark Lofthouse: I think a lot of it was belief that actually they just believed in what I was doing. They believed that I could do that for the company and help them as well. And I think a lot of the time they mentor me. So actually, when I was designing things, when I was 19, 20, before I started getting more involved in it, I designed things a certain way, like, for example, a Halloween attraction, I'd be designing it and I'd think it was the most terrifying, scary thing ever. And it just wasn't realistic and feasible to deliver at all. And actually, I learned so much from them putting a helping hand on my shoulder and guiding me through that process and going, “Actually, if you change this way, it'll work, because this and this.” Mark Lofthouse: And I think having that mentorship from people and it wasn't just him. I've had it kind of through my life, and I know I've been fortunate to have that with people. But I think if you put yourself out there and say, “I need guidance, I need help,” the good people will come through and help you with it. And absolutely, I think we all work in this quite niche and small industry, and I know that there is competition for seeing companies, not a lot, but why not help people in need? And I think we've got this new generation of amazing artists coming through the ranks at the moment who have got a really good tech mind as well. And I think we need to nurture what they have. They've got this mindset that a lot of us don't have. We need to nurture that talent. Mark Lofthouse: We need to grow with it and help them out because they'll help us learn as well. I think it's just this whole learning circle that you might be helping someone, you might be, I was getting help at a certain age, but actually, then when I started to go back to say, but why are you doing it that way? And I kind of questioned, then he learned from me that way as well. And I think it's really key that actually it is a learning circle where if you question things as well, it really helps. And I think to kind of answer your question, I have been very fortunate. Mark Lofthouse: I know that I've had this kind of support throughout my career with people in so many different wide variety of industry, but it's about reaching out and connecting with them because how do they know that you need help? How do they know that you're there? You can't have this fear at all about connecting with people. And I've noticed, especially with on LinkedIn, people who are just coming out of university, people who are just going into university, they'll reach out on LinkedIn and say, "Can I have help with this?" Mark Lofthouse: Or "I didn't really want to ask, but can we just have a call?" And I was like, "Yeah, absolutely, go for it." Because I was in that position once and I think we all were. Mark Lofthouse: We've all had somebody who helps us in bad situations and I think we need to put that back out there because there's this kind of disconnect at the moment and it needs to go. We all need to help each other as much as possible to navigate the murky waters that we're currently in. Kelly Molson: Yeah, you're absolutely right. You've just reminded me of something that we spoke about when Danielle and Ross from Drayton Manor were on a few episodes back in. Danielle, she was super focused and she always knew that she wanted to work in the attraction sector, but she told a story about how she just basically just connected with everyone and anyone and everyone that she thought she could on LinkedIn in that sector and just asked them, just ask them for support. " "Can I come and do this for you? Can I come and do this? Or have you got any jobs? I'm really good at this. Help me." And I think that took me back a bit because I was like, it's absolutely the right thing to do. But how many, I think she was 17 at the time. How many 17 year olds would do that now? How many of them would put themselves out there to actually do that? And I think it's a good message to promote because somebody will help you. Of ten people that you contact, a couple of them will come back to you, right? That's a really good response rate and you will get that next step further along towards what you're trying to achieve. Mark Lofthouse: What's the worst that could happen? They ignore your message. Kelly Molson: Exactly. Mark Lofthouse: It's not the end of the world. You want to see my LinkedIn. If I want to connect with someone, or if I want to find out something or see if there's any collaboration efforts, I message every single person I want to connect with. Because why not? What is the worst that can happen? Someone's going to go, “Not today”. Doesn't affect me. Kelly Molson: It's what the platform's for connecting and chatting? Yeah, I've just done exactly the same. So a couple of weeks ago, I sent out about 30 DMs to people, all people that I'm connected with, but we've just never spoken. And I'm like, "Why have we never spoken? We should like, let's grab a virtual coffee." I've got calls booked in with, like, 15 of those people. I mean, shout out to the other 15 people who have ignored me, but, you know, that's fine. Like, what's the worst that can happen? They don't come back to you. People are busy, like, they're not always going to respond, but you might just hear at the right time with the right person. I've got a brilliant oh, my God, I've got a brilliant case study of that. Kelly Molson: So when we first started this podcast so we started this podcast in the middle of 2019. We did the first episode and that first season ran until, I think it was a thing, until the February March of 2020. And then were like, "Oh, my God, the world has ended. What is going on? Is anyone going to listen to a podcast without visitor attractions?" They're all shut and I was like, "no, actually, do you know what? People need something now. They need something uplifting, actually. If I can get people on that are willing to talk about the exact experience that they're going for, now, this is perfect, right? That's going to help loads of people.” Kelly Molson: And the people that I reached out to, genuinely, I was sending emails going, oh, God, I feel sick sending that email. They're going to look at it and go, who the h*** are they? Like, why would I go on your podcast? Everybody said yes. Honestly, everybody said yes. I messaged Lee Cockerel, the Ex VP of Disney on LinkedIn, and said, "Listen, just massive fan. We've got this podcast. Would you be up for chatting on it? It would mean the world to us." And he was like, "Yeah, absolutely." I could not believe it. Couldn't believe it. So you just take a chance. Mark Lofthouse: Do you know what? I think the fear of the unknown is worse than the fear of clicking send on a message and you need to get over it. Everyone does. And I think I've been in that position. I was. Like, "Oh, my, I can't connect with that. Imagine you're at Disney." That is, just say no. And I think putting yourself out there is so important. I think there's obviously little tips and tricks that you can do on LinkedIn, but I do think you just need to put yourself out there and I think people will more than likely help and I think everyone's going to somewhere. And I think my advice for people starting in the industry wanting to get into it is connect with people, chat with people, ask for 10 or 15 minutes of their time. Mark Lofthouse: It's not a lot to jump on a call and if people say no, that's absolutely fine, move on to somebody else. I'll just do what we do and copy and paste the message and send it to loads of people. I'm joking. I don't really do that. Kelly Molson: I personalise all of my messages, Mark, thank you. Mark Lofthouse: I do. Kelly Molson: You’ve defined that you have 4 pillars that you think you need to succeed in the industry. And I really want to talk about this. So we've got mindset, hard work, creativity and feedback. And we've talked a little bit about feedback, but I do want to come circle back to that. Can you kind of just talk us through those four pillars and explain kind of what you mean about those and why they're important for succeeding in a creative role in the theme park industry? Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, absolutely. I think we'll start with mindset. Let's face it, we're kind of in a doom and gloom place at the moment, where you read the news, you're in this dark place with the news, all you see online is social media, people representing themselves a certain way. You compare yourself to them. I think, especially in a creative world, you've got to take yourself out of your ordinary life, mindset wise. So if you're coming up with ideas, you're coming up with creative concepts. Forget everything that you know, forget everything that is going on in the world and just put yourself out there with it. I think it's so difficult as well. We all go through bad spells with our mental health, don't we? You think, nothing's getting done, I'm facing that brick wall. You will overcome it. Mark Lofthouse: And I think it's so easy, especially in the creative world, that when you get to a mental block, you can get really defeated by it. You think, I'm just not very good at this. I just don't know what I'm doing. I can't get over this. I've had it a couple of times with some storylines that I've been trying to write, some narratives that I've been trying to write, and it just won't come out. I know what I want to get to, I know where I want to get to, I can't get there. And then I had this kind of brainwave I used to get in really dark mindsets where I was thinking, “I'm not good at this anymore, I'm just going to give it up, I'm going to go, I'm working a supermarket, something, I just don't want to do it anymore”. Mark Lofthouse: And actually, I got into the mindset of, “Put it down, walk away, come back in ten minutes”. And it really helped me. And I know it sounds ridiculous, I know everyone's going to be thinking, well, obviously, but when you're especially when I was freelance, if I walked every ten minutes, I saw that as pound signs above my head, that was time gone, that was money wasted. But I was probably losing more money sitting there getting aggravated at my computer, staring at a blank screen than what I would be if I come back in ten minutes, refreshed, had a drink, had something to eat, and I was in a better place. So I think from a mindset perspective, if you're not feeling it that day, creative work, that's fine, just do something else. Mark Lofthouse: If you're not feeling creative, why not start working on an Excel sheet? Because a lot of the time, I find specifically for me, if I'm not feeling creative, I need to do something operations wise, or I need to do something finance or something that separates, exactly that. And even if you're literally doing something that is completely relevant, it's not actually anything that you should be doing. It really helps you separate yourself and then you get back straight into it. So I think from a mindset perspective, it's to analyse where you are. If you're not feeling it, go away for ten or 15 minutes, go back to it, otherwise you're going to waste a lot more time by sitting there doing that. Does that make sense? Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Great advice. Mine's always just get outside. It feels like you get like that brain fog where you feel like nothing that you're doing is heading you in the right direction that day. So mind is always like, yes, get away from the desk, stick your head outside, take the dog out for a walk. If you happen to have a dog and a cat. Mark Lofthouse: That's literally what I do. I've got a dog, I take him out for 5-10 minutes just around the block, or I get the lizard out and play with I'll show you the lizard a bit, but I've got a lizard and I get him out and play with him in the front room. I just use something to separate myself. I know that sounds like euphemism. It is, genuinely. I'm just going to put that. Kelly Molson: Pet podcast - we had Matthew on with Bug the Owl last week. Now we've got Mark and his bearded dragon. I've obviously put something out in the universe about guests with strange pets. Mark Lofthouse: We need more animals in our lives. Don't we need more animals? Kelly Molson: I totally agree, Mark. Yeah, good one. I love that. Okay, so hard work. Next one. Mark Lofthouse: It's not easy if you want to get involved in the creative world, it is not easy. And I'm not going to sell this under any illusion that it's an easy task to do. You're going to sit in an office, draw a couple of bits, and then you go home and get paid a lot of money. That's not how it works. I'm quite transparent as a person. I'm more than happy to tell people that because I think I was naive when I started, especially graphic design wise. I thought, it's great. I can sit at home. I can just do a couple of designs per week, and I'm done. That's not how it works. It really isn't. And I learned that quite quickly. Mark Lofthouse: And I think a lot of some people coming into this industry that I've met kind of are under either that illusion or under the mindset of, this would be great. I'm just going to be creative, and I'm going to have fun with work. Yes, it is fun, but there's a lot of hard work you need to put in. I think when I was starting out especially, it's really hard. Y You can prove that, you can write things. You can prove that you are good at customer service. How do you prove that you're creative? It's a really hard one to do. And I think when I started this, I started originally when I was 15, 16, when I started putting myself out there a little bit. But when I was 16, I used to think, "oh, this is fine. People are just going to believe that I've created". And it was a genuine mentality that went through my head. I was like, this is going to believe it. Yeah, this is going to know that isn't the case at all. Mark Lofthouse: And I think I had to put myself out there so much that I ended up doing fake case studies, not representing that they were real, but just to show what I could do. So I put together some propositions for attractions. I did a lot of concept artwork. I ended up spending so much time that I became a full time job for a little bit that I was just putting myself out there on a piece of paper, because how else are you going to get a buy in? Mark Lofthouse: And I think that's a lot of people kind of forget that with companies that they're purchasing your services. It is a business transaction, in essence, as well. So they've got to believe that you can do what you can do. If you went to Pesco and it was an empty wrapper and you took it out and you just had to believe that there was a sandwich in that, for example. Doesn't work that way, does it? You've got to prove that you can do what you can do. And my recommendation to anybody getting in it is spend time to work on your portfolio, spend time to work on creative concepts. Nobody might buy them. Mark Lofthouse: I still, to this day, work on things what are just kind of a labour of love process, that I work on them because I like the idea, I want to get it out my brain, I want to get it on paper because you never know where it's going to be. I had a couple of years back, I sold some skirma's concepts to a client that I had when I was like 18 and it took that long for them to get signed off, but they've eventually they've happened and they've been produced. But my emphasis is expect to put a lot of work in to get where you want to because it's not an easy process. Mark Lofthouse: And I think a lot of universities, a lot of kind of educational programmes will kind of instil the mentality a little bit of when you leave here, it'll be easy to get a job and you can do this, that and the other. Sometimes the harsh realities, that isn't the case sometimes. You've still got to put the effort in, you got to work so hard to get yourself out there and prove that you can do what you can do. Otherwise it's so hard, it's competitive to make it. You've really got to put yourself out there and put the effort into it as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah. There's a big thing about being noticed as well. Earlier when I said about back when I was deciding what I wanted to do and do I go to university or just try and get a junior job? Kelly Molson: I went down the junior job route because just felt that suited me better at the time. But competition was still really high for junior jobs because you didn't need the qualifications back then. They weren't as rigid about needing a university qualification. But then obviously the competition was a lot higher because there were more people going for those jobs and so you've had to put a lot of hard work in to even stand out in that part of the process, let alone like, what your portfolio looked like. Exactly like you, I spent so much time on my portfolio on projects that weren't real because I had to prove that I could do that role. But the first part of it was actually getting the interview in the first place, so you had to put in a lot of hard work about how you were going to be noticed. Kelly Molson: What did your CV look like? In the end, I'll have to dig it out. I'll put it on Twitter, but my CV was like I wanted to be a packaging designer, so my CV was like the little mini boxes of Kellogg's, the special pack, what were they called? The pack that you get. So mine was one of those, but like the Special K, because obviously K for Kelly. So I did this special K box that had all of my information on it, but in the style of this little box of cereal. And then I put some cereal in it, put my covering note in it and popped like a gift in it as well, which sounds great, but then I got a few messages from people going, "Yeah, that just got battered in the post. And basically we opened the box, broken bits of cornflake everywhere." Okay. At least I made a statement right when you opened it. Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, at least you got in touch. I think that's such a key point, though, isn't it? That actually, it's so competitive nowadays and I think I really feel for people trying to get in it. Don't get me wrong, I still find it difficult to kind of get some of them jobs off the line, or especially with the business creative as well. There's so many agencies that people are looking at using it's competitive to get these jobs, isn't it? We're all after the same pot of money from a client. In essence, it is difficult. And like I said, under no illusions do I want to make it sound as though you can just get one of these jobs by people believing in you. I think it's really key to put the effort in and I think it'll help you as well develop as a person. Mark Lofthouse: When you talk about interviews, this is a true thing. I used to do fake interviews, so I used to get people that either relatives or distant relatives. It wasn't people that could throw me off or anything. I used to do fake interviews and things because how else are you going to get that experience? You can't, and those little tiny things, just get in touch with someone and say, “Could you set up a fake interview with me and you and ask me questions?” Because it's so different. Being in a scenario where you're faking it with friends and family, you're having a bit of a laugh, but actually sitting there, having that meeting with somebody and having that interview is so difficult. It's not a fun task, is it, for anyone? Mark Lofthouse: So I think even doing fake interviews with things like just relatives or people that you may just know of and things, it's so important to get that experience because how else are you going to get it otherwise? Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really good advice. Yes, good. What you said about all these things, it's all about building your personal brand, is it? It's all going into, like, how much effort you put in is what you're going to get out of stuff. All right, cool. Third pillar, creativity. Obviously, if you are trying to develop a creative career in the theme park industry, you need to have a level of creativity about you. But what do you mean specifically about this pillar? Mark Lofthouse: So, as you said, it's quite a key one, isn't it, to be a creative you need to have creativity. But I think what comes with it is exploration, research and doing so we can all have ideas. Every single person on Earth is creative to some extent. People can hone into that better than other people can, but everyone's got creativity inside them. It's so key to actually go and explore and do things and research and get other people's opinion on your creativity. Because I think we've all been there, where we've gone, “Oh, this is brilliant, it's a great idea”. And then someone else has looked at it and gone, I don't have a clue what you're talking about. I don't get it at all. Mark Lofthouse: We've all been there and I think even I remember reading an article online and it was from an imagineer, and they were saying that actually sometimes that they've done it where they've gone, this is a brilliant idea. And all the team members have looked at it and gone, what on earth is that? I don't understand it at all from guest perspective. So in terms of creativity, it's about honing the creative skills that you have listening to and it kind of leads us onto the next one. But I think listening to feedback, getting that influence from people, but also going visiting attractions, going visiting places, absorbing everything from your surroundings and taking home key aspects of what was exciting about that. So think of the horse racing, for example. What can you take home? How did that make you feel watching that? Mark Lofthouse: What was it about the experience that excited you about it? Or equally, walking in a forest somewhere you feel a certain way and it's really key to understand those feelings that you have and what causes them, because that helps your creativity along the line. So, like I said, we walk in the dog. I sometimes feel really calm and I don't know why. And then I'll kind of try and work out why I feel so serene. I feel really calm because if you ever want to embrace that in any of your creative ideas going forward, how do you get that feeling across? So then I think it's because I've just looked at this and it was brilliant. I've listened to this and it was the sound of birds and above and the leaves rustling together and you've got to absorb everything to be a creative. Mark Lofthouse: I think you've got to just take inspiration from every single place that you can possibly get it from. And I think that's what is about a pillar to being creative. It's not to be ignorant and just believe in your creativity. You can always learn something, you can always get inspiration from other places. And it's really key to remember that, to just remember to spend time to focus on why you feel a certain way. If you enjoyed something, why, what caused it, how long did it last for? Why are you wanting to feel that again? How can you do that for other people? And it's just about creative owning on that creative. Does that make sense? It's a little bit of a waffle book. Kelly Molson: No, it's brilliant advice. I totally get it. When you said about if you're putting yourself into a certain state, that level of calmness, understand what it is that's making that happen, because then you can apply that to the other experiences that you're designing. That summed it up perfectly for me. Mark Lofthouse: I think it truly is the only way you could do it. I think, as creatives admittedly, I'm the same. Sometimes I think, "oh, this is brilliant, I'm on a roll." Now step away and come back and read what you've just wrote, because I've done it a couple of times. I look at it and go, “I haven't even got a clue what I'm talking about here. What on earth? What is happening?” And then I've thought it's because it's got no feeling down. I've just been writing down an idea because it sounds good, but what would I feel like if I was stood there? What would I see? What would I do? What would I hear? What would I smell? And it's really key to think about all that because then you can go, right, fundamentally, this is why that creative idea did not work, because it didn't have any basis to work. Mark Lofthouse: You've got to come up with all of these little idiosms and little ideas to think of why things have got to work in the future. But it's so key as a creative, I think sometimes we can all rely on just our creative brains going, yeah, I know that works from the past and all this works from the past. Think of something fresh every time you do it. Think of a different approach and put that feeling in there as well. Kelly Molson: And then our final pillar is feedback. So you touched on this a little bit earlier about asking for feedback. I think being open to the feedback that you receive is quite important as well. Right. I think there's definitely well, I mean, maybe I don't know. I don't want to be generalist about this, but I think that there has been kind of two mindsets about graphic designers. You often come across some graphic designers and can be a bit precious about what they've done. Kelly Molson: Like, we've all met them, Mark, many of them are my friends, and you spend an awful lot of time on some of these things. Sometimes you can be a bit precious about what you've done and you get some negative feedback on it and it can be soul crushing at the time. But I think you've got to be open to the feedback that you're receiving because you can always make something better. Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. And like I said before, you can always learn from people as well. And it's so kind of key to remember that. I think there's two things, especially as a designer, you either go down the art route, where actually a lot of the work that you're putting out there is just your personal work and you want to just share your creativity and your art. In that case, you've got to remember that everyone has an opinion and they will earn it. That's number one thing. And I think the second one, if you're working for a client and a client comes back with feedback that you do not agree with, you've got to remember they're paying you. At the end of the day, they're the client. You might not agree with their comments, but you've got to take them on board. Mark Lofthouse: And I think we've all been in that position doing commercial design, whether that is a themed attraction, themed experience, or whether that is a graphic design or art, whatever that may be, where we've got feedback and just looked at it and gone, “You don't know what you're talking about.” Which is fine. They're not meant to. They're showing their opinion and saying, this doesn't work for me because of this reason. And they might not have your background in graphic design, they might not have your background in themed attractions, that doesn't mean their opinion is less valid than yours. And I think it's so key. I went through a phase where any critical feedback I got, “I was like getting the hoof over it.” But you know what? It didn't do me any well because I lost clients over it. Mark Lofthouse: I have clients that I loved working with that wouldn't use me again because of that phase that I went through. But I needed to go through that phase to get into the phase that I'm in now, which is take any feedback on board. That's fine, take it on. Because everyone has an opinion. And actually, what some people bring back, even if they're not qualified, so to speak, in what you do, I bet they've got some good ideas that actually you go, yeah, that's really good to work with. I think one way I always work with clients to kind of assist from the feedback point of view. And I know the business creative do it really well. Is it a collaborative approach with working. Mark Lofthouse: So at the beginning of the process, you will speak with a client and get their ideas on board at the beginning of it. And I think it's really good because then you get the buy in from the client as well. They'll say, "We like this colour, we like this design, we want this feeling from it." But by doing that, you get the basis of the client working with you at the beginning and not you working for them. And it's really key. I think creativity and collaboration go hand in hand. You need to have that collaborative effort, otherwise it becomes a dictatorship of creative beliefs. And that's not what anything should be. You should be working with a client on a collaborative level to say, “Yes, I'm working for you, but we're working together to get this outcome and that's where you need to be.” Mark Lofthouse: Whether that's graphic design, whatever is themed attraction, immersive experience. But by getting on board at the beginning of that process, you alleviate any of the pressure issues with the feedback along the way because you're working with them to develop these concepts. And by doing that, you're eradicating anything really contrasting towards the end of the project or any sign off periods that you have. Kelly Molson: Yeah, great. Mark, great advice. I think we've all been in the position where we have taken some feedback from a client before and taken it away, probably pulled her hair out, felt like we wanted to argue, but then had a little word of ourselves and gone, “Okay, well, how can we work with that?” And it's about evaluating every situation that you're in where you're receiving the feedback. And like you say, there are going to be elements of the nuggets from that feedback that actually will be really positive and we should talk about. But I think there is what you said earlier is absolutely right. You do have to take a step back and go, the client is paying for this. Ultimately we are in a commercial contract here and so how far do you take it? Kelly Molson: But I do think that there is always scope to push back if you genuinely think that the feedback that we received is going to have a negative impact on the outcome and the objectives that the client wants to achieve. So I think it is worth stating that, but you are absolutely right. There has been times in the past where you kind of forget that actually someone is paying for this and we really need to do the right thing here. Mark Lofthouse: Like you said as well, I think that when I talk about the collaborative approach, obviously that isn't just the beginning of a project that's through it. And by collaboration that does mean pushing back on certain elements as well. And that is part of a collaborative team. You aren't just say yes to everything, or no, full stop. You work with a client to say, "Okay, I'll get your idea, but how about if we did it this way instead?" So you still get your creative position in right? You still get the extent of what you want from a creative delivery, but the clients getting the product that they want and it's so key to kind of work that way. I used to be kind of critical with feedback. Mark Lofthouse: I used to, like I said at the beginning, think, “You don't really know what you're talking about. I know as a designer, I know what I'm doing. I've done this countless numbers of times. I know what I'm doing.” But sometimes people just need explanation as well as why have you come up with that. And sometimes you'll read an email and emails are the devil's work. And I will always say that, because you read much more into an email than you should do. Everyone does it, but you'll get feedback. And instead of looking at that and going, "Oh, what do they mean by that? Or is there any way that I can explain myself that you start to type back furiously". Don't do it. Always walk away from an email. And it's only in probably the past year that I've started doing it more. Mark Lofthouse: I'll get an email, come through and I think, I don't like the tone of that. I don't like this, that the other. And then I got, right, walk away from it. I'll come back and then go, “Actually, the tone is absolutely fine, I was overreacting.” Because you're not prepared to get that email coming in. So you're always on the back foot, you're always expecting the worst because you can never read what anyone's going to say. So I think with that as well, if you get any sort of feedback along those lines, try and jump on a call, try and jump on a Zoom call, try and jump on a Team's call, whatever that may be. Because seeing people's facial reactions as well really helps in terms of understanding where they're coming from with things. Mark Lofthouse: And you can obviously explain it a lot better. But, yeah, in terms of feedback, make sure you're getting the feedback, but also feeding back on that feedback to yourself to think, "Should I respond? Do I need to respond that way?" No, always have feedback on the feedback. That's what I think. Kelly Molson: I love it. And such good advice. Right, great. We've covered the four pillars. Mark, we're coming towards the end of the podcast. I've got two more questions for you. One, other than email is the devil's work, what would be the one piece of advice that you would like to share with anyone who really wants to start their creative career in theme park industry? Mark Lofthouse: This one is a bit controversial, but never fall in love with an idea that you have. So I learned this a long time ago now, when I first started, especially Danny Scare Mazes and Halloween events, because it's what I love. I absolutely adore into these type of events. I really fell in love with the ideas that I was creating and I just put my whole self into it and I thought, this is a brilliant idea. And some of the clients that I was working with didn't think that. And it hit me hard, really hard. And I think you have to obviously believe in what you are putting forward. Mark Lofthouse: I'm not saying that you've got to believe in the product that you're positioning to a client, but do not fall in love with it where you can't take this criticism on board because it hits you very hard. It's. Like getting punched in your stomach, isn't it, when you fall in love with an idea and then someone comes back going, “I really don't like this.” And you've really got to assess yourself with it. You've got to position yourself in terms of, yes, I believe in the product, but also it might not be right for other people because other people have different opinions, they see things from a different perspective. So I think, yeah, never fall in love with your own idea is probably a key one for me. And it's something I've stuck with for years, since learning that lesson long time ago. Kelly Molson: Learn it the hard way, Mark, but a good lesson to learn. Great, thank you. Right, we always end the podcast with a book that you'd love to share. So something that you love that you're really happy to share with our audience. What have you got? Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, so I've actually got it. I've got it behind me. I'll move my head. But it's the Immersive Storytelling book and I think it's been covered by so many people, but it is brilliant. It's written by an ex imagineer. I think, actually, she's still a Disney imagineer named Margaret, and she walks you through her vision of how to tell a story correctly in terms of an immersive environment. And it's just so well done, because she doesn't just say, it isn't a case study, this is what I do, this is how I do it. Because you can't do that storytellers, all tell stories in a different way. But what she does is tells you her philosophy of how to think about storytelling in an immersive environment. I literally got through neenoff the full book in an evening. It just engrossed me straight away. Mark Lofthouse: It's brilliantly written, really friendly approach to it, but I can't recommend it enough. It's called Immersive Storytelling. And it's brilliant. I really recommend it to anyone. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Great book. We have not had that one recommended on. We have some really good book recommendations recently. Listeners, as ever, if you want to be in for a chance of winning that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Mark's book, then we'll put you in the draw and maybe you could be the lucky recipient of it. Mark, it's been so good to chat today. Thank you. I feel like we've got a really similar background, so we should definitely chat again at some point about our horror stories of feedback and client feedback and falling in love with projects that clients should love and then they hate. Mark Lofthouse: Thank you so much for having me on as well. I think it's so good just to chat with people about what you do and about how you sort of think about things. I think we're all guilty, aren't we, of just going, “Oh, I work doing this and carrying on with it.” But it's really nice, actually, sometimes just to open up about where you started and hear other people's stories as well. So thank you so much for thinking of me and I really appreciate being on here as well. Kelly Molson: No, you're very welcome. It's been a great chat and we're going to put all of Mark's contact details in the show notes, so if you want to have a chat with him about any aspect of this, which he's really passionate to, talk about it. So if you're starting out or you happen to be a client that's looking for creative work, then you'll be able to contact Mark with all of these details in the show notes. So thank you. Mark Lofthouse: Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Closing a visitor attraction and the opportunities that brings, with Mike Coe | 05 Apr 2023 | 00:40:22 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-coe-mba-943a7985/
Mike Coe (MBA), Commercial Director: Mike has over 20 years’ experience working in commercial and leadership roles within both charity and the private sector. Mike joined the Society in December 2021 and is responsible for the commercial and public engagement strategy. Previous to joining the Society he was CEO at the Friends of Westonbirt Arboretum developing funding strategies and vision delivery in conservation, education and participation at the National Arboretum. Before that Mike was also CEO of Arnos Vale, leading the successful restoration and sustainable financial transformation programme within the iconic heritage and wildlife estate. Mike also led the relaunch of the Bristol Aquarium alongside leading successful consultancy projects supporting organisational change and delivery within the visitor economy.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Mike, thank you so much for coming on to Skip The Queue today. It's lovely to see you. Mike Coe: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: We are recording on a very snowy March day, but Mike and I are inside in the warm, so we're quite happy. Mike Coe: Yeah, well, still got a bit of snow outside at Wild Place. We had loads yesterday and had to try and shovel that all off and get the site open, ready for the visitors. Our visitor services team were out moving water around the site and shoveling snow, but it's all pretty much melted away now, so it's still quite wintry looking out there, but, yeah, not so slippery. Kelly Molson: There you go. The visitor experience team, they're the heroes of the day. Right, Mike, we're going to start off with some icebreakers, so I want to know if I could gift you a month off tomorrow and you could travel anywhere in the world. I know, right, please, let's put that out of the universe. Where would you go? Mike Coe: So when I left university, I actually travelled around Southern Africa. So I spent some time in Botswana, Zimbabwe, Namibia, South Africa. Really enjoyed my time there. I was teaching there and working in a rhino sanctuary and did a number of things out there and always wished, always wanted to go back. I'll be back all the time, but actually, I never got the opportunity to head back there and then had children. You need a length of time to get out there. So, yeah, if I had a month, I would definitely go back and sort of retrace those steps and just see how much things have changed over that time period, from sort of 2000, 2001 to sort of where we are now, sort of 20 odd years later. Mike Coe: So, yeah, I think I'd love to be able to do that and take my time and travel those areas. I'm a massive fan of the culture over there, but also, as you're probably not surprised, the wildlife over there, so it'd be a great chance to see how that's changed and transformed. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Would you go on your own or would you take kids? Mike Coe: I think I'd probably go on my own. Kelly, boy, I think as much as I'd love it, my little boy loves an adventure. Charlie I just think, yeah, sometimes, you know what I mean? It's having to think about them while you're trying to discover the place. Might be getting away a bit. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I hear you. It's funny because we've always said if we were lucky enough to have children, they would be part of our travel adventures as well. Now I'm like, yeah, maybe not. I changed my mind on that. Mike Coe: Keep your eyes on them, as well as what's going on. Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, if you were in a karaoke booth, what is your karaoke go to song? Mike Coe: Probably Bon Jovi's Living on a Prayer. You can imagine that after a few drinks, microphone on hand, thinking you’re a Rock Gods, melting that one out. It’s a classic. Classic’s spud a goody. Kelly Molson: I feel like if you're going to do karaoke, you've got to do a crowd pleaser that everyone knows the words too and then they carry you along, Mike. Mike Coe: Absolutely, you can't go into karaoke singing a song that you can sing. It has to be something that you literally can't hit any note on. And that's definitely one of those for me. Kelly Molson: We could do karaoke together. We're on the same level of karaoke skill here. Right, last one. Can you share with me one of your irrational fears? Mike Coe: Oh, cool. That's a good one. Actually, mine is always I would say it's about people letting people down. So I think when you sort of move up and you're in leadership roles, you're aware of what you can do. But it's always that sense of or fear of, have I done something? Have I let other people down? I can let myself down, but it's that letting other people down. So I do think I take great pride and passion in supporting teams, and if I feel I've let them down, I think that's the thing that hits me the hardest, if I'm honest. Kelly Molson: Would you say, because this is one of my biggest challenges, because I think I'm like a certified people pleaser. So one of the things that took at the beginning of this year was I need to be careful about things that I say yes to, because I put myself under a massive amount of pressure when I do that, because I don't want to let people down all the time. So I've started to kind of just take a bit of a step back and go, “Can I do this? I really want to do this. But do I have the capacity for this? What pressure is this going to put on me this year?” But that is one of my biggest things, is a fear of letting people down because of that. Mike Coe: Yeah, and I'm the same. And you do have to end up setting boundaries, and it's only you have to set those boundaries because by saying yes too much and doing too much, ultimately you are going to let people down. You just don't have the capacity to do a good job. And I think we're all guilty, everyone's guilty of taking too much on because you just want to do a good job. But actually, it's that setting those boundaries and actually understand that it's okay to say no as long as there's a reason for that. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Boundary is the word of the year, I think. Thank you for sharing that. Right. What is your unpopular opinion that you've prepared for us? Mike Coe: I know, and I didn't know where to go with this one, to be honest, because I've got quite a few. And this one, and I'm going to apologise now because I've got many Parisian friends. We work with some here as well. But I just think that Paris is a little bit overrated, Kelly. And I know, like I said, I've got so many friends from France and Parisians, and they've tried to convince me. I've been there a few times, but for me, it's just expensive. I always seem to end up with bad service there. I had my wallet stolen there once. I suppose that set me off on a bad foot. Mike Coe: And then seeing some of those sort of images, the sites that you've been expecting, and reading books when you're younger, and then when you get there, they're just not quite for me and for me, just wasn't quite what I had expected. So, yeah, it's going to be an unpopular decision and an popular thing to say, but I just don't get Paris and the romanticism around Paris, and maybe I'll be convinced as I go in later into life, and somebody will take me there and I'll see it for what I should. But, yeah, Paris is overrated, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Paris is overrated, statement. I really like this one. I don't know how unpopular this is going to be. Interesting. I just got back from a conference, actually, where there was a Parisian speaker who was really funny. He does a comedy show in Paris about Parisians and their culture. And he said, “Yeah, we are rude. We are openly rude, and we celebrate in being rude.” And I thought, “Well, okay, yeah, at least own it.” Mike Coe: Yeah, maybe I don't get that. Maybe I should just accept that they are rude and just live with that. Kelly Molson: Yeah, go with that expectation. Again, that's a very sweeping statement, and that may not be my opinion. Just putting that out there. That was what the comedian was telling me. Mike Coe: I will add to it to any Parisian friends of mine watching this, I love you all. Kelly Molson: Mirabelle from Convius will be listening to this, I'm sure. And I adore you. This is, again, not my unpopular opinion. Thank you. That was a good one. Well, let me know what you think, listeners. Let me know if you're sharing Mike's, how do we get Mike's unsatisfactory opinion of Paris? Mike Coe: Yeah, my one star TripAdvisor review of Paris. Kelly Molson: Okay. Right. I'm really glad that you've come on the podcast today, Mike, because we are going to talk about something that we've never talked about on the podcast before and that's about actually the decision to close an attraction. Sometimes we're talking about attractions opening and all of the amazing things that they're doing, but this time we're going to talk about an attraction closing. So tell us a little bit about your background and then we can start to talk about what your current role entails and how you got to that decision. Mike Coe: Yeah, I've been in visitor attractions now since around about 2010 and then earlier through my studies, I studied leisure and tourism as well, but really got back into visitor attractions after a break, actually, with BP in their graduate scheme for a while. And I launched or relaunched Bristol, well, what was then Blue Reef Aquarium, but rebranded and relaunched Bristol Aquarium in Bristol, which was a great one for me, to be honest with you, launching a new product, new brand and a really nice new attraction for Bristol. So, yeah, growing and developing new attractions, certainly for me. And then on there, I was brought in chief executive of Arnos Vale, which is actually a cemetery in Bristol, but we was scheduled to close and we got some Heritage Lottery funding to reopen that as a heritage site, events as well going on there. Mike Coe: So were the first people doing events in a cemetery as a heritage site, as a museum, and we found a sustainable model for it financially to actually make it pay for itself. So this heritage site would save, secured, rebuilt with the Heritage Lottery Fund money and really a great success story of developing another new visitor attraction in Bristol as well. Then over to Westonbirt the National Arboretum, supporting Forestry England in the development and growth of Westonbirt the National Arboretum and some great new developments there. So always growing new commercial opportunities within visitor attractions. And then this opportunity with Bristol Zoological Society, which is very different, of course, because I hadn't closed a visitor attraction before. Mike Coe: But, yeah, that was what I moved over to Bristol Zoological Society to which, although I say it's about closing Bristol Zoo, it was a lot more than that, of course. So it's the closure of Bristol Zoo Gardens after 186 years, but actually the future and the positivity for the society that brings, because we also own an attraction called Wild Place Project. And the sale of the proceeds from the sale of Bristol Zoo Gardens that's going to be moved into, ploughed into the Wild Place Project with a brand new zoo for Bristol in effect and really reimagining what the zoo of the future should be. So, yeah, that's where it's gone from growing new visitor attractions to closing one and developing another one. Kelly Molson: Yes. So it's come full circle, isn't it? We started off that quite negatively, didn't we? But actually there's some really incredible opportunities that are coming from this experience. So we're going to start kind of at the beginning part of it, though. So, like you said, Bristol Zoo closed in September 2022 after 186 years. Got absolutely phenomenal. What was the decision behind it? What was the reason for that happening? Mike Coe: Yeah, it's one of those decisions, I think if you were to ask the Trust now, they probably should have taken earlier, in my view. So for a number of years, Bristol Zoo Gardens had been its revenues have been reducing and then in decline. So it had been losing money for a number of years over the decade before it. And it's a bit like that Region Beta Paradox. Have you heard of that? And actually, what the Region Beta Paradox says is essentially a theory that sometimes the worse things are, the better the final outcome will be because you actually act on it and you actually make a change and you do something about it. So the recovery can be a lot quicker from a much worse situation. That worse situation, of course, was COVID. Mike Coe: So that really hits the charity reserves, in effect. And really, at that point, that decision had to be taken that they could no longer take the losses from Bristol Zoo Gardens and the site itself was crumbling. So the amount of investment that would have been required to restore Bristol Gardens as a visitor attraction, that wasn't falling effectively, the infrastructure was crumbling, so it would have taken a huge amount of investment to keep the site going in a space that had reduced visitor numbers year after year after year. So that was kind of the financial and commercial decision to close it. But the other thing, of course, is that Bristol Zoo Gardens was a twelve acre site, so quite a small inner city zoo. Mike Coe: Welfare standards amongst animals have changed from where they were 186 years ago into what size enclosures animals need for their welfare now. And Bristol Zoo Gardens, great space, but unfortunately just was too small to be able to provide the levels of welfare standards that are required now in zoology. So we're over here at Wild Place, ten times bigger than the sites at Bristol Zoo Gardens and the ability to develop enclosures far bigger than we were able to be, able to do at Bristol Zoo Gardens. So it wasn't just this commercial decision that we had to close the zoo. It's also, quite rightly, an animal welfare situation. Mike Coe: And what we can offer here is much better space and the chance with the money from that, the chance to develop a brand new type of zoo over here at Wild Place, a zoo of the future, where animals that we work with are involved in our conservation projects around the world. So it's not just about putting animals in for entertainment, it's about actually the purpose of those animals in terms of conservation and their conservation status. Kelly Molson: Let's talk about that then, because I'd love to know kind of what the vision is for what you're now kind of building on and that kind of positive aspect of it. Mike Coe: Yeah. And I think we start off it is about the animals that we have in the New Bristol Zoo. And the New Bristol Zoo will be developed with the sale of Bristol Zoo Gardens over the course of the next five to ten years. And the enclosures that will be here at first are much bigger, so the animals are in a more natural environment. So almost as you're walking through the gates, you're arriving somewhere other that you're almost on an on foot safari. So, you know, the traditional type of zoo. And another controversial thing I'll say is I'm not a big fan of traditional zoos, so I'm not a massive zoo fan. Certainly the modern zoos and the way we look at it is certainly the way to move. Mike Coe: And that's making sure that there's much bigger enclosures, that you're stumbling on those animals, you're not just looking from fence to fence that you actually have to do a bit of work while you're here to see those animals on foot. So this “on foot safari”, that's going to be a theme that sort of overrides what goes on here. The species of animals that we have here are going to be involved in the conservation projects that we have around the world, be that Africa, Philippines, we have a number of projects around the world and we're going to have the species here are the species that we're involved in those conservation projects. So actually, this is just going to be an insight into the world of field conservation, our in situ work. Mike Coe: So in situ means the work you do out in the field on those projects. So this is going to be an extension of those in situ field projects that we have out there, working with the same species of animals. We're also going to have a conservation campus. So within that campus, we're going to have university students who are involved in direct conservation work. They're going to be here on site, so our visitors are going to be able to walk through that campus as part of the visitor journey. So those students are going to be there interacting with our visitors. It's going to have a breeding centre, so they're going to see the breeding work that we do both here that supports the conservation work around the world. Mike Coe: So it's that whole what we do in the field, what we do here, and the breeding centre, linking that all together on this on foot safari. So something completely different to a standard zoo, I would like to think. Kelly Molson: What a phenomenal experience for the guests that's coming along as well. Because the opportunity that they could bump into students that they can talk to about their education path and what they're doing and the conservation aspects of there, that makes that visit even better than it would be just if you are just going to visit a standard zoo. Mike Coe: Exactly that. And what we realise is that if we want to save wildlife, and our vision at Bristol Zoological Society is to save wildlife together, we realise that we can't do that in isolation on our own. It has to be together, it has to be changing behaviours of the people that come onto the site. And a large proportion of those people that come on site are young people. We attract young people. So it's changing the behaviours of those young people for them to make correct, positive conservation decisions. And you're right, you talk about them engaging with those students as they're on site. We want them to become adventurers for the day when they walk in, so they almost become a conservation hero as they leave the gates. They come in as a visitor, become an adventurer and leave the gates as a conservation hero. Mike Coe: And that's what we want to do. We want everyone to come away with this impression of what they can do at home to make real world changes. You're going to come and visit. Kelly Molson: You absolutely sold that into me. Like, I'm there. I want to be an adventurer. Mike Coe: We'll get everyone wearing those Indiana Jones style hats as they come in, so they feel the part. We'll get our public engagement team coming up with some really exciting ways to make them feel like they're suddenly out on their in situ adventure. Kelly Molson: Perfect. I can absolutely rock that hat. And I'm sorry I interrupted you mid flow, but I was like, “Gosh, yes, I'm really feeling this”. And I was like, the buzz that there is around this is quite tantalising. Mike Coe: Exactly. And it all relies once we get the sale of Bristol Zoo Gardens, then we can really start to make this vision and become a reality. And it's much bigger than just Bristol. It's this global conservation emergency that we're in that we'll feel like we're a part of and it's great that it's in our city. Bristol is known for being quite different in the way it looks at things. We're a great city, we're an ingenious city, and it's going to be great to have a zoo that does things a little bit differently, a bit like Bristol tends to like to do. Kelly Molson: Definitely, yeah. The ethos of Bristol is definitely different. This is amazing. So an incredible vision that you have there. Genuinely, there is an excitement there. I can feel it as you talk about it and the passion for it. I just want to go back a little bit, though, because I guess it's been quite a difficult decision to make from a financial perspective, anyway. And from a heart perspective, you're going to have a lot of team that have worked at Bristol Zoo for many years. And I know you weren't there from the start of this decision making process. But how did you go about communicating these decisions to the team and what was their reaction? Mike Coe: Yeah, like I said, I wasn't there when the initial announcement that the zoo would be closing. I know that it was an incredibly difficult decision, both making that decision, but also how that was communicated with staff. And the staff are clearly the first to be told before it was made public. And you think you've got a number of staff who have been there 30, nearly 40 years at that time. So it's dealing really sensitively with all the staff, especially those that have been there that time. And then you've also, unlike, I guess, other attractions, where you probably don't have as much attachment to the product, not that I'm calling the animals a product in a museum, you don't quite have that same attachment. Mike Coe: You've got keepers that have been working, say, with the gorillas for a decade, so they've seen them grow up and work with those. So you can understand how gut wrenching it must have been at the time for those stuff and how sensitively this had to be dealt with, because it was a decision that clearly nobody wanted to take, but ultimately had to take. And it was communicating that now. I was there when the actual final dates of a date closure for Bristol Zoo Gardens was announced, the 3rd of September being the last day. So I was there and we brought everybody into a big town hall and told all the staff that 3rd of September was going to be the final day. Mike Coe: And you go through this curve of emotion, this acceptance cycle, and that first stage is real despair amongst a number of the staff there and working and developing those through that, then there's that acceptance and then realisation of how we do that. Clearly there are as we move from two zoos to one zoo, there were some people that had to move on, unfortunately. But the good thing is we managed to do most of that through voluntary redundancies. So there's very talking ones or two where people were actually made redundant. The voluntary scheme meant that a lot of people made those decisions themselves, luckily. I guess we're kind of still just on the rise of that curve now. Mike Coe: So even now, although there's this great positivity around the future, there's still people still trying to get used to having moved over from Bristol Zoo Gardens and over to the Wild Place. And we'll continue to work with those people as well to make them see the vision of the new Bristol Zoo in effect. Kelly Molson: Yeah, because my next question is general public and what their reaction was, and I guess it's a very similar reaction. Mike Coe: I think, absolutely. When you're a zoo which is at the heart of a city or a society that's a heart of a city, then you're right. It's not just that the staff that work there. Visitors have been visiting the zoo. I remember I was there throughout the final closing weeks and we had people travelling from not just around the country, literally from around the world, to say their goodbyes from Bristol Zoo Gardens, people that have been visiting for 70 years. I had one talking to and just, I guess, more stoic understanding the reasons why it was closing. But still that sense of nostalgia, and that's what came out in those last few weeks, that sense of nostalgia, what the zoo had done for the city, really, and these people as well. Mike Coe: But actually what I did get was this overwhelming sense of people understanding actually what it is time for Bristol Zoo Gardens to close. It is too small in terms of welfare and these animals and these enclosures that ultimately were just too small for them. And people got the sense that actually time moves on. And what was right for a city centre zoo back in the 18 hundreds is now not what's right for the modern world. So there was that great sense of acceptance at the end. The good thing is that Bristol Zoo Gardens will, within our plans, be reopened as a development, which will still have the parks and gardens open, so people will still be able to come and enjoy the parks and gardens. I think that's the most important thing is what people said. Mike Coe: "We still want to be able to see some of the old monuments, we still want to be able to see some of the old park." Well, they were going to be able to do that, which is really exciting. They'd be able to see the old monkey temple. A number of those items are listed. The entrance building itself is listed as well. So the entrance building is going to be turned into something called the Clifton Conservation Hub. So there'll still be conservation work. We do a lot of conservation work around the Avon Gorge and Downs wildlife project. So Avon Gorge and Downs is a site of scientific and conservation interest, while the hub of that is going to be within the entrance building when the developments finish. Mike Coe: So conservation work and wildlife conservation will still go on at Bristol Zoo Gardens, in parks and gardens, and then in the wider Avon Gorge and Downs. Kelly Molson: It's really good to hear that as well. And I guess one of the things that we always talk about from an attraction perspective is how many memories are made at a visitor attraction, regardless of whether it's a zoo or a heritage, a park, et cetera. So it's lovely that the reaction from people is we still want to be able to see these places because they've got great memories for us. We've taken our children there, we'd love to be able to go back there ourselves, and that's wonderful. And I think, on the other hand, as well, what's really good is that the message around conservation and welfare of animals is obviously a very positive one and very clear one that you've been pushing out, because that's what people have accepted about the change that's going to happen now. Kelly Molson: So that's a real positive that feeds into the vision for the new attraction. Mike Coe: Absolutely. Like I said, we ran a campaign at the end called The Zoo and You or You and the Zoo, I think it was, and it was really just people sharing all those memories and all those pictures. Like I said, understanding that actually walking with an elephant or whatever they used to do is not something they can do now, but celebrating that as something that was done in our past and being a part of that, but understanding that actually we do have to move on. Kelly Molson: Yeah, talking about moving, actually, while we're on that subject. So we've talked about the kind of the financial and the emotional decisions that have gone around this, and we've talked about communicating to the people and how from a team perspective and from the general public, let's talk about the animals, because I can only imagine that this is a logistical nightmare. How do you move a zoo? How do you move a giraffe down the road? How does it even happen? Mike Coe: Yeah, we'll come back to how do you move a giraffe, I guess. But the first off, there are literally thousands of individuals at Bristol Zoo Gardens and a number of those animals are coming with us, but the majority of those are going to other institutions. So I think the first thing to explain, and I get this asked a lot, I'm still relatively new to zoo, so it's something that I'm still learning and it's that we don't actually within zoological societies around the country, in Europe and the world, we don't own our animals, they don't belong to us. They're coordinated through a network of institutions, European Institute of Zoos and Erza have EP coordinators. Those coordinators coordinate those animals all the time between institutions because they're involved in breeding programmes. Mike Coe: So you'll get breeding recommendations and the animals will be coordinated by those coordinators from the receiving donating Zoo to the receiving zoo because of breeding recommendations that have been flagged up. So animals are always moving in between institutions anyway, those member institutions, so we don't own those animals. That said, of course, this was a number of animals moving all in one go, or a lot of animals moving won't go. Some of those animals are still remaining at Bristol Zoo Gardens while we build their new enclosures at Wild Place, and we'll move directly from Bristol Zoo Gardens over to Wild Place. So the gorillas, for instance, will be at the Bristol Zoo Gardens for a little while longer yet, and so we've built their enclosures. Mike Coe: So once those coordinators have got those recommendations of where those animals go there's, then the paperwork has to be done, those medical inspections, certain animals, depending on the size. Have to be trained for a move. So we have to train those animals before they can move, to be able to go, if they're going into crates, to be able to comfortably go into those crates and the trains to be able to do that. So there's actually, arguably, at the closure of a zoo, there was more work for the keepers than ever before. And the coordinators doing all of that work, moving them on. And we've moved on a large proportion, literally thousands of individuals. Admittedly, some of those thousands of individuals are insects and fish and things like that. That kind of bumps the numbers up a bit. Mike Coe: But you can understand there's still an incredible amount of work that has to go on between both the society giving and the one receiving the animal, between those. So all of that work goes on in the background of paperwork. Brexit god love it. Does mean that if you're moving something over to Europe, instead of having just to do one piece of documentation and paperwork, each country around Europe would require its own documentation. So the paperwork minefield that we now have to do if we're moving them out of the UK. So a lot of ours we've tried to keep within the UK, just for those reasons as well. Mike Coe: And then, obviously, the medical checks on those animals, you can't move them if they're not healthy to move as well, the medical stuff. So I guess when you say, how do you move a giraffe? I guess then that adds even more logistical implications. What are a giraffe? About five metres tall. So I guess avoiding low bridges on a giraffe would be the most important one. But also, again, even with a giraffe, that same process of the coordinators finding the right breeding recommendations, you've also then got to have the right transport. So specially licensed transport companies that are licensed to move animals would have to be found, I guess. I've seen the crates that they moved. I think our giraffes here at Wild Place, they came from Amsterdam, I think. And the crates that they obviously move in, especially designed crates for giraffes. Mike Coe: There's probably not many of those out there that you have to try and coordinate as well. So, yeah, those big crates and the animals have to be trained to go into those crates comfortably and those moves happen. One of our animal team does have a presentation on how to move a hippo, and it is the most interesting presentation of logistics that you can possibly imagine. Kelly Molson: We need to see this presentation, pop it in the show notes. Mike Coe: How to move a hippo. Kelly Molson: That blew my mind. I've got so many thoughts about that. I hadn't actually considered how many animals would be involved in breeding programmes. So I think my mind always goes to Pandas, because it's one that's talked about quite a lot on the news. We always talk about panda breeding programmes, but yeah, I hadn't really considered the fact that the zoo, it cares for those animals, but they're not the owners of those animals and there's so many different places and variables involved in where they go and what they do next. It's crazy. Mike Coe: Yeah, and we also, obviously, I mean, our keepers have to visit those institutions that those animals are going to make sure that they're happy as well, so it's not just the coordinator. So we visit all of those centres and we review and check and make sure everything is right for those moves as well. We wouldn't let animal go unless were absolutely confident that the receiving institution had everything in place for them. Kelly Molson: Percentage wise, how many animals are coming across to the Wild Place and how many are kind of going off and going to different places. Mike Coe: So as a percentage, it's quite high, but that's because within our breeding centre, a lot of the ectotherms, insects, lizards, fish are coming across into the breeding centre, so obviously that makes a large proportion of those. And it's interesting when people think of animals, they always think of the large, cute, those iconic, charismatic animals, but actually that's a very small proportion of the numbers that are held in zoo. So of those animals so we've really only got the gorillas, I guess you would say, moving across immediately over to Wild Place. And largely because, as I said right at the start, we want to be working with those species that were involved in our conservation projects around the world. Mike Coe: So a lot of the animals that come to Wild Place will be from other institutions where they're animals that we're working in, those areas that are critically endangered, that actually have a conservation value to be in zoos. They're not just there for entertainment purposes, like I said. So very few of the animals, the gorillas being the prime example of one where we are working with those in the field and endangered, so we are bringing those across. So a lot of them will not come from Bristol Zoo, but from elsewhere. Kelly Molson: I guess you need the time to be able to build the enclosures as well for them in a responsible way. And this is the final kind of piece of the puzzle, is planning for the development, like, how are you kind of developing the existing Wild Place site to accommodate all of the new things that you want to do? Mike Coe: And it is like a massive jigsaw with 100,000 moving parts of trying to make sure that we move the right things at the right time, open up the right areas at the right time to make sure that the visitor flows work. That the infrastructure that's required because obviously, as we open up large areas of Wild Place, we know there'll be an influx of visitors. You need things like car parking, toilets, cafes, all of those sort of secondary things that make sure that the visitor can have a great day. It's not just about building enclosures as well. So it's been a really big piece of work. We're currently doing some master planning work. We're into more detailed design on that master plan now, which really starts to map out all of these sorts of things, visitor flows, the conservation model of where everything's going. Mike Coe: Our species list has already been defined, so we know which species are coming across and we've published those. So things like within the Central African Forest, which will be our first area. The reason we clearly need to put the Central African Forest area in first is because we got the gorillas that we need to move across. They need a home to go to. Conservation campus is something we really want to get in the early stages as well, because we want to get those students here and engaging and with the breeding centre in there as well, to get those animals all off site from Bristol Zoo Gardens as well. So some of this is dictated by the logistics of it and some of it is dictated by the need to improve the infrastructure to deliver the visitors. Mike Coe: One of our core visions is to be sustainable, revenue sustainable, so we have to be able to have the secondary spends from the visitors coming through, because that's the money that's ploughed back into the conservation work in the field. And we do give a proportion of that money to our direct conservation in those countries and our native work as well. One of the big pieces of work we do is native conservation. So crayfish is a big part of the work. We're doing invasive species another one. So a lot of native work. And the great thing about Wild Place, unlike Bristol Zoo, it has semi ancient woodland, it's got wetlands, so we've got the chance to talk about native woodland and communicate native woodland in a way that we didn't maybe we didn't know so much of it at Bristol Zoo Gardens. Kelly Molson: It's such an exciting opportunity. I was thinking earlier when you were talking about the animals and the logistics and the paperwork and all of those things, I was thinking, there's going to be attractions, professionals that are listening to this going, "I don't want Mike's job. I'm going to stick to my theme park. I'm going to stick to my heritage site. I'm going to stick with my museum artefacts, because that all seems a lot simpler." But actually, when you started to talk about the planning and the master planning and how you're having to plan things, you have to think about things now that might not be developed for like five or ten years down the line and how that all works together. That's really exciting. Mike Coe: It is exciting. I was brought in to work on the commercials of closing the zoo and looking at some of the future stuff. And I'm sure there'll be the more detailed planning paperwork stuff. We've got teams working on that, so it's definitely not me. There's a number of people, the animal teams, they've done an incredible job with these animal movements. I wouldn't even know where to start with some of the things that they've been doing. They've been absolutely incredible, the whole team. So, yeah, I'm a very small cog in a very big machine here. Kelly Molson: A very important cog, though, Mike, for sure. Don't play it down. Thank you. I've loved understanding about this process and I feel real, genuine excitement about what you're developing down there at The Wild Place. I think that's going to be an absolutely phenomenal opportunity for the whole of the region to come and get involved, and I'll definitely be travelling down and seeing how that's developing over you. So thank you for coming on to sharing on the podcast today, we always ask our guests if they have a book that they'd like to recommend our listeners. Kelly Molson: It can be anything, it can be something that you love from a personal aspect. We've had all sorts of suggestions recently from marketing books. We had a marketing book on the last podcast and we had cook books from Abbey at Castle Howard. So, yeah, what have you got for us? Mike Coe: Yeah, it's funny you asked this question. I'm not a massive reader of books, so I was doing my MBA about three, four years ago and I was thinking, when you asked that question, which management book? And even when I was doing the management course, all the management books and theories that are out there, porter's theory, you got 1 minute manager how to influence people. And whilst I was doing that, I was thinking of the book whilst I was doing the MBA that I read and thought to my child, Charlie, who was about six or seven at the time, and I remember reading it and thinking, "You know what, this is possibly the best management advice that I've ever given." Mike Coe: And I'm reading it from a children's book to my seven year old child, and that's a book that we'll all know, and it's over Oh, The Places You'll Go, which is a Doctor Seuss book. Do you remember it? Yeah. And I was just thinking, like even when I was reading out some of the quotes to Charlie and thinking," Actually, this is what management books are trying to summarise, but never seem to do it." Try 300 words to do it. Quotes like, you're on your own and you know what you know, and you are the one who will decide where you'll go, that you're in charge of your destiny. And things about that tells you to make mistakes, except you don't, because sometimes you won't. Mike Coe: I'm afraid that sometimes you'll play lonely games too, games you can't win because you'll play against you, but actually you're going to be the one holding you back in that as well. So there's loads of amazing management advice in other places you'll go, and it's something that I recommend that everybody gives to their child when they're going off to secondary school or even off to university as well, because there's some incredible quotes in there. You've got brains in your head, you've got feet in your shoes, you can steer yourself in any direction you'll choose. And I think that's kind of how I've lived my career up to date, is through the advice of other places you'll go and making those decisions yourself and sticking by those decisions, and the world is there to explore. Mike Coe: So it comes back to your thing about, where would I like to spend a month while Africa and going back there? Because that's the place I'd love to go again. Kelly Molson: But you're not taking Charlie with you? Mike Coe: No, he'll have read the book and be on his own journey by then, bless him. Kelly Molson: What I really liked is that you were quoting that book, so I know how many times you've reread that book to your son, which is lovely, and I was smiling. It's actually brought a little bit of a tears while because one of my really good friends has bought that book. She bought that book for my daughter when she was born. We've not read my daughter's 18 months old, it's not going to go in so much. Sitting on her shelf next to her bed, and I look at it every night. It's kind of the last thing that catches my eye before she goes in the cot. And when you said that book, I was like, “Oh, yes, that's just such a great book.” Kelly Molson: Listeners, as ever, we give a copy of this book away, so if you would like to win a copy of it, head over to our Twitter account, retweet Twitter this episode announcement and you could be in with a chance of winning. Mike's, fantastic book. Mike Coe: That could be my controversial opinion that, Oh, The Places You'll Go! is the greatest management book ever written. Kelly Molson: I think maybe more people who would agree with you that on a pat than Paris one a slightly less controversial. Thank you for coming on and sharing that. It's been wonderful to talk to you. Where's the best place to find out all about what's happening? Mike Coe: Yeah. So if you go on to either our websites for Wild Place and the Old Bristol Zoo Gardens website is still there, and look at our vision and our future, and all of the information on the master planning work that's going on there and the vision in the future are there, and please come and visit us and see us here. We're right at the start of the journey, but over the next five to ten years, we're going to really transform this place. Kelly Molson: I don't think you're going to have any problem getting any of our listeners to come and visit. Mike, thanks again for joining us. Mike Coe: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| From Lockdown to LEGO: Crafting History and Building the Future | 19 Jun 2024 | 00:54:21 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast. Competition ends on 3rd July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
Andrew Webb is a LEGO enthusiast who uses bricks in outreach programmes for teams and organisations as diverse at Arm, Pinset Mason, The National Trust, English Heritage, and the Scouts. During the UK's second Lockdown in early 2021, He made the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo Helmet out of LEGO bricks and submitted it to LEGO Ideas. The build achieved international media coverage, and has since been donated to the National Trust. Andrew continues to help attractions and institutions with LEGO programmes. By day, he works as a global head of content marketing for a B2B tech company. Find out more at http://teambuildingwithbricks.com
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with Mister attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. Today I'm talking to Andrew Webb. By day, Andrew is a content marketer for a tech firm, but in his spare time helps attractions to use Lego as a tool to attract and engage diverse audiences and enable them to interpret history and culture. We're going to talk about what it means to be an building, a model of anglo saxon helmet, and the 24 skills that are used when building with Lego. Paul Marden: So welcome to the podcast. Andrew Webb: Thank you. Paul Marden: On Skip the Queue, we always start with some icebreaker questions that you know nothing about. So let's launch into a couple of those. Book and a pool or museums and galleries for your city break. Andrew Webb: Museum and galleries. Paul Marden: Yeah. I'd expect nothing less given what we're about to talk about. This is one from one of my colleagues, actually, who is really good at icebreakers whenever we do a team building eventually. So he said, “Would you rather have it and lose it or never have it at all?” Andrew Webb: Oh, gosh, I'll have it and lose it for sure. Paul Marden: Yeah, gotta be. That one's from miles. Say thank you, Myles. That was a cracker. Andrew Webb: Do you remember the word there was a great one. Would you rather eat ten donuts or raw onion? Paul Marden: Oh, ten donuts, hand down. I could easily do that. Andrew Webb: I'd get onion. I'd get onion. Every time I would take an onion over ten donuts. I'd be sick after ten donuts. Paul Marden: Oh, no, I reckon I could take that. No problem. Andrew Webb: Okay. Paul Marden: Okay. So we're going to talk a little bit about your adventures in Lego over the last few years. So why don't we kick off and talk a little bit about your original interest in Lego? Because I know it goes back not a long way, because that would be rude. But it goes back to a few years ago, doesn't it? Andrew Webb: It does. I mean, like most people growing up in what we might loosely term the west, I had like, I was a kid, you know, I think most of us grew up with it like that. And then like, you know, growing up in that first age of plastics with Heman, Transformers, Lego, Star wars, all of that sort of stuff. Paul Marden: You're just describing my childhood. Andrew Webb: It's funny because that was. It was all sort of ephemeral, right? I mean, the idea was that the reason why that boom happened, just to dwell on why they're going plastic things. Before that, toys were made out of either tin or wood. So, you know, they were very labour intensive produce there's certainly injection moulding comes along and we could just have anything coupled with the tv shows and the films and all this sort of stuff. So we all grew up in this sort of first age of disposable plastic, and then it all just gets passed down as kids grow up. It gets given away, gets put in the loft and forgotten about. There's a moment when a return of the Jedi bedspread doesn't look cool anymore, right? You hit about 13, 14 and you're like, “Mom, I really want some regular stuff there.” Andrew Webb: So like everybody, you know, I gave it all away, sold it and whatever, but I kept onto my lego and then fast forward, you know, I become a parent and Lego starts to come back into my life. So I'm sort of at a stage where I'm working for a travel startup and I get a press release to go to the Lego House, which if no one has heard about it, where have you been? But also it is a fantastic home of the brick, which Lego built in, opened in 2016. And it is a phenomenal temple to Lego. Not in terms of like a Legoland style approach with rides and things like that, but it's all about the brick and activities that you can do in a brick. Andrew Webb: There is great pools and huge pits of Lego to play with there, as well as displays and all this sort of stuff. They've actually got a Lego duplo waterfall. Paul Marden: Really? Andrew Webb: Oh, I mean, it's a fantastic attraction. And the way they've done it is just incredible. So they blend a lot of digital things. So if you make a small fish and insert it into this thing, it appears in the tank and swims around and this sort of stuff and the way you can imprint your designs on things. I should just quickly tell you about the cafeteria there as well, just really quickly. So the cafeteria at the Lego House, everyone gets a little bag of Lego and then whatever you build and insert into this sort of iPad sort of slots type thing, and that's what you're. Andrew Webb: So a pink brick might be salmon, a yellow brick might be chicken, whatever, and you put it all in and it recognises it all and then it comes down a giant conveyor belt in a Lego. Giant Lego box and is handed to you by robots. I mean, mind blowing stuff. This is not like with a tray at the National Trust place or somewhere like that for us to come. It is a technological marvel. Absolutely fascinating. So, of course, on the day went, it was a press preview, so there was no canteen workers, so there was no food in the box when me and my daughter, so went without that data, was a bit disappointed. Andrew Webb: But that started that whole reappreciation of Lego, both as a toy to play with my daughter, but also as a way of using Lego in different ways. And that manifests itself in lots of different things. So currently, now, you know, fast forward a little bit. I use Lego for team building exercises, for workshops, for problem solving with organisations, and also just for having fun with adult groups as well as kids. And I think one of the biggest things we've seen since this kind of started around 2000s with the sort of adults reading Harry Potter, do you remember that was like, why are you reading this children's book type of thing? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: And then all the prequel Star wars films came out and Lego made sets about both those two things. And it kind of. I mean, Bionicle saved the company, as only AFOL will know, but it started that whole merchandising thing and adding Lego into that firmament of IP. Right. And we fast forward now, and it's Marvel and Star wars and everything. Paul Marden: You just said AFOL. I know what an AFOL is, but many of our listeners may not know what AFOL is. Andrew Webb: Just to go for acronyms here. So an AFOL is an Adult Fan of Lego. And we've seen actually Lego in the past five years, even earlier. I mean, Lego always had an adult element to it. And one of the original founders used to use it for designing his own house. And there was a whole architectural system called Molodux. So it's always had that element to it. But just recently we've seen, you know, almost retro sets. So we see the Lego Atari 2600 video game system from 1976, which, yeah. Paul Marden: An original NES wasn't there. Andrew Webb: Exactly. NES that's come out. I've got a Lego Optimus prime back here for transformers, you know, all that kind of stuff. So with what's been really interesting is this kidault or whatever, however, call it. And I think that's really fascinating, because if we think about Lego as a toy, we are rapidly approaching the age where we might have three generations of people that have grown up with Lego. Lego first came around in the very late ‘60s, early '70s. And so it's not inconceivable that you might have three generations that had Lego as a child, especially if you grew up in Denmark. A little bit different when it would come to the rest of Europe as they expanded out. So I get to this point, and I'm getting into Lego and doing all this sort of stuff. Andrew Webb: And then, of course, COVID happens and then lockdown happens and we all think the world's going to end and no one knows. Everyone's looking for hobbies, aren't they? They say you were either hunk, drunk or chunk after lockdown. You either got fit, got fat or got alcoholic. So try to avoid those three things. And, you know, everyone's looking for stuff to do, so you have so much banana bread you can bake. And so I stupidly, with my daughter's help, decided to make the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, the 1500 year old Sutton Hoo helmet found at Sutton Hoo in Suffolk, now in the British Museum. Out of Lego, as you do. Paul Marden: I mean, just exactly. Just as you do. So just a slight segue. I was at the National Attractions Marketing Conference yesterday and there were two people presenting who both talked about their experiences of wacky things that they did during lockdown. There was one person that opened a theatre in her back garden and had various different stars just randomly turn up in her backyard up in North Yorkshire. And you choose to build a Lego Sutton Hoo helmet. Andrew Webb: Lockdown, there will be a time, I think, as we look back, tragic though it was, and, you know, a lot of people died, but it was that moment when society sort of shuffled around a bit and people sort of thought, “Well, if I don't do it now, why not?” People were launching bakeries in their kitchens and serving their community and like. And that element of it. And so people have that. The good side of that, I suppose, is that people did find new outlets of creativity. And Joe Wick's yoga class is in their front row walking groups, you know, all this sort of stuff and beating beaten horsemans and learning to play the violin and dust and stuff. Suddenly we all had to find hobbies because we're all just in. Andrew Webb: No one was going to restaurants, no one's going to bars, no one's going to gigs, nightclubs, theatres. We like to make entertainment at home. It was like the middle ages. So I decided to build the Lego Sutton Hoo helmet, as you do. And so I start this in lockdown, and then, like, I get wind that Netflix is making a film called The Dig. And The Dig is all about, I think it's Lily James and Ray Fiennes in it, and it's all those other people. And it's all about when they found theSutton Hoo helmet. And the guy who found it was called Basil Brown, and he was asked by Edith Pretty, who owned the land, to excavate these humps in the ground that were on her estate. Paul Marden: Okay, so she owns this big estate, in Suffolk, right? And, so she can clearly see there's burial mounds in the back garden, but doesn't know what's in them. Doesn't have any clue that there's treasure locked up inside this. Andrew Webb: I'm not even sure she knew there were anglo saxon burial maps since it was. Paul Marden: They were just lumps of ground in the garden. Andrew Webb: Yeah. I mean, she may have had inkling and other stuff I've turned up over the years and whatever. And some of them were robbed sort of georgian times around then. So some people knew what they were and they were somewhere excavated and gold was taken to fund the polynomial wars and whatnot. But she asked Basil Branson, he was like an amateur archaeologist, right? And so he was just like this local guy would cycle over and do. And the film goes into all that, and the film kind of portrays it as working class. Basil Brown should know his place against the sort of British Museum who are sort of the baddies in this film who think they know what. And of course, this is all set against the backdrop of war. So they escalated it all, then they had to rebury it. Andrew Webb: And then it was used as a tank training ground, so lots of tanks rolled over it. So it's a miracle anything was ever found. But when he did find the Sutton Hoo, who told me and a bunch of other things, clasp brooches, shields, weapons and whatever, when he did find it, so people think it kind of popped out the ground as a helmet, but it didn't. And if you look at the photos, it came out the ground in hundreds of pieces. Paul Marden: Oh, really? So you look at this reconstructed mask that's now in the British Museum, and you think, “Oh, so they just found that in one piece,” lifted out as if it was a Lego hat, you know, for a minifig. In one piece? No, not at all. Andrew Webb: It was actually more like a big parlour Lego in the fact that it was just in hundreds of thousands of pieces. And so there was the first guy to have a go at it was an elderly architect at the British Museum who was, I think, blind in one eye. And he had a go at putting it all together. And he used an armature and clay and pins and whatever, put it all together and said, “Yes, I think it was this.” And then actually it wasn't. He got it all wrong. Lots of different pieces after some more research, and then it falls to this. Nigel Williams is another sub architect, and he was famous for. Andrew Webb: There was a famous Portland vase that was broken in a museum by someone pushing it over as a sort of what you might call, like a just stop oil type of protest now, I can't remember what the call was, but someone smashed an exhibit. And he had painstakingly pieced all this together. He was a total dapper dude. Three piece suit, Chelsea boots, proper swinging sixties, and he had to go and put it all together. His version is the one that's in the British Museum, but he was a massive jigsaw fan. And if you think about Lego, what it is a 3d jigsaw. You get a bunch of pieces and you have to make. Make it into a 3d sculpture. So that was one reason, the dig was the other reason. Andrew Webb: The third reason was that the relationship between East Anglia and essentially Denmark and Billand and Anglo Saxon and Jutland and all that area, I'm talking like Vikings and Anglo Saxons and invasions and all this kind of stuff against the native British, there is essentially a relationship between East Anglia, a trade relationship and a conquest relationship between them. So I built this thing and I frantically put it together and I'm late nights and just losing my marbles trying to get this thing to work. Because Lego is not designed to make, like, spherical shapes, necessarily. It's quite blocky. Right. Everyone knows this. It's the square. Paul Marden: Really easy to make a car, really easy to make a house. A spaceship. Andrew Webb: Houses. Brilliant. Yeah. Square stuff is fantastic. But baking, not only a sort of a semicircle, but a hemisphere, which is what essentially a helmet is. Is even harder because you have to get the Lego to bend in two directions. And so a lot of work went into that just to get the actual face piece came together quite easy. And there was once I had the scale of the pieces under the eyes that formed that sort of thing, and then I could build the nose and face. Ideally, it was going to be so that I could put it on my head. I've actually got a massive head. So in the end, I had to realign that and sort of make it into this sort of child sized head. Paul Marden: But it's a wearable thing, right? Andrew Webb: It is. It is wearable. I mean, at one point, it was probably more fragile than the one in the British Museum because it just kept dropping to pieces. So there's a lot of sub plates that are holding together the outer plate. So it's actually sort of. So just quick Lego terminology here. So bricks, obviously are bricks. The flat things with bubbles on are called plates and then the smoother ones are called tiles. Okay. And used a combination of these to create. There's also a technique called SNOT, which stands for Studs Not On Top. We love acronyms in the Lego community. Right? Paul Marden: Completely. Andrew Webb: So if you say, “Oh, man, I'm an AFOL covered in SNOT,” people know what you want to know what you mean. So after a night in the tiles, I got covered. Yeah. Andrew Webb: Anyway, so I make the helmet, I make the thing, and then, you know, I get a lot of support from the National Trust, specifically East of England National Trust and Sutton, who site itself because it's there. It's their crown jewels. The British Museum, not so much, because they was like, we've got a billion exhibits here. No, it's just one of them. When you've got the Tippecar moon and the Rosetta stone, it kind of pales into significant. But actually, they were helpful. And one of the curators there, who was on Twitter, who sent me a link to some 3d photos, because if you. If you google it's all pictures at the front. That's fantastic. But what does the back look like? Paul Marden: Oh, right, okay. Andrew Webb: So actually, buried deep in the British Museum's website, in their research department, under a filing cabinet, in the back of a server somewhere, are some quite technical photographic images of it, turning every sort of 30 degrees so that. That it's documented as to what it looks. Because you got to remember that everything on the helmet is symbolic of various different things. There is symbols that mean there's a guy on a horse who's sort of fighting and all this sort of stuff. And it all has quite a lot of meaning. I can occur from different parts of history as well. So there's some sort of roman influencing things there and symbols. And so this whole thing is designed to be not only a battle helmet, but it is also because, remember, crowns haven't been invented yet. Crowns are a later mediaeval sort of invention. Andrew Webb: So this is both a symbol of authority, headwear, like a crown, but also a weapon or a piece of defensive armour and equipment. So it has several functions in its life. So it's quite a complex piece of equipment, that this symbol of authority. So I make all this and then I also submit it to a thing called Lego Ideas. So Lego Ideas is a fantastic programme where anybody in the world, members of the public, can submit Lego Ideas, right? And they go onto a website. There's certain criteria, they have to meet a certain checklist, but then the rest of the public can vote for them. So, I mean, if Taylor Swift just stuck together a load of blocks and said, “Vote for this,” she probably hit the 10,000 threshold instantly. Andrew Webb: But I'm not sure Lego would necessarily take that forward as a build. So there is a judging panel that. But actually, some of the most recent really fantastic sets have come out of Lego Ideas. Members of the public, and they're designing things that the Lego designers wouldn't have thought of themselves. So I think that's been kind of interesting. Sadly, Paul, we didn't make the 10,000 threshold. We did a lot of media coverage. By then, lockdown was over and were sort of getting back to our lives and all this sort of stuff. And my daughter was entering her dark ages. And so it sat in my studio for another sort of year and a half and I thought, “What am I going to do with this?” And so in the end, I thought, “Well, you know what? It's gathering dust here. I'm fed up with it, dustin it.” Andrew Webb: And so I actually approached Josh Ward at the National Trust at Sutton Hoo, who has been a fantastic advocate for Lego and for this particular project, and I have to thank him immensely for that. And they got some money and some funding to build a cabinet and also to house it. So I donated it to National Trust and it is now on display there as part of their firmament of interpretational trail. Paul Marden: That must feel pretty good fow you. Andrew Webb: Yeah, it is quite good looking in there and watching kids go, “Wow.” Because Lego is one of those things instantly recognisable for kids. But certain hill as a site is quite complex for children to contextualise because essentially it's several mounds in the ground. And the helmet itself is at the British Museum. Right. They've got a replica built by the royal armouries. There were several of those. They've got those. They have loads of dress up, they have great explainers and videos and they do a lot of work to show the size and shape and things as a cast iron sculpture, to represent the boat, to show just how big it was when it was pulled up from the sea, because he's buried in a boat. So do a lot of that work, sort of that sort of work as well. Andrew Webb: But having this extra funding in the. They opened up Edith's pretty's house now, and having this room where we've got some other things as well, like crayons and paper and other tools and drawings and colouring in and Lego and big chest of Lego just helps, particularly smaller children who, by the time they've walked from the car park around the site, and it has probably flagged it a little bit. And so just providing that little support for them, it's been a fantastic way to contextualise and another way to interpret that. And I think more and more venues could look into that. When you think, well, how else can we add stuff, particularly for children to help tell the story of this place? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. We went to. It was half term last week and went to the City Museum in Winchester. So they've got some mediaeval, they've got some Roman finds there, and there was lots of fun, but they had. It was full of lots of ways for kids to engage, so there was trails to go around, there was colouring in, make your own mediaeval shield. And all of these things are ways that, you know, my ten year old could engage with it because there's only so many glass cabinets of stuff dug up from the ground that she actually wants to look at. Andrew Webb: I mean, I love. I love pit rivers, right, in Oxford, my favourite museum. Paul Marden: It's crazy, isn't it? I love it. Andrew Webb: But basically, he just went around the world nicking stuff. Right, but as a collection of objects, It's fantastic. Paul Marden: It's deeply unnerving. Andrew Webb: Sorry, sorry if any pit rivers curators are listening there, nick, and stuff about it, but, it is my favourite museum because it's just for kids. It's probably really kind of like, how do you tell that story? I also think there was an article in the garden recently that, you know, the cost of living crisis as well. Parents are looking for value solutions now and so I think it wasn't Peppa Pig World, it was Paddington World. And a family ticket is 170 pounds. That is a huge dent in the family finances for a 70 minutes experience. If you are watching the pennies, if you can afford that and save up for it, whatever. And I know these things are, you know, memory making and all that sort of stuff, and I've been to Harry Potter with my daughter. Andrew Webb: That is not cheap, but it's a fantastic day out because once you're in, you spend the whole day there. If you take a packed lunch, you can save a lot of money on that, on the thing. But I suppose what I'm saying is that, you know, our museums and galleries, particularly traditionally, the what you might call free spaces, public spaces, are facing unprecedented demand in terms of parents looking for cost effective value days out, as well as funding being cut from central government and that sort of. So they have to do a huge amount with less and less for a bigger audience. And that is a strain on any institution and things like that. Other examples of places that get this. Andrew Webb: So obviously with the Sutton Hoo helmet, the hold in Ipswich, which is Suffolk Council's kind of flagship museum in the county town of Ipswich, but instead of calling it, you know, the Museum of Suffolk, they've called it The Hold, which is a reference to the fact it's on, I think it's either because it's on the shore or it's doing sheep, I'm not sure anyway. But a fantastic space, contemporary modern space had a Lego exhibition a few years ago, borrowed my helmet, had some Lego exhibition stuff to do. And the good thing about that is when these teams have to do quite a lot of comms marketing and, you know, that has a cost as well, but often you see different demographics than perhaps would normally go to a stones and bones museum, if you know what I mean. Right. Andrew Webb: You'll see that it makes it more accessible to the community and to different people who don't like going and looking at the Magna Carta or whatever. For some kids, a day at the British Library is fantastic. Look at all these old books for more, maybe more boisterous children. That's probably not a really great idea. So I think galleries can take a leaf out of this and think, or museums or any institution really can take a leap out of this and think, “How can we do more for less? And what tools can we have that perhaps we haven't considered before, like Lego, as a way to open up our interpretation and our offering?” So this could work in Museum of Docklands, for example. This could work in the royal armouries. Andrew Webb: There's lots of places where if you looking to improve your children's offering that some form of lego, I mean, it ends up all over the floor, it ends up being taken away. Sometimes you've got to watch out for things like that. But that's why I always recommend, like, just the basic blocks and plates, not minifigures and stuff like that, because, you know, they just end up in kids' pockets and trousers. But I do think it is a fantastic tool for developing that interpretation piece. Paul Marden: So I run a coding club using Lego. Okay. So I work with years four, five and six, typically. And we normally start off by the end of two terms, we will be building robotics, programming things, doing amazing things. But we start at the very beginning with just open up a box, and it is amazing what a bunch of seven, eight and nine year olds can do with a two by four red brick just given bricks. Yeah. And they will build amazing things. Yeah. And they will tell you amazing stories. And you also see real diversity in the behaviours of children, because some children, in that free play context, they do not have the skills to do that. And I had one girl recently who hasn't played with Lego, and free play just blew her mind, and she was in tears because she couldn't embrace the creativity of it. Paul Marden: But then the following week, when we were following instructions, she was great at building from a set of instructions, You can do that from a limited palette and give them a mission. Sutton Hoo, build a, I don't know, a sword, build a shield, build something to interpret what you have seen. You're in the transport museum. Build, build. How did you get to the museum this morning? Give them something to do and then let them go. And half an hour later, you will be amazed by what they will have built. Andrew Webb: I actually did something this at the National Archives down in Kew, where they had a kids exhibition. Well, an exhibition in the summer about wacky inventions, because obviously the National Archives holds the patents for all these things, and they've got things like Victorian top hats with umbrellas in, and, you know, all this kind of crazy Heath Robinson style stuff that, you know, forks with four sets of tines, so you can eat four times as much. It just bonkers. Really interesting things. The curators had gone through and found this wacky world, sort of. What's his name? The guy that illustrates Roald Dahl. They got illustrations and all that. Paul Marden: Quentin Blake. Andrew Webb: Yeah, Quentin Blake, yeah. So they had this Quentin Blake sort of stuff, and, like, there was activities. And I came down for some special stuff because they had the first Lego brick patent in the UK. When it was first launched in the UK, 1963, I think it was. That's when they filed the patent. Paul Marden: And I bet. So that patent would be exactly the same as a two by four brick, now, won't it? Andrew Webb: The patent was for a one by four brick. Isometrically dawn. Just three diets. Just three views with what? It was a construction toy. And then the page. Sorry. And the address was just Railway Station Billund. There wasn't like, just all the mail just went to the railway station in Billund just addressed for attention of Lego. And it's only like. I mean, it's not even a sheet of A4, It's a piece like this. And after it is something like a lamp that won't blow out on a thing, and before it's like some special kind of horse comb, but it's kind of this bonkers catalogue of just these things. But again, it was about, “Right. We did some work. The curators and interpreters looked, you know, had kids analyse the painting to think, what could it be? And look at the dates and structure. Look at that.” Andrew Webb: And then I came out and, like, did some Lego. So we did things like, who can build the longest bridge? Who can build the tallest tower out of a single colour? Those sorts of exercises. But then also the free play was build your own wacky invention. And kids are building automatically dog washers, where the dog ran on a thing and it scrubbed its back. And one kid built something that was like a thing for removing getting pips out of apples. It was just like this sort of like this crazy little tool. They like some sort of problem that he had. Andrew Webb: And I think what this also speaks to is developing those stem skills in children and adults and building that engineering, because I've also ran Lego workshops with explorers who I used to, I thought were between Cubs and scouts, but are actually after scouts. So I did this in my local town, here in Saffron Walden, and was like, “Oh, my God, these kids are like, 15, 16. They're not going to want to play Lego. Some of them are in my daughter's year at school, so. Hello, Amy.” And it was really interesting because we did a series of challenges with them. So the egg drop challenge, can you protect an egg and drop it from the floor? And can you build this and work together? Another good one is looker, runner, builder. Andrew Webb: So you give everybody two sets of the same bricks, and one person is the looker, one person is the runner, one person is the builder. So the looker can't touch, but he can tell the runner. The runner can't look at the model, he can only tell the builder, and the builder can't speak back. And so this is a really useful exercise. And I've done this with teams where, because this is exactly what businesses see, engineering will build a product. Sales or their marketing are like, what the hell is, you know, or whatever it might be. Paul Marden: It's that. It's that classic cartoon of a Swing, yeah. Andrew Webb: Yeah. So it's that, you know, this is what the brief said. Engineering interpreter does this. Marketing saw it. So it's a great tool for things like that. Especially when you put people like the C Suite or CEO's or leaders at the end, because all they're getting is the information and it. It's there and it's how to build communications. Because in life, the fluctuations reverse. A CEO says, “Let's do this.” And by the time it's cascaded down to engineering, who don't get a say, it's not at all what he imagined so, or they imagined so, it's. It's an interesting case of using tools like that. So I did that with these kids and it was fascinating because they're 14, 15, 16. Andrew Webb: A group of three girls won two out of the three challenges and probably could have won a third one if I felt that I couldn't award it to them again because it would just look weird. And they were smashing the looker runner builder thing. They were working together as a team, they were concentrating, they were solving problems, they were being creative, they took some time to prototype, they refined and iterated their design. They were doing all this sort of work. And it's brilliant because 15 year old girls don't often take engineering related STEM subjects at GCSE. Certainly, probably don't take them at a level and more than enough. And I think that I once interviewed Eben Upton, who invented Raspberry Pi, and he said, “We think about the eighties as this sort of like golden age of computing, but actually it was terrible. It was terrible for diversity, it was terrible for inclusion.“ Andrew Webb: And he said, “Like growing up, there was one other kid in his town that had a computer, you know, so there was no sort of way to sort of getting other people involved and make this accessible.” And part of the reason now computers have got smaller. Some of the work I did at Pytop was like trying to make technology more accessible and seeing it not just video games and things like that, but actually I can use this in a fashion show, or I can make music, or I can use this to power some lights to do a theatre production, and trying to bring the, I guess, the creative arts into technology. And that's when we start to see the interest application of technology. Andrew Webb: And Lego plays a part in that, in the fact that it is a tool, a rapid prototyping tool that everybody is familiar with. And it is also, you know, clean, safe. There's no, you don't need blow torches and saws and those sorts of things to kind of prototype anything. You don't even need a pair of scissors, you know, it's completely tool free, unless you're using that little mini separator to get your bricks apart. And so I think that just circle back on, like, how the Science Museum or what's the one down there? Isabel Kingdom Brunel Museum and things like that. I can see those guys could be and should be thinking about, “How could we have a Lego programme?“ Andrew Webb: You don't have to have a permanent deployment like they've got at Sutton Hoo although that is great because they've got the mast there as the head piece of it. But certainly a programme of events or summer camps or summer events, because I did this with English Heritage at Kenilworth Castle as well. They were having, like, a big Lego build and the public were invited in 15-minute shifts into a big marquee and everyone got given a tile. And the idea was to build the gardens because the gardens at Kenilworth Castle were laid out to impress Elizabeth the first. And so everybody got there was like bunches of stuff and regular bricks, also flowers and this sort of stuff. And it was like, “Come on, we've got to build something to impress a queen.” Andrew Webb: He said to kids, like, “Yeah, you've got to impress. Bling it up, like, dial it to ten.” And were just getting these enormous, like, avatar sized trees with just incredible bits hanging off it. And like, “There she has a teapot because she might want a cup of tea.” And you're like, “Brilliant, excellent. Of course she does.” And so I think that. And then they moved through. Some of the Legos were selected to be displayed and things like that. So there's different ways you can do it. You can either do it as like. And I'm a big fan of the drop in sessions because kids and parents can just naturally build it into their day rather than the pre built. My child was. We were rubbish at, like, organising things. Andrew Webb: People like, “Oh, great. Half term, it's a chocolate thing, sold out ". And you're like, yeah, because there's 30 spaces for three and a half thousand kids who want to do it. Whereas if it's like a walkthrough or a. In groups phase through and then the activity, small kids kind of conk out after about 20 minutes, half an hour anyway. You get much more people through and much more people get to enjoy the experience rather than the 30 organised people who got up early and booked. So that's my other top tip to any institution, because it's heavily weather dependent as well. Sun comes out, everyone piles pass into the nearest sort of stately home, national attraction. All of those places can definitely benefit English Heritage. Did a really big push this half term, just gone on Lego at several events. Andrew Webb: We had one here at Audley End, there was one at Kenilworth that I was at. There's been pairs of the ones all around the country, because again, you just need a marquee, which most venues have access to because they use them for other things or some sort of space in case it rains. And you just see someone like me and a whole massive tub of Lego and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Exactly. So we were talking about this at the conference yesterday about ways in which. So for many attractions, people turning up is a literal flip of a coin. Is the weather good or is the weather bad? What can you do to adapt your attraction to be able to deal with when it's bad? And then what can you do to bring people when you have made that adaptation? So, you know, you've now got a marquee and you have a Lego exhibit that you can put into there. So it's just dumping a pile of Lego and a bunch of well trained volunteers or visitor experienced people who can facilitate that, police it, little Johnny sticking minifigs in his pocket. Paul Marden: And then you turn on your Google Adwords and show that you've got this, you know, bad weather reason to go to a stately home that my daughter would turn her nose up to all of a sudden, “Okay, we're going to go and do that. We're going to go and have afternoon tea and you're going to go and play with some Lego and see some animals, maybe.” Yeah, what can you do to attract that extra audience and adapt to the bad weather and service different sorts of people? Andrew Webb: I think that comes down to a bear in mind. I convert some of my Lego lens rather than a venue lens. But I think speaking as a parent and someone who does this is you need a reason to go back to somewhere that you already know. Okay, so you go to Stonehenge, you go and look at the stones, you go, “Wow.” You look at the visitor centre and then it's ticked off. I mean, you see busloads of tourists. Stonehenge is at Cambridge, maybe, or Oxford people, when people do England, Lambeth, Heathrow, London Crown Jewels, Tower Bridge, West End, day trip out on a coach to Stonehenge, maybe to Cambridge, and that's it, off to Paris. Right? So parents like British people like that too. Like why go to Stonehenge four times a year? Or why go to any venue when you're familiar with it? Andrew Webb: It's always about offering something new and something different. Audley End up near where I live, I think, is English Heritage. All through July, every Sunday, they're just doing music. So there's a string quartet or someone with a harp or maybe someone with a guitar or whatever. And you've got a book, but it's. It's not like there's 30 places and it's a bonfight. It's just like, “Oh, wow, they've done something different.” They do a really great thing. Like, they do victorian falconry, for example. So they get someone in who talks about how Victorians use falconry for hunting as a sport, but also for the kitchen table, and they're flying falcons around and doing the whole bit of meat on a string and all this sort of stuff. And everyone, like, “They do a world war two one.” Andrew Webb: I mean, the editorial calendar for any venue's got to look like, “Go and make Christmas food. January, we're closed to kind of dust and clean everything. Valentine's Day, chocolate make you put. It's daffodils”, it's whatever it might be. And then you just build that. Build that programme in and you need. This is why I think that venues now, again, I'll just come back to that. You talk about AdWords, but that, again, is more spend. It's like, how'd you build that mail list? How do you drop into the local Facebook groups and Mumsnet and all that kind of stuff? You know, that's where you can do it organically rather than. Because people don't sit in front of Google necessarily, or think, like, what should we do? Paul Marden: You sit on the sofa on a Thursday night trying to figure out what on earth are we going to do this weekend? Yeah, so you're completely right. The mum's net, the content marketing, is hugely important, isn't it? Andrew Webb: Which is my job. But also it's kind of like how can institutions become part of that? When I say community, if you think about most people travel a thin hour to go somewhere. I mean, people go further afield, you know, but. But basically it's like, what? My mom turns, like, a tea and a pee. So you've got to go somewhere. You've got to have a cup of tea, visit the loos. It's all about tea. It's all about canteens and loos, basically. You could have a World Heritage Site, UNESCO World Heritage site. And it's like, how good's the caf? And are the toilets clean? Yeah, that's what people remember. Gar went hens at dawn. I was awed by the majestic. But that Looney D cleaning, you know, it's not good. It's all that people come home with. Andrew Webb: So, you know, institutions go into place that they are trying to offer different things. Like late nights. We've talked about that. How can we use this space after hours? Because if you think about it, if your institution's open 10 till 6, most people are at work five days a week, you're gonna have students and pensioners who are gonna be not great spenders, either of those two groups. So, late nights, I went to a great one in the National Gallery when the James Bond film. I was kind of sitting royale or whatever. He's still on the top of the National Gallery overlooking Trafalgar Square, and they've got the national dining rooms there and they had Vesper Martini, everyone got a cocktail. Andrew Webb: And then went to look at the fighting Temeraire, which is the bit where he's standing with Q, the new Q, who voices Paddington, whose name escapes me and gives him, like, a gun and a radio, but they're like the fighting Temeraire by Turner is this little thing. And so, you know, you've got to make hay out of that, right? You've got to sort of, like, do a late night, various ones. And so all it was a few cocktails in the cafe next door and are taught by the curator and stuff like that. But 30 people just looking for an experience. And so if venues are clever, of course, the dark side of this is when you get Willy Wonka world up in Scotland. Andrew Webb: Or interestingly, some of the Lego events that have been happening at NEC have caused a massive online backslash in the community for just being exceptionally bad value for money. And so you read about these things that people have said, “Come and visit Santa's grotto, and it's just a muddy field with a tree in it,” so you've got to be careful. But I think those events, those sort of fly by night kind of institutions, don't really work. But how galleries can leverage the creativity of what they're doing? Whether they are come and paint in our, you know, our local gallery, come and have an art class, come and do that. People are looking for stuff to do that is value for money. That isn't always drink lead, you know, it's not always cocktail making or things like that. Andrew Webb: And that comes with a whole heap of other things and dietary requirements for cookery courses and just clean up and the mess and all that kind of stuff. So I think that, yeah, canning organisations, the ones that can really think about that, and I'm happy to help organisations who want to think about this, especially through the life of Lego. They will be the ones that will start to add and build out and develop their. What you might term this whole sector needs a name. The kind of extracurricular offering, we might say, above and beyond their collection and then their traditional interpretation and if they're. Paul Marden: Thinking of doing this. So there's a good why. Yeah, the why is you can reach diverse audiences, helps people with interpretation. Andrew Webb: Quite cheap. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. It's a cheap way of extending your offering and diversifying what you do. You can bring in event elements to this, but how do they do it? Apart from engaging with somebody like you? And I'm going to guess there's not many people like you. So that's going to be a tricky thing for some people to do. But if they were starting from scratch, how would they go about doing this? You said earlier, “Don't go mad with buying the bricks and spending a fortune on.” Andrew Webb: There are people like me that can do all this as well as myself. I think that the first thing is plan it. Plan what you need to do. You can't throw this stuff together. You might be looking at. Already the hold have been contacting me for a late night they're doing in September. They contacted me April. Paul Marden: Okay. Andrew Webb: Because if you're a creator, you're planning exhibitions, you are thinking on that long term cycle. Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. Andrew Webb: And so what you need to do is bake this in as part of that curational process or part of the interpretation of things at the start, rather than like, “Right, we're doing exhibit on Peter Rabbit, let's chuck in a load of fluffy bunnies or whatever.” You know, it's got to be. You've got to think about it and have it contextualised. I think the best things are. What success looks like is, first of all, you need a space. Now you can hire a marquee that comes with a cost. If you're a venue and you've got your own or you've got a hall or a stables or interpretational room or something like that, often spaces, specifically bigger ones, will have classroom spaces for school groups anyway. So that's often that can be where you can host these sorts of events. Kids are very familiar. Andrew Webb: The chairs are all small wall colour, you know, etc. Industrial strength carpet in case stuff gets built. So locations like where you're going to stage this? Paul Marden: Yeah. Andrew Webb: Secondly, I think you need to think about, what do we want people to do? What is the experience? What is the narrative piece? Because you can't just say, here's a big part of Lego. Kids will just build cars and houses, right? You know, they need context. You know, if you give a kid a sheet of paper, you could draw anything. They're like, well, what? And so you need to give them a mission almost. They need a task, I think. Also think about, as I said before, keeping the tasks around 20 minutes, because actually adding the time running out jeopardy element is quite fun for kids because they'll go, “Well, I've only got five minutes left.” And often that's when it all falls apart and then they have to iterate the design. Andrew Webb: So think about that kind of moving people through in 15 to 20 minutes cycles. We had kids at Kenilworth, that would go out the exit and just walk back around and come in the front like that. Like four or five times. One boy came in, he was loving it. So think about that. Think about how you're going to move people through the space. Think about what you need to envisage it. So the Kenilworth, for example, there was me hosting it from dawn toward dusk. We had another builder there who was helping take break it all down and put them against the model that we built. There were two members of staff who were letting people through, so just monitoring it from an entry exit point of view, walkie talkies, in case people had issues and things like that. Andrew Webb: And think about when you're going to do it. Okay, so half term is a good one. It's a good thing to do. We saw a lot of this at Kenilworth, but I've seen other places as well, particularly half terms and things like that. You often see grandparents caring for grandchildren, right? Because parents are at work and grandparents can only walk around the site so much before they want to sit down. So sometimes have it, like, think about where they can. And when I was at Kenilworth, grandparents came in with their two grandkids, and the kids started playing and I was like, you could join in, too. Oh, no, I don't want it. You know, they were almost like, “I can't do this. It's like, come on, get in, get in. Come on, grandma. Come on. I'll show you how it works. “ Andrew Webb: By the end of that session, they were memory making. I then took their photo with their phones, they'd have this sort of grandparent. But, you know, you always say it like, my grandfather taught me to fish. Like Sean Connery says in the hunt for red October. This sort of moment where sort of, it's a Hollywood trope that grandfather knowledge is sort of passed on type of thing. Right. And so you can see that where you could have this, almost either the reverse of that, of kids showing grandparents, but also they're all having this event outside of the parental unit. So it's a new type of experience. It adds value, it gets people to play with their grandkids. Paul Marden: Priceless. Andrew Webb: So I think that's kind of an interesting way. So think about when, think about where and think about what will be my three sort of tips for any institution looking to put this together. Paul Marden: You gave one the other day which I thought was priceless, which was, don't give them wheels. Andrew Webb: Oh, yes. Paul Marden: Don't include the wheels. Andrew Webb: Take the wheels out of any sets, unless you are the Transport Museum or the, you know, a car based museum, because kids will do wings as well. I'd probably suggest taking those out because kids have just built cars. Some kids have just built cars, you know, even if you give them a mission. Unless that is the mission. The other thing that I would think that venues could do as well as sort of all day events, because it's quite a time drain, you know, on staff and this sort of stuff, but it is a value. The other thing you can think about is one off evening events for adults. Yes, I've done this. I did this at my local add them shops. Bricks, beers and bubbles challenges supercompass teams. Think of it like a pub quiz with brick is the answer. Andrew Webb: So build me a thing that does that kind of thing. Teams all get together, you can race them, you can see who goes the furthest. You can do all this stuff. And the hold is what I'm doing at the hold in September. I did it at the hold a couple of years ago. And what was interesting was that we had quite diverse groups of adults. We had just couples who were clearly AFOLs and were like, “Yeah, I'm going to go to that.” We had a group of friends. One of them had just come back from years travelling and they didn't want to go sort of straight to the pub and just interrogate him about his travelling, whatever. Andrew Webb: They kind of like, “Well, we wanted something to do where we could have a beer and have a chat, but were doing something else whilst we’re doing that.” And that's the joy of Lego. Your hands are doing the work and you're almost like the back of your brain is doing the work and you're like, “Oh, yeah, yeah. Before you kick them.” And the concentration levels are there and then you can kind of get into that state of flow. And so they were just having this lovely chat, had a beer, talking about stuff, but also memory making in terms of when he came back from his travelling. So I think that's really important. Andrew Webb: Did you know that this is your brain, right? And then your brain on Lego, there are 24 discrete skills that are happening in your brain. So Lego research this, things like fine motor skills, cognitive sort of thinking about things, future planning, my favourite emotional regulation that is not going, “Oh, my God, it's not working. And smashing all to pieces.” So I've seen this as well with children, is that when you give them a Lego, if you gave them jelly and a football, they'll all just. They're a high energy kind of things, right? And that's fine, great outdoors, kids want to burn off energy. Here's a load of balls. Go crazy, right? Or ball pits, trampolines, bouncy castles, those sorts of things. When you get on Lego, what actually happens is it's very hard to be anarchic, to use a wrong word, but a word. It's very hard to be anarchic with Lego because you can't really do it. Andrew Webb: And so you can get a group of kids together and they'll almost self invigilate. And at one point, I ran it at a local toy shop and the parents are all hanging about and like, “I've never seen them so quiet.” They were just in the state of flow. And so, I think, you know, again, back to the. Back to the explorers and the scouts, that was one of the best sessions that those kids had done as teenagers because the reason was they were given permission to play with Lego. They still had the muscle memory from when they were smaller children. They were solving. They weren't just being told to play with Lego, they were actually solving engineering challenges. How can you design a bridge that will take this weight? How can you protect an egg? How can you think about this? Andrew Webb: And so you need to think about the challenge and the what. You need to think about that, the where and you think about the when, as I said, and get those right. You can have a very exceptional visitor experience for not a huge amount of effort. It's not highly costly, it's not highly technical, it's just a bit of elbow grease and a bit of forward thinking in terms of what we might need. And I think that parents appreciate just that minute away where they can. It's almost like a 20 minute babysitter, right, where they can just go, “Don't touch that.” You know, you're walking around a stately home, “Don't sit there, don't touch. Mind the lady.” All that kind of no data that parents give out institutions, they can just take a breather and check their phones and whatever. Paul Marden: And the kids are just having an amazing time. Andrew Webb: Yeah. And the kids are happy. And at the end of the day, as a parent, we all do our best and you just want, you know, them to be playing with something screen free, getting along and learning something. And, you know, that is the win. That is the ultimate takeout. You can layer on your own institution in context and rev up the visitor experience, bring in new visitors, attract a more diverse group of people that perhaps wouldn't normally come to a Regency Rococo style villa or whatever it might be, then that's all to the better, because, you know, you can start to use this in your planning and you can do what Suntton Hoo did? And go, right, well, we've done this and it's really worked. Andrew Webb: And then I can apply for funding for it and I can expand and I can make it permanent and then I can sort of say, well, this now becomes a tool and a string and arbo for our educational. It doesn't have to be split between visitor attractions and development. It can, you know, you can split it between several parts of the institution and use it in different ways, use it for educational purposes as well as visitor experience. So the world's your oyster with a bit of thinking. Paul Marden: With a bit of Lego and a bit of thinking. Andrew Webb: Bit of Lego, yeah. A few bricks and a couple of tricks and you're off to the races. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been brilliant. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Paul Marden: I've got one more question for you before we finish. Now, you bottled this earlier on when I said we always have a book recommendation from our guests. And in spite of having the fullest bookshelf I've seen in quite a long time, you've bottled it on a book. But you did offer me a favourite movie. And so what would be your movie recommendation of choice? Andrew Webb: My go to movie would probably be Withnail and I, Richard E. Grant's first film. Every line has came down from God on a tablet. I mean, it is just. Yeah. Richard Griffiths as Uncle Monty, Paul McGann. It's just one of my favourite films and, you know, cult classic that no one's really. Well, people have heard of it now, but again, they even make stuff out with Alan Eyright. So you can go and watch a screening of it at the farm at Crow Crag up in Penrith, you know, and everyone dresses up and everyone comes with Mister blathering sets tea and I come on holiday by mistake and Jessie says, Danny. Andrew Webb: And, you know, fortunately, for better or for worse, I know these are tough times, but people try and find the fun in things. They try and at the end of the day, everyone's looking for a good time, whether we're children or an adult. You want something to just have a laugh and take you away for a moment. And if films and culture but also experiences can do that, then that's all for the good. Paul Marden: Well, look, this is going to be a challenge, but listeners, if you would like a copy of Andrew's film recommendation, then when we release the show message on X, if you can retweet that and say, “Give me Andrew's movie”, then the first person that does that, somehow I will get the movie to you. It might be on VHS, it might be on DVD, but somehow we will get you a movie. Andrew Webb: I found a CD the other day from a bar I used to go to in Clapham in the noughties and late ‘90s. I said to my mate, look, I'm great, put it on. And I went, “I can't.” I haven't got a CD player anymore. I had to go dig through a box somewhere in the study to find a portable CD player that plugged into my computer that could. By the end of it, we're just laugh. Forget it. Paul Marden: Andrew, this has been wonderful. Thank you ever so much. Andrew Webb: You're welcome. Cheers. Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| How attractions and cultural sites can create better visitor experiences through innovative storytelling, with Spencer Clark | 22 Mar 2023 | 00:47:04 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://twitter.com/ATS_Spencer https://twitter.com/ATS_Heritage https://www.linkedin.com/in/spencerclark/
Spencer Clark As a newbie to the sector, I started my career in attractions back in 2012 when I joined ATS to help grow the business. There was so much to learn, but I used my experience in design and creative problem solving and a natural ability to understand clients needs quickly. Today I am in the privileged position of co-owning and leading the company as MD with a fantastic team and a reputation to match. I love how we can use technology (thoughtfully) to elevate an experience. At ATS, we are pioneers of on-site and on-line digital visitor experiences across the cultural sector, delivering amazing audio & multimedia tours, digital apps/tools, films and tailored consultancy services. We help our clients to engage with millions of visitors and we’re privileged to be trusted by attractions small and large across Europe, including St Paul's Cathedral, Guinness Storehouse, Westminster Abbey, Bletchley Park, Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, Titanic Belfast and Rembrandt House Museum. Outside of work, I’m busy keeping up with two active daughters and try to get on the water paddle boarding, on the hills mountain biking, or roaming around in our camper van.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode I speak with Spencer Clark, Managing Director of ATS Heritage. Spencer shares his insight into what the biggest pain points are for attractions when developing their stories, and the ATS methodology that helps bring out the very best experience for your guests. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, Spencer. It's lovely to have you on. Spencer Clark: Thanks for having me, Kelly. Kelly Molson: It's taken a while for me to persuade Spencer to come on. I'm not going to lie, I've had his arm right up his back for a while, but he's finally here. Spencer Clark: I've relented. Kelly Molson: He has relented, but he might regret it. Right, icebreakers. What's the worst gift that anyone's ever given you? Spencer Clark: Who's going to be listening to this? I'm not so much worse, but once you get, like, your third or fourth mug, it might be personalised and tailored to you, maybe they're quite amusing, some thoughts gone into it, but when you get a few too many mugs, that creates a little bit. Kelly Molson: Would you rather socks than mugs? Spencer Clark: Yeah, I'm getting into my socks now. Yeah, some nice socks would go down a treat, I think. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I'm with you on this. So this was a Twitter discussion, so the team at Convious sent me some lovely Convious branded socks the other week. They're great. And I had them on. I took them a little picture, I put them on social media and then everyone was like, "Oh, socks. Yeah, were going to do socks for giveaways", but everyone said, "No, socks are rubbish". And I was like, "Absolutely not". Socks are, like, low of the list of things that I want to buy myself. So if I get free socks, I'm going to wear them. Spencer Clark: That's it. And you get your favourites. Kelly Molson: Good. No mugs for Spencer. Okay, this is a random one. If you can only save one of the Muppets, which muppet do you choose and why? Spencer Clark: Oh, man, that's quite a good one. Miss Piggy is a little bit hectic for me. I don't think I could spend a lot of time with her. The chef's quite entertaining, though. The hoodie gordie chickens, I think is. Yeah, I think he was smiling face and, yeah, I like a good chef, so, yeah, I keep him. Kelly Molson: It's a good choice. And I wasn't expecting the impersonation either. Impressive. Spencer Clark: There you go. Kelly Molson: Really, we're taking this podcast to new levels, people. This one would be quite easy for you if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life. What would it be? Spencer Clark: That's a good. That's really good. Back after Uni, 1999, I went travelling with my best friend and we had a little campervan and went around New Zealand for four weeks and we bought two tapes when we landed in Auckland and we had those two tapes and we listened to just those two tapes for four weeks in a camper van. And one was Jamiroquai Synchronised album, big Jay Kay fan. And the second one was Californication by the Red Hot Chilli Peppers. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Spencer Clark: And I can still listen to them over and over again now. Kelly Molson: I think I'll let you have the two because it's a great story and really good memories attached to those two. Spencer Clark: Oh, every time we put it on. And Dave is not a great singer, but it's a memorable voice he has. So we're travelling around, these tracks pop up and I'm taking straight back to a certain lovely mountain right here in New Zealand. It's Delcito. Thanks, Dave. Kelly Molson: Lovely. Thanks, Dave. Good memories, good story, good start to the podcast. Right. What is your unpopular opinion? Spencer Clark: So it's QR code, but in a particular setting. And that is where, in restaurants or places to eat, where the QR code is that's your menu. It's the way you pay and everything. And I think just sometimes it gets just a bit frustrating. It's not a great experience because I like a big menu, not necessarily with pictures on the food, I don't need that. But a good menu with everything on it, so you can kind of see the choices, but on your phone you can't really see the whole menu, so that's a bit annoying. And then you got to just order it and add it to your basket and then you think it's gone, then do all the payment. Spencer Clark: I know it's supposed to be easy, but in that environment, I prefer just chatting to a waiter or a waitress and just and having a good experience. Kelly Molson: I agree. When there was a need for, it was great. Obviously, during pandemic times, that was great that you could go in and you could do that. But, yeah, I want to ask questions. I can't decide between these three dishes. What would you pick? You want that conversation, don't you? That's the whole part. It's all part of the experience of eating out. Spencer Clark: It definitely is. And I did a lot of time as a waiter in my late teens and early twenties. And a great waiter makes your night. That's the way I see it. All your day. It's just under use. You don't want to cut them out, you want to go just all on the app. Kelly Molson: Right, listeners, that is a good one. Let me know how you feel. Are you up for having a little chat with your waiter? Straight waitress? Or do you just want to go QR code, cut them out, no chat. No chat. Let me know. Spencer Clark: Sometimes I have those moments as well, of course, but overall, I'd rather chat with someone. Kelly Molson: All right, tell us about your background before you got to ATS. It wasn't in the attraction sector, was it? Spencer Clark: No. So ATS where I'm at now, I've been eleven years and this is the first entry into attractions culture sector. So I did product design at uni and I was never going to be the best designer. It worked out, but I love design and I love the process of essentially being given a problem and find ways in which you can design something to solve it in the best possible way. So to design was definitely in my interests. And then after Uni, I had an idea. My sister is profoundly deaf and so we had an idea for some software, or had some ideas for some software that helped communicate with businesses using your PC. This is pre Messenger and pre WhatsApp all of that. Spencer Clark: So it's kind of when using modems, if anyone remembers those, I'm really sure my age when talking about modend dial ups and yeah, I went to the Princess Trust actually for a bit of funding, a bit of help, and kind of did that start up. So that was inspired by trying to find a solution for an issue that my sister was facing. But then, yeah, the internet really hit us and we had messenger and thankfully, communications with deaf people are far better now. And on almost any cool playing field we've got WhatsApp texts, all of that sort of stuff, and email everything, so it kind of levelled it a bit. Then I set up another business with her and it was deaf awareness training. So we would train healthcare professionals, predominantly. The front of house, health care, how to communicate better with deaf patients. Spencer Clark: Again, driven off of a pretty horrible experience that my sister had. And so, yeah, trying to sell something and making the experience better was really important to us. So that was really good. And through that, funny enough, I met ATS along that route because ATS were looking for some sign language tours. They were the first company to really start to do it on handheld devices. And yeah, that's how I met them, because they found us doing deaf awareness training and signing and asked us for some help. That was the seed. But then at the same time, when I was doing small business consultancy around childcare businesses, really random, but it was the same sort of thing. Spencer Clark: I love working a bit of entrepreneurial spirit in me and I loved helping organisations, smaller businesses, particularly with their cash flows and their marketing ideas, and just general small business help, really. And then I found ATS and that's a whole other story. Kelly Molson: I love that. Yeah, well, great story. I didn't realise that you had a startup and you've been part of all these quite exciting businesses and it's those businesses that kind of led you to ATS. Spencer Clark: Yeah, I had a moment and as many of us do, I suppose I was getting married and I was working in these different jobs and it was quite randomly kind of moved to different things and I was trying to find the focus, what do all these different businesses and these things do? And I was kind of looking at what I enjoyed, what I was good at, and I went through a bit of a career reflection and had someone help me do that. And we're looking, what's the common thing here? And it was creativity, it was working with people. It was definitely small business, not big corporates. And at the time, because I'd already known ATS through doing some of the sign language stuff, they went on my list as, “I need to have a chat with Mike about that one day”. Spencer Clark: He's the founder of ATS. And then yeah, eventually we sat down in the chat and invited me on board to try out. And that was eleven years ago. Kelly Molson: And that was eleven years ago. Tell us about ATS, tell us what they do for our listeners and what's your role there? Spencer Clark: Sure. So I'm now Managing Director ATS. So I've been there in that role for two and a half years now, two or three. Prior to that, I was Business Development and Sales Director, so driving new business. And yes, so ATS, we've expanded out now, but I guess we're a full service. From Creative Content so predominantly known for audio multimedia guides to on site interpretation and storytelling. So our core business is around coming up with brilliant stories, working with our clients to write scripts, and then looking at the creative ways in which we can tell that story to their target audiences. So whether it's families, adults, overseas, we then come up with all these great ideas. And whether it's audio or multimedia, with film or apps, with interactives and games, we try and find all the unique ways of telling that story, of that unique site. Spencer Clark: So we have predominantly in house, fantastic production team, editors, filmmakers, developers, we have interpretation specialists and script writers. So once we've done all the content, we've also got all the technology as well. So part of our business has we manufacture our own hardware, so multimedia guides, audio guides, we have software that runs on all of them. We also do apps and PWAs, and we have a tech support team as well, who are out managing all of our clients. So we have 45,000 devices out in the field at the moment, so there's a lot being used, a lot of experiences being had one of our devices, but they all need battery changes, servicing, all that sort of stuff. So we got a tech team for them as well. So complete end to end from consultation, content, hardware, support. Kelly Molson: Yeah, and great sector to work in. You talked about developing stories. Heritage organisations have the best stories, right? So it is an absolutely perfect fit. I want to talk about the process that you go through and how you make that happen for the heritage sector. What is the biggest pain? So I'm in the marketing team of a heritage organisation and I've got a pain and I know that ATS can probably help me solve it. What is that pain that I bring to you? Spencer Clark: There's a number that we get approached about and I guess the first one, though, is we've got great stories. So, yes, heritage and cultural sites naturally have loads of great stories, so the most prime problem really is them to say, "We want to understand which audience we want to tell our stories to", number one. And then number two, "once we know that, how do we tell the stories in the best memorable, entertaining, educational way?" So really, they're the starting point, really, is helping them understand who their audience is and then going, "Right, how are you telling that story?" I often say with a creative conduit between the site and its heritage and their audiences. And we're the guys in the middle. Spencer Clark: You go, Right, we're going to understand these really well and come up with really great ideas to tell that story to that person in that experience. And that's the prime too. But then it expands out because once you start chatting to them and you go, well, those stories can be told in different ways to different audiences, but also the experiences are very different across sites. So you could have a linear tool, so you kind of know that the story has to make sense stop after stop and it's kind of a narrative thread, whereas other sites are random access, so you're moving around. And so therefore, everything needs to make sense in that situation as well. Kelly Molson: Very interesting, isn't it? I hadn't thought about how the building itself or the area itself can have an influence on how the story is told. Spencer Clark: Absolutely. So we do guides at St Paul's Cathedral and Westminster Abbey, and you're thinking, "Right, big ecclesiastic sites, they must be very similar", but they're not. St Paul's random access. So once you've done the introduction, you can go wherever you like in St Paul's and access that content. The storytelling within that space, however you like. Westminster Abbey is very linear and so you start at point 1 and you have to go through and there's a fixed route to it. They're two very different buildings architecturally, so the challenges with that, for example, is when we're designing the scripts and designing the experiences, saying, "Well, what is the visitor journey here? And where are their pinch points?" I think in one spot in Westminster, we had 10 seconds to tell a story. Spencer Clark: People can't stay more than 10 seconds in that area because it just ends up backing up and then it's awful for everybody else. Whereas St Paul's is very different. You've got a lot more dwell time and a lot more space that you can sit and just listen. So two very different experiences that we design. Kelly Molson: That's really complex, isn't it? So you're not only thinking about how to tell the story in the best way to fit with the venue and the access and how people walk around it, but also from a capacity perspective, people can't stay in this area for longer than 10 seconds. So you've got to get them moving. Spencer Clark: Exactly. Kelly Molson: It blows my mind. Talk me through your methodology then, because I think that's quite interesting. Like, how do you start this process? They've come with the pain. We've got this great story, we're not telling it in the best way that we could. How can you help us? Where do you start? Spencer Clark: It's a good place. What we love is you get face to face and you walk the current experience and you walk through it. And it's great to talk to visitor experience teams, curatorial, front of house, as well as senior stakeholders and having a conversation with all of them to kind of really get a sense of what's the outcome I'm starting with what's wrong or what do you want to better? What do you want this outcome to be? And then we kind of work backwards because we have a lot of experience to share. And so there's things around this routing, wayfinding, dwell time. There's things around operations and logistics of handing out hardware or promoting an app if that's what clients are pushing out to their visitors. But we all got to understand there's lots of different models as well. Spencer Clark: So some sites, for example, you may pay to get in, but then you may pay for an audio or a multimedia guide or an app afterwards. So you're paying for your ticket and then you've got a secondary spend for a guide. I have seen a lot of our sites, especially some of the bigger ones, they have an all inclusive. So you buy your ticket and you get your guide included. But those two models means two different things because on the all inclusive, the majority of your audience are getting that guide. Therefore that story that we're going to create for you is being told to the biggest proportion of your audience, whereas those who buy additional, you know, the take up is going to be lower, therefore that message is not going to get to that many. But you don't need as many devices. Spencer Clark: And so we look at kind of whether they can handle a stop of hundreds or thousands of devices in some cases. Kelly Molson: Oh, you mean like where they're going to put them? Spencer Clark: Exactly. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's all about that. Spencer Clark: These castles and heritage sites didn't really they weren't designed to hold racks or racks of guides, which is why they end up in some funny places, sometimes moat houses and whatever. So we start there, that's kind of walk it through. We want to listen and understand what everybody as a stakeholder, what they're wanting from it, but then we really kind of go, what does the visitor really need and want? What are they paying for? What are their expectations? And how can we have our impact on the visitor experience, which is essentially what it is. We're involved with storytelling content, visitor experience and technology, essentially the delivery method of it. Kelly Molson: What's a good case study, then, that you could share with us? I guess the proof of the pudding is in people being engaged with those stories. So it'll be about the feedback, right, that the organisation gets once people have been through the experience and they get good TripAdvisor recommendations and all that kind of thing. What's a good example that you can share with us of something where you've worked on it and it's made quite a vast difference to that experience? Spencer Clark: I'd like to say every single project. We generally want every client. We're passionate about making a difference. You're investing in time and money and we want to add as much creativity to it, but we want it to be as effective as possible, which is why I really want to understand what clients are wanting to get. If we look at this in a year's time, what do you want to see happen? And if it is better, TripAdvisor does that. I think we're hitting that really well, because not many sites, I'd say you have visitors kind of commenting on the audio or the multimedia guide back in the day. But when you look at a lot of our client sites, they get mentioned in TripAdvisor and how it's made a massive difference. Spencer Clark: So I was chatting with a client today, the guide is eight years old, a multimedia guide. We did a full film production for the introduction film, but then we also put that content into the guide, so it felt like this really the continuity in the storytelling. So once you arrive, you watch the film, you got the characters on the film, but they also feature in your guide. So as you've watched it, you go off and you go to a dinner party and we're just chatting today and they said, eight years on and it's still really good and getting reference to and we've got prospect clients and new clients who go over and check it out and they just love it. Just because we've designed it to last a long time, it shouldn't date because it's often our sector. Spencer Clark: They're not refreshing content like that every couple of years. It needs to last as long as it can and get its money's worth. The output is a great Visitor experience. Hopefully we're inputting on the NPS score, so hopefully people are saying, “yes, the overall, we're one part”. My colleague, Craig, he says it people don't go to a site for the multimedia guide. Right. They're not going, oh, we're here ATS are great, let's definitely go to one of their sites. They don't they go there? And then once they get this wonderful experience with the front of house with a fantastic audio multimedia guide that's been thought about and really designed well. Spencer Clark: And then the retail was great and the food and beverage was good and there was parking and whatever, and it was a sunny day because if it's a rainy day, everyone has a really bad experience. It's raining, which is obviously out of control of many sites. So, yeah, we're one element, but an important one, we feel, that really impacts on ATS and TripAdvisor and feedback and repeat visits. Kelly Molson: Do you get asked that question, actually, about how long this will last? So you said that guide has been around for about eight years now and I'm thinking, "yeah, that's good going, that's good return on investment, right?" We get asked that quite a lot about websites. "How frequently do you need to update your website? How frequently do we need to go through this process from redesign and development?" And I think it really depends on how well it's been done to start with. So we've worked with attractions where we did their website, like six or seven years ago. It still looks great because it was thought out really well, it's planned well, the brand was in place and it's the same, I guess, with your guide, if it's done well from the start, it's going to last longer. Spencer Clark: Absolutely. And to me, that's part of the brief, that's the design process, looking at the brief and the clients and asking those questions, "Well, you're, you can update this" and you kind of know they're not going to update it in a year. So how long was the shelf life of this product? What do you want it to last? And so once you know that at the beginning, you start producing it in a way that you say, well, that might date, you could have contemporary fashion, but that might look a bit dated in five, six, seven years time, whereas if we go animation, you can make things last a lot longer. But then, yeah, realistically you could be looking at how long does this last? Eight years, nine years? Spencer Clark: We've got clients up to ten years now. As long as you write it, you have an awareness that you don't mention potentially people's names who work there because they may move on and maybe even the job title might change. So you got to just be a little bit careful of kind of mentioning that, especially at site’s consideration. When you've got 12, 13 languages, you make one change in the English, you've then got to change all that. So again, it's this understanding at the beginning saying, well, the risk of having a celebrity or whoever if you don't want them and they're out of faith or whatever, or they're not available to do any rerecords you got to think about that and say, well, that's going to have a knock on effect, and that will change then eventually. Spencer Clark: So, yeah, there's all these little secrets of the way in which things are, but we're aware of them. And that has a massive impact on the cost down the line. And the quality, of course. Kelly Molson: That's the benefit of the consultancy approach that you take as well, isn't it? Is it, that you are asking those questions up front and you're thinking long term about what's best for the organisation, not what's necessarily best for you? Is it better for me if they update this every three years or every eight years? But what you want is to get them the best experience from it and have the best product possible. So you ask all the right questions to start with. Spencer Clark: Absolutely. And sites are all different. The story at one place might not change, but they might have a different view on it and so or a different angle coming in. Well, there's a different story or theme within that place. So we did know National Trust site, so they had a big conservation project and so we've done the restoration conservation story. They've come back to a couple of years and now we're looking at different stories within them and telling stories very much around female stories at the house as well. So we're bringing that in. And what we can do, we're going to layer it and put in with the content so it will start to really. You have this lovely kind of layering of story and content that people can dip in and out of depending on what they're interested in. Spencer Clark: But that means it is evolving, but you're not recording loads of other stuff, you're just starting to build up on this nice kind of collection of content. But then you got sites such that you know they're going to have temporary exhibitions every year. So Buckingham Palace, we do their permanent tour, but then the exhibition changes every year, so we'll be going in there and rewriting content just for that element of it. So, yeah, most places don't change a lot of their content, but when you do, it's usually just elements of it, or adding languages or adding an access tool or something like that. Kelly Molson: Yeah, and I love that. But actually what we're trying to do is just make something better. And that doesn't always mean that you have to spend a shitload of money on making something, you know what I mean? You don't have to start from scratch, you can make something really great with what you have. So we've been talking a lot with attractions about just making what they have better. They don't need a new website right now. What you could do is just add these things in and that would make your website 10% better than it is now. Amazing, right? You've saved yourself a lot of budget, but you've still got this brilliant project and that's the same with what you're talking about. It's not a start from scratch, it's just building on and improving what you have. That's a good place. Spencer Clark: It's a good offer to have. I think it is, because sometimes you just want a little refresh and actually just slightly dated or that's not the language or the tone we use completely. So we just want to change this intro and often the introduction is the beginning of the experience. So if you can tweak and change that can actually set the tone for the rest of it anyway. We often go and say, "Well, what have you gotten? What improvements can you make on a minimal budget?" And that's the honest conversation you have early on and you're going, "What do you want to happen realistically? What are your budgets, what's your time scales?" And then we'll come back to you with something that's tailored to you and see what we can do. Spencer Clark: And often a review of the current experience and will be constructive and we think you could just improve these bits at the moment. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that approach. And also, do you have a moathouse that you can keep all these devices in? And while we're on the topic of that, let's talk about something that you mentioned earlier, which is this app versus devices debate. So you mentioned, and it hadn't even occurred to me. Do people have the storage space for all of these devices? Are they going to be able to put them somewhere? And I bet you get asked us all the time, isn't it going to better if we have an app because people have got that phone in their back pocket all the time and so then you don't necessarily need as many of the devices as you might need. There's quite a big debate around this at the moment, isn't there? What's your take on it? Spencer Clark: Well, of course I've got my opinion on this one, Kelly. But you know, these questions when I joined the ATS, so I joined eleven years ago and I started going to the conferences and the shows and the exhibitions and you know, apps were around and it was the, "Oh yeah, they're going to be the death of the audio guide". So there's me, joined a company thinking, "Oh okay, I wonder how long I'll be around for". But what history has shown me is that what drives a really good product and a good solution, whether it's an app or a device, is really understanding those outcomes and visitor behaviours and COVID was obviously a point in time where people weren't touching things. Spencer Clark: And it was a concern at the time like, “okay, I wonder how long is this going to play out?”. But what we found is humans fall back into an ease of life and convenience and quality, I think is kind of where people say, "Oh, no, they won't use devices anymore and they won't use touch screens". And I remember chatting with Dave Patton from Science Museum and he said, “Yeah, in COVID, we turned all the touchscreens off”. Everyone kept going up to them and touching them because they thought they were off to turn them on, so they turned them off so that people wouldn't use them. And actually what they're doing was touching that device more. Do you remember the days people were wiping down all the trolleys? I'm quite an optimist, so I was sitting at the time. Spencer Clark: Once we passed this and through it, I feel we will kind of fall back into, you're not going to take your own cutlery to a restaurant a year, so that hasn't happened. And QR codes are less and less visible on those restaurants. Yeah. What it really is about for us is, and I touched upon it, there's a few things around why ultimately you can do everything. Our multimedia guides and audio guys can do pretty much one of these, but for a number of reasons, visitors aren't necessarily going straight over to these and dropping the hardware. If I rock up with my kids, got two kids, they don't have phones, so they're not going to download an app when they get there. My phone is my car key, it's my travel, it's my wallet, it's everything, so I'm using it all day. Spencer Clark: And there's obviously battery concerns there as well, so you kind of start getting kind of battery anxiety of that where you carry around a charger. But there is something and the more and more we work with clients and we compare, we put apps in places as well as multimedia guides or audio guides, and we look at the take up and we look at the behaviour of visitors. And even more recently, we're doing a site. At the moment, it's got temporary exhibition for six months. I'll be able to say a bit more about it once we've done the end of the review, but essentially we've had kind of AB testing and looking at how the take up is for guides versus apps and we're positively seeing big demand for devices for a number of reasons with the audience time who were there. There's the quality. Spencer Clark: As far as I've paid my ticket, especially on the all inclusive, I get my guide and it's really well designed and this is part of the experience designed for it. I'm not worrying about battery and the headphones are in there. I haven't got people walking around with audio blaring out because they've gotten their headphones, which is really annoying to all the other visitors that I've been to a few museums and seen that and heard that it's not a great experience. There's definitely a quality thing there about it's part of, this is part of. Kelly Molson: Do you think it's part of, it's escapism as well? So, like, for me, I'm terrible if we're out and about, if me, my little girl and my husband are out for the day, my phone is in my bag the whole time and I forget to take pictures. I forget to tell social media that I've been to a place, "Oh, God, what I've got for lunch”, because I'm too busy doing it. And I think with the kind of headsets thing, there's an element of escapism there, isn't there, where you don't have to have your phone. I like not having to be on my phone. I like that for the whole day. I've had such a great day, they haven't even thought about looking at my phone. So I don't know whether there's an element there. Kelly Molson: We're so tied to our phones all the day, all day, aren't we? For work and things. I'm just going to put these headphones on. I'm going to escape into a different world where I don't need to think about it. Spencer Clark: Yeah, don't get me wrong, there's definitely a place for apps and there's a use for them, which is why we've developed a platform that makes apps as well. But the devices over this recent exhibition, I'm just learning more from visitors and the staff who are there, and they're saying, "Yeah, you take your phone and you might have the tour going, but I don't turn my notifications off, so I'll still get interrupted by things". And you're right, I want to be in this experience. And my attention, I'm hoping, is mostly on what's there and the stories that are being told to me. So, yeah, there's a lot around there. There's also perceived value. Spencer Clark: I did a talk at Historic houses pre covered, but I had like 160 people in the Alexandra Palace and I asked them all, "how many of you just have downloaded an app in the last twelve months?" A few hands put up and then said, "Okay, how many of you paid for an app out of those?" and all the hands went down. There's this thing about, would you spend £5 on an app? Probably not a lot of people would. It's got to be really well promoted and maybe in the right circumstances, the right place, the right exhibition, you'd get someone doing that, but people will pay and you see it. They will pay £5 for a device that's being designed and put in there as part of the official experience of this site. Spencer Clark: So you've got to look at the take up and the reach that an app will bring over a device as well. So there is perceived value. See if you can charge for it great or if it's in ticket price, it just makes the whole value of the experience even better. I'm not sure what's your experience when was the last time you paid for an app, Kelly? Kelly Molson: Bigger question, as you asked it, I was thinking, and I can't remember. There must be something that I've paid a minimum value for, like it was like, I don't know, £0.69p or £1.29 or something like that, but I couldn't tell you what it was or when I downloaded it. Kelly Molson: I mostly have car parking apps on my phone. Honestly, I think at one point I counted I had seven different car parking apps on my phone because all of the car parks obviously stopped taking cash. I'm terrible with cash, I never have any of that. A lot of them. But they’re all free. Spencer Clark: There's definitely something there around perceived value and what it means to the experience, I think. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's really interesting, actually. Spencer Clark: The debate will continue for years, though, Kelly. The debate will carry on. And if that's about telling a great story to as many people as possible. Right now, in our view and our data that shows across all these sites is devices that are doing a better job than apps at the moment. But there's still a choice. Some people will have them. And I think it's going to be a blend. It's going to be a blend, but overwhelmingly the device is more. Kelly Molson: But it's interesting because you mentioned and one of my questions is, how is ATS evolving? Because I guess that you didn't always have apps as an option for people. So that's probably one of the ways that you've evolved over the years, right? Spencer Clark: Yeah. So we started doing audio guides. That was the initial and then again, Mike, the founder, was really spotted multimedia as an opportunity, screen devices as we started coming through. Not everyone had smartphones at that point. And so to provide a screen device, it was great for putting additional content and film content and also accessibility, sign language videos and things like that, which is how I got into ATS, sign language videos. So putting them on a screen and you look at how much audio visual content we now all consume on a small handheld device, he definitely saw something. And that's where ATS kind of drove that element. A lot of our work was multimedia guides over audio guides. Spencer Clark: And it was about not just playing audio with an image on the screen, because that's not adding much for the sake of this device, you need to add a lot more to it. And that's where we grew our in house production team. So all the editors coming up with really good ideas and animations and videos or interface designs, all that sort of stuff, and interactives and games and things like that, you could be really just opened up a whole world of opportunity, really. Yeah. So we started pushing that. But again, part of that design process was, and going back to the kind of we only had 10 seconds to tell this story or whatever, it's the same with these devices, and when we're creating content, visual content, it's got to warrant the visitor's attention. Spencer Clark: If you've got an amazing masterpiece in front of you, then of course you don't want to be head down in the screen, you want to be looking at it. But what could that screen do, if anything? We may decide not to even put anything on there, just go audio. But there could be something there that you want to, a curator might be interviewed and show you certain details on the painting and you could point them out on the screen. That then allows you to look and engage with the art in front of you. But, yeah, we drove that kind of way of delivering interpretation on site through multimedia guys, but we do a lot of audio as well. Spencer Clark: I'm just plain, straight, simple audio, I say simple, but lovely sound effects, really nice produced, choosing the right voices, really good script, sound effects, that sort of stuff. So, yeah, it's quite a pure way, I guess you would say, with audio owned. Kelly Molson: Nice, you mentioned the word warrant back there. Which brings me to my next question, which I think is fascinating, because there aren't many organisations that are ever going to achieve this, but ATS has a Royal Warrant now. Spencer Clark: Yeah, yeah, we got it in March 22. Kelly Molson: Absolutely phenomenal. Tell us a little bit about that. Spencer Clark: Yeah, so we've worked with Royal Household for quite, well, a couple of sites for over 15 years. We provide audio multimedia guides across pretty much all of the raw sites now, which is a wonderful achievement, we're really proud of it. And, yeah, we applied for a Royal Warrant. They're awarded to about 800 businesses in the UK and they range from one person, sole trader, craftsman, craft people through, to multinationals and SMEs and everybody in between. And it's a mark of quality and excellence in delivery of service and sustainable as well over a long period of time. We applied for it and were awarded it in March. It was a really lovely accolade for us as a business and it was a great moment to get so we've got a hold of that now. Kelly Molson: That must have been lovely. So, again, at the start of the episode, you mentioned that you'd moved into the MD role, and that was a couple of years ago. Right. So you've been an MD through COVID times, which must have been a challenge for you. As a founder of an organisation myself, I know that was a big challenge, having to learn how to do things in a completely different way. That must have been a really lovely kind of success story of those times. Spencer Clark: Definitely. We have got such an amazing team and one that people stay with us, our team stay with us for a long period of time and it was also a point where I was taking over and the founder, Mike, was properly retiring. So for him, it was really great to get for him. And we had one made up for him as well, a plat, so you can have his own he's got his own rule warrant, but yeah, for the rest of the team, it is a recognition. What's really important for me is that everybody in the team is responsible for the quality of service that we deliver from picking up the phone and working on projects, the development team, the service team, the teams that go on site. Spencer Clark: We've got staff as well, so we staff at St Paul's Cathedral and Bucks Palace and Windsor Castle, so we got members team handing out guides and operations there. And it's everyone's responsibility in our business to offer a great service in everything we do. And it definitely was yeah, it was a really great recognition that we could share with the team. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Right, what is next for ATS? What exciting developments are they're coming up that you can share with us? Anything on the horizon? Spencer Clark: Yeah, I guess this year feels like many, and I've been speaking to, you know, it's nice to get back into conferences and exhibitions and stuff where you kind of chatting to the sector, but this feels a little bit more normal as a year. I think last year was still a kind of bounce back out of COVID but this year seems to be mor. There's tenders coming through. People are now doing new projects, so that's good to see. So there's an appetite. I think what it's really shown is there's an appetite in the sector to really improve the quality of visitor experiences. I think that's what's really that I'm seeing and something that we're well positioned to support clients in is that quality of a visitor experience. On the back of that, we're looking at always continuing to look at different ways in which to tell stories and the way in which we can engage with the visitor, which doesn't always mean the latest tech. Spencer Clark: We've looked at AR and things like that and we've tried it, but what you got to be careful, what you got to understand is, instead of when you've got visitors from 8 to 85 year olds, your solution has to be accessible to everybody. And as soon as you might put in something that might if the technology doesn't quite work in that environment because it's too dark or too light or whatever, or the tech just isn't there to do it, then it suddenly breaks the magic of that experience. Spencer Clark: And so you look at different ways of being innovative and that can just be through a really different approach to the script writing, or putting a binaural 3D soundscape instead, or having a really good interactive that just brings the family in to answer questions or something like that. We will always continue to innovate, but it's not necessarily about technology. But we love tech. But you've got to think about the practical implications of tech in the projects. And that goes back to earlier I said about sustainability in the budget and some organisations just don't have the appetite or the budget to invest in some of this tech, even though they see it and they say, “we want that”. Okay, “this is how much it’s cost. And it's brand new”, so you'd be developing from scratch or whatever. Spencer Clark: And it's not always palatable with the budget holders. So, yes, you got to think about operationally sustainable. What's the best solution that reaches your outcomes, essentially? So, yeah, where else are we heading? Great content. We've got new products coming through, new devices, that sort of stuff, which has kind of been, like I said, our core business. But we're also doing a lot more online, so digital exhibitions, things like that. So we're taking our onsite storytelling experience and moving online. So we've done some virtual tours, but not just 360s where you've got hotspots. We add the ATS magic to it. What else can we add into those kind of online experiences? It's a different experience, but we can definitely add some lovely creativity to the storytelling on that. So we did that with a number of clients, including Glenn Palace. Spencer Clark: We did the Churchill exhibition, which was a full three day film shoot over COVID, which was a huge challenge. But yeah, there was a high risk factor there when your main star is a Churchill lookalike and if he got COVID, the whole shoot pretty much cancelled, but we managed to get through that, so that was good. So, yeah, more of that sort of stuff. So, looking at the online space, we're getting into 3D digitisation of collections, so we've got a partnership going on where we can photogram using photogrammetry to create 3D models. And then what we're saying is we add the ATS magic to that, where you got that model. Let's put it in context, let's tell that story around that actual object. Spencer Clark: It's a 3D model, so, yeah, we're playing around with areas on that and some other things that I'm sure I'll share in the future. We're not standing still. That's for sure. Kelly Molson: No. And I'm sure I'll hear about it at whatever conferences that we're at together at some point, Spencer. We always ask our guests about a book that they love that they would like to share with our listeners. What have you prepped for us today? Spencer Clark: I'm in the car a lot, so I do a lot of audio books, if anything. I don't know if it's an excuse, but I just don't find time to sit and actually read. Busy family life, busy work life, all that sort of stuff. So a lot of audiobooks. But also, I love business books, whatever you can learn from kind of business and marketing. And obviously I had that role previous to ATS, I was kind of supporting small businesses and stuff. So there's one I had, I attended a session by a marketeer called Bryony Thomas and she's got a book called Watertight Marketing. Her session was brilliant, it was really practical, it's really scalable. So it could be for a one person company, sole trader, up to an organisation that has multiple products online, wherever. Spencer Clark: It was just a really good book that just gives you clarity and thinking. And there's this takeaway straight away from it and a really good approach to kind of reviewing your marketing and how well it's working, and then just picking those things that are going to work quickest to find out where the weaknesses are, the leaks, essentially, she calls them. So, yeah, I'd really recommend it. I'm hoping quite a lot of your listeners are interested in marketing. We're all looking at trying to get visitors back in and what our service and products are. So I'd recommend Watertight Marketing by Bryony Thomas. Kelly Molson: Oh, I think that's a great recommendation. I've read that book, I've met Bryony once a very long time ago and it's so simple, it's ridiculous, isn't it? And you think, "how is this the first book that's talked about marketing in this way?" That's what blew my mind when I read it and it is, it's just about plugging the gaps, filling the holes in your bucket. It's absolutely brilliant concept, great book. Thank you for sharing. Right, listen, if you want to win a copy of that book, and I would recommend that you do, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Spencer's book, then you might be lucky enough to win yourself a copy. Thankfully, it was only just one book today. Everyone else tries to kill my marketing budget and goes with two. Kelly Molson: So well done you, Spencer. Thank you ever so much for joining us on the podcast today. It's lovely that you came on, I'm really pleased that you did. Lots to think about there and loads of tips for our listeners if they're thinking about enhancing their stories. So thank you. Spencer Clark: It's been a pleasure. Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Developing and monetising online communities, with Nik Wyness | 08 Mar 2023 | 00:51:39 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/nikwyness/ https://www.youtube.com/user/TheTankMuseum https://www.tiktok.com/@famthetankman
Nik Wyness is Head of Marketing and Engagement at The Tank Museum in Dorset. He has led the digital transformation of this rural regimental Museum and registered charity, creating an industry-leading strategy in the development and monetisation of a global online community. The Tank Museum tells the story of the tank and the people that served in them, with a collection of over 300 vehicles dating from World War One to the present day, displayed in modern awe-inspiring exhibitions. But the Museum’s rural location poses an ever-present challenge – how to make people aware it exists? With the simple objective of “Being more famous” and a passion for powerful historical stories, Nik used social media channels like Facebook and YouTube to begin building a niche following worldwide. This laid the foundations for a base of advocacy and support that would lead to 27% of the Museum’s total 2022 turnover generated online in 2022 – albeit somewhat inadvertently at first!
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Nik Wyness, Head of Marketing and Engagement at The Tank Museum. Nick developed a genius strategy to grow audiences and communities online, which has been phenomenally successful. Listen along to hear how The Tank Museum earned around 25% of a total 6 million turnover from online sources. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Nick, I am very excited to have you on the podcast today. Welcome to Skip the Queue. Nik Wyness: Thank you very much for having me. Kelly Molson: As ever, I'm going to start with some ice breakers, though, and I've got a topical one for you. Nik Wyness: Okay. Kelly Molson: So, last week, the BBC reported that a visitor had broken Jeff Koons iconic balloon dog sculpture. I know its awful, isn't it? At a high end art fair in Miami. I want to know, have you ever been told off by security for touching a museum exhibit that you weren't supposed to touch? Nik Wyness: Oh, that's a good one, actually. I obviously work at The Tank Museum. That's why we're talking about. But I first visited The Tank Museum when I was about eight years old and I was a cub scout, and this was obviously quite a long time ago. Different decade, probably the 80's. Nik Wyness: They used to have a little arcade machine in there. I know it's kind of weird, like arcade machines in a museum, but they used to have one of those little kind of like, penny pushes. Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah, I love that. Nik Wyness: Yeah. I mean, it's a h*** of a way to lose money. And that's what happened. We were getting a bit frustrated with this thing. It kind of like, hangs over the edge, doesn't it? A really sort of tempting way. So my friend and I, we couldn't resist giving a little bit of encouragement, a little bit of a rock, and this guy came out and he told us off. And when I started working at The Tank Museum in 2004, I met the same guy. How funny is that? Kelly Molson: Wow. I mean, one, that's lovely. Very high rate of retention of staff at The Tank Museum. So that's a plus. Oh, my God. Did he actually recognise you? Nik Wyness: No, thankfully not. Otherwise things could have got different. But I definitely recognise him, that kind of ferocious look in his eye. Kelly Molson: That is a brilliant story. My Nan just while we're on the subject of penny machines, because I really like those penny machines, they are a very good way of losing a load of money, but only go for the 2p ones. Right. And then it doesn't feel as bad. Nik Wyness: High roller. Kelly Molson: High roller. My Nan had a bit of an obsession with those and the grabber machine, so they had a caravan in Walton-on-the-Naze, and she used to spend a lot of time on the old penny slot machines in her day. And I reckon that she might have had a little bit of a nudge of some of those because she used to win a lot. And you don't win that much on them, do you? I reckon she did a little hip bash, grandma. Nik Wyness: I think everyone must do that from time, so how could you not? It's so tempting. But I think the trouble is, if you go too far, that alarm goes off and a man comes out and tells, “you off”. Kelly Molson: Especially at The Tank Museum. Nik Wyness: Especially at The Tank Museum. Kelly Molson: That is excellent. Thank you for sharing that story. Right, okay, next one. I was going to ask you what your favourite tank is, but I think that'd be quite boring. Nik Wyness: You're like choosing a favourite child. You can't do that. Kelly Molson: I know. Unless you just have one and then it's easy. What one thing would you make a law that isn't already? Nik Wyness: Well, I think it should be law that everyone should visit The Tank Museum more than once a month. More than once a month. There you go. Kelly Molson: More than once a month. That's a lot of tanks. Okay, good one. All right, last one. I'm always intrigued by this. I think I'm going to start making this a regular question. I want to know if you now, or if you did when you were younger, if you had a collection of something? Nik Wyness: I've never really been one to collect things. I'm a bit sort of rubbish and a bit lazy. I get really into it and then I kind of lose interest in what I do. I used to collect stickers and that kind of thing. I remember my sister used to collect key rings, but, yeah, I'm not much of a collector. But I know you collect. Is it rubbers? Kelly Molson: Oh, you've done your research. Nik Wyness: One of the first things you told me about yourself when we first met, grew up at that Edinburgh conference. I thought it was an interesting thing to go in with early, but you did it and I respect that. So I'm sure we have a Tank Museum rubber and I kind of feel that I should maybe send you one. Kelly Molson: I would love that. Nik Wyness: It might even be tank shaped. Kelly Molson: Wow. Also, just for anyone that does meet me in the future, I'm really sorry. That is what my starting lines is, "Hey, I've got an 80s rubber collection". Excellent. Well done, me. Okay, let's move on to your unpopular opinion, Nik. Nik Wyness: Okay, so I thought long and hard about this because I have many unpopular opinions, so I'm going to go with this one. And that is I do not like Twitter. I can't stand Twitter, which is quite ironic, given what we're going to be talking about. I know, the shock, the despondency on your face. But hear me out. I've got three reasons why I really don't like Twitter. So the first reason is that Twitter, in my opinion, just seems to bring out the absolute worst in people. It's kind of like golf. If you've been on a golf course and a normally perfectly rational person can just turn into this kind of like snarling clubs, napping. Kelly Molson: Yeah, you've met my husband. Nik Wyness: There's plenty like him. There's plenty like him. I'm probably one of them myself, which is why I don't play golf. But, yeah, I don't know. On Twitter, you can see normal people, what appeared to be at first sight, normal people, anyway, kind of turn into vacuous, narcissists, all trying to show how clever they are or how virtuous they are or how much funnier they are than the other guys. It's kind of like a playground one upmanship, but it's quite derogatory and quite negative as well, isn't it, really? It's all sort of a bit sort of unpleasant. And I'm just amazed there are so many people out there who are willing to spend time arguing with people they've never met on the internet. Surely there has to be more to life. Nik Wyness: But the second reason is that, and this is the one which is always probably wound me up the most, is that lazy journalists mistaking what happens on Twitter for actual news, or worse, for actual public opinion, when it's actually neither. And so the fact that journalists do that is it kind of gives all of this rubbish a bigger platform and gives it greater credibility than I think some of it actually deserves. But the third reason, I just like Twitter, and there are many reasons why I think they have an increasingly polarised society, but Twitter is definitely not helping. And one of those general things that we worry about is what you see on Twitter being kind of manifested in just the greater public discourse. It's just like we've forgotten how to have a disagreement, respectfully, do you know what I mean? Nik Wyness: Nobody can have an argument these days without having to play the man or kind of take the other person out on every level. There's no, well, I respectfully agree with the opinion, but I will agree to disagree. There's none of that on Twitter, really, is there? Everyone's basically hacking the other person to death verbally until somebody gets bored and has to get off the bus or something. So for those three reasons yeah, and I hate all that abuse of public figures as well, whether it's just general hate or misogyny or racism, all that kind of stuff. Interesting, none of these people well, hopefully none of these people would have the courage to say the things that they'd say on Twitter to another person's face. Nik Wyness: And I always think that you should never say something in writing on Twitter, on social media that you wouldn't want to say to their face, because you've got to accept the consequences, right. Of the things that you say. And I think people hide behind the anonymity of the Internet. I don't think that's healthy. Gosh, that was quite a moralistic rant, but, my God, do I feel better. Kelly Molson: It really was. But, wow, what a great one. And I really love how in depth you went with your unpopular opinion. I was nodding along there, because I think that point 3, there is a dark side to Twitter, and I was agreeing with you on point 3. Kelly Molson: I like Twitter and I enjoy it, but I think that I'm probably in my lovely, happy, safe, kind of comfortable bubble there, because I follow really nice people and I engage with lovely people. And actually, there is quite a big kind of attractions and heritage and cultural community on Twitter that I feel quite part of. So that all feels very nice, but I absolutely agree with you that there is a dark and destructive side of it which isn't healthy for anybody to be involved. Nik Wyness: I respectfully disagree with your opinion. There you go. See, it is possible. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. We're still friends. You're still going to send me a rubber. I'm still going to start our conversations in strange and weird ways whenever we see each other. Let me know, listeners, what you think about Nik's unpopular opinion. I know a lot of you talk to me on Twitter, so it'd be interesting to hear if you agree. I think you probably agree with both of us. Good place, bad place, brings out good in some bad in some. Nik Wyness: Absolutely. I mean, sure. Just tweet me. Kelly Molson: Tweet Nik. Oh, God, please. Go, tweet Nik. Go tweet him. Make him respond on the platform that he finds appalling. Nik Wyness: Yeah, exactly. I'll just kind of go straight for the abuse. Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, Nik, you work at The Tank Museum. Tell us about your role there and what you do. Nik Wyness: Okay, so I, as you've heard, my association with The Tank Museum goes back an awfully long way from trying to rob arcade machines until when I first became a paid member of staff, which was in 2004, which was a very long time ago, almost 20 years, which is absolutely terrifying. So I first started working there as the PR officer, and this was at the beginning of a very transformational period for The Tank Museum. We applied for Heritage Lottery funding. There was this big redevelopment project in the office. And so it was very exciting, it was a very exciting time. And it was great to see the organisation go through this kind of great arc of transformation, which was supported by public money. But what was particularly good about that is it was really successful. Nik Wyness: And we achieved, with that Heritage Lottery funding, all of the things that we said were going to do. So we're bringing more people in, really making the subject a lot more accessible to a wider audience, all of those things absolutely fantastic. So it's been a big part of my career. I did leave The Tank Museum back in 2012, 2013, and I went to work at a very well established visitor attraction in another location. But I missed my tanks. I missed my tanks. And the First World War centenaries were coming up as well. I am quite into my military history. So the opportunity came to go back to The Tank Museum in a very different role, a much more senior role. And I took that opportunity back in 2016, and I haven't looked back. Nik Wyness: So my role at The Tank Museum, my job title is the Head of Marketing and Engagement, which means I'm head of marketing and engaging things. But in English, what that means is obviously I'm responsible for ensuring that the visitors show up. So The Tank Museum is a medium sized visitor attraction. We have about 200,000 visitors a year. When there isn't a pandemic. We have a portfolio of special events. Our big fundraising event every year is Tank fest, which if you haven't been, you absolutely must. Kelly Molson: Top of my list. Nik Wyness: Top of that. I'm sure it is. Although I'm surprised you haven't been already. Kelly Molson: I haven't been to The Tank Museum. Nik Wyness: You have the rubber if you did. Kelly Molson: Right, exactly. It's not in my collection. Nik Wyness: There you go. We'll have to put that, right. So that's The Tank Museum. Responsible for making sure the visitors show up and all of that kind of external communication, whether that's stakeholder communications, the public relations activity, the media relations activity, and the social media activity and the ecommerce activity. And a big part of what I've been doing, particularly since I returned, was basically building up these online audiences and building this online community. And latterly of sort of successfully monetising that, really. And what we've done is create an entirely almost distinct business from, if you like, our visitor onsite income. We've created this separate, sort of almost separate moneymaking enterprise, which is all about our online audiences that are online followers and supporters. Kelly Molson: This is what I want to talk about today, Nik. I have heard Nik talk about this. Well, the last time I heard you speak was up in Scotland at the Tourism Associations Conference, which is incredible. What you've achieved is pretty phenomenal, I have to say, and just so incredibly impressive. And I'm so glad that you've been able to come on and share it with our listeners today. So I think I'm not sure if I've got the date right, but was it in 2020 that you started to develop this strategy, or was it pre pandemic? Nik Wyness: It was pre pandemic, yeah. So it's kind of what I've been working on since I came back in 2016. Kelly Molson: Right, okay. Nik Wyness: I wouldn't say what I started working on is where we've ended up. So what we started doing, it was all about basically building up these online audiences. And it was all really about if I just wind back a bit, one of the problems with The Tank Museum, I'd say problems, I mean, it's a fantastic location, being endorsed as we are, but we are absolutely in the middle of nowhere. We are in a tiny garrison village of Bovington. The nearest big town is like Bournemouth, that's an hour away by car. So we are absolutely in the middle of nowhere. If it wasn't for the fact that Dorset, sorry, was a successful domestic tourist destination, there's no way The Tank Museum could have survived at all, really, because lots of people come to Dorset on holiday. August has always been our busiest month, for example. Nik Wyness: So the fact we're out there in the middle of nowhere means we have a real sort of challenge to get people's attention. And so this whole strategy came out of our requirement and our desire to just kind of let people know we existed. And the objectives that I set myself was we just needed to be more famous. So everything we did was about making The Tank Museum more famous. Kelly Molson: That was it. That was the key objective for the whole strategy. Love it. Nik Wyness: That was literally it, be more famous. Because if people don't know you exist, they're not going to come and visit you. And so, like I said, I'm kind of from the sort of more PR end of the marketing spectrum. I did like a journalism degree and I've always been really interested in storytelling. And The Tank Museum, as you can imagine, we tell stories and we tell some amazing stories, and warfare is one of those bits of history where you get to see the very best in humanity, but you also get to see the very worst. And some of the stories we deal with are just absolutely fascinating. Sometimes there's goodies, there's baddies and there's loss and love and all of that kind of thing. Really good story. Nik Wyness: So it's always been, in my view, the case that storytelling, PR, those kind of traditional ways of reaching an audience with stories, was going to be the way that we can to achieve that cut through making The Tank Museum more famous, making our objects speak for themselves, if you'd like, and the stories that we tell. And so the strategy really grew out of that PR strategy. And when social media kind of came around and we started to take things like Facebook more seriously back in, I don't know, 2010 or something like that, it was about using social media as a means to reach people without the filter of the media, if you like. There were specialist magazines and there were national newspapers that we could get the occasional story in, but it would always be heavily edited to be more in their voice. Nik Wyness: But social media allowed us to sort of speak with our own voice and get our stories out directly, unfiltered to a much bigger audience. And we started to see that audience online grow. And basically what we're doing at that point was very much alongside what we're doing offline, as it were. We started to see that audience grow and as it grew, it started to become clear that actually, the majority of people that were actually hitting with this weren't British, as in they weren't resident in the UK, and so they were therefore quite unlikely to be able to visit The Tank Museum. Nik Wyness: And that in itself did pose a bit of a kind of intellectual dilemma, really, because it's like, if you're putting all that time and effort into reaching people, you want them to visit, but if they're not actually going to visit, well, what's the point of actually reaching them then? You're just kind of making a lot of noise and it's unsustainable. And so the whole monetisation piece came out of this sort of really, I think, for me, being challenged by the trustees of The Tank Museum to say, well, this has got to pay for itself somehow. How are you going to do it? And if you don't do it, you got to stop. And so I like a challenge, so I stuck in. Kelly Molson: You really got stuck in, so I love this. So you achieved your objective, right, so we go back to 2016. You said the objective would be more famous. You drive that objective and you achieve it over the next few years. But actually, in achieving that objective, it's not bringing any more revenue to the organisation because your audience is. Nik Wyness: Lot of PR activity, it can be quite difficult to sort of measure. It can be quite difficult to track that back to source. Nik Wyness: I think the big change for us came when we introduced YouTube to our sort of social media marketing mix. And again, we've got a very visual subject matter. Tanks are big objects and they move so they look good on camera. And I launched the YouTube channel originally, I don't know, it's been about 2010, I bought a little rubbishy sort of digital camera and basically, for me, the idea of making videos for YouTube was I just had this idea of doing like, visual press releases, basically, because it might make them a bit more interesting. And were starting to see at that point, other people were coming to The Tank Museum, with camcorders and making little videos, and they were doing quite well. So we thought there was clearly a bit of potential in this. Nik Wyness: And then as time went on and we kind of introduced what is our sort of flagship YouTube series, which is The Tank Chats, where we have one of our experts literally standing in front of a tank, just talking about that object, the history of that object, how it was developed, blah, blah. And that's what really set our YouTube channel off. YouTube is quite a labour intensive. You need to have the kit, you need to have the people to make films, then they need to have spent time editing those things as well. So I think at that point, were getting really great views, really great engagement, but the reality was, we're a charity, we have to be careful how we spend our money. We're not rich like, say, we're in the middle of nowhere. Nik Wyness: This all has to go back to some kind of important box ticking objective and that has to be sort of financial in some way or other. We have to make sure it's washing its face. And whilst we could see, as the YouTube channel started to grow, 2014, 2015, we could see that were starting to see more international businesses, for example, rocking up our special events like Tank Fest. And we could see that our experts that were putting in front of the camera were bizarrely starting to get, like, people coming up and asking for autographs, which is kind of adorable in many ways, so we could see that, but you can't really put a figure on that. So, like, I say, like, a lot of PR activities, just really difficult to quantify in that way. Nik Wyness: And we've got a very switched on group of trustees and they were basically challenging to say, well, put value on this and it's very difficult unless you find another way of literally making it clear how it's performing for you. Kelly Molson: Okay, so we get to that point and trustees challenge you. What did you then start to do and how did you start to develop the monetisation strategy that you've put in place? Nik Wyness: Yeah, so there was this trustee meeting and I was very pleased with these massive numbers because it's all about on social media, the bigger the numbers, the more successful you are. So I think we're all feeling quite pleased with ourselves about that and say, "Look at all these people in America watching us. People have never heard of The Tank Museum, have now heard of The Tank Museum. Isn't that great?" And in a way it is great, but they were absolutely right to sort of say, well, hang on a minute, because actually that intervention has just led to things being better, really. Nik Wyness: And that's what you want from your trustees. At the time, it probably felt like a little bit deflating. Yeah, because my first thought was, goodness me, how on earth are we going to do this? Because there's no model in our sector for doing this at all. And normally, if you're short of a good idea or two, there's plenty of other people in our sector, bigger organisations, more established museums. You can just help yourself to an idea from really or talk to them and say, well, how have you done it? And what ideas can we basically steal and reform? But this one, there was nothing. So it was a real challenge, but actually, that's what made it fun in a way. Nik Wyness: And so what I did is, because I was then, and I still am now, a bit of a YouTube addict, I definitely think I probably watch more YouTube than Netflix and certainly much more than terrestrial television. I just like the variety and the randomness of the things you can see in my son, who's only eight years old, is much too my disappointment. Equally addicted to me, which is you spend hours watching people play minecraft and what is that about, how is that enjoyable? And they're all quite irritating as well, but that's why this isn't a therapy session, I must remind myself. Kelly Molson: Get it all out. Nik Wyness: Anyway, back to monetisation. So, yeah, so what I did is I had to look at YouTubers and how they were making a living effectively from just running a YouTube channel. And that became a thing, if you like, sort of 2012, 2013, 2014. And it was just literally a case of saying, right, how are they making their money? And identified there was four key ways in which they were making their money. The first thing was through advertising revenue. So when you are on YouTube and you're playing your videos, google basically puts ads at the beginning of those videos and I'm sure you've seen them, I'm sure you've skipped many of them as well. And basically they do operate a revenue share scheme with their creators. So you basically get a percentage of every ad that's played. So the second thing is memberships. Nik Wyness: So Patreon had just launched at that time and Patreon is like an online modern membership platform which allows you to facilitate an online modern membership scheme and it's very closely linked to YouTube. At that time, YouTube kind of endorsed it. A lot of YouTubers were using it, as well as a means to provide sort of tiered memberships where people could give monthly micro donations, whether it was one dollar a month, $3 a month, $5 a month or more in exchange for a tiered set of benefits, whether that's additional access to the creator, early access, that sort of thing. The third way was through sponsorships. Nik Wyness: And I'm sure we've all seen YouTube videos where at the very beginning of the video, no matter what it's about, there might be somebody who's promoting a product, whether that's like a VPN service or a pair of gaming headphones or whatnot. And the final way was merchandise sales. And even people with modest merchandise, YouTube channels will be using Printly or something like that to print their own T shirts with their like channel logo on it. So basically, using those methods, that's how we sort of built the strategy around kind of making it happen. And ad revenue is all about the more views you get, the more ads get served to your content and the more money you can make. So to give you an example, last year we had about 22 million views and we earned £90,000 from ads. Nik Wyness: And it's not an immaterial sum of money, it's completely passive as well. Once it's out there, you don't have to do anything apart from just kind of take the payment every month. And the other thing about that was really interesting to us as well, was that what we saw is that the overseas audience, particularly the American based viewers, were actually a lot more lucrative than the UK based viewers. So last year, about 30% of our viewers were based in the USA and basically 45% of our total ad revenue originated from those American viewers, because the ad market is much more developed on YouTube in the USA than it is in the UK. So the UK viewers contributed just 20% of our total views, which is, of course, a lot lower as a proportion than the USA, but just 23% of our ad revenue. Nik Wyness: So you can see it was actually a benefit all of a sudden to having these American based viewers. And you can see how in the future, it might beneficial for us to actually aim our content a little bit more at the American audience for that very reason. Kelly Molson: Gosh, that's fascinating. I can't believe the numbers on that as well. For passive income. That's incredible. Nik Wyness: Yeah, and that's from what you can that's not particularly stellar either, I have to say. There are people who do much more kind of commercial content than we do, because ours is very much educational, who would probably do a lot better than that, like the guys who make those Minecraft, but here that my son watches are probably absolutely pointing it in. So it really makes you question your life choices, doesn't it, really? Kelly Molson: Yeah, if it does. Nik Wyness: And then we launched our Patreon, and again, that was just a case of setting up the platform and then sign posting it in all of our videos, basically saying, if you want to support the town, it's easy for us, we're a charity. So if you like the ask is a lot more straightforward, you know, support our work, help us keep the channel going. We were able to eventually fund an internship using the earnings from Patreon. It built up such I think it was just over £20,000 after the first couple of years. So went to our local arts university and brought in a graduate placement, who had just graduated from the Film Study schools to help us make more content. So it became beautifully self fulfilling. Kelly Molson: That's wonderful that you could do that as well. Nik Wyness: Yeah, and it was all funded by the patrons and then yeah, we work with partners to generate sponsorship income. I think because we're a charity and because we're a museum, we're not going to just accept any old sponsorship opportunity that wanders by. We have to be a bit careful about our brand and who will work with and that sort of thing, but we're already working with a video games company called War Gaming. They make a video game called World of Tanks, which I'm sure you're an avid player of yourself and I need to introduce it any further. But basically it's one of those massively multiplayer. It's free to play online. Nik Wyness: And basically what you do is you kind of drive around in a tank and you sort of shoot at other people who are driving around online in their tank, played by literally millions of people worldwide. And they're already sponsoring like exhibitions and events at The Tank Museum. So it wasn't really a big leap for them to start sponsoring our online content as well. And a really good example of how their sort of support and sponsorship for our online content on our YouTube channel in particular could be found in 2020 during the pandemic. Because I'm sure you can remember all too well, weren't able that summer to hold our Tank Fest event because obviously everything was shut down, which left us with a real big problem because of course, Tank Fest is our biggest fundraising event of the year. Nik Wyness: So were able to use our YouTube channel and a bunch of edited footage to bring a Tank Fest 2020 live stream to the Internet with World of Tanks' financial support. So they basically gave us the sponsorship to kind of bring in the technology to live stream this stuff that we'd edited together, which was sort of live hosted and create a live stream. And that video did really well. It's had over a million views and still growing now, which is quite remarkable. From that live stream gained £50,000 worth of additional donations from the viewer base and it led to an additional £20,000 of sales in our online shop that weekend as well. So it was staggeringly successful for us, but we wouldn't have been able to do it without World of Tanks to support. Kelly Molson: That is an amazing achievement. So just thinking about what you said about the Pandemic there and not being able to do certain things because of it, but then being able to do this quite transformative project. Did the Pandemic speed up some of the things that you were going to do? Or were these things kind of naturally in progress anyway as the pandemic hit? Nik Wyness: I think were lucky in the sense that a lot of this stuff was just starting to get rolling when the pandemic hit. The fact existed when the pandemic hit. No question about it. I think it saved jobs at the time. No question about it. Nik Wyness: And I think that's really good news story, isn't it? At the end of the day. We were already in a place where we built these really big online audiences into a sort of a loyal community of almost advocates. And so when we were asking them for help, they were happy to support us. So we saw an increase in our Patreon age. Nik Wyness: During the pandemic, we saw an increase in ad revenue as well, because across the board, more people will have more time to sit and watch YouTube videos. And obviously, we work with a lot of tanks on that occasion to do this kind of big set piece, live stream, special event, which yielded great results. But probably for us, the most important thing, and the biggest chunk of our online income comes from e commerce. And so the fact that when the pandemic hit, we actually had the time, for the first time ever, to really focus in on e commerce and make it work, get it sorted out, get the website sorted out, sort out our logistics and yeah, I mean, in 2019, we took £120,000 in our online shop, which were quite happy with. In 2020, we took £1.2 million. Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Nik Wyness: Exactly. And we wouldn't have been able to take that if we hadn't already built this enormous online audience organically. So, sure, were using, were advertising the products and that kind of stuff online during 2020, but the fact is that we kind of went in from a sort of a running start, because the audience was there, the product selection was there, we knew what were doing and what we wanted to achieve. We just actually had times to get on with it and actually, there's nothing like a crisis of that sort to really focus the mind and for everyone to be pulling out the stops. It was a fantastic team effort. Kelly Molson: Oh, absolutely. It's amazing what you can achieve when you're under that kind of pressure. And you've got nothing to lose, right? There's no barriers there. You've got absolutely nothing to lose by doing it. Nik Wyness: Nothing else to interfere with. Kelly Molson: There's no people, we don't have to worry about them. So was that a one off or has that continued since this big increase in your online sales? Nik Wyness: So, I think for us, that was always the concern, wasn't it? And I'm sure a lot of e commerce, of course, are a massive boom because there was literally nothing to do all day apart from watch YouTube and buy stuff on the internet. We were obviously worried that, how will things be in 2021? Is this just a blip? Is this just a bit of anomaly? So we did 1.2 million in 2020. In 2021, we did the same, I think 2.1 million again. So were like, well, that's interesting, but it's been a funny year, there's still lots of covered hangover. We locked down at the beginning of the year. So for us, 2022, the year just gone was a real test for us. This is going to tell us whether or not we managed to create sustainable growth. Nik Wyness: Actually, last year we did 1.4 million, so it was a huge effort. We had to work really hard for it, but we’re far better set up for that. We've increased the size of the team to cope with this. But actually what we've shown is that we've got some really good foundations here and some really good foundations for future growth as well. So it wasn't just I mean, that was the concern. It could have all fallen away last year and we've been sort of sat wondering what we’re going to do with all these people who were sat on their hands. But fortunately, so far at least, knock on wood has shown to be holding up. Kelly Molson: And is that the same with some of the other things as well? So is that the same with, like, your YouTube views? And has everything stayed the same or increased since then? Nik Wyness: Yeah, absolutely. So, I mean, that was for us. I think the big thing in 2022 was about basically kind of stepping back and letting your hands off and going, "Right, is this still, is it still there? Is it still happening?" So we didn't set, like, massively ambitious targets for 2022. It was all just about zero. Okay. But, yeah, we still continued. We had, I think, 22 million views last year, which was 2 million more than the one before. The membership income was £2000 more than it was the previous year. So what we saw is a lot of people who signed up to support us during the pandemic, when the pandemic was over, kind of fell away, but that's fine. Nik Wyness: We also know that people have been hit by the upheaval in financial uncertainty, so we've certainly lost a few, but we've had to work hard to gain a few as well. And our sponsors, War Gaming, have sort of stuck by us as well. And the e commerce, as I've just said, has continued to work really well. We had an incredibly strong Christmas season and we've continued to do some of the things that we started doing in 2020 as well. Like these self published books. We've got the audience we can sell directly to them. Nik Wyness: So what we do is we'll take a book that's out of print that we've got the rights to, you know, we know we can be relatively comfortable that we'll be able to shift 3 to 4000 of those based on the fact that we've got this really loyal audience in a real niche. We don't have a great deal of competition for that niche, and those have been really good for us as well. Really good things to drive sales and bring in the customers here. Kelly Molson: Are your Trustees happy? That's what I want to know. Are they happy? Nik Wyness: They're never happy. And I don't want them to be happy either, because if they're happy, that just makes life easier. They're always pushing us to try new things and just try and push it a little bit further. But that's why I believe The Tank Museum is very successful. We get the finger in the back, you can't get comfortable, you can't get complacent, and that's the way I like it. That's why I like working in The Tank Musuem. Kelly Molson: Yes, that's a good place to be, isn't it, where you're always challenged, so there's always more that you can do. You said earlier about.. The attraction sector is one that is incredibly supportive of each other, and you mentioned earlier that there's normally a model or someone's done what you're trying to achieve, and you can often go and ask people, but in this case, you are the model, right? You have developed the model. So what would be your tips for other museums that are looking to implement a really similar strategy to this? Nik Wyness: That's a good question. I guess part of the issue is we never really set out to implement the model. It kind of just awkwardly fell in this way. But I'm always looking at what other, whether it's attractions or museums in particular, really are doing in this space and how they're trying to do it. And I often wonder why there are much bigger, more established organisations than ours that aren't doing better than us. And I kind of feel like they arguably could be. I do think there's an issue with that. I have made the same museum because I've always had a lot of support from particularly my director, who's just kind of let me get on with it. And it's a bit of a smaller organisation as well, so working cross functionally is a little bit labyrinth. Nik Wyness: It's easier to get things done in a smaller organisation. You can be a bit more nimble. But I think a lot of the reason for our success really goes down to this obsession with really getting to know the audience and really sort of cherishing them, so you can really understand what they want and then you give them what they want. So it's not really rocket science at that point, if you know the audience. We've got a niche audience, obviously. People who are into tanks, they're quite easily defined, aren't they? "Is it a tank? Yes. I like it. It is not a tank. No, google don't like that", so we'd know when to talk about sharks or fish or anything like that. Nik Wyness: But the other thing I think that's made us successful is we throughout the course of this journey, because we didn't set out to achieve everything all in one go. We didn't realise were doing it at the time, but we've got these really strong and consistent online brand values. So I've always thought that the content we produce, anything we put on social media, has to be useful. It's got to give the audience something interesting, something they actually want, it's got to satisfy a need and we give them, hopefully, interesting stories and engaging facts. You've got to lay off on the sales on your social media, really, haven't you? It's a long game. You've got to earn the right to sell to people by giving them lots of useful, sort of free stuff. Nik Wyness: I think it's really important that organisations on social media are authentic to their own sort of organisational voice and not trying to be something else, not trying to follow what other people are doing necessarily. You've got to kind of cut your own path. I think being original is really important. There's no point trying to imitate what others are doing. I don't think it would be seemly for The Tank Museum to be trying to sort of imitate other online influences with the kind of things that they do, because that's not us, we're The Tank Museum. We're trying to be serious content creators and we've got a serious message. Nik Wyness: I think simplicity is important. And I mean simplicity in terms of sustainability to create, because we're not a massive team, but we have this requirement now to put a video out on YouTube every week and actually that can be quite labour intensive. So you need to make sure that you're not trying to achieve more than you actually can. And of course, the content needs to be good, simple. And what I mean by that really is easy for the audience to consume. Those would be my tips really. Gosh, there's quite a few. There's a lot there. Nik Wyness: I don't even know. I have no idea what happened. Kelly Molson: This has happened. They're really good tips, though, and if I'm honest, so they're tips that I took away. So I have heard you talk about this a couple of times, Nik and I've taken those tips away and I've implemented them, or I've tried to implement them for Rubber Cheese ourselves. So I think that there were a few things that were already doing, but I think just coming back to those every time to be useful, that everything that you push out has to be useful, is so vital. And that's the one takeaway that I took from your talk, is that if you are trying anything that you're trying to do on social media, whether you're trying to grow your audience or grow your presence or your brand or sell something, but not in a salesy way, it's just about being useful. Kelly Molson: What can we do? What do we know that would really be helpful for our audience? Just share that stuff. And that, for me, is the biggest takeaway from the things that you do, is about being useful. Nik Wyness: Absolutely, yeah. And it's sure, it's not useful to anybody, is it? But we're not after anybody online. We're particularly after that niche audience of enthusiasts. But because it's online, there's lots and lots of them scattered all around the world. The Tank Museum itself, and this is one of the really key things that I really kind of really grasp, and it's difficult to get other people to understand, is that the online audience, particularly for The Tank Museum, is totally different to the onsite audience. And that's how I want it to be. So the onsite audience is all about being accessible to the widest possible group of people who are endorsed and able to visit. We want families to visit, we want older people to visit, we want younger people to visit, we want schools to visit. Nik Wyness: But online, we're just going for those sort of military history aficionados. And you can see that, if you like, in the actual demographics of the audience. So I think on site, our gender split is 60% men and 40% female, which actually, I think we need to do better on. If I'm being honest. Kelly Molson: That's not bad, though I wouldn't have said that was too bad for what seems quite stereotypically male. Nik Wyness: Absolutely. Yeah. And it has got better. But the reality is actually, for me, is actually the subject matter The Tank Museum really is, particularly the way it is presented in recent times, because we've completely redone the entire museum. There is no reason why anybody couldn't come to The Tank Museum. There was nothing in here for me, because we just tell really good, fascinating stories, really. So you don't have to be someone who cares a great deal about tanks to get something out of The Tank Museum, but you do have to be someone who cares about tanks to get something about online content, and that's the way you want it. So online, our audience is 90% male, maybe more, probably more. And it's also very international. We probably struggle to get 10, 12 percent international visitors onto The Tank Museum site. Nik Wyness: It goes up during our special events, but not by much, probably to 20%. And we know that our online audience is probably 20, 25% UK. The biggest single segment would be North America, so that's USA and Canada. And what's left is everywhere else. And we've got Europeans, Australians, South Americans. Nik Wyness: It's a very global audience. And that's the thing with niche audiences. A niche audience in the UK is not so small when you take it to a global scale. And that's why this strategy is able to succeed at scale financially. Kelly Molson: It all comes back to what you said right at the beginning. Know your audience. Nik Wyness: Know your audience. Absolutely. And care about them. Kelly Molson: Good advice. Yeah, not just no care. Exactly. Okay, what is next for The Tank Museum? What can you share with us that's coming up? What other ideas have you got in the Tank? Nik Wyness: I like it. Kelly Molson: You're welcome. Nik Wyness: Well, I think for us, the biggest thing is we have to focus on COVID recovery. Last year wasn't horrendous, but we know that there are further headwinds. We know that there's a bit of an economic uncertainty at the moment. We're not quite sure how that's going to affect us on the door. We are very heavily dependent on The Tank Museum site, at least on the vagaries of UK domestic tourism. So there is a bit of wait and see. This year, we'll see the first normal Tank Fest since 2019, you know, because we've had to reduce the numbers or we've had to operate it in a very different way. And that event is so very important for us. But I think on the online side, I think there's still so much that I'd love to do. Nik Wyness: If only there was the time and the resource to do it. We want to get better at doing this stuff. We want to get better at the community development side of things. I think that's obviously going to be the future. And I mean, that niche broad is sent from starting with growing the amount of emails, engaged email subscribers that we have and kind of nudging them up that fabled ladder of loyalty. We want to increase the output of our content. So one of the big things that we did last year was launch a TikTok channel because TikTok is where the younger people are. Nik Wyness: And you've got to think about the future in terms of getting your brand in front of the younger audience because just because they're young and they're on TikTok doesn't mean that among that will be people who are interested in military history. It's not all about sort of funny dances and twerking. Although that's a good time, I'm sure. Yeah, if you're on TikTok. Nik Wyness: Check out famthetankman, who is our in house TikTok, he did really well last year. He only launched the channel in late April and he's accumulated 271,000 followers and 51 million views last year, which I think is pretty impressive. He's doing really well. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. I'm not on TikTok because it's another thing that I've got to learn and understand and to find time for. So I'm not on it yet. I need to be I do need to understand it. But that is a really big achievement in such a short space of time. Nik Wyness: Yeah, absolutely. And it shows that there is an appetite for serious military history content. And of course, we change, if you like, the tone of voice that we're using and we change the conventions that we're using in the kind of presentational sense. But the messages are still the same, the stories are still the same. Do you know what I mean? So there's still that consistency of authority and kind of our authenticity coming out through TikTok. Even though it's a very different approach and a very different audience to our YouTube channel, which is, you know, 45 plus, I suppose it's biggest continuing with TikTok, we know that the biggest audience is 18 to 25. So it's really important, isn't it, to find a different avenue and a different way of communicating with different generations. I mean, that's basically marketing, isn't it, really? Nik Wyness: But the other thing we really want to do, and I really hope we get to do it this year, is launch a second YouTube channel. And the reason we want to do that, again, it's part of this audience diversification piece we've done really well targeting that really hard core of sort of armoured warfare, history and enthusiasts. But we want to go a little bit broader than that. We want to sort of almost use a second YouTube channel as like a funnel to the main one, if you like, by telling more broader stories about people and events. Whereas our current main YouTube channel is very much focused on objects and things and stuff, if you know what I mean. Kelly Molson: So why set up the second one out of interest? Do you feel like you would dilute the first one if you put those kind of stories on there? Nik Wyness: Yeah, I think it's about when you because we've got some 477,000 subscribers on our YouTube channel at the moment, and so since the channel is launched, particularly in the last sort of seven years, we've really given them a very strict diet of very strict, kind of very in depth tanky information. So that's that audience, that's what that audience likes. It really is that kind of granularity they like, and they do prefer, generally speaking, those stories about the stuff like the objects. It's more, perhaps more engineering, more development, less about human history. Perhaps at times, we go there, but not very much. This is mainly about the kind of the machines and the objects, really. So with this second channel, we are looking to tell more interesting stories about what happened, when, and the artefacts are obviously a big part of that. Nik Wyness: But this is more about the human story. Kelly Molson: That's the kind of stuff that would appeal more to me than the real kind of specifics. So, again, it's looking at broadening that audience online, too. Got you. Brilliant. Great advice, great achievements. I'm so glad that you've been able to come on and share this with us today. Thank you. Nik Wyness: No, thank you very much for having me. It's always great to get out The Tank Museum and have a chat with people. Kelly Molson: Well, before you go, we always ask our listeners if they've got a book that they love that they'd like to share. Nik Wyness: So I had a look at what your other guests had recommended. I thought, my goodness me, there's lots of really worthy choices in there. I'm not really one of those people who particularly enjoys reading those, like, management strategy books, because I was like, in my own free time, I want to read for fun and obviously a bit of a nerd of military history. And there's interestingly a bit of an overlap, I suppose you could say, between sort of like military and marketing. We use a lot of the same terminology, like strategy and tactics and deployment and cut through all of that sort of thing. So I'm going to recommend a book which kind of overlaps a little bit with a professional, with the military history. That book is quite an old book, actually. It's called Hal Moore on Leadership: Winning When Outgunned and Outmanned. Nik Wyness: And basically Hal Moore was an officer in the US Army. He died a few years ago, I think. But I don't know if you've ever seen the movie. The Mel Gibson movie came out in 2002 called Weaver Soldiers. Have you ever come across that one? Okay, it's quite a good film but basically it's a Vietnam War movie and basically the star was this Hal Moore guy. It was biopic and it was about the first major engagement in the Vietnam War between the US army and the North Vietnamese Army. And basically his unit, 400 blokes were dropped in the jungle by helicopter. They quickly found themselves surrounded by like 4000 north, the emission soldiers and they found themselves cut off and basically having to fight off the determined and repeated attacks. Nik Wyness: And basically Hal Moore keeps his unit together through this tremendous series of challenges. And so that book is all about his perspective on leadership and what he learned during his military career. And actually I've worked with several ex soldiers and actually what you learn from soldiers is that the military is one thing that they're really good at and they're very good at many things is training leadership, if you know what I mean, and training people how to be a good leader. And I don't think that's something that the civilian world and the business world is actually very good in. Nik Wyness: But what's interesting as well that I've learned from these former soldiers that I've worked with is you get a completely different perspective from them, particularly those who have seen sort of action or any form of operational deployment on things like resilience and what tenacity is and what courage is and even what stress is and what a bad day in the office is like. Because of course a bad day in the office at The Tank Museum is nothing like a bad day in the office on a front line somewhere unpleasant in the world. So that perspective I think is really useful. But Hal Moore comes up with these four kind of principles of leadership, which is a book. The first one is something like, "The battle only stops when you stop fighting". Which basically means don't give up. Nik Wyness: Doesn't matter what you're facing, you've got to keep going. A bit like Winston Churchill said, "When you're going through h***, keep going". And the second one was that, "When you're in a tight spot there's always one more thing you can do to influence the situation positively in your favour". And that's about being proactive, right? Because when you're in a tough spot the worst thing you can do is nothing is freeze. You've got to be proactive and you've got to keep going. And the third thing was, "If there's nothing wrong, there's something wrong". So basically what that means is don't be complacent. Keep your garden up, be alert. And I think there are times when you're running marketing campaigns when you almost think, “well, everything's going all right". But actually, that's probably when you need to check in on things the most. Nik Wyness: And the last one was, "To trust your instincts". Basically, he argues that you're well trained, you've got plenty of experience, and so is your gut, so you should listen to it. And the other thing, of course, is your subconscious is much more observant than you will ever be. As marketers, we're very analytical. We like to look at our data and that kind of thing. But your gut can tell you if you're interpreting that data correctly or if you need to look at it again. Kelly Molson: Gosh, what a book. Wow, I've never heard of that book. Nik Wyness: That's pretty old. Kelly Molson: Never been recommended before as well, so that's a great one. As ever if you would like to win a copy of Nik's book, if you head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Nik's book", then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Maybe you'll come back on in a year from now and tell us how 2023 went and how the first Tank Fest since pre pandemic went. Nik Wyness: Yeah, I'd be delighted if my hair has gone completely grave at that point. You'll know, it wasn't a great year. Kelly Molson: I'm sure it's going to be a good year. Thanks ever so much for coming on, Nik. It's been a pleasure. Nik Wyness: Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Creative ideas and solutions for driving commercial income, with Matthew Henderson | 22 Feb 2023 | 00:38:29 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
Creative Ideas and Solutions. Innovative consultancy and support for visitor attractions, specialising in commercial and product development. https://culturalenterprises.org.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendersonmatthew94/
Matthew Henderson is well known across the sector, having won many awards for his creative approach to retail and product development, and is a Trustee of the Association for Cultural Enterprises. Having increased sales and developed commercial activity as Head of Commercial Operations and Development at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, Matthew has been inspired to launch Creative Ideas and Solutions. The aim of which is to support other organisations in enhancing their visitor engagement, commercial strategy and product development.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Matthew Henderson, founder of Matthew Henderson Creative Ideas and Solutions. Matt was previously Head of Commercial Operations and Development at Beamish Living Museum, where an abundance of innovative ideas drove their commercial income. We talk a lot about product development and how to develop commercial products and experiences that truly reflect your organisation. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Matthew, it is absolutely brilliant to have you on the podcast today. I'm just going to tell you, you have been, like, one of the most recommended people to me ever to come on. Matthew Henderson: Really? Kelly Molson: There are so many people, “You've got to get Matthew on. You need to get Matthew on to chat to” and finally, we are here. Matthew Henderson: Well, thank you so much. That's an amazing thing to hear, but, yeah, thank you for inviting me on. It's a real honour to be on it. Kelly Molson: Well, shuffed. It's going to be good. Okay. Right, I've got some ice breakers for you. I want to know what is your favourite crisp flavour? Matthew Henderson: Favourite crisp changes rigged, but at the moment it's probably squares just for how vinegary they are. Kelly Molson: Oh, the sort of vinegar ones? Yeah. Matthew Henderson: I would go with them, but occasionally a knickknack I would go for as well, which is quite a controversial opinion. Kelly Molson: Spicy knickknack. Did they used to do like a hang on, they did like a fishy one, didn't they? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, I wouldn't go near that, but, yeah, the spicy one, yeah. Normally I'm a chicken corner kind of guy, but I can handle a knickknack spice. Kelly Molson: Spicy knickknacks. I'm with you on that one. That is a good solid, crisp flavour. Right, good. Okay, if you had your human body but the head of animal, what animal would you choose? Matthew Henderson: Strangely, I actually do have a pet owl, so I feel like just to keep on theme yeah, probably an owl. I think their school is taken up by three quarters. Their school is hitting up by their eyes. Their brain is very small, so maybe I'll retract that. But wise old owl is quite a myth. But they are sort of very attractive, aren't they? Kelly Molson: They are. Wow. Oh, God. So many questions. You've got a pet owl, you're like Harry Potter. This is incredible. How have you got a pet owl? Matthew Henderson: Well, yeah, it's sort of a bit more run Weasy than Harry Potter would say. Growing up, I used to help my grandma nature reserve and every weekend she used to take me to there on the Saturday and then the Budapest Centre on the Sunday. It was just the sort of thing that we always did and I ended up volunteering there and fell in love with it. And then I had this little owl, who, when he came in, was written off that he would die overnight. It was so unwell. And I think a cat tried to eat him. All this sort of tragic story. And then every day he got a bit stronger, to the point where he used to come home with me every night. We've got a tesco together because you couldn't leave. It was kind of in my hoodie pocket. Matthew Henderson: And then when I sort of stopped volunteering there and got a job, he would have died of heartbreak, really. And I think so died by that point. So 14 years on, he still lives with me. Probably the funniest thing that's ever happened with Bug is when everyone did Zoom quizzes during lockdown. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Matthew Henderson: And my friend works for Capital FM and Bug the Owl just happened to be in the background while were playing this quiz. And my friend from there was on, to which he told Roman Kemp the next day about Bug the Owl at work, to which Roman Kemp and FaceTimed me the next day to see Bug the owl. And then me and Bug coal hosted capitol breakfast for 20 minutes one morning, you think lockdown life couldn't get any stranger. And then you describe what an owl looks like on Capital FM. Kelly Molson: This question has gone to a place that I would never expect him to go to. Oh, my God. Matthew Henderson: We could get him at the end. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God. Please, I would love to meet Bug. And also, my heart has just melted massively from that story. Matthew Henderson: Yeah. I love him. Kelly Molson: Absolutely incredible. Matthew Henderson: My friends always say that I should do TikToks with them because I have a dog as well, and the owl will sit on the dog's head and groom and they'll play together. And I think if I had more time, they'd probably be a TikTok account for them. Kelly Molson: You have to make that. I would download TikTok just for that. Just for you, and Bug and your dog. Oh, my God. Honestly, Matt wasn't expecting that response. That's got me all the feels. Matthew Henderson: On the random way, I think I would have an owl's head as a head and a human body. Kelly Molson: An excellent reason why. Well, this is random. My next question was, have you ever met a famous person and lost a tiny mind a little bit, but I don't know if Roman Kemp is enough to make you lose your mind. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, I think I actually met Russell Brand. This is another sort of bizarre lockdown story, just as it happens, but I went to his gig, he did an outdoor, socially distanced gig and then at the end he walked past and I got a selfie with him, to which I just put it on Instagram. We haven't broken any rules. It was all fine. And the Daily Mail lifted that photograph and ran it on the front page of their website with a story around Russell Brand refusing to social distance, which wasn't true. But, yeah, he ended up on Hollywood Reports and all sorts of zoom called with him afterwards to talk about it, and he absolutely loved it. But, yeah, meeting him was amazing. And then my ultimate hero is Mike Skinner from the Streets. Matthew Henderson: I have his lyrics tattooed, and that probably the only time in life I've been absolutely speechless. I just could not say a word when I met him. And he was very nice and very polite. But, yeah, meeting him was pretty amazing. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God, Matt, I want your life. Matthew Henderson: We might go downhill from there. I think they're only sort of two impressive odd stories. Kelly Molson: They're probably the best answers to any icebreaker questions I've ever asked. Matthew Henderson: It's quite nice because they don't naturally come up in conversation, either of those points. But maybe that's the art of icebreaking. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Totally fascinating. Right, well, I don't know where this is going to go, but what's your unpopular opinion? Matthew Henderson: My unpopular opinion is that I've never had tea or coffee and I have no desire to. Kelly Molson: You've never had a brew? You've never had a cup of tea? Matthew Henderson: Never had one. Yeah. Shocking. And I actually went on a half day course about coffee once I've smelled this and learned all about it, but it's not for me. Kelly Molson: I think the coffee one I can get. I think that there's probably quite a few people that because tea and coffee are very different and I can understand that. But to never even have tried a little sip of tea? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, nobody's ever really that impressed with it. Yeah, maybe it's TikTok and tea this year, maybe that’s the aim. Kelly Molson: 2023, we're coming at you. Matthew Henderson: About two or three years ago, I tried to grip for the first time, much to all my friends amusement. And I remember afterwards my friend Ben, who's a very loud lad, and he took me one side and said, “I'm so proud of you for trying that, man”. So I just loved, like, how genuine he was. Kelly Molson: Matt, it's already my favourite podcast. Sorry, everyone, Matt's got me in tears here. All right. Okay, let's start where it all began, shall we? Let's talk about Beamish. So you were there for ten years and you started out as a costume demonstrator? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, that's right. Kelly Molson: And then your path went further and further and further in. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, it was the best thing ever did. So, like I sort of mentioned, my grandma used to run a nature reserve, a little small cafe and gift shop, and she would let me organise the Christmas tree fairs when I was little. And sometimes I do little markets and fundraisers and stuff. So I think, looking back, I was always sort of destined for a career in tourism from that, because my mom always laughed that I was more excited about seeing the gift shop than I was the attraction a lot of time. When you look back, it's so obvious, really, but from there I started volunteering at the Falconry Centre, which is obviously where Bug the Owl came from, and got really interested in the sort of business side of it and the customer service side. Matthew Henderson: And I was studying business at college, a six month college, and they said to me, "why didn't you go and try somewhere else on work experience?" And I was like, "no, I'm going to work at the Falconry Centre. That's my sort of thing I'm going to do". And they were like, "Why didn't you just go for four half days, like four afternoons to Beamish, which was about 20 minutes up the road, and just see what it's like?" And instantly, within about an hour of being there, I realised it was the people that I loved working with. And for all I loved the animal side, that it was that tourism, that business, that people and that culture that I loved. Matthew Henderson: And then, yeah, from there, I think it's sort of seven different jobs, but progressed from work experience to being a volunteer to then a costume demonstrator, and that's how it kind of started. Kelly Molson: Amazing. So many people start their career at one level in an attraction and just work and that's what happened, isn't it? So ultimately, you ended up as head of commercial operations. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, several different jobs, and was really fortunate with my time at Beamish that I did an apprenticeship, which I'm really sort of proud to have come from a non traditional route into the sector and then did an assistant role and an officer role and started did a maternity cover. And all these sort of real brilliant opportunities from Beamish led to that head of commercial role, which was final role at the museum. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So Beamish, to give context to people that haven't been to Beamish, and don't understand what it is. It's a living museum, isn't it? And you've kind of got like little mini attractions within this attraction itself. It's absolutely incredible. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. It's a living museum. It's around 400 acres in size and Beamish tells a story of everyday life in the Northeast in various different time periods. But the majority of the buildings have been moved brick by brick or stone by stone and recreated. So the buildings themselves are as much as part of the museum and the museum's collection as the object inside it. But they use everyday objects to tell the story of life in the Northeast. So rather than having it in a glass case and obviously there's a need to protect some object in the museum's collection and stores, sometimes it's replica. But the majority of real collections that have been really used, whether that's a teapot or a post tube or how can that history be brought to life? So, yeah, there's some amazing museum living museums around the world. Matthew Henderson: I think Beamish is one of the standouts, really. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I think the term immersive is being thrown around, like, a bit willy nilly at the moment. But for me, that is a really immersive museum experience, isn't it? Because when you go, people are in traditional costume and you can go and see things being made. Like, Matt very kindly people that are listening that won't be able to see this, but Matt very kindly sent me some sweets in the post from Beamish, which I'll just show on camera here. And the sweets get handmade in the shop and you can go and see that happening. And using all the traditional methods, So it is a fantastically kind of immersive museum experience that you can get involved in. So everything's going swim and knee and then all of a sudden there's a global pandemic. Life takes a bit of a turn, doesn't it? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. So I was working on product development at Beamish at the time, so we've been doing a lot of really exciting work about how could we use the museum's collections to create products that truly reflected that experience. And Beamish is a dream for that kind of thing, because, like you say, there's so many sort of hands on opportunities and there's so many stories to be told. And I think one of my favourite things about working in Beamish was that you have these pockets of specialism right around the museum. So you could go and have a conversation with the curator of transport and learn the intricacies of sort of steam and charms and buses and then try and come up with product from that. Or you could go and speak to the garden team or the horse team. Matthew Henderson: So were making all this sort of exciting product and then, yeah, the museum was on the rise. Visitor numbers have been going up, income had been going up, and then, yeah, the gates were shut and 95% of the income comes from visitors. And suddenly there was a need to try and diversify and to engage that audience, which is where some of the sort of work that we did during lockdown came from. Kelly Molson: And some of the things that you did are absolutely brilliant. So I saw you speak at the Museum and Heritage Awards last year and you shared some of the things that you did during lockdown that helped to drive revenue and they're so good. Some of the examples that you shared are just so creative and so genius. Can you tell us a little bit about some of them? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, so the first thing we did was set up an online shop. So the idea being that we didn't want it to feel like a traditional online shop, we wanted it to reflect the museum experience, where you can go into the sweet shop and buy sweets, you can go into the cooperative store and buy biscuits, you can go into the various different sort of exhibits and participate. Like the chemist, for instance, has a cold cream that's a recipe from 100 years ago. So we set up that online shop and literally between a very small team of used our existing ticketing platform. And it was a little bit like an episode of The Apprentice, really. There was like no budget, there's a half a platform there for us to use and how could you turn this around? Matthew Henderson: And I think because everyone at Beamish had such passion for it. It was a very concerning time, but also a very exciting time, thinking that we could try and drive some income. And we started seeing support from around the world. People were ordering these sort of tins of sweets and all this sort of product development work that we'd been doing. It was actually perfectly aligned that we had these unique products that could be sold. And then we started to think, well, how else could we use online? So the Head of Learning, Simon Woolley, who's a brilliant person, he started doing school lessons. So he would do murder mysteries online and Victorian school lessons for schools around the world. Me and him said, “there surely must be an opportunity for home schoolers here”. Matthew Henderson: So we started putting Victorian lessons on for home schoolers where they could order a slate and pencil in the post from the online shop and then Simon would essentially sort of scare them for an hour at the Victorian Headmaster. And the day was basically with the parents that we look after your kids for an hour, you have an hour off and they can participate in this living museum. Then we did things like afternoon tea deliveries. So we have famous of amazing bakers. They came to the museum and created these unbelievable afternoon teas along with tea and coffee that were sourced from local supplies and branded as Beamish specific blends for them. And we sent out costume staff to deliver them. Matthew Henderson: So you could only order them, you could order them from around the world, but they would only be delivered in the Northeast because we wanted to deliver them by hand, safely, but in full costume. And I remember a quote that came from Jeff, who was one of the costume team that was delivering them and he said, "people ordered them from as far and wide to the nearest and dearest, the United States, Australia and Europe. And occasionally there were real tears of gratitude from the receiver where it felt a privilege to be bringing a ray of happiness to someone." And that sums it up for me, really. Kelly Molson: That is incredible, isn't it? Matthew Henderson: Because it wasn't only about generating income, it was about keeping connected with that community. And 50% of Beamish's audience is local, so being able to sort of literally go to the doorstep of 1200 people, which is like the equivalent of visiting every family that came on a bank holiday. If you think in terms of scale of two or three drivers out there for a few weeks delivering them and that was a really special thing. And then I think probably we still we started wholesale ventures, we started selling to the likes of Fenix and farm shops when retail shops could be opened. But museums and visit attractions weren't just a diversified income and that was like, again, about generating income, but also that connection with people. Matthew Henderson: And it was really exciting for those shops when Beamish returned up in full costumes with these handmade sweets and keeping that name out there, that sort of museum alive. But I think for me the most special thing was were faced with the prospect that maybe Father Christmas has grown, wouldn't go ahead and how could we do an online offer of that was the challenge put forward. So we did for 13 hours a day, we did zoom calls with Father Christmas around sort of well over 1000 children took part in that. And every ten minutes, Father Christmas would call a different family and would have these absolutely amazing moments where grandparents would join in the call and seeing their children engage, their grandchildren engage with Father Christmas. Matthew Henderson: And you would see parents, grandparents just in floods of tears saying these really special moments because we could collect information in advance that Father Christmas could use to make it even more special. And really did sort of bring the magic. So that was me and Father Christmas and a small team for sort of hours a day and it was just a really special way of connecting with our audience. Kelly Molson: There's so many different ideas there as well, Matthew. I mean, obviously you've got your team around you as well. How did you go about working out what you were going to do? Because I can imagine that there were more ideas that actually didn't happen as well. Right, so how did you work out that process of going, yeah, that's the one, we can run with that. No, these ones, they're just not going to work for us. Matthew Henderson: I think essentially there's a little bit of looking at the resource that was available and the sort of finances behind it. If it was a nice thing to do, was it at least going to sort of generate a small income and then what were the things that were going to really drive income from the museum? And Rhiannon Hiles is the CEO of Beamish, was incredibly supportive as she was sort of leading the museum and me and her would have these conversations where one of us would come up with an idea. And the Father Christmas thing actually started out it was going to be pre recorded videos and it was her that said, “no, this needs to feel exactly like the experience of the museum. We need to create that magic”. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, just really great support from her, really great team that were willing to give everything a go and it was just a real chance to bring commercials to the front of everything the museum was doing. And I think from there we really did connect with that audience. I remember one of the Father Christmas calls, a parent had written that a child no longer believed in Father Christmas because the last time they saw him was in America, and he has an American accent. And our Father Christmas, luckily, could speak different languages. So straight away he said, "loving to meet you". If it was Bethany, he said, "Love it to meet you, Bethany. I saw you last time in Florida, didn't I?" And you could see a little bit of magic. Matthew Henderson: He said, “the thing is, wherever I go, I change my accent, I change the language, like when I go to France”. And then spoke in fluent French, and you could see this kind of like moment where the magic was just literally back in that house. It's like on a film where you sort of see the sort of stars coming back in and it's back to life, and you could see the joy in her parents face. And you think, if we hadn't been allowed to do those calls, what would that magic have been for her in these horrible circumstances? Equally, on the flip side, our Father Christmas only really knew French and English. Matthew Henderson: We were hoping there's not going to any last minute request as we kind of moved on the conversation. Kelly Molson: So you saw magic in one window and sweat in another window. Matthew Henderson: Behind the zoom screen. Yeah. Father Christmas sometimes had a little auto queue that I could give him prompts on, and we had a great time doing those things. Kelly Molson: It's incredible to go to that level of detail as well. To be able to put that magic back is absolutely phenomenal. What you mentioned, you said that everyone was willing to give it a go, and I think that's something that's really important to talk about because there was a level of like during the pandemic, well, let's just try it, right? What can we do? Can't do anything worse than actually is what's happening, right? So let's just give it a go. So people were quite brave in some of the things that they were doing. Do you think that's got lost a little bit now? Do you think people are a bit more cautious about what they're doing? Matthew Henderson: I think there's definitely a thing where the day to day takes over again, and I think there's a real opportunity to look at sort of strategy and given the opportunity for teams to come up with ideas, creative ideas, and then allowing them to happen, I think, with Beamish, I'm not certain we would have made an online shop within the last few years because you managing multiple different exhibits, outlets, operations, and it was never sort of creeping to the top of the priorities list. So I think the pandemic offered an opportunity to really question what you were doing and like, I said, give things a go. And Beamish has certainly carried on that sort of innovation with Rhiannon Hiles, CEO, I'm sure that will continue. Matthew Henderson: But, yeah, I think there is perhaps a thing where the day to day takes over and I think it's maybe coming together through things like the podcast that you do and the work at Association for Cultural Enterprise does and Museum and Heritage Show and hearing those inspirational stories. And I think we've all got those moments where you sit and hear somebody speak and then you just can't wait to get back to where you work to try and sort of pivot from that point, really. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's the same with me, to be honest. I went on a new business and marketing workshop last week and came out of that completely and utterly inspired by the people that were delivering the course, by the people that were on the course with me as well. And now we're kind of back in the day to day doing. You have to really be careful to make sure that you carve out the time to do those things, don't you? You have to give time for innovation, you have to give time to be creative because you need the headspace to be able to actually do it, don't you? Matthew Henderson: Definitely. And I think if you're working in a visit attraction, there's a lot to be said around the fact that it is a joy to work in these places, because the whole purpose of them is to bring joy to people. So for me, it's often about sort of standing and looking at the attraction, walking through it when it's busy, sort of hearing those conversations, working front of house. And then I always find that at the moment when you realise, for me, I started as a costume demonstrator and that was the thing that I loved. Every time you got the opportunity to work with the visitors, to work with those people, it reignited that passion of, this is why we're here. So for all in management, you might sort of step further away and you might be more in sort of meetings and the like. Matthew Henderson: I think it's about still being connected and realising why we're all in this industry. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Off podcast earlier, when Matthew and I were chatting, we actually had a conversation about how our earliest memories are from attractions, aren't they? They're from places that we've been to, so I can remember one of my earliest memories is feeding the ducks, a place called Forty Hall in Enfield. It's a lovely heritage home. It's got beautiful grounds. It was really close to where my nan and granddad lived, so we used to always visit my nan and grandad and then go there afterwards. And it's one of my earliest memories of really happy times. And it's a visitor attraction, so we have to remember the impact that we're having on people from a really young age. And that's a huge responsibility and also something wonderful to be part of. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. I went to Sovereign Hill in Australia, which is a living museum, a few years ago, and one of their directors said to me, "it's an honour to bring joy to millions of people". And often you might see that joy firsthand, but then it's like you say, you would never really know the impact of that work. You would never know that people like you and me are talking about feeding the ducks all them years later. And I think it's every time you get an opportunity to create something or to work with someone, it's about making it the most special thing and that's how you get that legacy. Matthew Henderson: And I think for Beamish in particular, the people of the Northeast have a real love for it because everybody has a connection to it, whether they donate as an object, whether they know somebody that used to live in one of the houses before it was moved, whether they went there on a school trip. And I think it's about working with all those generations. And I love the idea that we might create retail products and you don't really know where in the world they end up or who's going to treasure them. And it's a real honour and I think you have to keep remembering that, especially when sort of day to day work maybe sort of takes over or feels a little heavy. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So you've moved on from Beamish now. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things you're doing. I'm a recent Trustee of the Museum of the Broads, which is quite a big responsibility, actually, and I'm really enjoying it, but it's all quite new for me. But you've been a trustee for quite a while, haven't you, for the Association for Cultural Enterprises? Matthew Henderson: Yeah. So off the back of the work that Beamish did during lockdown, I've got the opportunity to speak at the Cultural Enterprise Conference and then met some of the team there and had kept in touch with Jill, who's the brilliant CEO. And then yeah, the advert went out that they were looking for trustees and it was one of those things I spoke to Rhiannon at Beamish and sort of said, "do you think you would apply for this?" And she was saying, "Well, I think you should." And it said, "Why didn't you give this a go?" And I think that's what I was really asking was, "should I give this a go?" So I applied and interviewed and, yeah, it's been one of the best things ever done, connecting with the work of the association, but also the other board members. Matthew Henderson: So sitting on a board for me, like some of my sort of industry heroes, really, and getting to hear them speak. And sometimes I'll be in these board meetings and I'll realise I haven't spoken in a little while because you're so busy listening to them and you kind of forget that you're part of it, really. So, yeah, they've been really welcoming to me and been a big part in the decision to give this new venture a go. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So this is exciting. So I am going to guess that everyone that you've been speaking to there has been really supportive of this. But you have jumped in with 2ft and you've set up a new consultancy. Tell us a little bit about it. Matthew Henderson: So where it came from was, through the work that I've been doing and the work for the Association for Cultural Enterprise, people had been very kind in the sort of words that they were saying about some of the work we've done. And then often I was visiting other attractions or meeting them and helping to come up with creative ideas. So the new sort of venture is allowing that to be a full time thing for me so that I can offer more support to these organisations, whether that's on product development, whether that's on community co production, creative strategy. So, yeah, it's a very new thing, but really exciting. And like we sort of said at the start, I think from that moment of helping my grandma at the nature reserve, you kind of look back and it was always meant to be that you would work in tourism and then this path has come quite naturally, really. Kelly Molson: It's really exciting. And congratulations on getting set up and taking the big leap into doing it for yourself. How do you start this process with an attraction? Because I guess just thinking about what you've been through at Beamish, I mean, it was perfectly set for all of the things that you did. You've got this amazing heritage there, you've got these artefacts that you can take design elements from for packaging and everything kind of came together so beautifully. How do you start to look at that, doing those things in a different organisation? Matthew Henderson: So I think if it's a product development, there's a lot to be said around, hopefully getting to know the team that are working in the shop. They'll know what sells well and what doesn't, and if they have any data to sort of back that up. But a lot of the time, those informal conversations of, "I wish we had a magnet wave exxon”, or speaking to the front of house teams of what are the things that the visitors find emotive, what do they laugh at? What do they cry at? What do they take a photograph of? And then, how can we draw inspiration from that to create product ranges? And that's a lovely challenge and it takes working with the team, I think, because it's a new venture. Matthew Henderson: One of the things I'm really keen on is that the support isn't a standard package, so depending on the attraction, I can sort of flex up, flex down and take different approaches, but very much about putting those people at the heart. It's not a consultant coming in to say this is how you should be doing it's more about allowing them to discover this is the different way you can do it. And we don't all have to have the same I keep using magnets, but magnets or food and what are the opportunities to support local, to create different things to be sustainable in terms of packaging and environmental impact? So, yeah, really exciting. But it's about putting those people at the heart of it all, I think. Kelly Molson: Because we talk quite a lot, don't we? About having things that are niche, like products and things on your shelves that you can only get at that attraction. Not just the blanket. Everybody's got these things. It's just another thing with the logo on it. And I think there's also a big part about at the moment especially, where we still don't really know what's coming this year. Attractions, I guess, still pretty nervous. They've had a really rough time the last few years and this year might not be that much better, we don't know. But it's thinking about what more they can do with what they already have. So looking at the products they already have and actually can we improve those rather than something from scratch? What more can we do to make this better? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. And I think people understandably in the current climate are even more cautious with money. So it's about making sure that it's an experience, that the experience doesn't stop when you get to the gift shop door that carries on. So how can you create product that is reflective of that amazing day they've had that memory and that they can take a piece of it home? And I think that's the challenge and one that is really exciting to work with organisations and attractions to do and not always the most expensive thing to do. I think there's always ways to find smaller suppliers, local suppliers that can offer that bespoke and offering support both ways. Matthew Henderson: So if it's a small producer that works in a certain town, reassuring them that, "look, it is a risk for you, it is an investment for you to partner with an attraction and to do something bespoke but look at the benefits when this happens”. What can we put in place to work both sides? Do we make an agreement that we'll keep stocking it until you've run all those labels out? Because those labels might be a big investment for a small company or a small business. So, yeah, it's adaptable solutions, but making sure experience is key, I think. Kelly Molson: That's really nice as well, isn't it? Because it builds the partnership between local organisations and therefore you're kind of actively both promoting each other. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. And I think especially now, I think there is so many from lockdown. A lot of people change their lives, didn't they? And a lot of people set up as local producers or suppliers. And if they were there before, I think they had a really rough time during that. And that was one of the things with the work at Beamish, was really support and local and it's such an exciting thing to find a coffee supplier or a tea supplier. Not that I'd be sampling either of them. Kelly Molson: Wasted on you. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, a fudge supplier, and bring them into the heart of the thing that often they pay to take their family to. And how can you find opportunities to involve them? So could they go to morning briefings and bring everyone a cup of tea to try it? How do you make sure that the person stands in behind the till has as much passion about that coffee as the person that makes it? And it's by showing them that connection that every time they get an order that there's sort of a celebration in that office. Really, that, "wow, look, we've had another order from this organisation". Our business is strengthening and it goes back to the point where the customer is buying something and you want that person selling it to have as much passion. Matthew Henderson: So a lot around staff ownership, I think, is quite key with it. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love that idea of celebration, isn't it? That's really important, isn't it, to drive that kind of passion for what you're doing. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. And I think in all of our own businesses, often that's a private thing, isn't it, to celebrate it and while we're chuffed, because you have to kind of look cool and as if you don't really need the work or don't. But actually, it's about sort of really celebrating those moments. And I think through the work that the Museum and Heritage Show do and the Association of Cultural Enterprise, I think it's about celebrating those moments and really enjoying it on a bigger scale. But for those local producers, I love the idea that someone might buy something local and have a feel good moment. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, it's really nice to buy something that's a memory or a part of the attraction, but also that feel good of supporting the attraction, which is often a charity within the cultural heritage sector, but then also supporting local and UK businesses. So, yeah, there's a lot of lovely moments to be had, I think Kelly Molson: Isn't there? I've got, like, a big grin on my face while we're chatting about now. It's lovely, Matt. And I think, actually, we can't talk about celebrating without discussing your recent award, because you won quite a fantastic award recently, didn't you? Let's talk about it. Let's celebrate it. Matthew Henderson: Thank you. Yeah, it was an amazing thing. So my great friend Matthew Hunt, who was formerly at the Science Museum, nominated me for Rising Star, the Cultural Enterprise Awards. And then I was sort of blown away that he would even consider that and then somehow won that. And literally this isn't something maybe I shouldn't be saying on the podcast, but I was literally talking to the person next to me and didn't hear because I didn't know that ever seen that I would win. So went up and was like, over the moon to win. And to be in that room full of those people years was I remember getting back to the hotel. I just couldn't sleep. Sort of reliving that. But then actually, there'd been a vote for the overall winner during the conference and amazingly won that as well. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, it was certainly something that it was something that sent to my mom, really, a photograph of those two awards. And then the museum had great success as well, with Best Shop for the market stalls, a lot of market stalls that they did in the museum. And heritage awards and the Pandemic Pivot award. And best products for the cold cream and the chemist shop. So it was lovely as a team, really, at Beamish to celebrate those wins. And Allison, who's the stock manager at Beamish, we had a little shelf for those trophies and it was just in our little stock room. But it's a really special thing for a team that had sort of been brought to the front through lockdown because of the needs. Kelly Molson: I think that's wonderful and it's really good. Like you say, it's really important to celebrate all those little wins and they're big wins and they definitely need to be celebrated. It's been phenomenal talking to you today. Thank you so much for coming on. We always ask our podcast listeners to recommend a book that they love for us, something that might be something that they just enjoy reading to their children. It might be something that's helped shape their career in some way. What have you got for us today? Matthew Henderson: Thank you. So I'm actually, in between leaving Beamish and this new venture, I had four weeks off where I went to the movie theatre to volunteer. So my thing was that I was going to take loads of books and to sort of read. And actually being a walking by lines in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep was a need to do that. And I read a book called A Bit Of A Stretch by Chris Atkins, and it's not a book that would normally jump off the shelf to me, but it's a real story about his time that he spent in Wandsworth Prison after being involved in a tax avoidance scheme. And it's this day by day diary of his time in Wandsworth. And the reason that I picked that is previously, Johnson King hearing outreach, working in prisons. Matthew Henderson: And I think at the moment, everyone's looking at the things that we can see in terms of cuts and the things that need support, but actually, for prison and sort of rehabilitation, it's behind a wall. And we never sort of look at it or think about it because it's not in many of our day to day lives. But that book and that sort of time for the work that I did in there really brought those people and those people that work there to the front. So I would recommend that I feel like every person in the country should have a copy of that book and it's just the most emotive funny book that I've ever read. So, yeah, I would definitely recommend it. Matthew Henderson: You could keep out the lions roaring over the top of it, but certainly I would recommend to anybody to read that. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. That great recommendation. Never been recommended before either, so this is a new one for us. Well, listen, if you want to win a copy of that book, as ever, if you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Matthew's book, then you'll be in with the chance of winning it. It's been brilliant to have you on, Matthew. I'm so glad that everybody recommended you to come on. I'm so glad that I took their advice. Your new venture is called Creative Ideas and Solutions. Your website address is your name, right? Matthew Henderson: It is, yes. It's MatthewHenderson.net. Kelly Molson: There we go. We're going to put all of that in the show notes, so if you do fancy a chat with Matt, you'll be able to find him there. Matt, keep being you, because, honestly, this has been such a delight to talk to you. I've loved every single minute of it. I hope Bug is well and continues to be your best bud. Matthew Henderson: Thanks so much for the invitation here. It's a real honour. So thank you for that. Kelly Molson: It's been great. And maybe you'll come on again. Maybe come on again next year and you can tell us how things have been going. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah, I'll bring Bug with me. Kelly Molson: That's what I was hoping for. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Ticketing Professionals Conference | 15 Feb 2023 | 00:01:22 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Hello, hello lovely listeners. Have you heard about the Ticketing Professionals Conference? Ticketing Professionals Conference (or TPC for short) is an educationally-led event focusing on innovation, best practice and continued improvement in the ticketing sector. Run by people who work in OUR industry, not for commercial gain but to improve how we all work and develop as professionals. Delegates come from all main strands of entertainment ticketing, attractions, performing arts, sports, and festivals. I attended in 2022 and absolutely loved it, and this year I’m lucky enough to be speaking at the event. It’s taking place from the 22nd to the 24th March in Birmingham, and I’ve been given a lovely discount code just for all of you. Visit www.ticketingprofessionals.co.uk and you enter Skip10 in the discount box at checkout, then you’ll receive 10% off the price of your ticket. Come and join me, and over 500 other ticketing and marketing professionals for a really fantastic conference. That’s www.ticketingprofessionals.co.uk and Skip10 is your discount code. I’ll see you there! Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| How to innovate and diversify income streams beyond admissions, membership and retail, with Kingston Myles | 08 Feb 2023 | 00:43:30 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/ https://culturalenterprises.org.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingston-myles-080088118/
Kingston Myles is Head of Commercial Development at English Heritage. He describes his role as “seeking out and executing opportunities to generate new income for the charity and improve on processes to reduce expenditure”. Kingston is responsible for a number of growing and emerging businesses that intersect the Charity and its assets (sites, collections and brand) with commercial businesses (Venue Hire, Licensing, Holidays and Compliance). Kingston has a varied background and prior to joining the heritage sector in 2017 worked in numerous venues and across several high profile events including Glastonbury Festival. Kingston has a passion for both sustainability and equality, he describes this passion as being a positive culture amplifier. He plays an active part of driving change from within – currently sitting on the Organisations EDI Steering Group and is the founding member and chairperson of English Heritage’s BAME Staff & Volunteer Network. Kingston is driven by wanting to see more senior leaders that are representative of society across the arts, heritage and cultural sector. Kingston is also a Trustee for the Association of Cultural Enterprises – a sector supporting organisation focused on the advancement of commerce in the cultural sector.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Kingston Myles, Head of Commercial Development at English Heritage. Kingston shares his insight into where the biggest opportunities lie for diversifying income streams and his top three tips on how attractions of any size can utilise these strategies. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching to Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Kingston, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm very excited to have you here. Kingston Myles: More than welcome. Kelly Molson: Hopefully you'll feel as excited after I've asked you the icebreaker question. Who knows. But let's go. Right, this is quite topical for today, so I want to know, what are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop. Kingston Myles: Me personally, probably a bottle of gin or alcohol. That's probably my go to when I leave through the gift shop. Kelly Molson: Good choice. A gin man. A man of my dreams. Not going to lie. Okay. All right, well, this is another one that leads on from that, actually. Do you have or have you ever had a collection of anything? Kingston Myles: Yes, when I was growing up, I had a collection of the James Bond videos and used to put them all together on the shelf and they used to paint a picture and that one was missing. My nan used to buy them for me when I was a kid and, like, only one of them was missing right up until videos kind of got killed by DVD and DVDs got killed by Netflix. So, yeah, I guess that was probably the one thing I can remember having, like, a proper collection of. Kelly Molson: Did you ever get the missing one? Kingston Myles: No, it was like number 13, I think, from memory. Not that it's bugged me for all these years. Kelly Molson: Look, someone listening to this is going to send you that now. They're going to hunt it down on ebay and be like, “Look what I found you”. Kingston Myles: And I'll be in the loft digging out the videos and then trying to find a video player. Kelly Molson: Have you still got them? Kingston Myles: I think they're still at my parents house and they're lost. Yeah, we don't throw stuff away easily. Kelly Molson: No, we're hoarders as well. It's really sad, though, isn't it. Because my mum did this when I was younger with Disney videos. So every new Disney film that came out on video, she bought, and I think she was thinking, “Oh, this is lovely. You know, one day I'll have grandchildren as well and they can watch them”. Kingston Myles: Yeah. And then streaming came along and now we've kind of just got everything at the click of a button. Kelly Molson: Disney+ mum, taken over. Right, good. I like this. Okay, last ice breaker question. What's the best attraction event that you've ever experienced? Kingston Myles: I went to the Ally Pally fireworks last year, which is the big fireworks show for London. And I'm not a Londoner, so you've got to imagine, first of all, I was in South London and I told friends I'll pop up and see them. There's no popping from South London to Ally Pally, as I found out the hard way. But I've just never seen a pop up one night fireworks show on the scale of that with like, the infrastructure and all the different bits that kind of make it what it was. I really underestimated it. I thought, I will turn up, there'll be like, a few burger vans and like, a bit of music and a bar. No, it's this just incredible pop up experience that takes over Ally Pally. Kingston Myles: So that was probably the one that surprised me most because I went thinking it would be like every other sort of local firework display and it was huge. Kelly Molson: Everybody rates this. I've never been to this. I can remember years ago, ice skating at Ally Pally, and I used to have to get three buses to get to Ally Pally to actually do that. But everybody speaks so highly of this fireworks attraction. Fireworks night. Kingston Myles: Never been. It's phenomenal. It's huge and there's literally tens of thousands of people go to see it. So it's definitely worthwhile going to. I think also it's one of those once you've been to it, you want to go and find something else because the magic will probably fade potentially relatively quickly and there's lots of other incredible displays around London, but it's definitely a worthwhile experience. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Good choice. Wasn't expecting that. Okay, right, your unpopular opinion. What have you prepared for us? Kingston Myles: I think my really unpopular opinion is that actually we over-index our focus, especially in the culture and heritage sector, on gift shops, on catering and on membership. And actually the future is way beyond that. So that's probably my unpopular opinion. We over-index on shops and cafes and forget that there are dozens of other ways that you can generate income. Kelly Molson: Oh, I like this. And very topical for the things that we're going to talk about today as well. It's an excellent lead into the conversation. Okay, well, we are going to talk about diversifying income streams today. Your role. When we spoke pre interview, we had a brilliant chat and I just found your role so interesting and so diverse. Can you just share a little bit of what you do with our audience and kind of what your tasks are with achieving? Kingston Myles: Yeah, sure. So my official title is head of commercial development, which is best summarised as being responsible for this kind of incubator of business growth and efficiency. So I'm responsible for four business areas within English Heritage: our brand licensing program, our portfolio of holiday cottages, and our venue hire business. And those are all income generating parts of this sort of incubator and then also responsible for managing a suite of national contracts. So the provision of services to all of our site operations teams and that's really about looking at efficiency opportunities, the chance to rationalise contracts and reduce perhaps the supplier debt that we have in terms of the number of suppliers we're working with so we can get better value for the charity. Kingston Myles: But all of those business areas are kind of unique in that they've got such scope to grow at a point they will eventually have their own, hopefully their own allocated head of department when they sort of graduate my care and then something else will fall into, I'm sure, my sort of pool. Kelly Molson: It feels quite entrepreneurial, your role, is it quite a unique role for English Heritage or is this something that you've kind of defined for yourself within the organisation? Kingston Myles: Yes, I'm the first head of commercial development. The role was created back in 2020 with an initial focus on looking at brand licensing and contracts and compliance and then there was sort of an opportunity to pull the holiday cottage piece in as well. And then various sort of personnel and structure changes meant that I inherited the venue hire business, which is exciting because it's kind of the closest thing to sort of my previous job roles, sort of pre culture and heritage, but yeah, it's definitely unique in a sense of various business areas rather than sort of one specific focus, that traditional focus of having either like ahead of retail or ahead of catering, which we do have all head food and beverage, but within the cultural sector, sort of heads of business development, heads of business innovation, change, transformation. Kingston Myles: I mean, they all sound very buzzworthy, but there are definitely more and more roles emerging as institutions say, well, actually, how do we diversify our income streams. Strike up more partnerships. We kind of need somebody who is almost like a paid entrepreneur and I'm so privileged in that. That kind of really is my job. I'm paid to be entrepreneurial without the risk of having to invest all my own cash and capital into an idea, Kelly Molson: It’s the perfect role. Kingston Myles: Yeah, definitely. Especially because when it's successful and when we do great things, they contribute towards this sort of wider charitable purpose. So you get this real benefit of creating a business, but that business has this incredible sort of halo effect of doing good because we all work for a charity. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So it's the warm and fuzzy feeling as well. You mentioned just briefly there that your roles previously outside of the sector, what were those roles and how have they helped you with this role? That's quite an interesting thing to understand. Kingston Myles: So I used to work in bars and nightclubs, hospitality and events, sort of a real event and hospitality sort of butterfly as that industry kind of is. You kind of chase progression, opportunities, new openings, there's always something sort of shiny and new moving in the hospitality space and managers move around a lot. But I think the transferable skills from that, it's everything from just general business operations and financial acumen which especially if you're in an independent operator, you're really close to both the PNL but also the balance sheet and cash flow. And then also kind of innovation and that entrepreneurial spirit that sort of need to be able to grow a business, whether that's more people through a door, a higher transaction value or a more efficient control of your suppliers and contractors, kind of it's all transferable into the sector. Kingston Myles: And there's this kind of really interesting change in the sector at the moment in that more and more people are transitioning into the sector. Rather than kind of perhaps growing through the sector, it's becoming more attractive as a sector to work in, which is exciting because it used to really be a case of sort of join and you had to work your way up, whereas actually the sector is recognising those transferable skills, add value, especially in this current climate. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I like that take on it, actually, because we have a lot of guests that come on that work within the attraction sector that would start at quite a low level entry point and then work their way up. You're probably the first guest that's come in from a completely different perspective. It hasn't been your beer or endo. You haven't had this huge desire to work in it from the minute that you came out of school. You've transitioned from something that's completely different but really transferable. So I'm excited to hear where today takes us. All right, well, let's start. What I'd like to understand is how attractions start that process of diversifying its income streams. You talked a little bit at the beginning about we're quite tied to admission fees and membership and retail. How do they start to look beyond that? Kingston Myles: Yeah, I think part of it is taking stock of what you have. If you've got big open green spaces, then great. You could focus on large third party events, working with production companies and clients and promoters. If you've got this really interesting design Led collection, or if you've got a really interesting story to tell, then perhaps it's more around sort of brand licensing and leveraging the intellectual property. So I guess step one is asking, what do I have beyond my shop, beyond my Cafe, beyond admissions. What product could I create? Kingston Myles: And what product is going to be the easiest to create is probably the best place to start because I speak to a lot of colleagues within the sector or a lot of sort of commercial managers within heritage and culture institutions that are like, right, well, we want to do everything that your job does. And I'm like, well, you don't have a portfolio of properties that could be transformed into high quality lets or accommodation. Never going to have a holiday business. So don't try and squeeze glamping into this really small corner of your estate. Focus on something else. So, yeah, I guess it's taking stock is key. Kelly Molson: That's really good advice, isn't it. And I guess it's looking at what you already have and making the most of it, which is a message that is quite key at the moment, where we're seeing budgets being marketing departments all over. You don't have to necessarily start from scratch. It's just about making the most of what you already have and developing that into something that you've already got quite a captive audience for. Kingston Myles: Yes, definitely, 100%. Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, so what are the areas that look quite exciting at the moment. If we're an attraction. Where can you see some of the biggest opportunities? Kingston Myles: Yeah, I mean, so filming location hire. We've seen this huge boom in domestic filming location hire. Domestic film shoots, domestic productions, regional screen tourism offices are popping up. There are some incredible partners within the film sector. Film London, Creative England, Screen Yorkshire, sort of all these bodies that really drive trying to connect people with great spaces to production companies that want to film domestically. And I think as we see the kind of challenges of the cost of global travel and the strength of the pound in the sort of wider economic world, although I'm not an economist, sort of change, there's a real opportunity to capitalise on productions that say, actually, we can unit base. We can produce here, we can shoot here. We can shoot on location. We've got this tiny little island, the UK. Kingston Myles: And I predominantly focus, obviously, on England because of my role, but we've got this tiny little island. But there's so much in it, so much to see, so much diversity. So I definitely think there's an opportunity to unlock more spaces for filming a location hire, for sure. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's a great one. I guess that's relevant. If you have a stately home, for example, it's a perfect opportunity. But it kind of doesn't matter what your attraction is, right. Because we've seen TV shows be filmed at places like Bembom. I call it Bembom Brothers. But Dreamland in Margate. We've just seen a film that's been released very recently that's been shot as part of that. And I guess so there's opportunities regardless of what the size of your attraction is and what it actually is as well. Kingston Myles: Completely. And I think it's about for each attraction, they'll have unique challenges. If you're a high footfall visitor attraction, sort of a theme park, for example, then yeah, you're going to have the conflicting challenge of foregoing admissions revenue to potentially reduce your operating capacity to shoot a film. If you're the custodian of a collection of national significance or an indemnified collection of art, then you're going to have all of the unique challenges of working in a space with all of the environmental controls required to protect pieces of artwork and historic collections. And if you're an independent stately home, you're potentially going to have the challenges of the knowledge base required to execute a filming location hire, sort of safely, efficiently. So I think each part of the attraction sector is sort of a whole when you sort of that really broad spectrum of attractions. Kingston Myles: Each will have their own unique challenges. There's a real benefit in networking and learning and working with those within sort of business specific areas that already do it and do it well. So, yeah, hopefully that helps. Kelly Molson: Definitely helps. We'll talk a little bit about sector collaboration later as well. So I've got a few questions around that. What does English heritage do. Can you share some of the examples of the diversity that you've been able to develop within the organisation? Kingston Myles: Yeah, so staying on the subject of filming location higher, as an example of an income stream that isn't purely based on what people might perceive, which is we've got historic properties, so they must just do period dramas. Actually, we make our properties available for blockbuster films. Obviously, I can't disclose what those are, but there are some that are in post production, which I'm really excited to see how they bring our properties to life in these really incredibly creative and thought through worlds and spaces. But it doesn't just have to be big major film shoots. We work with fashion houses, brands and editorial magazines to provide spaces for photo shoots. Kingston Myles: And then of course, within that same genre, we work with individuals, couples who might have a real affinity to a property that want to shoot an engagement shoot, or a wedding shoot, or a celebration of life shoot. So there's a real broad spectrum in that you don't have to suddenly close everything and have these massive film crews turn up with all these incredibly ginormous, almost intimidating pieces of equipment. It could just be a really lovely local couple that met at a property that are getting married down the road and on the day of their wedding, what they'd really like to do is jump in their wedding car, pop up, take some photos for a couple of hours and leave again. So it's that real spectrum of like two people in their camera person to two to 500 person strong film crew. Kelly Molson: I love that as well because that it means that regardless, again, of size of attraction, there's still something that you can offer in some way. And I think that's really important to point out is that these strategies, they aren't just for English Heritage is a very large attraction organisation, but it's not just for those. There's plenty that the smaller attractions can take from this as well. What other things does English Heritage do? Because I know that you've got partnerships. I know you mentioned holiday lets. Kingston Myles: Yeah. So we've got an incredible portfolio of holiday lets. So we're really unique in all of our holiday lets are situated within sort of the boundary of our properties and then when the properties close in the evening to guests that are staying overnight, so day guests leave and our overnight guests can sort of explore the exterior spaces and gardens and landscapes overnight. So they're really popular. We're really lucky to welcome sort of just over 1300 holidays a year across our portfolio, which is exciting, and that's an expanding portfolio. So we're imminently about to open a new holiday at the Head Gardeners House at Audley End in Essex, and that's been through a renovation process. So that was sort of bringing the property out back into use. Kingston Myles: And we opened a property at Rest Park, which is not too far from Audley End End in 2021. But it's not just sort of holiday lets and filming. You know, we've got the brand and licensing program. So it's really about rather than sort of doing something at our site, if you kind of, you know, generalise the holiday business and the venue hire and filming business as sort of something that's happening at site, there's an activity at one of our properties. Our branded intellectual property licensing business is all about unlocking the assets that we have in the collection to tell the story of England we're really uniquely placed as English Heritage. Our CEO, Kate May referred to us once as the sort of the Museum of England, which is a really nice way of looking at the stories that we can tell. Kingston Myles: So our brand licensing program will do the things that one would expect. We'll use an incredible archive of wallpapers captured from properties over the years in sort of design led work. But we also try to work with a range of licensing partners or licensees that adopt some of our core values. Are they established English business manufacturing in England with some really incredible conservation and stewardship credentials? Are they celebrating sort of traditional ways of working. Because we're not only this sort of steward of nearly 400 historic monuments and the blue plaque scheme in London, but we're really here trying to preserve the sort of art, the craft, sort of the true vibe of Englishness. So we get this real opportunity to play from sort of design led work right through to sort of culture, craft and Englishness as a brand itself. Kelly Molson: Oh, my goodness. I have so many questions on these, but also a statement. I live like five minutes from Audley End and I had no idea that you were opening the Gardener's Cutters as a holiday let. I actually had no idea that English Heritage had a holiday let side to its organisation. So this was all quite new to me when we first spoke. What I really love about it is it really drives into the message that we're hearing more and more frequently now as we come through into 2023, that people are willing to pay more for something that is a really unique experience. And when you mentioned there about the holiday lets and people can then walk around the gardens at night and get a completely different I just thought, “Oh my goodness, I had no idea that you could actually do that”. Kingston Myles: Of course. So there's like an added reason to go and stay book somewhere. That's beautiful. Obviously it's going to beautiful, it's an English Heritage property, but you have this unique opportunity to explore the place that you're in when nobody else is there at a time that you would never, ever be able to be in it. And I just think that's amazing. Kingston Myles: Yeah, they're phenomenal and we've been really lucky. We've worked really hard tirelessly to drive up the quality of our offer. So we started a refurbishment program of our holiday estate towards the end of 2020, 2021. We're sort of now sort of at phase three of what will probably be five phases of bringing all of those holiday lets up to standard. So at the moment we've got a suite that are being refurbished as we speak. When the Head Gardener's House opens up Audley End, that will be sort of kitted out with I mean, the kitchen is beautiful, but so is the interior. And it's not just a case of, well, actually if we just thrown a load of stuff in there, we work really closely with the business that won the tender for the refurbishment. Kingston Myles: So we're working with John Lewis on that property and we work with their interior designers. We're trying to create and I know we'll touch on it later, but we're trying to create these experiences where actually, if you really enjoy being in one of our holiday cottages, you can go away and you can buy pretty much anything you see inside. And as much as possible, as the licensing program evolves, those products will be English Heritage products. So you'll be sat below a wallpaper that's inspired by a clipping from a collections archive down the road that actually was in a building on. So we have this incredible piece of wallpaper from Great Ormond Street. Kingston Myles: So the same road as the famous hospital that's used on product, and you'll be able to go and buy that, but you also might be able to buy it on a cushion or on home furnishings or on a bed spread, but you get to experience the quality of it first and then you've really got this sort of continued storytelling. Like guests don't just leave because they've checked out, they kind of take a little bit of us with them, which is the aspiration, and I think it's what the Premier ended this years ago. They had this whole campaign where you could buy the hypnos bed that you slept on in a Premier inn. And they were one of the first brands to sort of say, all we are as a Premier inn right. Kingston Myles: But if you had a great night's sleep, have this great night's sleep at home, because you can buy the same bed that we have. So, yeah, it's just kind of trying to perfect that wheel, if you like. Kelly Molson: You described it as experiential shopping, which I think is a great term. And I just love how many facets are waving into this in that you're celebrating artifacts, artwork, craft that has come from, you know, all these incredible places, and you're allowing people to now stay in a beautiful holiday cottage, purchase part of that experience to take home with them. If that's not diversifying countries, I don't know what describes it any better, to be honest. Kingston Myles: Yeah, and I mean, you know, as a charity, we're on this incredible mission to be financially self sufficient. So, you know, we are an independent charity from 2015, so and then this financial year is the last year that we received sort of government tapering relief. So we're really out there to become much loved to connect with our members, our visitors and our audience. And what better way to do that than not only offer them a great day out. Because that's like a core part of what we do. Offer them a great day out that really tells the story of England, offer them this opportunity for a great stay out that tells the story of England, and then an opportunity to sort of take a piece of that. Experience home with them or to go and shop for that experience. Kingston Myles: Because we'll never be able to put a three piece sofa or a kitchen in one of our retail spaces. They're gift shops. They're exit through the gift shops. They're incredibly well run by my colleagues in our retail team. So how can we do that? How can we showcase those other products through our holiday laps, et cetera. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's brilliant. If I can ask you a little bit about partnerships, I just think that this is so relevant to this part of the conversation. But what I'd love to understand is how you define what a good partnership looks like. How do you choose the products and how do you choose the organisations that you do partners with? Kingston Myles: Yeah, I guess the first thing to say is, and I can touch specifically on products because we have a real robust roadmap for how we choose who we're going to work with when it comes to sort of licensees. And partners to create product with in that aspect, but broader than that sort of partnerships for us. Touch on. Especially for me, on all of our business areas. So we've just closed a 30 night Christmas light trail at Kenwood in northwest London, which we run in partnership with Kilimanjaro Live Christmas at Kenwood. And we are hosting again Gardener's World Autumn Affair, and Audley End in Essex, that will be there for the second year this year. And we run that in partnership with the team behind Autumn Fair. Kingston Myles: I guess I bring those up because it really symbolises how partnerships work best for us, which is that there's an equal contribution where both parties are adding value. It could be really easy to mistake working with a charity or working with an attraction as potentially very one sided. We need, they have, or they have and we need, but actually it's not. We've got this real opportunity to grow combined audiences, add combined and shared value and celebrate sort of everything that stands true in both camps from a value perspective. With products, it's a slightly more robust roadmap because we are manufacturing something, we're creating something that's going to carry our trademark, our logo. So we have five core values that I apply to our licensing business. So we look for products of quality, we look for products which carry hallmarks of authenticity. Kingston Myles: Are they telling a story accurately? Because we are the storytellers of England, it has to be, right. Are they responsibly sourced? Is the organisation a responsible organisation. Is it fun? Because ultimately fun is one of our core values and it can sound really cheesy when you say one of our corporate values is fun with a capital F. But no, we are fun. We're ultimately a day out for lots of people, for nearly sort of pre pandemic, 10 million visitors a year and our 1. 2 million members. And then with products, we look at sort of, is there something imaginative here. Are we doing something different. Are we going to tell a really cool story of England in a way that people might not expect. Kingston Myles: Or is English Heritage as a brand going to appear somewhere that you might not expect but are sort of surprised and delighted by. And you could, I guess, engineer those values back over all the other partnerships that we have as well, because actually they're all of quality, they're all authentic. Everyone that we work with is respectful and responsible and lots of the stuff that we do, especially the events, are really fun and imaginative. So, yeah, I'm going to go away and add that into my own strategy now. Kelly Molson: I'm glad that you've been inspired by this conversation. What I really liked about that is that the way that you describe the products is that they're very unique to your values and very unique to your organisations. And that's what people are looking for, isn't it. They don't just want another cushion with something on it. They don't just want another thing that they can buy. They want something that they can only get when they visit your organisation. They can only get it if they go to Audley End. They can only get it if they go to it wherever else they go to. That's what's really important to people at the moment. That uniqueness completely. Kingston Myles: And I think one of the cool things about our brand licensing program is that we are loosely making products. We make the products available on site as much as we can and off site with retail partners, but you'd never normally expect to walk into. So I walked into Sainsbury. So I used my very first ever job, when I was like 18. I was on like I took a gap year and I guess a big regret. I should have just gone traveling it's in the world, right. But instead I was like, no, I'm going to work, I'm going to save, I'm going to go to university, I'm going to be really responsible. So my first average job was in Sainsbury's, and I went back to that Sainsbury store in Barnwood in Gloucester and I walked into the Beers, Wines and Spirits aisle. Shock. Kingston Myles: People are going to get a real perception of me here and they're hanging there on a Clip strip. I mean, I knew they were going to be there. Their hanging there was this chip shop, Scraps and Fries, a crisp product that we made with our partner, Made for Drink. So, you know, here I am, sort of twelve years on stood, you know, the shop still feels the same. You still recognise some of the colleagues stood in the Beers, Wines and Spirits are looking at this product that is made in partnership, crafted in partnership with Made for Drink. They're carbon neutral when they're produced, they're in recyclable packaging and they celebrate sort of flavors and stories of England through food. And it's an English Heritage product in a Sainsbury. Kingston Myles: It's not necessarily the type of product that people might expect to see our brand on, but actually when they learn about the story and then they learn about the partner that we've partnered with, they're surprised and delighted, and I always like to share. We had several different reach outs from prospective partners to create snacking products, crisps, et cetera. And we chose to go with Dan at Made For Drink because they best matched all of those values. I spoke about sort of quality, authenticity, respect, imagination and fun, rather than perhaps maybe a global snack manufacturer that, yes, we could have made tens of thousands of packs, but it would have been just our logo on just another bag. There wouldn't have been the depth of storytelling. Kingston Myles: And then when you look back to us being that sort of Museum of England with our sort of ambition of telling England's story, you kind of have to really stay true to those values to create a quality product and to create lasting partnerships and relationships. We don't want to feel like we have something. Our logo, they want it, great, have it. And then what do we get beyond that. Very little. Whereas with the partnership with Made For Drink, there's been lots of innovation. We're getting to work with lots of domestic food producers and flavor houses. So it's really exciting and it really kind of embodies everything that partnerships should for an attraction or a cultural organisation. Kelly Molson: A great story. So did you feel secretly pleased when you were stood in that same Sainsburys that you didn't go on that gap year and that you did save up and go to university to do all these wonderful things. Kingston Myles: Yeah, I felt a bit smug because I was like, from the shop floor to the shelf, this guy. So I had a little moment in the aisle and I took a little selfie and did that thing that everyone doesn't post it on LinkedIn, sort of with all of the sort of faux pas of the average LinkedIn post ending on a rhetorical question. But yeah, so it was a little moment of joy as I took it and I went through the self gang check out and bought it. And I was like, yeah, here we go. And I've got the receipt somewhere. It's nostalgic. It was fun. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. And well deserved as well. Congratulations. Great story. Okay, what I'd love to do, we talked a little bit about how a lot of the strategies that you've worked through are they're not just for huge organisations. There are things that any size attraction can do. How can they utilise these strategies. Is there any way that you could summarise kind of like a top three tips for us. Kingston Myles: Yeah, so I have, like, I'm really a staunch believer in the working methodology, “Know, do and review”. So that'd be my first tip. Right. Know what you can't do. Because all the way back to sort of our first part of the conversation, like, know what you can't do, know what you can do. So take the time to look at, take stock, understand what you have, what you don't have, what you might need to be successful, then get on and do it. Because I'd say all managers at some point have definitely written or all leaders have definitely written a strategy that they've then done absolutely nothing with other than PDF it and shove it in a OneDrive or a folder somewhere. So get on with the doing, which is so important. And that means rolling up sleeves. Kingston Myles: You can't be a bedroom leader. You have to get out. Get out on the ground, stand there and really understand if, “Did I know everything or do I need to know more?”. So you're constantly learning through the due process and then review, right. Like, stop and wrap it up or think about it, perfect it, tweak it, don't let it just roll downhill, out of control. And equally, don't hold it at the top. Sort of afraid to let go, but yeah. So no do and review would be my first tip. My second tip, especially for smaller organisations, so the institution I worked in prior to English Heritage, so I worked for the University of Oxford in two different museums. One very big museum and one very small museum. My second tip really comes from there. Which is one meeting, one topic, one focus. Kingston Myles: When you're in a smaller institution stakeholders often have really wide reaching job remits and they're covering operations, commercial planning, health and safety, finance. You could be talking to the same person for all of those things. So don't sit down with that person and have a million different conversations. Really focus your time and energy one meeting, one topic, one focus. And I still use that to this day. I'm a real believer in like let's just talk about just this and then let's have a separate meeting to talk about something else. And then my final tip would be like the Power of no. I sound like I'm about to release three books, don't I. First book, know, do, review with Kingston. Second book, one meeting, one topic. Kelly Molson: And I would read these books. I would buy these books and read them. Kingston Myles: I'll brand license them and I'll put them in the holiday cottages. But yeah. The power of no. Right. It's okay to say no to things like if in the no process when you're doing all the research and all the groundwork does it not feel right. Do the numbers not stack up. We have human instinct and we've almost been programmed out of that. And there's lots of different analogies people run down and different avenues. Is it because actually we've got this hustle culture and we have to give everything a go. No, you don't have to give everything a go. If your expertise and skills and knowledge are telling you this is not going to work then just say no. And that's sometimes a really difficult decision. Kingston Myles: And I have lots of conversations with people recently I really want to do this but and I'm like if that butlist is factual and it's going to create a great amount of risk and don't do it. So yeah, the Power of no would be my third top tip. Kelly Molson: That is a great top tip for life in general, I think at Kingston. Weirdly. So every year I kind of set a word that I try to use as a guide for my year and this year's is reflect because I'm a bit of a people pleaser. So I say yes to many things and then run out of time and then end up not being able to do those things or just do them as badly. I do them to a level of degree that I could do better. So learning to say no I think is the most powerful tip that you've shared in that process and I'm going. Kingston Myles: To remember that and I've used it and I'm proud of the fact that we've said no to potential partnerships, we've said no to potential events. We've said no to certain activity types at certain types. Because when we take stock of everything we're trying to do there's already so much we say yes to that actually it's okay to say no because we can do really well over here. You know, the sort of the middle area. You know, sometimes the entrepreneurial spirit in you pushes the yes through. But a lot of time that sort of, “hold up, wait a minute”. Actually, no. It is so important and it saved us from going down in so many of my job roles. Kingston Myles: It saved me from going down like the rabbit hole of sort of you convince yourself that then you have to put all your energy and time into something and actually it doesn't yield the result that time could have yielded if you'd have focused somewhere else. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's really important advice that everybody should listen to. Thank you. Brilliant tips. Thank you for sharing. You just touched on something there that I'd like to talk about because you talked about entrepreneurial spirit and I think there always is that element of wanting to do more and wanting to get stuck into doing the excited things. We talked a little bit about sector support at the beginning and you did mention that this role is quite relatively unique. Where do you go to find your kind of support network for the role that you have. Kingston Myles: So I'm really lucky in that I'm a trustee for the Association of Cultural Enterprises, so I sit on their board of trustees. I'm also a director of the trading company that we have. And the best way to summarise the association is that it's all about advancing commerce and business innovation in the cultural sector. So I appreciate that for sort of the wider attraction sector sort of culture and heritage is a swim lane sort of in the pool that is attractions. But that's incredible because all of the organisations that are members and nearly 400 cultural organisations are members sort of across the country, all of those organisations have got an appetite to do more. Kingston Myles: So you end up finding that actually this commercial manager in this really small museum somewhere has got this really incredible idea and we can help them with that, or I can help them with that, or one of my fellow trustees can help them with that, or this massive organisation wants to turn to a small organisation because they send something incredible. And I always think back to and I referenced the marketing of this, but there was the Museum of English Rural Life had this incredible Twitter explosion with some of their content, and suddenly everyone turned to their monsoor. How do you go viral? How has Murray gone viral? How can we go viral? And I guess the association is the best place to go and find the person likely to behind something commercially innovative. Kingston Myles: If you want to see something incredible that's happened at English Heritage, I mean, I'll shamelessly promote myself, but I'm probably likely to be able to point you in the direction of the commercial leader responsible for that. And everyone's really up for networking there. It's kind of the backbone of how it works is that willingness to share and support one another. And I think the culture and heritage sector within the attraction space is really good at that because we're quite comfortable with the fact that there's enough success there for everyone. I appreciate that. When you've got a competitor potentially down the road and you're a purely commercial attraction that's a little bit of a difficult conversation to have in the first instance. But actually it opens up doors and access to resources and also access to people's mistakes. Right. Kingston Myles: Like, what if people said no to. Or would they have said no to. Now that you can learn from and say no to yourself. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Again, brilliant advice. And it's so good that there are organisations out there that offer this level of support. What we'll do is everything that we've talked about today we'll pop links to in the show notes so you can access information about English Heritage. You can see some of the products and we'll pop the link to the ACE organisation as well. And if that is useful to any of our listeners you'll know where to go and find it. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Kingston. This has been a brilliant chat. I'm so grateful for your time, for your insight into this. We always like to ask our guests to share a book that they love at the end of the podcast. So what have you prepared for us today? Kingston Myles: Yeah, so I'm waxed lyrical about this book. It's called First Break All The Rules. It's a gallup study of what successful managers do differently. So First Break All the Rules is probably one of the most powerful leadership books I've read for a couple of reasons. One, it's backed by this phenomenal global study of businesses, their leaders, their people, their results. So there are some great books out there but they're theoretical, they're someone's opinion. This book is etched in statistical facts. So I quite like that. That pleases the inner nerd in me. And secondly, it really does force you to think differently about especially if you're leaders or a leader of a team. Really forces you to think slightly differently about how you can get the best out of your best people, how you can recruit for the best people. Kingston Myles: And at first read, it can read quite controversially because what's called First Break All the Rules so you would expect it but it can read quite controversially. It will force you to really think about Do Leaders Play Favorites. Is a really great chapter in that book and the difference between skills, knowledge and talent and coming to terms with the fact that you can teach people skills and knowledge but their talent, their behaviours. You can do your best to bring out what somebody has but you can never add to that in the book. So I would definitely recommend especially leaders of teams and leaders of leaders to read that book or listen to them. Kelly Molson: Great book choice. So that has not come up on the podcast in, what, 60 odd episodes. So that is a really good one to go on the list. And as ever, listeners, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Kingston's book, you'll be in with the chance of winning a copy as well. Amazing. Thank you so much again for coming on. It's been a really interesting chat. I am sure that at some point we'll get to meet each other at Audley End maybe as well. One of the next events that you're running there. Kingston Myles: 100%. We should do like an ad hoc episode live from Audley End. Kelly Molson: Okay. Let's talk about how we can make that happen. Excellent. Thanks again. Kingston Myles: You're welcome. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| The economic outlook for 2023, and the big shift in experiences discovery and marketing, with Douglas Quinby | 01 Feb 2023 | 01:00:49 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://twitter.com/douglasquinby https://www.linkedin.com/in/douglasquinby/
Douglas Quinby co-founded Arival to fill the huge void in insights, information and conferences for travel’s third-largest and most important sector: Tours, Activities & Attractions. Since its founding in 2016, Arival has become the defining platform for the sector, with three conferences worldwide, a series of definitive research reports and the Arival.travel media site and newsletter. Prior to co-founding Arival he served as Senior Vice President, Research at Phocuswright, where he led seminal studies on numerous travel trends and sectors, including Tours, Activities & Attractions, as well as programming for Phocuswright conferences around the world.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Douglas Quinby, cofounder and CEO of Arival. Douglas and I chat through a few topics covering the economic outlook for 2023, the big shift in discovering new experiences, ticketing tech, and a little bit on dynamic pricing. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Douglas, thank you so much for joining me on the Skip the Queue podcast today. I'm so excited that you could come on. Douglas Quinby: Well beyond thrilled to be here. Thanks so much for the invitation, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Very, very welcome. Straight into our ice breakers. So, Doug, I would like to know, do you have any hidden talents that we should know about? Douglas Quinby: Hidden talents? Let's see. I actually was a music major in college and I have a music degree and studied composition and piano. Haven't done much with that talent in some time, much to my wife's chagrin. She complains about it and I get a little embarrassed about it, like, we'll have friends over and she wants me to play the piano for everybody, and I get a little self conscious about it. So that's actually one of my commitments to my wife, is I'm going to get our piano tuned, I'm going to start practicing again, and I'm not going to be bashful about playing when we have people over or when she wants me to. Kelly Molson: I think that is such a wonderful talent. I genuinely said to my husband it a couple of weeks ago, if there was two things that I could do, one would be I'd really love to be good at languages, and then I would really love to learn to play the piano. I think it's great to be able to do that. Do you not find it quite mindful as well when you play? Douglas Quinby: Well, I do, and actually, when we had our two boys, I made a deliberate effort of teaching them to play piano. And so for years, I would sit down every day, or maybe almost every day, four or five days a week and make them practice. And we also hired a teacher to come in. But a lot of stress with that, with forcing two boys to play the piano and sit down every day. And I can tell you it was not always mindful and peaceful. Anyone who's raising kids will know, right. So I think when they turn 15, like, okay, if you want to go and do something else, that's fine. Douglas Quinby: And I just took a pause from the whole thing, so but, yes, I think as you get older yeah, I would get back in and there are moments when you can be mindful and just relaxing and pleasant. Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, next one. What is your ultimate guilty pleasure song? Douglas Quinby: A guilty pleasure song. Oh, yeah, I know, but I don't know the name. Kelly Molson: Are you going to sing it for us? Douglas Quinby: Oh, goodness. What's the song? There's also that song by the Black Eyed Peas. I'm terrible with names. Kelly Molson: I've got a feeling. Douglas Quinby: Yeah. So that's one. Like, sometimes I'll put that on with my boys in the car and we'll totally jam out together. Like we're dancing around stage. But no, let me. Okay. Now, that's important. This is an important question. Kelly Molson: It is an important question. I genuinely thought that you were going to break out into song and do it that way, Doug. I thought that was where you'll go over this. And if you want, feel free. Douglas Quinby: Oh, my goodness. Gosh. It's also what happens when you get older. I just find.. Kelly Molson: The suspense is killing us. An easier final question for you. What is the one thing you would like to do this year that you've never done before? Douglas Quinby: Well, this is going to be a kind of boring one. I've had a pretty amazing career. I've been able to travel to so many different places and have so many amazing experiences, and in particular, working in what we at Arival, we call the best part of travel. Right. So tours, activities and attractions all of those things that travellers do when they get there. I've been beyond fortunate to have an opportunity to just meet so many amazing people whose whole lives are all about delivering amazing experiences to people. So I've done things like when I was in Dubai ATM through an industry connection. We did a climb up a sand dune in Sharjah. And then when we came down, we had an ice bucket, like an ice immersion experience, things like that. When I think about bucket list stuff, I don't know. Douglas Quinby: To me, that's not as important. My commitment this year is my 17 year old is in his senior year in school, and he's going to be going to college in the fall. And I've had so much travel and devoted so much of my life to starting my career and then starting Arival and building it over the past five years or keeping it afloat over the last two. And so now I'm actually committed to I'm not doing any travel other than what's absolutely essential until he goes to school. And I'm going to spend as much time as possible with him and make sure that he knows as he goes off into the world, how much his father is behind him and has his back. Kelly Molson: That's a great answer to the question, Doug. And I think that is the most brilliant thing that he could be able to do right now. And I'm sure that he will very much appreciate that time with you as well. Douglas Quinby: Well, I hope so. Nothing more important. Kelly Molson: Absolutely not. Right, Doug. It is time for your unpopular opinion. What have you prepared for us today? Douglas Quinby: Well, my unpopular opinion well, I don't know if it's unpopular or not. You can tell me. But I'm continually amazed at how terrible so many attractions are at marketing to travellers and understanding the traveller psyche and understanding how travel distribution works. And it's completely different from how a kind of a local thinks about visiting an attraction or having an experience. And so how you find them, how you target them, how you get into their mindset. That's one piece and then the other piece is also understanding travel distribution and the systems and how to optimise that. It's something that's dramatically overlooked. So here's just one example. Douglas Quinby: In fact, one of the things that we do at Arival constantly is where we pulse the industry on a variety of trends to get a sense of what's happening, especially over the past two and a half years, which has been so crazy for all of us. Well, now, I guess it's three years now, is it? It is It is almost it's coming up on three years since the pandemic started. So just here's one example. In 2022, in a survey we had done, of almost 400 attractions over the past year, 23% are not using a modern booking or ticketing system to manage their business. To me, it's incomprehensible. I have a hard time wrapping my head around it. I mean, think about it from an airline perspective or a hotel perspective. Imagine if 23% of airlines did not use a central reservation system. Douglas Quinby: Or imagine if 23% of hotels did not have a property management system. I mean, travel wouldn't exist, right? The way it does today. It wouldn't even be possible. So I find it interesting. It's a real challenge to the industry and it's very common, I think, across experiences. People get into this business or an attraction is started because it's based on a mission. They may have a cultural mission. It may be a notforprofit. They may or they may be passionate about, like, say in the case of the tours world, like they want to be out in the water taking people on kayak tours or walking them up a mountain. Douglas Quinby: But at the same time, to have a business, to be able to deliver those experiences, to be able to advance the cultural mission, you want to have as many people come to your attraction as possible. You want to share that. And that requires an investment in the operation and the business. It requires understanding who the customer is. But it's a natural thing of most businesses. You tend to be focused on your own product or your own thing, but you also have to shift and think about the orientation of the customer and where they are and what they're looking for. I don't know if it's an unpopular opinion because frankly, it's just a fact. It's just a fact when I see how most attractions market their experience to travellers and the challenges that the travel industry has. Douglas Quinby: For example, in accessing attraction ticket inventory, when I see that less than 1% of attractions worldwide engage in any kind of dynamic pricing which is not just a tool to charge more money, it's actually a tool for things like optimising the guest experience because you can more effectively disperse your customer demand over the course of a day or a week in order to make it a better experience for everybody. There's so much opportunity that's missed in the world of attractions. Kelly Molson: I would love to know what listeners think about this. So, as ever, if you want to feedback on Doug's unpopular opinion on our Twitter account, feel free. There's definitely a conversation. I mean, there's a whole podcast piece around your unpopular opinion. I think there Doug. We're going touch on a couple of the subject matters from it today. But yeah, I think there's a whole piece around exploring that. I don't know how unpopular it is because I would tend to agree with you. And I think, like you said, it is a fact. I think the attractions industry has moved on dramatically from a digital perspective in the last three years. Kelly Molson: They were forced to move quicker, they were forced to innovate, they were forced to introduce things that they might have been thinking about doing them, but might have taken another two or three years to actually implement because they had to. But I think that some of those decisions and some of the things that they've implemented have been done in a quite rudimentary way because there was a time element attached to it. In the UK, attractions couldn't open unless they could do pre booked and timed tickets. Small attractions, I mean, all of a sudden you've got to have the infrastructure to be able to implement that. You've got to find the right booking system, you've got to be able to pay for those things for you to be able to open safe. Douglas Quinby: Yeah, but this stuff is not this is not rocket science. No one needs to have expertise in artificial intelligence or you don't need to. In fact, a lot of the systems that are out there today, and this is one of the most amazing things in the world of, say, in the tours and activities segment of the experiences industry, which has many more smaller businesses, there's been an absolute revolution over the past decade. There has been literally dozens upon dozens of startups that have stepped into the market. They offer very simple, easy to use, SaaS platforms. You can get your business up and running within a couple of days, if not less. You get your tickets loaded and you flip a switch and you can start selling that stuff directly through online travel agencies, through other resellers. You can set different rules. Douglas Quinby: And this is stuff where often there's not even an upfront cost, it's just your own internal resources. So there's been a dramatic change within the enterprise software side of the sector that has opened up all of these avenues to this industry. Now, of course, it's one thing if you're a small tour company and you do five or six departures a week, and you're a one or two person shop and you're a visitor attraction with thousands or tens of thousands of guests a year. Douglas Quinby: And you've got operations and you have a board or you have of course, there's a lot of other things to consider there as well. There's no reason for it. And again, I think for attractions, especially those that have a not for profit mission, some of the great and even where I live in Atlanta, Georgia, there are some terrific and very small local museums and places to visit that explore history of the south in small towns here outside of Atlanta, for example, or the Atlanta the City History Museum. But accessing the content and discovering it as a consumer is hard. It's not easy. So it's just a huge missed opportunity. Douglas Quinby: Of course, there's a lot of the big attractions, the great ones, they do a great job and there are many amazing. I want to be clear, too, there are many incredible travel marketers within the world of attractions, right? And you all know who you are and you're out there. So I just want to say, for those of you like, this is not aimed at you, but it is aimed at, I think, the mid to long tail of amazing experience operators out there that could just benefit. So much more and not just benefit themselves commercially, but benefit people who haven't experienced their attraction, haven't experienced their museum or that little that special thing that they create that could delight so many more people. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I agree. There's a lot to pick here, Doug. Well, let's go back to what you said. So in the UK, so 2022, we really focused a lot about staffing challenges and the rising cost of labour. That was a huge topic across the board. That's still a challenge. But in the UK especially, we have got currently a very high cost of living crisis. Utility costs have been driven up predominantly by the war against Ukraine. We have attractions that are reporting a rise of between 200 and 900% in their electricity gas bills. So there's been a recent publication in The Guardian saying that rising costs have led to staff redundancies. They've curtailed open hours and nine out of ten sites fear that they could close permanently, and that's in castles, museums and theatres. That's really drastic. That's the real bad end of what's going on at the moment. Kelly Molson: We've had things like train strikes in the UK, which are a necessary evil. I personally am, for one, support the rail strikes, but they do have a huge impact, especially on theatres. People that are going into London suddenly can't get into London, or they have to drive into London, and it bumps the cost up for parking. All kinds of things going on. There's still very few visits from international travellers, although that's on the rise. But Asia is only just opening up the borders, so we still have a lot of attractions that are very heavily dependent on international tourism that are nowhere near back to the visitor numbers that they did, that they should be out and just to throw into the rigs. Kelly Molson: We know from speaking to many attractions that marketing budgets are looking to be cut this year because of the high cost of utilities being risen. So marketing budgets could be cut by about 15% to 20% in the UK. What does it look like, Doug, for you? You're US based, but you speak to a lot of US and international and European based attractions. Is it a similar story there? What's happening? Douglas Quinby: It's not, actually. Fortunes are quite mixed. I think the UK in particular and parts of Europe are being hit especially hard. In the United States, it's a very different picture. In fact, it's one of the most confusing times in terms of trying to forecast what the economy is going to do. Everyone is talking about recession. It seems like the Federal Reserve here is committed to putting the country into recession by tamping down inflation and raising interest rates. But at the same time, our federal government has just pushed through, at the end of last year, a $1.7 trillion spending package. And so it seems like we've got the Fed and the government kind of at odds in terms of where the economy should be going. We are seeing mass layoffs. Douglas Quinby: Well, mass layoffs is probably a strong word, but widespread layoffs in certain sectors like tech and in certain areas of the corporate world, an expectation that earnings are going to be depressed. And this is in the US. But I think also globally through the first half of this year. Yet at the same time, the labour market is extremely tight. There's a lot of demand. We just had our conference in Las Vegas in October, and for all the talk of recession, the hotels were full, the casinos were packed. We had a hard time getting restaurant reservations to feed the team during the event. So it's a very confusing time. I think one of the things that I think every attraction needs to be thinking about and honestly, it's not even an attraction. Douglas Quinby: What I'm going to say is I think it applies to all industries, although I think in particular with regard to travel and to experiences because one, there's still very clear demand for getting out and doing things. We're still very much in a kind of COVID hangover. We see from all of our consumer sentiment work that they are prioritising getting out and doing things, being with people, with the people they love, having experiences whether it's local or it's travel. We measure this across a variety of ways, but just in a very simple way. Three out of five kind of Gen Z and young millennials are clearly prioritising experiences over stuff. That's where they're spending their money. That number actually jumps to almost three and four for Gen Z and millennials who are in that upper income bracket. Douglas Quinby: For us, that metric is a household income of 150,000 USD or up. And that's actually for us, that's very important and for all attractions and experience providers to think about because we really have to put it very simply, a kind of bifurcated consumer landscape. I think of it as the haves and the havesums. So you have the lower middle income segment and this applies to the US and Europe where, okay, they are being more directly affected by inflation, by rising cost of living, and a little bit by more the kind of recessionary impacts which are a bit deeper in Europe than they are in the US. And so yes, their spend is going to be a bit muted around travel and around experiences and they're going to be a bit more price sensitive. Douglas Quinby: But you also have this upper income segment which we see despite everything that's happening in the world, there's no the gas is on the pedal all the way down. They're going for it. They intend to spend, do more, they want to travel more, they want to see more. And also we've seen an extraordinary shift coming out of the pandemic, which I think of it as like a post COVID kind of convulsion period that we're in right now. Just to give you and this is in a recent report that we've a research, report on the experiences traveller and the global attractions traveller that we've published over the past couple of months where just a dramatic shift in the demand for small group and private experiences, even around attractions. Douglas Quinby: So as I've been covering this industry for many years, we've always seen it's been the iconic visitor attractions that have been the primary driver of tourism. I want to go to London and go to see the Tower. I want to go to the National Gallery or I'm going to Paris. I got to go to the Louvre, I've got to go to Buzzed or say and so on and so forth. But increasing, well, not just increasingly. Douglas Quinby: It's been a dramatic shift as travellers have come back. It's not just that I want to get a ticket to the Coliseum, but I want to have a private or special small group experience with my friends and family. I'm going to book that tour that will include the ticket, but I want all the bells and whistles or yes, I want to go to the top of the edge in New York with my fiance, with my wife. I want to do the Champagne Sunset Experience and I'm going to pay twice the price and we're going to linger there and have that's the kind of extraordinary shift that we're seeing. And I've been saying this very clearly, one for any experienced operator or attraction, one understand who your customers are. Are they more price sensitive or are they more in the kind of the haves? Right? Douglas Quinby: Or if you serve both, then how can you really think about the products that you offer in a way to get the most out of them or deliver the best? And so a really great example is that it's not just the ticket to the top but it's the ticket to the top with the Champagne experience at a special time of day. Or maybe it's offering a VIP behind the scenes experience or a special meal or something that just makes it a little bit more special and there's just a real opportunity to sell more and to do more for that. Right? And then I think the one last thought is for those travellers or visitors that are a bit more price sensitive, really to think about, definitely you don't want to get into the discount game. Douglas Quinby: I'm always very vehemently opposed to discounting unless it's done in a way that really can help you drive demand during low volume periods, but really to think about how can you deliver more, maybe deliver more value, right? Or more incentives. So maybe build something in to the experience, to the ticket or through a membership or subscription that creates a sense of more value for the guests. But don't simply go to discounting, especially at a time like this when we're all feeling pressure from the bottom up in terms of our balance sheets. Kelly Molson: Great advice. And what you've described is exactly what we've been talking about as well and what we've been hearing. So just before Christmas, I attended the Heads, a marketing meeting that ALVA run and Bernard Donoghue talked exactly the same scenarios that you just had. It is down to the experience. People will pay more, but they are looking for something that is outside of the ordinary now. So it's not just about come to the attraction, come to see this thing, what does that package look like? How can you exploit what you have in a more interesting way for the audience that are already going to come but they'll probably spend more if you have this VIP package or this next level package if we talk about. A question for you. So we talked about the haves and the have not as much. Kelly Molson: So how did you define it? Douglas Quinby: The haves and the have-sums. Kelly Molson: The haves and the have-sums. Okay, so the haves and the have-sums. Where do you think this fits in terms of membership? Because that's been quite a big discussion topic recently in that during the pandemic membership sales went up phenomenally, astronomically actually. So it was an altruistic purchase. You were doing what you could to support your favourite attraction while they couldn't open. What we're starting to see is a decline in people renewing memberships because of how nervous the cost of living crisis is making people. And the assumption that Bernard described this dispute is that previously if you had a membership, so I have a membership for the National Trust, your previous mindset would be, "Oh well, let's go to the local National Trust today because that's free because we've got our membership, we've already paid for that". And you wouldn't really think about the secondary spend. Kelly Molson: So you're going to buy lunch while you're there or you might get something in the gift shop. Whereas now people are starting to go, "that's not a free visit for us anymore". So we need to think about whether we go, what we spend while we're there. So maybe we take a packed lunch rather than we buy in the cafe, which is obviously then going to start to have a significant effect on the attraction itself. How can organisations do better with their memberships to kind of help those people that maybe have them and are thinking about letting them go? Douglas Quinby: That's a really tough one, especially in this environment in the UK. And I think again, it comes down to what more can you layer in to really make it valuable? So what kind of additional kind of benefits or perks or things can you expand to really tie that in? But that's something that I think really has to be addressed at the attraction level. There's no way around this. You've got to understand your customer and who they are. Why did they become a member? What were the key drivers and how can you keep that going? I can tell you, for us, when our kids were younger, were members of the zoo here in Atlanta. We were members of another museum, a local science museum that we would take the kids to on a regular basis. Douglas Quinby: But as the kids aged out, weren't going as much, right? And there wasn't a need. And their programming or their content was not compelling enough for us to stay with it. For example, now since they've actually introduced some things like at the science museum, like you can go to the observatory and they have cocktails under the stars at night and things like that, which might be a little bit more interesting for parents to still be involved. There's no, I think, blanket easy answer for the industry as a whole. That's something that you've really got to understand your triggers and what do your guests really value the most about the membership and what are things that you can do to really kind of leverage that to drive that engagement. But there's one thing too, I'm just going to throw out there. Douglas Quinby: This is maybe more of an idea I think could be, I don't know, a million dollar idea or 100 million dollar idea within this sector. One of the businesses that has been a clear use case for travellers is that City Attraction Pass, right where you come into a city and you can buy that pass. You give access to so many attractions, and you get so many visits over the course of four or five days, or whatever the duration of the passes that you purchase. But there's a missing, I think, business opportunity within the world of experiences, which is the equivalent of like a multi attraction membership. There's actually an interesting little startup based in New York called Sesame which is doing something where you basically you pay almost a negligible. Douglas Quinby: I think it's like 15 or $20 a year, and you get access to opaque pricing, to attractions all over the world, but even just something where you become So I guess the corollary I think of is something like class pass in the US. Or gym pass where you subscribe to the service and you can get access to gyms all over the country or to yoga classes or whatever it might be. And I think there's a huge opportunity for some entrepreneurial startup to step in and aggregate a lot of this content in a subscription or a membership service, or you can do a zip line in North Georgia and then you can go to a National Trust experience somewhere in the UK and you can do this and you can do that. Douglas Quinby: And to build that in, I think there's an incredible opportunity there for something like that. A multi attraction subscription or membership service. Yeah. So I'm going to throw that out as my 100 billion dollar idea for some listener to your podcast. Kelly Molson: There you go, listeners who's going to grab it and run with it. It's a really good idea. As you were speaking, I was just thinking we work with a number of attractions on the North Norfolk in the North Norfolk area, which is a lovely coastal area in the UK. And like a Norfolk path for all of the attractions would be incredible because they're all within an hour's drive of each other. So something like that could work really well for those regional areas. So, yeah. All right. There you go. Norfolk attractions. What are you saying? Hit us up. Okay, let's talk about, you wrote a brilliant blog last September called The Future of Discovery in Travel. Very welcome. It's excellent. And it's about the big shift in experiences, discovery, and marketing. So we know that marketing teams are stretched in attractions. Kelly Molson: They're normally on the small side, and they're doing a million different jobs at once. We also know that they need a really clear strategy, and they also need to focus on the right time, on the right channels for them to find where their existing audiences and where their new audiences are. And we've talked a little bit about it's really vital at the moment to know exactly who your audiences are and where they are. This blog, you start off with a really great story about your son, and I wondered if you could just share the story about your son and sneakers. It's a great start and introduction to this. Douglas Quinby: Yeah, sure, I'm happy to. Well, so first there's a paradigm within the travel industry. There's a phrase that's used quite a bit called the "Path to Purchase". And there's a well worn paradigm. It's almost accepted, like gospel within the industry of how a traveller goes about finding where they want to go, what they want to do, all of that stuff. And there was a study that I think was done maybe, I don't know, 10, 12 years ago that was sponsored by Expedia that kind of walks through the path to purchase. You start on Google, you do a search, and then statistically, you visit 38 websites across online travel agencies and review sites like TripAdvisor and whatnot. And from that you kind of figure out, okay, where you want to go. And then you go through the actual shopping phase. Douglas Quinby: You do your flights and your accommodation, and then you get your things to do or experiences, which are often you're booking that the day of travel or very close in or even while you're in destination. So that's the kind of well worn path of like, Google to OTAs to booking sites and, you know, boom, you're off. But I've been I was just struck by something. So this happened in the spring where one day this package arrived at our house, and it was this pair of sneakers. It was like this $200 pair of sneakers that my 17 year old bought. And I mean, first of all, I have no idea where he got $200 to buy a pair of sneakers, but that's a secondary issue. So I was just curious. Douglas Quinby: It was like a designer pair of sneakers, like a certain type of Nike or something, but it wasn't something maybe you'd go into a Nike store and find I don't know, I just asked him, “How did you choose this pair of sneakers?” You have a teenage boy, they don't talk, they don't tell you anything, right? So that was like, I'm never going to find out the answer to that. But one of the things that I definitely know is I know how he didn't buy those sneakers. I know he didn't go on to Google. I know he didn't visit 38 different sneaker websites to find the best sneaker at the best price, the best time. He didn't go through all of that process. Now, did he see somebody on TikTok or a friend of his on Instagram? I don't know. Douglas Quinby: Was it a friend of his at school who was wearing the sneakers? I have no idea. But that paradigm of how people find and discover what they want to do, what they're going to do, is shifting dramatically, especially for that teenage, that Gen Z, and even the younger millennial set in a very extraordinary way. So, in a great example, I was speaking to Dan Christian of Dharma, which is a tour company, who actually would be another great person for you to have on your podcast, by the way, who's very focused on the passion economy. Douglas Quinby: And he had this quote that sticks to my head, which is, "The tour happened to be in Costa Rica", which basically means increasingly younger people, they are connected to friends, they're connected to particular brands or experiences, or they're going to see something on TikTok or Instagram and they're going to say, "oh want to do that thing". And that is going to drive the whole path to purchase and I want to do that thing. Oh, that thing happens to be in Costa Rica, or that happens to be in London or whatever. It could be anywhere, but I want to do that thing with those people. And by the way, I'll say to you, I'm just a guy who runs an event and research company for attractions and experiences, but don't take my word for it. Douglas Quinby: Just look at what Google has done over the past year. They've completely and are continuing to revamp, in particular, their mobile search experience. And a VP at Google made an extraordinary statement at a conference, a tech conference last summer, where he said, we are seeing 40% of Gen Z. They are turning not to Google, not to Maps or search to find where to go or where to eat nearby. They're turning to Instagram, they're turning to TikTok. And it's amazing when you ask these young people and there was a great story in the New York Times about this, I think last August or September, where young people were saying they're being asked to compare, let's say, a review of a restaurant on TikTok versus a Google review. And it's like, I don't have to read anything because young people aren't reading. Douglas Quinby: They don't have to think. Literally, they're saying, "I don't have to think. I can just see the people at the restaurant. I can see them experiencing it. I can see myself in that. And that's the kind of experience I want to have, and that's all I need". And that's an extraordinary shift. So I think the next question you would probably ask is, okay, so what does that mean for an attraction or experienced operator? How do you deal with that, right? Especially when budgets are stretched and your marketing team has already got too much to do. Kelly Molson: You're suddenly asking them to take part and create shortfall video content. Right? That's the bottom line. We know that is the future of this type of search. That's a massive ask, isn't it? It seemed far more complex than sitting down and writing a blog article, for example. There's a lot more involvement in it. Douglas Quinby: I'm not asking to do anything. I'm just simply saying, "look, this is what's happening, and you all can decide what you want to do". That's up to you. But there is a profound shift that is underway. It's happening so quickly, it's hard to get your arms around. It's very hard to understand, okay, well, "do I suddenly stop spending my money on Facebook and Google and put everything into TikTok?" No, of course not. Right? But because there's still intentional demand on those channels, and we detail all of this in the research and the reports too, you can just very clearly see it. So in terms of where younger travellers are going to discover things to do. Douglas Quinby: So TikTok has already surpassed Twitter, and I think for Gen Z, it's going to surpass Facebook within the next probably in the next year or two. Because we can already see Facebook is now like, it's people my age, like it's Gen X and maybe older millennials, but it's really falling off for young folks. But it's not an either or. This is always the thing that kind of comes up, oh, well, it's another channel, that's marketing, that's never going to change. Your marketing teams are always going to be strapped. They're always going to have too much to do. It's. How are you going to work through that? So, yes, you still have to do Google, you still have to do Facebook, you still have to do the photos on Instagram. Douglas Quinby: But now you need to add reals, you need to add short form vertical video. And I would say you just begin by testing. And, you know, the best thing you can do, and there's so many great examples of this is hire one of these. Hire a young person who does this stuff. Hire a 22 year old who lives in this world and ask them to start creating stuff and give them some license just to do things. And there's so much great guidance out there as well on that. We've got some great content, too. We had an influencer at our Vegas event, a guy named Robbie Roth, who is an influencer for LGBTQ travel in general, and he gave some incredible sessions on how to deliver authenticity through social content. Douglas Quinby: He's all like, the number one thing, the next time you take a video, make sure it's vertical. Just everything has got to be vertical first and foremost. But just experiment and keep going and start to develop that muscle because it will become very important. It already is very important. Kelly Molson: So I had a couple of questions on this topic, I have to say, we've had a couple of brilliant past podcast guests that have come on and talked to us about building great social community channels. We had Danielle Nichols and Ross Ballinger come on from Drayton Manor, which is a theme park based in the UK. So they talked a lot about how they had started their TikTok channel, and they've just got a really great kind of social community that they've been able to build, and it allows them to engage with their community, ask them for feedback, and in turn, the community feels like they've got their back in decisions that have been made. Kelly Molson: The theme park went through a rebrand process a little while ago and they were really able to kind of engage with their audience because of the work that they put into it. Now I can totally see TikTok working for Drayton Manor, like even if they hadn't have done it already, I can see it because of the type of people that would go there, the thrill seekers, that kind of Gen Z, but where's the opportunity for the attraction sector that are very kind of family orientated? So we think about the team market that we've talked about. They're thinking about travel and experiences, potentially gap year, that kind of thing. But a lot of the attractions that we work with are really focused on that family marketing. So ultimately it's going to be the parents that are making those purchasing decisions. Kelly Molson: Is this still a channel that you think that there's opportunity for those kind of attractions? Douglas Quinby: Well, fine, the parents might be ultimately paying for it, but we're the kids. The kids are on TikTok and Instagram, they're not on Facebook. So that's number one. And the best way to get families there is to get kids excited about something. So that's even more of a reason to be on there. And also something that we've seen as well across every social media channel. Well, maybe not everyone, but most certainly is. It starts with kind of the younger, more digitally, kind of switched on generation, but very quickly becomes widely used across all generations. Right? We saw that in Facebook, we saw that in Instagram. We're seeing it in Twitter as well. Douglas Quinby: And the demographics for TikTok as well, I think I'm sure already rapidly evolving to cut across a range of generations. That should definitely be a part of the family kind of marketing plan. And to try to reach parents and show in particular kids having an amazing experience at your experiences is great. And by the way, those videos too, I point out as well, it's not just platform specific. Like we use TikTok and Instagram. That's what we're currently using because as the language or how we talk about this media format, because TikTok in particular has advanced this incredible idea of watching these 15, 30 second videos and then swiping up to the next one. But they've identified this extraordinary way to connect with people and make an experience or access to information really extraordinary shift. Douglas Quinby: And so I think we're going to see that basic principle of what they've learned be adopted by other platforms. So for example, I think back in December, the news broke that Amazon was launching a TikTok style video feed within the Amazon app initially going to be in the US. And a kind of a beta test so you could actually do discovery shopping within Amazon in a TikTok style video feed. I mean, obviously Instagram is going all in with reels you've got on YouTube. You now have YouTube shorts. And I've been noticing when I pop into YouTube every now and again, that sometimes they're experimenting with defaulting to shorts as opposed to the pull type of YouTube experience that they've done that I think we're more accustomed to. Douglas Quinby: I have also written about and I'm kind of waiting for a travel platform and really a travel experiences platform to experiment with a TikTok style shopping experience on their website. Because, you know, quite frankly, when I think about my 17 year old in his sneakers when he takes his first vacation, right? Or, you know, maybe when he goes off in his first college, you know, spring break trip, you know, with his friends, and let's say they go to the beach or something, and they're going to look for things to do. I mean, how is he going to find experiences? Is he going to go on to Google or via Tour or Expedia and say, oh well, let me find fishing trips or let me find this jetski rental or let me do this. Douglas Quinby: I think he's going to be on Instagram or one of his friends is going to be on TikTok and they're going to say, “Oh, I see this experience of these guys on a boat doing this. Doesn't look like fun, let's go find that”, right? And that's going to drive the search and the booking. I think that the model that TikTok is showing for all of us. I expect to see that replicate in some way. And I'm actually in the experiences world and travel in general, I'm still pretty shocked that you don't have the widespread use of a video in the shopping experience. Douglas Quinby: It's still very much like go in, there's a tour, there's all the inclusions, there's the exclusions, or I go onto an attraction site, or there's this ticket and I can do this and I can do that, and there's this, and I've got to read all this stuff. These guys, they don't want to read, they want to say, "Oh, there's this experience, there's this attraction. Let me see myself. Oh, that's great. I don't give a s*** about any of all the rules and all the things and I have to be here at ten and bring this. No, just show me this thing. Let's do it". That's the shift that I think has got to happen, and it's very common for product owners and marketers. Well, I've done all this work, I got to put all this detail out. But your customers, they don't care. Douglas Quinby: They don't want to know about the sausage and how it's made and all the details. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's a bit like the tipping point from like, cookery books to cookery shows, isn't it? What's more engaging for someone, don't get me wrong, I've got a bookshelf full of cookery books out there, but actually, show me someone making it and show me the kind of sizzle and show me that I'm going to engage with that more. Douglas Quinby: Kelly, I'm going to go even further and I will tell you so one of the things that I did over the pandemic was since were all cooped up, so I just said, “you know, I'm going to learn to become a better cook,” right? Because it was mostly just hamburgers and pasta and sauce from a jar, right? Because both my wife and I were working and all crazy. And whatnot this was in 2020, early 2020, mid 2020, and TikTok was really becoming a phenomenon. So I downloaded TikTok and I started using it. And one of the first things that popped up was a recipe for Thai vegan lemongrass coconut pumpkin soup. And that's never anything I could have thought I would have been able to make. And it was a 30 second video. Douglas Quinby: It wasn't like a detailed recipe or anything, it was just a video of the bowl. And you see the hands and there's like nice music in the background and you just see everything that the person is doing and there's a little text. This is what the ingredient is. Then it's next. And so within 30 seconds, I watched this video and I'm like, “holy s***, I can do that. I can make that”. And that looks really amazing. And so I went and made it and it was amazing. And suddenly it was like, wait, I just watched a 30 second video. I could make something that was really what I thought in my mind would have been a real complex undertaking. Douglas Quinby: I think that's an extraordinary outcome from what TikTok I think is shown from a communication standpoint is how the genius and the possibility of delivering an extraordinary amount of information in a very short amount of time, but more importantly, making the viewer feel like they can relate to it, like they can participate. I can make that soup. I can have that experience. That's the power of that. And no incredible tour description page or attraction description page with a list of inclusions and exclusions and all of this. And, you know, it's not it's never going to be the same. Kelly Molson: It's never going to be the same. A 30 second video has empowered you to be a better chef. I love that, Doug. Douglas Quinby: Well, there you go. Kelly Molson: I want to talk a little bit about dynamic pricing. Gosh, we've been talking for ages and I feel like we've covered loads today, but I think this is really important to talk about. So there's different pricing strategies for attractions at the moment. So you've got the traditional kind of static price model where operators sell a ticket for the same time, same price, no matter when that ticket is purchased or when it's going to be used. You've got variable price and strategy which might be based on the day it's purchased or the time slot for when the ticket is purchased and each day is priced according to demand. I kind of like this approach. Kelly Molson: We had Simon Addison from Roman Baths come on and talk about their approach to this. And I think I find this approach quite empowering for the visitor because it gives them the choice of when they're going to come, depending on what they want to pay for that experience. But dynamic pricing is a strategy where attractions can adjust the prices of their offerings to account for changing demand. So, for instance, like, an airline will shift seat prices based on seat type or the number of remaining seats and the time until the flight as well. Now, that's what some attractions do, but it's actually quite a small minority at the moment, isn't it? Are we seeing an uptake in dynamic prices or are we still finding that it's just the big players that can actually use this strategy at the moment? Douglas Quinby: Yeah, well, so first, from our surveying, like it's less than 1% of attractions and operators are doing any type of dynamic pricing. And just to be very clear, the distinction between dynamic and variable. So a variable is something like, “okay, I'm going to have a different weekend price versus a weekday price or a different price for a 09:00 A.M entry on Monday versus a 03:00 P.M. entry on Saturday or something”. But those prices stay the same over the course of the season or over the course of the year. Whereas dynamic, it's like, “okay, it looks like my 03:00 slot on Saturday is nearly a capacity. We've only got 10% left. Let's increase the price by 5% or 7%”. So there's still pretty low uptick, very low, less than 1%. Douglas Quinby: However, we've also seen in our surveying, in terms of technical technology related priorities, that is one of the in fact, the top priority for visitor attractions heading into next year, I think it was 57%. So that they were looking at it very seriously and were quite interested, which is a really big deal. And so one piece to this is, well, there are a lot of okay, there's a lot of complexities. So, yes, there are a number of providers in the market, technology companies that are stepping in and offering this capability. These could be either companies like there's a company in the US called Diginex which is basically it's a layer on top of the ticketing system. There are other companies like Schmidt's out of Switzerland which is more of a ticketing system provider that has a dynamic pricing layer. Douglas Quinby: And there's some other company, there's some other booking system providers like Mantrada and others that are layering in dynamic pricing within their booking system capability. But there's still some big issues that need to be addressed within the space. I mean, one is there's still just a gap in just the fundamentals of the technology. You need to have a robust solid ticketing system and just control of your basic inventory and pricing. And once you have that, then we can start to think about dynamic pricing. That's one. Then the next piece is what are the signals and what are the triggers to drive that? And it's going to vary a lot from attraction to attraction. But it could be things like weather, it can be things like demand. Douglas Quinby: There could be things like maybe there's the World Cup in Qatar and there's going to be increased demand for a great attraction there than you would want during that time when the destination is going to be overflowing. You can increase your prices. So there's a lot of different kind of factors and inputs there and there's a lot of debate about it too. I think at a consumer level, there's that old thing of while you're sitting on the airplane and the guy next to you spent half the price on the plane ticket and does that frustrate you? But I think increasingly consumers have come to understand this. It's become pretty commonplace and I think people will understand it. Douglas Quinby: And I also think as well, it's an opportunity for attractions, not just to make a little more money, but it's also, as I said, I think at the outset, to provide a better guest experience. I think especially for tier one attractions and top destinations, that's got to be the top priority. How can you disperse your guests in a more effective way? Because there's no question we had a little pandemic induced hiatus from over tourism, but it's already back in some places fast and furious and attractions are going to be very quickly overrun, especially when Asia really opens up and comes back. So how can you use smart pricing strategies to create a better guest experience, to have a better impact on your attraction and on the local community? I think it's not just about making money. Douglas Quinby: So yeah, this is going to be a major theme within the sector over the next couple of years and I would expect the industry to take it up pretty rapidly. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I really like the definition of putting your prices up actually gives the customer a better experience because it comes down to the operational factors again, isn't it? If you know you're going to be extremely busy for this period, you put your prices up a touch, but that touch allows you to hire X amount more visitor experience people that can greet your guests and give them that experience. So it's all about it still is all about the customer, which is really important. Douglas Quinby: And it surely can also potentially enable an attraction to lower prices during certain times. Right. If you can yield up during certain times, you can make the attraction more accessible. Again, it's not just about making more money. I mean, that certainly should be a benefit, right, but it's also about can be about making your venue more accessible, about making the guest experience better. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think that's the message that has to be driven to your audience as well, isn't it? Because otherwise it just feels a little bit unjust, but they're not being given the information to understand that actually this is a better decision for them. There's so much that we could talk about. We are out of time. We're basically out of time. We always end up podcast by asking our guests to share a book that they love with us. Have you prepared for us today? Douglas Quinby: Yes, I have. And actually, this is a book I recommend quite a bit. And it might be it's not like a typical book because I know you've got lots of great recommendations and there's lots of amazing business books out there. But one of the books that has always stuck with me, it's actually it's a service manual. It's called Delivering Knock Your Socks Off Customer Service. And it's a short paperback. It's I think it's like 109 pages or even less. It was written as a manual for customer service teams. But actually, as I read it struck me as basically it's a guide for being a great human being and how to treat people in an extraordinary way and how to respond to questions when you don't know the answer, how to make people feel like you care about them. Douglas Quinby: And one of the things my wife has always said is, "people never remember what you say, really, but they remember how you made them feel". To me, that book is basically it's a guidepost to leaving people feel like they matter to you and that you're going to serve them well. And that also ties into your brand. Like everyone is their own personal brand and every action that you have with every person is a reflection of that brand. That book impacted me in that way and I've always kind of thought about it as a way to be a guidepost for how I interact with everybody. Not just with my customers or clients or our event partners, or our employees, with my friends, with my family, with everybody. Kelly Molson: Doug, that is a book that is right up my street and that's going to go top of my pile. And I'm going to buy it. I'm going to buy it from my team as well. Douglas Quinby: Highly recommended. Kelly Molson: As ever, listeners if you want to win a copy of Doug's book, then if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Doug's book", then we will enter you into a draw to potentially win it. You'll have to come back on because there are so many other topics that we could have covered. So come back in 2024 and we'll see how some of these predictions and things that we've talked about have worked out this year. But thank you. It's been lovely to chat. Douglas Quinby: Well, just for all of those attractions who are listening, we have our Arival Berlin Conference right before ITV March 5, 6 and 7 in Berlin at the amazing Estrella Hotel, where all of the things that Kelly has been bugging me about over the past, what has it been, 45 minutes or an hour or so. We have a couple of days just devoted to all of these topics in the world of experiences in the future. And we've got speakers from Google and Get Your Guide and actually the Moco Museum, which is all in on dynamic pricing, by the way. And they're going to be leading an in depth workshop on what they're doing and among so much else, on distribution and growth. And you're going to meet a lot of incredible experience operators and attractions and distributors and technology providers. Douglas Quinby: It's really for us, it's our vision to create the hub of the experiences sector for travel and to help this industry grow and improve. And Kelly is going to be there. Kelly Molson: I was going to say Doug, the highlight of it is that I'll be there speaking as well. Douglas Quinby: That's right. That's right. Which we're really looking forward to. So please do consider joining us. We promise you have an amazing time with an amazing community and learn tons. Kelly Molson: It's a great line up of speakers and it really does look like an absolutely incredible conference. We'll put all the details in the show notes so none of you will miss out and you'll be able to book online. And even if you don't make the conference, go and check out the Arival website because some of the reporting on there is really phenomenal and so valuable to the sector. And I've learned a lot in the last couple of weeks just reading through some of the reports that Doug has been able to send me through. So that is well worth a visit, everyone. Doug, thank you. It's been fabulous. Douglas Quinby: Thank you, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Developing a culture of innovation, with Elizabeth McKay | 25 Jan 2023 | 00:39:26 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizabethmckay1/
Elizabeth McKay is an award-winning creative leader with experience in heritage, public-service broadcasting, and commercial advertising. She joined London Transport Museum as Chief Operating Officer in September 2018 to lead the design and delivery of its future vision. Elizabeth is an active Trustee and Deputy Chair of Kids in Museums, an independent charity dedicated to making museums open and welcoming to families, and a member of the Insights Council supporting the English National Opera.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative, and hopefully always interesting. In today's episode, I speak with Elizabeth McKay, Chief Operating Officer at the London Transport Museum. Elizabeth shares how else LTM has developed a culture of innovation and how creative and entrepreneurial ideas are encouraged and supported at the museum. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. It's lovely to see you. Elizabeth McKay: This is really exciting. I wasn't sure when you asked me to do this, but it would all be about but now we're here. Kelly Molson: It's going to be wonderful, Elizabeth. But first, as ever, I have to ask you some ice breaker questions, because that is the rule of the podcast. Elizabeth McKay: I understand. Kelly Molson: Okay, so if you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be? Elizabeth McKay: Oh, on top of a ski mountain, no question. Kelly Molson: Oh, you're this is fabulous. We're recording this in the run up to Christmas listeners, and it is snowy in London, so this is fabulous for you. Elizabeth McKay: London does not have the slopes or the incline that I would like, and the powder does not remain on the ground for long enough. Kelly Molson: And let's face it, trudging through London in the snow is not like being at the top of a mountain skiing down it, is it? Elizabeth McKay: No, it's not as beautiful as it might be walking around my local cemetery before it melts. Not the same. Kelly Molson: Okay, good. So would you rather travel back in time to meet your ancestors or go to the future to meet your descendants? Elizabeth McKay: That's a really good question. I probably want to do both. I'd like to go back in time because some of my ancestors travelled across the plains in America in covered wagons, and I think that just slightly blows my mind. They even took English antiques with them. It just doesn't seem right. All that pain they went through. The future would be really good, too. Oh, my God. Kelly Molson: That is absolutely fascinating. Elizabeth McKay: It's part of our lore. Kelly Molson: And I love that you've come full circle, as though they trust you all the way over there and you've trusted all the way back. Elizabeth McKay: I know. Yeah. I don't know how they feel about that, but I'm making the eastward migration. Kelly Molson: All right, as I mentioned, we are recording this just in the run up to Christmas. So what one thing would you most like to achieve in 2023? Elizabeth McKay: Well, we're working on our five year strategy right now, so I'd probably most like to land that, be very clear about our forward direction of travel and be kind of aligned with that view with a bunch of happy, engaged, enthusiastic people. Kelly Molson: Excellent. And that sets the tone for what we're going to talk about on this podcast today. But unpopular opinion first. What have you prepared for us, Elizabeth? Elizabeth McKay: Dark unsweetened chocolate is much better than milky sweet chocolate. So the nastier the better, the more bitter, the less sugar, higher the cocoa. Kelly Molson: What percentage are you going? Are you going 85 and higher? Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, 85% or 90 if you're really brave. Kelly Molson: I like this unpopular opinion and I'm going to say I don't know how unpopular it is because we made a bit of a shift over to Dutch. So my husband is a massive chocoholic. Like, if a pudding on the menu is not chocolate, he's not having it. And if chocolate is in the house, he's eating it. But he made the switch over to dark chocolate because he can eat a smaller amount and it actually satisfies his cravings quicker. So he would be with you on that. Elizabeth McKay: I thought I was going to be unpopular. Kelly Molson: Well, you might be. This is just me. You might be. I'm with you on it. But listeners, let us know, are we going dark chocolate or milk chocolate? Elizabeth McKay: My kids are not happy with this decision, but there we are. I buy the chocolates. So they just have to get on board with that. Kelly Molson: They have to lump it then. That's the rules of the house. Elizabeth McKay: Grandparents indulge. Kelly Molson: Excellent, excellent unpopular opinion, let us know, listeners, if you are with us or with Elizabeth or against Elizabeth. Tell us a little bit about your role at the London Transport Museum. Elizabeth McKay: Okay, well, I'm the chief operating officer at the London Transport Museum. That's two acronyms COO and LTM together. I think the COO is kind of do everything and anything role. So for me, that's strategy, forward planning, capital projects, innovation, DNI, green agenda safeguarding, and basically all the internal stuff. And so I get to poke my nose into everything, anything that needs kind of help, support or advocacy, really. And I'm also the Deputy Chair of Kids in Museums, so I get to be on the other side of the kind of governance table in that role. Kelly Molson: It's a big remit, what you have on your play, isn't it? I hadn't really considered how many different hats that you would have to wear on a daily basis. Elizabeth McKay: I think it's different at different organisations. So I was really fortunate it was a new role when I came into LTM. So you get to shape a role if you're not just picking up what something has been done before. So that's useful. So I could just add in all the stuff that I really wanted to do. Kelly Molson: I love it. That's a dream role, right? I would like this and all of these things, please. Elizabeth McKay: Yes, exactly. Kelly Molson: So we had a little chat prior to talking today and this is really the driver for what our conversation is going to be about today. But you said that culture was the driver for why you joined the organisation. So I really want to talk about kind of culture and innovation today. What was it about the culture at LTM that really appealed to you? What made it really stand out? Elizabeth McKay: Well, I read somewhere that 75% of people consider a company's culture before applying for a job. That was really interesting and, you know, generally, organisation cultures, you know, values, beliefs, and attitudes and all the things that influence how people behave, really. So it's authentic. It's how an organisation responds in a crisis, how teams adapt, how people interact. And it's also one of those things that's a real top indicator of employee satisfaction. So it's a real top reason people stick around and stay in the job. So it's super important. So what attracted me to LTM and this was four and a half years ago was this kind of can do attitude. I really liked the entrepreneurial spirit. Elizabeth McKay: People were really nice and struck me as genuinely collaborative, and there was a real openness I was struck by this, by the people I met, by the kind of process I met when I first met Sam, the director, like, genuine good people vibes. And I didn't feel there were any barriers or that people were precious. So all of that really kind of struck me. Kelly Molson: It's interesting that you mentioned entrepreneurial, because that's not often a word that is associated with museums or culture or heritage. Not in the sense of not in the sense of sometimes how they view things. Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, I think it's really interesting, and it's part of what attracted me to LTM, and it's part of what drives us all. It's absolutely great. And one of the first things I did when I joined is ran a series of workshops to kind of codify, you know, our culture, because all of these stuff was just brilliant, but it felt like it needed to be pulled together, so and I'm kind of a self confessed strategy geek. So we got everybody together and ran serious workshops. And entrepreneurial was so key to how people thought about what the museum did and their own roles. So was the word playful, which is something that the people had used a lot and, you know, was in various documents and things. So those two things together were really important. Elizabeth McKay: And then other words like collaborative, active, courageous, and inclusive came out as partly it's how people describe themselves, and partly it's kind of aspirational. Right. So all of that. I worked with everyone and kind of came up with a strategic framework that we use. As I said, it's kind of codifying all of this. Kelly Molson: Yeah. One of the things he mentioned is that the culture there is kind of forgiving and encouraging. How did you define that? As part of these kind of strategy workshops? Or was that already defined before you kind of arrived? Elizabeth McKay: Oh, that's interesting. Did I say that those are really good words. Kelly Molson: They are really good words. Elizabeth McKay: Those are really good words. And I think what that means is it's an environment where creativity is really encouraged. So our purpose, which we kind of defined in this process I mentioned, is igniting curiosity to shape the future. It's always there. It's an ether right, a culture. So what you're trying to do is always ensure you understand it and then develop it in different ways. So I think we have a culture that people really thrive on ideas and making things happen. I think now, thinking about it, I'd really underline courageous as an important word too. And also having just navigated through COVID, I'm really acutely aware of my colleagues, what they've been through, what so many people in the sector have been through, just keeping it all together and keeping the show on the road. Elizabeth McKay: So I think courageous is something, a word we use, and I think it's increasingly more important and valuable and accurate. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. You mentioned creative there, which is interesting because one of the things I want to delve into a little bit is about the innovation and the culture of innovation that you've created. So we had Pete Austin come on from Imperial War Museums quite a few episodes back now, and he talked about innovation in marketing. And one of the things that he really stressed is that a lot of people hang on the idea of innovation as always being something new or a new idea or a big idea. But actually, innovation can be about making what you already have better. And I think that's really important to hold that in your mindset, is that it's not just about the big and new and shiny. Kelly Molson: It is sometimes just about a small change that's really innovative in the organisation with something that you're already doing and just doing it in a better way. So I wanted to kind of understand, what does innovation mean to you from your perspective, from the organisation? Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, that's a good question. And one thing is so important that it's not about innovation for innovation's sake, always have to have a purpose and an outcome. That's why you're doing it. So it can't be gratuitous. So I think it's really difficult to define. And there's a whole industry around innovation, isn't there? Writers, businesses, agencies, people who help you define it or harness it or provide methods or just basically hand it back to you. Right, but I'd probably go back to defining it as a new idea. But it could be a concept or product or a method, as you say. It can be incremental, those little twists, but also it can be disruptive, it can be radical, but I think it has to lead to some kind of change or improvement. Elizabeth McKay: I think there's an element of agility and adaptability that's required to and going back to the idea of kind of courageousness, it needs to be an element of bravery. You got to take some risks because it's changing something. The safe thing is just keep doing what you're doing. The brave courageous thing is push the boat, try something new. Experiment, pilot, innovate. I'm real big believer in all of that. I was remembering this like, great quote. I don't know who it was. Some strategy guru said, "whenever you see a successful business, someone once made a courageous decision". Kelly Molson: Yes, very true. I like that quote. Elizabeth McKay: Maybe somebody can tell us who've said that. Kelly Molson: Let us know, listeners. It's an excellent quote. We'd love to be able to attach it to somebody.. Elizabeth McKay: Find it. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's true, isn't it? And I think that what you said about courageous, it can be a really small move as well because I guess there's an element of courageousness needed when you bring ideas to people, your team will be empowered by you to think about ways that they can be more innovative. But they do have to be courageous in coming to you with an idea that they might think is a bit out there or they might think won't be accepted that well, who knows? So it starts off a really small level, doesn't it? Or a small part. Elizabeth McKay: It does. And it goes back to the culture of the organisation too. So I think there are different ways to unpack this. Right? So going back to talking about articulating your principles, so entrepreneurial and playful, for example. There's a lot in this. So entrepreneurial is priding yourself to be financially sustainable. We earn 80% of our income, so we have a really diversified income stream. So it really helps in periods of uncertainty. Great shop, corporate membership in London, which was originally a tour business, now it's a whole multichannel experience, right? And then playful is a brand strong brand. It's a word we love. We fully embraced it in all levels. So you can see it in the marketing and the product, our tone of voice, programming, all those things. So that's a lot to play with. Elizabeth McKay: And then I really think that innovation can come from anywhere. So the challenge is you kind of say about how you bring those ideas forward. You need to have ways that people can meaningfully input, right? And you can do this in so many different ways. We can consultation, so you ask for input or co creation. So you're working together on something and you need some kind of systems, right? If you have a creative proposal format or a form or something, it needs to kind of go somewhere, it needs to be looked at, needs to be discussed, it needs to be responded to. All that stuff plays together, really. I think about this a lot, actually. Kelly Molson: I can too. Elizabeth McKay: Because my background is kind of creative person. I started in advertising, I moved to the BBC, I've led creative teams. I've always done that. So, yeah, I think you have to have both the strategy and the values and you have to have the kind of systems and processes. systems and processes. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really interesting. I didn't know this about your background, but I sensed that you might have had a creative background because the way that you've talked about how you would approach certain things is the way that I have been taught to approach certain things from my kind of graphic design background. So I did wonder if you'd been trained in a similar way. Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, exactly. And that's why I get really excited about this. That's why the most fun I have in my job is my meetings with my head of design and they always overrun and we always come up with all these great things and then we have to step back and apply all the principles and the financial sustainability and the models and everything. Kelly Molson: Actually, that leads me to a really good question. One of the questions I had was how does London Transport Museum approach innovation? How do you encourage ideas? And you've talked about workshops and co creation stuff. How do you overcome the challenge of choosing and managing those ideas? You can talk for endless hours with your design manager. I'm sure there's some incredible things that have come out of that. How do you refine those ideas and choose which ones you actually bring to market or bring to the organisation? Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, good question. Million dollar question. You've got to be agile, I think. Not all ideas also come up at convenient times to fit into planning processes. That said, I think you could build flexibility into your processes. It's really important that no is not your default answer, which is true in parenting as well as business. So what's an example of that? So this year and last year, we staggered our planning processes to allow for early ideas to come out that were unfunded. Don't worry, we just want to hear what they are. And it gave them time to be kind of shaped opportunities for the fundraising team to look at them, nurture, develop. So that's one, as I mentioned, love a good workshop with lots of post it notes. But yes, there are so many ways to generate and iterate and choose ideas. Elizabeth McKay: I think that the other thing is you really need to delegate down to the people who are the creative engines too. That's rich coming from me, because I like to get involved in all this stuff. Right. But I know when and where to step back. And so, good example. Our social media manager, super fabulous, basically pitched, starting a Tiktok channel, said, yeah, go and do it, and it's just taken off. Phenomenal. Kelly Molson: Great. Elizabeth McKay: So the downside is she's just been poached and she's going off to a dog. Watch the space. In the new year, we're going to have an opening. Retail, I mean, our retail is.. Kelly Molson: Your shop is fabulous. Your shop is fabulous. There is a gift under the tree for my dad from your shop for this year. It is absolutely brilliant. Elizabeth McKay: Root master of PJs. Kelly Molson: No. Excellent Piccadilly Line socks because really good memory. So my dad is not a fan of the Underground, so we used to drive to Arnold Grove, get on the tube there, so we could come directly into Covent Garden on one tube. Just one tube. So the Piccadilly Line holds good memories for me. Elizabeth McKay: Holds good memories. Yeah. Well, the Moquet socks in a box is a good one too. But all of those products, they're just fabulous. And we have great brand icons to play with, granted. And it was really helpful of TfL to open the Elizabeth Line for a number of reasons. Whole new product line and obviously all made for me. So I think my husband's drawing the line at the Elizabeth Line Moquet sofa in the living room. Kelly Molson: I saw the chair in the shop and was like that. It's a bit of me, I'm not going to lie. It looks fabulous. Is your whole house kitted out in the London Transport Museum memorabilia? Elizabeth McKay: No, I think the divorce court would be calm. I don't have the room. I do have my mug. Small bits. Small bits that I channel. All that said, another team which is super creative is the Hidden London team. It's a little juggernaut and has its own internal experts, like Chris and City and we pivoted during lockdown, they launched a YouTube channel, it had its 100 episodes. We're now doing a tele series. And all the guides, they all are so kind of really inspired about finding new sites and new tours and new facts and new ways and ways to communicate with people. So you just need to enable that. And that's what I think our culture does. And hopefully the systems we put in place give people freedom and all the right motivations to kind of innovate. Kelly Molson: It's nice, isn't it? Because the way that you've talked about it, you've got these kind of like mini teams that work within the organisation, you've got merchandise in Hidden London under your social media. And then I guess they are inspired by the things that those other teams are doing as well. How Hidden London had to pivot during the Pandemic is hugely inspiring to the social media team or the shop team about how they promote their products and things. So then you get this kind of crossover of ideas and entrepreneurialism across the organisation. Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, it's a real synergy and it goes back to being clear about your purpose, I believe. And we talked a lot about how certain things are kind of in our DNA. Boards are really interested in that and trustees. So going back to that idea of you don't innovate for innovation's sake, it's all consistent and relevant. So the shop and the products are just as interesting and relevant and researched and authentic as, say, our learning programs. So our learning programs are doing quite a bit around our green agenda sustainability, sustainability of London and you see that mirrored in products that are ethically sourced and sustainable practices, et cetera. Elizabeth McKay: And of course we're all here about public transport which is the green way to travel and that's about the future of London and the exciting bit about what kind of city that we want to live in. So all of this is synergistic, isn't it? Past, present, future and that's what I think makes it so interesting. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is super interesting and I think what I love about the organisation is how many different remits it actually has that you don't think about. You come along and it is a fantastic museum to walk around. It's really engaging. It is very playful. See, everyone always highlights the buffs and the things that they can do but you forget about the other remit of actually you are highlighting transport which is sustainable and green and you've got a requirement to be showcasing that and explaining that to people about what that means for London. Elizabeth McKay: Absolutely. We're an educational charity but we have all this great stuff behind us. One thing that's different about LTM from other museums is the corporate membership the sponsors that are linked to TfL's pipeline. So that gives us a whole other way to engage. We have spot leadership programs, kind of Chatham House Rules type thing where we're kind of a safe place for bringing together people to talk about the future of transport and London. Yet another thing people wouldn't necessarily know. That's why my job is so cool. Kelly Molson: Super cool, but tiring. Yeah and actually that touches on something else that we should talk about because you talked earlier about people having to pivot during the pandemic and well, you set yourselves as a purpose fuelled organisation through the Pandemic. That was one of the things that we talked about prior to this and one of the things you mentioned is that you're all still doing a lot more with a lot less than you had which obviously can cause burnout. How do you maintain that from a cultural perspective? How do you maintain a healthy culture without you're asking people to kind of give quite a lot and being really engaged with the organisation but we're all kind of running on a little bit of empty. How do you kind of maintain a healthy culture and make sure that people aren't getting to burnout stage? Elizabeth McKay: That's a really good question and I'm also reminded of that other quote, “culture eats strategy for breakfast, for lunch, dinner”. I feel like I'm pretty high energy going into kind of all the workshopping and thinking about our strategy. I do look around and pay my life myself. God, I drink so much coffee now. So it's a really good question. We're all dealing with it in the sector and all businesses, right? And next year is going to be h***. I mean, when I listen to this in 2023 I'll probably be like, oh my God, it's even worse than I thought. So first, again, I think about this a lot. So first you have to give permission to slow down, to slow the pace. Have realistic what one of our trustees calls heroic targets. Don't have heroic targets, have realistic targets. Elizabeth McKay: Then change your plan if there are external issues. For example, we have a real issue with slow recruitment right now. We have support from TfL HR. We have some back office support from TfL, also quite interesting. But it also means when they stop, we stop. And so that's been a real challenge. You cannot hire people quickly when you have an opening, that's an issue, and in a small team that will just grind you to a halt, right? So you have to recognise that. Second, I think we have really good ways of working. So we have a people plan. We have working groups, comprised people from across the organisation. We use our strategic principles like, we're here for everyone and we go the extra mile, but we also have deliverables with that. And we have annual survey. Elizabeth McKay: We try to stay on top of these kind of issues. So think about what you're measuring, I guess is another way to link to that. So we have an inclusion index and a well being index, and it gives us a little kind of sense of how things are going. Not that we wait around every year to find out what the score is because you're always getting that kind of feedback. Kelly Molson: So that index comes from kind of continual asking people how they are like mini surveys. Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, well that's the kind of annual survey. But we know that's important, so we're working on it in different ways. So it has lots of kind of action plans and activities around it. So we're really conscious of well being and kind of inclusion and the things that help with that culture. I think regular communication then is another thing. So my big insight is whatever you're doing with communication, there could be more, it could be different, it can better, and it could be even more regular than it is, I often think. But I know we shared that with people, but if they didn't get it, then you haven't kind of shared it right. Elizabeth McKay: So we have a weekly email, we have zoom sessions, we have in person online staff forums, departmental meetings, chats in the corridor now that we're back and we have corridors and then I guess the last one, I'd say really listen and adapt. So when people say, oh, that's the problem, really listen and change. And I would say the way we're going about our five year strategy right now has taken that into account so we can't make that deadline. I went, oh, okay, so I kind of redesigned what we're doing and gave more time, and it has to work or otherwise if we all fall over. There's not going to be a strategy. Kelly Molson: The communication thing is so important, isn't it? It's interesting because we run very different organisations, but that was the one piece of advice that were given by so I run an agency, I'm a member of a number of agency networks. During the pandemic, they were incredibly supportive to all of the agencies under their membership. And the biggest piece of advice they gave was just over communicate. Over communicate with your team, over communicate with your clients. Just let them know all the time what's happening, how things are. Because people just needed reassurance, and the only way that they could get reassurance was by talking about things openly and having that two way dialogue. So, yeah, I just can't stress enough how important that is. And a lot of organisations don't get that, right? Kelly Molson: They don't have enough time with their line managers or enough time with their colleagues to talk things through. Elizabeth McKay: That's so true. And I think we stepped it up during COVID really, because initially we just had to were online with Zooming and living from our bedrooms, et cetera. But we started doing a weekly well, three times a week, email out to all staff wherever they were, and then it became weekly, and then it improved to kind of this bulletin that is quite good. I know people read it. We basically send it to our trustees. The sense of everybody's in touch. But yeah, you cannot over communicate. Kelly Molson: I love that. What would be your advice for organisations that want to foster a culture of innovation more? Elizabeth McKay: Well, one level, it's probably simple behaviour theory. Encourage and celebrate creativity, right. Reward the thing you want to have, so that's something to think about. And then I think a more sophisticated approach is focusing on that triumvirate of culture, strategy and capabilities because they all have to work together. And then I go back to that little kind of MOT for a healthy culture, that permission to slow down, have a plan, think about what you're measuring, communicate, communicate and listen and then adapt. That would be my little thing I run through in my head. Kelly Molson: Excellent advice, Elizabeth. Thank you. Just thinking about what we said about creative background. Do you look for people with a kind of creative background when you're hiring? Do you think that's quite important for an organisation that is quite driven by innovation and driven by being quite entrepreneurial? Elizabeth McKay: Well, I do. I hand everyone a paper clip when they sit down and say, give me ten reasons, ten things you can do with this paper clip. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I think it's important.. we all get stuck in these kind of structured interviews and which capability am I assessing and this and that. And so my default is stick innovation in there because it needs to happen in every job and every role at every level. So it's never one department. It might go back to my early life as a young referred stepper in advertising, but I never believed in the creative department and then everybody else. Elizabeth McKay: So I really liked moving on and becoming going on the other side and being the kind of, I guess, more the marketing director type role at the BBC, which is commissioning and developing and producing. And I always thrive being around creative people, and they can be in any job, really. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love that. Yeah. Innovation comes from anywhere, any department, any person. Elizabeth McKay: Definitely. Definitely. And the places that get that right and I'm not saying we always get that right, or I have always done that brilliantly and everything I've done, but I think the places that get that right are the ones that really succeed and people are happy. They have a culture that you're enthusiastic about and excited about and you want to go that extra mile and all those things, words on the page that don't really mean anything unless it's been lived. Kelly Molson: That's a really good point, isn't it? Because I think when you work at an organisation, you take ownership of it, don't you? And if you're encouraged to be part of it, and you're encouraged to share your ideas, share your innovation, it becomes yours. You take a level of ownership of the organisation that you work in because you've been able to input into the ideas and you can see those things actually happen. Elizabeth McKay: Yes. And I was just thinking about how you might kind of slightly shift your culture if you need to do that and tweak that. I mean, it's a bigger change program, really. Everyone is part of that kind of shift. But I think it can go back to those stories that you tell and you celebrate. And also you can't define what stories people want to tell about your organisation. Right. They're just out there. But if you try to give some of that focus and pick the things that you're really proud of, or that our teams are proud of, and are examples or exemplars of that kind of creative and innovative culture, then it can start to be what you're known for. Elizabeth McKay: I mentioned the shop or the learning programs that are kind of blowing me away right now, or Hidden London just kind of firing on all cylinders. Those things get us talking internally and excited and then that works outside, too. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that. And as we end our podcast, you mentioned stories. I always ask my guests to share a book that they love with our listeners. What would be your book for us today? Elizabeth McKay: Well, can I have two? Kelly Molson: No, you can't have two, but it's Christmas when we're recording, so I will be kind and generous and let you have two. Elizabeth McKay: I know that you'd allow, thank you. Kelly Molson: Because I'm so weak, Because I'm so weak, Elizabeth. Elizabeth McKay: You're so generous. You're so lovely. One that I mentioned when we met was this book Talking to Strangers by Malcolm Gladwell. And it's just so good that I think if people haven't heard of it, they should pick it up. I mean, he wrote The Tipping Point and Blink, and he's just an excellent writer. He talks about data in such an interesting way. But this book is all about big questions in history and psychology and has case studies about Fidel Castro and Sylvia Plath and Bernie Madoff and Campus Rape, and I guess it's a bit dark. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Elizabeth McKay: Why did Neville Chamberlain think he could trust Hitler? There's just so much in this book that's super interesting. Kelly Molson: Excellent book. Elizabeth McKay: My other one is I just bought this book from my son, fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. I read it when I was a teenager and it had a huge influence on me. I think it was my first Dystopian novel. So I'm just reading it again and my son may not get it or it'll be so well. Kelly Molson: You've done the classic. Buy a gift for someone that you're keeping. Elizabeth McKay: Yes, and I realise they're both very dark. Did that say about me? Oh, no. I mean, I'm actually quite optimistic. Kelly Molson: Yeah. But, yeah, maybe you just need an outlet to channel the dark stuff and that you can do that by reading these books. And everything else is fun and light. Elizabeth McKay: Yeah, that's it. The dark side. I probe the dark side between the pages. Kelly Molson: Great books. All right, listeners, if you would like to be in with a chance of winning Elizabeth's two books, then head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Elizabeth books", and then you can share in her darkness. Elizabeth McKay: Oh, dear. Kelly Molson: Elizabeth, thank you so much. It's been a joy to speak to you today. Thank you. I know how incredibly busy you are, so I'm very grateful that you could come on and spare us some time just before Christmas. And I am looking forward to seeing what you accomplish in the new year. I definitely know you're going to hit that strategy and get that up and running, so no challenge there. Elizabeth McKay: Well, thank you so much, Kelly. This was fun. And I guess anyone who's thinking about coming on, I would say it was not as painful as what I thought it would be. Kelly Molson: Excellent recommendation you can write that on our Apple ipod recommendation list. That would be excellent. Not as painful as I expected quote. Thanks. Elizabeth McKay: Quote. Thumbs up. No. Thank you very much for having me. I really enjoyed it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| Walk the Big One. Developing an exclusive experience, from an everyday safety process | 11 Jan 2023 | 00:54:30 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references: https://twitter.com/AndyHygate https://www.linkedin.com/in/andy-hygate-50351a45/ https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/ https://www.blackpoolpleasurebeach.com/events/walk-the-big-one/
Andy Hygate is the Director of Operations at the iconic UK amusement park Blackpool Pleasure Beach. Andy has worked in visitor attractions for over twenty years - including as a General Manager of Blue Planet Aquarium in Cheshire and also Oakwood Theme Park in Pembrokeshire. In Blackpool Andy heads up a team of almost 200 staff who operate the rides and deliver the guest experience - including High Adventure Experiences - 2023 will be his eight season in Blackpool. Andy also claims to be a rollercoaster aficionado having ridden over 600+ coasters worldwide. His current favourite coaster (though it changes all the time) is Iron Gwazi at Busch Gardens in Tampa.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Happy New Year, everyone. 2023 at Skip the Queue is packed with more amazing guests, and we're starting the new year with a really great one. In today's episode, I speak with Andy Hygate, Director of Operations at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. We are talking about walking The Big One and how to develop an exclusive experience from an everyday safety process. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Andy, welcome to Skip the Queue. Andy Hygate: Hello. It's nice to be here. Thanks for inviting me. Kelly Molson: Well, it's my pleasure. Just to let everyone know, we're recording this today, as we do, on YouTube and I've got this halo-like effect over my head. Andy Hygate: Okay. Ray lights. Kelly Molson: I look quite angelic, don't I, Andy? Quite festive. If you're watching this on the YouTube channel, you will understand what we're talking about, but this is not good podcast material. Sorry. Anyway, Andy, we're starting with some icebreakers. Andy Hygate: Okay. Kelly Molson: I've got a good one for you. I know that you are a big old rollercoaster fan. So I want to know, and this might be a little bit like asking who's your favourite child, or who's your favourite dog. But I want to know, what's your favourite rollercoaster? Andy Hygate: Oh, wow. I mean, it changes all the time. I guess I have kind of a top three, but I've recently been lucky enough to go to Orlando and I went on a ride there called Iron Gwazi, which is a RMC rework of what was a classic wooden coaster into a steel coaster that's got inversions and so on. And it's one of those rides where if you're a roller coaster fan, it's everything that you want from a roller coaster, from an incredible, and I think it's almost beyond vertical first drop. It's got inversions on a wooden structure. But it was one of those rides that just didn't let up until it hits the brakes at the end. I mean, it blew me away. It was incredible. But then I say that, I also went on the VelociCoaster and I was lucky to get in the front seats, which is the Islands of Adventure. I went on that at night. And again, I mean, that was an incredible ride. So at the moment it's probably between those two. Maybe I can't pick a favourite. But yeah, both incredible intense, fabulous long rides. Really, really good stuff. Kelly Molson: Okay. Do you know what? The VelociCoaster, feel like I've been watching that happen for years on Twitter, because they've been really good at feeding little snippets of what's been happening before it's launched, like the design of it. I just feel like I've seen it. It's just been happening for so long. Andy Hygate: The weird thing is sometimes you watch these things on YouTube, particularly if you watch POVs of rides and you think what the ride is going to ride like. And we've got a double-launch coaster and effectively that's what VelociCoaster is. But that last inversion, which is really low over the water, you have to go on it to experience what it's like. I can't describe it to you. It's one of those you think you're coming out, which is not good, but you are obviously not. But it is just, I mean, yeah, it just blew me away. Absolutely blew me away. Kelly Molson: Amazing. Great recommendation, Andy. All right. Okay, next one. Who's your idol and have you ever met them? Andy Hygate: I don't know. I mean, there's a rollercoaster designer, a German guy called Stengel who is behind many, many of the designs of the world's best coasters. I'm a coaster geek and I'm a big fan of B&M, and I guess I would love to meet them, but I haven't. I don't know because they always say don't meet your heroes. And so I kind of think that I'm not really sure that I would want to. Kelly Molson: Keeping a distance, probably safer. What's the weirdest food you've ever eaten? Andy Hygate: Weirdest food. Before I was five years old, I'd had more birthdays in America than I'd had in the UK. And I remember on my fifth birthday having an ice cream birthday cake. And the fact that I can still remember this, 30 whatever years later, I remember that being something that was very unusual at the time. I don't know now. Yeah, I mean, that's quite cool, actually. To be honest, I've got a big birthday coming up in a couple of years and I'd quite like an ice cream birthday cake for that now. Kelly Molson: There you go. Andy Hygate: I suppose that's weird. Kelly Molson: Putting it out there, just getting the hints in already for Andy's birthday. Andy Hygate: Pretty much. There you go. Kelly Molson: Love it. All right, Andy, what is your unpopular opinion? What have you got to share with us? Andy Hygate: You know what? I think camping should be banned. And particularly, level above that, glamping. I guess, again, for me, if you go on holiday, you want to stay somewhere nice, I think. My experiences of camping are always being freezing cold, in soaking wet, and being covered in mud. When you wake up in the morning and you've been like you've slept outside effectively, and it's just a different level of cold. And I don't get the whole thing about... People say, oh, I don't know, "I'm connecting to nature, or the great outdoors." And I actually do like the outdoors, but if I go anywhere, I want to at least stay... Well, if you come to Blackpool, you don't want to be in a tent. You want to be in a nice hotel, which you can obviously do here. But I don't understand the appeal of it. I haven't done it for probably 30 years, but my whole recollection of camping is being freezing cold, soaking wet, and it being thoroughly unpleasant. So yeah, I would ban the tents. Kelly Molson: Oh, Andy. That's a really strong opinion and I like it. Have you ever been glamping? Have you ever done the one level up? Andy Hygate: I've seen it because it appears. I mean, a lot of places and particularly there seems to be a thing with safari parks. I can't think of anything worse than being asleep in a safari park. It's always a beautiful white tent, isn't it, when it's glamping? But ultimately, you're sleeping next to a lion enclosure. And in the middle of the night, you get picked off by one of the animals. I obviously sound very passionate about this, but glamping is supposed to be a luxury, but it's not a... I don't know. Having plastic champagne glasses in a canvas tent, to me is not luxury. Sorry. That sounds awful. Kelly Molson: No. Do you know what? I think it's my favourite opinion of the year. Listeners, let me know what you think over on our Twitter account if you agree with Andy. It's very strong, very strong unpopular opinion today. Oh, I love that. All right. Well, Andy, I'm going to guess that your background isn't in camping or nature, but tell us a little bit about your background. Andy Hygate: Okay, well, I'm the Operations Director for Blackpool Pleasure Beach and I've been here for eight seasons. But I've worked in attractions for over 20 years. I actually used to work at a famous aquarium in Cheshire for many, many years. I basically had the opportunity to go and run a theme park, a small theme park in Pembrokeshire down in Wales, beautiful park in the country, a theme park called Oakwood. And I went and worked there. And one of the reasons I went and worked there is because I've always liked roller coasters. And so from as young as I can remember, I grew up in Kent and we used to go on day trips to Margate. Not camping trips. And I used to go on the rides at Dreamland there. And I was hooked, I was obsessed with it. And so obviously when I got the chance to come work at Oakwood, it was a no-brainer because they had big rides. And I learned about rides, how to operate rides, the maintenance involved and all of that kind of stuff. And then that kind of opened the door, really, for me to work in other parks, and that's ultimately why I work here. But I think I'm very, very lucky to work in an industry that I'm passionate about. And the fact that I love roller coasters, we've got 10 roller coasters at Blackpool Pleasure Beach. And so for me to work with those every day is a real privilege and really good fun. And part of my job is literally to go and ride rides. And if you told me that when I was 10 years old, I just never would've believed that that was a possibility. Kelly Molson: That's very lovely. This comes up quite a lot with our guests, actually, because it is an industry that people tend to work in from a young age and then work their way up. And they love it, they really love it. And it's really nice listening to people where they're like, "I get to do this for my job, but this is fun." And it's really nice to hear. I'm going to guess, Andy, only because you mentioned that you got a big birthday coming up, but I'm going to guess that you are maybe a similar age to me and you would remember Dreamland as Bembom Brothers. Andy Hygate: I do, yeah. Bembom Brothers Amusement Park. Kelly Molson: Yeah, because I can remember, because I'm from Essex and then I can remember my granddad taking me to Bembom Brothers when I was really little and riding the wooden rollercoaster that they had there. Andy Hygate: Railway, yeah. It's still there. Kelly Molson: Yeah, good times. Good times. All right. So Andy, today, I'm really interested in this. I think this is such a great topic for our listeners. What we're going to talk about is how you've developed an exclusive experience from an everyday safety procedure, which sounds crazy, but tell us a little bit about how this idea came about. Andy Hygate: Well, it's a strange one. But we're talking about an experience called Walk the Big One. And for those of you that don't know, Blackpool Pleasure Beach has a very large roller coaster, which is still, some 25 years later, the tallest rollercoaster in the UK, a rollercoaster called The Big One. It's 235 feet tall, and basically guests can pay to come and walk up the ride after the park closes, up the main pull up, which is the main lift and the sort of slow part at the start of the ride. And we're obviously located right next to the beach, so you get an absolutely spectacular view. And when I say spectacular, it's a really difficult one to describe. But if you don't know Blackpool and saw the sunset. So something else, I mean, I said I've just been to Florida and I think I would say our sunsets are comparable with theirs. Maybe the temperature's not quite the same. But what we were ultimately able to achieve is roller coasters generally have steps running up the lift hill and that's no different to our coaster. They're there for safety reasons so that ultimately if there's a stoppage or you have to clear a train of guests or whatever, that you can walk people down. But by using those we were able to give people this very unique experience in a controlled and safe way, where they get this unbelievably photogenic and unique experience, which only really, and certainly compared to the number of people that ride the ride, only a handful of people get. When people go on roller coasters, one of the things that you don't want, it's a very modern problem, is trying to stop people from taking photographs or filming on rides, because inevitably they drop their phone, and you don't want things falling and all of that kind of stuff. But by doing a controlled walking experience like this, it means that people can get those amazing pictures and so on. And people love putting that on social media and all of that kind of stuff. So how it actually started, though, well, again, there's two versions of this depending on who you speak to. And I can say that because it started before I started working here, so I don't know which one is true. But one of them is that we had a corporate inquiry from a group that had hired out a room and were having an event at the Pleasure Beach. And they wanted to do something different with the boss of the company. And again about taking a crazy photo or whatever and they asked if they could take them to the top of The Big One. And so they looked into it and the safety aspects and so on and were able to achieve that. So that's one possibility. And then the other one is that a member of staff went on a trip to Australia and walked up the Sydney Harbor Bridge and came back and said, "That was an amazing experience. Wouldn't that be really cool if we could replicate something like that in the park?" And so depending on who you believe, depends on where this started from. But all I know is that when I started here, we were running on Friday evenings throughout the year, we were running three walks a night taking groups of six people up the structure for an hour. And an hour is the whole thing. So you come and you do a little safety briefing, we kit people up. You'll be pleased to know people are connected with a safety line whilst they're doing this and we show them how to use it and so on. And then we walked them up the structure to the top. We do it in stages, because, as I said, it's over 70 meters high, so it's 420 steps to the top. We do it three times in an evening, so our leg muscles are quite... Kelly Molson: Nice. Good workouts. Andy Hygate: Quite good. But you basically walk people up and you stop at 50 foot intervals. We tell them a little bit about the history of the ride and some facts about the ride and so on. And also, what you notice is as you get higher up you get to see more and more at the park and also beyond the park as well. And you get that different sort of vantage point. And so by the time you get to the summit, which is the bit that everyone's looking forward to, if it's a nice clear day, you can look one way and you can see across the estuary, and you can see as far as Southport. And then you look the other way and you can literally see the Lake District. And you've got the Blackpool Tower and you can see the whole of the town set out below you. And it's an incredible experience, and even though I've walked up the structure loads of times, for me, I still get a thrill out of doing it and I'm still always impressed by the view. So for the first-time guest that's coming to do it for whatever reason, because we get loads of people doing this for... We get rollercoaster enthusiasts, which obviously you can understand why they would want to do it. But we also get people that are doing it for charity events and we get people that have had it as a surprise present and they've turned up at evening and didn't know really anything about what they were going to do. And so there's that whole mix of different people doing it and for different reasons and whatever. And again, once you get to the top, again, other people are getting different things out of it. We get the people that are serious photographers that want the sunset walk and so on. And then you get the people that are Facebook crazy and want to do Facebook Live at the top so all their mates can see it and so on. And it caters, really, for all of those people. What's quite cool is you can start with six people that don't even necessarily know each other. Sometimes you do get a group where it's six people that do, but we've had it where you've got six people haven't met before and then by the time they get to the end of it and they're back down on the ground, there's this kind of camaraderie that's been built up by having this experience. And they're always towards the staff because it's us that do it, it's the rides team that walk up. They're always so appreciative. And I think finding out stuff that you wouldn't find out normally when you visit, little tips and facts about the ride and little interesting oddities about how roller coasters work and so on makes it a really good experience. So yeah, I mean, I know that was a very long answer to- Kelly Molson: That was a great answer. It's a great answer and it leads me on to some of the questions that I've got about what's it brought the attraction? Because you talked there about a lot, so there was a lot to take in there. And some of the things you talked about were when people go up, you've got these incredible views and people want to take photos of that, they want to do Facebook Live. I guess you've got so many different audiences that that appeals to as well, like the rollercoaster nuts or just people that just want that Instagram moment. What has it brought, the attraction? Andy Hygate: For us, it's brought us into the experience market in a way which is something that we wouldn't have necessarily... I mean, the rollercoaster was never built with that in mind. It was obviously built as a thrill ride and the fact that are stairs there, and I'm sure we'll talk a little bit about Walk the Woodie later on. But the stairs are there for a functional reason and so you can do track inspections, and so in the event there's a stoppage there's a way for people to get down and a safe way and so on. And I think it's been able to make use of something that's already there or existing in a different way that's also such a memorable way. And invariably, I said, for all those people doing those different things, whether it's taking photos and posting them on social media or whether it's Instagram or whether it's Facebook or whatever it is that they're doing it for. And we have seen, particularly over the last five years doing it, there is, I think, this explosion in experiences and experience culture and people wanting, instead of... You are buying an experience, ultimately, and then you are showing other people that you've done that experience. So that's a big part of what social media is and a big motivator for doing it. But I think it's great that you can have that mix of people. And you even get the people that quietly... We've had people that live in Blackpool that can see the structure from their house because it's a tall structure I have always just been curious about it and just want to come and walk up it. And that's what's great, that you get that mix, really. Kelly Molson: It's opened up the park to a different audience, I guess, because those people might not have come along and come on and taken a ride on the rollercoaster or spent the day at the park. But there they would come along in the evening and walk up it and be able to spot their house from the top of it, I guess. Andy Hygate: Yeah, no, it's definitely true. And also you get people that have driven up from London, which is quite a long way from us, and so on, to do an experience which is pretty unique. And it's certainly unique in our location. And there are all those different reasons for doing it, makes it a really good thing. And I also think we are catering for a desire to have an adventure. I mean, roller coasters ultimately are that as well. I mean, the great thing about roller coasters is that people are searching for a thrill and an experience. I mean, even me talking about those rides that I was talking about before, I was absolutely thrilled or blown away by them and so on. But people want to go on a ride where you have the illusion of danger, that ultimately in reality is actually a very safe experience. And actually you could relate this to that as well, this experience, walking up something. You're at a very high height, you're on a slender gantry. And the structure moves, it's designed to, it's good that it moves in the wind and so on. You wouldn't want it to be brittle and so on. That all adds to the adventure. So you're getting that experience but in a way which is actually a really safe way of doing it. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's brilliant. It's still incredible to me that something that you would've done on a daily basis anyway you've been able to develop into this incredible experience. So it's brought you a different audience. It's obviously brought you more revenue, right? So you mentioned earlier you do three walks. Andy Hygate: Yeah, so we take six people on each walk. And they pay obviously for that experience. And it's a premium-priced experience because you're getting something which is a small group of people, it's after the park is closed and all of that side of it. And this is with the experience economy or people looking for those things. People are prepared to pay extra. For one, you're getting that level of service and insight that you wouldn't get necessarily normally, and talking directly to people that work on the ride and know about the ride and so on. If you were here as a visitor, you'd probably just queue up and go on the ride, have a great experience, find it thrilling and then off you go, where people like to, I think, have a curiosity about the behind the scenes, how things work and so on. And Walk the Woodie, which is the version of this that we do on one of our wooden coasters, is the classic example of something where we've taken something that we have to do every day. So this is the rollercoaster geek in me. There's two different types of coasters. There's steel coasters, which are the ones that you find where they invert, and most modern coasters are steel coasters. And then you get wooden coasters, and Blackpool Pleasure Beach, we are really lucky to have four, which is really unusual, classic wooden coasters, all built in the 1920s and '30s. I mean, these rides, rides like the Grand National and so on, which are iconic rides. When you think of our park, if you ask people about our park, they'll mention those rides. But for me, the fact that people want to come and ride a wooden coaster. It's 90 years it's been thrilling people and they still find it a thrilling ride and still want to go on it and so on. I think that's incredible that people want to do that, and what that says is those attractions, even if they were built in the 1930s, are still brilliant attractions and that people still want to come and ride them. Now, part of looking after and the maintenance of a wooden coaster is that you do daily inspections of them, and you literally walk the entire track of the ride, which you can do on a wooden coaster because unlike on a steel coaster, you've got a walkway literally the entire length of the ride. And so we have an in-house structures team and construction team here, which is part of how we maintain the coasters and are able to keep them going and so on, have to walk the entire track every day. And so every morning before the park opens, nice and early, doesn't matter what the weather is, our team of structures people will come and walk alongside the entire track, carrying out an inspection and making sure there's no problems, no issues, no rot, no nails where there shouldn't be, all of those kind of things so that the ride's ultimately safe to open. And with this stuff I'm talking about with offering experiences, we suddenly thought, well, wouldn't it be great if the general public had the opportunity to do something that this very selective group of people were having to do every single day of the year when we're open? And that's really how that experience came about. And I think The Big One gave us the confidence to look at other rides and other attractions that we've gotten and start to think, actually, what is it that we do that people would pay to come and do as well? And Walk the Woodie a hundred percent came out of that. Kelly Molson: That's absolutely brilliant. And I think when we spoke briefly before today, you mentioned that you've got special merchandise that people can buy. And do they get a piece of Woodie? Don't worry, folks, it is structurally sound but they do get a piece of Woodie. Andy Hygate: I have to say, with wooden coasters, people... And I can use this, I said this to some of my American friends and they have no clue what I was talking about. But wooden roller coasters, it's like Trigger's broom. And part of the maintenance of them is that you are constantly working on them and you are constantly replacing the wood. So actually how much of the structure, the original structure is still there a hundred years later or whatever. And anyway, so we're always carrying out that work. And when we did Walk The Big One, we wanted people to take away something after the experience. And actually I've got one here, look, to hold up for you. Kelly Molson: Oh, brilliant. Andy Hygate: You get this medal at the end of it. And it's for some people, particularly if you're scared of heights, which we do get, it's an achievement if you've made it to the top and all of that kind of stuff. And invariably, what actually happens with that as well is that when you get down and you give them a medal, they all immediately have their photo taken with it and so on. So again, it feeds into all the stuff I was saying about social media and so on. So anyway, with Walk the Woodie we thought, well, wouldn't it be nice if we could do something like that? And we thought about a medal and so on. And then we thought, well, hang on a minute, we've got all this wood that we've removed from the ride as we've replaced and updated it. Why don't we chop it up into little pieces and give people a piece of the ride to take? Kelly Molson: It's a genius idea. Not only is it a brilliant piece of memorabilia, it's sustainable too. Andy Hygate: Well, yeah, exactly. And actually what's cool about it is the wood itself often has... You can see the rungs of the original growth in the tree and so on in it. And I'll tell you a really nice piece. People always want the chunk that's got the nails sticking out a bit or the bit with the flaky paint or whatever it is, just because it's all... There's a certain, again, this whole experience thing, people want authenticity. And I think that just plays into that. And also if you are going back afterwards and you've got home and you're telling your friends or your family what you've done, if you're producing a piece of wood from that very ride that's a piece of history and all of that kind of stuff, it just adds to the thing. So yeah, I mean, we always say to people that do it, look, we don't do any hard sell or anything, at the end of it you get those things as part of the experience regardless. But then we do some merch which is exclusive. I mean, I'm wearing one of The Big One pieces of clothing, which we only sell to people that have been on the walk that evening. So the guests in the park can obviously, when they come and visit they can buy Big One mugs and pin badges and Big One everything if that's what they want, of course. But you can only get this stuff by participating in the experience. So it makes it quite special, really. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it does. It's brilliant. I mean, really, we are recording this episode in the run up to Christmas, listeners, but this will launch, this is obviously going out in the new year. And I think this is such a good message to start the year on. And it's something that has been talked about at a number of the ALVA meetings that I've been to and it's something the industry's been talking about in the run up to Christmas season is about that level of experience and doing things that are different, because it is what people are absolutely craving for. And they will be happy to pay the higher price point for doing something that's really special and something that's really unique, and just something that's of real interest to them as well. You are hooking into people's real desires with these unique experiences. I think this is such a brilliant story. Your dates sell out really quickly as well, don't they? Andy Hygate: Yeah, I mean, we've just put on our 2023 dates online. And what we find is that there's a lot of... Well, because of the social media aspect of it, there's a lot of word of mouth about it anyway. And also we got a lot of repetition. Again, I think it's because it's so unique, but in the case of Walk The Big One, the other thing that we find, because we do it from March but we also do it through until the autumn. And you can come along in, I don't know, in the spring and do it and it can be sunshine and lovely and bright and so on. But then you hear that actually you can come back and you can do it in September when the illuminations are on in Blackpool, when it's dark, and the experience takes on a whole different thing altogether. And to walk up effectively in the darkness and just see the lights along the fragile miles along the coastline is a beautiful and very different experience. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I bet that's amazing. So do you get a lot of repeat visits for something like this? Andy Hygate: Yes. What you do is you'll find that those people that do it in the spring, we say, "Oh yeah, we do it in September." And they say, "Oh, I didn't know that." And so that happened certainly early on with it, we were finding that people came back to it. And then obviously once it built up a bit of a reputation when we started thinking about these like Walk the Woodie with the wooden coasters, what you found is that people had done Walk the Big One and knew it was a really fun experience, had a great time. Suddenly thought, oh, well, actually I want to try that as well. And I think it was emotive in a different way because with The Big One obviously it's really tall, and there's no getting away from that. And the thing is, the payoff on that one is that you're going to get that amazing view right at the top and so on. With Walk the Woodie because we've walked the track on them on the Big Dipper, you're not going to go as high at all because the ride's only like 60 feet tall and so on. It's a different experience but in some ways it's, I don't want to say more fulfilling because they're fulfilling for different reasons, but it's certainly more challenging because you're walking a lot more of the track than you would do on Walk the Big One. But also it's that insight that you're getting and that understanding of how the ride's maintained, how it works. And as much as I can describe to you what it's like to walk along a rollercoaster track, when you actually do it, you suddenly get some kind of... The bit that always shocks people is that we start at the end of the ride and we actually walk backwards. And you walk from where the break run is and where the ride would normally end and you do the last little bunny hops, which are the last part of the ride when you're on it, and you do them first. When you're on the ride because the ride's coming to an end, those little bunny hops don't feel like the first drop. You think, that's the end of the ride, they're not very big, and so on. When you have to walk them actually you realise that what you thought was small bunny hops are actually quite large and steep and so on. And it gives people a different appreciation for the ride. And so we've had people that have done Walk the Woodie and then gone back on the Big Dipper when they've come back to the park as a regular visitor, and said that it has totally changed the way that they view the ride and they've got a totally different appreciation for it and how we maintain it, how we look after it, all the work that goes into it. But also an understanding of the scale of these things and so on. And you would never get that just by going on the ride itself, I suppose. Kelly Molson: That's really cool, isn't it? I mean, there must have been, with both of the rides, Walk the Big One and Walk the Woodie, there must have been some challenges that you had in terms of opening this up to general public. I'm sure health and safety was an absolute nightmare. What kind of challenges did you come across, and how did you overcome them? And what would be your advice for other attractions that were looking maybe to do similar or just looking at things that they already have that they could make more of? Andy Hygate: As an idea, I mean, what I would say to people is don't be afraid of an idea. And it was true, when we first came up with Walk the Woodie, and said, this is what we want to do, or we want to try and do it, before we'd even touched the ride or even looked at what the reality of doing of that, I do remember, I remember being told by several people, "You're not going to be able to do that. Not with the general public. It's not going to work." Then there's this problem, this problem, this problem and all that. And we kind of chipped away at those things and thought, well, okay. Well, we know that we do this every day with our staff, and how do they do it safely? And so what do they know that we don't? So we spoke to them and we started doing risk assessments and all the sort of boring stuff, I guess, but the stuff that you really do need to do. And then we did some practices. And we literally walked the entire track with a team of the operations staff in conjunction with engineering and worked out a way to make it work. And some of the challenges were one, yeah, because whenever you do anything different you have to convince some people that it's going to work. So you've got to make it, whatever you're doing, safe. But what I've found is that by actually physically having a go at stuff and getting input from other people and feedback and so on, in the case of Walk the Woodie, we were able to work out a route that we thought, yeah, actually we could do this with the general public. There were bits of it where there's some of the ride, you don't walk the entire track, you walk probably about a third of it during the experience. There was some bits of it where I thought, actually, I'm not sure that this is going to work really well with the public. I'm not sure what they would get out of that. I'm not sure if this is too challenging, this bit, and so on. And we sort of just crafted it into something which also had to work in a certain amount of time and so on. So I guess my advice would just be, don't be afraid to think about doing something that you haven't done before. We've got a great team of people that I work with in my department, and often it's just by chatting to people, you can come up with these ideas, which at first might sound silly or whatever. But I remember us talking about it and someone saying, "Wouldn't it be fun if we could walk in the footsteps of the engineers?" And that sounded really exciting, before you've even heard what it is. It's peeking behind the, I don't know, the curtain to see how things work and so on. And there's a natural sort of curiosity to do that. So I would say to any other attraction that they will have stuff which is unique to them, which people will be interested in having that experience. And the trouble with, I think, one of the things that we always warn our staff about just generally is that in terms of guest service in an amusement park, there's a massive difference between visiting an amusement park for one day as a guest maybe once or twice a year and going into an amusement park every single day because you work there. You have to be really careful when you work there you don't become complacent and you lose that air of magic that a guest will have when they go there just once or once a year or whatever. And so we do a lot of reinforcement with our own staff to make sure that they're remembering that that's the first time that the guests have seen that, when you might have seen it or experienced it 500 times. I think that aspect of it's quite important as well. Kelly Molson: That's really good advice, actually, and that's really interesting, isn't it? Because we always talk about that it's the people that make the experiences, but those people have to genuinely still be excited about it even though they've seen that thing 50 billion times. Because it's the visitor's first time they've seen it and they need to be equally as excited about it as that person that's seeing it for the first time. Andy Hygate: Absolutely. And then on these experiences, that aspect of it actually becomes easy and quite infectious. Because what you see, particularly with... We've involved some of our seasonal staff in delivering these events and they get massive amount out of it. And they learn a few facts or a few stories or whatever and they retell them. The reaction that they get from the people that are stood in front of them when they're stood on the ride talking about it is always positive and that builds their confidence. I've seen members of staff go from being shy and retiring to being stood 150 feet up The Big One, talking to the general public, answering questions, pointing out things on the horizon, all of that kind of stuff. And I'm quite proud of the fact that we've been able to achieve that, both for the guests and also for the staff as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's brilliant. It's really interesting as well, in a couple of weeks on from this episode we have an episode speaking to the London Transport Museum. And it's all about innovation and fostering a culture of innovation. And what you said earlier about don't be afraid to have those ideas and come up with those ideas with your team, I think that just goes to show that you have fostered a culture where people are comfortable to bring those kind of ideas to the front, regardless of how crazy they might seem at that point. But they're encouraged to bring those ideas to you and to see where they can go. Andy Hygate: Yeah. And we've been lucky that that also continues. I mean, Walk the Woodie, we are really excited about 2023 because the ride that you are basically walking, which is The Big Dipper rollercoaster, it's a hundred years old next year. So it's got a big birthday coming, a big centenary and so on. And so we were thinking about Walk the Woodie and thinking, well, actually, now that we've done it and we know how to do it and so on, what can we do differently? Because it's its birthday coming up and people are excited about it, enthusiasts know about it and they're expecting us to do something and so on. And so we started looking at what we could do differently. And so anyway, we've come up with a product for one year only for next year, which is a version of Walk the Woodie but it's called Walk the Woodie 100, for obvious reasons. And we're going to do it differently. And so again, it's about not just resting on our laurels. We've come up with something which is we think guests are going to like. We went through a very similar process to how we came up with the original idea, but we went back to the idea and thought, well, actually, what can we do that we didn't do last time, and what would be different? And we've now got the experience of we had people telling us what they liked about it and so on. And so I'm not going to tell you exactly what we're doing because we want it to be a bit of a surprise. But we are going to do something different with it next year. So people that have done it before can come and they will have a different experience, and people that don't know anything about it or whatever and maybe they're hearing about it on this, I don't know, will come and have a hundredth birthday special version of the experience. So it's always about innovation and keeping things moving and trying to come up with other stuff. And in this particular instance, the fact that it's a ride's hundredth birthday, which is a big deal, really, for a ride, was the motivator, but it could be for any other reason as well. Kelly Molson: Love it. Again, brilliant advice, Andy. It is about coming up with these unique ideas with things that you already have, generating that repeat interest from people that have been on it once but can come back and do it. And then you are expanding on that again by developing on the experience because there's a big event or a big thing happening that year. I think it's such good advice for attractions. So thank you for sharing today. What else have you got coming up? Is there anything else that's coming next? Andy Hygate: We're always looking. I mean, obviously, Walk the Woodie 100 is the big thing. We've done Walk the Woodie, but we haven't done it in the way that we're going to do it. And I think making it unique just for one year, so we're only going to do it like this for one year, it's kind of a cool thing. But I haven't mentioned our other experience, which is Walk the Big One XL, which I probably should because in a way that's a similar kind of... We only introduced that in 2022 and so that's a relatively new version. But what we did with that, and so this will be the second year that we've offered this, basically was quite targeted. And it was targeted at enthusiasts, and I've said that I'm a ride enthusiast, and so we knew that there was this demand there for people to find out more. And Walk the Big One, it's an amazing experience, but it's done in an hour. You're here and gone in an hour, which is fine for a lot of people, but for enthusiasts they might want to know a little bit more and they might want to see some other locations around the ride. So again, we revisited Walk the Big One and thought, actually, what is it that we can do differently that would specifically target that group of people that want to see more or want to know more in depth information? And so again, we went and looked at the ride. Again, we were careful not to get blinded by the fact that we see things like the break run every day. So for us that's not a big deal. But actually for a guest to come and stand on the break run, learn about the station design, learn why it's the way it is, how we put trains on and off the ride and so on, to them is actually really interesting because that's not something that they get to see or hear about every day. And so we worked out a way to take people to different locations on the ride, including a couple of locations that we've never been to really with guests before. Which we've got a platform, and because The Big One is a gravity driven ride, like a lot of rollercoasters. So what that means, in case you don't know, is the train is taken up to its highest point, usually with the click click click noise. It's on a chain and that's the anti-rollback because you don't want to go backwards down the hill. And then when the train is released at the top, it's free-rolling. And there's no brakes on the train, it's only when it goes to a block section, which is either partway round or near the end of the ride, that you can actually stop the train. So a rollercoaster, particularly in our case, which are built right next to the sea, can be affected by wind and so on. And you have to make sure that in the event that a train dipped or didn't make the course, maybe it was slowed down by the wind or whatever, although we do monitor that while we're operating, obviously. But on the rare occasion that something like that could happen that you could get people off. So what that means is you have platforms around the ride, where if the ride stopped for whatever reason, again, gravity would kick in, the train would stop at the lowest point, and you've got to be able to go and get to that train and take people off. And so we thought, well, wouldn't it be cool if you could take people to those locations and they can stand on them and get to go... Again, bits where you would never normally get to go anywhere near. So we take people on, we take them to the brakes first, as I said, then we take them out onto... There's one that has a particularly good view of the beach and the sea and so on. So we deliberately, because it's the most photogenic, we take people there and they get to stand on the platform next to the track and they get some amazing photos that you would never, again, never normally be able to get. And then we take them to the block brake. And we were quite deliberate in this, in that we were increasing the height throughout the experience. And so each location that you went to was higher up than the one before. So it effectively gets more exciting as the event goes on. And the block brake's 110 feet off the ground or whatever. If you've been to the ride, you think that's near the end of the ride. It's not that exciting. And people, when you walk them up, are suddenly shocked at actually how tall it is and the view that you get across the whole park. You get, again, these wonderful photos. And the feedback that we get from guests when we do that is that it is just we couldn't believe that they were able to be up in that location. And then we end, effectively, with the regular Walk the Big One. So we take people right to the top of the ride. It's a much longer experience. The whole thing lasts about 90 minutes. If you're a coaster geek, then you're going to love hearing all of this. And the fact that you get to go to all of these places. And we deliberately walk people through the staff route through the park rather than the guest route through the park. Kelly Molson: That's cool. Andy Hygate: Again, they get to see bits that they would never normally get to walk and so on. And again, it'll be our second year of doing it. If you are a rollercoaster enthusiast and you come on Walk the Big One XL, we're hopefully going to deliver you a proper geeky in-depth look at how a rollercoaster is operated. And again, going right back to the start of it, it's offering an experience that... You're almost offering, although you do have to pay for it, it's almost like a money can't buy experience. Because to be able to do that is really rare. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I guess as you were talking, when you were talking about taking guests through the operators' way through and not the guests' way through, I was like, it's really an alignment to being a zookeeper for the day and being behind the scenes on that kind of thing, that kind of level. Andy Hygate: Yes, absolutely. You go through a gate that to us is a gate that we go through every day and we are not bothered about it, but to a guest it's somewhere in the park they've never set foot in before. It's underneath the structure of another ride. They can get a photo of somewhere where they wouldn't be able to go normally. All of that stuff, all that which just adds to that feeling of, one, it makes the person feel special because they're being given information and a look at stuff that they could never normally see. And two, they're getting this experience that runs alongside it that's just really, hopefully for them a really memorable experience. And then they get all this other stuff, optional stuff at the end of it as well. And I think one of the big bits of feedback that we have about it, and it was interesting that you said about the people, and I do think that you can take people to all of these cool places. The bit that brings it alive is the staff talking about it. Particularly when it's staff that work on the ride and have that knowledge of the ride and know the park and all of that kind of stuff. It's those bits and pieces that when we get feedback about this, and they're the bits that people really love and really latch onto. And yeah, I'm pleased that we're able to deliver that for people. Kelly Molson: Oh, it's brilliant. I've loved talking to you, Andy. This has been so interesting to hear about. I love how passionately you talk about it. You genuinely love it and it really comes across when you talk. Andy Hygate: Hopefully, I mean, roller coasters are fun ultimately, aren't they? But to be able to do these kind of things with roller... I think back, I was saying when I was a kid going to Dreamland or whatever, if I could have walked up the roller coaster in Dreamland, I would've been the happiest kid in the world. So we are trying to offer that, I guess, now to- Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. Andy, you've got your big birthday coming up. I hope you're listening, Dreamland, because you know what will make Andy happy for his birthday. You should do a little hookup, maybe do a little trade with their team and your team. Andy Hygate: I'd love to. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Andy, what book have you got to share with us today? We always ask our guests to share a book with our listeners. Andy Hygate: Yeah, I've picked a book by a director, a film director called Derek Jarman. And it's a book called Modern Nature. And don't worry, it's got nothing to do with camping or anything like that. He's sort of an inspirational person to me. But why it's important to me is actually it's based around... The guy lived effectively in a beach hut in Dungeness, which is down in Kent, which is where I'm from originally, in a situation which is considered by many to be... It's somewhere that's not that far from where my parents live. It's probably about 20 minutes drive. And to some people you would describe, particularly in the winter, you'd describe it as blink. And it's a pebble beach and so on. And there's something about the English coastline and beaches and so on that I really like. And I like the fact that we have seasons. I like Blackpool in the summer, but I actually like it in the winter as well. This book is kind of like a diary, really, about how he's built a pebble garden, because it is literally on the beach, in the shadow of a nuclear power station, which sounds horrible, but actually I think it's a really inspirational thing. And I think you can see beauty in stuff which is unconventional and so on. And the fact that he's managed to build a pebble garden and have plants in an area which is a harsh environment that can be seen as bleak, but actually I think there's great beauty in that. And that all comes across in that book and its very inspirational, conversational style makes it a really memorable book for me. And it's also somewhere where whenever I go back to Kent, I always go down there for fish and chips. And there's something, it sounds really strange, but sitting in the car in the winter, having fish and chips and listening to the power station humming in the background, it's actually really sort of reassuring. I don't know. Kelly Molson: It's not an experience I've ever had, Andy. I feel like I'm going to have to add that one to my list. Andy Hygate: No, I realise that sounds really odd, but I guess I've got an emotional connection to that place as well. And the fact that someone's written a whole book about it and their connection to it is what connects with me. So yeah, that's probably my choice. Kelly Molson: I think that is a great book choice, Andy. I've never heard of that book, but I'm absolutely going to check it out. Listeners, if you want to win a copy of Andy's book, you know what to do. Go over to our Twitter account, retweet this episode announcement, and you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Andy, it's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you today. I think this is a wonderful podcast to start the new year off on. So thank you for coming on and sharing with us. And I look forward to joining you up in Blackpool at some point to Walk the Woodie. Andy Hygate: Yeah, you must do. Looking forward to it. It's been a pleasure. Thank you very much. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Looking forward to 2023: Key digital trends attractions shouldn’t miss out on. | 14 Dec 2022 | 00:38:20 | |
EPISODE NOTES Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://twitter.com/MrTicketeer https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypovey/
https://blooloop.com/technology/news/convious-consumer-pricing https://blooloop.com/technology/news/convious-digital-trends-webinar/
Andy Povey joined Convious in November 2021 as managing director for UK and Ireland. Andy has worked in the attractions industry since the early nineties when he began as a ride operator at Chessington World of Adventures. He stayed with the Tussaud’s company and later Merlin Entertainments for another 18 years, working in a variety of operational jobs at Rock Circus, Madame Tussauds, and central support, where he was responsible for the group’s ticketing systems. After Merlin, he worked for Gateway Ticketing Systems for ten years, opening and then overseeing their UK operation, before transferring his experience to the Convious team. Outside work, Andy enjoys visiting attractions of all shapes and sizes with his family.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in, or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Andy Povey, Managing Director, UK and Ireland for Convious. Andy shares with us the five key digital trends attractions shouldn't miss out on and research into dynamic pricing for theme parks and tourist attractions. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Andy Povey, it's so lovely to have you on Skip The Queue podcast today. Thanks for coming on. Andy Povey: Thank you. It's my absolute pleasure. Kelly Molson: And I know you've been a bit poorly. So let's just state now, poor old Andy has had COVID, and he's got a little bit of a cold today. So be kind to him. Andy Povey: It's man flu. Kelly Molson: It's always man flu, Andy. Right. As ever, we're going to start with icebreakers and I've got a really good one for you. So how would you describe your job to a three year old? Andy Povey: Oh, to a three year old? Well, I've got eight year old twin girls. So as far as they're concerned, daddy gets to go to zoos and theme parks without them, which is not brilliant. But no, I make computers work, I suppose. Kelly Molson: Make computers work for cool attractions like zoos and theme parks. I think that's perfect. Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: Good job, Andy. We'll talk more about that later. Okay. What one thing would you make a law that isn't one already? Andy Povey: That's a really difficult one. Kelly Molson: They're always difficult, Andy. It's always. Andy Povey: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You're being mean to me. Yeah. Oh, I'm in our office in Amsterdam at the moment, so I'm traveling a bit. And I do have a theory that you should never, ever fly from an airport where people feel it's appropriate to turn up in flip flops. Kelly Molson: Well, even if you're traveling back from holiday and it's a bit warm. Andy Povey: So the law would be, if I'm at the airport, and I'm waiting in the back to get to Carousel, you need to get out of my way. Kelly Molson: I think that's fair. Everyone goes a bit savage at the airport. Don't you think? You know when you go into London, and there's a certain way that you act on the tubes to get to places. You've got to walk really, you've got to be very determined, haven't you? Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: That's how I feel when I go into London. I've got my London walk on. And I feel it's a bit like that at the airports as well. Everyone's all in it for themselves. They don't care about anyone else around them. It's all just- Andy Povey: No, no. Get out of my way. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's a good law, Andy. Right. Everyone has to get out of Andy's way at the airport. That's the law. Nice. Okay. And this one, I've asked a few people this one. Because I really like this one. What would you buy as you exit through the gift shop? Andy Povey: I'm not really into things. I'm much more of an experience kind of person. So if there was another experience, or something to enhance the experience, then it would be something like that. Kelly Molson: Okay. Good answer. Andy Povey: Yeah, something to enhance the experience. Kelly Molson: Good answer. I like that, Andy. And we'll talk about that a little bit more later as well. What would your twin girls pick? What would be their things from the theme park? Andy Povey: Oh, cuddly toys. You must be the same. Shelves and shelves and shelves of these things in the house. Kelly Molson: My daughter is doing incredibly well from all of the visits though that I have been on recently. Yeah. Let me tell you the gift shops, I've been [inaudible 00:03:28]. Andy Povey: Squish 'em alls. Kelly Molson: To the gift shops. Yeah. Andy Povey: What do they call them? Kelly Molson: Squishy animals, all sorts of stuff. She's now got from various attractions that she's never been to that I'll have to take her to, to say thank you. Andy Povey: No, when mine were the same age as your daughter, I went to Orlando a few times for IAAPA. And I would buy them Mickey Mouse and Mini Mouse cuddly toys, and bring them home. But because they'd never seen anything to do with Disney, these were just referred to as Boy Mouse and Girl Mouse. Kelly Molson: Oh, bless them. Andy Povey: They didn't know what Mickey Mouse was. Kelly Molson: Oh. And I'm sure they do very well now. Andy Povey: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Kelly Molson: All right, Andy, what is your unpopular opinion? What have you prepared for us? Andy Povey: I actually did a poll of my colleagues in the office, because I was looking at something to do with Eurovision, and actually trying to work out whether my opinion was unpopular or not. And unfortunately it wasn't. So Eurovision massively overrated is my opinion of this. Kelly Molson: Gosh. So- Andy Povey: I knew we were going to fall out over this. Kelly Molson: Well, it's not just me. There's a lot of listeners that you are going to make very unhappy about that statement, Andy. Not to mention Rachel MacKay, who, if she hears this, I don't know how she's going to feel the next time she sees you. So that is for you to feel awkward about. Andy Povey: You asked for an unpopular opinion. Kelly Molson: Okay, let's put it out there. How does everyone feel about Eurovision? I feel like this is definitely going to be an unpopular one, Andy. Thank you. Right. Okay. Andy, so you have got over two decades in the attraction sector, self proclaimed attractions industry nerd. I think that's fair. Tell us a little bit about your background, and how you ended up working in the sector. Andy Povey: A colleague did tell me the other day that it's actually 30 years, and I was trying to hide away from this. Yes, I am old. So many, many years ago, started a temporary seasonal job at Chessington World of Adventures, having left college without a clue about what I wanted to do when I grew up. My first job was driving the train around the park at Chessington, and absolutely fell in love with the attractions industry. And then stayed with Merlin or The Tussauds Group, which then became Merlin Entertainment for about 18 years, and doing all sorts of different jobs. So that's how I fell into it. And I've never looked back. Kelly Molson: It's a really common theme actually, from guests that come on who've gone to work in a theme park or an attraction as what they probably thought would be a temp job for a while. And then absolutely loved every minute of it, and then have just risen through the ranks. Whether they've stayed in one group or they've moved around. But they've just continued to learn, and learn, and learn, and progress. And that comes across so frequently with our guests. It sucks you in. Andy Povey: It absolutely does. And it's a great industry. And I love the fact that you can build a career within our industry from starting right at the bottom, and just work your way up. I think it's a testament to the industry. Kelly Molson: What kind of roles did you work in then as you moved your way up? Andy Povey: So I did four years at Chessington as a ride operator. Then went to Rock Circus, which was a subsidiary of Madame Tussauds in the Trocadero and Piccadilly Circus in Central London. It was there for four years, and we were told that someone from head office was going to come and install the till system and tell me how to make it work. At which point I went, "Oh, maybe not." So I went and became that person. Kelly Molson: Oh, you were a tills man? Andy Povey: Yeah, I was. It was a tills man. So I started in ticketing before the internet. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Andy Povey: Before anybody really knew what the internet was, and then moved to Madame Tussauds for a short period of time, and then to what was Tussauds Group head office in Tottenham Court Road looking after all of the till systems for the organisation. And then did that for about 10 years, and then left, went and joined the supplier that we were using, Tussauds, so gateway ticketing. I was with them for 10 years. Basically convinced them to set up a UK office, and I ran the UK office for 10 years. And then after COVID, decided it was time to go and do something else. So came across Convious, the company I work for now, and whose office I'm sitting in today. And that's it, really. That's a very brief summary of Andy's career. Kelly Molson: Excellent career. I'd like to hear a little bit about Convious. So I am aware of you, and I think that most people at the moment would be aware of Convious. They're everywhere. Convious are everywhere. Andy Povey: Yeah. We're bright pink, and we shout a lot. Kelly Molson: And they're pink. Andy Povey: Don't know what they do. Kelly Molson: You have fantastic stands, events that we all attend. But I think there's something really different about Convious. Can you just tell us a little bit about it? Andy Povey: So it's not just what Convious are doing. There's something going off in the whole world of technology that the sales force are referring to as the fourth industrial revolution. And so competing with third industrial revolution from sort of 1949 to 2010, the fourth industrial revolution's all about data. And five years ago everyone was talking about big data. That was the buzzword that was everywhere. So we were just storing loads and loads of information. The fourth industrial revolution we're seeing now is actually doing things with that data. Because there's no point in just paying for a load of storage somewhere, if you're not going to do anything with it. So what we're doing at Convious with that data. It's really sitting on top of our partner's websites rather than being a page that you go off to, and gathering as much data as we possibly can. So we pull in long range weather forecasts, we're pulling in all sorts of information about how people are interacting with the website. And ultimately just using it all to drive sales and increase sales for our partners. Kelly Molson: I know that the weather thing is a really small thing of the system. It's a tiny thing, but it's the thing that sticks in my head the most. Because I just think it's blooming genius. I know. It's such a small thing, but it's such a clever thing to have. Andy Povey: It really does affect attendance at so many attractions. And I love Dom Jones when he was talking to you. I love his take on the weather, of actually, if you're going to blame the weather, you should also give the weather credit when you have a great attendance. Kelly Molson: I agree. Yeah, I love that quote from Dom. So it is really interesting in terms of what Convious do. Because I think that one of the things that attractions could be better at is using the data that they already have in more sophisticated ways. And the Convious platform allows you to do that really easily. Because let's face it, marketing teams are overstretched in attractions. And they can be quite small at times as well. We had Danielle and Ross on from Drayton Manor a few weeks ago. And the two of them pretty much head up their department. And I know they're a head of marketing as well. But that's a small team for what is a significant attraction. Andy Povey: Yes. Yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: So anything that we can help to put in place for those teams is ultimately going to make it easier for them, and make it better. And they'll be able to understand better what their customers are actually doing. Andy Povey: And ultimately it's about making it easier for the customer. There's a whole focus on personalization at the moment, again, across the industry. So rather than it being one too many, it's one personalisation. And looking at, if we know something about the customer, so take me for example. I buy family tickets, and I love industrial heritage. So Google knows that about me, and Google will tell every website that I go to, that's who I am. So if we've got a family offering as an attraction, then let's promote the family offering. If you've got an industrial heritage offering, let's promote the industrial heritage offering to the people who've identified that they are. Ultimately it's about giving people what they want. Kelly Molson: And that's the really smart bit, isn't it? That the system can identify the person that's coming, and show them the things that are more relevant to them from that attraction. Then the standard things that they might like, they might buy. But actually this is the one that they really want, because that's connecting with them at a completely deeper level. That's some of the stuff that I want to talk about today. So one of the things that's good about Convious, and I'd like to hope that Rubber Cheese are aligned in this way as well, is that when we think about talking to attractions, we're giving them things that are useful. I think, that ultimately from any marketing perspective is how useful can you be? This content that I'm putting out, what value does it bring somebody? And how can they engage with it? And is it helpful for them? And that's what I feel Convious does really well. And I see a lot of your articles on Blooloop for example. And a month or so ago there was an article about the five key digital trends for attractions as we roll into 2023. And I think that this is a really good time to talk about these things. Because people are doing a lot of planning at this time of year. They're in Christmas, which this year feels very busy, because it's the first Christmas people can- Andy Povey: It certainly does. Kelly Molson: It's the first one though, if you think about it, that people can actually go out and feel comfortable that the things they're going to book, they can actually do. Last year we still had that Omicron. Do we do big groups? Do we just stay inside a little bit longer? But this year feels busy. And I think that attractions will get through Christmas, have a brilliant Christmas. And then January will be that time when they go "Right, what are we doing? This is what we need to focus on now." So this is very pertinent. It comes at a great time. One of the key trends that you just mentioned was personalization. So you talked about making things relevant to your audience. Really, really relevant. Are we talking about exclusive here as well? Because we talk about that quite a lot. Exclusive events and things that they can only get at certain places. Andy Povey: Yeah, I think so. And I think that's one of the things that, not just around digital, I think it's one of the things that the attractions world will do to really weather the economic storm that we're going through at the moment. Generally what we've seen over the past 12 months is that if you've got a short event, or a short-term event, it tends to sell out. So looking at what you as an attraction can do that creates that exclusive event. So if you are a park, can you get Peppa Pig on site for two or three days? Can you get Paw Patrol there for a couple of days? So giving people their incentive to come, and come again, and come again. So not just being, this is the six weeks of the summer at my theme park. This is the Peppa Pig, fortnight, although two days. And this is the Paw Patrol for two days. So improving that repeat visitation. Kelly Molson: And what you talked about data, I guess that comes back to really understanding your audience. Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: So you need to be collecting the data to understand what those people want in the first phase to then be able to tailor your offering to what they like. Andy Povey: 100%. 100%. There's no value in creating a Peppa Pig experience if none of your visitors have got kids. A great way to waste a load of money. Kelly Molson: I don't need to see Peppa. Andy Povey: No. No, no, no. Kelly Molson: You can keep Peppa. So you talked earlier about what you like, and that Google knows that about you. How do attractions tap into that? I guess through advertising, right? Andy Povey: Well it's not just advertising. It's actually looking at... And you did the survey a few weeks ago about the attractions, and understanding Google Analytics, that kind of stuff. It's free. You do not need to pay to get Google Analytics data. It's there for you. And there are so many venues, and so many prospective clients that I'm talking to now, that don't have access to it. It's almost criminal. There are still vendors out there that don't share this information. So I suppose to come back and answer your question is, go and look at the data that you've got. Google Analytics will give you a view of everybody that's coming to your website. Kelly Molson: Find out who they are, what they like, and then give them what they want. Andy Povey: Well, yeah. But tailor something for them. So if you've got a large foodie audience, then look at your catering. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really good advice. Andy Povey: Can you put on a Heston Blumenthal event, or a Jamie Oliver event? Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really great advice actually, taking it to that deeper level. The second key digital trend was about online and offline, which we're talking a lot about online and offline as well. So this isn't just about digital, but I guess one of the things that was mentioned was about digital experiences. And I guess you can talk about that from a pre-visit perspective. How do you engage people digitally before they turn up at your event? But also, once they're at your venue too. So digital experiences that deepen or extend the experience that you were already giving them. Can you think of any really good examples of that, that we could talk about from an attractions perspective? Andy Povey: That's really difficult. The reason that we go to attractions as human beings, is because we like doing physical things. We want to be with our friends. We want to be with our family. Particularly after COVID, it's has been difficult to go and see granny, and whatever. So it's safer to go and visit a park, or to visit a garden than it is to possibly all sit around in the lounge, having a cup of tea. I can give you an unusual example, I suppose. The Forestry Commission did something a few years ago with The Gruffalo, and it's an augmented reality thing. Kelly Molson: Yes. Andy Povey: So as a parent, you could sit your child on a tree trunk and hold up your phone, and the augmented reality would superimpose an image of the Gruffalo sitting next to your child. They pulled it within six months, because the parent is having this experience of looking at their child through a phone. Whereas the child's sitting there going, "Well, mummy and daddy's just on their phone again." Kelly Molson: "Where's the Gruffalo?" Andy Povey: "Mummy and daddy's just on their phone again. What are we doing?" Kelly Molson: Yeah. Andy Povey: So in that situation it's about getting back to reality, rather than being digital. So it's a really fine line. At what point does an app, or a park map, or something like that, at what point does it enhance your visit, versus intruding on your visit? Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's a really good question. It's really funny, because when you mentioned that, I was like, that's a perfect example of this, how digital interacts with nature. But you're right, aren't you? Because the child doesn't interact with it. They just see you pointing a phone at them again, or you interacting with your phone and not with them. I hadn't considered that, and what message that actually sends out to them while they're outside in nature as well. Andy Povey: Yeah. And so I'm not a [inaudible 00:18:44] who's going, no, no, digital should be nowhere near your experience. It should be there, and it should be enhancing. But actually really understand that it is enhancing. So if you talk to the guys from BeWILDerwood, I know there was a podcast with Hannah. They delight on the fact that you can't get a mobile phone signal in Norfolk. Because you should put your phone away. You're here to have a day out with the kids. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's a really good point. I actually quite like it when I can't get any mobile signal, because it means that I'm present. Andy Povey: Yes, absolutely. Kelly Molson: It means I'm not worrying about having to check something. I'm actually not even that concerned about, oh I needed to get this picture for the gram. I just forget about it if I've got no signal. It's just not going to happen. One thing that we do have to think about though, from an online perspective, is about bookings. So what we have seen, and again we've seen this in our attractions website survey that we've just published, is that bookings are increasing on mobile year, on year, on year, on year. So we do have to think about that pre-visit, and how easy we make it for people to book tickets. So actually, someone asked me this question on LinkedIn yesterday. What's one of my top infuriations with attractions websites? And I said for me, I'm often on my mobile phone when I'm doing things, because I'm out and about and I might be booking my tickets on a mobile phone. And I really hate when you're forced to create an account before you can actually buy anything. And I'm like, "God, I've got literally five minutes before I get off the train, and onto the tube. And I've got no signal. And I've got to get this ticket. I don't want to be creating an account right now." Andy Povey: No, no, no. Kelly Molson: Just give me the ticket. I might get an account afterwards, but just give me the ticket. Andy Povey: That was one of the things from your report, wasn't it? The account creation is a massive turnoff to conversion. And for me, I never remember any of those passwords. So every time I go back to their store, I'm having to reset my password, because it's just an absolute pain in the butt. Kelly Molson: I'm with you. So there you go. Andy Povey: Don't do it. Kelly Molson: Top tip from this podcast. Don't make people do that. Andy Povey: Yeah. Don't do accounts. Kelly Molson: Two very angry consumers here. Andy Povey: Absolutely. 100%. Kelly Molson: All right. So number three on our digital trends list is increasing loyalty. Now this is a big one, isn't it? Right? So again, it's interesting. So from a personal perspective, again, I was asked about memberships. We have a National Trust membership, it renews in January. I'll absolutely be renewing it. It's great value for money. It gives us so many places locally that we can go to. It's not a free day out, but it's a great day out, and we can take quite long. Andy Povey: It feels like it. Kelly Molson: It feels like a free day. Andy Povey: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Yeah. But do attractions need to think a bit more about that now? So should attractions be rewarding loyalty? So member perks for example? Or just small things that members get for being a member, that you couldn't get unless you were a member? Andy Povey: Absolutely. It's almost those money-can't-buy experiences. So it doesn't necessarily cost the attraction anything to do these things. And you can go have a member exclusive event to walk a coaster track, or to a behind the scenes tour of something. But yeah, all right. It might cost you a couple of hours for a member of staff to put it on. Again, as we came out of COVID, the first people that came to your rotation, were your most loyal customers. They've come to see you as the first thing they can do. So as an attraction, you have the opportunity to harness that loyalty, and turn these people into advocates. And that's going to be your best marketing resource, where they're recommending to people to come along to you. So if you can deepen that relationship by rewarding, by sharing, then absolutely you should do it. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's understanding what they want as well. So when we talk about delivering what they want, should attractions be surveying their members, and finding out what more they can give them? And again, it comes back to the data thing again, doesn't it? How well do you know your audience? From a member's perspective, are you actually giving them what they want? Andy Povey: No, absolutely. And surveying's great, but there's so many other ways you can capture information about members and what they're doing that isn't actually going and asking them a question. It was interesting when we did the dynamic pricing consumer research. The responses that you get from people when they're answering a survey aren't necessarily what they're doing in real life. Kelly Molson: Interesting. Give us an example. Andy Povey: There was, 30% of people believe the airlines aren't charging dynamic prices. And I'm looking at this going, well, this can't be right. This is obvious. But actually, if you dig into it a little bit more, and we did with the guys from Baker Richards. And it's actually, the consumer's not looking at the price changing. The consumer's interested in the price they're paying for the date and time that they want to get on the plane. It doesn't matter that the price changes. It's how much am I paying today? What's my price now? That's a very long winded way of answering your question about the value of surveys. Kelly Molson: Yeah. No, it's really important, isn't it? So how else do you get to know your members? If surveys are giving us not quite the full picture, what other ways can we find out about- Andy Povey: So if you are looking at app, then obviously you are tracking, or you have the ability to track where people are going, how they're engaging, that kind of stuff. I was at IAAPA a couple of weeks ago in Orlando. And there's guys there with a new product that's actually harvesting location data from 200 different apps, and bringing all that, and presenting it back to you. Which I'm not a hundred percent sure that it is GDPR compliant, or [inaudible 00:24:44]. Kelly Molson: Is that okay though? I'm not sure about that. Andy Povey: Yeah. But there it's looking at where people are going, how long they're staying there, and that kind of stuff. So that's one example. Going back to what we do at Convious, we don't capture addresses, postal addresses. Because we're not interested in old school CRM. We're not going to produce a mailing, a physical piece of paper and post it out to somebody. So why are you asking them to fill in all those fields with their address on? Kelly Molson: That's interesting. So even from a geographic perspective, it's not always relevant to understand where your customers are traveling from. Andy Povey: You can get all of that from the IP address that they're coming from. Kelly Molson: Sure. Andy Povey: So obviously it's really important to understand whereabouts in the country, and how far away your customers are from you, and that kind of stuff. But there are other ways to gathering that information, rather than traditional filling in. Back to your comment about filling in my address on the phone. Yeah, I've got fat fingers. I'm not going to type my address in on the phone. Kelly Molson: And I'm busy. Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: It's not going to happen. Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Kelly Molson: All right. Yeah. No, I like that. Andy Povey: Make it as simple as you possibly can for people. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And the data's already there, so just gather it from the right place without giving people something else that they need to do. Good. Okay. All right. Well, our next one is about engagement, digital engagement. So digital engagement, from a marketing perspective, I always think about user generated content at this point. Because you're asking your visitors, from an offline perspective, you're asking them to engage with something that's at your physical attraction, but then you then encouraging them to share that digitally. So you're getting that double exposure and, you're also generating content from your users, which is invaluable for your marketing team. So that's the thing that I always focus on from digital engagement. What other things can we ask attractions to focus on? Andy Povey: A story someone told me many, many years ago was that their marketing guy actually ran a training session at this attraction, I can't remember which one, for staff on how to take the best photos. Kelly Molson: Oh that's great. Yeah. Andy Povey: You see a family, and mum or dad's taking a picture of the other parent and the kids, obviously the member of staff is going to offer to take the photograph for them. That's just human nature. That's what we do. But if you've already identified the most memorable background to put these people in, then the member staff can just move them slightly. And it improves and increases the rate of those photos being uploaded and shared. Kelly Molson: That's such a small thing, isn't it? Andy Povey: Isn't it? Kelly Molson: But again, that's genius. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Get a better picture for people. They're more encouraged to share it. I love it. That's so clever. I hadn't even considered that. But again, that comes back to the people. People make places. Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: So you empower the people to make those things happen better for those guests. I love that. Yeah, great one. Okay. And then I guess reviews is something that's really important about engagement. And how do we encourage people to leave reviews about the venues? Andy Povey: It can be as simple as your post visit survey. Standard. Everyone's doing them. Kelly Molson: Ah, are they though? Are they though? Andy Povey: Well, yeah okay. Everyone should be doing them. Kelly Molson: Okay. Should be. Andy Povey: Everyone should be doing them. And then you can have some intelligence sitting behind it, that if you get a lot of high scores, whatever, then direct the consumer over to the review site at the end of the review. If you're getting some negative scores, then direct them to your customer service team and do something about it. As human beings, we're happy to share this kind of information, as long as we're getting something back from it. It's a transactional relationship at that point. So we talk a lot about harvesting data. But morally, you can't do that if you're not giving the consumer something back, and giving them a benefit for doing it. Back to your comment about accounts. What's the point of me creating an account? What's my benefit of doing this? There isn't one. I'm just going to get annoyed about it. Kelly Molson: This is the thing, actually. So most of the time when I've had to create an account to get my ticket, there hasn't been any further interaction other than someone's whacked me on their mailing list. And I'm probably going to unsubscribe from that mailing list, because I'm annoyed that I've had to make the account in the first place. So what is that benefit? Yeah. Think about if you are going to force people to do something, at least make it worthwhile for them than a newsletter. Just sticking them on the newsletter list is not going to cut it. Andy Povey: Absolutely not. Absolutely not. And then for a long time I was on the Encore Hotels mailing list. I get an email from them a couple of times a week. And it started, Dear Povey, you- Kelly Molson: Dear Povey. Andy Povey: Dear Povey, you have got that so wrong. You cannot. Your CRM is so bad. Kelly Molson: Can I tell you though? So sometimes when I have to sign up for stuff and I have to put my company name, I get emails to Dear Rubber. That's not okay. I'm quite used to it, but it's still not okay. Andy Povey: No, no, no, no. So yeah. We're talking a lot about examples of how not to do it, than how to do it better. Kelly Molson: Well I think this is important, right? Andy Povey: It is. Kelly Molson: There may be attractions listening to this, going, "Oops, we might have done that. We might need to change that." So it's all relevant. Andy Povey: Oh no, on a positive. I got an email from Father Christmas yesterday. It's from an attraction we took the kids to last year to go and see Santa. And it's the first mail I've had from that venue since visiting, so 12 months. So I'm not getting spammed. And you see Father Christmas arrive in your inbox. Kelly Molson: Oh, that's nice, isn't it? Andy Povey: It's a very special moment. So that was very well done. Very well done. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really smart, isn't it? If you're just going to send one email a year, make sure it's from Santa. Andy Povey: Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: Right. Let's talk about pricing, because that's our number five key digital trends for attractions. Now pricing's really interesting. We've talked quite a lot about pricing recently. So we had Dominic on from Mary Rose, talking about pricing. We also had Simon Addison from Roman Baths, talking about pricing. Andy Povey: Yes. Kelly Molson: Let's talk about dynamic pricing, because it's something that we touched on just earlier when we were talking about the airlines and the surveys. So airlines use something called real time pricing. When a plane's almost full, the airline company's going to bump their prices up. Because they know they're going to sell out, and they know that somebody really wants that ticket, because they have to get somewhere on a certain day at a certain time. So it's a bit of a no-brainer for them. Is that something that attractions should be doing? Andy Povey: I think so. And as an industry, we've talked about dynamic pricing for the past 20 years. And when I was Madame Tussaud's, we implemented what then was peak and off-peak pricing. And so we changed the price of the ticket three times during the day. And actually, because we were very explicit about what the price was, we were stuck at this 1995 price point, and had been reluctant to change for a while. We actually increased our ticket yield by about 30%, whilst also increasing our value for money score, which seemed counterintuitive. And actually what was happening there was that the consumer was choosing how much they were going to pay. So rather than being told what the price was, the consumer chooses. So naturally we are more comfortable about a situation, where we feel that we've had some choice. Dynamic pricing does that. Real time pricing, which is where we sit at Convious just makes that run much more efficiently, much more quickly. So a lot of dynamic pricing consultancies out there at the moment will talk about changing prices every day, which if you think, generally people are buying tickets to an attraction three to five days before they visit. They're only going to see three to five different price points. Whereas the way the modern world is going, or the way we are is, we're changing prices, or we can change the price as a result of every single transaction. Kelly Molson: Does that make it more difficult from an operational perspective, if you're constantly changing your prices though? Is it harder to do your forecasting, for example, if that's your price strategy? Andy Povey: If you are forecasting on individual ticket price level, yeah, absolutely. So don't do that. Kelly Molson: Good advice. Andy Povey: Yeah. So every attraction that I've ever worked in and around has a target yield, or a target ticket price to achieve. And we've been doing variable pricing through all the coupons that get put out on all the leaflet racks that you see on every motorway service station. So you can't control how many of those coupons are coming back, and how much discount you're going to get. So having much more control makes it easier for you to manage that, and get the computer to do it. Obviously if you're sitting there changing the prices all the time, then yes, it's going to be a nightmare. Kelly Molson: Nobody wants that job. Andy Povey: No. And the other thing on dynamic pricing is, we still get hooked up on the idea that dynamic means increased, and it doesn't. If you're doing it properly, then it doesn't mean the price is going up necessarily. Obviously you get a better yield. But the guys at Pleasurewood Hills down in Lowestoft, they have a very transient market. So there are loads and loads of holiday parks in their area. So Mondays and Fridays are change over days. So their total addressable market on a Monday and a Friday drops by 50%, because people are packing up and going home. So if you drop the price on a Monday and Friday, or drop the price on a Monday and Friday. Someone who may have come on Wednesday, is now going to come on Monday or Friday, have a much better experience, because venue's not full. And so it smooths their demand. So there's a lot of science behind it. Kelly Molson: Yep. And that all comes back to data, what we started talking about, right? Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: Knowing- Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: Knowing where people are coming from, what they're doing, how you can change their mindset about things just from the data. Andy Povey: Yeah. And actually watching what they're doing. So we have an artificial intelligence engine that sits behind what we're doing. And it can monitor in real time what's happening about your conversion rate. So if you put the price up by a pound and then your conversion rate drops by 5%, you've probably gone up too high. So drop it down a little bit. So just manage it better, I suppose, in summary. Kelly Molson: I think that's good advice for life in general, isn't it Andy? Andy Povey: Oh yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: Just manage it better. Andy Povey: Just manage it better. Kelly Molson: This has been a great chat, Andy. Thank you. I think there's loads to take away from. So what we're going to do in the show notes. So there will be links to all the blog articles that we've mentioned today about the digital trends. And I believe there is a webinar that you ran about dynamic pricing as well. And I believe that we might have a link to that too that we could share, which would be great. But Andy, we always end our podcast by asking our guests to share a book with us, something that they love or they've really enjoyed that they think our listeners would also like. Andy Povey: So I've pondered this for a while, and I know that some of your previous people you've spoken to have got away with two. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Andy Povey: So I've got a request for two books. Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Okay. Andy Povey: One's a business book. Really simple, about a half hour read. It's called Who Moved My Cheese? Kelly Molson: Good book. Andy Povey: It's one of my favorites when I first read it 20, 25 years ago, something like that, it really gave me a different way of looking at change. So I really recommend that. And the other one is actually a book I love reading to my kids, called Oi Dog! Kelly Molson: Oi Dog! Great. Andy Povey: Oi Dog! Yeah. So there's a child in all of us. And that for me really just tickles all of my childish bones. Yeah. Kelly Molson: Oh brilliant. Andy Povey: So it works pretty well. Kelly Molson: Well, both of those books are right up my street. So Who Moved My Cheese? Unsurprisingly within a company called Rubber Cheese, you won't be surprised to know that somebody bought that for me when I set up the business. And that was nearly 20 years ago. So that was one of the first business books that I think that I ever read. And it did make a big difference about how you deal with change, and how you compartmentalise it into an easier way of dealing with. But Oi Dog! sounds right up my street. I'm going to put that on my list too? Right listeners- Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: So as ever, if you want to win a copy of Andy's two books, then if you go over to our Twitter account, you can just search for Skip the Queue, and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words, "I want Andy's books." Then we'll enter you into a draw to potentially win them. Andy, thank you. It's been lovely to chat today. I've really, really enjoyed it. I'm sure I will see you out in events soon. And if I don't see you- Andy Povey: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: Before, have a wonderful Christmas. Andy Povey: And to you. Thank you very much, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast..
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| Castle Howard through the lens. What it’s like to film a TV production at a visitor attraction. | 30 Nov 2022 | 00:51:23 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.castlehoward.co.uk/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/abbi-ollive-411509171/ https://www.channel4.com/programmes/castle-howard-through-the-seasons Castle Howard's love story with China - as told by Abbigail Ollive
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in, or working with, visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with my very first returning guest, Abbigail Ollive, Head of Marketing, Sales, and Programming at Castle Howard, the stately home and visitor attraction in North Yorkshire. Abbi takes us on a journey through the seasons at Castle Howard as she explains just what it's like to film a TV production at a visitor attraction as she shares her advice for other attractions that are thinking about doing the same. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the user channels by searching Skip the Queue. I am very excited to have Abbigail Ollive back on the podcast today. Abbigail Ollive: To be the first returner. It mustn't have put you off too much first time round. Kelly Molson: Well, I think it's more like I didn't put you off, because you were episode six of season one, which was all the way back in 2019. And I didn't ask people icebreaker questions then, so you might regret this after this. Who knows? First one, what is the strangest or worst gift that you've ever received? Abbigail Ollive: Last Christmas, my partner basically took Christmas as an opportunity to solve anything I'd been moaning about. So my Christmas presents were things like those little hand warmers, because I'd obviously been complaining that my hands were cold. And I'd been complaining about my drive to work here at Castle Howard in rural North Yorkshire sometimes being a little bit hairy. So my Christmas present was winter tires and a four by four driving experience to try, which at the time I was like, I really would've loved a baking experience or a pizza making course or something, and I was pretty grumpy about going. But it actually turned out to be a really excellent gift and I had a fab time. I feel like I'm qualified now to drive people through a field or through a stream if they need, and I know how to use my ridiculous rural vehicle. So I was a bit grumpy about it, because I was like, it's very kind but it feels like you really wanted to come and do this. Kelly Molson: It's quite thoughtful though, isn't it? That's quite a well thought out gift. Abbigail Ollive: I guess so. Kelly Molson: He's been listening. He's just interpreted it in a slightly more original way than you were expecting. Abbigail Ollive: See, that sounds very ungrateful, doesn't it? And I did have a fab time, but I have dropped some hints this year about... I guess I've decided to complain about different stuff. In case that gets resolved in a different way. Kelly Molson: I'm running out of mascara. Abbigail Ollive: My shoulders are really tense. I think a massage might really help me this year. Kelly Molson: Like it. Yeah, I'm running out of mascara, if anyone's listening. I need some of that on my shopping list. Spa day would be excellent. My shoulders feel tense too. I like this subtle hint dropping. If you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life, what would it be? Abbigail Ollive: Whenever people ask me like, what's your taste in music? It's just very eclectic. And at the minute I am listening on repeat to Self Esteem, who I think is just amazing. I don't know if you are at all familiar with her. She's called Rebecca, she's from Rotherham, where my dad is from. I don't think many pop stars have come out of Rotherham, South Yorkshire. But give her album a listen. We saw her at a festival when she was quite up and coming, and she's just done Jools Holland and is now on a bigger tour next year. We booked again to see her. And it's just hugely empowering. I think for younger women, teenagers kind of finding their way through what can be quite a complex time, I just think her lyrics and her whole approach to empowerment is really, really inspiring. I don't know whether that'd be the one I'd listened to forever, but it is on repeat in my car on my journey to work constantly at the moment. And that's my top tip I think. Give her a listen. She's very cool. Kelly Molson: Did you combine that album with the off-road driving as well at the weekend to give you a little bit of an extra boost? Abbigail Ollive: No, I think maybe empowerment but, yes. Women driving through fields in pickups. Kelly Molson: Awesome. Good response. Okay, final one. If you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be? Abbigail Ollive: I think I was meant to be in the 1950s. I think that kind of grease styling is... I'd love to just look like that every day, really, if I could get away with it and if I had time to properly do my hair in rollers and all of that jazz. I think that's the period I'd probably go back to and I think be quite into, that sort of retro 50s. Really bright. I like the bright, vibrant... I'd happily drive an American pink Cadillac through the country roads of North Yorkshire. Kelly Molson: I remember this about you. You're all about colour. I do remember this about you when we met in person. You love a colour and you love a patterned dress, an excellently patterned dress. Abbigail Ollive: Yeah, I do. And I wish I could suit a hat better. Some people are like... My brother's always in a very cool hat, but I just don't suit it. I think it's the fringe. The fringe, glasses, hat combo is one I can't pull off. Kelly Molson: Fringe with a wooly hat is really difficult, isn't it? Because it just pushes it down into your eyes. I'd like to be a hat person as well. I feel like people that wear hats, they just exude confidence. Do you know what I mean? Just have that... They walk with confidence. They walk high with a hat on. I'd quite like that too. That's good choices. All right, what about your unpopular opinion, Abbi, because we've never had one of these from you. Abbigail Ollive: No, we haven't. And I'm sure I've got plenty I could share, I mean, my initial instinct with this was, I would never be upset if I didn't ever hear an Oasis song again, but that's not the one I'm going to go with. Sorry. It's a podcast related one. I thought I'd be topical. I really hate comedians on podcasts. I just can't be doing with all the trying to be funny and all the chat in between what it is they're actually meant to be talking about. I love the foodie podcast, but I just want them to cut to the chase and I want to hear somebody talk about something they're knowledgeable about. Maybe I just don't really comedians in general, but on a podcast that's my unpopular opinion. Kelly Molson: Do you think it's because they're trying a bit too hard because that's their job and they're trying to... If a supplier comes on and they're trying to plug their thing, they're trying to plug their I'm funny, really? Abbigail Ollive: I think it's just like... I was going to try and not name names, but I'm quite a foodie and I like a foodie podcast and I think maybe I've realized that actually I want to hear about the food and not all the chat that surrounds it. So yeah, comedians on podcasts. Kelly Molson: All right, good one. Glad I'm not funny or I'd be right [inaudible 00:06:53]. Abbigail Ollive: Well, I'm not either, so we'll have no comedy. We'll just get the questions. Kelly Molson: That's it. We're done now. We're done with anything humorous for the rest of the episode. Excellent. Thanks for setting the tone. Abbi, just for our listeners that don't know of you, I'm sure there's not many, tell us a little bit about who you are, what you do. Abbigail Ollive: I at the moment am very fortunate to be kind of running the visitor attraction side of things at Castle Howard. So anybody who hasn't heard of Castle Howard, Castle Howard is a stately home in North Yorkshire. It was designed by Sir John Vanbrugh in 1699, so it's a historic house open as a visitor attraction, but also sits within a 9,000 acre estate. It's still home to the Howard family, they are directly my line managers, and Castle Howard's opened 364 days a year as an attraction. But I think it's also a really interesting place. I arrived here knowing that I was coming to be involved in a visitor attraction, but I think maybe it was more of a pleasant surprise that we're actually foresters and farmers and we have a holiday park and holiday cottages and a farm shop and a garden centre and all the catering and retail outlets as well. I think in total it's nine different businesses, and my role kind of heads up marketing and events and programming and sales and that kind of visitor experience side of things. I'm not actually being asked to be responsible for the farming and forestry, you'll be relieved to hear, but it's also just unlocks so many stories that as a marketer at heart, I guess, is really exciting on a daily basis. We're not a charity, so all the income generated by footfall and visitors paying for an admission ticket goes directly into the restoration and heritage of the building and the listed landscape. I've been here for just over five years, so I'm just in the middle of Christmas number six. It's a joyous time to be at a place like Castle Howard, when it's all decked out for Christmas and we're welcoming literally thousands of visitors a day over this festive season. Big day today. It's a kind of rainy, North Yorkshire, midweek day, but we've got 11 coaches here and they're all having a fabulous time. And I've just had a message saying, can someone come and help with the Queues in the bauble emporium? So that's the kind of thing that can occur on an hourly basis. But yeah, I'm Yorkshire, so I haven't actually moved very far. Not deliberately, but just because stuff's come up here, and it's a gorgeous place in the world to be. I've got a little boy, so living in the countryside and having quite an outdoorsy life really suits us. My background's in theatre, but theatre marketing and comms, so did 10 years in theater before moving across into visitor attractions, which is just a theatre of a different kind, I think. Kelly Molson: It is. It's a show, isn't it? You're creating a theatre for people that come and visit. And that leads us a little bit to what we're going to talk about today, really, a show of a slightly different kind. I think there's been a bit of a run of programs like this. I'm talking about programs like the Secret Life of the Zoo at Chester Zoo, Inside the Zoo, Edinburgh Zoo. There's been quite a lot of zoo related TV programs on recently that give you a bit of a snapshot of behind the scenes. I think One Zoo Three was the other one from Paradise Wildlife Park. But you have been involved in shooting TV programs for Channel 4, called Castle Howard: Through the Seasons. Tell us a little bit about what the TV series is, and then tell us what on earth made you decide to be part of a TV program. Abbigail Ollive: I suppose dialing back a little bit from the TV show we've just been making this year is... I guess Castle Howard's one of the original screen tourism destinations and has been in some pretty iconic period dramas. It's very well known as Brideshead Revisited, both the 1981 Granada TV show and then the later movie in 2008. And we had our Bridgerton moment, so series one, episode six, or episode sex, as most people know it in Bridgerton, was all films here at Castle Howard. And I could definitely tell you plenty of stories from that few weeks of my life that I'll never forget. But I think we're kind of used to being a location, and Castle Howard plays its own part in a period drama. It's almost a character in its own rights, and we've been in plenty of them. And we've also filmed the Arctic Monkeys music video here from their most recent album, and we've also played host to an American TV reality show, which was... I describe it as kind of Love Island with a Regency twist, which recently someone said should be the name of a cocktail, which I [inaudible 00:11:57]. That was an American reality TV show. But I think it's the first time then that we've actually considered seriously and gone ahead with us being the subject of what is being filmed, and I think that's the big difference really for us with an observational documentary or, ob doc, as it's known in the business. There were a few things really that made us decide to go ahead with that, and you've mentioned already a couple of those really reassuring series that happened, mostly zoo related, that made us feel like actually there's a real warmth and positivity to how they're not trying to stitch you up, they're trying to tell a really positive story about your people and your attraction. I think that's maybe changed over the last few years. So we'd seen Chatsworth go first really, they opened their doors and did a year in the life at Chatsworth, and that actually ended up being during the pandemic, so it was a very unusual year in the life of Chatsworth, in that a lot of the time it was during lockdown. But even through that challenging period of time, when we watched it as viewers, we could see that that team had really taken a lot of care to tell Chatsworth stories and to be really respectful and positive about the whole estate. I think that that was a huge reassurance for us. I think in the past I've had loads of filming inquiries over my time here and we've really avoided the sort of fly on the wall documentaries. I think there's been a general perception and nervousness that they want to stitch you up. And also, for me, the format only really works if you have the buy-in and the involvement of Nick and Vicky Howard, who are the custodians of this place, and have them authentically involved. And I think they had seen in years gone by maybe some not so positive examples and that had put them off the idea. I think we started talking to the ITN team who'd been working with Chatsworth during the pandemic, and it was a real slow burn. It was about building that relationship and having meetings with them, them getting to know me and the Howards, and talking really about what the stories were that we wanted to tell. They came to us originally as part of their Christmas series they were doing, so last year when we had Narnia as our Christmas theme, they made a four part series across four different houses and we were one of those, so it was a more intensive Christmas at Castle Howard experience first off, and that's been quite different to then them coming back and being here all year. But I think it's definitely, I'd say, we said no quite a lot before eventually we said maybe, and then over the course of probably a year of meetings and building trust and really bottoming out what we all want to get out of it, we eventually said yes. And I think in that time as well we'd seen things released like Secret Life at the Zoo. I think our other main concern or nervousness about saying yes was we were sort of waiting for a vintage year at Castle Howard. We knew that coming out of the pandemic, everything's been challenging and difficult and we felt like, maybe next year or in a couple years time we'll be doing a really big significant bit of restoration to a monument or we've got plans to reinstate some of our burnt out rooms after the fire that Castle Howard suffered during the war. I think we felt like there's going to be a big story to tell, and we better hold off for that moment in Castle Howard's history before we let the TV cameras in. And I think actually what changed that was the pandemic and thinking, well, actually, in any kind of normal or abnormal year we have amazing people, we have amazing stories to tell. Sometimes it's those smaller stories of truly getting under the skin of the life in a country estate like this that viewers will ultimately really enjoy. So we stopped holding off for that perfect moment and went for it. Kelly Molson: It's interesting though, because you're thinking about, I guess, once you agree to go ahead with something like this, you are thinking constantly about, how entertaining is this actually going to be? Is just our day to day stuff that goes on all the time, is that enough for people? Are they going to actually tune in and watch it? And how is that going to... I guess there's a thought all the time about how we're going to be portrayed and how will that come across. So if you hold out for this room needs renovation or looking after, that gives you a focus that will detract from just some of the normal stuff that would be happening. Abbigail Ollive: We actually started with ITN and Channel 4 in 2020, and we were trying to pull off a Christmas in the middle of COVID. When the tiering system and all that business came in, we couldn't go ahead, like many attractions and houses. So we started making a TV program about... I was billed on this... I was definitely shown as head of saving Christmas, and then we had to cancel it, so we canceled the whole thing and we took the difficult decision actually that it wasn't going to be the show we wanted it to be. We mutually agreed, really, to pull out of that, because we didn't want a show about trying to make a big Christmas happen and then the government saying, "You're in the wrong tier, you can't open," and a show of about how disappointing that was. So we took that decision. Actually, that was a gamble at the time because I thought maybe that would be that done, really, but they agreed to come back the following year and make Christmas in Narnia as a documentary. I think it's definitely had its ups and downs over quite a period of time. So, again, that build of trust and them getting to know us during the year that didn't happen. I think they saw enough potential to think, actually, we'll come back and go again. But all of that's really challenging when they and us have put budget and resource into a whole period of filming that we then pull the plug on. Kelly Molson: Yeah, of course. And by no fault of your own. Actually, there was nothing that you really could do about it. You made the right decision at the time. I guess I just want to step back a little bit, because you said that you... I can't remember if you said that you were approached by them or if you approached them to talk about it, and how do you work out what the focus of the TV show will be about? Abbigail Ollive: I'd been approached by quite a number of observational documentary companies, and I'd met with quite a few, and it was this exec producer who'd been working with Chatsworth, and we'd seen a bit of what they'd done at Chatsworth, that made us agree and further that conversation with this particular production company, which is ITN for Channel 4. We've been approached a lot, and continue to be, actually, and I think, like you said, at the beginning, there's a real rise, isn't there, in these sort of observational documentaries at places within the visitor attractions sector. So we didn't actively go out to try and do this, I suppose we were courted and approached and took a little bit of persuading. Kelly Molson: I guess everyone that's going to be part of this has to be really comfortable with being on camera, right, because they're going to be recording for a whole year at your venue, so you've got to get used to people being around, you've got to be able to run your events around while all this filming is happening as well. So it's not a quick decision to make at all by any means. Abbigail Ollive: No, there's a lot to think about, actually. And I think we made sure we'd properly thought about that and met and bashed a lot of that out internally before we started. I think the things that made us most nervous were around control and editorial control and how much of that you just have to relinquish and how much we would be allowed to input into the storytelling and storyboarding. I think there was that, but also the ability for us to resource it. Like you've said, it's no small thing to take on. We're quite a small team, we're still doing everything we need to do in a normal year, pulling off big events and big projects, and having a film crew with you three to four days a week every week of pretty much a year, is quite intense. I think what we tried to do to overcome that was before anybody had a camera put in front of them, we tried to do a really good amount of kickoff meetings with all stakeholders, with the producers. We were really, really clear with them about our ambitions and the key messages we wanted to communicate by having a year in the life at Castle Howard filmed. It was an opportunity for us to communicate that real conservation aim and the fact we have a conservation deficit, we're not a charity, it was a really good opportunity for us to communicate where visitors' admission fees go. It's really powerful to actually see somebody restoring a chimney or repainting windows, and understand what resource has to go into that. And that's across the board, across the whole estate. So I think sometimes that's hard to communicate, actually, with visitors, but having this mass market platform to do that. We were really, really clear about what we wanted to get out of it and what actually goes into running a rural estate and managing that in the 21st century coming out of the pandemic with all the wider world landscape going on as well around us. That was really important, actually, that we felt respected and like the TV crew and their producers understood what we wanted to get out of it. I think that's really helped throughout the whole year, that they can go, "This scene that we're filming now, that really relates and helps tell that story from your objectives." So yeah, that was certainly helpful. Kelly Molson: That's great, isn't it? That they're so aligned with your objectives that they're actually highlighting things that reference back to them as you're shooting. Because sometimes you might think that gets discussed at the top and then it gets parked and then we might not think about that again until it gets to editing stage and by that point there's so much content, how are they going to really get the message across that we want them to? And I guess that comes forward to one of the questions about that content and the editing process and how much of that were you involved in as you go through the filming. You've had those initial conversations about objectives, but were there any times where something was happening and they were shooting, and in your head you're watching this thing unfold in front of you going, "This cannot go out on telly, and they're really going to want this to go out on telly and that's not going to happen at all"? Abbigail Ollive: That has changed throughout the year. We've all learned a lot as the year has progressed. We started very structured and I planned out everything to within an inch of it's life. For last Christmas I kind of diarised everything the film crew were going to be attending, made sure we had pre-meetings with everybody involved, made sure departments were all on board and had key messages and understood what we were trying to get out of every scene. I pretty much storyboarded the whole episode, and I remember the producer saying to me, "We don't normally get quite this level of input from the team on the ground." I think I'm just a bit of a control freak, because I can't have people just wandering around with a camera, who knows what they'll discover. But actually I think what I quickly discovered is that that doesn't always make the best TV, and they're experts, they're really good at what they do, and I just needed to learn to trust that we were all actually aiming for the same outcome. They weren't trying to sneak around and find stuff that I didn't want to be filmed. Actually, as the year's gone on, I think by the time we got to the Christmas episode, which they only left last week and are busy editing that now to turn it around, they knew the Castle Howard team so well and our team knew the Channel 4 team so well and are so used to them being around, it just has needed a lot less input from me and my team. They really had a sense of workflows around who's responsible for what. They felt like an extension of our team as the year has gone on and we've really built that trust, so I had no issue then with them kind of going off and filming something happening without me being present, because I'd learned to really trust them. I can't really do this chat without mentioning Peacockgate. Kelly Molson: Please. Abbigail Ollive: I think that's an example really early on where it was a day where on my schedule we were having a historic paint specialist scraping off layers of the paint on Castle Howard's windows to try and discover what the original amber colour would be, because we're now in the process of repainting all of the external woodwork, which needed doing, and white paint didn't actually exist then and so was never the colour that Castle Howard would've been painted on the windows and woodwork. We had this amazing guy doing his historical paint scraping, which is what I had the Channel 4 crew focused on, because I thought that would make a very interesting restoration story. And then got the call from World War III that appeared to be kicking off in the car park because it was breeding season for our peacocks. We've got about 20 peacocks on the estate and, well, we think there was a male interloper to our peacock gang. I don't know where he came from, but this male peacock was very rowdy and very randy, and was seeing his reflection in cars, so in the visitor car park. Any kind of car, especially if it was a dark colour or blue and was clean. So luckily my car was always very safe, it's never clean. It was seeing its reflection and trying to attack what it thought was a rival peacock. I've got the person who looks after our security on high alert trying to basically chase a peacock out of the car park, and people very concerned that both staff cars and visitor cars were going to get damaged. So this was all kicking off and I was like, "Right, everybody keep the Channel 4 team focused on the windows. Do not let them come anywhere near what's occurring up here." Because I could see our head garden running around with what can only be described as a giant butterfly net, like something a Victorian explorer, trying to literally catch and net a peacock. Anyway, it escalated fairly quickly and the peacock got onto one of our staff cars and smashed in the back windscreen. So it became actually not that funny quite quickly, because then we were suddenly into a really difficult scenario. The person involved was very upset, as you can imagine, and from an animal welfare point of view we didn't want to do anything to the peacock that... This is during visitor opening hours and, of course, on the day where we had the Rolls Royce Society coming on a trip. So we then suddenly had to pull off people from various parts of the attraction to go and be Rolls Royce security. They didn't even notice the peacock, they thought we were giving them such an amazing service, they were delighted. They couldn't believe the amount of security we have in our car park. So, all this was kicking off, and we had a couple of emergency senior management meetings assembled that day to decide what ultimately the different options were. And in this meeting we discussed what should we do about the Channel 4 film crew, and everybody's instinct was, we're now involved with insurers, the insurers are saying, "It's a wild animal, so we can't really help you." But we'd just put on social media in National Gardening Week the week before that the head gardener has names for all the peacocks and has hand reared them, so there was kind of an insurance argument going on. We love the peacocks, and visitors absolutely love the peacocks, and they make Castle Howard really unique, so it's really difficult when you've told that story. It was like Jurassic Park, I'm not joking. It was absolutely carnage. All the peacocks then got wind of the fact that someone was trying to catch one of the crew and they started... There's a video from inside the main house, which Nick Howard took, of them all lined up on the windows pecking the glass. And I was thinking, they're now going to actually smash in the windows. They just went feral. But in this meeting we had this big debate then. This is all quite unusual, I guess, maybe not on a Tuesday in whatever it was, April, May. And I brought it up in this meeting, I said, "What are we going to do about Channel 4? We're not going to be able to keep this secret, really. We have to decide whether it's something where happy to let them film and cover, what's it's reality, it's what's going on." And Vicky Howard, to her credit, she said, "I think it's going to make excellent TV. If you're doing a year in the life at Castle Howard, you want to show some of the slightly more quirky things that go on." And it was reality, it was what happening. So we made the call to their exec producer and explained what was going on, and then obviously you won't be surprised to hear in episode one, which was aired week before last, the historic restoration of the windows does not make the cut, but the whole story of the peacock, which went from the sublime to the ridiculous over the next few days, does make the cut, and we've now got peacock merchandise in the gift shop for Christmas, and he's famous. Kelly Molson: You capitalised on every element. I love it. Abbigail Ollive: Yeah, we have. I think that's a good example. You've asked how... At the point where we go, I think we need to relinquish control. I can't storyboard this within an inch of its life. I can't actually control everything I want them to film. And this is going to make great TV. Kelly Molson: I mean, it makes great TV, but it also makes a great talk. I'm not going to lie listeners, I have heard this story before and I had to go on to speak after Abbi shared this with the room, so you can imagine just how my talk bummed the room. Outdone by a peacock. Thank you. Abbigail Ollive: I didn't think we were doing Secret life of the Zoo here, but as it turned out. Kelly Molson: Who knew? It's a brilliant story. I think what you said is, you just at some point have to relinquish control, because it is going to make good telly. It's a bonkers thing that happened that day, you had no way of... There was no part of planning that that was going to happen. It wasn't a normal thing that happens every day. Yes, you've got peacocks, but they don't normally go feral and start smashing up cars. What could have made for a better TV moment than that? Other than Peacockgate, is there anything else that surprised you about the process of the filming? Abbigail Ollive: Maybe that the people you think are going to be great characters sometimes aren't, and those who are really reluctant to feature and would naturally run a mile if you try to put them in front of a TV camera, often make the best TV. I think finding your stars and the really authentic people who are incredibly passionate about what they do. And in a place like Castle Howard those are people around every corner, people who are been working here for four generations and have amazing passion and connection with the place. And then those people who have really unusual skills, like my paint specialist, or people who are just doing incredibly niche things. I think it's not hard to find the stories, but I think it was that, really. There were people who I was trying to navigate the cameras away from and then there was really willing people who... I put myself in that category, I didn't mind at all being on film, but I think I just come across as a Blue Peter presenter, and actually there are funnier, more authentic, lovely people shining through on the series that we had to coerce a little bit more into being involved. I think that, again, it all comes back to the thing I said earlier about building trust. Our producers had a really good instinct for that. I think they managed really skillfully to get under the skin of the organisation, and by relinquishing control a bit and letting them do what they do really well and trusting their judgment, they ended up putting some of our people and scenarios and stories on TV that I definitely wouldn't have storyboarded, I don't think. Kelly Molson: I guess we talked about editing and control and stuff and relinquishing that a little bit earlier, but the series is out now, we'll give everyone the dates and we'll tell them where they can find it in a little while, but did you get the opportunity to watch it before it's been out live for people? Abbigail Ollive: It was a really small team of us who had a low res proof and we were allowed to, within the contract, check all of the facts and also have an opinion and push back on anything we thought might be reputationally damaging. And actually we changed a few facts and corrected people on some stuff. But I think we've been really pleased, actually, with the way in which it was edited and we haven't pushed back all that much. I think being able to watch it and absorb it a couple of times before giving the sign off, has been a really helpful layer. There were no massive surprises then when it's aired to a million people on TV, because there's already been a layer of fact checking. For me, that's about making sure people's job titles are correct or they're referred to in the right way. I don't want someone to have put a lot of time and effort into a filming sequence and then be called the wrong thing or credited in the wrong way, so I had that layer of editorial input. But ultimately what ends up in and what ends up not in is totally up to them. I think that's just one of the learnings, really. It's about managing people's expectations. The dog festival we do every year is a good example. We spent a whole weekend, and actually the weeks leading up to it, covering that as a story and lots of filming, lots of people being asked to do bits on camera and the various suppliers and providers we had at that big event, and it didn't make the cut at all. It's just because if they're here for the whole year, they decide, probably because of the peacock, actually, but they decide what flows in terms of their narrative, and we have to just manage people's expectations in that. Helpful for me to see it, so I can also do that, because I don't want everyone sat at home on a Saturday night watching for their bit and me knowing it's not in there. Kelly Molson: God, can you imagine? So you imagine that your paint history guy ready for his big moment, and then the peacock takes over. Yeah, that's an awful. Abbigail Ollive: I think internal communication, and I'm sort spending a lot of time, or have spent a lot of time, persuading people to be involved in filming, and then I have to do the bit of time explaining to people that, thanks for going above and beyond to organise that thing so we could film it, actually it's now not in the show. But I think one of the other things that it's maybe, I don't know if it's a surprise or not, but Castle Howard and a year in the life here is a microcosm for what's happening in the real world. And one of the other things we discussed quite a bit off camera as a senior team was how much we sugarcoat our narrative and want to look amazing and brilliant and positive, and in the end we decided it's better to be really transparent. You see our senior management team then in meetings with the cameras in the room, talking about how visitor numbers haven't been what we forecasted over the summer and cost of living crisis and the things that are happening in the real world. Because I think the risk was is that people would maybe watch this and think, "Well, they've got no grip on reality and what the challenges are that people are facing." So I think we had to just be very authentic and real. And we did debate that quite a lot, actually, because it's perhaps a slightly more exposing or brave thing to go, "Well, yeah, come into the senior management meeting, we're going to discuss the figures, we're going to discuss the reforecast. This is why we think numbers have perhaps dropped off. This is what we're going to do about it." And I think, hopefully, that gives viewers the sense of what goes into the running of the business. You see our, amazingly, they agreed to be filmed, you see our Ukrainian refugee family arriving in an estate cottage next week on the autumn episode, and it reflects what's happening on the estate here is what's happening in the rest of the world. And unbelievably as well, some of it's, like you said, some of it's luck and you couldn't plan exactly where the cameras were going to be at what point, but they were filming a senior management meeting at the moment where the announcement came through of the Queen's death, so they film the reaction to that as it's happening. And that could have happened at 10:00 at night when nobody was even in the building. Some of it is luck and a lot is planned, but it really is a reflection, I think, on the mood of the nation and what else is happening in the wider sector and political landscape and everything else. So I think, again, how I approached it was, we've got all these great stories to tell and this is who I want in it and what I want to feature, but actually as life happens and as the year progressed, you couldn't have planned half the things that have ended up in the show. Kelly Molson: No, not at all. But it does give it that authenticity about this is real, this is actually happening and this is our lives. It's not just a TV show. One thing that struck me, actually, was, when I was watching, there was a moment where one of the senior management teams said, "Look, I think we rule out the fact that overseas visitors are not coming. That's it." And it really made me think back about the last time you came on the podcast, which was in 2019, and when you came on then it was talking about the love affair that Castle Howard has with China and the amount of visitors that were driving through from a famous wedding that you'd had at the castle. And I just thought that is a complete and utter contrast, isn't it, to the things that we are now talking about now and that process and that experience that you've been through to get to this point. Abbigail Ollive: Because some of those foundations that we've really relied upon in terms of generating income, like our Chinese market, when that rug's pulled from under you, I think it's made us be maybe a bit more brave and risk taking in grasping opportunities that maybe we wouldn't have done in 2019. And I'd say this filming project is one of those, I absolutely put that in the category. We're in a position where we know some of those income streams aren't coming back, so putting ourselves in front of a huge audience and grasping that PR opportunity this year, I think is a direct result of how the world's changed in the last couple of years. Kelly Molson: Yeah, for sure. So, reflecting on the experience that you've been through, and it has literally just finished, you said that that they're now hastily editing the Christmas episode to go out soon, or winter episode, what advice would you give to other attractions that are thinking maybe we'll do it, maybe we'll start to have those conversations? Abbigail Ollive: Hopefully got a few nuggets. And also really happy to talk to anybody who is in the process of going into this, having now had some lived experience of it. But I think if you're open to filming in the first place, having clear contact details on the website. For location filming, and obviously this kind of thing as well, we produced a filming brochure, which is a PDF and a physical brochure, to kind of sell Castle Howard. Whilst this observational documentary obviously came to us as an opportunity, we're actively trying to sell ourselves as a filming location. I think reaching out to... If you've watched a program and you've really loved it, there's always credits at the end and you can kind of say, "Well, that's a really good example of something I'd love to replicate in my own workplace," and tracking down those people and setting up meetings and chats. Obviously we're part of the treasure houses group, there's 10 treasure houses that are privately owned stately homes in the country and we do a lot as a collective. We're attending a filming exhibition in London together called Focus in a couple of weeks time, and, as a group, making sure we're in those places, meeting the location managers, meeting the people in the industry, starting to form those relationships. The Christmas series this year that Channel 4 are doing, again, it features of the treasure houses and different ones to last year, so we're a repeat, I guess, in that it's winter for us, it's not necessarily just about Christmas. But then you'll see [inaudible 00:41:26] and Holkham as well. And Holkham were kind of going at it second time round, and Harewood for the first time. We've shared a lot of knowledge and talked a lot really about how we've approached it. And I've been a real advocate for it. I've encouraged those other houses, sorry, they might hate me for it now, to go for it, because we'd had such a positive experience last year with the team filming. I can vouch for the fact that they want to work with us and we're all pulling in the same direction. I think for us as well, my other bits of advice are, maximising the opportunity once it's happened. So making sure SEOs all working really hard for you. Making sure as soon as... We had to basically open all those doors to our website, because when a million people are watching you on Channel 4 on a Saturday night, we didn't want the website crashing. We wanted really clear calls to action about booking for Christmas and booking the cottages and campsite. Anything we can sell. When there's that opportunity of that many people Googling you, we wanted to make sure we were ready for it. We were also really aware that a lot of the people watching the TV show wouldn't necessarily be in the area or region and could just buy an admission ticket. We hope when the Christmas show goes out on the 3rd of December it will sell any final tickets remaining. It certainly did last year, but we've this year decided to do a virtual experience that people can buy, so we'll probably have that on sale to coordinate with the Christmas TV show going out. So for those people who are overseas or who can't get to Castle Howard this Christmas, there'll be a virtual tour, obviously inspired by places like London Transport Museum, who do their Hidden London tours, and plenty of theatre events do similar and do it really well. And then for us, maximising the press and PR opportunities that come out of the exposure. And then my other advice is the boring stuff, really. Making sure everything is covered from insurance and how we protect our assets. Having really clear guidelines for when the film crew's in the house, what they are and aren't permitted to do. Having all those access arrangements and risk assessments all agreed up front. So there's a leak on the roof, of course the film crew are going to want to be up on the roof at the moment when that happens, and you haven't got time to go through the whole process of doing a risk assessment and talking about insurance at that point. So it's kind of trying to think about all the scenarios up front and making sure all of that paperwork was done. So that's the boring stuff. And then communication, just communication, communication, you can't over communicate it. I found people get really grumpy if you turn up with a TV crew whilst they're busy in the middle of something highly important or some kind of high risk job, and I'm like, "Could we film you?" It generally doesn't go down brilliantly, so I've been an absolute stuck record in every meeting I've been in this year where I've been asking, "Can Channel 4 film it? Can Channel 4 film it?" And then making sure people are wearing something appropriate if I know people are going in to film them, like properly branded uniforms, and just giving people a heads up so they know that it's likely they're doing a thing as part of their day and I'm going to be along with a TV crew. But actually what's happened then is as the year has progressed, people have come forward more and more with opportunities. So people start letting me know, "We're doing a acorn picking," was one thing. I would never have known there was an acorn picking initiative going on in the forestry department. So people have been coming forward to me, and I've now got this brilliant content army of people letting me know what's going on in their week ahead, and they're actively thinking all the time, "This might make a great story for the TV." So I think you can't over communicate stuff. And then the final thing, which has been my mantra, it's absolutely obvious, but if you don't say it on camera, they can't put it on TV. Kelly Molson: Such simple advice. Abbigail Ollive: Simple advice. Kelly Molson: Abbi, this is going to be one of my favourite podcast episodes ever. You are always so generous with the advice that you give and the support that you give to the sector. So thank you for saying that you will help people and you're happy to talk to them. I think that's really amazing. We will put all of your details in the show notes so people can find out about you. But if you're not watching it already, how do we find out about the show? Where can we watch it? Abbigail Ollive: Yes, it's called Castle Howard: Through the Seasons. It's a Channel 4 production, so it's going out on Saturday nights, but more likely you'll be able to catch it with it on all four watch on demand. I'm sure it's something that will get repeated variously across the years, because that's great. They're busy repeating, I think, Chatsworth's documentary at the moment as well, and there's one happening at Highclere, and I think these things just kind of have quite a long shelf life actually, so hopefully you'll be able to watch it on demand way into the future, embarrassingly. Kelly Molson: For sure. Without a doubt. Abbi, we always ask our guests to share a book with us before they leave, something that they love or something that they've just enjoyed as part of their career or personal. What would you like to share with us? Abbigail Ollive: In my life outside of Castle Howard, I do a lot of baking and cooking. We have a little family business and cafe, so I'm a crazy baking lady some nights for that. But actually, it was difficult to choose, because I've got a whole amazing shelf of cookbooks that I use very regularly, but Sabrina Ghayour, who has recently released Persiana Everyday. I absolutely love Middle Eastern cooking, and I'm not really sure where this passion came from, but I think that particular book I've been using a lot recently, because it's good, quick recipes, they're really reliable, and they're brilliant midweek, not overly complex when you've got your store cupboard of ingredients sorted. But I actually chose this because it's something that... Our Channel 4 producer who's been with us for a year, Hannah, and I massively bonded over food, both being foodies, and I actually invited Sabrina to our press launch at Castle Howard because she's recently moved to the area, and funnily enough, I got a tweet, I got a DM tweet from Sabrina Ghayour saying, "You work at Castle Howard? I love Castle Howard." And I was like, "Oh my god, I mean, I love you. I've got your book and use it all the time. I can't believe you're trying to befriend me." So I invited her along to the press launch and she came, and Hannah, Channel 4 Hannah, and I had a proper fangirl moment of just basically going, "We really love your recipes." So it felt like a good, relevant, irrelevant one, although there were plenty I could have chosen. Kelly Molson: Oh my god, I am so with you on this. I have all of her bits except this one. Maybe I'll enter myself. Abbigail Ollive: Good Christmas present. Good Christmas- Kelly Molson: Yeah, there you go. They are the books I go to if we're having people over for dinner, or every New Year's Eve we cook a feast for the two of us, it would be three of us now, but we cook an absolute feast, and it's always lamb and it's always something incredibly delicious from one of her books. I think would've fangirled a little bit too. Abbigail Ollive: I know. And she uses our farm shop a lot, obviously, because we have estate tenant farmers, and I think it's really brilliant to champion that field to fork message. And if you're going to eat meat, it's brilliant that it's local. It's such a treat for me to be able to have a farm shop at work where I can and get that from. So yeah. Kelly Molson: Amazing. All right, well, look, listeners, as ever, if you want to be in with a chance of winning that book, if you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with, "I want Abbi's books, book even", you will be in with a chance of winning it. This is the second cookbook that we've had on the podcast recently as well. There's a little trend here. I'm getting a little message [inaudible 00:49:33]. Abbigail Ollive: The other one that I was close, is when I was on holiday recently, I read, I'm sure somebody must have recommended it, the Bob Iger book, The Ride of a Lifetime, because he was the CEO of Disney for 15 years, and this week's just been announced that he's back at Disney after retirement. Not to go on as a prize, but for anybody working visitor attractions I found it a really inspiring read. The last paragraph of, well, sorry, the last chapter, really, is his bullet points of the kind of things he lived by whilst running Disney. I'm going to do the old school thing where I print it out and stick it on my wall. So that's just a top tip for the sector. I'm sure most people have read it and I'm, as usual, three years behind the trend. Kelly Molson: No, it not been recommended, though. It definitely has not come up on our... No, I will check our library list, but I am positive that that hasn't come up yet. But you can't win that one, it has to be Sabrina, because you will fully appreciate the cookbook. Trust me. Abbi, thanks so much for coming on. It's been an absolute pleasure. Abbigail Ollive: Thank you so much for having me. It's been a delight, as always, to talk to you, and I do feel so honoured to be second time round. Kelly Molson: My absolute pleasure. You're always such a treat when you come on, and I genuinely am so grateful for all the support and advice that you give to people. So thank you. Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Kelly Molson: Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast..
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| A surprise election, a dip in the sea, and all the glass cases in the world | 05 Jun 2024 | 00:40:40 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast. Competition ends on 19th June 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
Skipton Town Hall https://skiptontownhall.co.uk/accessibility/ Noor & Katu https://noorandkatu.com/ Survey mentioned by Paul: https://www.euansguide.com/media/0uyju30y/final-23-euansguide-results-pdf.pdf Kids in Museums Open Letter: https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/2024/05/dear-change-makers-an-open-letter-from-the-kids-in-museums-youth-panel/ Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - https://rubbercheese.com/survey/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/ Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/ Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII’s personal man at arms. Outside of work he’s a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids.
Transcription:
Oz Austwick: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Oz Austwick. It's been a busy few weeks in the visitor attraction industry and the world at large. So in today's episode we're going to take some time to talk about what's happening, including the recent M+H Show, the upcoming election, the Family Friendly Museum Awards, and of course, the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey. Oz Austwick: So, Paul, where have you been recently? Paul Marden: So as we are recording, it is currently half term week, a little bit of a damp half term week, which is a bit of a shame when you're in mid May, but went to Longleat at the weekend and went specifically to go and see their Steve Backshall live event, which is happening at the moment. So for those of you that don't have kids watching CBBC at the moment, Steve Backshall does the deadly 60 telly programme, which is kind of animals and nature on CBBC. And Steve brought out some of the best animals on his event at Longleat. So it was really cool. We got to see some. We saw an armadillo, we saw massive, great python and a wolf. He brought a wolf out on stage, which was pretty awesome. Oz Austwick: Oh, wow. Paul Marden: Yeah, that was cool. So there was lots of oohing and ahring and everybody enjoyed it. Lots of fun, even though it was absolutely gushing down with rain whilst we were there on Monday. So we didn't. Typical english style. We did not let the weather get in the way of a good day. What about you? Where have you been recently, Oz? Oz Austwick: We had our bank holiday day out on Sunday, not on Monday. So we had amazing weather. We threw all the kids in the car and drove down to Dorset to Swanage, where I used to spend my childhood holidays. And the place that went was Swanage Pier. I love it there. I spent my childhood, you know, fishing off the pier and swimming in the sea. Sadly, the hotel I used to go to doesn't exist anymore. They knocked it down and turned it into a sewage treatment plant. Paul Marden: Attractive. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. But it was absolutely amazing. The sea was very cold indeed. I did get in, had a bit of a swim, as did my eleven year old. The others all chickened out and just sat and watched. But it was lovely, you know, two p machines in the arcades. Paul Marden: Oh, I love it. Was it the pushers on the shelves? Coin drop ones? I love that. Yeah, gotta be the two p ones. Can't afford the ten p ones. That's too rich for me. Oz Austwick: Who can? I mean, that's vast amounts of money to win anything in those. Paul Marden: So Swanage for me just brings back memories of geography, field trips. I remember going there for about a week whilst I was at secondary school donkeys years ago, so. Oz Austwick: Right, well, we used to drive down from Yorkshire, where I grew up, and it would take all day to drive down to go to Swanage. I mean, it was, yeah, when we were there. Absolutely amazing. And the hotel was lovely before they knocked it down, obviously. So I have very fond memories and, yeah, nothing has happened to spoil those memories, thankfully. A very popular place for us to go. Paul Marden: Lovely day trip. Oz Austwick: Yeah, it really was. It really was. So the M+H show, let's talk about that, because that happened and it was quite a thing, wasn't it? Paul Marden: It really was. I had such a lovely time, so it was my first time at M+H show. It was. It was lovely event. They pitched it as the big meetup and it really was. I mean, it was absolutely jam packed with people. There were lots and lots of people there when I was there on Wednesday and so many people that I know that I was bumping into that were either running stands, presenting, or just being there and enjoying all the great content and meeting people. It was just such an awesome event. How was it for you as your first big attractions event? Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah. It wasn't just my first M+H. It was my 1st event. And, yeah, I was gobsmacked, to be honest. It was big. More than anything. I'm just genuinely surprised at how many companies sell museum display cases. Paul Marden: There was a lot of glass cabinets on show. Oz Austwick: Yeah, there really were. And they were beautiful. But, yeah, I mean, how do you differentiate yourself in that market, I wonder? Paul Marden: I would differentiate myself by going around and putting my greasy fingers over all the competition's glass and show how beautiful my cabinets could be. Oz Austwick: Yeah, just take my children. They'd make a mess of the glass within seconds of arriving. So did you get to any of the talks, any of the presentations? Paul Marden: I did, actually, yeah, I saw a few presentations. I thought they were really good this year. It was quite clever being given your headset that you could wear so that you could hear the presenters. Few people that have been in previous years telling me how great that was this time, because that was a new introduction this year. Oz Austwick: Can I just throw a slightly different perspective on that? I turned up late to one presentation and I didn't have the little box and the person who was handing them out was on the other side and couldn't get. So I missed it completely. Yeah, I mean, it's a great way to make sure you can hear what's going on. Paul Marden: It's tough. Isn't it? I felt it was a little bit. So when I had a similar experience where at one point I didn't have one, and it feels a little bit. It's hard, but it answers the problem they've had in previous years, where it was the same layout, where it's a big, noisy hall. And this did make it quite possible for people to be able to hear what was going on. But I would imagine as a speaker on stage, that's quite tough talking to people when you know they can't hear your voice. I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel about that. But there was one presentation that really stuck in my mind, and that was Spencer Clark from ATS and Steve Dering from Direct Access Consultancy. And they were talking about breaking down barriers and basically just giving a collection of essential accessibility tips for attractions. Paul Marden: And it was just such a great presentation. I always think that if I'm presenting at an event, if one person walks away, having heard one thing from me, I feel like I've kind of done my job. And to be fair to Spencer and Steve, they absolutely nailed that. I walked out of the room at the end of that, fizzing with ideas and walked away. And straight away that evening, I was writing a pitch for a client and things that I'd learned from what they were talking about made it into my pitch presentation. It's directly changing the way I think about accessibility. So I thought that it was a great achievement. Oz Austwick: And especially for that specific talk. It's not just a talk that says, “Oh, you can make some more money, do if you do this, or you can improve your response rate if you do this.” Actually saying, “This is a way you can help people.” Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And that's now changed the way that Rubber Cheese works and that. What an amazing result for them. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. There's a few things, few numbers that stuck in my mind and I kind of. I went and read about them afterwards and we'll put some links in the show notes to the survey that these stats are based on. But there was. There's two things that they said which really stuck in my mind. 59% of disabled people say, if a venue has not shared its disabled access information, I avoid going because I assume it's inaccessible. And 77% of disabled people say I'm more likely to visit somewhere new if I can find relevant access information about the venue. So these numbers, they caught me straight away and they got me thinking and made me realise that making a venue accessible is more than just meeting the website accessibility guidelines, which is kind of a key focus for us in the industry. Paul Marden: Lots of organisations will want to make sure that they follow the WCAG guidelines, the accessibility guidelines. Anyone that has a large amount of public sector funding will have a statutory obligation to meet those targets. So that's a big focus of people's attention. But just making it so that a screen reader can read your website, or making it so that you've addressed colour accessibility for people that are colour blind isn't enough to make the attraction itself accessible. So if you don't share the content about how your venue is accessible, people will assume you are not accessible. It was an eye opener for me. They gave a really great example. They talked about Skipton Town Hall up in Yorkshire, and they've got a webpage on their site all about the accessibility features of the building. And it was rich with photography. Paul Marden: So, you know, it's got pictures of all of the access points into the building, what the door looks like and which part of the building it gives level access into. They had pictures of all of the toilets that they've got and how they're accessible. They're fortunate. They've got a changing places toilet. So this is one of these accessible toilets with a large bed and usually with the equipment to be able to move somebody out of a chair and onto a bed to be able to change them. They've got photos of all of that on the website. So the accessibility information is right there. It's really clear and it gives loads of really good evidence that demonstrates this is somewhere that takes accessibility seriously. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Paul Marden: Interestingly, this didn't come out in the talk itself, but I found it interesting that the Craven Museum is based in Skipton Town Hall and they won the most accessible museum and the overall winner of the Family Friendly Museums award last year. And we interviewed them back a couple of weeks ago, back in March. So it kind of shows you that making places more accessible for disabled people makes them more accessible for all sorts of people as well. So, you know, it can make it more accessible for families with young children, it can make it more accessible for the elderly, it can make it more accessible for people with temporary access needs. Paul Marden: If you've breaking your leg or something like that, you know, you're not permanently disabled, but you need access into a building and making places more accessible to you for disabled people widens the access into the entire venue itself. I've since had a quick look at some of our clients and they're all writing about this. People are putting lots of information onto their website about this sort of thing. I saw Eureka had a special microsite all about it and Mary Rose have got information on their website about it. So this is really important content. And for me, sitting and listening to them talking, going back and thinking about it is really. It's really caught my attention and made me think and do things differently, which, you know, I feel like that's what these sorts of events are all about. Really? Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what a fantastic result for the event. If it opens up the industry to people who were struggling to access it, then, yeah, job done, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. What about you? Oz Austwick: There were a few highlights for me, but I think one of the things that stood out the most was getting to meet some of the kind of movers and shakers within the community meeting Gordon from ACE, what a lovely guy. Had a fantastic chat to him and it really struck me how there are so many people and organisations who exist within the sector purely to try and improve the whole sector for everybody. I like it anyway because I've got a real interest in the historical side of things, museums and stately homes and castles that really talks to me and I take the kids out to places, so it's nice to know, but to actually be part of an industry where everyone's trying to help each other, I think is really lovely. Paul Marden: It really isn't it? Yeah. There were so many people like Gordon that you met at the event and they just make you feel good, they make you buzzy. There's a huge kind of collective recharge of batteries and fizzing of ideas that comes from these sorts of events, it was just brilliant. Oz Austwick: Yeah. That's what networking should be, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I was going to do a shout out for one person that had a stand. I've got a card that I picked up. This is a lady called Sonya Varoujian and she runs an organisation called Noor and Katu. They import these handmade crocheted little animals, finger puppets and toys and things. I went straight over to those because my daughter is crocheting like mad. She got taught by grandma a couple of months ago. It blows my mind. I have absolutely no idea what's going on as she's doing this and all of a sudden, out the other side comes a squid. But this little organisation Sonya was living and working in Armenia got the idea when she returned back to the UK and now imports these toys and they're for sale in a bunch of different attractions. Paul Marden: I just thought it was really lovely that these were fair trade, they were nice, creative things that I know my daughter would absolutely lap up at an organisation and it's completely sustainable and makes a big difference in communities that are not well served. Oz Austwick: Absolutely. And I know that you, like me, almost certainly get dragged into gift shops at visitor attraction sites on a regular basis and there comes a point where you've seen the staff and to have a company out there that's not only doing good things, but providing something a little bit different, a little bit unique that you can buy in a gift shop and actually feel like you've done something worthwhile and bought something that isn't just going to fall apart in a couple of weeks. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: I think that. Yeah, yeah, it would be really nice to see more things like that. So, yeah, go and check them out if you're listening or watching. Paul Marden: Did you see any talks yourself that caught your attention? Oz Austwick: Yeah, yeah, there were a couple that sprung to them. But firstly, I wanted to just briefly mention the talk that I didn't get to watch. I'm a YouTuber, not a massively successful one, but I'm part of a YouTube community. So when I saw that the Tank Museum was doing a talk about how they've used the YouTube creator community to boost their own social media and their own income, I thought, “Fantastic, I'll go along and see that.” Because my brother in law, who's a far more successful YouTuber than I am, was actually part of that. He got invited down to make a video about his favourite tank. So I turned up and obviously I thought I was on time. I was too late. It was hugely crowded, there was no seats, there was no space. So I was stood in the kind of the corridor. Oz Austwick: It's not really. Is it a corridor? The path, the walkway, I don't know what you call it. And, yeah, got moved on by the venue staff because. Paul Marden: Loitering in the corridors. Oz Austwick: We were effectively blocking the way through. And rightly so, you know, they need to make sure access is maintained. But, yeah, I didn't get to see that talk, which I was a little bit sad about, but a couple of talks that I did get to see, which stood out, was the Bloomberg panel discussion hosted by Kripa Gurung. They're doing some amazing work. And the fact that it's a completely philanthropic organisation, I think is quite amazing if you haven't come across what Bloomberg are doing with Bloomberg Connects the app. But, yeah, that was really interesting. Talking about what they're doing, how they're getting organisations online, having the museum at the home and English Heritage there, talking about what they're doing with Bloomberg Connects was great. Oz Austwick: But I think, if I'm being honest, my favourite talk was the Castle Howard Christmas events talk, partly because it was really interesting, talking about the marketing and how they've created this amazing Christmas event that has a real following and people come back year after year and they've done that on purpose and it's been hugely successful. But Abby from Castle Howard, she's just hilarious. She's been a guest a couple of times, talking about how she hospitalised an old man on his very last ever day at work and then how she sacked Santa. Just, yeah, if you get a chance to go and see their talks go along, because it's not only entertaining but informative, too. So, yeah, that's probably the highlight for me. Paul Marden: Cool. I saw a lovely presentation. Longtime listeners will know that I'm a Kids in Museums trustee. So I went over and watched the Kids in Museums Youth Panel and it was really interesting because they had a summit focused around young people and their needs in museums back last year. They had a webinar where they talked about it a couple of months ago and I was blown away by these people who are part of the Kids in Museums Youth Panel. You know, young people at early stages of their careers, some of them are at uni still. Some of them are in the early stages of their first jobs and just talking so articulately about their experience of museums, what they think museums should change, what's going well, what could be done better? Paul Marden: And so I wasn't disappointed when I saw them speaking in real life. They did a cracking job talking about the museum summit and what they think are the issues in the museum. So there was a couple of stats I pulled out of it. Over 90% of young people don't feel considered as an audience and represented in museums, which that blows my mind, because we talk a lot about audience with the people that we work with, and the needs of young people are central to many of the conversations that we have about audience. So there. That made me think, “Oh, is there a problem where the conversations that do get had are not being discussed in the right way? Is it a problem of perception? Paul Marden: Is it that young people don't perceive that they're being considered when in actual fact they are, or is it a lack of involvement and so they feel like it's being done to them rather than being done with them?” Yeah. Food for thought. If most young people feel that museums don't consider them as part of their audience, that's problematic. Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it? I mean, I'd be amazed if the people that were running the museums had the same opinion. I suspect they clearly think they are doing things for young people and children, but maybe they're just not asking those young people what they want. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a few things that the youth panel suggested could be done. So loads of kids go on school trips to museums. But have a guess what you think the minimum age is to go unaccompanied into a museum in some museums? Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, I'd expect that it would probably be 16. That feels like a reasonable age. Paul Marden: There are museums where you have to be 18 to go unaccompanied into the museum. Oz Austwick: Why? Paul Marden: You can go and get a job, you can go and pay your taxes, but you can't go into the museums on your own because you're not a responsible adult. That's interesting. And I use that word with a great deal of misuse. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I just struggle to work out how you could justify that. Paul Marden: I know. Oz Austwick: Well, obviously there are one or two museums out there where you probably need to be 18 to go in and have a look. Yeah. I mean, in general, why 18? Paul Marden: Yeah, I think standards of behaviour, you can expect people to behave in a certain way, but that doesn't. That's not dependent on age, that's dependent on your behaviour. Oz Austwick: And the sort of teenager that genuinely wants to go into a museum is probably going to behave pretty well when they're in that museum. Paul Marden: Yeah, you'd think. So the next thing I might play into this, but one of the things the youth panel want is to see more youth groups being represented in the decision making process in museums, so that they better represent communities and highlight career pathways for young people. Including more working class histories in museums would help people feel more represented. I thought that was quite interesting. We've been to a few recently where we did not necessarily see stories of our background being well presented at the museum. Oz Austwick: Yes. Paul Marden: Enough for both of us to have noticed it and commented it as we were wandering around. Oz Austwick: It's interesting because some do it really well. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And coming from a historical background with a focus on arms and armour, there's a real issue that the sort of arms and armour that have survived from the mediaeval period are the unusual ones and they're the ones in the museum. So that's what people see. And you kind of assume that this fancy, ornate, decorated, enamelled armour is pretty standard, but the bog standard stuff didn't survive and maybe that's the issue when you're looking at furniture in a room, in a house, the fancy furniture is the one that survived because people cared about it. It wasn't being used on a day to day basis. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I don't know, but you're absolutely right, it does give you a slightly skewed view of what’s actually out there. Paul Marden: Yeah. Look, if you're interested listeners, in finding out more about what the Kids in Museums Youth Panel are looking to achieve, they've just published an open letter to changemakers within the sector where they talk passionately about what they think the sector needs to do to change. There's a lovely video that goes alongside the open letter where these young people are using their voice to be able to advocate for change. It's great, it's really interesting and I highly recommend everybody goes and watches the video and reads the letter and then does something about it. Oz Austwick: So, anything else from M+H that we need to talk about? Paul Marden: The lovely meal and drinks afterwards. The very lovely Bala McAlin and Stephen Spencer, both once of these parts, were hosting an event Wednesday evening, I think it was, which was absolutely lovely. Well attended. Drinks flowed, food came out. It was delightful. Very much appreciated. Oz Austwick: Yeah. And I have very mixed feelings about the fact that I decided to leave a little bit early. Paul Marden: But you got home at a reasonable time and I didn't manage to drag my backside in the front door until about half midnight. And it wasn't because I had a wonderful night, it was because I spent most of it in Waterloo station trying to get home. Oz Austwick: Yeah. A bit of an issue with the train. Paul Marden: Yes. I would much preferred if I'd actually stayed at the drinks event and then dragged myself into Waterloo later once they'd actually sorted themselves out. Oz Austwick: So I think at this point we probably need to talk about how the government have ruined our plans for the next few months of podcast content. Paul Marden: Yes. Oz Austwick: Because we've been thinking for a little while that it would be a really nice thing to do to talk to the main political parties about their idea for the visitor attraction industry in the future. And obviously our hands been forced a little bit. Paul Marden: It hasn't it? We're not the only ones. I think quite a few people were caught on the hop a little bit when Rishi announced the general election on the 4th of July. So, yeah, events, dear boy, have somewhat overtaken us, haven't they? Oz Austwick: Yeah, just a little. So, yeah, we're probably not going to do that if for no other reason that the Labour Party shadow minister isn't standing again, for all the right reasons. But it does mean that there's a bit of an imbalance there and if we can't talk to all the parties equally and get their ideas, we probably shouldn't talk to any of them. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: That being said, we can still talk about it, right? Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. The lovely people at ALVA Bernard, who presented at M+H and talked about this very subject, amongst other things, they've done a lot of policy work and have prepared some thoughts around what they think is important to the sector, around strengthening the visitor economy, protecting arts and culture and heritage and supporting the natural environment, whilst at the same time looking after all of those people that either work or give up their time to support the sector. So, yeah, there's a few things in there that I thought it was worth us just touching on, because I think it's really important that we think about what the future of the sector could look like in just a very few weeks time as the country changes. They've got some interesting thoughts. Paul Marden: Unsurprisingly, the sector would probably benefit from some reduced taxation and there's quite a number of different areas within which ALVA think that the taxation burden on the sector could be lessened. And similarly, they've also got ideas around how funding for the various arts councils and support organisations around the different home nations would make a substantial difference, especially around capital funding would make a big difference to the sector. But there was a few very specific arts which jumped out as me, as being kind of. They really meant something to me. So there's one. ALVA says, “They ask all the political parties to ensure culture, life, performance, arts, heritage and nature are experienced by every child and young person and are within the national curriculum.” Yeah, I think this is so important. Yeah, I think I've talked on the podcast before. Paul Marden: This was one of the big COVID victims. So many schools during COVID had to stop taking kids out and experiencing the outside world and going to day trips and the like. And I just. I think it is so important. It's really hard for many schools. They've got such a burden around meeting the curriculum, budget cuts, all of the calls on the staff time is so hard for them to prioritise day trips. But I've seen him in my own daughter's school. Just the powerful impact it has on the kids. They're a school where the kids barely spend a whole week in class. They're usually out doing something outside of school, which I just think is brilliant. And I got to tag along with them. A few months ago. We went to London. Paul Marden: We did the trip to the Science Museum, took the kids up on the train and on the tube, which was, let me tell you, quite scary. Oz Austwick: Did you manage to bring them all back? Paul Marden: Counted them in and counted them out and it was all good. It was all good. But then went into parliament and that was just brilliant. Taking a bunch of ten and eleven year olds into parliament and bless them, it was the tail end of the day. So they were all shattered. But they were so completely engaged by it. They saw Priti Patel walking through the central lobby. They saw all of these different ministers, their advisors, and they got to sit in the chamber of the House of Commons and seeing debate going on. It was all about Horizon scandal. It was just. It was such a brilliant day trip for the kids and how much does it enrich them. Paul Marden: Yeah, okay, me and Millie go to these places all the time, but, you know, there might be one or two kids in that school for whom this is the only time that they get to experience a day trip into London and see one of the big national museums and go in and enjoy parliament. I never got to go into parliament when I was Millie's age. Oz Austwick: No. And I think it's really important to say that. I mean, both you and I live in the southeast of the country in a relatively rural and affluent area and that even here with the schools that we've got, they're struggling to do this. And then when you look at what the inner city schools are having to deal with and some of the northern cities and northern towns where they're really struggling with population poverty up there, how are those kids getting similar opportunities? Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: And the fact is they're not. Paul Marden: No, no. Oz Austwick: And that's something that I can't agree with ALVA more on this, that this needs to be prioritised because this is the future. Paul Marden: Yeah. Another area where we've had direct experience, from conversations we've been having recently is around supporting local authorities in their care of civic collections and culture. I mean, you've spoken to so many places recently, haven't you, where cultural budgets are just being eviscerated. Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've always had a kind of a love of finding those little obscure rural town museums because you find some amazing things in them. My local museum, it's a tiny little market town and they've got like a special area of Egyptian relics. They've got a mummy in a sarcophagus in this little museum that's what, four rooms? But they've got no funding. And there's so many times we're talking to museums like this. They know what they need and they know what they want, but they just don't have the money to be able to do it. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. Oz Austwick: They come to us looking for a website and they're just struggling for budget to do anything. Paul Marden: Yeah, which is where things like that Bloomberg Connect app comes in, because when you look on the Bloomberg Connect site, you've got big national museums like National Portrait Gallery in there using the Connect app. But there were some little ones in there as well that I saw, you know, small local town museums just like the ones that you're describing in there using that app. Oz Austwick: I was looking through the app last night and my eye was caught by, I think it was Beverly Town Hall. I was born in Beverley, up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and I sort of thought, “Oh, I'll have a look at that.” And I just got drawn in and it was just this amazing experience. I didn't even know Beverley had a town hall that was open to the public, nevermind that had a collection that you could view through the Bloomberg Connect app. So, yeah, I guess maybe a little bit more in the way of awareness, but it shouldn't be down to a philanthropic organisation like Bloomberg to keep these museums and collections going. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So look, the ALVA kios of the political parties is up there on their main website. Really worth going and looking at. As the manifestos are published, you'll be able to see what the political parties are doing. There's already some information on the various different party websites around what they want to do within the culture and tourism sectors. But I think we've got a few weeks yet to wait until we see the actual cast iron commitments come out in manifestos. So that'll be interesting to see the direction that takes. Oz Austwick: And I suspect we're going to talk about this a little bit more over the next few episodes, perhaps. Paul Marden: Yeah, maybe. The other thing I will mention, this is a shameless plug because I work as a trustee at Kids in Museums. We're working on this flagship awards ceremony and it is absolutely delightful event lots of people enjoying themselves doing amazing work and there is a sponsorship opportunity. So if you're like us, one of those kind of sector supporting organisations that serve the attraction sector, and you'd like to support the good work of Kids in Museums and be associated with that amazing event, give me a shout, because I can point you in the direction of the right people to talk to get that sponsorship in place and I know it will make a massive difference to them. Have you been busy recently? What have you been up to? Oz Austwick: Do you know what? Weirdly, it's been a little bit busy. Yeah. I mean it feels like it's always a little bit busy, but it's been specifically a little bit busy because as of yesterday we've launched the third annual Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey. Paul Marden: Excellent. Oz Austwick: That's quite a mouthful, isn't it? It'd be really nice to find a catchier name for it than that. Paul Marden: I always talk about naming is the hardest problem in computing, but naming is the hardest problem in marketing, I think. Oz Austwick: Yeah, let's be honest, what it's actually known is pretty much new survey brackets two. So it's the third one. The first one was a bit of an eye opener, the fact that there wasn't anything already out there and we did this and it was amazing. The second one, we tried to refine it and we got some really nice, interesting data. This is probably the first time we've been able to sit and look at it and go, “Right, okay, now we've got a couple of years worth of results. We can look at what we actually need to be asking and what's just out there because we want to ask, because it's interesting and what information we're not actually getting.” Oz Austwick: So we've really cut back on the number of questions and I think it's probably safe to say that isn't going to have a massive impact on the quality of the information that we get, but it's also allowed us to add in a few extra little bits as well. So yeah, we're talking about sustainability and the use of AI and yeah, I'm really excited. Paul Marden: Yeah. Oz Austwick: I haven't actually looked to see if people have started filling it. Paul Marden: I can't look, I can't look. I just kind of want to look through my fingers. Oz Austwick: I'm not sure I want to know, but yeah. So if you are listening to this, if you've got this far into the podcast and you work at a visitor attraction, please go and fill this in. There's a link in the show notes. There's links on LinkedIn, on X. Everywhere we go. There will be a link for this. And if you can't find it, go to rubbercheese.com. And it's right there at the top of the homepage. There's a link. Paul Marden: Yeah. rubbercheese.com/survey, slip that right in there. Oz Austwick: Yeah. I think one of the things we've done differently is the advisory board. We talked about this a little bit in the last episode. We did what an amazing thing to have these guys on board. I think they've saved us months of work by just being clever. Paul Marden: They've improved the quality of what we've done. Asking us, what on earth are you asking that question for? Those answers are exactly the same answer. Can't you make it easier for me to know what I need to gather before I type my data in? Oz Austwick: Exactly, saying, “Oh, well, I wouldn't fill it in because you don't tell me what I need to do.” Okay, well, we'll do that. It's not a problem. Yeah. How amazing. So thank you to them and to Expian for sponsoring the advisory board. Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And we're working through now focusing on the kind of engagement plan to increase more people. And then, you know, whilst we have a lull as people are going to be filling in their survey, we'll start planning, looking at the data, seeing where the stories lie. We'll talk about that in some future episodes, but starting to gather together what the final report looks like and the stories that will be told. And, you know, we're really grateful to Convious for sponsoring us on the digital survey and the digital report that will follow and then a bunch of webinars that will run afterwards. So, you know, the call to action for us is get in there, find your data, read the guidance notes, go and fill in the survey. Paul Marden: But then once you've done that, come and talk to us because, you know, we'd love to know what you would like us to dig in to. It is amazing how this rich resource of data that we've got and people ask us questions that we've never even thought of, and we look at the data differently and we find a different story in there. So without your input, without you telling us what's interesting you, with what's bothering you, what's challenging you, we don't look at the data properly and we don't find those stories for you. So come and talk to us. Oz Austwick: Is this how it feels to kind of run a museum, to be the custodian of this amazing thing and just want people to come and engage with it. Yes, because that's kind of it. You know, we've got this amazing data and it's got all of these wonderful stories within it that are relevant to anyone in the industry and we just want to talk about it. So, yeah, please fill in the survey, talk to us about it and, yeah, with any luck, this one will be bigger and better than the last two. Paul Marden: There we go. Couldn't ask for more than that, could we? Oz Austwick: No. Before we go, because we're going to wrap up relatively soon, there's one thing that I noticed that we failed to do last time and we talk a lot about giving away a book and I think we even said we were giving away a book in the last episode and then never mentioned a book. So, Paul, do you have a book that you'd like to recommend? Paul Marden: Do you know what, Oz? It's funny you should say that. I absolutely do. I have this book Delivering the Visitor Experience by also previously of these parts, Rachel Mackay, who is, I believe, at Hampton Court Palace, and she's written an amazing book about what it is to create, manage and develop unforgettable vista experiences at museums. I don't want a museum, but it was really interesting for me to be able to read this book all about the process that people that do run museums go through to develop, craft and tell that story and give that amazing experience. It's a brilliant book. Heartily recommend it. And if you retweet the show note saying, “I want Paul's book”, then you too could get an amazing copy of Delivering the Visitor Experience by our friend Rachel Mackay. Oz Austwick: Amazing. Thanks very much. Paul Marden: Slightly out of breath because it will be edited out, I'm sure, but I had to run up the corridor and go find the book and take it off the shelf and bring it down because although I was completely organised with all my stuff from M+H show, did not have my book recommendation. Well, there you go. I think that just about wraps us up, doesn't it? It's been a busy few weeks for us with M+H show and all that's going on and that doesn't look to abate over the next few months as we get the survey into shape and find out what's happening in the sector. Oz Austwick: So I think it's only going to get busier. Paul Marden: It is. How is this your first time actually hosting? Oz Austwick: I think I prefer this one. Maybe that's because it's not my first one. Or maybe it's just because I. Paul Marden: Because you're power hungry and you took the captain's chair. Oz Austwick: Make it so. Yeah, definitely Picard rather than Kirk. But that's because he's a West Yorkshire man. Paul Marden: Is he really? You've got too much hair to be Picard. I'm sorry. Oz Austwick: I'm not wearing my Star Trek uniform. Paul Marden: On that bombshell. Thank you very much, mate. Oz Austwick: Thank you. Oz Austwick: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on X for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| The importance of building a great social community and process behind rebranding a 70 year old attraction | 16 Nov 2022 | 00:44:49 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.draytonmanor.co.uk/ https://twitter.com/DraytonManor https://www.instagram.com/draytonmanor/ https://www.tiktok.com/@drayton_manor
Danielle Nicholls - Senior Content Executive at Drayton Manor Resort When I graduated from Leeds Trinity University with a degree in Media & Marketing and a multitude of marketing placements in 2017, I was set on combining my two passions - storytelling and theme parks. After a year in a marketing communications role with a tour operator, I was lucky enough to secure a role in the Drayton Manor marketing team. Here at Drayton, I’m responsible for creating engaging visual and written content for all marketing channels - including web, PR, email, in park signage and of course, social media. My main focus over the last 4 and a half years has been to build an engaged social community across all our channels – Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, TikTok, LinkedIn and YouTube. I’m forever grateful to work in such a fantastic industry, filled with incredible energy and enthusiasm. https://www.linkedin.com/in/nichollsdanielle/ Twitter @dnicholls_ Instagram @_daniellenicholls
Ross Ballinger - Design & Brand Manager at Drayton Manor Resort (Inc. Hotel, Zoo & Europe's only Thomas Land) Brand protector and innovator... I played a senior role in a busy agency studio team for nearly 9 years. I joined fresh from leaving university with a sort after London placement under my belt. I now produce fresh, engaging, and dynamic design creative for digital advertising, marketing campaigns, theme park attractions, working closely alongside a talented Marketing team. All to promote Drayton Manor Resort in the most effective and exciting method possible. I can guarantee expertise and a wealth of experience, the final outcome of the design process is not the end of my creative input, you can be assured that maintaining brand continuity and freshly injected excitement remains my priority. Spend time with me and you’ll understand why I wanted to be an Actor, but you’ll be glad I didn't as my energy provides office enthusiasm and endless creative steer. www.linkedin.com/in/ross-ballinger www.behance.net/rossballinger(Portfolio) Instagram @rossballinger Twitter @rossballinger TikTok @rossballinger
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in, or working with, visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with two great team members from Drayton Manor, Danielle Nicholls, Senior Content Executive, and Ross Ballinger, the Design and Brand Manager. We discuss the complex rebranding process. And how building a great social media community can mean your fans having your back when it comes to big change. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Woohoo, I've got Danielle and Ross from Drayton Manor on the podcast today. Hello. Danielle Nicholls: Hi. Ross Ballinger: Hello there. Very excited to be here. Kelly Molson: I love how excited you are. I'm just talking, listeners, Danielle and Ross are literally the most pumped guests I've ever had on the podcast. Ross Ballinger: That's it, we'd better live up to that now. Danielle Nicholls: I know, right? Kelly Molson: They've got a snazzy Drayton Manor background behind them, which is looking fierce. But as ever, we're going to start with our icebreaker questions. Imagine that you're just down your pub with your mates. This is how I need you to feel with the icebreaker questions. Ross Ballinger: Okay. Get a few beers in. Kelly Molson: Ready? Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Kelly Molson: What are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop? Danielle Nicholls: Pin badge, I reckon. Yeah, I've got a little pin badge collection. Kelly Molson: I like this. Ross? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, I'm very similar. I'm fridge magnet. Kelly Molson: You can't go wrong with a fridge magnet. Ross Ballinger: No. And we've got a secondary fridge, under the stairs, which where we keep the beers. And that's where all the fridge magnets go, at the end, if we've been to an attraction. Danielle Nicholls: I love it. Kelly Molson: Is that because your house is beautiful and your partner does not want them on her fridge and you have to hide them? Ross Ballinger: Exactly. Exactly that. The wife does not want them on the normal fridge. They're hidden behind the door. Kelly Molson: Oh, I like her style. Ross Ballinger: But I've got to get a fridge magnet. Kelly Molson: Pin badges, fridge magnets, excellent choices. Mine would be a rubber. Have I told you about my rubber collection? Danielle Nicholls: That's interesting, no. Ross Ballinger: So you collect branded rubbers? Kelly Molson: Right. Well, I used to when I was a kid. I'm going to show you them. I've got them on the desk next to me. Danielle Nicholls: Oh my God, please do. Kelly Molson: I'm sorry, listeners. For the people that are listening, this is rubbish. But if you're watching the YouTube video, hello. Welcome to my rubber collection. Danielle Nicholls: Amazing. Kelly Molson: So they still smell. Again, this is not podcast material, but they smell absolutely incredible. Ross Ballinger: Smell really good. Danielle Nicholls: Oh my God, I love it. Kelly Molson: This is an '80s collection of novelty rubbers. Danielle Nicholls: What's your oldest rubber in there, which have you had the longest? Kelly Molson: So there's one in there from the planetarium, the London Planetarium. Ross Ballinger: Doesn't exist anymore. There you go, that's memorabilia. Kelly Molson: Look at my Thorpe Park one, that's my Thorpe Park one. Danielle Nicholls: Oh my gosh, that is a throwback. Ross Ballinger: Oh, that's a good one. Kelly Molson: This is an old one as well. Anyway- Ross Ballinger: Everyone still does rubbers, so we fit in there with you. Kelly Molson: Because I can collect them. Ross Ballinger: Pin badge, magnet, rubber. Danielle Nicholls: We stick together. Ross Ballinger: That's a perfect combo. Kelly Molson: It's like the perfect triangle. We're the perfect gift shop triangle. Okay, all right, next one. If you had to live in a sitcom for the rest of your life, which sitcom would you choose and why? Ross Ballinger: Oh, mine's easy. Danielle Nicholls: I feel like we're going to be the same. Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Danielle Nicholls: Friends. Ross Ballinger: Friends, yeah. Kelly Molson: Aww. Who would you be, if you had to be one of the characters? Danielle Nicholls: I'm like a perfect mix between Phoebe, Rachel, and Monica, I think. Kelly Molson: Nice, okay. Again, another little triangle. Danielle Nicholls: Maybe more towards Phoebe, I'm a bit more hippie, I guess. Kelly Molson: Ross, what about you? Ross Ballinger: I love all the guys. I love for all the guys. Because I just love Chandler because he's so funny. But then Ross is funny as well, when he doesn't try to be funny. But Ross is just such a good actor. And you don't realise, until you watch it 17,000 times, actually how good of an actor he was. I think I'd have to- Danielle Nicholls: Can you be a Gunther? Ross Ballinger: No, no. I think I just have to sway towards Chandler. Just because he was known for being comedic and stupid. Kelly Molson: And now you feel like that's your life role? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, I would go and live Chandler's life any day. Kelly Molson: Okay, I love this. All right, good, good answers. It's what I thought you were going to say. This is what I thought. Ross Ballinger: Did you? Kelly Molson: Yeah, I thought it was going to be Friends. All right. If you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick? Danielle Nicholls: That is so hard. Ross Ballinger: I know. Probably whiskey, lifetime supply of whiskey, just coming out the tap. Kelly Molson: It's a good choice. Danielle Nicholls: I genuinely don't know. That's really, really hard. Ross Ballinger: It's got to be food or drink, surely. Danielle Nicholls: It's got to be crisps or something like that. You can't beat a crisps and dip combo. Kelly Molson: Yeah. What about a crisp sandwich? How do we feel about crisp sandwiches? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Danielle Nicholls: Oo, I'm not sure about that one. Kelly Molson: What? Danielle Nicholls: I'm not sure. Ross Ballinger: Come one, you're Northern. You can put anything in a sandwich. Danielle Nicholls: I would put crisps inside a cheese sandwich or something like that. But I wouldn't just have the crisps. Kelly Molson: See, I would do it either. I'm happy to have a filling sandwich with crisps in it. Or just a plain crisp sandwich. Ross Ballinger: I'd do either. Kelly Molson: What I really love about you two is how well you get on. And we're going to talk a little bit about this in the podcast today about your roles and what you do at Drayton Manor. But you look like- Ross Ballinger: Is it that evident? Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's that evident. But even from your social media channels... You guys feature quite heavily across Drayton Manor's social media channels. And, honestly, it just looks like you have the best time ever. And I want to hear more about it. But, firstly, I need your unpopular opinions. What have you prepared for us? Ross Ballinger: Okay, do you want to go first? Danielle Nicholls: As Ross alluded, I'm very, very Northern, I think. My accent a little bit, but more like how I am. So mine is, it's not a bap, it's not a bread roll, it's not a cob, it's a muffin. Kelly Molson: What? Danielle Nicholls: A muffin. That's mine. Ross Ballinger: It's a cob, it's a cob. Danielle Nicholls: No, it's a muffin. Ross Ballinger: Cob. You call it a cob. Danielle Nicholls: A muffin. Kelly Molson: No, it's a bun. What's wrong with you all? Ross Ballinger: Do you say bun? A muffin's a cake. Danielle Nicholls: I say batch as well. My partner calls it a batch, which is crazy to me. But muffin, we'll go muffin. Kelly Molson: Okay. For now, we'll accept muffin. Ross? Danielle Nicholls: Moving on. Ross Ballinger: Mine is, I just think soap operas are crap, honestly. I was going to swear, but I can't stand soap operas. And I know there's a lot of people out there that love them. But I just can't, I can't watch them. I just think they're so depressing. And if they're on, if I accidentally get home and the channel's on where it's on, I get anxious. And I have to find the remote as soon as I can to turn it off. What a waste of your life. What a waste of time, honestly. Hours and hours. And you add that up over a week and a year, think what else you could be doing. Honestly, if I turn one on now by accident, it's the same actors that are in it 20, 30 years ago. And I think, "What have they done with their life as well? They've just been in a soap opera for 30 years." Kelly Molson: These are excellent unpopular opinions. Listeners, please let me know if you agree or disagree. Thank you for preparing those for us today. I appreciate it. Ross Ballinger: No problem. Kelly Molson: Right, you guys work together. Tell me a little bit about your roles and what you do there? Ross Ballinger: So my title is design and brand manager. So I'm technically like lead designer for the resort. And the brand guardian. I look after the brand guidelines. So yeah, I'll produce, with me and my little team, everything that goes out graphically or visually across all the channels, website, printed media. So yeah. Danielle Nicholls: You definitely underplayed yourself there. Ross Ballinger: Did I? Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. You do so much. You say your little team, you and one other person. You smash everything, literally everything. Ross Ballinger: Aw, thanks, Danielle. Kelly Molson: That's a lot of work for you and your team. Ross Ballinger: It is, because if you think, in the industry, I can imagine people on a parallel with us would have bigger teams, bigger resource. Because basically Drayton Manor is a massive entity. It's not just a theme park, it's a hotel as well. It's a zoo. Then we have Thomas Land, which could be considered as a separate entity. So they're what I consider as four blue chip clients. And then we operate as a little agency within the resort that looks after all those. But then, you've got the resort's departments as well, which could be clusters of clients. So you've got catering, retail, they're the big ones I can think off my head. But they all have their graphical requirements as well, design requirements. So yeah, it's a massive entity and we look after it all. Kelly Molson: And how many... Did you say there's two of you? Ross Ballinger: There's two of us, yeah. Kelly Molson: That's mad. That is mad. So I really resonate with this because I, obviously, come from an agency background. I set up my agency nearly 20 years ago. I feel ancient. But what you're doing is you are essentially a mini agency with loads of clients and two of you. It's crazy. So I can imagine it's quite stressful, but also lots of fun because you get to work on a lot of variety. Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Oh, very varied. Yeah, every day is different. And that is not just a cliche that you can just say. Literally, every day is so different. Because it's an exciting company as well, where there's new things happening all the time, constantly evolving strategies, or new things come in and go in. So yeah, it's very varied. Kelly Molson: Danielle, what's your role? Because the two of you do work quite closely together as well, don't you? Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. Yeah, we do. So my role is, the title is senior content executive. So I primarily look after the social media channels, so Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, LinkedIn, and TikTok. Creating the content, taking the pictures, work with video agents. Sometimes creating a video in-house as well. And all of the community engagement that goes alongside that as well. Whilst also writing any copy, creating the content for the website, and any signage requirements. Literally anything that you see that has text on it, normally, me and Ross have worked together to create that. And with social, it's both paid and organic social media. So all of the adverts you see, alongside all of the organic stuff you see on our feeds. I also help out with PR as well. So we have a PR agency that we work with, but we liaise alongside them. And now, we're getting more into the traditional media as well. So the pair leaflets and out of home magazines, articles. Yeah, little bit of everything now that it's- Kelly Molson: That's mad. I love that you were just glossing over elements of your job that I'm like, "That's a whole person's job there." And we do the social community building and we do this bit and this bit. Wow, yeah, there's a lot. I just think that goes to show, even... We talk to attractions of all kinds of shapes and sizes on this podcast. And I think it just goes to show that even with an attraction that is a big attraction, and it's perceived to be a very big attraction, actually you're working with really small teams here. And there's a lot on each person's shoulder and a lot of responsibility. And I think it's really important that we highlight that, that you're doing a lot there. Ross Ballinger: But the extended team is really good as well. We've got really good team members. So the rapport across the whole team is very tight. Danielle Nicholls: In terms of the marketing side, I report into a digital marketing manager. And she is insane, she's amazing at what she does. And then, alongside me, we also have a digital marketing exec. And how it splits out is, he looks after all of the technical side, so SEO, CRM, that kind of thing. And I look after the creative content. And then we both report in to the digital manager. Kelly Molson: It sounds like- Danielle Nicholls: It's a little team but- Kelly Molson: It sounds like such fun roles as well. Genuinely, they sound really cool. Because I know, Danielle, you are a bit of a theme park... I'm going to say nerd. But you're theme park nut, right? You love theme parks. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah, absolutely, yeah. Kelly Molson: And I'm guessing, Ross, to work in a theme park, you've got to love a theme park. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, absolutely. Kelly Molson: Did you absolutely tailor your careers to make this happen? Was this always your ultimate goals? Like, "I want to work in an attraction." Ross Ballinger: Yes and no, kind of. So I studied to be a graphic designer, went to university for three years. And then I worked as a digital artist while I was at uni. And then I went straight into a local agency, after getting quite a sought after placement in London. And then I worked for an agency for nearly nine years. So I learnt my craft there, really. Worked my way up from a junior, up to a senior creative. And I ended up looking after all the top clients there as well. But almost nine years was enough. I knew I wanted to go in-house because it was at that time, there was a bit of a boom of companies and clients getting in-house designers. Because they knew how cost effective it would be to have your graphic designer in-house. So I started looking about, and I wanted a fun industry. There was no way I was going to go and work for a boiler company. I don't want to bad mouth any other companies out there but something engineering or- Danielle Nicholls: More typically fun. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, I wanted to go full on fun. And I used to come to Drayton as a kid as well so I knew Drayton Manor. Kelly Molson: That's nice to have that connection, isn't it? You know the brand, you've lived it. Ross Ballinger: I've got pictures of me around the park when I'm seven or eight with my mum and dad. So I have that nostalgic connection. And I was a big to a big Thomas fan as well when I was a kid growing up. So Thomas the Tank Engine, I had the wallpaper, had the bedspreads, loved the episodes. So when I knew that the big blue engine was here as well, it was like- Danielle Nicholls: Big boss Thomas. Ross Ballinger: Big boss, yeah, Thomas is your boss, any day. Yeah. So I was a fan of attractions anyway. Who's not a fan of going out on days out? And so it worked. Kelly Molson: Exactly, cool. But, Danielle, you went out and made that happen, didn't you? This was your focus. Danielle Nicholls: It was, yeah. I think, maybe not so much early on, I guess this is different, but from the age of about 13, 14, I knew I wanted to work in marketing. But I wanted to do marketing for a dance company at the time. So I did a couple of placements at some dance companies, Northern Ballet, Phoenix Dance Theatre, places like that. And that was the dream up until about 17, I want to say, when I was at college. I knew that I wanted theme parks. So I went and did a media and marketing degree. And as soon as I got to my second year, I was like, "Right, that's it. I need to find a theme park. I need to get experience. I need to connect with as many people as I can on LinkedIn." And it was my focus. Kelly Molson: That's interesting. Hang on, let me just... Because that isn't a typical 17-year-old's path, is it? They wouldn't necessarily go, "I know that I want to work in this industry, therefore, I need to connect with people that can help me make that happen." That's a really good piece of advice. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And I was literally on it, messaging people. I think I messaged, at the time, the PR manager for Legoland. And was like, "Hello, anything you can help me with." I was really a bit brutal. But yeah, then I went to uni, and did everything I could whilst I was there to try and get the connections still. I applied for a couple of grad schemes with some other groups and, sadly, didn't make it through to those. So as a bit of a bridge between finishing uni and starting Drayton, I went to work for a tour operator, who sold overseas UK holidays, but also sold theatre, attraction tickets, theme parks. So it was a bit of a gap between the two. And I worked there for a year, and then the job at Drayton came up. And at the time, I was living in York, working for this tour operator. And I was like, "I've got to go for it." It was a marketing officer job, so a little bit different to what I do now. But I had to. So I drove two and a bit hours up, in my little... I had a little C1 at the time. Ross Ballinger: But I feel that we both came in at Drayton in our respective roles as entry level, really. Because I had just started as a graphic designer. I took a pay cut to come here because I really wanted to start here. It was never about anything like that. So I wanted to work at Drayton. So that proves that I wanted to work. And our roles have both escalated over the seasons that we've been here. Danielle Nicholls: Because I did move so far, and away from my family and stuff, it was a big jump. I had three weeks to find a house and somewhere to live as well, which was fun. But I managed to do it and, honestly, I don't regret it. I don't look back at all. It's probably the best thing I've ever done. Ross Ballinger: If you want it, you make it happen, don't you? Kelly Molson: Yeah, totally. And I think it really says a lot about the Drayton Manor brand that you've done that as well. There is a real... It's clear with both of you, how much you love it. And it's amazing that you've... Ross, you've taken a pay cut. You've changed where you live to come and work and be part of what's happening there. So I think that's a real testimony to the brand itself. And that's a couple of things that we really want to focus on for this conversation today. So I'm going to start with the focus on you, Danielle, if that's okay? Danielle Nicholls: Okay, yeah, that's fine. Kelly Molson: Because I think what you mentioned really briefly, when you went, "Oh yeah and we do this kind of thing as well," is what you said around the social community side. So you have built the social community and I want you to explain how you've been able to do that and what that's looked like. So tell us a little bit about that element of your role. Danielle Nicholls: So I've been here just over four years now. And in that time, we've been through so much change but, also, social has changed so much. So when I first started I was looking at social but it was more, "Let's just post and leave it," kind of thing. And see how it is engaged with, see how it works. But, over time, I've tried to hone it so it's more about a social community, rather than we're just talking at them. It's more we're talking with them and we're engaging with them. Like I say, we've grown into different channels. So we were really just focusing on Facebook. We had a little bit of Twitter, and a little bit of Instagram, but it was primarily Facebook. Whereas now, we've brought in more LinkedIn stuff and TikTok as well, which has really helped. I think in terms of building the social community though, there's so many different to-dos that you can stick to. But, for me, it's more about seeing what works for your brand. Because it doesn't always fit the same, it's not just one formula that fits all. Kelly Molson: And I guess, like you said, about bringing in different social channels, you need to work out where your audience is. I guess where you're getting the most engagement as well. And then, you are a small team, how do you then divide up where you spend your time? You've got to spend it in the areas that you're going to get that engagement. So you might then end up dropping certain channels, or not being as... I don't know, not putting as much effort into those ones, just because it's just not where you get the engagement. Danielle Nicholls: I think in terms of the different channels, they all have a different audience, if that makes sense. So Facebook is very family orientated. You get the grandparents, the mums on there. Whereas, Twitter is theme park fans and slightly younger, it's very conversational. TikTok is younger, but the demographics on there are shifting slightly to be everyone at the moment. Because it's where all the trends are and things, there's a big range. Our audience on there is 13 to maybe 35, 40 upwards. So it is very varied. Instagram is a mix between Twitter and Facebook. So you do get the families and the mums on there, but then you get the theme park fans that just want to see pictures of roller coasters. And with the introduction of reels as well, that's trying to tackle TikTok, so that's really important. And LinkedIn is corporate. But we do have a team, like I say, we have a digital manager as well, but she's so busy with all the other things that she's got to look after. So the social, like creating the content and community engagement, just sits with me. So I have a big plan of all the different channels and the different days. And because I know the Drayton brand inside and out, I know what works now. So we tend to post every other day on Facebook, every day on Twitter. And we try to do every weekday on TikTok. Instagram, very similar to Facebook. But there's not really one that I'd prioritise, necessarily. At first, it was TikTok, at the start of this year, because obviously that was where it was taking off. But now, it's just about tailoring the message across, and trying to keep active on all of them. Kelly Molson: Do you have to really tailor what you put out on each of the channels as well? So you don't do, "This is going to go out across all of our socials." You have to really think about how those... Because I guess there's subtle nuances about how people react to certain things on different channels, and how they might communicate back with you. Danielle Nicholls: I think, from what I've been doing this season in particular, is Twitter's been very conversational. So I've not necessarily been worried about always having an image on there, or always having a piece of media on there. Just some text normally works, so long as it's engaging and people feel like they want to respond to it. Whether there's a CTA on there, or it's just something that's humorous, then that tends to work quite well. Kelly Molson: It's no mean feat. That is an awful lot of work that goes into that. And I think it's really interesting to hear about the tailoring as well. And how you're going to get different reactions, from different people, on different social media platforms. Danielle Nicholls: We tend to get, particularly on Facebook, in the comments, they're always really interesting to read. They're so different to Twitter. Because Facebook, sometimes you get some complaints in there. But because our community is so strong now, we get other people responding for us, which is a good... It's amazing, I love it. Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. Danielle Nicholls: Sometimes you've got to moderate it because they might give an answer that's not necessarily right. But yeah, a lot of the time they'll be sticking up for us. Or they'll be responding to the questions for us, which is interesting. Kelly Molson: That's really impressive, and I didn't know that that happened. Is that part of, because you've put so much work into building your community, they're now backing you to other people? Danielle Nicholls: Exactly, yeah. Kelly Molson: Wow. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. They've become our brand guardians without us making them, if that makes sense. Because they're so loyal to the brand, they just want to do all their best for us. Kelly Molson: How does that happen? Is that a time thing? Is it purely because you've spent so much time investing in those relationships that that happens now? Nobody's ever told me this before, that that happens. Danielle Nicholls: I think it's that but, also, like you say, Drayton is such a strong brand. And particularly since I've been here, we've just gone from strength to strength. So I think that helps as well. We also use user generated content. So particularly at the end of a big campaign, so Halloween, we'll say, "Share your pictures with us and we'll share them on our feeds." And that really gives them a sense of belonging as part of the community. Because they'll be scrolling down their Facebook or Instagram or wherever, and they'll see a picture of maybe their little one. Or they'll see themselves and, yeah, they love it. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that the whole user generated content is brilliant, because it allows people to see themselves at the place as well, doesn't it? Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. Kelly Molson: So from a sales perspective, I think if people can look at something and go, "Oh, well, that family looks just like mine." Or, "That person looks just like me." Or, "They've got this thing, just like I have." Then they're more inclined to maybe buy a ticket to come and see it as well. So it works two ways. Danielle Nicholls: It's about recognising the top fans as well. So I know Facebook has the top fan badge. And, on Twitter, we've got a closed community group which anyone can join. That's just called Drayton Manor Top Fans. And we, every so often, give them a little bit of information early before we give it to everybody else. Or little things like that, that make them feel special. Kelly Molson: So they feel like VIPs. Danielle Nicholls: So it keeps them interactive. Yes, exactly. Kelly Molson: They've got their own mini community. They feel like VIPs because they get to know stuff early. That's brilliant. Again, I've never heard any other attraction talk about doing stuff like that. Do you think that would be... I always ask about top tips, and what you would recommend other people to do that are building communities. Do you think that would be one of your top tips, is really invest in them? Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And also, respond in a personal manner, rather than it being very corporate. Include your tone of voice, wherever you can, and make sure your tone of voice is dead on point, according to your brand guidelines. But also, be bold and brave. We always say that, don't we? Ross Ballinger: Bold and brave, yeah. Danielle Nicholls: If you sway away from your brand guidelines slightly, in order to respond, particularly on Twitter, it works really well. Then don't worry too much about that. It's okay, so long as it's in keeping with your values then it's okay. Ross Ballinger: And it's evident out there as well with all the other big companies. And it becomes a news story, doesn't it, when you get supermarkets battling on Twitter. And it's exposure and engagement at the same time. Kelly Molson: And people love that. Danielle Nicholls: That's another really important thing. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, people love it. It's a comedy show. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah, engaging with other brands helps. Kelly Molson: Yeah, they want to know about the people behind the brands, don't they? And if they realise that your brand face, actually there's a human behind it who's got a sense of humour, I think that goes a really long way. Danielle Nicholls: That's what we try and do. Kelly Molson: You do it perfectly, because I love your Twitter chat. You've got a great Twitter chat. We've talked loads about brand today, and that leads me on to what I want to talk to you about, Ross, which is the Drayton Manor brand itself. Because I think, I might have got this wrong, but it's a 70 year old brand. So Drayton Manor's about 70 years old. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, 1950 was when it first came about, yeah. The Bryan family started it in the 1950s. So George Bryan Sr., had this vision to create an inland pleasure resort for the local community. And I guess, in short story, it escalated from there. Danielle Nicholls: We've got a book all about it in the shops. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah. So yeah, we owe a lot to the Bryan family, really, for escalating such a tiny little brainchild into a massive attraction that we are today. So yeah, I can remember thinking that we needed to rebrand years ago though, when I first started. Because I think it's just one of those that was a little bit... I don't want to say anything bad about it but obviously it needed to change. It was a little bit outdated. Danielle Nicholls: It was a bit archaic, wasn't it? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, it was a bit archaic. It stood the test of time and it did a good job. Kelly Molson: So how long had the existing brand been in place, before you got your mitts on it? Ross Ballinger: I think the last logo that we had in the brand was probably in place for about 20 years. I think it's early 2000s, the last logo. Danielle Nicholls: There was always slight variations, wasn't there? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, there was always a few modifications on it. Kelly Molson: But I can imagine that things had changed quite dramatically over those 20 years as well. So you talk about the need for a rebrand, it was really needed. Ross Ballinger: Absolutely. Kelly Molson: What I always think's quite interesting is how long some of these things take. Because I think that people don't fully understand how long a rebrand can actually take you. So can you remember when those conversations first started? Ross Ballinger: Since I started, it's always been a project that was a pinnacle project that we always wanted to try and get on to. But just in terms of budgets and time, we never got around to it. Obviously, it came to the point, I think it was November 2021, when we first sat down and said, "Now is the time to do it." Because, obviously, we were bought out by a big company, Looping Group, and it was the perfect opportunity to do it. It's obviously a new era so it made perfect sense. Kelly Molson: So when did you launch it? So November, you sat down and went, "Right, November '21, we're going to do this." When did it actually launch? Ross Ballinger: Literally- Danielle Nicholls: Two minutes later. Ross Ballinger: Six months. Kelly Molson: Six months? Ross Ballinger: Six months, yeah. We put a brand team together, firstly. And, honestly, because we're such a small in-house team, we knew that we needed some help. So we got agency help, and we got local agencies to pitch in their best processes. So they were the experts in doing it, and they knew what protocols and procedures to go through. And we chose a really talented local agency in Birmingham. Yeah, started the project in '21, and launched it six months later. Kelly Molson: Wow, that's a phenomenal amount of work in six months. Ross Ballinger: Yeah. In, I don't know, design industry terms and the size of the business, that's no time at all, really. Kelly Molson: No, it's not. I honestly thought you were going to say we started talking about this three years ago and it took two years. It was a two year process. Ross Ballinger: The best thing was, is that we were doing that, alongside launching our brand new Vikings area. So we've got three new rides launch. We're launching a new website at the same time. Danielle Nicholls: We had a new booking system. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, a new ticketing system. As well as the regular day to day work and seasonal campaigns to market. It was literally like all Christmases come at once. Danielle Nicholls: It was. Everything we'd wanted for so long, they just went, "There you go." Ross Ballinger: All at the same time. Kelly Molson: You can have it all, but you need to do it in this amount of time. Wow. That is such a lot to all be happening at the same time. But I'm not going to lie, this happens at attractions. Suddenly, they just spring into action. We have just worked with a client with exactly the same. They did a rebrand, new website, booking system, all at the same time. And you're like, "Ah, the world is on fire. What's happening?" Danielle Nicholls: It was great though. Ross Ballinger: It was good though. We collaborated for most of it. The agency were a bit of a rock, really. And they did a lot of the legwork in terms of the brand personality, putting together the guidelines, creating the initial design concepts. But I did sit alongside them and collaborate with them. It would've just been a too big a task solely, on my own, internally, which it wouldn't have been possible. But I'd like to think I had a lot of input, inspirational design ideas along the way, that probably helped chisel the final outcome and the look of the brand that we've got now. Danielle Nicholls: Just logos in itself, you had sheets and sheets of- Ross Ballinger: Sheets and sheets of logos, yeah, logo concepts and variations. But I know I wanted something that was super flexible in terms of composition and layout. Because I know what I'd created before, it was archaic, but it was flexible. It would work on all different platforms. And then the typeface that we chose for the final logo was one of my early typefaces that I pitched in. And the swirl, that was one of my babies, that was one of my original concepts. So I always wanted to push that. Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I love that. But that's what makes for a good agency client relationship is that you do collaborate. That's how it should be. And they obviously nailed it. And I know that you would've had so many stakeholders involved in this process as well. So I can imagine how big a challenge that was to actually come to a final, "This is what it's going to be like," and everyone be happy. Ross Ballinger: It was a challenge, but only because we had a lot of passionate stakeholders that wanted valued input. And they had strong views, which was very fair. Kelly Molson: So the bit that ties these two stories together, the things that we've talked about today, is that... I think you alluded to the fact, Ross. That when the brand launched, it's a big change for people. The way that you've talked about the brand is incredibly passionate. I can imagine that local people, people that come to visit every week, every month, they are so... The brand is in their heart. So a big change like this can be quite uncomfortable for people. And when the brand launched, there was a little bit of- Ross Ballinger: Yeah, there was a bit of uncertainty, yeah, and a bit of shock. Yeah, they've had a logo installed in their brain for 20 years. But when we wanted to launch the rebrand, it wasn't just about a logo. We did focus on the logo probably, in hindsight, more than we should have. Danielle Nicholls: I think that's maybe a bit of a learning curve, particularly on social. The asset that we used was the old logo going into the new logo, which we thought was great. But then when we put it out, we were like, "Actually, maybe we should have focused more on..." Like you say, brand personality and visions and values, rather than just the logo. Ross Ballinger: Because the end user hasn't really seen the six months of graft that's gone into creating that. And we did portray it in five seconds. Kelly Molson: So they just get the, "Hey, this is new, you should love it." But they haven't understood about the process of why you've done certain things, and the decisions that have been made. Danielle Nicholls: Exactly, yeah. We had a blog which explained it all perfectly, but you had to click through to the blog. People didn't necessarily do that. They just saw the logo and keyboard- Ross Ballinger: But I like the journey we went through because the people that didn't actually really like it in the beginning and really just sacked it off straight away, they're the people that have warmed to it now. And seen it in execution, and how adaptable it is, and how we can get our messages across. And the fact that they love it now, and I love that, that we've turned them round. Danielle Nicholls: Because the main thing we were trying to do, really, is come away from fun family memories, and turn it to fun for everyone. That was the main message that we wanted to portray, particularly on the social channels, and in brand in general. But I think going forward we're definitely going to achieve that. Kelly Molson: But it's quite interesting because I think what you talked about earlier, Danielle, your social community, they would've played a big part in this when you launched it. So I guess it would've been harder if you hadn't already built those relationships and nurtured that community. Launching something like this, would've been 1,000 times more difficult than actually... All right, there was a bit of a bump in the road, but it wasn't the end of the world. And people, like you say, are now warming to it and loving it. Would that have happened if you hadn't put all that work into the social community aspect? Danielle Nicholls: Possibly not. I think, like I said earlier, there was a lot of people, they had our backs. So there was people like, "This is..." Being very negative. But people were responding saying, "Look, they have to move forward, they've been through this, that and the other. They have to move forward. See the positives," which was good. Ross Ballinger: I think as well, probably because we've got such a good social community, they felt comfortable with saying what they thought about it and being honest. Danielle Nicholls: Which helps because we did run focus groups beforehand, as part of the rebrand process, with suppliers, annual pass holders, staff members, literally with so many people. But until it's out there, you're not necessarily going to get that big, full, wider picture. So it did help us with how we were going to move forward with the rebrand as well, looking at their feedback. Kelly Molson: So you actually took some of their... So obviously from the focus groups, you would've taken on board some of the input that you got from those. When it launched, was there anything that you took on board from the feedback that you were getting at that point? That you could look to, not necessarily change, but I guess look at the ways that you implement it in a different way? Danielle Nicholls: I think the main thing was, like we said, the logo situation. Because everyone was so focused on the logo, we knew that, moving forwards, as we were going to explore the brand even more, we had to make sure it was about the imagery and the personality. And including the shop line there and things like that, rather than... I think that learning curve definitely came from the feedback. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. It is such a huge project to go through a rebrand. And I think there's always that anxious moment when you unveil it to people and they go... It could be a bit Marmite. But I think the way that it's been managed, that's the important part of this story, really. And that comes back to, again, it all fits together about how the two of you work together as well. And I think that's quite an important aspect to take away from this podcast episode as well. It's about, it's a team, this is a team thing that happens here. And it's not just about one person. So the brand has launched and then, suddenly, it's all on Danielle's shoulders to deal with all the stuff that's coming back. It's, this is a team thing. Ross Ballinger: Well, no, it cascaded all the way through the company, didn't it? Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. Ross Ballinger: People would be like... Even engineers, and everyone, and HR, they were like... They felt the same... It was almost a little bit of disappointment that the reaction wasn't amazing. But then, everybody felt it. Danielle Nicholls: But we all came together and- Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Danielle Nicholls: Our director of people bought us a box of Krispy Kremes in the office that day. And was like, "There you go, guys. Are you all okay?" And we were like, "Yeah, it's all good." Ross Ballinger: But there's obviously horror stories of brands doing this and reverting back. But we knew that we'd got something that was amazing that we were going to stick to. And once we knew we could roll it out, that it was going to flourish. So we're just glad that we stuck to our guns and just... We had the negativity at the beginning and, now, people love it. Danielle Nicholls: Like you say, we have people coming up to us, just telling me it's good. Saying, "I wasn't sure at first? But now we love it." Kelly Molson: Ah, see, and that's what you want. You want it to be loved by everybody that sees it now. That's brilliant. You just reminded me of something that I saw a few weeks ago. Have you seen the video when Staples changed their logo, they put out? Danielle Nicholls: Yes. Ross Ballinger: Yes, yes. Kelly Molson: That's just like, as you were talking about it, I was going, "Oh my God, I watched that last week." And it's so crazy. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. And they're all like, "Whoopa." It's amazing. Kelly Molson: "Wow, look at us." And I just didn't think it was amazing either. But I just felt really sorry for the whole team being forced to clap it and, "Yay, a logo." Oh dear, if that's what they thought brand was- Ross Ballinger: I loved it. I just think that's how you should do it, even if it is a bit cringey. Danielle Nicholls: I thought it was hilarious. Ross Ballinger: What they've done is open up the stapler in the logo, and put it on the side. But sometimes that probably would've cost them an arm and a leg just to do that as well. Danielle Nicholls: So much time. Kelly Molson: There's a massive buildup to that happening as well. And I was a bit like, "Wow, that's a massive anticlimax." Danielle Nicholls: A big press conference for it. Ross Ballinger: I just loved everything about it, honestly. Kelly Molson: The next rebrand, that's what you'll be doing, Ross. You'll get everyone in the attraction, you'll launch it on a big screen. I think what you've done, and what you've achieved, is phenomenal. Thank you for coming on the podcast and talking to me about it today. I really appreciate it. As ever, we always ask our guests if they've got a book that they love that they'd like to share with our audience. So you can pick one each. Danielle Nicholls: I think for me... And going back to me being a theme park nerd, this ties in very well. John Wardley, who is- Ross Ballinger: No. Danielle Nicholls: I know, right. John Wardley, who is a big theme park, mainly rollercoaster, designer. He's done work for Merlin, PortAventura, Oakwood, so many. He was really, really big. He worked on things like Nemesis, Oblivion, Katanga Canyon at Alton Towers, was Megafobia at Oakwood. He had an autobiography called Creating Your Nemesis, which basically spanned through his life of how we got into the theme park industry and where we went through. And it's very story based and anecdotal, but it was really inspiring. And helped me create the courage to knock on doors and do that kind of thing. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Great book. Great book choice. Ross Ballinger: That's a really good response to the question. See, I'm a designer so I don't really read. I can read, but I just don't read. I'm very visual, as you can imagine. So I'm just not a fan of reading. I prefer to just scroll through Instagram and TikTok. But I have read books in the past. I remember one book, I think it's probably the only book I have read, was The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown. I think it's Dan Brown. But that's only because I was interested in Leonardo da Vinci, who was obviously a scientist or an... He was a bit of an artist and an architect. So I was more interested in his theories, and his Vitruvian Man, I think it is. So I was more interested in his works, really. But other than that, I do own every book by Jamie Oliver, so if a cookbook works. Kelly Molson: I don't know if you should be sharing that. Ross Ballinger: So yeah, I love Jamie Oliver. 5 Ingredients, 30 Minute Meals, brilliant. Kelly Molson: Jamie Oliver gets a bad rap and I don't really know why because he seems like a nice guy. Danielle Nicholls: Are we going back to unpopular opinion? Kelly Molson: Well, I think we should. But also a little story in that. I live in Saffron Walden, Jamie Oliver lives five minutes around the corner. Ross Ballinger: He's down the road. Kelly Molson: He goes to the market in my town every Saturday, and goes and buys his- Ross Ballinger: Oh, I'd love to meet him. Danielle Nicholls: You'd be there for a selfie. Kelly Molson: Ross, join the queue. I'd love to meet him. I've lived here since 2019. I've never seen him once. All my friends have seen him. And now, it's a thing with them. They're like, "Have you seen him yet? Have you seen him?" No. And I feel like, I'm not a Jamie Oliver stalker. I'm not going to go and harass him. I just would like to live in the town and be like, "Oh yeah, I saw him this morning." I've never seen him. My mum has been messaging me once, and she's been in the cafe in Saffron Walden, and been like, "I think Jamie Oliver's on the table next to me. I'm not sure if it's him though. I don't know if it's a fat version of Jamie Oliver, or if it's actually... Oh no, it is Jamie. It's Jamie Oliver." Ross Ballinger: Oh no. I can understand why people don't like him. But he just sploshes his olive oil everywhere, sploshes it around. But he has got that passion for cooking, which is what I resonate with. So he loves what he does, he's so- Danielle Nicholls: You can't knock his passion. Ross Ballinger: You can't knock his passion. So I'm in tune with that. Kelly Molson: All right. Listeners, well, I think that we should scrap Ross's book choice, and I think we should go with the Jamie Oliver book. So if you head over to Twitter, and you retweet this Twitter announcement with, "I want Ross and Danielle's books," then you might be in with a chance of winning Danielle's book and a Jamie Oliver cookbook. Does that sound fair? Ross Ballinger: Yeah, that'd be ace. Kelly Molson: I feel like you were more passionate about that. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Kelly Molson: All right, let's do that then. Thank you. It was lovely to have you both on. I've really, really enjoyed it. Ross Ballinger: Thank you. Danielle Nicholls: Thank you. Kelly Molson: And also thank you for the lovely little tour that I got of the new Vikings area at Drayton Manor, when you hosted the UK Theme Park Awards earlier this year. Danielle Nicholls: I'm glad you liked it. Ross Ballinger: Yeah, we did, yeah. Kelly Molson: It was awesome. Danielle Nicholls: It was amazing. Ross Ballinger: I think that's where you spotted us. Danielle Nicholls: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Well, look, I'm not going to lie, you guys were sitting behind me and you were extremely loud. And I thought, "They'll make great podcast guests." Danielle Nicholls: We were whooping everyone. Ross Ballinger: We had so much energy that day though. I was knackered by the end of the day. Kelly Molson: I loved it. No, you hosted it perfectly. It was a brilliant event. But the new area is fantastic, so definitely go on, book your ticket. Ross Ballinger: We're very proud of it. Kelly Molson: And go on and see that while you can. So thanks for coming on, guys. Ross Ballinger: Thank you. Danielle Nicholls: Thank you. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions, that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more, over on our website; rubber cheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| Why smell is a form of mind control, with Liam Findlay | 02 Nov 2022 | 00:37:20 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/liam-r-findlay/ Smells for Theme Parks and Dementia Care: AromaPrime on BBC News Kickstarter for the game where a reward is a scent collection, based on the locations in the game
Liam R. Findlay is a designer of themed attractions who also works for AromaPrime, advising attractions on how to enhance their experiences using scent. AromaPrime was founded in 1973, and it creates weird and wonderful pongs for venues like Alton Towers, The British Museum and Madame Tussauds. The company's collection of over 400 concoctions ranges from Dinosaur to Dungeon, and Pirate Ship to Penguin Sick. While Liam helps clients select or develop the best smells to tell their stories, he also assists in implementing them in the most effective ways.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. We're getting smelly on the podcast today as I speak with Liam Findlay, Multisensory Attraction Designer and Sensing Specialist at AromaPrime. Liam discusses the use of Aroma's storytelling and psychological influences in your attraction and why smell is a form of mind control. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Liam, hello. Welcome to Skip the Queue. Liam Findlay: Hi, how are you? Kelly Molson: I'm very good. How are you is the question? Liam Findlay: I'm very good. Fatigued from lots of orders, but it's a good thing. Kelly Molson: Right, we'll talk about that in a minute because it's a very busy season for you. Our listeners will find out why soon, but first, icebreaker questions. So I'm going to start with a couple of topical ones. I want to know, what is your favourite smell and also, what is the smell that turns your stomach? Liam Findlay: My favourite smell is probably a kind of, when I was growing up there was an attraction called The Timewalk in the town I lived in, and it had a musty smell in a Black Death scene. And it was very scary and dark in there and it had that horrible smell but the attraction's been closed for over a decade now, and everyone in the town remembers it for its Black Death smell. And now I work for the company that made that smell, so I have kind of a personal connection to it. Kelly Molson: Oh, how funny. Okay, so do they have the smell in the archives? So can you go and find the smell and it takes you back to that attraction? Liam Findlay: Yeah, we're selling it now as The Timewalk smell for locals who might want to transport themselves back. Kelly Molson: This is amazing. And again, this is something that we will talk about a little bit later, the reasons why smell is so emotive for people. Okay. And what about the worst smell? Liam Findlay: I'm not sure when it comes to that because I'm so used to all sorts of horrible smells, and especially with AromaPrime, everything's artificial so I know it's just chemicals, so I don't tend to be repulsed by them. Personally, I think things that are to do with people's mouths, like food-related smells or if someone's just been eating and you can smell it. Kelly Molson: Like if someone had eaten raw onion or something like that? Yeah, okay. All right. I mean, mine's tequila but there's a whole other story around that that we'll save for another day. All right. What are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop? Liam Findlay: Probably a magnet for my parents' fridge. Kelly Molson: Do they collect magnets when they go on holiday and stuff? Is it full of them? Liam Findlay: Yeah, it's kind of a mandatory thing, if someone goes on holiday they have to get a magnet for the fridge. Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, I like that. That's quite a good collection to have. Liam Findlay: Unless they sell smells, Efteling sells smells of its rides in its gift shop. So that's a must do for me. Kelly Molson: I've never heard of that before. Is that the only attraction that you know that does that? Liam Findlay: I think Europa Park might have done it, and Blackpool Pleasure Beach has candles that are inspired by the rides, but they aren't the actual smells. So yeah, I don't know why more places don't do it. Kelly Molson: Well, maybe they will after they hear this podcast, Liam, who knows? Okay. And if you could choose any attraction to create a smell for, what attraction would it be? Liam Findlay: It's hard to say because I kind of work on lots of smells for all sorts of attractions anyway. I think I always enjoy kind of time travel ones, maybe linking back to The Timewalk attraction that I grew up with, because they always have a nice variety of smells with all the different time periods you can go through. Kelly Molson: Okay, yeah, all right. So yeah, there's a little bit of variety involved in what you could create with them, so it wouldn't all be the same. Liam Findlay: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Okay, interesting. Thank you. All right, Liam, what's your unpopular opinion? Liam Findlay: I would say that bad smells are not necessarily bad in that like I was just saying they can bring back memories. We work with lots of care homes at AromaPrime, and sometimes you can have a horrible fishy smell that's used in scare mazes, but it's also used to bring back memories for people that used to be fishermen or fisherwomen. Bad smells, if you put them in different contexts, they can actually not be so bad. Sometimes you can have a kind of horrible manure smell, but if you present it as something like a lovely countryside kind of atmosphere, people can react positively to it. And actually, rhino dung, I was sniffing some rhino dung last week. Kelly Molson: As you do. Liam Findlay: At Chessington World of Adventures, and we were saying how it's just got a lovely kind of grassy smell to it because the rhinos eat grass, but then when you realise it's rhino dung, you might end up reacting to it negatively. Kelly Molson: So we need to reframe our minds around what that smell is and take away the bad connotation of it? Liam Findlay: Yeah. Bad smells are perhaps not always necessarily bad depending on how you look at them, that's my message. Kelly Molson: All right, listeners, well let us know what you think. As ever, I'm going to need to reframe tequila in my mind. Maybe, I don't know, maybe if we meet up at an event, someone can help me do that, who knows? I thought about you while I was on holiday a few weeks ago, Liam. I don't often think about many of my podcast guests when I'm on a holiday, but you definitely came to mind. It was because of some of the things that we're going to talk about today. So I took my husband and my daughter into the Museum of Torture, which was a very small museum in Tuscany, in Sienna, probably not child friendly, I'm not going to lie. I don't think my 14 month old was overly impressed. But it was very small museum, we went down into the dungeon area and it was very small and it was very dark and it smelt really musty. And it was the one part of the museum for me that really captured that sense of for like, "Oh, this is a dangerous place to be, something horrid is going to happen here." And it was because of the smell. You didn't have that in any of the other areas. And it was really fascinating, you walked around and you looked at these torture instruments and you saw how people were treated and what they did to people but that area was the one place that it really got under my skin and up my nose, but for the right reasons because of the smell. And it instantly made me think about you and what you guys do. So tell us a little bit about AromaPrime and then tell us a little bit about what your role is there. Liam Findlay: Well, AromaPrime's been around since 1973, so we're turning 50 next year and throughout that time we've been making immersive smells for visitor attractions. So it could be to kind of increase anticipation and anxiety in a rollercoaster queue with the smell of fire, for example, like at Alton Towers it's Wickerman rollercoaster. Or it could be to educate people and engage them in the past if it's a historical smell. It could be to kind of bring about certain feelings if they're walking into a hotel and you want a lovely signature scent that's going to make people relaxed, or if it's historical or a nostalgic sense that are used in care homes like I was just saying to kind of bring back fond memories. So there's kind of lots of ways you can use smells to trick the mind and change how people feel, maybe feeling anxious in the Torture Museum. And my job is to advise attractions on how to implement these smells and which smells might work best and kind of lead to the best results in their attractions. So whether they want to make people feel a certain way or if they want to tell a certain story and use smells to change how the story's being told as it developed. So it's very exciting, always lots of different projects. Kelly Molson: It is. And I'm really intrigued about how you came to be in this role. So your bio says that you advise on Aroma's storytelling influences, psychological influences and thematic influences, as well as practical ways to utilise aroma in different environments. All of this is really, really fascinating. But what did you study and how did you get to be this person that advises them on all these things? Liam Findlay: Well, I actually did an animation degree and then I worked in the animation industry for a while. And from that I kind of learned lots of design skills and storytelling skills and I ended up putting that into work at an escape room where I designed escape rooms. So there was kind of sound design and visual design and telling stories again. And then I ended up working freelance designing experiences and museum interpretation for attractions like castles and more escape rooms and a ghost train on one occasion. And through working in the attractions industry as a designer, I wondered if I could maybe contribute my kind of understanding of the processes behind attraction design and put that into smell. And I knew that AromaPrime existed and I wondered if maybe I could help them out through that. So I sent them an email and they said, "Oh, we're looking for someone like you," and they took me on and I think it was late 2018 maybe so it's been a few years now and it's been going quite well. Kelly Molson: So you've kind of honed your craft working at AromaPrime. So can you just explain a little bit about, I understand about the storytelling influences that we talked about and how smell brings back those memories and it can transport you to a different place, tell me about the psychological influences and the thematic influences. What do you mean by those? How does that work? Liam Findlay: It's a bit like what I was saying about the rollercoaster queue or in a scare maze, for example, you might use a pleasant smell that lots of people have a familiar connection with like the smell of bananas. Maybe not everyone likes bananas, maybe the smell of chocolate, to kind of lift people's spirits and give them a false sense of security so that when they suddenly turn a corner and see something horrid and it has a disgusting kind of rotten smell, you're kind of crafting the psychological journey for them. So you're bringing back these pleasant emotions and memories and then you're twisting it. And maybe that horrible smell will be the smell of vomit that most people will have really unpleasant associations with and it'll make them feel uncomfortable when suddenly a pig man jumps out with a chainsaw. So you can tie the sense into how the story develops and manipulate or influence emotions as it goes along. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And what about the thematic influences? What does that mean in terms of smell? Liam Findlay: It's probably the most basic way of looking at sense. So at fantasy experience for example, like we did a wizard mini golf attraction recently, so it's kind of binding or creating sense that apply to a theme. And sometimes that can be tricky if it's a fantasy theme, you might not really be sure what kinds of smells potions have. But with our unicorn smell, for example, we sniff some horses, as you would, and we read lots of ancient myths about unicorns and we kind of approached it like we would approach historical smells. So we want them to be backed up with stories and kind of authenticity where possible to make sure that the theme is as strong as it can be. Kelly Molson: Isn't that funny though because when you said unicorn, the image of unicorn in my head is glittery and pink because every little girls are obsessed by glittery pink unicorns. And so I was like, "Oh yeah, but for me, unicorns smell a bit sugary," a sweet sugary smell they'd smell like. Liam Findlay: Yeah, well that's what the final product is really. It's like got a little undertone of horse, but it's mostly like a birthday cake. Kelly Molson: Yes. Oh, I love that. Thank you for explaining that. That's put me right. Yeah, it's really weird how you see what something looks like and you instantly imagine what it smells like, even though I have no clue what a unicorn smells like, obviously. I guess it's the same feeling, the one that you spoke about in terms of making people feel comfortable and then shocking them is, I can remember reading something years ago about if you are selling your house, have some freshly baked bread just come out of the oven because that is a smell that everyone finds quite comforting and quite homely. And so then if you can smell that while you're in a new home, you think, "Oh yeah, I could see myself living here. This is a cozy place to be, isn't it?" So it's that kind of sense that you're trying to get build in people. Liam Findlay: Yeah, it's a big thing in retail using scents in shops. There was a study where people went into a room, I think it was full of shoes and it wasn't scented and they kind of responded to what they thought of the products, whether it was shoes or not. And then there were some other participants who went into a room that was scented and it had the same products and the people in the scented room valued the products as being more expensive, or they guessed that they would be more expensive because they saw them as a higher quality because the room was scented even though they didn't realise it was the scent that was causing that. Kelly Molson: Because they could smell the leather and the... Right, okay. Gosh, that's interesting, isn't it? How it can affect how you perceive something as well. Liam Findlay: Yeah, it can change perception. And also like you say about pleasant smells, if you smell something like bread, it makes you kind of hungry because it kind of triggers those memories of enjoying bread and therefore you'll start to kind of seek it out and you won't necessarily find bread, but you'll seek out some kind of satisfaction and that satisfaction might end up being purchasing something. Kelly Molson: A very expensive house purchase. Liam Findlay: Yeah. Kelly Molson: How do you create smells? Because I watched one of the interviews that you did, I think it's for the BBC, which I will link to in the show notes, it's really interesting. But I think one of them said that your recipes, some of them are based on 30 year old recipes, these smells. So how do you even start to create the smells? Liam Findlay: Well, yeah, well like I was saying, we are turning 50 next year, so it was actually slightly inaccurate in the BBC video is- Kelly Molson: Sorry, kids, it's wrong. Liam Findlay: Well that was my fault, I told them the wrong date. Because actually, there are not many records about the company history and I only a while ago realised or found a document that said when it was founded. So it's always been a bit of a mystery. But yeah, over that time we've accumulated over 400 aromas, so we've kind of got a big stock of anything anyone could imagine just about. And if they want something that's a bit more specific, sometimes we might combine our existing scents. So it might be a bit of grass with a bit of rotten eggs for some kind of Roald Dahl soup for example. And then if we are making something from scratch, it will be a case of finding the chemicals that kind of have certain qualities like you might have a chemical that is generally used in rose products because it has a rose smell and then you can combine it with others. And often we'll have references like maybe rhino dung, we've been sent otter poo and jaguar urine before to get that right. Kelly Molson: In the post? Go get the post today, I wonder what could be in it, that's a surprise. Liam Findlay: Yeah. So sometimes we'll be kind of mixing things and sniffing and then we'll also send lots of samples to the clients so they can say if it's accurate or not and it works that way. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant, isn't it? Funny to understand what might turn up in your letter box each day. So when you work with an attraction, Halloween is a very obvious market for you. There's lots of scare things that happening and they are very smell related. But how do you work with an attraction? What's that process of them calling you in and going, "Look, we've got this thing that we are doing, how can you work with us?" What do you do? Liam Findlay: It kind of varies on what their end goal is. Sometimes regardless of what the kind of function of the attraction is, sometimes it will just be a case of them telling us how large the space is and then we'll advise on the kind of machine that they'll need because we do machines as well and the themes as well and then we'll suggest some scents and then they put them in the machines. And it can be quite a quick process sometimes. If it's more complex, it might be like a museum that wants a historical scent and they don't want it spreading around the whole museum and stinking things out or ruining the paintings down the corridor, there can be more advice to give in that regard. So museums often it's good to use what's called dry diffusion when you have an object that's scented rather than liquid kind of going out as a mist into the air. So that object will just kind of emit a smell and you can maybe put a lid over it or have it in a container that has a puffer. So yeah, I would often ask what the end goal is and then kind of make some suggestions from there. Kelly Molson: Yeah, because I hadn't thought about if it's a museum, those artefacts and those things could be damaged by certain smells. It's also, I guess you have to be quite consultative in your approach about what you offer to them individually. Liam Findlay: Yeah, another case or another issue can be around whether people want to smell things or not. Like if they go to a scare maze, they'll probably expect to be repulsed. But if you go into a museum, I suppose it's because people aren't really used to it, they're not always prepared to sniff things. So it can be good to have flaps so people can choose whether they're going to smell things or not. Or maybe some places will put up little warnings if it's kind of a profound world war trench set that they can walk into and there's going to be horrible smell of bodies and things. Sometimes there might be a warning because it almost equates to having gory images, like in museums you'll have warnings that there'll be gory images here. Kelly Molson: Yeah, and I guess talking about what we were saying earlier about those emotive, it can take you right back to a place, I guess that could be quite frightening for some people as well if they don't want to be taken back to those places, for example. Liam Findlay: Yeah. And because smell's kind of flexible and a horrible smell relating to war could also be a horrible smell relating to some other unpleasant personal memory. So yeah, sometimes you have to think about how the smell's going to be presented in a way that's going to work for the visitors. Kelly Molson: Okay. Thorpe Park, the Dungeons and Warwick Castle all have promotional scent ranges. This is something that you helped them develop, isn't it? I think this was during the pandemic. Am I right? So can you tell us about this? How did this happen? Liam Findlay: Well, it was a tricky time because all the parks were closed so the parks were wondering what to do while they were closed. And the parks were our customers as well, so we couldn't sell to them. So everyone was kind of out of action at that point. So we were kind of thinking of ways that we could engage people in our products for the parks and for us. So I think it was Thorpe Park we approached first and we just suggested that we could kind of release some of their smells that they used in their scare mazes and eventually it was Warwick Castle and the smells they used in their Kingmaker Experience and the Dungeons and their smells to make them available, branded under the scenes that they appear in those attractions so people could buy the Blacksmith smell at the Warwick Castle Kingmaker Experience. And that was a nice way to take people back to the attractions while they weren't able to visit. And it helped AromaPrime as well because we were kind of profiting from the customers of our customers in a way that everyone was kind of happy with because it was promoting the parks and the customers were happy because they were being taken back to the parks. There was one customer who contacted me and was thanking me for the opportunity to buy the smell of the Tomb Blaster ride at Chessington World of Adventures because her sister had autism and she was really struggling with the lockdown and being able to transport herself back to the ride through the smell during lockdown kind of brought her lots of comfort. So it turned out to be a kind of lovely and beneficial project for everyone, a nice way of adapting to the scenario. Kelly Molson: That is so wonderful, isn't it? By the power of smell, being able to be in your favourite place without being able to leave your house. That's incredible, what an amazing thing to have been able to do. Liam Findlay: Yeah, and fans really enjoy it. The Wicker Man Woodsmoke smell from Alton Towers is really popular and we get people that diffuse it in their living room and make all the lights red and they play the music and send us photos. Kelly Molson: That's taking true fan to a whole nother level, isn't it? Recreating the smell of your favourite attraction in your living room, wow. Okay, that's great. But there's other ways of using smells as well, isn't it? And I think this is something that you've been talking about quite a lot on LinkedIn that I was really interested in. A smell tour of Amsterdam has been developed. And you've been part of this, haven't you? So this isn't just about attractions, this is about tourism as well. Tell us about this. I don't fully understand what it is and how you've developed it. Liam Findlay: Well, this was run by Odeuropa, who I've been collaborating with a lot. And Odeuropa is a kind of global group of academics who are working to improve the ways that senses are used to tell historical stories and how they are used their museums. And one of their projects was this smell tour of Amsterdam and this was done through a scratch and sniff card. So my job was to illustrate the card and it was a map of Amsterdam so you could kind of follow a route and go to an apothecary that had a certain ingredient to its perfume that it once used or you could go down to the canals and smell what the canals used to smell like hundreds of years ago and kind of scratch as you went around. And they developed an app as well so you could kind of track where you were going. And that was a really nice way to engage people in history and they were able to access the stories themselves. They weren't just going through a museum and reading stuff, they were properly exploring and sniffing and taking it all in. And it was a really exciting way. It was throughout the month of September and the cards were available at Amsterdam Museum and it was an exciting way to get people enjoying and almost living the past because they were going through the real places where all this stuff happened. Kelly Molson: That's such a brilliant idea. So yeah, it's completely immersive, isn't it? You are in the area, you're doing a walking tour so you can see the places that are being described to you and then you can smell what they smell like a hundred years ago. Liam Findlay: Yeah, it was cool. Kelly Molson: Wow. That is really cool. Liam Findlay: Got lots of good responses. Kelly Molson: And I guess you worked with them in the same mode that you would an attraction, it's just understanding what used to be there, finding the smells that you already have and then bringing them all together into the scratch card. Liam Findlay: Yeah. In this case, Odeuropa already had the smells because they've been working on lots of different historical smells themselves like the smell of hell, I think based on a kind of 1700s painting, maybe it was another century. Kelly Molson: And what does hell smell like? Can you describe it to us? Liam Findlay: From what I understand, it's mostly fire and bodies. Kelly Molson: Burning hot stuff? Okay. Liam Findlay: But one of the members of Odeuropa had worked on an exhibition in The Hague where people could go around a gallery and they had paintings and smell puffers like foot pumps so they could pump it and a smell would come out and that would be the smell of the painting or of something that was in the painting. And it was a nice way to kind of engage them with the contents of the painting, kind of look a bit harder and think about what's making that smile and why did it smell that way? So Odeuropa already had lots of interesting smiles that they could incorporate into this. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. I would absolutely go on a scratch and sniff tour of anywhere. Liam Findlay: Yeah, well it's a nice model because you can kind of apply it to any city or even, I don't know, an ancient school or a hospital or all sorts of places. Kelly Molson: And if you think, I guess there's just so many advantages to it as well for people that can't see the places that they're in but can still feel that emotive connection to them by being able to smell what those places smell like. Liam Findlay: Yeah, smell is very good in terms of accessibility because even if you're on a theme park ride and you're going along in a boat and maybe there are cannons going off, if you can't see the cannons or you can't hear the cannon sound effects, if you smell it, it kind of means that you're not missing out on the story. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's brilliant. I hope they do more of those, I'd be up for that. Liam Findlay: Yeah. Kelly Molson: There's a quote that I read from you that said, "Smell is a form of mind control." It really resonated with me, especially because of some of the things that we've been talking about. But let's go back to what you started to talk about at the beginning of our interview was about the smells for care homes because you've worked on quite a few projects for those as well. And I think obviously this is not attraction related, but I just think this is such a wonderful thing to be able to use your skillset for. Tell us a little bit about what you've done. Liam Findlay: Well, care homes was one of the company's first kind of activities I suppose back in the seventies. I mean, back then it would be the smells of the 1920s that would be made to take people back into the past. And that's something interesting as well because the kind of residents who are always getting that bit older and the smells that will be familiar to them change gradually so we have to kind of think, okay, maybe World War smells, I saw on Twitter someone was complaining that their mother was being subjected to World War II songs, even though most care home residents probably weren't around back then anymore or at least a small number. So yeah, we've been producing nostalgic smells for care homes for a long time and it can be really nice if there's like carbolic soap for example is a popular one. If there's a smell that lots of people perhaps with dementia who will have personal memories with, it's a nice way of unlocking those memories, especially you tend not to lose your smell memory. So if you smell something from the past and even if you have memory problems, smelling that can kind of unlock something from years and years ago and bring back those memories and encourage conversation with the other residents that you might live with about their memories and then they'll kind of start talking about it and sniffing and it can be a nice way to lift spirits as well as bringing back memories. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's wonderful, isn't it? I saw the clip, and again this was in the clip that we will add into the show notes, but it was about the soap smell and the lady said, "Oh, it just makes me feel comfortable." It took her to a happier place where she just had really good memories of it and it was just such a lovely clip to see, you could almost see her face kind of light up with the smell because it took her back there instantly. It was just brilliant. And just think that's such a lovely thing to do. Liam Findlay: Yeah, there's a company called Rempods, which they make a kind of sets for all care homes like a recreated nostalgic pub from the sixties or a train carriage, that's quite a popular one. So like a wall and there's a window that's a screen and you can see the countryside going past. And we work with them quite a lot to supply smells to kind of bring that whole experience together. So that kind of ties into the theme entertainment as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's like a mini attraction in a care home with sense. That's incredible. I had no idea that that was even a possibility. What a brilliant thing to be able to do for people. Liam Findlay: Yeah. It could even be as simple as a memory box that. We have a customer who makes memory boxes for care homes, which are just kind of full of props and things that the residents might be familiar with and they include the smells as well. And that same customer, she is a funeral director and we have what are called aroma cubes, which are normally used by care homes and they're just little cubes you can pick up and sniff. And there was someone who was in her chapel of rest who had died and the person who had died had worked in a bakery so this funeral director had put the smell of bread in a little aroma cube just in the same room. And when her family, the person's family visited in the chapel, they could smell this and they just found it really kind of nice and it took them back to her bakery and it wasn't kind of gimmicky, the room wasn't full of bread smells, it was just a little thing that they could use to have a nice moment with. And it worked really well. Kelly Molson: That is so lovely. I was just thinking, because I lost my granddad a really, really long time ago, I think I was like 20 when I lost him. And if I could be in a room now and his smell would be Polos, he had Polos, pockets full of Polos everywhere, even when he passed away, all of his cardigans had Polo packets in them. And that would be the smell that would bring me back to him instantly. So I can completely imagine how comforted they were by smelling that. Oh, it sounds really lovely. Liam, I know that you're super busy at the moment because we are recording this at the beginning of October and Halloween is coming and everyone goes crazy at Halloween, right? So you've been busy since probably a good few months with people ordering in their smells. What's the most popular Halloween smell on order at the moment? Liam Findlay: I'd say the familiar one is the most popular because you want smells that are going to affect the largest range of people. So it will be things like vomit and poo and rotting flesh is actually popular. And I suppose not many people would be familiar with that. Kelly Molson: It's not a statement you hear very often, "Rotting flesh is very popular." It's not popular here. Liam Findlay: We've released a new blocked urine smell as well. Because we already had a urine smell, but I wanted to try something that had more of a kick to it. So we've got kind of two urine choices this year. Kelly Molson: Wow, wow. We've taken it to a whole new level of poo and wee smells on the podcast people. Liam, thank you for joining us today. I've thoroughly enjoyed talking about this and I think it's such a fascinating subject to talk about. So thanks for sharing your insight. We always ask our guests for a book that they'd like to recommend to us, something that they love or something that's helped them in some way. What would you like to share with us today? Liam Findlay: Mine is Theme Park Design and the Art of Themed Entertainment by David Younger. And this is like, I think- Kelly Molson: It's like a Bible, Liam. It's huge. Liam Findlay: Yeah. Well I was just going to say, lots of attraction designers kind of treat this as their Bible because it's like a big encyclopedia of everything to do with theme park design. So there's a bit about smells in it, there's a bit here about costumed characters, there's stuff on cues and how different cues work. So it's like anyone wants to go into theme park design or attraction design in general, even if it's like museums, this is a great resource. And actually David Younger, the author, I've just been working with him because he's started a Kickstarter for a video game that's based on a theme park sort of. And we've put together a scent collection of the different locations in the game so as people are playing, they can sniff the smells and kind of transport themselves into the world of the game. Kelly Molson: Oh, how cool. You must send over the link to us and then we can pop that in the show notes for any of the listeners that will be interested in it. Liam Findlay: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Okay. So look, as ever, I feel like this is going to be an expensive one for my marketing budget, because that looked like a really big book, Liam. But as ever, if you'd like to win a copy of this book, then if you pop over to our Twitter account and retweet the episode announcement with the words, "I want Liam's book," then you'll be in a chance of winning it. Liam, thank you for joining us on the podcast today. Good luck with Halloween, I know it's a really crazy busy time, but thank you for coming on and sharing all of your wonderful smells with us today. Liam Findlay: That's all right. Thank you for having me. It's been fun to talk about them. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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| State of the nation report, with Steve Mills | 19 Oct 2022 | 00:34:11 | |
EPISODE NOTES Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://twitter.com/decision_house https://www.linkedin.com/in/steve-mills-0528661b/
Steve Mills set up Decision House in July 2017, having spent 15 years at leading insight agency BDRC where he was Board Director and Head of the Culture & Tourism team. His work focusses on generating and sharing insight to further understanding of both how to deliver better experiences for existing visitors, members, customers or other stakeholders and how to effectively grow audiences and develop new markets. During the pandemic, Steve provided regular insight to the sector through ALVA, producing regular reports and webinars on public sentiment towards returning to visitor attractions and reaction to the ‘new’ visit experience in a Covid world. In more ‘normal’ recent times he has delivered insight for clients across the culture and leisure attraction sector including Historic Royal Palaces, Royal Collection, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Royal Museums Greenwich and the National Trust, as well as developing Voice of the Visitor, a new template helping attractions to gather and benchmark visitor feedback.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Steve Mills, founder of Decision House. What does the cost of living crisis mean for attractions as we move into winter and beyond? Steve gives us a snapshot of how your potential visitors are feeling, and what the next few months might hold for the sector. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. We have a small issue with Steve's audio, but don't let that detract from the important content. This is a really, really important episode. Kelly Molson: Steve, thank you so much for joining me on Skip the Queue podcast today. It's really good to see you. Steve Mills: Pleasure. Thanks for inviting me, Kelly. Kelly Molson: I've got a few icebreaker questions for you, Steve. Steve Mills: Go for it. Kelly Molson: You can only save one of the Muppets. Which Muppet do you choose, and why? Steve Mills: Oh my God. Well, I'll tell you the one I'd like to be, I'd like to be the drummer, Animal. Aspiring to be fun and exciting and a bit off the wall, really, to be honest. But I would say very much it's an aspiration rather than reality with me, to be honest. I'm probably more like Scooter, who is the more rational, down to earth, logical one. Kelly Molson: I think that might come across in what we talk about today, Steve. Steve Mills: Okay. Fair enough, fair enough. No, that's definitely it for me. Kelly Molson: All right. How would you describe your job to a two year old? Steve Mills: I find out all the fun stuff that people like doing. Kelly Molson: That's a great answer. That is a great answer. You nailed that, Steve. Steve Mills: Good. Kelly Molson: Okay. Last show that you binge-watched on your television viewing platform of choice? I don't know why I've done that. I'm not the BBC. No one cares what I say. Steve Mills: No, no, it's all right. Kelly Molson: Netflix, Amazon, whatever. Disney+. Steve Mills: I'm quite sporty, so Disney+, I've been watching this series called Welcome to Wrexham, which is all about Wrexham Football Club and the fact that Ryan Reynolds and the other guy whose name everybody always forgets ... Jim, Joe, McElhenney or whatever it is, taking over the football club. And it's a kind of fly on the wall documentary about how they've taken over the club, and trying to make a success of it. But very interestingly, there's lots of these fly on the wall, football type documentaries, and this one is made for an American audience. It has some quite subtle differences in there, so they have things like translations between English and American phrases for things like bloke means buddy and that kind of thing. It has got a little twist in it, which I quite enjoy. Kelly Molson: That's interesting. That's on my list, to watch that one. But we've watched the Tottenham one that was on Amazon, because we're big Tottenham fans. And we watched ... What was the one ... Was it Sunderland? Was there one about- Steve Mills: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we watched that one as well, that was really good. Okay, we'll watch that one, and there's little, subtle differences because it's for Americans. Steve Mills: Yes. Kelly Molson: All right, Steve. What is your unpopular opinion? Steve Mills: That's an interesting first question because given my profession, which we'll come on to, my job is really about conveying others' opinions rather than having them of my own, to be honest with you. But my unpopular opinion is sticking with the sporting theme, really, is that I think that there's no better sporting drama than a five day cricket test match. Kelly Molson: Oh God. Steve Mills: Which is definitely an unpopular opinion, to be honest. Or even a four day cricket county championship match that's watched by three men and a dog on a wet Tuesday in April, to be honest. Because I know it's difficult to believe that anyone could be interested in a sport where you could have a draw after five days' worth of activity, but for me, it's like reading a novel, but it's being played out in front of your eyes, in many ways. There's time to get to know all the characters properly, and story kind of ebbs and flows, and you get these unexpected instances happening that change the plot. And you can see these individual battles gradually unfolding during five days that you'd never get in a couple of hours. Steve Mills: And what I like about it is it's a kind of test of character and a test of patience for the players, not just the audience, as well as pure, sporting ability. Yeah, I'm sure it's a very unpopular opinion, but I think it's a kind of antidote to where we're going as a society generally, so it's the whole antidote to having low attention span, these quick rewards and these superficial pleasures. You don't want any of that, go and watch a five day test match. Which ironically, I don't think I've ever done, to be honest with you. But it's certainly something I've got in mind when I retire in a few years' time. Kelly Molson: Steve, it was a really beautiful analogy. I really enjoyed your analogy about it being like a novel, and playing out the roles and the characters and stuff, but you have not sold it to me. Steve Mills: I wasn't intending to. Kelly Molson: But well done on the analogy. All right, listeners, let us know what you think about Steve's cricket is a novel analogy, and we should all be in watching cricket for five days. I know that I've got a lot of different things that I could be spending my days on, but there you go. Thank you for sharing. Steve Mills: That's all right. Kelly Molson: Right, Steve, I've asked you to come on today because we're going to do a bit of a state of the nation chat. But tell us a little bit about you and what Decision House does, for our listeners that haven't heard of you, which I will be surprised if they haven't. Steve Mills: Okay. No, thank you, yeah. I started Decision House back in 2017. I used to head up the Tourism and Culture team at BDRC, which is now called BVA BDRC. I headed those up for a good few years before that. Decision House really specialises in generating insights that help organisations in the culture and tourism sector specifically, and particularly attractions, really. Just helping them to make better decisions for their organisation, hence the Ronseal type name, Decision House. Steve Mills: And we mainly do that by conducting fresh, primary research, either with your current customers, so whether you call your current customers visitors or bookers or members, and that helps with making sure that we deliver, or they can deliver, optimum experiences for their visitors. Or, we do research with prospective customers, so more market and audience research to understand how they can grow their customer bases, actually. We can do that. We do both quantitative research, so the typical surveys, online surveys, face-to-face surveys et cetera, or we also do qualitative research as well, so things like focus groups, in-depth interviews, which really get under the skin of the issues that organisations have. Typically, quantitative surveys will measure visitor opinion, whereas qualitative gets to the root of why visitors have those particular opinions. Steve Mills: That's really what we do, and during COVID, we did an awful lot of work to really track public sentiment. And that led us to setting up visitor benchmarking surveys to understand reactions the visitors had to COVID measures being put in place once attractions reopened back in 2020. And that's really, both of those surveys, public sentiment work for ALVA and the visitor benchmark and consumer views for the last couple of years and still going now, really, albeit they've evolved into pieces of work that aren't COVID related anymore. They're more general sentiment work now. Kelly Molson: And they've been incredibly valuable, Steve. And I reference them continuously, and I do reference the BVA BDRC's work as well. And they've been incredibly insightful. Now, we spoke a couple of weeks ago about coming on to talk about the state of the nation and where people at, because what had been happening is I had been contacted by a few attractions, saying, "What have you heard? Numbers are down a little bit. What have you heard? What's the sentiment like?" And I always fire them your way, but I thought why not get the man in himself to talk us through where we're at? Kelly Molson: We've got a really weird situation at the moment in the UK. I mean, we're recording this. It's the fifth of October. We're in the run-up to what is usually a busy half-term, and then the run up to Christmas which can be quite quiet for a number of attractions, depending on what you're doing. But we've got the cost of living crisis, we've got the pound was at its lowest since the '70s, which blows my mind. We've had the death of our monarch, we have a new king, and a new prime minister, all happening at once. I mean, that's quite a lot to be dealing with. But I guess, what does all of this mean for attractions as we move into that winter period and beyond? And I thought this is what we could talk about today, Steve. So, where are we at? It's big question, but where are we at? Steve Mills: A massive question. I'll try my best to try and pick some of those issues apart, really. I think if we deal with the death of Her Majesty the Queen first of all, and what the ramifications of that might be ... And this is, I guess, a personal opinion, first of all, really. I mean, I think domestically, it's not going to have a huge impact, if I'm perfectly honest. People will move on relatively quickly from that. I suspect attractions won't see ... Unless you are something that is specifically related to the monarchy, you probably won't see a huge amount of difference. I mean, clearly somewhere like Windsor Castle is already seeing queues of people outside the gates, for example. Steve Mills: But I think outside of that niche, domestically, I doubt we'll see a huge difference. But then, obviously, internationally, it has raised the profile. And actually, I think showcased all the positive associations that people abroad associate with the UK, and why they travel here. It has emphasised our heritage, it has emphasised our amazing ability in terms of the pomp and ceremony, et cetera. And it has been a great showcase for London sites, to be honest. I think internationally, it should have a significant impact going into next year, allied of course with the low value of the pound. Now, it's not all good, obviously, but obviously, in exchange rates terms, it's a good thing for next year, particularly [inaudible 00:10:48]. I guess that's where I'd see the death of the monarch situation. Kelly Molson: It's interesting, what you said about the pomp. I mean, as we watched the funeral here, a very emotional day, actually. And I was transfixed to the ceremony for the entire day. It was quite mesmerising. But in my head, I just kept thinking, people outside of the UK that watched this, it's strange, isn't it? It's quite strange, and it's very grand, and it's a real sense of what the UK is about, that kind of level of ceremony, and people coming together. It was quite phenomenal. And it did make me think ultimately, it's a really sad day, but it's such a big thing for the UK to be able to do. I wonder if that does represent a surge in international tourism because of that, and people wanted to come and be a small part in that kind of thing. Steve Mills: Yeah. I think increasingly, whether it's people from the UK or people coming into the UK, people want to do things now that is different. And they want to be seen to be doing things that you can only do in one particular location. And I think the UK, I don't think there is anywhere quite like it in terms of ability to deliver on things like the pomp and ceremony. And that's what really sets us apart from many other countries around the world. And I think we shouldn't forget that, and not be afraid to promote it. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And then that brings us to the new king. There will be a coronation at some point. Steve Mills: Yeah, it's similar, similar. Kelly Molson: So, similar kind of reaction to that, probably, and something very positive to celebrate as well. Steve Mills: Yeah. But then yeah, the other side of it is I think you mentioned cost of living. Kelly Molson: Small, little issue that we're all struggling with. Steve Mills: Probably yeah, less positive. I think with that one, as a lot of listeners will know, we have been commissioned by ALVA throughout COVID, and also a couple of waves this year, just to gauge public sentiment into how people are feeling about visitor attractions. We did a wave back in June this year, which first highlighted some financial concerns for the attraction-visiting public. And it also said at that point that COVID actually was still a noticeable barrier, particularly for the older generation and those who are more vulnerable. We're just literally hot off the press at the end of September, so we did another wave the 22nd and 27th of September, just to update that and try to understand how people are feeling about visiting attractions in the autumn and the winter, up until about February next year. So, how attractions are going to cope. Steve Mills: And one of the key questions we asked is just a completely open question. People can respond in any way they like to this question. But we just ask, "At the moment, how are you feeling about visiting attractions over the next few months?" As I said, they could say absolutely anything there. We've not prompted them with anything. And I think the issues that are coming up here, first of all on the positive side, is that COVID is being mentioned by less and less people. I think the assumption is that it's completely not an issue any more, but I wouldn't say it has done that. But back in June, we still had 15% of people at that point saying something to do with COVID was putting me off going to visitor attractions, which was partially explaining why we hadn't seen that bounceback to pre pandemic levels. Steve Mills: That has now, in the September wave, come down to 9%, so it's disappearing. That said, you've still got one in 10 people who have still got some sort of concerns around COVID. As I say, it's particularly older people and vulnerable people that are still saying that. But that's quite positive. Steve Mills: But then on the other side, the financial concerns have gone up considerably. Again, back in June, we had about 15% of people mentioning some sort of financial concern as a barrier to why they wouldn't be visiting attractions, or would maybe think twice. But that has now gone up to 24, 25%, something like that. So, quite a significant increase. And again, it's as you would expect, it's especially among those with lower incomes, but also families are increasingly expressing financial concerns. And this time around, we asked a specific question as well about whether there was any positive benefit of all the government support around energy bills. And actually, we're finding that it's probably not because any sort of positive benefit of government support is being negated by just the still absolute rises in energy costs. Steve Mills: It's a difficult situation at the moment, and we've now got around about half the country really feeling that they feel worse off than they did at the same point last year. Clearly, that's going to have an impact. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I wonder, I mean, I can give you an example. I went to an attraction on Monday. I took my daughter, I met up with some friends, and went to Paradise Wildlife Park for the day. And I definitely thought more about what I was going to spend when I got there than I usually would. And I thought well, I'm quite lucky. My daughter is a big eater. She's not fussy. She eats anything. But I went, do you know what? I'm going to just pack her a packed lunch, so she has got sandwiches, fruit, whatever, and I'll buy myself my lunch when I'm there, and that just saves just a tiny, little bit of money. And it sounds silly. It's insignificant, but it was enough to make me, in my head, go, "I feel a bit better about that." Kelly Molson: And I probably spent longer at the attraction as well, because in my head I was like, well, "I've paid, I want to get my money's worth. We'll go here and we'll go in the Tumble Tots place and we'll do the soft play." And I just really extended the time that I was at the attraction as well, for the money that I paid for it. And it wasn't unreasonable at all. We had a great day, it's a brilliant, brilliant day out. But it did make me think about just small changes I wouldn't have thought about six months ago. Steve Mills: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I think you've picked up on secondary spend there. I think that is one thing that's going to be a challenge. And also, memberships as well. We were, a bit earlier in the year, seeing people saying things like, "Well, I'll squeeze as much as I possibly can out of my existing memberships," which is a good thing. Makes you more likely to renew. But I think now we've reached the stage where people are starting to do that a bit less, because they've actually scared of any visit occasion because there is secondary spends associated with even a visit occasion that is associated with a membership, because you've got to travel to get there. And then you've got to potentially have something to eat there, or buy something in the shop. And I think the situation is now with some people that they're, even when they have a membership of some organisation, they're actually more reluctant to use it now, more than trying to squeeze as much as possible out of it. Steve Mills: I think it's going to be a tough time for memberships over the next few months, definitely. We've got, again, evidence from that piece of work that is saying people are less likely to renew and less likely to acquire new memberships over the next few months, because of their personal financial situation. And it's all within that 50% of people who are feeling worse off, obviously. Which I guess on the positive side, what we're seeing is that I guess if there was going to be a prediction, it's that at the high end, limited supply-type products, there's virtually going to be no change there. If you've got limited supply of something that's priced at a high level, I think there is still going to be plenty of demands for that sort of thing. And you see it all the time, really. Steve Mills: I mean, I think things like the Christmas lights displays, for example, at attractions, I have a feeling they're still going to be okay and do well. I mean, I tried to go to, there's one reasonably local to me at Walterstone. And I don't know if it's completely sold out yet, but I know the slots that we wanted to try and book, we booked three or four weeks ago for it. I think those sorts of events and the higher price point end with limited supply should be okay, in my view. Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I would agree with that, again from personal experience of trying to book the Audley End miniature railway Christmas experience. All of the weekends are gone. I did manage to get a Friday, thankfully. More for me, to be perfectly honest. I can't wait to go on it. But yeah, those peak Saturdays and weekend slots sold out within hours, and they're all gone completely. Yeah, I definitely agree with you on that. Kelly Molson: Do you think that that then leads attractions to they're just going to have to try harder in terms of the experience that they're putting on? Should they be looking at trying to offer things that are a bit more unique, at a higher price point? Steve Mills: Yeah, I think yes, definitely. I think as well, it's important to point out that this isn't going to be across the board. Again, there's a lot of evidence for ... Again, I guess this is all very intuitive, but there's going to be a much higher negative impact on paid attractions than free attractions, so again, there's very strong evidence that people will be switching out from paid attractions to free attractions. But then even within that, within paid attractions, it's perhaps starting to emphasise that this is all going to be about value message. And what else can you do to add value to whatever ticket price is, really? Steve Mills: Yeah, and again, a third of people said they will visit paid attractions less than normal, and only 13% said more. Whereas on the free attractions side, you've got a third saying they will visit free attractions more than usual, and only 8% said less. And again, that's all driven by those that feel worse off. Yeah, I think it's all completely about that value message over the winter. Need that reassuring communications around it. Steve Mills: And I think as well, what has also come out of this is there's this assumption that the cost of visiting attractions will be rising at the same rate as everything else in the economy. There were quite a few people saying things like, "just assuming that the cost of visiting attractions was going to be going up". I think there is a really important communications message to put in there, some thought actions to come across, is that we are maybe holding our prices at '22 levels, or whatever it is. Or only increasing it by a small amount, or adding this extra value item in or whatever it is. I think something that is related to value and price has to be the message this year, just to reassure people that actually, we're not going up at the same price as energy and wheat and sunflower oil and all the rest of it. Actually, it's going to be fairly marginal, if anything, for visitor attractions, which I thought was one of the quite interesting things that came out of it. Kelly Molson: That's really interesting, isn't it? Yeah, I hadn't considered that. I mean, look, it's unfair to say that attractions won't be putting up their prices, because their energy bills are going up just as ours are. Actually, their energy bills are going up more dramatically than ours, because there's currently no cap on businesses. There isn't a reassurance piece to be done, but I think that has to be done quite tactically by the attraction because they can't come out and say, "Look, we're not putting our prices up. We're not doing this," because they might have to because of the cost of living. Okay, but that's something that I wasn't expecting, that they just assumed that it would rise that rapidly. Steve Mills: Yeah. And coincidentally, I read something somewhere recently in the trade press as well of just someone had done some research across other sectors as well, and was seeing a very similar sort of scenario as well. Actually, when you think about it, average Joe Public, if inflation is at 10%, your immediate thought is well, everything is going up 10%. Why wouldn't it be? Most members of the public wouldn't think about the nuances of what's going up and what isn't going up. Steve Mills: I think it's just something to bear in mind. Although again, what I would say is that I'm of the view that attractions should try and hold their nerve in terms of pricing. And I suspect there won't be much merit in reducing prices or holding prices as they are just for the sake of it, because I don't think we're talking here about those people who are financially squeezed. The odd pound or two lower admission price at a visitor attraction I don't think is going to make a huge amount of difference to whether they visit or not, to be honest. All you'll be doing is rewarding the people who would visit anyway. Why would you do that? I think it's holding your nerve and being confident that you offer a good value, worthwhile experience. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Good advice, Steve. And that also backs up the last interview that we had with Simon Addison about being confident in what you're delivering, and the price that you're charging for it. Yeah, really, really good advice. Okay, what else have you discovered? Steve Mills: I think they were probably the main points, really. Yeah, I mean I think as I said, it's going to be pretty tough for membership, so existing members, we're now seeing they're less likely to renew than they were back in June, and they're less likely to acquire new memberships as well. And yeah, just more reticent about using and squeezing as much value out of their existing membership as well. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's interesting, the membership one, because my National Trust membership is up for renewal in January time. We were very kindly gifted it for a wedding present last year. And I'm absolutely going to renew, because for me, it's such incredible value for money. And we were literally talking about it last night. We were like, "Well, that's fine. We'll renew our membership. We'll make sure that we are not only using the brilliant National Trust parks that are around us, like Wimpole and Anglesea Abbey, et cetera, Ickworth, but go further afield as well. Actually, if we're going to use that membership, then we don't mind traveling a little bit further, even though that's going to cost us a bit more in petrol, to go to that attraction because you're then not paying the attraction fee on top of the travel costs as well. Yeah, it's funny. I'd never even considered not renewing it. Steve Mills: Yeah. And I'm exactly the same. And I guess, let's be clear, here. I said 50% of the population are feeling worse off than they did at this point last year, but then 50% are feeling okay, the same or better. And I think it was something like 15% or so were actually feeling better off than last year, which I think says something about where we're going as a society. You've got people dividing even further, to be honest with you. There are still significant proportions of people that are feeling fine about things, and will renew their memberships, or see them as a charitable donation. Kelly Molson: Steve, I want to ask you a little bit about pre booking, because I mean we've talked about this for years now, pre booking. Obviously, it was kind of forced upon attractions during the pandemic, when they were allowed to open. I still don't know why anyone wouldn't pre book in advance, but then I am an organised planner. I need to know that I've got my ticket and I'm going to get in. I'm not going to have a wasted journey. And obviously, from an operational side, aspect from attractions, it's a brilliant thing to be able to do. Kelly Molson: What's the kind of sentiment now from general public? Are they still happy with it? Are they starting to want to go back to the old days, where things were just a little bit more flexible and bit more spontaneous? Steve Mills: Yeah. Well, I think almost, it's switching that around a little bit. I mean, I think obviously COVID was this fantastic opportunity to almost change the culture of the public to one where, as you said, it's why wouldn't you pre book an attraction in the same way that you would pre book lots of other things in society, like going to the theatre or going to a restaurant or whatever? Certainly, paid attractions. There was a really good opportunity to change the culture. And so I think the main point for me is that attractions need to be proactive in encouraging that behaviour. Steve Mills: It's not something that will naturally come to the public, and public sentiment won't change unless attractions are proactive in changing it. Why would it, really? I think it's incumbent upon attractions to really create that appetite for pre booking. And I think to an extent, we're beginning to get there. But I think there's a lot more to be done in terms of what nudges can we put to the public to encourage to pre book? I think things like online discounts that are notable, or switching it around premiums to walk-ups, depending on which way you want to look at it, should be used more than they probably are at the moment. Steve Mills: And things like dynamic pricing for advanced booking, for example. Again, I know you talked to Simon Addison about dynamic pricing last week. But the more that that can be used, in particular for things like advanced booking, I think just will encourage pre booking. And then gradually over a period of time, it then gets ingrained into the people's psyche, "I'm going to an attraction, therefore I will pre book." Steve Mills: I think it's just one of those that I think the industry as a whole almost needs to come together and say, "Right, we're going to push pre booking as much as we possibly can because we need to change the way that society thinks about booking attractions." Easy for me to sit here and say that, and much more difficult to do. But I think that's what needs to be done because yeah, as we've seen, there's huge benefits in terms of creating that relationship with anybody as soon as you grab their email address. And that investment or the discounts you offer may well pay dividends in years to come because you've managed to keep that relationship going, which means you get more repeat visits, you get more top of mind so you get more recommendation being spread around, et cetera. I think it's a worthwhile investment. Kelly Molson: Brilliant, yeah. Good advice. I agree with every, single word you have said, Steve. Thanks for backing up everything that I put online about it as well. Steve Mills: It's all right. And to be honest, it helped me as well on my visitor surveys. I now try and make sure that they are online, post visit surveys, which tend to help the more pre bookers people have got. It makes that research a lot more cost effective, shall we say, as well. Kelly Molson: Helping us all round, Steve. That's what I like. Sector collaboration and all that. Right, Steve, thank you for sharing your insights today. It's really appreciated, and I know that this will help a lot of people that are feeling a little bit anxious about what's going on and just not really sure how to approach things. Thank you very much. Kelly Molson: I always ask our guests to recommend a book that they love or something that has helped shape their career in some way. What have you got for us today? Steve Mills: Okay. I've read this book called Silt Road, silt road rather than silk road, by a guy called Charles Rangeley-Wilson or Rangeley-Wilson. Not quite sure, to be honest. And he's quite niche based, so be prepared. It tells the social history of High Wycombe, which is where I live, through the lens of the River Wye, which sort of runs through it, although most of it has been culverted and put under a shopping centre and a flyover, these days. Yeah, it tells that story through the lens of a river. It tells a story about things like the mills on the river, the history of Wycombe as a furniture and chair making town, which led to me actually being ... I'm now Chair of the Wycombe Chair Museum, which is rather ironic. Kelly Molson: That's niche as well, isn't it? I love it. Steve Mills: It is. It's incredibly niche. It's incredibly niche. And it also tells the story of things like how trout became ... Trout are a thing in New Zealand, apparently, and they are a thing in New Zealand because they were taken from the River Wye and transported over thousands of miles to New Zealand many years ago. Steve Mills: But the reason why I mention it is because I'm not originally from Wycombe. I've lived here for about 15 years. But it really helped me form this identity with the town, because Wycombe is a few miles outside London. It's very commuter-able, which means that actually, there's not many people live in Wycombe who are originally from Wycombe. I'm a big believer in getting pride in your local area so you look after it better and make you want to contribute to the community. Steve Mills: Books like this help with that because it has really helped me to understand Wycombe in more detail, understand the social history, and feel more proud of the place I live. Kelly Molson: Steve, I love that. Steve Mills: It's not really a recommendation to read that specific book. It's more of a kind of a plea to go and find out a bit more about your local area, read about the social history, so that you feel more proud about the places you live in. Kelly Molson: And more connected to it as well. Steve Mills: Completely, yeah, yeah, yeah. Pride and connection. Kelly Molson: Steve, I think that's lovely. It's amazing, the stuff that you can learn on this podcast. Who knew? Who knew? Who knew that Wycombe ... I had no idea that it was a big chair and furniture manufacturing place, and that you had got a Chair Museum as well. Steve Mills: We do, yes. It's mentioned in Gavin and Stacey as well. Kelly Molson: Is it? Steve Mills: Yeah, there you go. Kelly Molson: Well, I mean I'm an Essex girl, so that fits for me too. Steve Mills: Well, James Corden is from High Wycombe, so that's why it's mentioned in there. Kelly Molson: Got you. Right, okay. Well, look, listeners, if you want to win Steve's book, and why wouldn't you? If you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the word, "I Want Steve's Book", then we'll get you a copy of that book. We'll get you a copy of it, and you could be in with a chance of winning it, and then you can find out about High Wycombe as well. Thank you, Steve. It has been an education. Steve Mills: Absolute pleasure. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| How introducing variable pricing increased revenue by 2.3 million, with Simon Addison | 05 Oct 2022 | 00:38:10 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonaddison/
Simon is the Business Manager, Roman Baths and Pump Room, Bath, and heads the finance and business planning functions at the Roman Baths. He is responsible for business analysis, pricing strategy and leads the benchmarking work.
Simon started his career in the financial services industry, where he qualified as a chartered management accountant with the Bank of New York. He moved to the National Trust in 2012, where he held roles in the finance team. Latterly he was responsible for the Trust’s finances in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. Simon joined the senior leadership team at the Roman Baths in 2017.
Simon joined the Board of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions in May 2022.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Simon Addison, Heritage Business Manager at the Roman Baths. We talk all things pricing, and the phenomenal impact that introducing variable pricing has had at the Baths. If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue. Kelly Molson: Simon, welcome to the podcast. It's lovely to see you today. Simon Addison: Thanks for having me. I'm excited. I'm nervous about the icebreakers though. Kelly Molson: Everyone always is. You shouldn't be. What is your favourite season? And why? Simon Addison: I think autumn. Yeah, the colours on the trees, kick through the leaves with the kids. You can go on those walks, you get the crisp mornings. We're starting to get them at the moment. But you still get sort of a bit of warmth at the end of the day in the afternoon. You can still sit outside on a good day. Yep, definitely autumn. Kelly Molson: Totally agree. You are my people. Simon. Autumn woolly hats. Simon Addison: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Cold but bright. Simon Addison: Yes. Kelly Molson: Frisbee, dog walks and Halloween. Simon Addison: Not so much of a Halloween person but it could be an unpopular opinion territory here. But yeah. Kelly Molson: All right. Well, save that. Okay. Have you ever been told off for touching something in a museum? Simon Addison: Yeah, I have. I think the last time was at Lanhydrock. Which is a National Trust place down in Cornwall. We were in the kitchen. They had some plastic fake food on the table and I got told off for touching the plastic fake food. Kelly Molson: Did you just touch it? Oh, you're trying to juggle with it. Simon Addison: I was just touching it, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Okay, don't touch plastic fruit kids. Right. What is something you're really good at? And is a little bit obscure. I'll give you an example of one of mine. I'm really good at; if I hear a song. Or like songs. I can tell you what film they've been in. Simon Addison: That is a good question. I'm pretty good at motorways around the UK. Where you want to go. I could probably tell you roughly what motorways would be involved in that journey. Don't ask me now though. Kelly Molson: And I'm really dreadful as well. That's exactly why that really made me laugh. It made you sound like an absolute nerd. Sorry, Simon. Simon Addison: You asked an accountant on your podcast, Kelly. Kelly Molson: That's very true. It's very true. I should have been more prepared for the nerd answers. Sorry. All right. So good at motorway so you could have been like London cabbie. You'd have been good at the knowledge. Simon Addison: Yeah, I reckon that's a different level of knowledge, though. Isn't it? Just those trunk roads around the UK? It's quite a niche building is that detailed. I think we're just talking about my major routes. Kelly Molson: We would need to find like a really niched pub quiz for our talents wouldn't we? One that covers music from films and routes around the UK using motorways only. Simon Addison: Yeah, pretty tough. Kelly Molson: Anyone knows a pub quiz team that needs those skills on them? Hit us up. Right. What is your unpopular opinion? Simon Addison: Well, I was gonna go with something about Crocs as being an abomination of a choice of footwear. But I feel like that might have come up before. So my unpopular opinion is that golf is the greatest amateur sport to play. Kelly Molson: Okay, you are a clean golfer, I take it. Simon Addison: I am a keen golfer. But I think more than that, like the handicap system, so you get a handicap if you're a golfer tells you how good you are. And that means that golfers of different abilities can play competitively against each other on a level playing field, I could go out and play against a professional and have a competitive match. I don't think there are many other sports that you could do that in. And I think for me, that meant that, you know, when I started playing golf in my early 20s, I used to play quite a bit with my granddad, who was quite a lot older than me. And once I was working, I still used to play with him a few times a year. Although I was a better golfer than him on paper, I reckon I only beat him once. Every time I turned up to play with him. I wanted to show how good I was and played like a muppet. But I don't think there are many sports that an eight year old could be a 25 year old app. And if you want to spend silly amounts of money, you can go and play courses where professionals play and you can see how much better they are than you and you can really measure your ability against what a professional sort of standard is. My seven year old son's just getting into golf at the moment. And so this summer, walking around the golf course with him has been sort of the highlight of my summer. And now he's got his handicap. He's seven and he'll probably beat me in a couple of years. And again, I don't think you know, I don't think there are many sports where seven or eight year old could turn up and be a fully grown adult. So for me, that's why golf is the best amateur sport. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I'd never thought about it like that at all. I think that's brilliant. My husband is a keen golfer and I am a golf widow, although not on the weekends, because he's a wedding photographer anyway, so the weekend so he does fit it. He is quite kind and fits it around times when he should be working when he's not working. But yeah, I hadn't ever thought about that. So it kind of puts you on a really good, I guess you get to learn from people that are really experienced as well because you can actually play against them. Whereas you would never get that opportunity at all, do you? Simon Addison: Exactly. And you can go out and play with someone who's way better than you and see how they play and it can improve your game. Yeah. And my wife is also a golf widow. I reckon she's playing the long game. I think she's seeing everything. If my son plays as well, then, in years to come, she'll get those Saturdays back. You know, maybe if the other son also takes up golf. Maybe it's just a long game. But right now she's definitely a golf widow. Kelly Molson: She knows she's plotting because I'm doing exactly the same. I pluck up the hours that he plays golf, and I work out how many hours I can spend doing things that I really want to it's just I haven't found a hobby. That takes me four hours. Yeah, that's what I need. Simon Addison: Yeah, there is that? Yeah, it's yeah, it was the might be, in my opinion, the greatest sport for an amateur to play. It isn't a short sport, and it isn't a cheap sport. Kelly Molson: It is not. That's a great opinion, though. Let's see what our listeners think. Thank you. Okay, Simon, as you mentioned earlier, you are an accountant. I don't think we've had an accountant on the podcast before but you're not really a traditional accountant, are you? So tell us a little bit about your role. Simon Addison: So at the moment, I work at the Roman Baths in Bath, for Bath and North East Somerset Council. So we're a council owned and run visitor attraction. As well as the ruin bars, we operate the Fashion Museum and the Victoria Art Gallery in Bath, and also the record office in the city. My role is Business Manager, I'm responsible for all aspects of sort of finance and business planning, benchmarking and trend analysis, I sort of try not to take offense at my profession, when people say you're not a traditional accounting, but I think it means that I try and look a little bit further than just what the numbers are telling you. I think the accounts are only ever a symptom of what else is going on in the operation. So if all you do is look at the accounts each month, you're probably not going to understand what's driving those numbers. So I think, you know, maybe it's about trying to sort of relate all of that performance data to operational outcomes and objectives. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think because we've spoken in the past, I always very much saw your role. Well, the conversations that we've had about your role, and will have always been that you've been on the side of the operations as well. So you, you know, you do have that kind of contact with the visitors. And you have that you kind of broach that in between bit between the accountant and the ops department. If that makes sense. That's how it came across to me anyway. Simon Addison: Yeah, I think that's fair. I think before I came to the Baths, I was at the National Trust my job title there was Finance Business Partner. And I think that really was, that was much more. Well, my role now is similar, but it's about working with operational staff and helping them to achieve their objectives. And I think people can see finance can see budgets, as, you know, an intimidating subject. And actually, really, their tool to achieve your objectives. And I think, you know, particularly in an organisation like the National Trust, you join the National Trust as a gardener or arranger or conservator, because you're passionate about those things, if you're good at them, you get given a budget. And I think, then all of a sudden, you're responsible for not just, your garden, but also how much you spend looking after it. And I think sitting down with those people who may be wanting to spend more money or needed new equipment, and sort of demystifying the accounts, how they worked. That's what I find really rewarding, churning out a set of accounts or a budget in and of itself, isn't a particularly rewarding process. It's about, sitting down with someone who didn't think they could achieve X or Y that year and making them realise that actually, it's it is achievable if they manage their money slightly differently. I think that's a really rewarding place to be. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And that's that kind of alludes to some of the stuff that we can talk about today, because you've been through a really interesting pricing journey at the Baths. And I want you to talk us through what you've done. And then we can talk about some of the impacts that's actually had because it's incredibly impressive. And I think people listening will be really, really intrigued by this. So variable pricing. Tell us why you took that direction in the first place. How did this come to happen? Simon Addison: Sure. I joined the Baths in autumn 2017. So we've just come out of the summer over the summer at the Baths we open 13 hours a day. So open the doors at nine o'clock in the morning through to 10 o'clock at night. We've got the gas flares going Torchlight experience. It's a fantastic time, but it takes its toll on staff opening for that length of time, and we just had our busiest ever summer. So in the Spring, in early summer of 2017, there were some terror attacks in London and in Manchester. And one of the consequences of that is that we saw an almost immediate spike in visitors to Bath I think people perceive Bath as being a relatively safe city, you can drive pretty much into the centre of it. And people who get to their own bus without needing to engage in public transport and, and so almost overnight, you could see that sort of spike in visitors. And frankly, we weren't prepared for it. So the staff had come out of a summer where we'd seen huge numbers of visitors that we perhaps weren't ready for. But actually, over the course of the previous three or four years, visitor numbers have been growing steadily. And we were doing nothing to really manage those numbers or influence when people came. So we could start the year telling you what our busiest day of the year was going to be. And all we did was brace ourselves. So coming out of that sort of 2017 year, I was new in post, we also had a new commercial manager, new in post, we started to think about what we could do differently. And I went to an Alpha Finance Directors meeting, where Baker Richards, the consultants did a presentation on pricing strategy. And Debbie Rich's talked about the fact that if all you do is increase your price by inflation every year, you haven't got a pricing strategy. And we weren't even doing that we were just putting 50 P on it, not linking it to inflation. And all we were doing was making a bit more money each year. But we weren't really shaping anything to do with our visitor behaviour. All of the visitors arrived in concentration in the summer, as you would expect. But also within an individual day, we would have peaks at 11 o'clock and two o'clock, which will be familiar to lots of people who work in attractions. And again, we didn't try and do anything to smooth those visitors through the day, obviously, the experience suffered at our busiest times. And also, because we're not a particularly big site, anyone that's been will know that, you know, there are quite a lot of enclosed spaces, and visitors get very close to the Roman monument. And if you've packing in six or seven thousand people in a day, or with rucksacks on or turning round all the time, there's a sort of a conservation impact of those, that number of people coming through the monument. And if they're knocking off bits of Roman stone, you can't really just stick it back on. Kelly Molson: Not plastic fruit, is it, Simon? Simon Addison: It's not plastic fruit. No, it's not. And so we were, yes, we were making money, but our visitor experience scores were suffering. And also our conservation objectives were not being delivered by having that concentration of people through the year. So after that, we sort of engaged Baker Richards or we went through a tender process, and ended up appointing Baker Richards to help us with a pricing strategy. Kelly Molson: So what did that look like in terms of your team? Because I'd love to know who you got involved in that process. Because I think sometimes things can happen back office, that there's an agreement that this is what we're going to do, but we don't necessarily get all of the right members of the team involved from the start. So what did that look like for you? Simon Addison: For us, it looked like a multidisciplinary team. So we have people from across the business involved in that we set up a Project Steering Group, and we had members of staff from the on that group, I thought was particularly important to get the staff involved early, because ultimately, they're the people that are going to sell the ticket to the customer. So if a customer walks up and the member of staff, the visitor experience host that greets them doesn't feel the tickets worth the selling price, then that will come across in the welcome. And equally, if they do you feel it's worth the price, they understand the reason that we've implemented this strategy and the journey that we're going on, then they can sell it with confidence, and they can articulate it. And if someone turns around and says is expensive, they're ready to defend that price. So we had V involved from the start, it was also really important to get senior leadership buy in from across the business. So making sure that the curatorial staff understood that we were trying to manage down the numbers, or not done the numbers overall, but manage the numbers of peak times and smooth the visitors throughout the year for a specific conservation objective was really important, because I think, you know, in visitor attractions, usually, there's a tension between the conservation objectives and the provision of access to that, whether it's a museum, whether it's a historic garden or house. The more people you let through a space, the more impact it has from a conservation objective. So holding those two things, intention, conservation and access are usually when, in my experience, we deliver best as a business, meeting the needs both of our visitors, but also the collections and buildings that we're caring for. So making sure that everyone was signed up for the objectives at the start was really important. And then obviously, we had marketing involved, because again, they need to be able to be confident that we can sell these prices that we're not gonna get a load of feedback that was too expensive. And sort of the commercial professionals that you'd expect as well. Kelly Molson: So what did it look like? When you started to go through this process? How did you work out what that pricing was going to be? Simon Addison: When we engaged Baker Richards, the first sort of phase of the project was a discovery phase. So we gave them access to lots of historic data. So they took our ticketing data, they could look at how many people we had day by day, week by week, and they went back over five years, they also took the retail sales data so that, you know, because one of the things we didn't want to do was to make more money Front of House as people walked in, and then compromise our retail spend. So they looked at the range of data that we had available. And one of the features of the bars that they were able to identify is that we were quite predictable. As a site, our visitor numbers were fairly predictable; month by month and week by week. And what that meant is they could be quite confident about the level of demand, we were seeing whether that was from domestic or international visitors, and that gave them more confidence in the recommendations they were making. Because we had a regular repeatable pattern of visitation, they were then able to stay with confidence, this model shouldn't impact on that, if we were a less regular site was prone to more I don't know whether or seasonal fluctuations, then it might have been more difficult to have those that level of confidence. So we sort of the initial phase we went through was that discovery phase, they took the data, they analysed it. And we also gave them a really clear brief, we didn't just want to make more money. We felt really strongly that actually as a heritage site, we didn't want to just become a luxury product that was only available to middle classes. So we gave them a brief that we wanted some of our prices to reduce. And we wanted to not price up every school holiday, you know, what you might call the Centre Park pricing model where you can, you can sort of identify when the school holidays are by the fact that price triples. So we gave them a really clear brief. And they went through that data discovery phase initially, and came back to us halfway through the project and sort of presented back the data analysis that they'd done and said, "This is our picture of your business, does it chime with your own understanding?" And for me, that was one of the biggest, you know, as well as getting a pricing strategy out of it, having some consultants look at your business, and effectively validate all the analysis that you do yourself was really helpful. Reassuringly, for us, they didn't tell us anything we didn't know. But it is a validation of the quality of the performance, management and the business analysts that I have working in my team that, you know, they're producing EMI, that that was consistent and telling a consistent story with what Baker Richards did. Kelly Molson: And so what decisions did you come to about the pricing? And how does it work now, and because I want to talk about how it works then but also, this was pre pandemic, right? So then you had the pandemic to deal with as well. So what did you put in place? Simon Addison: So to start with, we ended up with a relatively simple pricing structure. We had three price points during the year, we had that sort of summer, peak price period, if you like, we had the shoulder months, so spring and autumn, and then we had the off peak period through the winter. And within that, weekdays were always cheaper than weekends. Every time a visitor looked at our website, there was always a choice to be made about what price they wanted to pay. And when we were first speaking to Baker Richards, they gave this great example; it was one of the kids theatre shows it may have been Peppa Pig World or something. And parents were taking their kids to see Peppa Pig at the theatre. And there was a balloon on sale and was four pounds for this balloon. And they were getting loads of complaints about people not wanting to spend four pounds on a balloon. Next year, they sold two balloons, they sold one balloon for four pounds, they sold one balloon for eight pounds. Not only did they get no complaints about the balloon, for four pounds, they sold a load of eight pound balloons, because all of a sudden, people go into the theatre, we're presented with a choice. They could either buy no balloon, but if they did want to buy a balloon, they could choose to buy a four pound balloon or they could choose to buy an eight pound balloon. And so it's then been their choice as to the price they've paid. And so for us with visitors, they're looking at the website, there's always a choice that they can make. So when they choose to come on a Saturday, they know that they could have chosen to come on a Friday and it would have been cheaper, but the Saturday met their needs. So the price they've paid is a choice they've made based on the needs they've got. And so that was introducing that element of choice was a really important feature of the pricing structure. Kelly Molson: Yes, you're empowering them to make the decision about it, not forcing them into a decision. Simon Addison: Absolutely. And I think the other thing we did in that first iteration of the pricing strategy was introduced an online discount because we knew lots of people looked at our website before they came, but very few people committed to purchase on the website. Most people came in and joined the queue. And that meant that we couldn't manage their arrival time because they just joined the queue and they'd get in when they got in. So we were seeing sort of five or 7% pre booking before the pandemic, and before we introduced this strategy, we introduced the strategy we put in a 10% online discount. And overnight, we saw a doubling in the number of people that were pre booking. So for us, that was really helpful in terms of predicting their arrival time, but for our marketing team as well, all of a sudden, we had the postcode of where these people were coming from is valuable data that we weren't getting beforehand. Pre booking has become slightly more important over the last couple of years. And we no longer have that discount for online because it's been a necessity. So but that was one of the features of that first iteration of the strategy. Kelly Molson: Amazing. And how did your visitors engage with it? What was the feedback when you launched it? Simon Addison: We didn't get a lot of direct feedback about the fact that we had a new pricing strategy, because the Baths is, you know, one of our features is that we're a tickbox destination. So we're 80% first time visitors. So in implementing a new strategy, we didn't have to concern ourselves too much with the person that said, "Oh, you were cheaper last year, or you've done something different to last year", because those people by and large, don't come year after year. Most people who've been before came on a school trip as I came 20 years ago, it's changed a bit. And so it's definitely a different model, we operate to some other attractions. But what we did see, we saw some complaints, but we saw complaints before the strategy came in. So we saw no more complaints on price than we did beforehand. And we saw many fewer complaints about crowding. And our value for money score increased, and has continued to increase each year with since we increased our prices. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. Simon Addison: And I think it comes back to that choice element. So your visitors are standing there, and they've made a choice to pay that money. And so they didn't feel like they wanted to come to the Baths, and they had to pay the price. They wanted to come to the Baths, and they were able to choose which price met their needs and the day that they wanted to come and I think that's translated through to those scores. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I'm definitely never gonna pay a pound for a balloon. No, I'm just putting that out there. It's not happening. Simon Addison: Me, I wouldn't pay four pounds either. Kelly Molson: Who needs a balloon? You're just gonna let it go. Simon Addison: And then you gotta pop it. And it's gonna be a source of disappointment. Kelly Molson: Wow, in the wrong business. Right. This was pre pandemic. So this was 2017, you started this process 2017? Simon Addison: Yeah, yeah. 2017, I joined, we did the sort of discovery and design the strategy 2018, implemented in 2019. And we had our best ever year in terms of visitor numbers in 2019. But all of the growth came outside of the June, July and August period. So our growth came in April and May and September and October. So from that sort of objective of smoothing out the visitors through the year, we achieved that by pushing people out into the shoulder months. And also, we didn't have one day over 7000 visitors. In fact, we didn't have one day over six and a half 1000 visitors. Now, that's still a lot of people through quite a small space. But we certainly drove out those peaks that we were seeing before we implemented the strategy. And as importantly, we made 2.3 million pounds extra revenue in the first year of the strategy. And Baker Rich's modelling suggested that we'd make 2.4 million. So they were really incredibly accurate terms of the modelling that they'd done. And the returns that were possible through this strategy. And it delivered so accurately to that really impressive bit of work. Kelly Molson: I mean, that is a phenomenal impact, isn't it? The difference that has made is just so impressive. But that was 2019. What has happened since COVID? Simon Addison: So I think, because we had multiple price points through the year before COVID, it was much easier for us to reopen with a model that was reactive. I think if we'd only ever had a fixed price point, changing the price would have been a really big thing for us. Whereas we changed our price twice a week. And so being able to sort of reopen in the summer of 2020. With our plan summer pricing, we came to the end of August. And we were still seeing really strong demand against a much reduced capacity. And so we kept the prices at our peak price through September and October. And because we already had those price points built into our pricing structure, it was really easy for us to just take that decision to continue with the higher prices and maximise the revenue from the visitors that were coming through. And I'd say that arguably the 300,000 pounds of additional revenue we made from the pricing structure in 2020 was more useful than the 2.3 million that we made the year before because you know there was revenue was so scarce at that point. And so, being more reactive was really important. Obviously, we ditched the online discount because online booking became a mandatory feature of going anywhere. So you don't need to discount something that visitors had to do. And I think also it just having gone through a year where we charged more, we had the confidence that visitors were prepared to pay for that. And so coming out of COVID, in late 2020, we did a phase two piece of work with Baker Richards, looking at what happened in 2019. But also what was happening in our sort of COVID reopening. And what that showed is that even though we'd increase the prices quite significantly through the summer, in 2019, it had a negligible impact on the demand. So that gave us the confidence to be even punchier in that sort of that June, July and August period, with our peak pricing, and we don't articulate it this way on our website. But effectively, we introduced a super peak price going into 2021. So having never charged more than 17 pounds in 2018, this summer, we've charged 27.50. Not for a long period of the year, it's only at the weekends. And it's only during June, July and August. So it's only 15 days a year or something. But having that headline price, I think Dom from Mary Rose talked about decoy pricing when he was on, it's almost that sort of if you've got that high headline price, then everything else feels comparatively good value, as you as you trade down from that. So people are saying, "Well, you know, let's not go on Saturday, we'll go on Wednesday, because it's three pounds cheaper or whatever", or if you're buying a family ticket even more. So I think using that sort of that headline price as a decoy having real confidence about the quality of your product. So yes, it's worth it, because people are prepared to pay for it. But also, if you look at what else people are prepared to spend 27 pounds on, people have spent 27 pounds on lots of different things. So why is the Roman Baths or why is the Tower of London or Stonehenge? Yeah, they're all equally valid cause on people's leisure spend. And we should be confident about the quality of product that we we give to people. Kelly Molson: You mentioned earlier about retail spent, and this not having an effect on it. What was the effect on retail spend, once you transition to the variable pricing? Simon Addison: There was no impact at all. So we didn't see an increase in retail spend pre pandemic, we just saw no impact at all. For anyone who's been to the Baths, we've got a really small shop, we're confined by being in the centre of Bath, we'd love to be able to expand our shop. But when we do, our benchmarking, we're consistently performing in the top two or three sites for sales per square metre. So we just know that we can't fit enough people in that shop for the number of people that come through the site. And the work that Baker Richards did showed the display visitor numbers increasing year on year, the number of transactions that were taking place to the shop hadn't been keeping pace, basically our busiest times the shop had reached saturation point. So it may be that some people decided not to go into the shop because they'd paid more to come in. But for anyone that decided that there was someone who has bypassed the shop before, because, you know, they just looked in when Bath was too busy. So for anyone who was not going into the shop, there were other customers who were prepared to go in. And since COVID, our retail spend has been through the roof. And you our spend per visitor this year is 50 pence a visitor higher than it was pre COVID. And I can't tell you why, Kelly. Kelly Molson: I was gonna ask, why? Simon Addison: Obviously, high quality ranges and my retail colleagues would not forgive me if I said it was anything other than the quality of product in there. But I think certainly when we first reopened from COVID people were just glad to be out. There was a sense, particularly if you've had a lot done experience like mine with small children, you were just glad to be anywhere other than your own house. And our top selling lines before COVID were toiletries because we bought the bars, spa and well being but people didn't want to buy toiletries, because you know, in 2020, no one's picking up anything and sniffing it. That felt like quite a risky thing to do. But we saw gin and that was a genius move. So we sold gin and children's books. And I think, you know, most people's lockdown experiences was similar to mine, not enough gin and not enough children's books. So they came to the Roman Baths and they bought both of those things in spades. But you know, as toiletries have come back through that they're picking up in terms of sales, but people spending a lot of money, buying high priced jewellery product. I wish I could tell you why. You should have asked Callum when he was on. Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah, I should. Well, I'll post the question to him and see if he knows. Yeah, it's interesting. I wonder if it's that. I mean, I was very conscious of visiting attractions and spending money in the retail stores because of the fact that they'd been shut. I wanted to spend more money. I wanted to do my bit because I wanted those places to stay open. So I wonder if there's still a residue of that happening when people are visiting? Simon Addison: I think in 2020, we would definitely put it down to that and you could almost see it as well. And there was a sense that people had saved money. Whether that was on commuting costs or childcare bills or whatever, there was a sense that people would save money during the lockdowns and therefore they had more disposable income. But we're coming up with the cost of living pressures. We're coming into winter with massive uncertainty. And every month, I look at those returning members, and I'm waiting for that spend per visitor to drop, and it hasn't done yet. So I think it's more than just a sort of an altruistic desire to support the attractions. Or maybe it's about people choosing to prioritise this activity of their spend over, I don't know Netflix subscriptions or something. So, yeah, I can't answer that question. But we're glad to see it. Kelly Molson: I'll ask Callum. I'll ask Callum Lumsden of Lumsden Design and see if he can tell us and shed some light on it. All right. So what I'd really like to know, if you could give me your top tips for people that are thinking about going through this process, what would they be if anyone that's listening? Now that's thinking this is a genius thing to do, I would like to add 2.3 million to my revenue, please. Simon Addison: I think the first thing is being really clear on your objectives. So for us, it wasn't just about making more money, we'd have ended up with a pricing strategy that looked different if we wanted to just make more money. So the ability to deliver something for visitor experience objectives and conservation objectives was really important, and really featured heavily in the brief that we gave to Baker Richards. So starting out with that clarity of purpose, I think would be my first tip. I'd also say if I know budgets are tight at the moment, but if you can pay for the analysis, then firstly, it's such a helpful validation of your own business analysis that you're doing yourselves. But when you need to sell this inwardly, so we're part of the council, we needed to sell this strategy and inwardly to local politicians and the council leadership. But if you're in a more sort of typical attraction, you're going to need to sell this to your trustees. And having that sort of analysis as a validation of your strategy. And your approach will hopefully give them the confidence that increasing prices by a significant percentage is not a ridiculous thing to do, certainly involving your front of house teams. And that's not linked to pricing strategy that's just linked to anything you do in your attraction, your Front of House Team are the people that are going to hear from the visitors what they think about it, they're the person who has got to explain your own strategic direction to the visitors when they're in front of them. But particularly when it comes to pricing, I think making sure that they're involved, they've got a chance to ask questions. And also that you're giving them that feedback as well. So that sort of regular communication, once you've implemented it, tell them whether what you're seeing is what you expected to see. Because otherwise, if there's a void in that communication, they'll fill it with their own analysis, or we didn't seem very busy last Saturday, and it might not have been busy last Saturday, because it was pouring with rain, as opposed to your pricing strategy is not working. So making sure that you're having that regular dialogue with those teams on an ongoing basis. And I think the final thing is holding your nerve. And that, you know, when we'd never charged more than 17 pounds before that first Saturday, when our prices were 22 pounds, there's a level of nervousness that is associated with that. And so holding the nerve when price setting, we could do a whole separate podcast on communicating with the travel trade. But it's safe to say, that was probably the most challenging aspect of the project in terms of moving the travel trade on to a variable pricing model when they have a, you know, they sell in advance, they sell through third parties. And that was a really difficult set of conversations. But we held our nerve. And despite being told that they wouldn't be able to work with us, they wouldn't be able to bring us the volume. 2019, they bought us more people and they never bought us before. So so there is a bit about holding nerve. And I think post implementation, don't be tempted to tinker too much. Because otherwise you won't know if the strategy didn't work or whether you fiddled with it, and then it didn't work. So I think if you change too many things at once this is the nerd in me, you change too many things at once, you can't tell what's made the difference. So trying to only change one thing, will tell you whether that one thing works or not. Obviously, go through a pandemic, you change everything all at once. And it's very difficult. But generally speaking, if you can sort of make change in a stage where you can measure the impact of an intervention, whereas if you change four or five things at once, you don't know what's caused it, cause the effect that you're seeing. So those would be my top tips. I think Kelly. Kelly Molson: Absolutely excellent advice. Simon, I know that you are an ALVA member, I know that you're really keen to speak with other attractions. I know that you're very well obviously you've come on the podcast to share your insight and I know you're very keen to do that. So I'm sure if anyone does have questions around the OTA challenge or variable pricing, I'm sure that you'd be super happy to talk to people. Simon Addison: Yeah, always happy to. Kelly Molson: We will pop all of Simon's details in terms of, we will put his LinkedIn profile and a link to the Roman Baths in the show notes. So if you do want to reach out to him and ask him any questions, please feel free. Simon, a book that you would recommend to our listeners something that you love or something that shaped your career. What do you have for us today? Simon Addison: This was a difficult question. I tried really hard to think of a workbook that had changed my career. And I really could I've read workbooks, but there's not one that I go back to time and time again. So, so I've picked fiction books, I've picked 1000 Splendid Suns, which is a novel by Khaled Hosseini, which is set in Afghanistan. And I don't think many people are going to choose this book after I describe it. It's not an uplifting read, it's a really challenging read. The central characters are women living in Afghanistan, forced into marriage during a time when the Taliban influence was growing. But I think I read at a time when Afghanistan was in the news a lot. And we were probably presented with a relatively one dimensional interpretation of Afghanistan, in the way that the news coverage came through. And so it offered me an insight into sort of, I guess, Life beyond the headlines. And despite the fact that it was a really harrowing read at times, there was a sense of hope that came through even the most difficult situations. And I think that really stayed with me. And as somebody who's probably we're very interested in sort of world affairs and politics, I think, it really challenged me to make sure that you sort of read around the topic. If you before coming up with a really definite position or opinion on a world situation, the need to sort of read around something. And I know, this wasn't a it wasn't a fact book. It was a fiction book. But I think it really changed my perspective on Afghanistan. So I don't think many people want to read it. But if you want a really harrowing read, but you know, that sense of hope and really difficult times, it is a great book. Kelly Molson: Thank you. Well, thank you for sharing. I'm sure people will want that. And if you do, if you go over to our Twitter account, @skip_the_queue, and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words "I want Simon's book", you could be in with a chance of winning it. Simon, thank you. It's been lovely to chat to you. I always enjoy chatting to you. Even though I called you a nerd earlier. I apologise about that. Simon Addison: I forgive you, Kelly. Kelly Molson: If you do have a little pop quiz that you'd like me and Simon to join that you think would be useful for, please do let us know. On that note, I think we'll end the podcast there. Thanks, Simon. It's been fun. Simon Addison: Thanks, Kelly. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.
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| How to create truly unique visitor attractions, with Robbie Jones | 21 Sep 2022 | 00:43:08 | |
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.
Competition ends January 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mrrobbiejones/ https://www.katapult.co.uk/creating-unique-visitor-destinations-in-a-crowded-market/
Robbie is Insights Analyst Lead at Katapult. He works on providing data-driven audience and market trends, as well as operational insights, to assist the design team in creating immersive, commercially-successful experiences. Robbie has over 10 years' experience in the leisure and tourism industry and has worked with iconic brands, theme parks, family entertainment centres, museums and visitor attractions around the world. He is a dedicated Board Member of his local art and cinema centre, Derby QUAD.
Katapult designs themed attractions and experiences that amaze and engage visitors globally. Our work is enjoyed by 50 million visitors, at 81 attractions, in 18 different countries, every year. As well as increasing guest experience, we thrive on helping you generate more income, more fans and bring the vision for your attraction to life. Legoland, Sea Life, Twycross Zoo, Alton Towers.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Robbie Jones, Insights Analyst Lead at Katapult. We discuss how to create a unique visitor attraction, what you need to know before you start, and what the leisure and attractions market is looking like post-COVID. If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. We're back, I hope you've all had really busy summers full of lovely visitors. I'd really like to know how it's been for you. So feel free to get in touch. You can always email me at kelly@rubbercheese.com. Can you believe this is season four of Skip the Queue Podcast? I cannot believe that we've been running for so long now. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for sticking around and for supporting us. We have a whole season full of really brilliant guests booked in, and I know that you're going to absolutely love them. We'll be covering topics on innovation, pricing, filming, and even aromas. Yeah, you heard me right, all the smelly stuff. But we are kicking off in style with the team at Katapult. Kelly Molson: Robbie. Robbie Jones: Hello. Hello. Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue. I'm really excited to have you on today. Thank you for joining me for the first episode of season four. Robbie Jones: I know. What an honour, what an honour. I can't believe that I've been chosen first. Kelly Molson: You're the chosen one. Well, you say it's an honour now, but you might not appreciate it after I've got you with these icebreaker questions. Robbie Jones: All good. Kelly Molson: I've actually got some new ones this season. So I've been asking our lovely former guests and our Twitter followers to send me in some new ones because I felt like the old ones were getting a bit tired. So I'm going to whack you with some of the new ones and see how we get on. Robbie Jones: Okay. Here goes. Kelly Molson: I have to say, this is one of my favourite ones. Robbie Jones: Okay. Kelly Molson: It might date us slightly as well. You can only save one of the Muppets, which one do you choose and why? Robbie Jones: I think Kermit. Kelly Molson: Okay. Robbie Jones: He's just iconic, isn't he? My first memory of Kermit is when they did their version of A Christmas Carol. The thought of Kermit doing that was amazing. So it's got to be Kermit, it's got to be Kermit. Kelly Molson: Yeah, he's a classic. He's a classic, isn't he? He's quite legendary. All right. Good. Okay, good answer. Next one. If you could enter the Olympics for anything, what would you be Olympic level at? And we are not just talking sports here. This could be baking, moaning. What are you saying? Robbie Jones: I think I see myself as a bit of a jack of all, a master of none. Maybe I'm a decathlete, something like that, where I'm good at a few things but I'm not amazing at one big thing. Kelly Molson: When we go back to sports day at school, what was the thing that you would do at sports day? Robbie Jones: It was probably the long distance running. I seem to do a lot of cross country, we used to call it in our school, which went from tarmac to a muddy path in about five minutes. So I don't know how cross country that was. But yeah, long distance running. I can't stand it now. I can't stand the noise of breathing, heavy breathing as I struggle up a hill. That's just not a sound anybody wants to listen to. Kelly Molson: Oh, you really make me laugh. So the only thing I can think about when I'm running is breathing and now all I'm going to hear is myself breathing and think about Robbie and not wanting to do it. Okay, final one. Robbie Jones: Yeah. Kelly Molson: What movie can you rewatch over and over and over again? And how many times have you watched this movie that you're about to tell me? Robbie Jones: So I think for an absolute nostalgia, it'd have to be Dumb and Dumber because the amount of bonding that me and my younger brother have done over that film is just immense. I think we reference it every time we speak to one another, it's just become part of our psyche, part of our relationship. So we've probably watched it dozens of times between us, but it gets referenced at least three times a week. Kelly Molson: Oh, it's a great film. Robbie Jones: Jim Carrey, brilliant. Kelly Molson: He's great, isn't he? Are you going to do... So if we do the song, Mock- Robbie Jones: Yeah. Kelly Molson: ... ing- Robbie Jones: Yeah. Kelly Molson: ... bird. Robbie Jones: I can't believe I'm doing this. I can't believe I'm doing it. Kelly Molson: This is the level that the show has gotten to, folks. This is what we got up to on our summer break. And I love that film and my friends were really obsessed with Ace Ventura films as well, Jim Carrey. Robbie Jones: Yes. Kelly Molson: Cannot beat. Robbie Jones: Yeah, comedy icon. Amazing. I love him to pieces. Kelly Molson: Robbie, I can't believe I just made you do that. I'm so sorry. I've lost it now. Right. Unpopular opinion. What've you got for us? Robbie Jones: Right. I don't think eating chocolate and fruit should go together. It's not right. I'll draw a line, fruit and nut in terms of a chocolate bar, dried fruits, I'm okay with. But when it's fresh, juicy things like grapes and strawberries going with chocolate, I just can't stand it at all. Kelly Molson: Oh, what? Not a little fondue at a wedding? A little chocolate fondue? No? Robbie Jones: No, just no. You wouldn't mix milk with water and drink it. And that's kind of what I feel like when I'm eating chocolate and fruit together. So yeah, whoever has got the largest fondue rental company, please stop because I don't like it. Kelly Molson: Wow. Okay. I feel like that's quite controversial. The milk and water thing actually turned my stomach. When you said that, I was like, "Oh, no, you wouldn't, would you?" Robbie Jones: There you go. Again, the next time you eat a fondue, just think of me and start gagging probably as I would. Kelly Molson: Wow. What a note to start the podcast on. We've really taken this to a whole new level today, haven't we? Excellent. Right, Robbie, you are the lead insights analyst at Katapult. And I want to come back in a minute to talk about what your job entails, but first Katapult itself. So a little story for you. So years ago, you know when you were at school and you'd have to pick work experience? My granddad had a business and his next door neighbour's business made props for films. Robbie Jones: Nice. Kelly Molson: So I bagged myself work experience at this place and I got to make loads, I just got to make some weird stuff that then ended up in films. And I remember going to the cinema, watching the film going, "I made that Hessian box there. I sewed that. Whoa, that was really good." If I could go back now and go, "No, this is where I want to go and do work experience," I would choose Katapult without a doubt because you do incredible things. Tell the listeners what Katapult does, it's so cool. Robbie Jones: Yeah, sure. So we design themed attractions and experiences. We do it the world over and it could be as something as small as a little popup street food courtyard that we did a couple of years ago right to a large scale, full theme park design and everything in between. And it is, it's great, it's really, really fun. We get to work with some amazing clients, some amazing brands and IPs where the design team are just in their element. They're able to work with brands like LEGO that they've grown up playing with since they was small boys and girls. So it's fantastic for us all to carry on being a kid really, in essence, being creative, being surrounded by colour and fun and entertainment. Don't get me wrong, there's a lot of hard work that goes into it. A lot of extended hours, red-eye flights across the world. But it's amazing. It's amazing to be a part of and design some pretty amazing things that are either coming soon or already open. So yeah, we do a lot and we're very thankful. Kelly Molson: It's so exciting. I feel like you played it down a little bit there as well. You were like, "Yeah, we design attractions and experiences." I was like, "Yeah, you do. It's really exciting." What do you do specifically there? Lead insights and analyst is your job title. Robbie Jones: Yeah. Kelly Molson: So you are kind of the data that sits behind that, the research that sits behind it. Robbie Jones: Yeah, absolutely. So I think something that we've been in the industry for over 20 years now and gradually that we've seen that actually it's really good to make sure you've got some sort of insights, believe it or not, to make a very good decision. And it was something that was kind of lacking within the industry. There was lots of big thinking, feasibility reports, people telling you what the commercial outcomes would be to improve a visitor attraction or even to open a new attraction. But no one was really saying, "Well, hold on a minute, who is it that you're trying to get through the doors and what is it that they actually want? And have they actually got the money to spend that you are charging for?" Robbie Jones: And that's the bit of the insights gap that I, and we at Katapult, fill. We understand the sheer importance of having that insights. We can't just design something from scratch, full stop, regardless of whether we are working with an IP or not. You've got to have an idea of who are the people coming through the door. So that sheer responsibility lays flat on my shoulders to make sure that whatever the design team designs next, it is fully in lined, not just commercially, but from a guest point of view as well that they are going to love it from the moment they walk in. So yeah, pretty big responsibility. But it's fantastic to set the design team up to let them creative minds go wild. Kelly Molson: It is fascinating what you do. And I think that it's really similar to probably the bit that I do in our business, because my role is to understand what the client's challenges is. And so you are asking all of the questions around, "Well, who's your consumer? What do they spend? Where do they do? Where do they go? What do they read?" Et cetera, et cetera. And then you translate. The designers, they get to do the fun bit. But I think that the research bit is the fun bit, to be honest. They would probably argue with me. So how do you start that process? What are the kind of things that you're asking? Robbie Jones: Well, I guess it depends on the client, depends on the project. But the way we typically start for existing visitor attractions is we kind of do a mystery shop, or we call it a guest experience audit. But we don't just go around and have fun, that's the second part of the day. The first part of the day is thinking about if you've got signs telling interpretation and you're a museum, are they at the right height for kids to read it? If it is, is it the right level of language required for a five, six, seven year old to be able to read it? And everything in between. It's is the staff levels good? Are there plenty of vegetarian options within the cafe facilities? All of these things where we want to make sure every touchpoint that every guest that comes through is satisfied and our audit goes in, it pulls out the good stuff, but more importantly for the operators, it pulls out the stuff where they could probably do a little bit better. It's the things that are probably mentioned more than often on TripAdvisor. Robbie Jones: And so it gives us the chance to go, "Right, yes, we did find these issues. These need solving as soon as possible so let's get to work. Let's get to work in figuring out what we can do." And sort of 75% of the time, those things that we highlight, they can pretty much be done by the attraction themselves. It's only the other 25% where we go, "Right, your guests aren't staying for four hours and you want them to stay for four hours. They're only staying for two. What can we do to make the experience last twice as long? What can we do to keep them there and engaged and immersed for double the amount of time that they are before?" And that's obviously when we get the design team's creative juices flowing and start to think about what can we do to improve the attraction. So yeah, in a roundabout way, the guest experience audit helps to unlock the insights, helps to give us the ammunition we need to improve the attraction, and also look to work on some bigger projects for the clients as well. So yeah, that's a roundabout way in terms of how we do it with the audit. Kelly Molson: I love that. So from your perspective, it's not just about creating new, it's not just about adding on. It's about looking at it from a holistic perspective. Where are you already? How are you performing? Okay, well, look, this is doing really well. That's great. These things need to improve. And then, okay, so now let's look at the new stuff. Because I guess there's always that excitement about, "New, new, new, new," isn't there? Oh, a new attraction, a new, I don't know, show that you're going to put on within it. And that's what gets everyone excited. Sometimes they forget to take that step back and go, "But what needs to improve with what we already have?" Robbie Jones: Yeah, absolutely. And the greatest assets that visitor attractions have probably got are sat there already, they just need discovering. And what we tend to find is if it's not something tangible, like a ride needs improving or an experiential walking trail needs improving, it falls down to the narrative or the storytelling of the attraction. That seems to be the thing that we are coming across at the moment, which probably leaves a little bit left to be desired. People don't explain their stories enough. Why are they unique? Why are they telling us this story when you go into a museum? Or why has this art centre got this curation of art? People aren't very good at telling stories that guests want to listen to. So you're right. It's not always about the new, it's about the existing, but extrapolating what's good about that experience in the first place. Kelly Molson: You wrote a really good article that I read a couple of weeks ago called Creating Unique Visitor Destinations in a Crowded Market. So I'm going to put a link to this in the show notes, but it's on Katapult's website as well. Kelly Molson: You said that attractions need to capitalise on what is unique about them. And that's not just from the perspective of, "Hey, we've got this mascot," or, "this is how we're going to put it around the site." Is the location unique? Is the food offering that you have based on that location? What is it about you that really stands out that guests can't get anywhere else and they're not going to get the same story anywhere else? I thought that was such a great way of looking at the uniqueness of each attraction. Robbie Jones: Yeah, and I think there's always going to be a place for attractions that have got the fastest thing, the tallest thing, the biggest thing. That does a lot to pull a crowd. But when it comes to trying to fight your corner, if you're medium or smaller size visitor attraction, you've got to pull on your unique. There's a finite source of money and time so you're going have to try and get your visitors and your guests a slightly different way. The article came from an issue that was within two strands of the industry. The first being museums and art galleries that were struggling from a values perspective to say, "We can't take this donation because it doesn't fit in with our values." Or museums having to give away certain artefacts back to countries because of the connotations of it being stolen in what is in today's society. So they're under huge pressure to say, "Well, what is our story? What is our narrative?" And for places like that, it is very much rooted in the locality. What is your city about? What is your region about? And curating around that. Robbie Jones: The second strand is around experiences that have got a blueprint and are looking to create dozens of the same attraction all around the world. Again, there is absolutely a place for that in this world. We've got countless clients who do the same thing. But where there needs to be a differentiation is how the local market impacts what that attraction is. You can't just say, "We're going to have an indoor attraction that's going to have a soft play and a cafe and that's kind of it. And then we're going to put it throughout 40 different countries around the world." It's not going to wash. You can't just put a badge on the front of that indoor attraction and say, "Welcome to Tokyo. Welcome to Orlando." It's just not going to work. It's not going to wash. It is not unique enough. Robbie Jones: So for those attractions, it's about, "Yes, you've got a blue blueprint, but what can you do differently based on the people, the profile, the guests that are going to come through that door to make it slightly tweaked in terms of things that they might not have from a local competitor point of view?" Or just making sure that you replicate their stories within the attraction. I've seen some really good stuff that Crayola have done in the US where they're starting to onboard local artists for their entertainment centres. That's amazing. You could be in the US, go to the two different Crayolas and have a different experience. So being able to create that unique experience is twofold, but it's one that everyone's got to look at quite a bit now. Kelly Molson: So one of the things I thought was quite interesting is the scale of the projects that you work on at Katapult. So for example, I think you mentioned earlier, the Derby Market Place project, which is a popup marketplace, and then you've worked with organisations like the SEA LIFE London Aquarium. They're really different experiences. Do you look at the same approach when you are working with that kind of scale of client? Robbie Jones: Yeah, absolutely. I think with those two examples, there was a very clear commercial goal for both of them. For SEA LFIE it was about adding an experience that makes the ticket price value for money, but it's also there to increase photographic and merchandise sales as well. So there was a very clear understanding of what the commercial goal was. For Derby Market Place, that was actually a popup courtyard that was set up in 2020 just after the first lockdown of the pandemic in the UK. Derby is our home city and we was approached by the city council to do something that will support the local businesses because there was obviously restaurants, cafes going bust because they simply couldn't do a takeaway service or they didn't have the outdoor catering. So for that, we created a courtyard. Robbie Jones: So as a result, they both had commercial goals and we both started them pretty much the same way, which is, "Right. Well, who is it that's going to come through the door?" Who is it? What do they want? Is it a family of four? Is it a couple? How much money have they got? What sort of experience are they used to? How long are they going to stay? What information are they going to want? All of this information that I guess sometimes we take for granted in the attractions industry, feed it into the design and ultimately come up with exactly what we did for the marketplace and SEA LIFE. So yeah, I think by and large, we kind of stick along the same path, very much insights driven design. We do the insights, we design it based on that, and then we hope it reaches the commercial goal. Kelly Molson: So you mentioned Crayola a minute ago. That is a brilliant example of really using the locality to make that attraction individual. What other great examples of really truly unique attractions can you think of? Robbie Jones: Well, I think I mentioned it in the article you've already mentioned. But Meow Wolf, particularly the first one in Santa Fe, that is an absolute benchmark that I use in terms of how you use local talents, local immersion to help make Santa Fe a destination in it's own right. It's amazing how much one attraction can pivot the way that a region is seen, a city is seen, and turns it into a place that people are staying overnight for two or three nights to just to go to Meow Wolf. So definitely that, in terms of creating a destination. Robbie Jones: But I do want to pull out another example as well, and it's not necessarily unique as such, but it's the feeling is unique, and that is Paultons Park. So for those that have been to Paultons, Peppa Pig World is there, which is a massive pull. They've got some great rides, they've got some really good food and beverage outlets, a good smattering of live performances. But what makes the park stand out is how immaculate it is when it comes to public realm. The gardens are fantastic, the landscaping's amazing. You'd be hard troubled to find a piece of litter on the floor. And the staff are so incredibly attentive with attention to detail that actually, when I've gone a few times now, it's the one thing that always stands out to me. And it's the benchmark for just cleanliness. You could be forgiven for being in a communist China, it's very clean and orderly and focused. But actually when we think about visiting a theme park, we want it to be glossy and clean and not a bother in the world. And it's little things like that, for me, that have made Paultons an absolute benchmark as well for us. Kelly Molson: Because I always think back to Disney about that and no litter, beautiful gardens and that, for me, is the level. I haven't had the pleasure of Paultons Park yet. I think I've got a couple more years and then it'll be on the list. Robbie Jones: Yeah, absolutely. You'll find out just much you can spend in that store with Peppa Pig. Kelly Molson: Oh God. Yeah, I can imagine. Let's talk about summer and let's talk about what the attractions market looks like at the moment. So I know that you've had an incredibly busy summer and as we are recording this, we're still at the tail end of it. So I can imagine that you are looking forward to a little bit of a rest- Robbie Jones: Yes, definitely. Kelly Molson: ... come September-October time. How is the attractions market looking at the moment to you post-COVID? Because we've moved on, so to speak, from COVID or the majority of people have moved on from it, but I think it's really difficult with attractions because we are still seeing a slight decline in visitor numbers, but there's obviously other factors going on at the moment in terms of the energy crisis and things like that. So what's your view of the leisure and attractions market at the moment? Robbie Jones: I think post-COVID, if we think about the start of the year, I think it was incredibly buoyant. I think attractions have seen the opportunity to invest now. The staycation market has absolutely boomed during the times when international travel around the world was banned. So it means that there's been a strong staycation market, which is really, really good. I think for the UK in particular, it's making sure, and this isn't just the attractions industry, I think this goes across the whole staycation market of the UK, don't get so greedy. There's a lot of... I understand that demand is high and you want to capitalise on it. But if we want to keep the UK as a staycation destination, you can't be charging silly prices compared to what they could probably do as an all inclusive for 10 days in Mallorca, as an average in terms of what the family's going to do. You've got to offer some sort of value for money. Robbie Jones: And the cost of living is the big thing now. I think that's what we are seeing. COVID is there in the background and it's obviously affected things, but the cost of living is the one that's really starting to bite a little bit more now. And I think it's because although we saw a lot of drop in wealth during the COVID pandemic, actually the cost of living now is probably a harder time for a lot of people because the savings have already been taken up by making sure they've got income coming in or topping up furlough or whatever it was. So yeah, the cost of living is the big thing. People aren't going to go out and spend, I don't know, 200, 300 quids on a day at a theme park. I can't see it happening. If they do, they'll have to forgo something else and I think that's something that's going to be in the minds-eye of visitor attractions. Robbie Jones: And I think we're starting to see a homogenised view of what we mean by leisure and attractions. Shopping centres now want to get in on the act and have lots of entertainment. You've got places like Butlins and Pontins in the UK, so typical caravan hotel resorts that have built live entertainment and experiences around them. They are in direct competition with theme parks and visitor attractions because they're offering entertainment. So the more experiences are spread throughout our sphere of what we can and can't do, the less money there is to go around. So even more of a need for people to be a little bit more unique and think about it's not just what's going to get me to this theme park, it's why would they choose the theme park over X, Y, and Z. And as they always say, option Z could be sitting at home and watching Netflix. You've you've got to do something to get people off the sofa. Kelly Molson: I'd not considered the option Z could be Butlins or Pontins though. That has just blown my mind because the whole way through the pandemic, we've been saying, "Your competition is Netflix, it's Disney+." But I hadn't even considered that now people are looking at how they spend that excess cash and how they spend their holiday time. Butlins is a competitor for Alton Towers. Robbie Jones: Yeah, in that comparison, absolutely. It's just that they've gone about things in opposite directions. Butlins went from accommodation to experiences and Alton Towers, vice versa, but they are very, very much competitors these days. And if you had £500 as a family to spend for a weekend, where would you go? And actually you look at the offers of both of those examples and depends on what sort of family you are and what sort of things you like to do. It might be a hard decision to make, but ultimately it'll be the one, it won't be the both. Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Okay. So you said that you have seen attractions investing in new rides and experiences to capitalise on that staycation. What do you think attractions should be doing right now based on what we've just discussed, this competitive state that you are in? Robbie Jones: It sounds really cliche, but I think just have a long term view on things. I can say this from doing insights here at Katapult, but when we are looking at data and trends and audiences, we are not just looking over the last 12 months. We're looking five or 10 years in the past and five and 10 years in the future to get a really good outlook in terms of, "Well, what do we think people are going to do?" Obviously you can't always guess what's going to happen. I think the last few years have taught us that. But you can have some sort of a vision in terms of where you want to go. Where do visitor attractions want to be in 10 years time? I'd love to know how many attractions know that answer. Robbie Jones: If they know it, then that's fantastic because they'll be gradually building towards that. But what we've seen from our side at Katapult is that we've gone to a lot of visitor attractions around the world that are doing a fantastic job at iterating, whether they've got a theme park or museum or whatever it is, but it's all bundled together in a big mound of plasticine with lots of different colours attached and different shapes. And it does a job, but it doesn't feel like the same place. And if we're treating that as the elixir of the visitor attraction, then that you need to get to the point of, "Well, what is your 10 year goal?" If you know that, you know what you're going towards. And I'd certainly focus on that, if you've got a little bit of spare time. Kelly Molson: Yeah, they're not busy at the minute. It's just been through summer. They should be resting now, the summer's done. That's really hard though, isn't it? So an example of that locally, to me, so I live near a vineyard, there's a lovely vineyard, about 15 minute walk from my house called Saffron Grange. Just give them a little plug because it is phenomenal. They've been selling their wines since 2019. However, the vineyards were planted like 11 years before that. And so they have had to have the vision of whatever they were planting and however they were designing that plot of land that they have. It's phenomenal the things they had to think about. What trees they would plant, because that's how high they would grow that would shield those vineyards from the wind and those vineyards from the frost. And just the granular level of planting that's had to go into that place to make the wine and the grapes now to be at the best they possibly can, it blows my mind. Kelly Molson: But it's the same thing at a visitor attraction. You've got to have that vision to go, "Well, this is my idea and this is how we're going to develop it over that time." But you've got the factor of not really knowing what your customers are going to want at that point. With the vineyard, at least they know relatively, other than wind and rain influences and weather that you can't predict, they kind of know how those vines are going to grow and what they're going to get at the end of it. With an attraction, you've got multiple different audiences with multiple different opinions on what they want and what their needs are, throw in a global pandemic. Just how do you even do that? I can't comprehend how you do that. Robbie Jones: I think we get caught up sometimes in thinking that a 10 year vision or a goal, or whatever you want to call it, has to be numerical or it has to be very definitive in terms we want to be the number one theme park in the world. Those sorts of things, you are almost hamstrung by. But what about if you said that you wanted your visitor attraction to be the most inspiring creative place for kids under 10? That is a vision. That is a vision that you can build towards. And if things change, whether it's your audience or your local competitors or whatever it is, you can still build towards that vision because that's what you believe in. Robbie Jones: It's about having a sense of what your values are as a business or as an attraction, standing by them, making that vision a reality by saying, "All right, we're going to do this because we believe in it." And that, again, ties really nicely back into what creates a unique attraction. It's your values. And I think it's the same for every business. We're seeing it a lot more now in the wider business community where people are making a choice over values instead of cost. Although the cost of living is obviously exacerbating that slightly. But people are making choices on green energy instead of fossil fuels, for example. So visitor attractions are only going to go the same way. So it's a big one. Yeah, you're right. 10 years. If you don't know your 10 year vision, then you don't know how to get there over the next 10 years. Kelly Molson: I love that. Robbie Jones: So, it is sorted. Kelly Molson: Yeah, so just put that to the top of the list, attractions. Yeah. Now I guess that's a really good place to be now, isn't it? You've just gone through that really, really hectic summer period. Now, the run up to Christmas, bar a few events and things that'll happen, it's a time for planning for next year. So now is a really good time to be able to take that step back and go, "Okay, well, what is our vision? Do we need to revisit our values and vision?" And then that will make the planning for 2023 a hell of a lot clearer. Okay. One last question on this, because what if attractions are already doing really well at the moment? Because we've got attractions, outdoor attractions that have been smashing it. Robbie Jones: Yeah. Kelly Molson: So what if your attractions are at capacity, what then do you do? So you are looking at things like planning, the expansions, things like that. What can they do? Robbie Jones: I think there's one of two route that are seeming quite popular at the minute. I think one is to, if you look at places like Gravity and Puttshack and a few others that have escaped my mind, by almost franchising, if you think you've got a concept that is completely unique and can be spread throughout the UK, Europe, worldwide, then now's the opportunity to look at it. It needs some careful consideration. As we said before, you can't just copy and paste. But if you think you've got something pretty amazing, then go for it. Well, why not open a second or a third or a fourth? You've proven it can work, so try it. It's worth a go. Robbie Jones: And the second thing, and this is something where I think the bigger museums during the pandemic have really led the chase on this, so I think it was one of the museums in London, I can't remember what, but they introduced lates, Museum Lates where they did silent discos around the exhibits. This is a perfect time to try completely different things. If you've got an out of season or you've got low throughput days or weeks or weekends, then what can you do to bring in another audience? Let's try and fill up your throughput and your dwell time of your attraction 100% of the year round. If you can do that, then you're making more from the asset that's already making your money. So try it out. Find new guest profiles, find new groups of audiences that might want to visit, and consider doing something very special for them. And you never know. If it works out, then you've got an extra revenue stream that you didn't think you had. So they'd be my preference, if I was in that fortunate position, to go down one of those two routes. Kelly Molson: Great advice. Thank you. We're going to put all of Robbie's contact details, et cetera, all in the show notes. So if you fancy a chat with him, you want to find out a little bit more about what Katapult do, you want to book yourselves one of those... Oh God, I've forgotten the words. One of the- Robbie Jones: Audit. Kelly Molson: Audit, audit, audit is the word. If you'd like to book one of those audits. So you can do that. I would love to know about a book though, Robbie. So we always offer up a guest's book choice as a prize and it's can be something that you love, it can be something that's helped shape your career in some way. What do you have for us today? Robbie Jones: Gosh, can I pick two? Kelly Molson: It's double my marketing spend, but why not? What's the first one? Robbie Jones: Oh, good, fantastic. So I think one that's a personal one is by Ernest Hemingway, The Sun Also Rises. It's a lovely in depth read about the twenties and thirties where cafe culture was rife and artists and poets were making adventurous trips to France and Spain to soak up the culture. And it's a wonderful, wonderful story that really makes me want to live 90 years from now and really enjoy it. I think that's the first part. The second part is that Ernest Hemingway used to be a journalist so his descriptions of the characters are very matter of fact and I think that's seeped into my audience profiling that I do as part of my job. I like the matter of fact, I like the facts that make the people real, and then start to tell the story of what we think they're going to do in an attraction. So I think Ernest Hemingway has certainly had an influence on me. Robbie Jones: And then the second book is called Superforecasting, which is by Philip Tetlock and Dan Gardner. Now this, it came to prominence a little bit when Dominic Cummins was advisor to Boris Johnson in his ill-fated stay at 10 Downing Street, and it speaks about the art and science of prediction and getting things right. And I read it from end to end. I completely soaked this book up. It's a little bit courty in places so you've got to take a bit of pinch of salt. But it's good at kind of teaching you to say, "Right, can you be a super forecaster?" And funny enough, I think it was February or March this year, they put out a bold statement that Vladimir Putin was not going to enter Ukraine under any circumstances, at least for the next six to nine months and then I think it was about two weeks later and he invaded. So I think that example of the book, it kind of comes with a moral, I think, which is you can super forecast or try and super forecast as much as you want, but you've got absolute no way of deciding what's going to work. There's a difference between a good and a bad decision and a good and a bad outcome. And I think that's what that book's taught me. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that example did not sell that book for me at all. However, that sounds great. That sounds like a really good book. You've absolutely blown my marketing budget again, which everybody always does. Robbie Jones: So sorry. Kelly Molson: No, I love the example of Ernest Hemingway and I love how it's infiltrated the way that you do your work as well. I haven't read either of those books so they're going to go on my list. And actually, listeners, we do compile a list of all of the books that all of our guests suggest and you can find that over on the Rubber Cheese website, rubbercheese.com, go to the insights, it's in there. Robbie, thank you. As ever, if you want to win Robbie's books, if you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this show announcement with the words, "I want Robbie's books," then you will be in with a chance of winning both of them. I've loved our little chat. Thank you. Thank you for indulging in my little song. Robbie Jones: Oh gosh. I'm just glad that you didn't get me to do the scene where he's peeing into a bottle in Dumb and Dumber. Very well. Kelly Molson: I don't think that would've worked very well on the podcast. Do you? Robbie Jones: No, no. I'm sure you can add some trickle sounds in. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Robbie Jones: If you wanted to. Kelly Molson: Let's end there, shall we? It's been a pleasure. Thank you, Robbie. Robbie Jones: Thank you so much. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast. Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
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