Skip the Queue (Rubber Cheese)

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.

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Show references:

https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/

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.

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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.

Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.

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Show references:

https://www.rigb.org/

www.linkedin.com/in/shjfranklin

Steven Franklin is a self-confessed social media addict, with 4 years’ experience of work in social media, drawn from a mixture of heritage, cultural, government, and the charity sectors.

To date, he has worked at Egham Museum, Bradford Museums and Art Galleries, The National Archives, and now The Royal Institution.

When he’s not making TikToks or trying to write witty posts on X, you’ll find him thinking about how the latest evolutions in social media could translate and be used within the cultural and charity sectors. His passion for innovation has seen him deliver huge social media at every organisation that he has worked, bringing his distinctive mixture of creativity and storytelling to every account, which has resulted in an attention-grabbing tone of voice that has greatly increased brand exposure and recognition.

Transcription: 

Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. 

In this episode, I'm joined by Steven Franklin, the Social Media Manager at the Royal Institution. Steven has seen some phenomenal increases in subscribers and engagement whilst managing the organisation's social media, which, as we'll find out, is pivotal to the role the RI has in science communication. 

Paul Marden: Welcome, Steven, to the Skip the Queue podcast. It's lovely to have you.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me on, Paul. Really looking forward to this chat.

Paul Marden: Yeah, me too. Me too. So, before we get started, where are you sat at the moment? Because it's looking like a pretty impressive location.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, no, I thought I'd make an effort for the listeners and viewers. So I'm currently in the very salubrious surroundings of Mayfair. To be more specific, the Royal Institution on Albemarle street, in the historic writing room, which dates all the way back to the sort of mid 1800s. Interestingly, a little anecdote. This is the room where our discourse speakers are locked in and have been locked in for quite a while, for a couple of, well, approaching a couple of centuries, following one specific instance where one of our speakers got so overwhelmed by anxiety and nerves that he basically left before his talk. So, in order to prevent that from happening, we now locked speakers up half an hour before their discourse is supposed to start, so they don't have the chance to run away and leave the audience wanting more to speak.

Paul Marden: And for the Skip the Queue audience, I would like emphasise that is not my plan going forward with the podcast. I am not going to lock people up half an hour before that.

Steven Franklin: No.

Paul Marden: So, Steven, we always start with some icebreaker questions. So I've got a couple for you. First one, what's your earliest memory of travelling outside of your hometown?

Steven Franklin: Oh, I think it would have to be travelling up to see one of my aunties who lives in Northamptonshire, and I always remember sort of going up the M1, which is an interesting thing to remember, seeing sort of the lights. But I think, more importantly than the sort of mundaneity and boredom of travelling up a motorway, it was just sort of the excitement and good times of getting treated by different relatives who also had a golden retriever called Barney, who I was very fond of. And, yeah, that was probably my earliest memory.

Paul Marden: Yeah, family trips like that are lovely, aren't they? I remember lots of trips up into South Wales. So mine would be that my memory would probably be the M4, travelling from Somerset up to the South Wales Valleys to visit Auger Farrell. Okay, so the next one. How would you describe your job to a two year old?

Steven Franklin: I'm in the business of entertaining people. And the way I entertain people is by either doing it through the form of video, or by doing it through the form of written word, or by doing it in nice visuals, whether they are still photos or animated graphics. And as a byproduct of my entertainment, I hope to also educate. There you go.

Paul Marden: Lovely. So another thing that we always ask our visitors onto the show is, what's your unpopular opinion?

Steven Franklin: So I've been. Obviously, you gave me the heads up for this, and I've been thinking long and hard about what's the most unpopular opinion that I came up with that I truly believe in, and mine is that audiobooks are a more pleasurable and enjoyable experience than reading a proper book.

Paul Marden: Oh, wow. Okay, so what's wrong with reading a proper book? There are librarians among us that might actually care about a physical book.

Steven Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. See this where it becomes a poor reflection on my own self, basically, because the reason that I don't really enjoy reading proper books is that I find it quite difficult to sort of sit still for long periods of time. I also find it quite difficult to shut my brain off for long enough to only be really focused on the one, the book that's in front of me. So, yeah, whilst I do appreciate the romanticism of sort of reading a book in the sun or reading a book over a cup of tea or, you know, reading a classic novel on holiday and the sort of the tactile nature of the book experience, it's never really sat with me.

Steven Franklin: So I think in some ways, that sort of unpopular opinion isn't really surprising, given what I work in and sort of age I am and sort of the media that I create, so I don't know whether it's a sense of the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail, but either way it's, you know, there's a nice sort of closed loop there.

Paul Marden: I've got my subscription and I've got a few credits that I need to spend at the bank, but I like an audiobook, but they send me to sleep, so if I can't do factual books on audiobook that sends me straight to sleep. But even listening to fiction on audible, within five minutes, I'll be out. Whereas I can sit and read a book and that can hold my attention for a couple of chapters before nodding off. Audiobook, I just need. I was listening to a Stephen Fry narrated one the other day, the lulling tones of Stephen Fry, but off I went to sleep.

Steven Franklin: I think Stephen Fry is, you know, he's sort of a silent assassin of the audiobook world insofar as he has such a, you know, his dulcet tones just naturally send you off and give me the Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry, and I'm golden, so to speak. But, yeah, now, I also got into a bit of a nerdy sort of. And this is a very typical conversation at the RI, but a nerdy chat about whether you retain more information having actually read the book than listening to the book. Because I was of the opinion that you probably didn't take as much in if you were listening to it than if you were reading it.

Steven Franklin: I can't exactly remember what the figures were, but I think the long and short of it was that actually, the science suggests that sort of retention is slightly less, but not as drastic as you might have thought. So that gave me some sort of, you know, made me feel a little bit better about myself and my inability to sit quiet for long periods of time and read.

Paul Marden: So, anecdotally, I'm reading to my daughter as we read every night before she goes to bed. She's ten years old. She can be doing something else. She could even be reading a different book that I'll be reading to her. And I'm like, “You're not listening to me. What did I just say?” And she could just recite exactly what I just said. So she is listening, somehow, doing two things at once. I do not understand how she does it.

Steven Franklin: I don't know whether this is actually correct, but somewhere somebody might have said something or have read it, but there's something about doing two things at once that, you know, sort of gets your brain in a state of flow and maybe ups your performance again, I actually don't know whether this is true, but if it's not, this is a lie that I tell myself.

Paul Marden: So it's a pinchot that we're not actually scientists of the RI, so why don't we. You've told us what the two year old view of your job might look like, but why don't you tell us a little bit about the RI? Lots of listeners will be aware of the RI from the Christmas lectures, but it's got really long history. So tell us a little bit about that, about each role today and what you do.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, so the RI founded in 1799, basically from its very inception, a science engagement institution. I think that's something that has always and will continue to always set the RI apart from other sort of science organisations, insofar as we haven't been an organisation that's got a traditional focus on research and research outputs. Our sort of modus operandi, for want of a better phrase, has always been the core principle of connecting the public with science. Back in 1799 and through the early 1800s, you know, that would have been done traditionally by. Well, it still is to this day, but obviously that's back. Back in the day of ye oldy, victorian times, it would have been done by sort of, you know, lectures and demonstrations.

Steven Franklin: So the likes of, you know, Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday, you know, these are some of the big figures that are associated with our long 225 year history. And in fact, pretty much every, you know, sort of famous scientist of the Victorian age is likely to have been a member here at some stage. Yeah. So, you know, we're very difficult. We're very different from the likes of the Royal Society in the sense that we've always welcomed women. We've always sort of had an ethos of connecting children. The Christmas lecture has been the most obvious example, but we're connecting children to science. And I think also, you know, we've also been quite historically wedded to the idea of being slightly different, less snobbish for, you know, I think, and more. More sort of open, more playful. We don't take ourselves too seriously.

Steven Franklin: And in fact, during sort of the Victorian period, we were sort of lambasted by famous caricatures of the day for that very fact. For the fact that sort of. We were obsessed with teaching the public. We allowed women in. We sort of broke the traditional rules of the day. So that got us into a bit of not trouble, but people laughed at us and pointed at us and sort of said that weren't doing it the right way because we weren’t an academic members only organisation. So that was. That was sort of our founding. And I think, you know, pretty much from that point onwards today, we've not really changed in that regard. The thing that's changed is sort of society around us. So we still have a lecture theatre.

Steven Franklin: I've mentioned earlier that we have our discourses. They used to happen every Friday, and they now happen once, the last Friday of every month. Christmas lectures continue to this day, and next year it will be the 200th anniversary of them.

Paul Marden: Wow.

Steven Franklin: And the Christmas lectures have pretty much been a constant. They were stopped or paused during World War II but, you know, by and large, a tradition that's sort of a line that links us from the present all the way back to the past. And, in fact, even the desk that sits, that's in the lecture theatre today, whilst it's not Faraday's original, part of it, is, so every time they rebuild it, they keep a part of the old desk and use that. So it's a bit like that, you know, that famous Titanic sort of riddle like, if you were to change all the parts of the Titanic, would it still be the Titanic? And, you know, or bicycle, whatever. But, yeah, so there's that. And I think, to the present day, our scope's much larger now.

Steven Franklin: So we have a sort of traditional stem learning framework in place where school kids, pretty much of all curricular curriculum ages, can come to on site and be taught. So we've got a very buzzing, very healthy science programme. We also do a lot off site science engagement for the schools that aren't based in London. We also have a very thriving public programme that, you know, sees some of the foremost, greatest scientific thinkers of today come and provide lectures in the Faraday lecture theatre. We're also home to a wonderful collection of scientific history. So there's been ten elements of the periodic table that were isolated here at the RI. So, yeah, we've got a history of that, and we have, well, basically, we've far too much for even us to talk about. And then I guess.

Steven Franklin: I guess for me, working in sort of digital social media, I guess part of my remit, well, my remit is to engage people with science to get them interested in science. We believe, and we're quite unashamed in our belief that, you know, science is for everyone and science is important. It is quite fundamental and crucial to everyday life, regardless of how old you are. So a knowledge of science is important. And, you know, another key sort of part of my work is to sort of show off what the RI has in our heritage collection, our public programme, to get people onto site, to encourage people to become members and support our mission, and just to, I guess, entertain people through science. There you go.

Paul Marden: That's interesting, isn't it? The entertainment element of it. I guess there's an element of trying to get people on board and engage in their RI's mission, but at the same time entertaining them. And everyone likes a good explosion video, don't they?

Steven Franklin: So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I've sort of. Not a day goes past where I don't feel incredibly fortunate, really, because, you know, in some ways, I get a lot of the credit for success that we see on social media when videos go viral. But I'm not the one exploding hydrogen balloons or making, you know, really impressive looking sort of demos, chemical reactions, so to speak. So, you know, it's very much an all sort of team sort of mission. But, yeah, I do have it very good, actually, because I've got so much. I'm like Aladdin in the cave, got so much to play with.

Paul Marden:  Lots of material. So that's interesting. So let's talk a little bit about social media at the RI. It's really important to the organisation, because when I was doing my bone round research to all of this, and I open up the annual report, then on the trustees report, on, like, page one or page two of the annual report, they are talking about the impact of social media on the organisation. So it's obviously crucial to what you do. How do you think that it's become that important for the organisation?

Steven Franklin: I think, genuinely, it does link back to that core fundamental purpose. All social media is the 21st century way of connecting people with an idea. In the Victorian times, you would have had to sit in a lecture theatre and listen to the lecture given. If you were lucky, you might have been able to read it, if you were in the right sort of circles. But, in many ways, the way in which technology has evolved and where we sit here today, it's never been easier to sort of publish ideas and communicate thinking. That isn't to downplay the craft that goes into it, because I think that's two separate conversations. It is very easy to publish.

Steven Franklin: It's a little bit more of a science to publish in the right way with the right sort of thinking that goes into it. So, yeah, I think, it's fundamental about connecting people with science, and that is what the charity and the institution is built on. I think we're quite fortunate, the RI, in the sense that we have a leadership team that truly believes in the importance of connection and doesn't devalue digital connection against physical connection. So, whether you're supporting our social media channels, whether you're a subscriber on YouTube, or whether you're sitting in the lecture theatre, that is a valuable engagement that is fulfilling a function and part of our purpose. So, yeah, I think that's why. And actually, it's really nice to be working at an organisation that does play such onus and importance.

Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So what is it like having responsibility for over a million followers across social? That must be a little bit bolting.

Steven Franklin: Yes, it is. And I've thought about this a lot, and indeed, I've had quite a short career in social media, but I think even I've begun to mature in the way I think about this, too. I think, first and foremost, if you're working in social media, you probably aren't somebody that's overawed by that fact that you can hit huge numbers of people pretty much instantaneously. And I think if you are somebody that would get anxious about that, you probably wouldn't be working in social or indeed comms. So I think there's that. But I think it's a great honour, to be honest, to be trusted pretty much within reason, to sort of spearhead a strategy and have a bit of fun.

Steven Franklin: And translate sort of, scientific ideas into a medium that makes sense for the 21st century, or indeed the trend, or indeed the platform. I think that's in a very entrusted position. Yeah, so there's that. And then, I think, for me personally, there's been a bit of maturity in sort of realising that, actually, whilst you still get that rush, when you see a viral post really take off and you get that lovely dopamine hit and you're on cloud nine, actually realising that this is not your account, you're doing the work of the organisation. This isn't Steven Franklin out there and sort of going viral.

Paul Marden: This is some of the jokes. There's a little bit of you in there, I think.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, no, there is, there is. But I think the thing that I've realised is that when things. When things go well, then you've got nothing to worry about. But in the odd moments where you get into a bit of a sticky patch, something didn't go quite anticipated. That's when having too close a personal connection with it does become health sage. Correct. Yeah. And actually, I think, by and large, for the most part, that sort of talking to a million people is 99% not a problem. It's that small 1% of moments where something goes awry that you didn't quite anticipate, we didn't expect. I try my best to think 360 degrees about what possibly people could think in response to it.

Steven Franklin: A post that I think is harmless, but in reality we're posting to the Internet and everybody on the Internet is able to hold of you. And so I was having this conversation with my line manager a couple of weeks ago, 20 years ago, you would have published something in the press and somebody would have had the same thought. The only difference was they were having it in their living room and they were just uttering it to their other half. Today they can literally give you instantaneous feedback. So that's how the dynamic shifted. So yeah, I think hopefully that's answered your question. Paul.

Paul Marden: Yeah, you touched on this a minute ago, you touched on kind of the broader strategy. So what are the goals for social, for the organisation going forwards?

Steven Franklin: I mean more, more, more. How do you like it? How do you like it? I mean there is an element of that. So obviously we want to continue growing all of our channels as much as possible. We want to be talking to as many new people, raising the awareness of the institution, raising the awareness of our work, but then also sort of subsidiary to that, just sort of communicating good science and providing that sort of educational offer. So I think, there is that sort of vanity metric in terms of raw number of followers, but we're also really interested in engagement and you know, there's no point to us in having 5 million followers if only 5000 people engage with your content each month. That to us feels a little incongruous.

Steven Franklin: So, putting out quality content on channels that our communities on those channels respond to and enjoy and engage with is sort of a big motivation factor for us. And then secondly, or maybe thirdly, we've been quite agile in adapting to technology in the 21st century. So some of our channels we have monetised and sort of use digital content to help drive revenue and bring in revenue. So that's a sort of secondary or tertiary sort of thing on social.

Paul Marden: Yeah, it's a nice bit of feedback, isn't it, in batching to the organisation. So who are the audiences, those communities that you touched on a moment ago, who is it that you're trying to speak to?

Steven Franklin: So I think by and large, like any organisation, we have an audience sort of strategy that sort of segments all of our audiences into various catchment terms that represent people and we have about six to eight of those. And we made a conscious effort to focus on to two groups that we internally refer to as the science connected and the science curious. So science connected being people that might work in science, might have done a degree in science, might have a connection through science, they might be studying it. So, that traditional science call, they work in a career that is adjacent to science and then the science curious, probably, are those people that don't fit into that group, but are probably more arts and culturally orientated.

Steven Franklin: They are interested in learning new things, they are open to ideas and exchanging ideas and. Yeah. So those are the sort of two audiences that we predominantly focus on. That isn't to say that we are deliberately excluding the rest.

Paul Marden: If you're not focusing on some bit, you're focused on no deal.

Steven Franklin: Exactly. Yeah.

Paul Marden: So I guess the reason how the way that we got connected, the way that our conversation started together, was more interested in data and pulling data out of the sector and understanding how the sector works. And in a conversation I had with Rachel at the Association of Science and Discovery Centre, she said you'd be a really good person to talk to because you're really motivated by the data behind social and you use that a lot to be able to influence what you do. So tell us a little bit about that. How are you using data to make decisions about what you do next?

Steven Franklin: Well, that's a big question. I think one of the great things about working in digital social being a part of digital, is that there's no shortage of data that is at your disposal. I think one of the things that makes me sort of sad working within the charity cultural sector is that actually, by and large, the level of resource isn't there to truly sort of get to the bottom of what that data tells you. 

Paul Marden: Yes. 

Steven Franklin: So I'll get off my soapbox now. Yeah. So, as you say, I'm very interested in using that data to inform my content choices. And I think by far and away, the clearest example I have to show you today is the way that we've sort of looked at data in terms of our Instagram growth.

Steven Franklin: To put that into context, in the last six months we've grown organically by 110,000 followers in about 130 posts. So absolutely staggering numbers. And then within the last four or five months, we've done approaching 10 million impressions on just Instagram alone. So, huge numbers. And the thing that I noticed was that whenever I posted a static image or graphic to the grid, so just a post, the only people that saw it were your followers, and there was a tiny fraction of people that weren't your followers. So I posted a reel and then I realised that percentage and was completely skied the other way. So, depending on how successful the reel was, you could have anything up to 75% non followers versus 25% followers on a truly viral reel, that was over a million views.

Steven Franklin: So what that told me was that if I wanted to grow, the easiest way to grow is to obviously get your content to new people. And the way the platform and the algorithm was telling me the easiest way to do that was to just publish Instagram reels. So. And, there have been other stories. I think the Washington Post sort of in 21, 22, grew their Instagram channel to over a couple of million by publishing three Instagram reels a day. And they had exponential growth of which hadn't been seen before. So I didn't do three times a day. I just did three a week one on Monday, one on Wednesday, one on Friday. All videos about 60 seconds, some 40 seconds and some, up to a minute and a half. But yeah, just got into that pattern.

Steven Franklin: Posted, posted posters, and then I would supplement those reels with, a couple of grid posts. And the way that I sort of was seeing or the way that the strategy has sort of evolved is that the reels are the things that grow the channel and the grid posts are the things that cultivate the community. So, our Instagram reels are our calling card.

Paul Marden: Yep.

Steven Franklin: For a traditional analogy, they're the billboard that you put on the motorway that lots of people see. And the content you post to your  followers or to those followers are the sort of entertaining, sort of, membership pack that they can read and that equivalent, the analogy sort of fell down. But hopefully you get my gist.

Paul Marden: Yeah, I get what you mean. So when you flip it on its head and you go with the reels, you get this massive increase in people that aren't following you, seeing what you're talking about. And what sort of conversion rate are you seeing how many people are actually following you as a result of that? Is that the great point there?

Steven Franklin: Yeah, so we've like, within a month, we've been growing on average, 20,000 followers a month. In some days, we've been doing one and a half thousand followers a day. You can link that. So, you know, Instagram, if you go into our most popular reel that has over 5 million views, it will tell you how many new followers that specific video has generated. That video, I think, for us, has in itself generated like 30,000 new followers.

Paul Marden: Many thoughts. Now there's just play by mind. That's amazing. What is it about the content? Have you changed the content over that time? So you'd say that you're presenting different things.

Steven Franklin: Yeah. So it's been really interesting. And the reason it's been interesting is because by and large, it sort of has gone against the industry received wisdom. So, for context, I am the sole person in charge of social media. I work in a digital and marketing team. We have two full time video producers who help me create visual content and assets and video. But by and large, you know, I am sort of a one man band. So I sort of decided that I couldn't create brand new content all the time. But what I could do is use the 40 minutes to an hour lecture that we have take place in our lectures sometimes three times a week that are by and large filmed.

Steven Franklin: I know that we've got some of the greatest scientists in the world coming to speak about really cool things. Okay, cool. Why don't I take that 1 hour talk and skim through it at two times speed and isolate 1 minute moments that peak interest. Okay. So that's all very well and good. What are the things that we internally think peak people's interest? Well, there's the obvious one. It's the demonstrations or the impressive science experiments, the bangs, the smoke and all of that. So there's that. Then there's the talking about something that's, you know, vaguely topical trending. So I think that, the probably most obvious example of that is the, is Chris Van Dulligan and his ultra processed foods or ultra processed people book.

Steven Franklin: So, yep, we released quite a lot of content around that. And that did very well. And then thirdly, I guess it's the content that is likely to somewhat divide opinion. I won't say it's controversial content, but I would say that it's content that is most likely to get people talking. Because another thing that I noticed was that if your video gets more comments, it seems that helps with performance than likes. So you could get loads of likes. But if nobody comments, then algorithm isn't interested. But if people start talking and commenting, then the algorithm says, “Oh, people really like this. And, you know, it doesn't matter what they're saying.”

Paul Marden: And that's what you're seeing with the reels. Is it that you push a reel out there? And if it's, if it is thought provoking, not controversial. Yeah. Then you're seeing people commenting on that and that drawings up more impressions, which itself drives more engagement and all the outcomes.

Steven Franklin: Yeah. So like to take that 5 million reel example, you know, it's got like 45,000 likes, so it's still a lot of likes. But if you did the maths, that compared to 5 million views, it's quite a small rate. The amount of comments, it's got huge. It's like the comment section alone is bordering on 5000. Conversely, we have another video that's done sort of approaching 4 million, the likes are at 100,000, but the comment section is far smaller and it hasn't received as or hasn't been pumped out. Now, am I reading too much into this? Probably, because at the end of the day we're all slightly at the mercy of the algorithm and there is a bit of luck. There is a bit of luck.

Steven Franklin: But I guess for me, having sort of worked on it and sort of adopted this strategy for six months, it does seem to be the case that the more people start talking and commenting and sharing, the more the algorithm sort of takes that as a sign or marker of good content.

Paul Marden: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So around the kind of content planning and production piece, there's a team of people around you. You're in a fortunate position because you've got all of these amazing scientists from around the world that want to talk about what they do in your lecture theatre where you can go and record their content and back, all of a sudden you've got a content plan in front of you of the year, haven't you? So that's a really fortunate position to be in. But how do you go from that plan of all of the activity over the year into figuring out what you're going to do on a daily basis on your Monday, Wednesday, Friday posts that you do.

Steven Franklin: So there's two ways. There's the official answer and then there's the unofficial answer. The official answer is in some ways the reels that we post are somewhat predetermined by the schedule of our public programme. Now that isn't to say, and this somewhat circles back to your previous question, but I think it still makes sense. Not all of our content that we published on Instagram or TikTok is, a clip of a talk. You know, we do supplement the content calendar with our own sort of original content, whether that be green screen or our own internal science demonstrations, you know, and interestingly, actually there's another anecdote. The green screen on Instagram just dives. People aren't interested in it.

Steven Franklin: The green screen on TikTok, people love it, whereas on TikTok you post a clip of a talk, people less don't like it. They probably don't feel it's very authentic to the platform. The green screen, you know, goes bonkers, you know, work that out, whatever. Yeah, but, yeah, so going back there is. There is obviously there's somewhat predetermined by the talks, but then also it's coming down to, okay, we have had, you know, how many physics, how many biology, how many chemistry, how many hard science, soft science. We are an organisation that is inclusive reflex all. So we don't want to just publish white men.

Steven Franklin: We need a gender balance there, we need an ethnicity balance as well to reflect the vibrancy of everyone that comes to talk here, but also the vibrancy of the scientific community and large because at the end of the day, our content has the ability to inspire and allows people to feel seen, I guess so. So that also sort of informs our planning process.

Paul Marden: I think you said something about when we were talking before, actually, if you were being really mercenary about this and just going for the engagement, then you would focus on certain demographics of who it is that's presenting all the subject matter as well. Those can skew as well. But you have this obligation to be more diverse than it used.

Steven Franklin: Yeah. And that is an internal challenge. And I think it is a challenge that you could let yourself get carried away by following, chasing big numbers and fall into a trap of sort of undermining your own institution nor mission. Just at the sake of  to get to a million followers or whatever. But yeah, no, there are some challenges, you know, there are. And this is me not trying to overstate things, but we do publish content that we know sadly won't perform as well as say something else that we know probably would. But I think that is also one of the great joys and great beauties of working here is we're not yet. We will never be at a stage where we just do things for the pure KPI's.

Steven Franklin: We are also all about engagement and inspiring and being inclusive.

Paul Marden: There's a big mission that plays. It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because it makes you wonder whether just if you focus on one demographic or you focus one segment at the expense of the others. Is that because the algorithm favours that or is that because the audience. You would think that even if it was the algorithm favouring it's because that's because the audience that the algorithm serves is optimised around the algorithm is optimised around the audience. So you would expect it to be the audience listening. But yeah, it's a. Which came first is a chicken and egg problem, isn't it?

Steven Franklin: It is. It is a chicken and egg problem. And I think, you know, sort of this comes back to you. What's it like to manage a channel of a million sort of people? You just got to accept that not everything you post is going to be to everyone's taste. There'll be things that fly and there'll be things that don't. But the things that don't, it doesn't mean that it was bad content, doesn't mean that it's not fulfilled an important or valuable function or done something that has meaning, even if it only gets, you know, 50 engagements. Those 50 engagements are very valuable and in some cases could be potentially more valuable if it's chimed with the right sort of people and got in front of the audience we wanted.

Paul Marden: Yeah, my daughter absolutely adores Mark Rober videos and the crunchlight boxes that he has. And he talks about, you hide the vegetables. Yeah. You give people the big exploding test tubes or whatever, but hidden behind that is the chemistry. Or you give them a toy that enables them to do amazing things with ping pong balls, but actually along the way they're learning some physics. You can hide the veg in amongst all of your exploding videos.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, correct. And funny you should mention Mark Rober. I was literally just watching a YouTube video about him earlier today on the way in. Yeah, I wouldn't say an idol of mine, but a really interesting sort of case study in somebody that sort of, you know, the way in which the creator economy is sort of pivoted to a way where you can become your own sort of advertiser as well as product. And you have the perfect closed loop. You create a product, you make a video for 30 million people that advertises your product, that then generates income so you can create more product, so you can just go round around.

Steven Franklin: Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, I'm a YouTube nut and I'm a sort of social media addicts and I think there's really big potential in sort of unlocking some of the secrets of how creators work and how they think and how they approach content and product and collaboration, taking some of those principles and concepts into the world of brands and organisations and institutions, because, let's be honest, that's kind of the future. And those people, regardless of whether they've got a marketing background or qualifications in marketing, they are cutting edge marketers who.

Paul Marden: Absolutely, yeah.

Steven Franklin: Who know exactly what they're doing, who are obsessed by the detail, who study and analyse retention graphs until it sort of makes them blue in the face. And that's the type of thing that I would love to do, to be able to do A and B tests on Facebook, to be able to do something as simple as publish the same video, publish one without a sort of timeline that shows how long you are through the video, publish the same video with that. See how that affects retention. Because if you believe that, as we're told, that retention is one of the keys sort of metrics of success or good content, then if you can find ways in which you can create longer retention metric, then that would be a key.

Steven Franklin: And even something as simple as that could possibly lead to some really big impacts. Another thing, you could post your video on reels and you could look at the or TikTok, look at a retention graph. Okay, we'll publish the same video, but we'll take that spike and we'll move that there and we'll cut the video short. 

Paul Marden: That's amazing, isn’t it? 

Steven Franklin: Yeah, but that is the sort of thinking that's happening with some of the biggest creators, and sort of I guess they're in a very privileged position because they have now huge teams behind them. But I guess for me the core point is that they didn't always have these people there.

Paul Marden: And did the data just add to that, isn't it?

Steven Franklin: Yeah, yeah. You know, and my suspicion is I've never spoken to the likes of Mr. Beast or Mark Rober or anybody with huge social following. But my suspicion is basically if you just take one piece of data and you optimise your workflow around that, then once you've got that sorted, you then turn your attention to another piece and then another piece, and then if you've optimised five pieces of data, then maybe you are in a place where you can get another person and then, so to speak.

Paul Marden: It's a positive reinforcing cycle, isn't it? So let's take that. How do you demonstrate back to the organisation the return on their investment for all the work that you're doing?

Steven Franklin: Well, as sort of referenced earlier, there is the sort of monetisation aspect to that. So I have a KPI of sort of quarterly and monthly budgets that I am against, that I'm accountable to. So there's that. So that's a very obvious straight line trajectory between a very opaque money and then digital content. But then I guess outside of that, there's other KPI's, obviously, growth on channels, engagement rates, numbers of engagements, link clicks through to our posts that promoting our membership offers, whether that be family membership or adult membership or our public programme events. So those are all the ways in which I can demonstrate value, I guess. And that's just numeric data.

Steven Franklin: But then there's also the actual stuff that I much more enjoy, which is the anecdotal, the sort of the written word where somebody says, give the social media manager a raise. I cheaply screenshot and send it over to my line manager to say, you know, just leaving this here.

Paul Marden: Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been brilliant to talk to you, find out a little bit more about what you do and what the RI is doing with social media. It's been awesome. We always ask our guests to tell us about their favourite books that we could share with the audience. So have you selected a book for us?

Steven Franklin: I have selected a book that I listened to on audible. Yeah. So Steven Bartlett's the Diary of a CEO, 33 laws, business and life, something that I've just finished listening to. Yeah, I'm a big sort of fan of, or, you know, have great admiration for, you know, Steven Bartlett and sort of the way that he's sort of, you know, that a rags to riches kind of story. But yeah, I think there's lots of. It's a very consumable, accessible book with some really nice little ideas in there that you can take away, probably implement to yourself. One of the greatest is the idea of absurdity, and the role that can be and how that can be exploited not just in social but just within marketing.

Steven Franklin: And those sort of tidbits, stick with me, I guess. It's in that ever sort of growing pursuit of mind of trying to just make myself, you know, 1% better each day. And if I can learn from some of the world's best and sort of get any part of wisdom or insight from them and sort of implement that, then that's not going to do me, I hope, any bad. So yeah, that would be my recommendation.

Paul Marden: There you go, lovely listeners. So if you would like a copy of Diary of a CEO, then jump onto X, retweet the show announcement and say, I want Steven's book. The first person that does that will get a copy of the book. Steven, it's been utterly delightful. Thank you ever so much. I really enjoyed we said to each other when we finished the prep call, I hope the main call goes as well as the prep call did. It really did. I've enjoyed this one just as much as the prep call. So thank you.

Steven Franklin: No, thank you very much. And yeah, it's been really enjoyable. I just wish it could have been longer, to be honest.

Paul Marden: Well, maybe we'll bring you back for part two again sometime soon. Thank you, Steven.

Steven Franklin: Thank you.

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, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
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Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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.

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 SkiptheQueue.fm.

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  or Bluesky for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.

Competition ends on 13th March 2025. The winner will be contacted via Bluesky.

Show references:

Website: https://www.crowdconvert.co.uk/ 

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/crowd-convert/

Bluesky: https://bsky.app/profile/crowdconvert.co.uk

Crowd Convert has been created to provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world class digital interactions that extend their incredibly moving physical experiences into the digital world. Very simply Crowd Convert is here to Rehmanise Commerce

http://kellymolson.co.uk/

Kelly Molson - The Lifestyle Agency Advisor

Supporting overwhelmed solo founders who crave long-term sustainable growth, through monthly advisory. Define your niche. Generate leads. Build your pipeline. Founding Rubber Cheese, a lifestyle web development agency in 2003, she grew the agency profitably for over 20 years transforming our success in 2019 by establishing it as the leading web design agency in the visitor attraction sector. She sold the business in 2024, and now support founders building specialist lifestyle agencies to find their own path – agency growth on their terms.

• Gain clarity on direction, mission and positioning to win the right clients
• Become confident in increasing prices and saying no to ‘stuff’ that sucks time and energy
• Feel the excitement of building strategic partnerships that deliver your dream clientsBuild an agency on your terms, choosing profitability over pressure, putting life before work.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Well, look who is back. They've let me loose with the microphone again. I might never leave. 

Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with visitor attractions. 

Kelly Molson: Can I just say that you pretty much called me a queen just before we began recording this, and I think I wear that crown appropriately today. 

Andy Povey: Podcast royalty. 

Kelly Molson: She is back where she belongs in her rightful place on her throne with her microphone. Wow. Thank you. You two have been cooking up something interesting, and I am back here to tease it out of you both today. But because I am in charge again, I get to do things my way, which means Icebreakers are back on the cards. Yay. 

Kelly Molson: I'm so happy to be back here doing this. Right? 

Paul Marden: I've never done one of these. This is so. In all of the time. I know. 

Andy Povey: So I've got something over you now, Paul. 

Kelly Molson: I can't believe this. Even when we did the sessions that were us two, the episodes that were us two. 

Paul Marden: You didn't ask me icebreakers. I am dodged that bullet for two and a half years. 

Kelly Molson:  That's outrageous. Okay, well, then we'll start with you. I would like to know who's your favourite podcast host? Why is it me? 

Paul Marden: Wow. 

Kelly Molson:  No. Genuine question. Genuine question. Okay, so, I mean, obviously it is me. We could put that aside. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, yeah. So put a pin in that one. 

Kelly Molson: Put a pin in that. So listen there, I have seen in the last. Well, since we started Skip the Queue back in 2019. Goodness, July 2019, there's been lots of different sector podcasts that have kind of popped up, and they are brilliant. And I'm all for more and more niche podcasts. They are the best kind of podcast. But I want to know, aside from Skip the Queue, what is your second favourite sector podcast? 

Paul Marden: Oh, oh. Attraction Pros is the one for me. I do like listening to the guys at AttractionPros. 

Kelly Molson: They are good. They were around before Skip the Queue. So they're like. For me, they're the ones that we are looking up to in terms of the podcast. 

Paul Marden: We were. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, oh, Podcast Beef. Josh is gonna hear this. He's not going to be happy. Andy, same question to you. What other podcasts you listen to sector wise? 

Andy Povey: So, I mean, that's a really difficult question because. Well, it's not. The answer's none. I don't listen to sector podcasts very much. I become a politics junkie, or I've been a politics junkie for years. 

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Andy Povey: So my podcasts are just full of politics podcast, which in the past two weeks I've stopped listening to. I've turned off completely because the world of politics is just such a mess.

Kelly Molson: It's a car crash.

Andy Povey: Within two minutes of having been published. 

Kelly Molson: What would be normally your go to, like, the regular one that you would listen to? 

Andy Povey: Me being a reluctant remainer. It's all the stuff that hangs over from that. So there's. Oh, God, what now? Quiet riot. The two. Alistair Campbell and Rory Stewart. I can't remember what that one's called right now. 

Paul Marden: The rest is politics. 

Kelly Molson: Rest is politics. Yeah, cool. 

Paul Marden: What about the one with Ed Balls and George Osborne? 

Andy Povey: I tried it and haven't really got into it. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. So I'm the opposite way around. So that's the one I like. And I don't like Rest is politics. And I turned out that actually George Osborne is a human being and I quite like the guy. I'd go for a drink with him. Who knew? 

Kelly Molson: This is no news. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: I wonder if he'd like to go for a drink with you. 

Paul Marden: Probably no.

Andy Povey: I'm sure he'll be delighted to hear that when he listens to this. 

Paul Marden: When these politicians, when they give up their day job and they return to normal life and then you hear them on programmes, they're actually quite relatable and you think, why could you not capture that relatability when you were actually doing the job? 

Andy Povey: Well, it's actually a key part of the job, isn't it? It's the only thing you need to be good at as a politician. 

Kelly Molson: You would think, “Oh, could I could make a good politician then?” I'm just generally nice to people. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. What would be your policies, Kelly? What would you do? What would you bring in? 

Kelly Molson: Oh, new policies. Oh, well, that's a very good question. I have one about mobile phones and people walking and looking at them at the same time, which I would ban because I generally just want to kick people. 

Kelly Molson: You know when you, like on the tube and you've got to get somewhere and you've just got people walking up the stairs in front of you, like, whilst looking at their phone, like, I want to swipe their legs away. So something around that they would be useful. It would make me happy anyway. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: Make some other people happy, too. Who knows? Good. Okay. Glad that went there. Second question. This is a good one. It's coming up to. Well, I mean, it's already started, isn't it? Conference season has kicked in well and truly. You're at NFAN. That's really the start of it. I am going to be at the Association for Cultural Enterprise Conference in March. So looking forward to seeing everybody. I'm going to be at the awards do as well. I've been judging the awards. 

Paul Marden: Have you really? 

Kelly Molson: Yes, there was a lot in my category, I'm not going to lie. That took a lot longer than I was expecting it, but it was really fun. And the short list of finalists is out now if you haven't seen it. And it's an amazing list. So yeah, I'm really looking forward to seeing who the winners are. But I would like to know what is the worst food you've ever been served at a conference? Because let's face it, can be a bit dodge, can't it? 

Andy Povey: So this sticks in my mind. It was an awful experience. We were at Port Sunlight up in. Actually not that far from Liverpool where the ACE conference is going to be in March. And it was pretty close, pretty soon after lockdown and it was almost like the caterers just looked in the freezer to see what they've got left over and no other conference had been there and then just put it all out at the same time. And it was all beige and it was just such mixture. 

Kelly Molson: Hang on a minute, hang on a minute. Let's not dis beige food because I'm not gonna let. I am a bit of a fan of beige food. So if you. If there was a conference that basically the lunch was made up of like kids party food, that would be the best conference I'd ever been to. Like sausage rames. 

Andy Povey: As long as you can have half a grapefruit covered in tin foil with cocktail sticks with cheese and pineapple stuff in it. 

Kelly Molson: No pineapple, I'm allergic, that would kill me. 

Paul Marden: But cheese tinned pineapple, it's got to be. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, tin pineapple is actually okay. Weirdly, that wouldn't kill me. So yeah, I would be down. I know, it's weird, I know. It's just fresh pineapple. Who knew?

Kelly Molson: So little classed. 

Paul Marden:  Still loves the sausage roll and a scotch egg. 

Andy Povey: That's fine. Sausage rolls and scotch eggs, absolutely no problem. It's when you mix them with onion barges and samosas and Chinese spring rolls and. 

Paul Marden: Sounds like every Boxing Day lunch I've ever been to. 

Kelly Molson: I'm not going to lie, it actually sounds like my dream conference. Paul, over to you. 

Paul Marden: Conferences that serve you food that you cannot eat with one hand. 

Andy Povey: Yes. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. So pasta with a sloppy sauce. Why would you do that to me? I mean, I am not the best eater. I need a bib at most times, but if I'm out in public, I don't want garlic bread, I don't want saucy food. I want stuff I can shovel crack quickly and politely. I mean, as politely as you can shuffle food, but, you know.

Kelly Molson: I'm with you on this. Like, what is wrong with the sandwich? Yeah, genuinely, I don't feel like we need to push the boundaries of conference food. I'm happy with stuff that you can pick up with one hand and eat comfortably. 

Kelly Molson: Stuff that, you know, you're confident that you can sit because let's face it, you get quite upright cos. And personal to people at conferences, don't you, when you're trying to, you know, it's not. Let's not be overloading them with garlic or anything. 

Kelly Molson: Delightful, you know? Yep, exactly. I don't know, I still, I keep going back to the whole party food. I think kids parties have got the right idea. Party rings, sausage rolls, scotch eggs. 

Paul Marden: And what sits that you can put in your mouth like a walrus. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, you know my party tricks. Brilliant, guys. Okay, listen, unpopular opinions are back for one time only. So, Andy, what you’ve got for me? 

Andy Povey: So mine's food related and it's probably more unpopular in my house than it is anywhere else, but Chinese food is massively overrated. 

Paul Marden: Behave. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I'm very on the fence about this one. 

Andy Povey: My kids love it, but the things they love are all the stuff that come with the sugar sauces. So lemon chicken, the sweet and sour chicken balls, all that kind of stuff. We good? So we mean, I don't need dessert and the main meal at the same time. 

Paul Marden: So we're talking English approximations of Chinese food from the takeaway. Yeah.

Andy Povey: Nothing very sophisticated. 

Kelly Molson: I'm afraid I feel like that is all the stuff that I used to like, but now if you served me up a big plate of all of that stuff, it'd be like, oh, God, I'm gonna, I'm this. I'm gonna really struggle with this and I'm gonna be up in the night, aren't I? 

Paul Marden: I'm basically just a nine year old. Because it sounds like my idea of heaven. Sweet and sickly, deep fried. What's not to love? 

Kelly Molson: All right, well, let's see how our listeners feel about the whole Chinese debate. Paul, what about you? What you got? 

Paul Marden: The best radio station, is in fact Radio 4. 

Andy Povey: I agree with you 100%. 

Paul Marden: So that's not a controversial opinion. I thought that was going to be massively controversial. They've been podcasting for about 100 years. They podcasted long before there was really a podcast. It's all just spoken voice. So if I got trapped on a desert island, my luxury would be a Radio 4 on a radio to listen to because there's always a variety of stuff that you can listen to. 

Kelly Molson: Do you not listen to any of the other? 

Paul Marden: I do quite like. I quite like Greg James in the morning. 

Kelly Molson: I love Greg. I am a Radio 1 fan. 

Paul Marden: So have you listened to Greg on Radio 4? 

Kelly Molson: No, I know he does do that. 

Paul Marden: But, yeah, he's got a program on Radio 4 where he delves through the BBC archives. Rewinder, it's called, and it's brilliant. I love it. It's Greg James. Funny, combined with the novelty of listening to new things on Radio 4. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, all right, well, I'll give that a go. Yeah. I'm not fully sold on the Radio 4. I do like it. 

Paul Marden: But if I've got three or four hours in the car, up to a meeting and then another three or four hours to drive back afterwards, I'd rather listen to Radio 4 than Radio 1 because I won't get repeats of stuff. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I definitely am with you on that. And I would not. Yeah, I would not listen to Radio 1 for that length of time for that reason. Well, I'm. I did used to like. What was the pop quiz? Was that on Radio four? No, that was radio. 

Paul Marden: That was Radio 2. 

Kelly Molson: It was two, wasn't it? Sorry, I'm getting my radios mixed up. 

Paul Marden: Getting your old person radio mixed up. 

Kelly Molson: If I'm honest, I quite like a little bit of magic every now and again, but that really does age me. It's quite gentle. It's calming. When you've had a three and a half year old toddler screaming at you in the car for a while, it's quite nice to put something neutral on. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: Thank you. Thank you for indulging, actually. 

Paul Marden: That was enjoyable. 

Kelly Molson: You're welcome. 

Andy Povey: That's why she likes doing them. 

Kelly Molson: All right, listen, let's get to the good stuff. I mean, everyone likes that bit. Let's face it, they've missed it, they want me back. But let's get to the actual route of why we're supposed to be here. 

Andy Povey: So I have another unpopular opinion that sort of leads in as a segue to where we were going. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, for God's sake, who's in control of this podcast? Me. Go on, then. 

Andy Povey: So this unpopular opinion is that if you're an attraction operator, you don't want a ticketing system. 

Kelly Molson: Excellent segue. 

Andy Povey: We were just talking about conferences. There are sessions in conferences and one of my favourite conferences I go to is the Ticketing Professionals Conference. But there are sections in each of these conferences on how to find a ticketing system, how to choose your ticketing system supplier, how to get a better relationship with your ticketing system. And in my opinion, an attraction operator doesn't want one. They want happy guests who are giving them lots of money to come and have great experiences. They don't care how it happens. 

Kelly Molson: It's true. Yeah, yeah, I agree with that, definitely. But are you dissing ticketing professionals and saying basically the sessions you're putting on a rubbish no one gives them? 

Andy Povey: No, no, no. There's a certain section of society that really enjoys it. So I describe this as. When I go to B and Q to look for a drill, I'm one of the geeks that actually wants to understand how the drill works and how fast it is and all that kind of stuff. But the majority of people going to buy a drill don't want a drill. They want a hole. 

Kelly Molson: Want a hole. 

Andy Povey: Yeah. So he's an attraction operator. You don't want a ticketing system. You want happy customers who are giving you lots of money and having great experiences. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, right. So that was a great segue into where I was going. Look, you two, you two have been thick as thieves for a good few months, if not longer, and there's been something cooking up between the two of you. 

Kelly Molson: I have had a little bit of privy to understand what's been going on, but this is the first time that you've actually got to the point of talking about it openly and publicly, isn't it? And that why you've got me back on, basically, is to grill you on what you're doing. So spill up, fess up. What have you been doing in the background, the two of you? 

Paul Marden: Well, this all came about after a lunch that Andy and I had in August of last year, where were putting the world to rights and figuring out what do attractions need to do with their ticketing, what do they need to do with their websites, and what could we do to try to improve things? And Andy had thought lots about this stuff and he prepared me. It's quite the lunch. He prepared me a PowerPoint presentation for lunch. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. Like when you want your mum and dad to get you a dog. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. Can we make this happen? 

Paul Marden: Yeah, it was. It was his wish list. Clearly, this PowerPoint has been worked on for many years because there was lots of wishes, lots of ideas, and being the developer at heart that I am, I'm like, how hard can that be? It's only a website. Surely we can do this. Surely we can do it. We've done bits of it before and we started to think about where we could go with stuff that had long predates me. Yeah. There are elements of Rubber Cheese that you and Wag were working on for years, probably prior to the merger with Carbon Six. But it's been a really challenging market. 

Paul Marden: And getting out there and meeting people and talking about some of these elements of E commerce and ticketing, sales and personalisation and things like that we're going to talk about in a minute are quite hard to sell into people when it's a challenging market. And it seemed like, well, that was our first date and we thought that it could be a marriage made in heaven for the two of us, because Andy's got a lot of understanding of the sector and the needs and the challenges and who would benefit from this sort of technology. And I'm in the lucky position after having merged Carbon Six and Rubber Cheese, of having some of this technology that we could then develop. So it was a seed that grew from there, really, wasn't it, Andy? 

Andy Povey: Yeah. And he's carried on growing. I mean, the intent behind it all was that everything is just so disjointed at the moment. So if you're a big theme park with accommodation and a decent retail and decent catering, food and beverage offering, you're looking at seven or eight different systems that you need to run your business and someone needs to plug all of those together to get a good guest experience. And unless you're the size of Merlin or Disney or Universal, with lots and lots of resource to apply to plugging these systems together, it just doesn't happen. Which is why we're still not delivering the Best in class Omni Channel experience to people who are coming out for a day out. 

Kelly Molson: I think this is a really exciting conversation. And if I think back to some of the conversations that we were having prior to me leaving Rubber Cheese, Paul,it's exactly the challenge that they were having. You know, thinking back to a particular pitch where there's a historic house, there was a plague playground, there was a golf course, there was a spa, there was a hotel, there was something else. And all of these things had so many different systems that were running them and there wasn't really a way to facilitate bringing them all together. And that's the challenge because that's exactly what they need. But they weren't of the scale to be able to invest in the infrastructure to be able to do that. But it is exactly what they needed. 

Kelly Molson: So is this thing that you've built, or in the process of building and developing, going to solve that problem for people? 

Andy Povey: That's the objective. 

Paul Marden: That was a very guarded statement, wasn't it? That was a politician's answer. I think the answer that were just groping for then was yes. 

Kelly Molson: Yes, it is.

Andy Povey: Yes. 

Kelly Molson: It's exactly the answer that I wanted. 

Andy Povey: We're forming a company that we're calling Crowd Convert and we'll put a link to the URL and website and all that kind of stuff in the show notes. And the objective behind CrowdConvert is that we will make this all work together. It's a journey. We don't have it today. It doesn't exist. I worked for Merlin Entertainment for the two source group for 18 years now. We had lots of resource in comparison to smaller attractions, but we still didn't make it happen. So it doesn't exist out there at the moment and we're going to build it. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, so we've got Andy, we've got an industry veteran. Hope you don't mind me. 

Andy Povey: Not at all. 

Kelly Molson: Kind of makes you feel, it makes you feel ancient, but you're not. But, you know, you've got all of this historic understanding and experience within the sector. Paul, yours is building, obviously we've built that over the years with Rubber Cheese. But you're, you know, you're the digital specialist that can come in and support facilitating building these and you've both come together under the Crowd Convert name. So this is the new company that the two of you have formed. I love the name. 

Andy Povey: Thank you. 

Kelly Molson: So I want to understand, like how then there's a story there. What I want to get a little bit of a deeper understanding is what is the offer? So, you know, what is the thing that you are actually building and does that thing have a name at the moment? What does it look like? So firstly, where did the name come from? Crowd Convert. 

Paul Marden: Weeks and weeks of effort. I hate choosing names for things, so hard. You come up with a brilliant idea and then you say it to your wife, “Oh my God, you can't call it that”. Or you come up with a name and then somebody's bought the domain name and by the end of It I was just like, please, somebody just put me out of my misery. I don't care what we choose. 

Andy Povey: It was actually the most torturous thing about getting this all together. There were a few others that came in very close second. But choosing the name and getting that together was really quite painful. 

Paul Marden: But it was the right process because we were so happy with the result at the end of it. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. But it seems or it felt to me like the choosing the name, when we actually got to that part of the process took two or three minutes. And if we'd have thought of that name right at the start, then would we have rejected it or would we have carried on? Could we have saved two minutes? 

Kelly Molson: So you worked through the process, which means the name has more meaning. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: So what is the meaning behind it? What's the ethos behind between Crowd Convert? Like what? 

Andy Povey: So we've reverse engineered this one a little bit. And if you're in the world of attractions, you have a crowd. You hopefully you have a crowd. And as a visitor to an attraction, you want to be part of a crowd. You don't want to be the last person in the pub or the only person in theatre, because that just feels weird. But as an attraction operator, I want to have a relationship with you. I want to know who you are, I want to know what you want. I want to give you a great experience. I want to give you a membership. If I'm a charitable organisation, I want to convert you to a donor. If I'm not, then I want to turn you into an advocate at a superfan. 

Andy Povey: So Crowd Convert is giving you the tools to convert those crowds into individuals that you can create that know, like and trust relationship with. 

Kelly Molson: That's nice. So you talk a lot on the website about kind of humanising that process. And I think it is. It's taking it back to that kind of one on one that talking to people as individuals rather than talking to them as a mass. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. That goes back to the. You don't want a ticketing system. Don't show me what goes in the sausage. Give me a great experience. 

Paul Marden: Mixing your metaphors there. 

Andy Povey: I know. 

Kelly Molson: You lost me at sausage. So, sorry. So I want to go back a little bit, Paul, to what you. Something that you said earlier about that this predates you and your part that you play in Rubber Cheese and your ownership of Rubber Cheese. So I'm going to make an assumption here that something that you're using is something that we already kind of started, but quite a long time ago. So we had almost like a product at Rubber Cheese that was in the ticketing space. And if I'm honest, as a small agency, you only have so much resource to work on things that are for you and ultimately the things that were for us and for you, like the podcast and the survey and the report, always took priority. 

Kelly Molson: And that was an awful lot of work for an agency that was, you know, before we merged, there were six or seven of us. You know, we weren't huge. We didn't have a whole lot of capacity and resources to give up to these things. But we did start to develop a product that kind of. We knew that it could be good, but it almost. We just, we had to shelve it and we just said, you know, one day we might get investment or one day we might be big enough that we could actually kind of focus on that. It feels like that's the product that you are now. 

Paul Marden: That is definitely the great grandparent of the idea that we've got now. 

Kelly Molson: I like that. 

Paul Marden: So there's, I guess there's two parts to some of the stuff that you had developed previously. Some of it was in the ticketing space. So for very small attractions, you developed a system that had an inventory of tickets that you could buy online and it would issue the ticket, create a barcode, send it to them. But there was also a piece that you did that integrated with existing ticketing systems. And that's the area where I think my mind was going is around building a best in class e commerce experience. Because people sat on the sofa on a Thursday night trying to decide what they're going to do at the weekend, want to be able to find an attraction, get their tickets, and then carry on watching the telly. They want quick and easy experience. We can build that experience. 

Paul Marden: We know from the survey that it's nine steps on average to be able to complete an attractions checkout, plus or minus a couple of steps. So there's ones that are even worse. And that checkout experience is torturous in many cases. They want to know when you're coming, what time you're coming, what type of ticket you want to buy. They want to know who's coming, the names, possibly the email addresses of all of your guests that you're bringing with you. They'll want to know what your home address is, what your billing address is. They'll then want to sell you a guidebook. They might upsell or cross sell some other products along the way. And that's how you end up with 12 steps in a process that just feels torturous. 

Paul Marden: I had one last year where they even made me enter a password for a site I was never going to return to and told me off twice for getting the password wrong. I mean, the process that many attractions go through to make you buy, it's a wonder anybody ever perseveres. What's stopping us from achieving an Amazon like one or two click experience? How can we go from that really extreme version down to something really simple and quick? And we've proven that it is possible to do that. It's possible to get down to a couple of clicks and we do that. I know you look surprised. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, well, yes, I, well, I am surprised, but also quite excited by that because that is one of the issues that has come up year after year in the visitor attraction, you know, website report is the amount of steps and the aggravation it causes people, but also the cost that it could save attractions. 

Paul Marden: Yep. 

Kelly Molson: I mean you said nine steps. I thought were, I thought were aboutbbetween seven and nine steps is about the average. 

Kelly Molson: Right. So we know that can cost attractions a huge amount in lost revenue. You know, I'm just going back to the 2022 report, but it was something like 250k for one of our best performing attractions. But it's also tied to, you know, that excessive amounts of CO2 emissions, which I know you focused on really heavily for the current report. So you're saying that the product that you're building could essentially take those average steps down to two. 

Andy Povey: It's not good. It does. 

Kelly Molson: Wow

Paul Marden: It does. Yeah. So the way that we do that is a number of different core principles. Yeah. So we are not going to ask you for anything we do not need in order to affect the transaction. We are only going to ask you to share the data we absolutely need to complete the transaction. We are going to start to make some assumptions about you through personalisation technology. We will know roughly where you are and how far you are away from the transaction. If you're within an hour's distance of the place, chances are if you're looking on Thursday night, probably looking for this weekend. If you're on a different continent, you might be planning for a long term holiday. 

Paul Marden: If we know that you're quite local, let's assume the date that you want to travel based on our understanding of average behaviour of people at that particular attraction and then let people change it if it's not right. Yeah. Another thing Andy talks about a lot is not overselling. So a lot of ticketing systems are trying to upsell, cross sell and increase the average order value, but by cannibalising the conversion rate. And you talk, Andy, don't you, about the maitre d at the restaurant? 

Andy Povey: Yeah. So it's. It's like comparing a McDonald's experience to go to a fine dining place. So if I'm in the McDonald's world, I have to choose what drink I want, what dessert I'm going to have, what main course I'm going to have, all at the same point. And it's a really artificial transaction. It's almost like if you were walking into a fine dining restaurant with the maitre d at the front going, “Welcome, Andy, come in. Lovely to see you. Can you tell me what you'd like for your starter for your main course? For dessert? Will you like coffee after dessert? Would you like a liqueur after the coffee?” We still haven't got to the table and that's where we are with attractions, upsells. 

Andy Povey: Because we believe mistakenly, in my opinion, that's the only opportunity that we've got to sell guidebook or the teddy bear or whatever to the guest who's coming. We should stop all of that because it's stopping the transaction, it's interrupting the transaction, adding extra steps and causing people to leave. 

Kelly Molson: It's a really good point. I mean, I actually have in the past have advocated for adding in upsells in that journey. And because I have often been like, well, yeah, actually it's a really good opportunity for people to sell a little bit more, you know, whether it's a guidebook, whether it's an experience, whatever that might be. So what would you say to people who they still want to do that? Is that, are we then talking about, you know, there's options for you to do that or actually that becomes part of the pre visit, pre boarding. So it funnels down into like emails, comms and stuff. 

Andy Povey: It's both options, really. For an upsell to work really well, it needs to be at the time where it's most appropriate. So back to the restaurant analogy, offering me a coffee at the point I walk in the door is completely inappropriate. 

Andy Povey: Offering me a coffee after I've had a great meal and I'm feeling quite full and quite happy with myself is entirely the appropriate time to offer me the coffee. So let's make the offers on the upsells appropriate to the time and to the guest. So if you're an attraction that charges for car parking, for example, it might be that 9:00 in the morning on the day of visit when the family are just getting in the car to travel to the venue is the most appropriate time to offer the car parking upsell. Not at the point where I'm buying the ticket. It might be if you've got a VIP upgrade experience. So if you're a water park there's a cabana you can have. If you're a theme park it's a fast track experience. 

Andy Povey: If you're a museum then there's a guided Tour that upsell VIP type experience you offer 48 hours before the day of visit. 

Kelly Molson: Sure. 

Andy Povey: Memberships are another great thing. So there's still the majority of first time membership purchases are made as the consumer is leaving the attraction. Had a great day out. Get today's entry feedback against your membership and that's still go and join this queue with kids who are overtired and a little bit disappointed because they're leaving and I'm stressed because I've got a. I'm tired as well and I've got a long drive home and then I've got to work out what we're going to do for dinner when we get in. There's all these negatives. Don't try and sell me a membership then. Sell me the membership for the next seven days and hit me up with lots of different messages through appropriate channels. 

Andy Povey: So it might be that a WhatsApp message on the way home offering me a really simple way of upgrading to a membership is the most appropriate that time. But it might be that 9 o'clock on Monday morning when we can assume that a lot of people are going to be sitting behind a desk. Then it's the most appropriate to send me an email and then hit me up again Thursday when I'm thinking about what I'm going to be doing next this weekend coming remind me of the great experience I had and give me an opportunity then. So just be, make it much more human. 

Kelly Molson: It makes sense. And there's something that you. I've been able to have a sneak peek of the Crowd Convert website. So we'll talk a little bit later about where people can find out a little bit more about you. But I've been able to have a little look at that and there's something that you talk about which is about rehumanising commerce and there's a really lovely story on there that you talk about, which is the Shopkeeper's Wisdom. And I read that, I was like, this is really nice because I've always. The local shop is or did sit at the epicentre of the community at one point. And I have got really vivid memories. So we lived on a little estate near my school in Essex and across the road from us was the corner shop. 

Kelly Molson: And it was where everything happened, you know, like it was the post office, it was where you got your papers, where you got your sweets. At one point is where you got your videos, not your DVDs because they did not exist. You know, you got your VHS cassettes and you could go and rent, you know, everything kind of happened there. And they knew you, they knew your family, they knew your mum and dad, they knew your names, you know, and it was a really, it was just quite a wholesome experience. And you talk about that, the Shopkeeper's Wisdom. So you say, you know, the local shopkeeper knew everything that it was to know about their customers. And that is kind of taking it back to that level. That's, that's what this feels like. 

Andy Povey: And that's completely where we're trying to get to. We don't want to get to the level of creepiness where people are getting all upset about what were. 

Andy Povey: And we don't want to be intrusive. But we have a great opportunity in the attraction space. Our customers want to engage with us. They're going because they enjoy what we do. They're going to see us because they want to experience the thing that we're doing. It's not like we're selling insurance or car tires that you just got to have and it's really tedious. People want to engage, so let's make it easy for them to do that. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. So we're doing that by making it quicker for them and less friction to buy a ticket in the first place. Communicating with them at the appropriate times and in the ways that they want to be communicated to and offering them. Because we don't want to stop offering people extra things. We're doing it in the way and at the time that's appropriate for that audience. 

Paul Marden: We're absolutely convinced that moving some of these upsells and cross sell opportunities to later in your relationship will increase the likelihood of you closing the deal. Don't cannibalise the conversion rate at the initial conversation. You haven't built a trust relationship with someone, so don't keep throwing options at them. It's just too much. I'm a simple boy. If I go to a restaurant, I want a really simple menu, three or four things, and I'll make a choice. Yeah. If you give me too many options, I'll just sit there and I won't be able to decide. And I think that's what we do when we present people with nine steps and we want to know the email address of everybody, we want to know the postcode of where they live because we want to be able to market to them and that's important. 

Paul Marden: But there are other better ways of being able to identify where somebody is other than using their postcode and making them type something in. They don't need that hassle. 

Andy Povey: So this is all about the e commerce journey. Stepping back a little bit closer to what Rubber Cheese do. And the DNA behind Rubber Cheese is making attractions websites work really well. And it's back to the point about things being disconnected and attraction operators having to plug them together. How many websites are there or how many attraction e commerce journeys are there where you click on the button to buy a ticket and you're taken to a different page and that different page can have a completely different look and feel? 

Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. I mean, that's a massive bug. It's been a bugbear of mine for years. 

Andy Povey: But how many websites do you have where I can be sitting there looking at the tulip experiences coming up? We heard lots of that kind of stuff at the end fan conference. I'm on the tulips page. But then you take me to a page where I've got to pick the date that I want to visit. I've already told you, I'm on the tulip page. I want to come and see tulips. I'm not interested in Father Christmas. 

Kelly Molson: I'm just all about the tulips. 

Andy Povey: So don't make me choose twice. Make it work together. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, So I want to play devil's advocate here because I'm sitting here listening to this going, this sounds great. I'm going back to what Andy said about, you know, attractions, they don't really want a ticketing system. They just. They don't really care about the system. They just want it to work. Right, I get that. But there's going to be a lot of people that are listening to this podcast going, “bloody ticketing system”. There's a lot, right? Let's face it. 

Paul Marden: It's a busy space. 

Kelly Molson: You are. It is a busy space. And if you are an attraction sitting here going,”Oh my God, another one.” We know that another one. You know that we know what we've got isn't working for us. We've, we've got workarounds, we're doing what we can with what we already have. But you know, ultimately we can't grow with what we have and we know we need to change it. This is a big task, right? You know, your ticketing system is often embedded so deeply into your organisation that the process of selecting a new one and then implementing that change is so vast and overwhelming that one people declare we just won't bother. That's why I've got these workarounds in place or two, you know, overwhelmed with choice. And yes, I know there's specialists out there. 

Kelly Molson: You know, we work with a couple that will help you go through that process and select the right partners for you. But if someone like me is sitting here going, “Okay, why do I come to Crowd Convert?” Like, why is this, what is it the thing that your product is going to be stand out for that is going to sit above or is going to solve the problems I've got above all of the other options that I've got out there? 

Andy Povey: So this is back to the comment earlier about this being a concept, an ethos of philosophy. Our business will grow through either building solutions, acquiring other solutions that have already been built, or selecting partners to integrate with. And we will do the whole integration. So it doesn't matter what ticketing system you're using that you have today, if you want the better digital experience for your guests, we will integrate to your current ticketing system. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, so you're taking the pain of having to change something that's deeply embedded in your organisation and almost putting something, a layer on top of that will actually facilitate this better customer interaction, purchasing process without the need for all of the stressful change. 

Paul Marden: Do away with the whole monolithic solution that solves the operation of the entire business and start to turn it into LEGO bricks. I want a LEGO brick from a website. I want a LEGO brick for my ticketing. I want my LEGO brick for my e commerce experience. I want my LEGO brick for my online shop. We'll either build or acquire those LEGO bricks or partner with the best of breed LEGO bricks that exist. Other building blocks are available and we will help to plug those together and make them work effectively. But you can imagine, you know, I always talk about, we talked a lot about ticketing today, but I, whenever I talk to somebody about ticketing, changing your ticketing system is like open heart surgery on the business. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, it's something you don't necessarily do casually, although I have met people who have changed it casually. But it's often so difficult because it's so deeply ingrained across the entire operation. But if you start to. It's a horrible, boring technical term. If you start to build this composable set of systems that can plug together, then it becomes easier. If you plug in an e commerce online ticketing solution and it plugs into your current ticketing system, well then later on when you change that ticketing system, you won't necessarily have to change the online experience in order to be able to do that. Yeah, we'll be able to plug into the new one that you choose. It makes it easier for you to chop and change things and become less dependent on one single monolithic provider. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, because that's the thing. Right. You know, I think the past dream has been one system that does everything and suddenly that one system goes down and you're absolutely screwed. 

Andy Povey: That's not the way the world works anymore. And the human world. I use analogy of a TV. I got a new TV a few weeks ago out of the box and turned it on and I was presented on screen with an option to get the remote control for my new TV to operate other devices in my house. And my kids could have set it up. 

Kelly Molson: Danger.

Andy Povey: Absolutely. Why is integration so difficult? And that's the way the world is going. If you look at credit card processing two, three years ago, to be able to accept a payment by credit card, you had to sign into a five year agreement with a credit card process provider. I was in my local WIX yesterday and I could have bought credit card terminal off the shelf. 

Andy Povey: They were sitting on the shelf next to the suites at the checkout. For 50 quid I could have taken it home, unboxed it and I would be processing credit card transactions there and then. I'm not signing into a three year agreement. If I don't like it, I can take it back and get one in pink because I prefer pink to white. It's got to be much easier. The world is becoming much easier. The technology world is becoming much easier to make these things work together. So you won't need clever people like Paul to make it all work together. Crowd convert. 

Paul Marden: I'll be on the golf course, won't I? 

Kelly Molson: Do you play golf? 

Paul Marden: No. Never played golf in my life. Crazy golf. 

Kelly Molson: I like the analogy. I like the Lego brick analogy. I like this whole kind of the concept that it's, you know, like plug and play but you know, you haven't got. You're using the base of what you already have, but you can pop these things as part of it. That feels really understandable for people to get their head around the concept of what you're doing. 

Paul Marden: But still totally integrated. What we don't want is the solution that is that somebody, an attraction that we've been to recently, where to get in, you have to go through different turnstiles depending on whether you've got a day ticket or a membership ticket because the two different sets of systems can't talk to the same turnstile at the same time. And so then you need more double the staff to be able to man the turnstiles. 

Kelly Molson: And confusion, and it ruins that whole first impact of arrival because you don't know yet. 

Andy Povey: But we're exposing our dirty laundry to the consumer. Why? They don't care. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah. 

Andy Povey: It doesn't matter to them what ticketing system you've got. 

Paul Marden: That is the vision. And the vision is becoming reality as well. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, well, let's talk about that. So there is a website that I've had privy to and the product is in its, should we say it's in its infancy at the moment and it's being developed. 

Paul Marden: Yes. 

Kelly Molson: So this is the time to that you'll be having, I guess you'll be having conversations with people about what that product, you're almost building it for the people. Right. You're having conversations with them about this is what we see happening. This is how we see what we do. What are your needs? 

Paul Marden: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, cool. So can people get involved with that process? 

Paul Marden: Exciting. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. 

Paul Marden: Anyone can talk to Andy. He'll talk to anybody. 

Kelly Molson: It's true, he will. 

Paul Marden: I just get locked in a cupboard and told to design things. 

Andy Povey: Make it work, plug it together. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, so I've got a few questions about what does this mean for Rubber Cheese? What does this mean for Rubber Cheese? What does this mean for Skip the Queue. What does this mean for the report initiatives that we do? I guess that's all still happening. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, yeah. Absolutely no changes to Rubber Cheese at all. This is part of a wider, bigger family that Rubber Cheese is part of. And looking at different parts of the attraction operating experience. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. So Rubber Cheese is going to carry on almost single minded focus on websites that enable people to get to the buy button. 

Kelly Molson: I like that. 

Paul Marden: Getting them from being interested in the attraction to hitting that buy now button or get your ticket button. Yeah. That's our specialty and that will remain our specialty. The job of Crowd Convert then is to convert them. 

Kelly Molson: Pick up from that point. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: That's lovely, isn't it? 

Andy Povey: And that's where the build, acquire and partner comes in. So there will be other organisations, other tools that we partner with and plug together. And that's the bit that Crowd Convert does. It's almost the umbrella, the glue that glues all of these things together. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, so what more do our listeners need to understand about Crowd Convert and how can they get involved? How can they be part of this conversation to define what this product actually looks like and does for them? 

Andy Povey: So we're launching the website. You can find Paul and me on LinkedIn. We've got a bunch of events and exhibition shows that we're going to be at over the next few months where we're actively going to be asking people to get involved. If you are interested, then pick up the phone and drop us an email. We'll have a chat. 

Paul Marden: Contact@crowdconvert.co.uk.

Kelly Molson: I was going to say we need the domain name in there. Crowdconvert.co.uk is the place to go. Go and have a look, find out, have a little bit of a read through about the site. It's designed in a really nice way. I think that what I really liked as I was reading it through was kind of this real focus on building something for the greater good. It's not just another ticketing platform. It's not just about. It really is about working with the attractions to build something that is just, it just works. And it works for them in the way they need it to and it works for the visitors in the way they need it to. 

Andy Povey: And that's it completely. It's about putting the guest at the centre of everything we're doing. And looking at this from the consumer's perspective, does it make sense or am I going to have to work out where I bought my tickets? So I know whether I go through the right hand turnstiles or the left hand turnstiles, that's just rubbish. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, okay, great. So website is launching.

Paul Marden:  It is launched. It's up and running. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, it's out. It's out there all right. It's out there in the world already. So that's where you go, listeners, if you want to find out more about what's happening. And I would really recommend booking a call with Andy, booking a call with Paul, talking through, you know, if anything that we've talked about today has made you feel quite excited about what the prospect of this product could potentially be. Book a call with them. I mean, listen, if you're seeing Andy at a conference, you just need to up. And you'll find him. Or maybe it’s just me.

Paul Marden: Me, not so much. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, it's just me. Okay, listen, I always finish off my podcasts with a book recommendation for our listeners, so I'd like to ask you both if you've prepared a book today. Andy, what do you have for us? 

Andy Povey: So I pondered this for quite a while because I was expecting it and I think it's the third or fourth you've asked me for. So I'm actually not going to recommend a book at all. I told you that I've given up on podcasts earlier on and I found Audible. So at the moment the thing that's occupying all of my attention is that, The Day of the Triffids on Audible which is fantastic. Fantastic escapism from everything that's going off in the world at the moment. 

Paul Marden: Interesting. 

Kelly Molson: That's nice actually. That's really good. But audiobooks are really good for long drives that were talking about earlier. They're quite good. I got into. Sorry, Paul, just. I'll come to you in a minute. 

Paul Marden: It's all about you. 

Kelly Molson: It's all about me today. I really got into. 

Kelly Molson: Just before the pandemic and during it there was a BBC podcast called the Lovecraft. Oh gosh, what is it called? The Lovecraft's Tales. I'm gonna have to have to check this on my.

Paul Marden: Sorry, listeners. Well, she's out of practice on this. 

Kelly Molson: So I am out of practice. Apologies, but you know me. The Lovecraft investigations. Don't know if anyone would listen to it. It's brilliant. It's based on the love. It's loosely based on on Lovecraft books but it was quite like it's about supernatural. But what I really enjoyed about it was linked to like local places that I kind of knew like Retend and Forest and there was a lot of like, kind of like Norfolk, Suffolk and Dunwich and stuff. And that was. They're really good for like long drives as well because you can really get into something on like a two or three hour journey. So I totally with you on the triffids thing. So I did bring it back to Andy in the end. 

Andy Povey: Thank you, Kelly. 

Kelly Molson: Paul, what have you prepared? 

Paul Marden: I am an absolute Fan of classic British crime novels. Love an Agatha Christie. Love, a  mystery of some sort. But I'm not going to recommend an Agatha Christie one. I'm going to recommend one that I've got on Audible as well, that I found originally from Audible. 

Paul Marden: And it is one of the British Library classic British crime series, where they're republishing stuff from, like, you know, the 20s and 30s, and it's called the Wintringham Mystery Anthony Barclay. It's a classic whodunit in a kind of locker room mystery in a massive stately home. It's just like a Poirot novel, but it's not Poirot. It's a different one. But I love it. It's a brilliant book. 

Kelly Molson: When you find stuff like that, it's really comforting, isn't it? It's like a little a warm hug and a cup of tea. 

Andy Povey: Absolutely. 

Kelly Molson: Lovely. Well, do our listeners still get to win copies of those books even though they're audiobooks? 

Paul Marden: Yeah, but they don't do it on X anymore because, you know, who wants to be posting on X? So if listeners. If you'd like a copy of Andy’s. Well, no, you can't have Andy Lovecraft books but it was quite like it's about supernatural. On Audible or mine. On Audible or on Paperback, then head over to Bluesky and repost the shownotes where Wenalyn has announced the podcast and the first person that does that will get a copy of the book. 

Kelly Molson: Lovely. Well, it has been an absolute treat to be back on the podcast today. Thank you. 

Paul Marden: You're not coming back over again? It's still mine. It's mine there. 

Kelly Molson: Please let me come back. Please. Anything that we've talked about today will, as ever, be in the show notes. So you'll find links to the Crowd Convert website, you'll find links to Paul and Andy's LinkedIn profiles and email addresses, whatever. However, best to get in touch with them. But I highly recommend having a chat with them. 

Can I just say, because it is all about me. I’ve been very sad to not be part of the podcast moving forward. But I am also been really thrilled that you have taken completely up to the ownership of it. So I just. While I'm on here, and it is about me, I just wanted to congratulate you for taking over and making it your own, because you really needed to do that. And it's brilliant to see. 

Kelly Molson: And I've loved listening to the episodes. I think the bravery in doing some of the live ones. 

Paul Marden: Stupidity. 

Kelly Molson: Well, maybe a tad. 

Paul Marden: We won't talk about what happened at NFAN last week. Please let's not talk about that. 

Andy Povey: What happens in Blackpool stays in Blackpool. 

Kelly Molson: Next time I come on the podcast, I'm going to make you spill that as a guilty confession. 

Paul Marden: But you know what? I absolutely loved it. I came back afterwards and I listened to that episode and it's the first one where I've been. I really thoroughly enjoyed listening to the conversation. I'm finding my feelings only taken me a couple of years. 

Kelly Molson: Well, it only took me a couple of years as well. But you're there now and it's brilliant. So, like one, well done. I genuinely think that you're doing an excellent job and I'm very glad that I got to hand the baton over to you and you're doing it differently. 

Paul Marden: You can just come back as a guest star. 

Andy Povey: It was more of a temporary end, wasn't it, than a handover. 

Paul Marden: It's mine. It's mine. 

Kelly Molson: I think it was a, "Here you go, dumped on your lap." 

Paul Marden: Thank you for coming back and talking to us. It's been marvellous. 

Kelly Molson: Thank you for having me back. I've loved every minute. 

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 to find us. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them to increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcripts from this episode and more over on our website, skipthequeue fm. 

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 March 31st 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.linkedin.com/in/williamkallaway

www.kallaway.com

www.kallaway.com/blog

www.kallaway.com/blog/post/id/113

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.

In today's episode, I speak with Will Kallaway, MD of PR and Sponsorship Consultancy Kallaway. Will leads a team of experts, creating smart, imaginative campaigns for clients across the culture, travel, property and retail sectors. 

We discuss why PR and communication is so important to attractions right now, and what they should be focusing on. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. 

Kelly Molson:

Will. 

William Kallaway:

Kelly.

Kelly Molson:

Welcome to the Skip the Queue podcast, it's really good to have you on today. 

William Kallaway:

I can't tell you how excited I am. 

Kelly Molson:

That sounded quite genuine. 

William Kallaway:

I'm also slightly nervous about the questions you're going to ask me. These questions, you wouldn't tell me what you were going to ask me. 

Kelly Molson:

Don't be nervous. Everyone says this. They're nervous about the ice breaker questions. Come on. 

William Kallaway:

Yeah. 

Kelly Molson:

Right, first one. What are you not very good at? 

William Kallaway:

Oh, how long have you got? I mean, I thought this podcast was about 50 minutes. What am I not very good at? I'm terrible at lists, absolutely terrible at lists. 

Kelly Molson:

Oh, okay. 

William Kallaway:

Writing lists, and I'm not very good at seeing them through. I'm lucky I'm surrounded by brilliant people who hold my feet to the fire. 

Kelly Molson:

I like that. It's all about delegation. 

William Kallaway:

All these things get delegated back to me, but at least I have someone else telling me that I'm delayed, and I'm behind. So yeah, I'm good at ideas and big picture and strategy and things like that. But my new shortlist always escapes me. 

Kelly Molson:

Right. Noted. Okay, if you were a wrestler, so imagine WWF wrestling, what would be your entrance theme song? 

William Kallaway:

I think, probably, I will survive. 

Kelly Molson:

That would be the weirdest wrestler walk-on I've ever seen in my life. But an honest answer. Okay, brilliant. 

Kelly Molson:

All right, a third one. If you had to delete all but two apps from your smartphone, what two would you keep? Oh, this is really tough.

William Kallaway:

Two apps. I would keep Podcast because I just listen to podcasts all the time. And I love that.

Kelly Molson:

Good answer. 

William Kallaway:

Particularly ones on attractions. Cool, Skip the Queue. I'm just looking now to see actually which ones I would actually keep. My photos, there you go. I'll keep those because lots of memories in there. 

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, that's good. That's the biggest thing about losing your phone, isn't it? The idea that you might lose all your photos from it.

William Kallaway:

Yeah, I always keep losing my phone. It sometimes crops up, sometimes I have to get another one. That and my [inaudible 00:03:02], which I've lost for a week and I don't know where they are. 

Kelly Molson:

Oh, God. Okay, so something else Will's not very good at, keeping things, not losing stuff. 

William Kallaway:

You got quite enough about what Will's not very good at. I'm sure of that as we go through.

Kelly Molson:

Okay, all right. Last one, and then we'll move on to the good stuff. Okay. So everyone gets asked this question. So I think that you've probably prepared this one. But I want to know what your unpopular opinion is. 

William Kallaway:

Daniel Craig is not a very good James Bond. 

Kelly Molson:

In what way? And who would be? Who is your favorite Bond?

William Kallaway:

Well, it has to be Sean Connery, obviously, because to suggest otherwise is just simply wrong. I just think it's overblown now and overinflated. And actually, I think the way it was approached in the early years, it was a far stronger product, there you go.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. I'm with you on Sean Connery. I definitely feel like he's the best Bond, but Daniel Craig would be my number two. Because handsome.

William Kallaway:

Ah, there we go.

Kelly Molson:

Let's move on. Thank you for answering those questions, Will. So I want to know about your background today. And we're going to talk a lot about what you do as MD of Kallaway, but how did you... What's your background? How did you become the MD of Kallaway? 

William Kallaway:

Well, so it's a family business, was founded by my father in 1972. So we've been going for just over 40 years, and gosh, getting up to about 50 now, and I never intended to do this. I always intended to be a farmer. So I have a degree in agriculture. It was either that or the army. So I had an army scholarship when I was about 16 and then decided that tractors were far more appealing than tanks, which is something I've never really sort of squared the circle, I ended up joining the reserve forces until later in life.

William Kallaway:

But so yeah, I was a farm manager for a little while, I used to write for Farmer's Weekly and Country Living and all those sorts of other titles. And actually, I sort of moved away from that, because I just found it quite lonely as in, you would be on the back of a tractor for hours and hours sometimes, or you'll be off with the animals and I love working with livestock, absolutely, cows and sheep are my favorite things. But after a while, you just kind of feel, "Actually, I really need a human contact." And I really enjoyed being around people, sharing ideas, and coming up with innovative solutions for problems, with brown problems.

William Kallaway:

So anyway, that was a long time ago. And from there, I actually ended up working for an agribusiness, PR company, dealing with all sorts of interesting issues, everything from GM modified crops, through to fertilizer rates on farmland and sort of illness in cattle, all this sort of good stuff, which was great. Then I went into corporate public relations, and I did some really interesting work there. I mean, I think the thing I was most proud of was lobbying for the release of Briton on death row in Florida, which was a really interesting project. I mean, it's still ongoing, actually, the wheels of the legal system turn slowly, but that just was really a powerful thing to be involved with. 

William Kallaway:

And from there, I ended up then joining the family firm. And I was interested in the work that we were doing at the time, around purpose, and linking brand activity through to really helping people through sponsorship, but also citizenship, and also placemaking, as well. So when Kallaway started out in 1970, we were the first organization in the UK to really apply the commercial aspects of sponsorship to the arts. So we created some of the biggest sorts of cultural prizes at the time. So the Costa prize was originally the Whitbread Book of the Year, which we created way back when. Choir of the year, which some of your listeners may know it was created by us. And it's still running 20 years later on BBC Four now, the sort of big amateur singing competition. Those sorts of initiatives.

William Kallaway:

But we also work with Barclays to introduce citizenship into the classroom, developing those sorts of initiatives really interesting. And then from there, we moved into placemaking, and destinations, and then our work with museums in particular, and cultural attractions was growing. And that's sort of where we've been focused. But we do more and more work now around F&B and general tourism as well. So the company's been on that sort of journey. And I have too, I suppose.

Kelly Molson:

A couple of questions on that. One, which is slightly off-topic, but did you work alongside your father? And how was that joining the business with him as your boss, I'm assuming? 

William Kallaway:

Yeah, that's a really interesting question. I think it's really hard. And I wouldn't necessarily recommend it for people who don't want to blur the lines between being an employee and being a son if you see what I mean.

Kelly Molson:

I can imagine it was really, really difficult. 

William Kallaway:

Yeah, it is difficult. But you sort of learn fairly early the boundaries and how you're going to cope with it, and then you take it from there, really.

Kelly Molson:

And what about the specialist? So as an organization specialize in destinations, arts, culture, travel. Where did that originate from? Was it something that was always there? Or you won a client in that sector, loved it, decided to focus on it? How did that come about? 

William Kallaway:

It's always been there. So really, why we existed as an organization was to help brands harness the transformative power of culture. So that could be a large insurance firm that wants to a sponsor theater, to help it reach new people, or to genuinely do some philanthropic good by creating an entirely new program. So culture is such an interesting word because essentially, it's the culture of an organization. So for a theme park or for a destination, it's not only the experience you get but the engagement you get with being in the place with the people and the culture of the place. 

William Kallaway:

So harnessing the power of culture, helping brands tap into contemporary culture, or amplify their own culture. We've recently been working with Hard Rock Cafe and now that organization has a really interesting brand culture and a really powerful and effective way of marketing itself because of that, and it retains its staff far more than the industry average. And it's something that can be a really powerful force for effective marketing. But essentially, really, if you strip that away, we help ambitious brands grow. And that's either brand who tend to be in the cultural space just simply because of our heritage.

William Kallaway:

But more through now into destinations and places. I mean, at the moment, we're working with Imperial College, and Glen and Charl Caps, which is the UK's largest adventure builder. On a new space they've created on White City, which is called Scale-Space, it's going to become a physical home and an online home for ambitious scaling companies. And we're helping them communicate that and unpack it to engage as many audiences as possible of tech organizations that want to locate there. 

William Kallaway:

So our work is very varied, from F&B brands, culture brands, tech brands. And actually, what's interesting about this is it gives a diversity of thinking to brand problems, or brand challenges. It helps give a richness, I hope, to our clients in the way that we're able to respond to particular... I will help them overcome particular challenges that they might be facing. 

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, absolutely. Can we talk a little bit about the last six months? Because I think it would be wrong not to mention the fact that we've been in a global pandemic, it would be wrong not to mention the fact that both your organization and, we've spoken about this offline, our own organization works very closely with the attraction sector and tourism. How has it been for you as an organization? And how has it been for yourself and for your team through this? Because I'm guessing it's been quite challenging as it has been for us.

William Kallaway:

Yes, it has been challenging. I would just like to say a big thank you to my team, they've been absolutely fantastic. Each and every one of them, they've all played a part. And I'm grateful and lucky to have them. So thank you guys, if you happen to be listening to this. 

Kelly Molson:

I hope you are, that's lovely. 

William Kallaway:

It has been challenging. Our guiding ethos as a business is to solve for the client, to help our client succeed. So we always need to have the right number of people in the organization to deliver whatever the client may want at one time. So we're not an option where, as an organization, you can simply pull down the shutters, you could do I guess, but that wouldn't really solve for our clients. So we helped our clients by working alongside them to find solutions to help them stay present and contribute to their audiences in new ways. 

William Kallaway:

Just two examples of that, so when lockdown first happened, one of our classes are Royal Academy of Dance. And we created a program that helped them engage people online for the first time called RAD@Home. And we segmented the message to different audiences. So what one of the bigger concerns was actually helping old members of society stay connected, and stay really sort of moving, keep moving. And because they were the people most risk being isolated and also sedentary. And so we took one of the RAD's programs for older people called Silver Swans, took it online, but one of the messages for family audiences was "Get granny grooving."

Kelly Molson:

Great message.

William Kallaway:

Yeah, it was phenomenally successful. We had media coverage all over the place, the RAD's website traffic zoomed up, it got mentioned, completely unprompted, on Today program, Radio 4, as sort of a leading example of how brands are engaging. Things like that we've done, through to working just most recently with Japan House London, helping them open a new exhibition. So our work has varied during this time. But how's it been? I think it's difficult and for everybody, I think, as you've identified, people have their own personal challenges as well. People working remotely, some people love it, some people hate it. Some people have very different working environments than you or me. And so one has to be mindful about the fact that they might actually want to escape the home but go somewhere else. So yeah, it has been difficult. But we're sort of moving forward, as it were.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, aren't we all? What lovely positive stories from the campaigns that you've had going on throughout the lockdown. No, that's really lovely. I'm not going to forget that, get granny grooving, that's brilliant. 

William Kallaway:

We've also tried to contribute to the wider sector by running regular webinars. We've been doing quite a bit with the UK, bound on that, and others. And bringing sort of experts who we work with as well in a bit from placemaking experts through to experts in communicating with the Chinese consumer, through to help not only for clients but everybody in the industry, learn a little bit more and hopefully come out the other end of this a little bit stronger. So, and all that information is on our website, including actually, I'm just looking at the website now, we ran a webinar with Chris Earlie, the head of Tower Bridge, which is another one of our [inaudible 00:15:36] and one of our clients. And he's in the webinar there, he shared some really great insights about what they're doing as a brand to segment the audience in thinking about how they're essentially getting back to work. So there's some good stuff in there as well, if you want.

Kelly Molson:

Oh brilliant. Well, all of these things we'll link to in the show notes. So you'll be able to log onto the website and find links to all of the things that we'll mention today. But actually, it's some of those things that I want to talk about in a little bit more detail. So like you say, you have been running webinars throughout, and they've been incredibly valuable. I want to ask a few questions about them, if that's okay, because I think that some of the information that's in them would be really, really valuable to our listeners right now. So I guess my first question is, why is PR and communications so important to attractions right now and the tourism sector? And what should they be focusing on?

William Kallaway:

Right. Well, I think the first thing is, it all depends on where you want to be in the future, and then working back from there. So if you want to be front-of-mind when your audiences can start to travel again, when your consumers can start to travel again, if you want to have secured a certain level of footfall, or you want to have secured a certain level of brand value in how people think about you, you need to communicate, ultimately. You have to communicate. Going dark is not necessarily the best option, there may be an option for some organizations who simply just can't do it.

William Kallaway:

But for those that can, they should continue to communicate and add value in a way that helps set their brand apart. Because public relations, ultimately, it's the professional maintenance of a favorable public image, to give it its proper term. But actually, it's so much more nuanced now. I mean, I think sometimes the industry and other industries tend to think about PR as a sort of promotional stuff. But actually, it's far more nuanced than that. And where we come from particularly, is from a very strategic communications perspective, and thinking about all aspects of what the brand's doing, how it's behaving, how it's training its people, how to invest in the local community. Even from what sort of sponsorships has it got in train at the moment? What are its key messages? And put all that together into a coherent plan that enables the brand to reassure its customers, engage new customers, and reignite interest and engagement about what it is doing now, in a manner that hopefully builds footfall into the future. 

William Kallaway:

So it's also about reacting, I think, to how customers are perceiving brands at the moment and where they're getting information from. So I think there's an opportunity to reassess your target customer at the moment. And by that, I mean it's not only just looking at the demographics, but I was very interested in one of your earlier podcasts, I think it was the marketing lead from Continuum talking about actually, doesn't really look about demographics at the moment, it's all about almost tribes, people being different ages, being interested in different things and similar connections. 

William Kallaway:

So I think reevaluating your audiences about what their interests are, and then how you can engage and connect to those audiences in new and meaningful ways. So there's been an acceleration in how consumers are using social media and how they're using digital equipment. Lots of older people are getting online for the first time, there's been a massive growth in the older population getting on Facebook, there's been a boom in people using Zoom who are older. So how can you, as a brand, actually harness some of that technical innovation by the consumer so you are being present in a new and interesting way, either in their social media feeds, online, or even in the home.

William Kallaway:

I was looking online recently, there was a brand, a spa brand that was enabling you to sort of relax and take a virtual spa at home. These sorts of things. And Amazon has launched the opportunity to do a guided tour of a city, you pay for that and the guide takes you around the city and takes you into shops. So how can a brand react to that? But more importantly, I think, particularly for many brands that are located in different parts of the UK, how can they be seen to be contributing positively to the local community and giving back? Because purpose is going to be one of the biggest things that comes out of this pandemic. It's not necessarily... Sorry, localism, I think. And when I say local, I mean regionalism, really.

William Kallaway:

But YouGov's got some really interesting tracking on this around how people think about multinational brands now, and actually, they are steering towards the local side of things, when people start to travel again, they're more likely to go locally rather than internationally. So either staycation, been a huge increase in that, but actually traveling locally rather than going nationally, so there's an opportunity to not only demonstrate your value for money but to use a bit of a cliche phrase, your values for money. And I think that's something that should be really powerful into the future. So demonstrating what a brand is doing, to train its people, to give back to the local community, to support local schools, so on and so forth. 

William Kallaway:

And I think that that will need to be done in a distinct way that's relevant for that particular brand, rather than just doing what everyone else is doing. And I think also then goes back into a, "Why are we here as an organization, what is our promise to our customers?" A promise needs to be deeper than we're just going to give them time, it needs to be multi-layered. And then this goes... once brands think about that, and understand that to a great deal of detail, it will help them communicate effectively, both through their actions and what they say, which then folds back into professional maintenance of a favorable public image. Because it's not something that is necessarily forced, it's something that just comes from within the organization itself. 

Kelly Molson:

Some incredibly powerful advice there, Will. Thank you for sharing that. Just want to touch back on, because my second question relates a little bit to what you're talking about, about consumer behaviors, and how there is now that focus on localism. And we've had our own conversations with attractions where we're seeing new visitors come to new attractions that didn't even know that they were on their doorstep, but they've lived 10 or 15 minutes away from this certain place for years, but just never engaged with it before. 

Kelly Molson:

So I kind of want to ask you, and this is one of the webinars that you had out during lockdown. So I want to ask you about the new emerging consumer behavioral needs, what is it that attractions need to know about? And how do they kind of tap into that now?

William Kallaway:

Well, I think they need to tap into it in a way which is relevant for them and authentic to them as a brand. Authenticity is, I think, going to be so much more powerful now. Because authenticity and the quality of what you do, rather than just the price, the quality of what you do, the quality, the richness of experience, is going to be so much more powerful and relevant now, when people's disposable income is going to be squeezed as well. That said, there are some clear consumer themes. First up is super connectivity, which I mentioned earlier, which is people want to have an engagement online first before they choose to buy in physical form. That's not to say they're more likely to book you months out, because actually, people don't know what's going to happen in a couple of months. But they do want to be able to experience it, so think about how you're projecting yourself online, super connectivity. 

William Kallaway:

Then also think about how you're tapping into... Some themes have come through from this around wellness, self-development, mental fitness, physical fitness, and also quality of life. You've seen people actually thinking during lockdown, "You know what, I do want to spend more time with my friends and my family. I want to spend more time investing in myself. I want to spend more time reading or doing the things that I like." So for an attraction, it's about thinking about how it can reflect some of those themes in some of its messaging. 

William Kallaway:

So I was interested with the podcast you had on with the Chap from the National Parks. The National Parks naturally lends itself to be able to communicate issues around wellness, physical, mental well-being, spending quality time with families. There might be a slightly more challenging task there for roller coaster-based rides, attractions, but one can think about that in a different way to build those connections in the right sort of way.

William Kallaway:

So yeah, wellness and self-development are sort of one in the same, really, but those are the top three. And then underneath that you've mentioned, is virtual engagement. So super connectivity might be one thing but virtual engagement is going to be something else. And you've already seen brands already doing things like this. So you can engage on a brand on anything from Minecraft to Animal Crossing, lots of attractions moving into that space. And it's been right for some, it's not right for everybody. 

William Kallaway:

And then doing the right thing is the CSR aspects of it. But doing the right thing is now going to be absolutely what customers expect. There was some polling that was on YouGov before I came on this call today. And it was saying that about 85% upwards of individuals, this is across all Generation X, Y, Zed, Boomers, etc., would move away from brands that they felt didn't hold the same worldview as them, and were seen to be polluting or seen to be not treating their staff correctly, or seems to be underpaying their staff, they actively avoid that. And really, there's an opportunity here to demonstrate leadership because, again, some polling from YouGov shows that customers really want to live a more sustainable life. 92% of people say that, but only 16% of people follow it through. 

William Kallaway:

So actually, brands have got a really interesting leadership role to play here. They've got an opportunity to talk about how they are embedded in the local community, the local economy, importantly, and sustainability is not just environmentalism, it's about the local networks that support us all. And this element of localism, this element of, "Actually, I might commute 100 miles to go to work every day. But actually, this is my neighborhood here." And I think that these changes are going to stay very much great ingrained, become ingrained because we're likely to be in the state for the next six months. We've almost been a year in this situation by the time we come out the other end. And I think that will just naturally force people to make new habits, to see the world differently. 

William Kallaway:

So it's all about the stories that we can tell, it's all about the stories and it comes back to that promise. What promise do you making your customers? And as a marketeer, what change do you want to make in the world? And what change do you want to bring to those customers? And that goes beyond just having a good time whizzing around in a rollercoaster or seeing some artifacts. It needs to be a far richer and multi-layered promise and change you're trying to make. Which is one of the reasons why I love working with attractions, museums, because they genuinely impact all ages, every member of the family. And they just have some astonishing stories there. And I love that. I love that. But I love talking about it, writing about it and taking people on the journey. Can I just tell you a story?

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, please do.

William Kallaway:

So almost 13 years ago, I introduced a woman to her own heart. The only reason I remembered this is because the lady concerned dropped me an email just to say it was 13 years ago when this happened. And there was a picture of her holding her heart, surrounded by the world's media. And she held it there.

Kelly Molson:

What? 

William Kallaway:

And it's just-

Kelly Molson:

Hang on. This needs more explanation, you introduced her to her own heart. 

William Kallaway:

So I launched the Wellcome Collection for the Wellcome Trust. And it is an amazing building that brings together arts and science and culture to help us understand what it is to be human. As it says, "A place for the incurably curious." But one of the first exhibitions was the heart exhibition, and there on the wall was going to be a space for human hearts that had to have to be removed from a sick individual. And I just happened to be looking at the space in the pre-briefing and I said, "Is the lady still alive?" And there were some people who weren't entirely sure, and we had to go through some networks and stuff to find out. But yes, she was. And so we got in touch with her and said, "Would you like to come and see this and talk about it?" Talk about what it is, talk about meeting the heart, talk about it as from a sort of personal and emotional thing. But also talk about it and give the opportunity to talk about the importance of organ donation." And it was just incredibly powerful because there she was, she was connected with her own heart, the World's press went absolutely mad for the story, as you can probably imagine. It provided us with an opportunity to communicate the power of medicine, life and art, that's what the catch was.

William Kallaway:

Then, through the World's Media, through the Red Top Media reaching an entirely different section of society with these sorts of stories. And yeah, it literally went global and that was just such a really visceral reminder about how powerful stories can be within museums and within that sort of setting. And that's also one of the things that I like to bring to these organizations. Because you can ask, as someone coming in, from the outside, you can ask sort of questions which haven't necessarily been asked before, like, "Is that person still alive? Can we get her to meet her heart?"

Kelly Molson:

Gosh, that is incredible. What a story. I'm so glad that you shared that. It's phenomenal, isn't it? What an incredible, powerful story. But what an incredible way to sum up what that organization is all about.

William Kallaway:

Yeah, if you haven't been to Wellcome Collection, do go. And I think also, look at that organization as a really interesting attraction based brand that just has astonishingly rich outreach and engagement. As a Radio 4 series at the moment running about Touch, which is sponsored by them, or isn't sponsored by them, is run in partnership with them. But I've been very fortunate to launch all sorts of different museums with William Morris Gallery, Mary Rose Museum, National Museum for the Royal Navy, The View from The Shard, there are loads of things and each and every one of them is fantastically interesting.

Kelly Molson:

It's really lovely watching your face there while you were talking about it, so completely lit up.

William Kallaway:

Well, there's something completely different when we launched The View from The Shard, we'd been contacted by someone who wanted to be the first person to propose up there. So it was all fine and we'd got this person upstairs and we had the then London Mayor, Boris, etc. And the World's Media were all there ready to... The ribbon was being cut for the grand opening of the top of the Shard, and there was this very nervous-looking man in the corner, get out of one knee, and we had some flowers off stage as it were to do the right thing, assuming his partner's going to say yes. And anywhere else, somebody else jumped in and did it first.

Kelly Molson:

No. Oh, that's awful.

William Kallaway:

Just another member of the public just went off and did it and that was...

Kelly Molson:

Oh, no. All that build-up.

William Kallaway:

[inaudible 00:32:16] was crushed, he became the second person. 

Kelly Molson:

I hope his partner said yes. 

William Kallaway:

Yeah, he did.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, God. Thank God for that. Because it could've been worse, couldn't it?

William Kallaway:

Yeah, [inaudible 00:32:26], they're always good things to find.

Kelly Molson:

Brilliant stories. Right. Thank you. I have got one more question for you. We talked a lot earlier about your own team. And people working from home and it being dispersed. And it's just everything has been really, really different for people. And I guess what I wanted to ask you was around PR planning tools. So I think one of the questions is what are the best PR planning tools to help remote teams gather the information and then run communications with clarity and real, measurable impact? How do people do that when they're so dispersed at the moment? 

William Kallaway:

Okay, so that's an interesting question, in terms of remote tools to bring teams together to help them plan on things. So we use one, which is called Monday, we also have our own database system called Daylight, which that's all really techie boring stuff, frankly. But it is essentially glorified to-do list. 

Kelly Molson:

I'm just thinking, someone needs to help you with those to-do lists, Will. 

William Kallaway:

It always comes back down to what am I trying to achieve? And how can I measure success? So one of the things that we always set for our clients, and the reason why we won so many awards, is because we work to very clear and measurable goals. And what I mean by that is, if you're going to value something, you need to measure it. And one of the things I think, particularly, with PR, sort of straightforward PR, it gets very much shoved into the promotions bracket, "Get the press release out." Actually, let's take a step back and put a far more nuanced and effective communications campaign that links tightly into marketing and advertising and helps raise a brand profile.

William Kallaway:

So if we're going to do that, "Okay, how are we going to measure it?" Footfall. What are smart goals, specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and timely, sorry, relevant, and timely? Those, just being really crystal clear about what we're trying to do, actually unifies minds towards that central purpose, and then everything else should follow. So I don't think it's necessarily about what sort of tools you have. But it's about how you are working towards that common name. 

William Kallaway:

And we do have some grids that we use. In fact, I shared it on one of the webinars where we talked about you want to look at your different audiences, so you map out your audience. You say, "Okay, this is the audience I'm looking to communicate to, how do I want my audiences to think and act now about me as a brand? And how do I want them to think and act about my brand in the future?" Once you understand that, you should have two less, and it's got a gap in the middle. So essentially, if you have your audience and the way they think about you now, and the way you want them to think about you in the future, what do you need to do? And what do you need to say, to take people on that journey? 

William Kallaway:

And then you need to think about what are the best channels for me to show that I'm walking the talk? There'll be some channels that are more relevant to others for different elements of your audience. The older audiences or the parenting audiences might have very different channels to the Millennials, the Generation Zeds. But ultimately, what buying that, what should all band together is some clear, consistent messaging, that comes back to that central promise about why you exist as an organization. And that promise that you're looking to communicate. 

William Kallaway:

And then you need to measure. And this isn't just about clicks on websites, it's not just about footfall. Of course, all of those are absolutely relevant, and absolutely what we should do. And if you look on our website, on case studies, everything we do is set out like that. But actually, it goes deeper than that, which is, "How am I going to measure meaning and difference?" So meaningful is, "Can I look at the type of coverage that I'm securing or the way people are talking about my brand that talks about, 'This is making me happy.' Or, 'I see the quality of what you're doing.'" Words that reflect that qualitative status that you're looking to achieve if you're wanting people to pay to come walk through the door.

William Kallaway:

And then the other element to look at is your difference. Are they excited about visiting X or Y attraction? How are they describing it? So essentially, there are two ways to look at these things, qualitatively or quantitatively. And I think lots of people tend to focus, because it's easier, on the numbers, "We secured X number of website traffic." Which is all great, but that's a short-term thing. And actually, the longer-term build of consistent growth over time, is based on something that's far more powerful, and t's that thing that people want to sign up to about a brand, the guiding star that is going to orientate all your communication, and that will compel people to sign up, because they're really interested to learn more. Or they're going to not just be a visitor who's going to visit once, they're going to keep coming back, or they're going to turn into an active ambassador about your brand, and get others to come.

William Kallaway:

And that sort of response is multifaceted. It goes down to, particularly in this time of COVID, "How are you going to handle ticket refunds? How are you going to be easy to deal with if people can't come? What's your customer service, like?" All of that feeds into the overall brand perception, right way through to what you're talking about doing locally, how you're investing in people, if you're going to get announcing, exciting new sponsorship with a confectionery brand to sponsor your roller coaster or something. All of that, every element along there really, really matters. But if you've got a strong core, based around a clear set of values, then it will help you communicate far more strongly.

Kelly Molson:

Absolutely. 

William Kallaway:

Far more strongly? Is that right?

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, that's right. Brilliant advice, Will, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing. 

Kelly Molson:

I think that our listeners will get a lot from that. I'm taking a lot from it myself, I'm thinking about our core mission and how that comes across in our communications. 

William Kallaway:

Well, I think you do that really well.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, well thanks.

William Kallaway:

I looked about that, there it is, it's just simply put. Mission, purpose... I think people kind of... yeah, there it is. 

Kelly Molson:

Very kind. 

William Kallaway:

It is interesting. It's one of the things I really enjoy about this work, is helping brands find that way forward and then doing really interesting things with it.

Kelly Molson:

It's really interesting because I think that listening to you... And we have spoken before, at length about storytelling really, essentially. And I think people do pigeonhole PR and comms agencies into a press release, just pushing stuff out and not really thinking about it in a holistic way. And I love how you've talked about it today from it has to start from that core message, that core kind of story and vision for your organization. 

William Kallaway:

Absolutely. I think if you draw three rings on the traditional Venn diagram, it's like, "What is your purpose? What am I doing to establish my reputation and build trust?" Those three sort of rings, and in the middle is then what you're going to do. So reputation might be based on the excitement of what you're doing, underpinned by first-class, customer service. And then the customer trust would be built out of the way that experiences the brand, but the purpose then comes through about what you're doing with the company profits, how those are being shared, whether or not you're investing back into local people, all that. So yeah, that's really interesting to look at that. 

William Kallaway:

Then the tactical stuff, about, "Should I be engaged with influencers? Should I be on this channel? TikTok? Should I be on regional media?" All of that sort of follows naturally after. I think there's a temptation to get straight into the tactical weeds, rather than actually take a step back and say, "What are we trying to do? And how do we get there?" And that's one of the reasons why we always create a named-and-framed campaign for our clients. So our brand essentially is Smart Imagination. So that's creativity focused towards solving business problems. And we will always create a named solution for a client. So for Japan House London, the campaign to launch that, this new cultural presence for Japan in the UK to stimulate understanding and trade with Japan, ultimately, the campaign name was Your Gateway to Contemporary Japan. So it was your gateway, so it was a personalized campaign that was specifically focused at one type of person, who that attraction's very keen to get in.

William Kallaway:

And it's that approach that actually... So rather than just doing stuff, leave all that over there, it's actually being really clear about what the campaign is going to be called, and how it's going to be moved forward and then how it's going to be measured. That's cool. Okay, so here's a good example, right? So when we launched the Mary Rose Museum, this is several years ago now, we created a campaign that was called The Journey of The Ship's Bell. And to do that, we worked with the museum, and we took the bell of the Mary Rose from the museum out into the Solent. And it was rung to mark the ship and those that had perished with her.

William Kallaway:

But then we dressed it up, and we took it in... we partnered with the Royal Navy, and we worked with HMS Duncan, which is the sister ship of the Mary Rose, and we found the youngest sailor on board, who was then going to ring the bell, we invited a flotilla of ships and boats from across the local ports to come and join this. So we were creating this story about linking this wooden structure that many people, young people were slightly alien to. I mean, I'm old enough to remember when Blue Peter, when the Mary Rose was coming up, and it-

Kelly Molson:

Yep, same.

William Kallaway:

... just [inaudible 00:42:43]. But to many younger people, there wasn't that connection. And what is this thing? So actually, The Journey of The Ship's Bell enabled the brand to tell the story visually, and we timed everything to happen on various parts of the news bulletin through the day. So we started in breakfast television, lunch-time television, and there was a big ceremony in the evening, all of which was broadcast nationally. But it was that story that actually turned the museum opening into something that was far more rich, and engaging for the World's Media. And we did other stuff, like we got interesting talks about wrestlers. We got people who might be linked, or could say things about the Mary Rose involved. So we got a bridge wrestler called William Regal, I think his name was. He was sharing stuff out of LinkedIn... Sorry, not on LinkedIn, on Twitter. It was actually, this was many years ago now, but it trended in numbers, trended number two in the UK, I think.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, lovely. I see, I knew that my stupid icebreaker questions would somehow be related at some point in a podcast interview. 

William Kallaway:

But I think it's about telling that story. So always naming-and-framing your campaigns in a really effective way. So it's tempting to say, "We're going to run a Christmas campaign." Well, let's talk. Well, let's do something more exciting with that. If we can excite ourselves about what Christmas might be on the attraction, then we'll be better able to excite our customers rather than just being a Christmas campaign.

Kelly Molson:

Love it. Perfect. It's a perfect way to bring us towards the end of the podcast interview. I've got one last question for you, which we ask all of our guests, and it's a book that you recommend that's helped shape your career in some way, or just a book that you really love that you would recommend to our listeners? 

William Kallaway:

That's a really good question. So I have several books that I try and read. I sound pretty terrible at this, as in, I lug them round in my bag. They're just in there and they get more and more buggered. But there are a couple of books that I think people who are interested in communication should read. And the first one is called Influence by Robert Cialdini, and he's the sort of guy... He's a behavioral psychologist and he wrote this almost defining book on influence, really. It's really, really interesting. And there's another book, which I would also recommend is written by James Carville, who was one of the Clinton's campaign experts really. And the name of the book is called Buck Up, Suck Up... and Come Back When You Foul Up, I think. And I've often returned to that book because it's just got some brilliant truths in there about the learn from the war room of political campaigning. It's really effective. So definitely recommend that book.

William Kallaway:

For relaxation stuff, I love the work by Neil Gaiman. I just love that, I love reading those books. And I also think it's important to sort of challenge yourself philosophically as well. So for a couple of years, I've been reading books on stoicism, which I think is a really interesting philosophy. Particularly, there's one book called The Daily Stoic, which is by a guy called Ryan Holiday, which provides meditations from Marcus Aurelius, another where you can dip into on a daily basis. He's also got one at the moment called Ego Is the Enemy, and also Obstacle Is the Way, which I think is a really, really interesting, stoic way of looking at the world, which is, if there is an obstacle in the way, it becomes the way. You just have to deal with that and how you react to it actually defines who you are, and how you're going to move forward, generally.

William Kallaway:

I'm not really doing this justice. I've not read the book, but I listen to a lot of his podcasts, but I definitely recommend you that. And I also try and reread The Screwtape Letters, because they really deal with some really interesting issues around to do with self, soul, temptation, staying on the straight and narrow. Because I go to church, I'm Christian, I'm trying to live my life with Christian values, and the dichotomy between stoicism and what's in The Screwtape Letters is really interesting. So those four books are sort of ones that I would always recommend. And they're all challenging for different reasons.

Kelly Molson:

Great book choices. Another thing that Will is maybe not good at is following instruction, because that's four books and not one book.

William Kallaway:

Oh, sorry. 

Kelly Molson:

But that's fine. So everyone that comes on, blows my marketing budget out of the window. However-

William Kallaway:

If you have to give one book, a one readership book... Sorry, a book to professional basis, I think Buck Up and Suck Up is just such a great book, because it's just boom, boom, boom, boom. And it's all about how these guys helped win the White House-

Kelly Molson:

All right, well, that's the one then. That's the one. 

William Kallaway:

And I found that really [inaudible 00:47:45]... Yeah, that one. There's also one I'm reading at the moment called How to Argue with a Cat, which is brilliant. And it's all about how to persuade and how to use... Which is just really interesting when you're thinking about how you use that to communicate as a brand, brand and all that sort of stuff.

Kelly Molson:

That sounds like a great book. All right, but now that's five books. So if you don't stop-

William Kallaway:

[crosstalk 00:48:07].

Kelly Molson:

... recommending books, you'll be arguing with a podcast host soon. Anyway, as ever, if you'd like to win a copy of this book, and I think... What's the one we're going to go with? The Buck Up...

William Kallaway:

Buck Up and Suck Up, is a good one. How to Argue with a Cat is great. Influence one...

Kelly Molson:

Oh, gosh.

William Kallaway:

We'll come to pick one-

Kelly Molson:

We'll pick one at random. Okay, so if you want to win one of Will's books, if you head over to our Twitter account, which is skip_the_queue, and you retweet this episode's announcement with a comment, "I want Will's book," then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. And we'll pick what book it is at random. Will, thank you so much for coming on today. It has been an absolute pleasure. And thank you for sharing so much insight with us. It's really, really appreciated. 

William Kallaway:

My absolute pleasure. And if anyone wants to find out any more, then it's all on our website as well. We put quite a lot of information about what we're doing for clients and the type of things, the way we're working to deliver those sorts of results. So people can apply that in their own brand situation as well. And if anyone wants to a hand with anything, then I'm always free to have a conversation, always happy to help and to have a chat and help people find a way through things. So just give me a call.

Kelly Molson:

That is really kind offer, Will. And we will put all of Will's contact details in the show notes. So if you want to take him up on that offer, then go for it. I'd highly recommend a chat with Will, he's fab. Thank you, and we'll speak to you soon. 

William Kallaway:

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. 

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

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Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

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Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 April 29th 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://www.stpauls.co.uk/

https://twitter.com/SLTHeritage

https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandra-lynes-timbrell

Sandra Lynes Timbrell has worked in the cultural sector for 20 years, holding senior roles at some of the UK’s most recognisable sites, including Shakespeare’s Globe and English Heritage properties. She is Director of Visitor Engagement at St Paul’s Cathedral, where she leads several teams including commercial, visitor experience, security, collections and marketing. She is responsible for creating and delivering operational models that enable attractions to be financially secure whilst simultaneously creating a welcoming environment for visitors.

Sandra has mentored young people starting out in the heritage industry, and delivered numerous talks and training sessions for Museum & Heritage Show; Women in Leadership and SOLT; the leading membership organization for the performing arts in the UK. She holds an MA in Heritage Management. 

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 episode I speak with Sandra Lynes Timbrell, Director of Visitor Experience at St. Paul's Cathedral.

Sandra shares an emotional recollection of starting a new role right at the start of the 2020 lockdown. And we discuss the unique perspective of St. Paul's as a place of worship, and also a tourist attraction. 

If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Sandra, it is so lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for coming on.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Thanks for having me. I'm been a bit of a fan, so I'm quite chuffed to be here to be honest. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it when fans come on the podcast. I have to say you look super fabulous today as well.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh, thank you very much.

Kelly Molson: As a fair, we're going to start with our icebreaker questions. So I want to know because this has happened to me. Have you ever met anyone famous and lost your mind a tiny little bit?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yes. There's been a couple of people and there was an international incident with Barack Obama, which is a whole other podcast subject.

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: But I suppose Michael Palin was my big one. Because I think he's amazing. I love Monty Python. And I had a bit of thing for him when he was younger. Obviously not now, he's a bit older. And I met him a couple. I met him at this book launch and I queued up during a lunch break to go and see him. And just got there and then just stood there and he was saying, "Hello, how are you? Thanks for coming.". And I just went, "Thanks".

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then I met him again and he asked again how I was and just said something really stupid. I'm getting married. And he said, "Oh, that's lovely. Thank you.".

Kelly Molson: But that is lovely.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It is, but then I saw him again at another event, I thought I can't go anywhere near him because [inaudible 00:01:55].

Kelly Molson: He would be, oh look, there comes that crazy lady again. Let's not go [crosstalk 00:02:01] next time.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Thank you for sharing.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: But I have to say working at the Globe, I met lots of famous people. And I have a really bad... I'm really good with faces and terrible with names. So I used to meet lots of really famous people and then just say, "Oh hi, how are you?" And then realise they were Gemma Artetan.

Kelly Molson: I've done this on a train before. Because I'm good with faces too. And I always think maybe I went to school with them or something.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I know them from the past. No, just the tele. Amazing. Thank you. Okay. If you could travel back in time, what period would you go to and why?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: That's tough because I love history. I'd be like Dr. Who's TARDIS, just doting all over the place. Wow, I don't know. Okay, let's think about this. I'd love to be around the Tudor Court. I think that would be really exciting. I'd love to go to the Restoration of Charles II. Because I always imagine that was like a carry-on film.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Because I think if you look at a picture of Charles II, he looks like St. James. So I almost imagine that after the austerity of the Puritan Commonwealth, there would suddenly be this almost Dorothy emerging into Oz and everyone was just having a really good time. So I think the Restoration Court would be exciting.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I'll tell you where else actually, my Nana used to talk about The Blitz. She had quite a good time. She was in her late teens, early '20s. And obviously, it must have been difficult for her, but she had a good time going dancing with GIs and she was in Trafalgar Square on VE day. So something like that maybe, joining my Nana for a night out during the war.

Kelly Molson: Oh that's nice, isn't it? Love that.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: There you go.

Kelly Molson: Good. Thank you. Okay. And what is the worst job that you've ever had?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh gosh. Without a doubt, it has to have been, it was way back when, when I was trying to get into museums, and I worked for an audio guide company who shall remain nameless. But I had to spend a week and a half stuffing envelopes for them. And it was proper 9:00 till 5:00, just stuffing envelopes. They were just launching their audio guide for the Bilbao Museum in Spain.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And it was just soulless because I just sat in this room and no one came to talk to me. And I just stuffed envelopes for a week and a half. And I thought, is this what museums are about?

Kelly Molson: Oh, yes. It's not the greatest first experience, is it?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Not brilliant, no.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Well, things have moved on quite well since then, shall we say? All right. What is your unpopular opinion? And then you can tell us all about your background.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh, my unpopular opinion. You're going to get letters about this. I'm really sorry. I don't understand why The Great British Bake Off is so popular.

Kelly Molson: I'm with you. No, it's OK. I'm with you.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh, really?

Kelly Molson: Yes, it's all right. Oh God, me neither.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Watch the complaints rolling in.

Kelly Molson: Oh, God. They're going to come, aren't they?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: They are. It's just, I don't get watching people bake cakes. I've tried watching it. It just doesn't make any sense. And then I don't understand why people want to enter the competition to make these big elaborate cakes when you could just go to the cake shop and buy one.

Kelly Molson: I totally agree.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Anyone else who does. And I always feel I'm saying something really awful when I say I don't like-

Kelly Molson: I do think it was better when it was first one. When it was a bit of a novelty and I did watch a few episodes then. But I still didn't really... I didn't love it. I didn't get into it. I know people who have bake off parties and stuff.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: They'll bake cakes, especially for bake off week. And I'm just...

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Well people say, oh, you know it's whatever week this week. I was, I'm going to go to Marks & Spencer and I'm going to buy some ready made cakes and...

Kelly Molson: And I am all about convenience.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Time. And your valuable time that you need to spend on other things.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I'd just be stressed.

Kelly Molson: We're going to get on Sandra.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: We are.

Kelly Molson: We're going to get on. Well, this all started with a little rubber, didn't it? Rubber collection? So here was my little...

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Pretty nice.

Kelly Molson: St. Paul's Cathedral rainbow rubber. Look at that. Amazing. Now, this was from my 35-year-old rubber collection. And for our American people that are listening, I'm talking about erasers, novelty erasers.

Kelly Molson: But eight year old me used to have a big old collection. And every time I went to a different attraction, I would pick up a rubber. So we have one here from Fourty Hall in Enfield, which is my local place I used to go to, the National Gallery. And I just found all of these in my mum's loft a couple of months ago. I decided I was going to get all of the people that could come on the podcast and the attractions. And you're my first one, Sandra. I'm really pleased.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yay.

Kelly Molson: So tell us a little bit about your background?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So I did a Degree in Ancient History and Archeology because I thought I was going to be Indiana Jones and I was going to find treasure. And then I spent a lot of time in some very wet trenches just outside of Manchester and realised it probably wasn't quite as glamorous as I thought it was going to be.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I really wanted to go into curatorial. I didn't really quite know what. And for various reasons I ended up, just after I finished my degree, volunteering at the Verulamium Museum in St. Albans. And I originally went to help the curatorial team. They were closing for renovations. So I originally to help the curatorial team to pack up the exhibitions and items.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: But as time went on, I was there for a few weeks, and it gradually got, so could you help an education team? Could you help the front of house team? Could you help with the group book? All those things were happening. And I remember as the placement was coming to an end, I sat down with the Museum Director and I said, “You know what I've really enjoyed the most, is the variety”. And he said, "Ah, you're an operations person".

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And this light bulb went off because I never knew. And I think that's part of a bigger conversation. I never knew there was such a thing as operations. You get taught about the curatorial side, the conservation side, maybe the education side, but no one really talks about the day-to-day running, the operational stuff.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So I then went off and did a Master's Degree in Heritage Management. And at the end of that was really fortunate, I got a job in English Heritage up at Kenwood House. And I stayed in English Heritage for seven years. I cut my teeth there. I had a really good time there. It was hard work, but it was fun work. And we were all learning and moving at the same pace.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So, I was there for seven years, by the end of it I was Head of Visitor Operations for South London. So I had five beautiful historic properties and public parks and gardens. I moved on to a Heritage Lottery Fund Project Management. And then from there, I went off to the Museum of London as Deputy Head of Visitor of Operations. And that was just before London 2012.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So the whole lens, the focus of the world was on London. It was such a wonderful museum to be at. And again, they were just opening the Galleries of Modern London there. So we have this amazing new team, this amazing new gallery. We were looking at fresh ways to engage our visitors, looking at fresh commercial ideas and again, a really exciting time to be part of the museum. And that place will always hold a really special place in my heart.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then moved on from there two Shakespeare's Globe, where I set up the Visitor Experience Department. I went there as Head of Visitor Experience and seven years later left as Director. And the Globe had grown quite organically. It started as a theatre and someone thought we'd better have a box office. And someone else thought, well, we'd better have a shop for people to buy things. And we should have some levies. Be very organic. And no one has ever really been the champion of the visitor. So I came along to knit all of those operational teams together.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And so I got the role at St. Paul's and the idea was to leave the Globe on the 20th of March 2020 and had a nice week off, go to a couple of exhibitions, spend some time with friends and a little boy. And then start this fantastic new job at St. Paul's on the 30th of March 2020.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Wow.

Kelly Molson: So, where do we start? Because that's a pretty spectacular time to start a new job. And that must have been quite challenging just to say the very least.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Can you take us back to then, can you share with us what it was like for you? Because I can only imagine what you were thinking.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah, it was the best of times and the worst of times to quote "Tale of Two Cities". As I was leaving there was this... I'll go back a bit further, but there was this infamous now I think, meeting with the VE forum. I know you've done a podcast on the VE Forum before. There was this infamous meeting at which a load of us were at Central London attractions and Bernard Donoghue came in and we'd all been watching the news. It must have been mid-late February and Bernard Donoghue came in, and there was this thing happening in China.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And he started talking about the impact that was beginning to have in new Europe and also on hotel bookings in the UK. And as he was talking and he said, the words, are paraphrased, but it was along the lines of this will have a bigger impact or as big an impact as the second world war had.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And there was this palpable intake, audible intake of breath across the room. Because I think until that point no one had ever realised just what this was going to be. And at the Globe we talked about, we might have to stop a show or not have a show.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I remember I went back, I went to St. Paul's on my way back home. And I presented this to a couple of the team that I'd already met and said, look, this is what Bernard's saying. And, okay, well, we'll probably need to think about if we can't do a service or if we have to close for a day or so. And I went back to the Globe and we were having the same conversation. Well, maybe it'll be a couple of days that we might have to close for.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then gradually, just as time went on and you just see these horrendous news reports and things creeping up, we started to have these bigger meetings. The senior leadership team meetings I was having just about financials, where we were, what the impact of this was going to be, how we were going to manage. It was before things like furlough and all the grants that were there. It was this really stark reality that this was massive. Something was about to happen. And we're all about to fall off the edge of the cliff. And no one knew if there was going to be a net there for us, no one knew what was going to happen next.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And that last week I was meant to leave the Globe. I was meant to have the leave due on the Friday. I just remember from the Tuesday onwards people saying, I'm really sorry, I'm not coming in for the rest of the week, I was getting these emails. Until by I think the Wednesday or the Thursday that I left, there were four of us in and I had this moment, even though I'd been there seven years and it was just, well, thanks very much, take your stuff and we'll see you when we see you.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I remember phoning St. Paul's and if you know the geography, the Globe is just across the river from St. Paul's. Phoning up and saying, can I bring some things across? And the response was, there's no one there, we've all gone. We've closed. So I had that week where I think I had coronavirus, but I was very, very sick. I don't know. But I couldn't move out of my bed for the week.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then I started on the 30th of March. And day one is usually here's the photocopier, here's your colleagues, here's where to get a coffee. Day one was, we are going into a restructure. What do you want your department to look like? And I hadn't spent any time with my team.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I'd had one coffee with a couple of them. I knew nothing about the operations and yet I'm standing there or sitting there at my kitchen table of it, having to make decisions that are going to impact people's lives, people's livelihoods.

Kelly Molson: I know. I'm breathing out, because I feel quite anxious, even just hearing you say that. But I can't imagine how... I can imagine how unbelievably stressful that situation would you've been. And how awful, you don't know these people, you haven't worked with them. How do you even start to look at that?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: With difficulty and with a lot of trust. And I think the other thing just to throw into the mix, that my full-time job they then terminated my contract and gave me a contract for two days a week. So I was also looking at, I might not have a job by the end of this. And looking really coldly at what those... I was almost looking at it as a consultant in a way, that I'm not really part of this organisation. But I'm just going to have to look at this really objectively.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And see what I think. Because otherwise I was just... And it was almost a good thing that I wasn't at the Globe and then getting tangled up in the emotion of that. And I don't want this to sound cold, but it was almost better that I didn't know people, because I was talking about job titles and job roles rather than people.

Kelly Molson: Yes.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Names. But having said that, it was really bloody tough and it was this huge weight, that I felt of responsibility about what I was doing and what I was shaping. But I had to put the trust in the team that were around me, who I have to say, have been and were absolutely brilliant. I didn't get one person saying, what are you doing here? I didn't get one person... Everyone was there supporting me and saying, if you need anything, this is my phone number, give me a ring, let's talk it through.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So we lost 25% of the workforce, which was huge. But I had to trust that when my teams were telling me that I needed this amount of expertise to keep the Cathedral floor open, that's what they needed. I do remember sitting in several meetings. I had this PDF map that I picked up when I was doing the recce for the role, next to me. Because we were going into the granular detail of where these people would be and how that would affect the experience, whatever that experience may be.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And they were talking north transit. I was, hang on a second, north, where's that, north? And I'd look up, and the conversation moved on. I was thinking, I don't know what they're talking... I'd have to keep stopping and saying, where is that? What do you mean? So I had to trust that they were telling me the right things. And for them, they had to trust me. And there was a lot of patience. As I say a huge amount of patience for me, to pick those things up, which in an ideal world I would've done gradually over a period of time.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I guess it's such a difficult situation. Because like you said, I think the way that you approached it from a consultative perspective, I think that's brilliant. That's the only way that you could have done it, isn't it? To try and take the emotion out of what was happening.

Kelly Molson: But I think that must have been really difficult for you as a leader, because you are in a position of leadership at that point and people are looking to you.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Regardless of how long you've been in that role, they're looking for you to tell them what they need to do or what's going to happen. And that must have been such a weight on your shoulders.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It was a huge weight. And as I say, I was only there two days a week. So I chose Mondays and Thursdays because they were when the senior leadership team were meeting. So I'd be from 9:00 in the morning Monday back-to-back Zooms trying to get to know people, trying to work out what the impact of saying yes to this and no to that was. Trying to get under the skin of the finances, the operations.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then I'd be off Tuesday, Wednesday, and I'd be looking after my little boy and doing all the other things. And then Thursday would come along and I'd have a million emails, and people, I'm really sorry we changed that decision and you weren't part of that. And I'm really sorry you weren't part of that.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So as a leader, I felt constantly on the back foot and I felt, I always want to have the answers or if I don't have the answers, I want to say to my team, I'm going to find a way to give you the answers. I'm going to get back to you on that. And what was so difficult was not being able to do that. We were reacting, and it's not just some rules, it was across the organisation. We were reacting constantly to other people's decisions.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And one of the things I had to say, and I've spoken to other people. And I know I'm not the only one who has said this. There was a certain point where Boris was doing those super helpful press conferences at 5:00 every day. And there was a certain point where we had to shut down the idea that Boris gave us all a call just before he went on the TV to say what he was going to talk about. It was, we are getting this information at the same time as you at 5:00 at night when we are also exhausted from being on back-to-back Zoom calls all day.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And then we are having to react to what we are being told. And in some instances it was, well, this will be happening in two weeks' time. In other instances, this is happening tomorrow. So we then had to make very quick decisions off of the back of that. And working so reactively, firefighting in a way, it's so tough because you don't have that stepping back, that evaluation, what worked well, what didn't work well, how could we do it better next time? It's just, we're just going to have to go with this and keep going with this.

Kelly Molson: And it's exhausting, isn't it? And that reactive nature was like you say absolutely accurate for people because you all Zoomed out and then you'll have to make really strategic decisions based on information that's just been thrown at you that might suddenly come into act the next day. And so then those days get longer and longer and longer.

Kelly Molson: From all of that, looking back though, what do you think are your biggest learnings that you took away from the situation?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I think two. The first one was, to be honest. And the idea of honesty that I talked about, saying to the team I don't have the answers. I don't know. Making really clear that we were all... What's the phrase that you're all in the same boat and it might be... Well, we're not, it's the same storm, but different boats.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: But the idea that we were all going through this in some way, shape or form together. And that there weren't answers, there wasn't a usual, this is our five year plan. And this is how we're going to get there. It was just... It goes back to the idea of trust. But being honest, we were doing our best and we didn't know, but we were trying to find out the answers or trying to do as much as we could to make it easier for the team.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I think the other thing I've learned, and I keep telling myself this, is to be kind to myself. Because I started the first day of my job on the 30th of March, a week into lockdown. And I had to keep reminding myself that I didn't know. I wasn't expecting to know. And I've been there, it's coming up on two years. But I say to everybody, it feels like six months.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: This is the first time that I've seen any kind of normal cycle to the Cathedral. That I've been in any kind of normal planning meetings, that we've been talking about the next five years, as opposed to the next five minutes, the next five days.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So I sometimes feel a bit fraud. I sat in a meeting the other day and I said, I'm really sorry, I don't know anything about this. And someone said you've been here two years. But this is the first time I've had this discussion. This is the first time this has ever been told to me as an operations manager. And it's just reinforcing that. And as I say, being kind to myself that I shouldn't have expected that I would have all of the answers. Because we were all navigating this pandemic together. None of us had been through it before, so why should I know what to do?

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's really interesting. And I don't think we're all kind enough to ourselves.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I don't think so.

Kelly Molson: On a day-to-day basis anyway, let alone when there's a global pandemic, how can we...

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: I had a really similar chat to my team a little while ago about how me and my co-founder suddenly had to understand how to run a business in a completely different way. We'd never done... We had one team member that worked virtually for us or worked remotely for us.

Kelly Molson: But we suddenly had to understand how we were going to run our whole business completely differently than we had before, at a time where we weren't sure if we were ever going to win any more business ever again, or if clients were going to stay with us. We just didn't have a clue what was going on. But everybody was looking to us to tell them what was going to happen. And we were just, "I have no idea".

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: That's the assumption, you were digital. You were going to come save the world, weren't you?

Kelly Molson: Apparently so, yeah. And touch wood, things were okay and we got through it. But we still didn't really have a clue. It was all just guesswork. And like you, we were reacting on information that we were hearing on the tele and going, okay, oh, we can do that now, then. Okay. Well we better do that. I'll ring up HMRC. I'll ring up the VAT office. We'll just put everything on pause. Absolute chaos. But now we're in a very, very different place. Incredible to think how far we've come.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I think if anyone had said you'll still be here in two years time, I think we all would have just thrown ourselves in the Thames, wouldn't we? But hey, we are where we are in this.

Kelly Molson: Well, I'm just glad I get to go back into London and see the Thames. That's exciting.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yay. Of course, yeah.

Kelly Molson: So I do want to talk to you about a very unique challenge that you have. And I think what's really interesting, obviously we all know St. Paul's, I've such fond memories of St. Paul's. I think we spoke about this when we had a pre-interview chat. It's one of my dad's favourite buildings and it is absolutely stunning. I have such good memories of visiting it with him as a child and going up to the Whispering Gallery.

Kelly Molson: I can remember having a... My rubber is not the only thing that I have from St. Paul's Cathedral. We had a beautiful puzzle. We used to do puzzles. That's a lockdown thing, isn't it? But it was of the dome of the Whispering Gallery, the beautiful pattern. A lot of people see it as a tourist attraction, which it is, but first and foremost, it's a place of worship.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And so I'm intrigued just to understand how you get that visitor experience right. For two audiences that are coming for very, very different reasons.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: One to worship, one to look at the architecture, for example.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: The sightseeing. Yeah. And it is a really fine balance that we have to strike. I think the thing that we have to think about, is I come from a very commercial angle about, if we keep the building open then we allow worship to happen. And that's a really stark way of looking at things.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I have some clerical colleagues who come from the other angle, which is this building is just here to worship. And we have to be very careful about what we do in order to raise the money. I think the first thing that we all sign up to is that we are respectful of other people's opinions and other people's beliefs and other people's needs.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So there is a chapel that you can go into. So to come to worship, to come to pray, that will always be free at St. Paul's. And there's a chapel that you can come into and set aside for private prayer. And you just announce yourself and you can go straight through into there and you can pray. Or you can come along to one of the Eucharists or you can come along to one of the bigger services. And you are there for free. There is no assumption that you would pay any money.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: However, what we do find is that worship and tourism aren't mutually exclusive. And that's something that the Dean and certainly the more pastoral colleagues I have, are really keen to point out, that you don't simply have to just be a tourist. You don't simply have to just be here to worship. You can come and worship and think, look at that amazing architecture. You can come as a tourist and think actually that's a really beautiful service. Or I'd like to listen to the words that's being said.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And as someone who isn't particularly religious, when you step into the space, you can appreciate the spirituality and the mindfulness of the building. It is an absolutely beautiful building. And there is a sense of still and calm when you go through. I think it's a lot in many churches I've been through, a sense of still and calm. That you don't have to be there specifically to worship to appreciate that you are in a place that is absolutely stunning and absolutely beautiful.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I've seen some really amazing services. Some of the Christmas, we have the Consecration of Bishops. And they're absolutely joyous. And it's just amazing to see people just really enjoying being there and using the space, what it was intended for.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So the way that we look at things and the way that we market is that it's about the building. Yes, it's a place of faith, but it's also a place that's been at the heart of London, the heart of our nation for over 1000 years, not the same building. Building in that place. It's been there for over 1000s of years. And so it's part of our lives. It's part of our collective memories of things like Charles and Diana's weddings, or the Jubilee celebrations that we've got coming up.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So when we are looking to market the church, we talk about it being alive with stories, we talk about the hidden cathedral. So those places that you don't usually get to see on the tourist trail, that actually might also appeal to people who are worshippers as well. But there is a challenge, as a working church we stop for Eucharist at 12:30 every day, we stop for prayers on the hour, every hour.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: We have some big services, for example, the Consecration of the Bishops, which is not ticketed to the public, it's ticketed to the Bishops who are being consecrated. So we have to be closed to the public. So we have those challenges of how to work around that. We can't just simply say that we're open.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: The website has got some very complicated, but not at this time, messaging there. But actually again, that's part of the beauty of it. Why are we closed? This is why we're closed. This is what we're doing. This is what we're celebrating. So I find it's a challenge, but it's not as big a challenge I think, as you would expect.

Kelly Molson: Does it bring any advantages or disadvantages with that as well? I guess that's really what we've spoken about in terms of the disadvantage of closing, and how can you explain why you're closed for certain things.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I think the advantages are learning about why it's there. Learning about what St. Paul's is. And you can get married there. People get married there, people have their children baptised there. So when people find that out, oh, that's really interesting, how do I do that? So again, it's just opening up and unlocking those stories that I talked about. Unlocking the building for people.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I suppose another challenge is that we can't be... This is a nation's church, we are the place where the Queen comes to worship. So what we can't do is we can't be provocative. We can't be aggressively commercial. We have to respect that this ultimately is a church. This ultimately is a place of worship. But the understanding also is there that we need to be commercial in some way, shape or form. It cost eight million pounds to keep St. Paul's Cathedral open.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Every year.

Kelly Molson: Gosh.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So we need to raise that money. So when I'm talking about driving visitor numbers up, when I'm talking about driving income, it's not the detriment of the core values of what St. Paul's Cathedral is, that value of faith comes first.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And it's like you say, it goes back to that. It's a very fine line, isn't it? To try and keep everybody happy and everyone considered in those circumstances.

Kelly Molson: Look into the future. Because we're all about future and positivity now. You've got the Platinum Jubilee Exhibition.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Opening the 25th of May.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: 25th of May, that is right. So it's all about all of the Jubilee celebrations that we've had at St. Paul's. So there are four of them, which are celebrating George III, Victoria, Edward, and the Queen herself, who will be having, it's her fourth celebration.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And I was in a really exciting multi-agency Jubilee meeting the other day for the actual service. So that was lovely again, to be part of, seeing St. Paul's opening up again and being part of these bigger services. But come along, it's going to be great.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So as part of HRL funding, which was when we were in lockdown, I got an audience development plan and pull together. And what we found was before the lockdown, almost 90% of our audience were international tourists and the remainder were domestics, but the reason the domestic market weren't coming were broadly because a bit like you, came with your dad when you were at school, you went up to the Whispering Gallery. What's the reason for coming again?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So part of my engagement strategy is trying to put things into place, which encourage people to come back to St. Paul's and think of it a bit more of a return visit. So we've got kids go free happening this half term, we've got the Jubilee Exhibition going in this year, which runs on the 25th of May all the way through, hopefully into about Christmas. And then we're looking ahead to Wren 300 next year, which is going to be huge. That's the 300 anniversary of Wren's death.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So again, trying to think of some events that we can do on the cathedral floor, we've got our Summer Lates Program, which I'm in talks with a brilliant, a company to do partnership with some events with us. And maybe it's something a little bit more unexpected on the cathedral floor, but all bring it back to the idea of mindfulness about where we are. And we can't be too provocative. We can't be aggressively commercial. But actually, let's look at St. Paul's in a different way. Let's look at the architecture. Let's take our inspiration from the mosaics, from all the other wonderful things that we have there.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: So we are really looking forward to the Jubilee. It's massive for us and everyone's super-excited. Our guides doing guided tours, pulling those together. We've got our VA teams, are bringing some objects down to the cathedral floor for people to... Part of our handling collection. It's really something we're all pulling together for. I think after the past couple of years, this is just the joy that we need.

Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. It feels like a big celebration.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah, it does.

Kelly Molson: It feels like it's really well-timed, isn't it? The Jubilee, and it happening. I feel it's going to bring everyone back together again.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It will.

Kelly Molson: I love the idea of the Lates. I'm very excited and intrigued to find out what's happening there. But you are right, it's been difficult, isn't it? For attractions that are predominantly international tourists that come. That must have been really difficult for you. And I think it's wonderful that you've now got this program where you are encouraging people to come back. I'm definitely going to come back and-

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Brilliant.

Kelly Molson: And come and see the exhibition. I'm really excited to come and see that. And I'm going to bring my daughter.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yay.

Kelly Molson: For the first time. It'll be her first trip to London.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Really exciting.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I just think it is one of those places that you do go to as a child and there needs to be that continuation of why you should come back. So very excited to see.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: We just need to... As I say, we're obviously restricted with many... We don't have an outside space really. We can't just put exhibitions anywhere. We can't be as reactive as some can. We do what we can.

Kelly Molson: And do it beautifully as well.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh, thank you.

Kelly Molson: So I always ask our guests about a book that they love.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Now it can be something that you love. It can be something that's inspired you in your career. It can something that you love personally. What have you got to share with us today?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: I found this really tough, because I read all the time. And so choosing one book, I can't do that. So I came up with a couple and then I had to pair it down. So I've got the Night Circus by Erin Morgenstern, which is absolutely brilliant. And then anything by David Mitchell. But I decided that the one I would tell people they had to read and if they could win it, they should, was Life after Life by Kate Atkinson.

Kelly Molson: Oh, okay. I have not read this book. No.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It's a story of a girl Ursula, who is born in 1910 and it's the multitude of lives that she goes through. So every chapter she has a different life. And the first chapter she isn't born and it goes all the way through, it goes through two world wars, where things happen to her or don't happen to her.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: And she begins to have this memory of what her life was. And she takes herself out of certain situations. And I just love it because it's this idea of... It's almost if you take that turn, that doesn't happen, but something else happens. And Kate Atkinson writes absolutely beautifully. So it's a really lovely book to read, just to think about, maybe if I'd opened that door I would've been over here, but here I am.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I like that. It's got arching back a little bit to our little time-traveling question there at the beginning as well, isn't it?

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It is a bit, isn't it? I told you.

Kelly Molson: A little trick to travel through history. Well, as ever listeners, if you want to win Sandra's book, if you go over to our literature account and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words "I want Sandra's book", then you will be in with a chance of winning it.

Kelly Molson: It's been so lovely to have you on today. Thank you for sharing what I can imagine. And I felt it while you were talking, a very emotional and very challenging time. And so I'm very grateful that you were open to sharing that with us today, but I'm really excited about what's coming next with St. Paul's. And I think that there's lots of good things to be really, really positive about. And I'm looking forward to coming to see them.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Oh, looking forward to seeing you, it's going to be an exciting summer. We saw some international tourists yesterday, so it's all going to be okay.

Kelly Molson: They're back.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: They're back.

Kelly Molson: The world is open.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: It's all right.

Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Thanks so much, Sandra.

Sandra Lynes Timbrell: Thanks so 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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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 March 31st 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

Alex Robertson leads global advocacy for the Scotch whisky portfolio and a team of 60 international and graduate ambassadors.

www.linkedin.com/in/alexrrobertson

Scotch Watch on YouTube

Scotch Watch uncovering whisky one story and one dram at a time.

To register for future Scotch Watch live shows,  follow Alex on Instagram at @dramgoodlife

www.chivasbrothers.com

www.chivasgraduates.com

Now accepting applications for roles starting in Summer 2021.

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. 

In today's episode, I speak with Alex Robertson, Head of Heritage and Education and International Graduate Programme and Archives at Chivas Brothers. Alex leads global advocacy for the Scotch whisky portfolio and a team of 60 international and graduate ambassadors. 

We discuss the superb program of digital audience engagement that Chivas Brothers developed during lockdown, and how that's gained them a global audience with viewers from over 30 different countries every episode.  If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the YouTube channels by searching Skip the Queue. 

Kelly Molson: Alex, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast today. I'm super excited that you've come on because we actually know each other. But that does not mean that Alex gets away without doing the icebreaker questions. So my first icebreaker question. What is top of your bucket list? 

Alex Robertson: That's an outstanding question because part of the reason that I took this job is because I had such a passion for travel. And since taking it more than a decade ago, I've visited more than 60 countries around the world. 60 countries. I guess it's something that would really challenge me. I guess it's something that I feel that would conquer a fear. And I have an astonishing fear of heights because as a child I was repeatedly rescued from the school roof, from the local university crossed the roof of my house. 

Alex Robertson: So I think it would need to be something that challenged that like skydiving or climbing Mount Everest, something really off the scale because I've certainly got a job that allows me to address those bucket list challenges of visiting places you would never go for your two-week break in the summer. 

Kelly Molson: You chose a really good profession for travel to combine your passions. 

Alex Robertson: Yes, it was part of the motivation, Kelly. I love travel. And a journalist had the opportunity to travel, albeit under very different circumstances, whether that was to Sri Lanka after the tsunami or whether it was to Italy to cover the G8 summit. And part of the motivation, in addition to a real passion for Scotch, was to see the world and to travel to wonderful places, from Serbia to India to Kazakhstan and Ukraine. And do you know? The one lesson I take away is that you can see these wonderful places but what makes a country is its people. And that's what you remember most of all. Wonderful. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I completely agree with you. It's all about when you travel, it's about immersing yourself into the culture and the people that are there, not just the place that you're at. I just want to go back to your fear, because... So you have a fear of heights. What on Earth were you doing on your school roof if you have a fear of heights? 

Alex Robertson: I loved climbing. I absolutely loved climbing. So I specifically remember, as a child, one of my earliest memories, was climbing up the drainpipe of my school roof, an old-style school just outside Glasgow, and then getting to the top and thinking, what am I going to do now? And that happened repeatedly. So that's what's informed the fear of heights today. So for example, I can't even go up the Arc de Triomphe. At all. So I need to stay below while my family enjoys the views from above. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. Now I know, Alex, that you're a really big music fan. You might not have ever thought about the answer to this question, though. So if you were a WWF wrestler, what would be your entrance song? 

Alex Robertson: Oh, that's superb, I love it. I love a deadline. I oversee deadlines the same day. And I remember a colleague of mine saying, "We need to have Europe played through the tannoy when a deadline's coming, Final Countdown, to pump everyone up." Or I think it would need to be Eye of the Tiger, you know? 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. 

Alex Robertson: Do you remember that? That was in Rocky, I think. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Brilliant. 

Alex Robertson: Something old school that really gets us going. 

Kelly Molson: I like that. Eye of the Tiger was my running song. And it was always my five-mile song. Because if I could get past five miles, I knew that I was going to get back home, which was the eight-mile loop that I was doing. So that's a good song. 

Alex Robertson: That's a great... Do you know my running song is Gorillaz, which is Melancholy Hill. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, nice. 

Alex Robertson: It just really keeps you driving, and it gives you a little bit of push when you need it. 

Kelly Molson: I like it. That's a good song, as well. This is my last icebreaker question before I do the unpopular opinion, which I love. So what is your weakest claim to fame? 

Alex Robertson: Oh, goodness. Well, you know what? I'm a huge fan of Six Music, BBC Six Music. And Shaun Keaveny has a great slot in that which is called the Small Claims Court. And I was actually on that. And I've called in before. So my small claim was that at some point, it would have probably been the late 90s, and I was interviewing on Rudolph Giuliani's broken window theory in Glasgow. You know, that if you tackle vandalism and that type of thing, then that prevents more serious crimes. And I was walking through Glasgow and a limousine pulled up, and Cher was inside it. And they sort of spoke to me and said hello. And my claim to fame is that actually, Cher was trying to pick me up at that point. 

Alex Robertson: And I'm not sure if that's a direct link. Another minor one is that I once shared a jacuzzi with Brian Gecksa at a family holiday park in the north of England. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. That's so impressive. The Cher one has blown my mind. Wow. 

Alex Robertson: Yeah. Yeah. I remember saying to Shaun Keaveny, and it wasn't my joke, actually, it was his producer's, but I said, "If you could turn back time, what would you do?" I think I ran away. I was terrified. 

Kelly Molson: That's a terrible, terrible dad joke. 

Alex Robertson: It is. It is. 

Kelly Molson: Awful, that joke. Okay. Thank you for sharing, that was awesome. Tell me your unpopular opinion. So something that you believe to be true that hardly anyone agrees with you on. 

Alex Robertson: Actually, one that my wife permanently disagrees with me on is I believe if you add vinegar to chips it reduces the fat because you're adding acid, therefore if makes them healthy. 

Kelly Molson: Hmm. 

Alex Robertson: But no one's bought into it. No one. 

Kelly Molson: I'm not sure about that one, but I'm going to try it the next time I want chips. My partner is on a super, super health kick at the moment. So chips, they're not in our house. Maybe I could convince him with the vinegar trick. 

Alex Robertson: I think that science proves it. I think it's that acid breaks down fat. I'm sure of it. 

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. 

Alex Robertson: I'm absolutely sure of it. In fact, I should have Googled it beforehand to at least support my argument. Same as I should have Googled was Cher actually in Glasgow in the late 90s, or was I just imagining it? You can't tell. We'll never know. 

Kelly Molson: It's a mystery, and it should stay a mystery, I think, Alex. 

Alex Robertson: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Amazing, thank you. So Alex and I, just as a caveat, we do know each other. We have worked on a number of projects together for Chivas. But I had a little look back over your career and, oh my gosh, it's really impressive. And I actually didn't know this about you. That Alex has been a crime reporter, a BBC journalist, an international brand ambassador, and now he's Head of Heritage and Education and the International Grads Programme and Archives at Chivas Brothers. 

Kelly Molson: Honestly, Alex, if at some point someone says to me, "You know that Alex Roberts? He's only an international spy," I would believe it. 

Alex Robertson: I'm going to tell you something really interesting. So I studied European politics. I went to university to study English and become an English teacher. That was my plan. And I studied European politics because it was a huge passion of mine. I think it was the time of the Maastricht Treaty in the early 90s, a really important time for European politics. And I can't believe 30 years later how much that's changed. 30 years, Kelly, can you believe it? That sounds bizarre to speak in those terms. And I believe in following our passions. And I do follow my passions from journalism to Scotch whisky. I was a journalist for ten years. 

Alex Robertson: But I have an uncle who is absolutely convinced that I work in the international stage for a government agency of one type or another. Absolutely convinced. 

Kelly Molson: I can see that. I can see why, though. You're like a man of travel, slightly mysterious, with a journalistic background. I can see that. 

Alex Robertson: Well, he mentions it every time we see him. He's deadly serious. He sort of just nods a wink and says, "I know what you're up to.", you know? 

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. Well, tell him that I agree with him now. He'll probably go [inaudible 00:08:43] at you next time. 

Alex Robertson: Yep. 

Kelly Molson: I want to know, this transition from crime reporter, journalist to brand ambassador, what was it that made you make that switch? Because it's incredibly different.

Alex Robertson: Yeah. There were a couple of reasons, and also, they're very alike in many ways. I'd spent nearly a decade as a journalist, and much of that on radio. I absolutely adore radio and congratulations on the podcast, this is just superb. I love the spoken word, without sounding ridiculous. And I'd worked freelance for a long time with The Big Issue. Which you know, and was lucky enough there to win The Amnesty International Prize for Human Rights Reporting. I was passionate about asylum seekers and refugees relocating in Glasgow. 

Alex Robertson: I worked for the Scotland Sunday and Sport because I loved football, without sounding like an absolute cliché. And I used to work the crime beat in Glasgow, too and then moved to the BBC which, to use a football analogy, if you're a journalist, it's the only team that you ever want to play for. And I spent a couple of very happy years at the BBC working on website reporting, working on the radio bulletins and, occasionally, on television. And do you know what? Journalism was changing. I could see the writing on the wall for journalism. 

Alex Robertson: The opportunity to travel, which I'd done previously, I earlier mentioned going to Sri Lanka to cover the tsunami. I mentioned going to Genoa to cover the G8 summit. The real passion for travel and getting out and really identifying stories on the ground and working on stories, that opportunity was diminishing. And many more stories were being written from press copy or agency copy at your desk. And I could really see the writing on the wall for the future of journalism. I'm delighted to see that, actually, there still are tons of them. Many fine journalists out there today in Glasgow, in the UK, and internationally, especially at these crucial times of whether it's Brexit, COVID, or the US elections. 

Alex Robertson: And there are people doing a great job. And I wanted something else. I felt I'd taken that as far as I could. I had a huge passion for Scotch, I had a huge passion for travel, and the international brand ambassador role just seemed absolutely perfect. And I joined that 2008, I think. And I think my first trip was to China. Never been to Shanghai before. And traveled throughout China, and then moved to India and never looked back. As I say, that's more than 60 countries since. 

Alex Robertson: I also had a very small whisky club in Glasgow that... It's a feminist theory that when men get together they form clubs. And that's certainly what happened. But it was a very diverse club. And I remember walking into the Pot Still bar in Glasgow, I don't know if you've been there, Kelly...

Kelly Molson: No. 

Alex Robertson: But it's an amazing bar. You walk in, there's about 500 whiskies on the wall. And I thought, how do I begin to understand that? But given the similarities, it's still about presentation, it's just still about structure, it's about engaging people, it's about inspiring people, all of which you also did as a journalist. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Absolutely. And actually, it's the engaging of people that I want to talk a little bit more about. But there's something that I kind of need to talk about, the visitor centres that you've been part of, initially. Because obviously this podcast is for people that work in the visitor attraction world, or work with the visitor attraction world. But I think from some of the things that Chivas have been bringing out during the pandemic, there's some really key learnings that we can take from that that translate across.

Kelly Molson: But I want to talk a little bit about the Malt Whisky Distilleries. So Aberlour, Scapa, Strathisla, and The Glenlivet. They have been closed at certain points during the pandemic because, of course, they haven't been able to have visitors into the centres. How were you able to adapt the centres during the COVID pandemic? What happened there? 

Alex Robertson: You know, I see visitor centres as the beating heart of communities, you know? And Scotch whisky is not only a passion for what I do, it's a pride in what we do, because we've got 10,000 jobs directly employed by the Scotch whisky industry here, and 40,000 indirectly. There's an incredible impact on communities. And, as all your listeners will know, the visitor centre is where your story comes alive. Sometimes I used to say, "If you enter The Glenlivet, just being there was enough.", you know? The sounds, the sights, the smells. It made the hairs on your neck stand up. It's an amazing experience. 

Alex Robertson: And then comes along COVID, and all of that closes. And this is where you experience our Scotch whiskies. This is where you understand their heritage, their craftsmanship, their flavour. And now the priority, of course, was making sure the stills continued to run. That was number one. And Chivas Brothers implemented an industry-leading safe system of work to ensure that that could continue to happen in the most extreme circumstances, at the height of this pandemic. And also came to the aid of communities. It produced, I think, 160,000 litres of hand sanitiser and made 300 contact-free deliveries. Becoming social care providers to charities. 

Alex Robertson: In May, Chivas Brothers became the NHS Scotland's first pro bono hand sanitiser supplier. So a great effort. It was all about protecting our communities and ensuring the stills continued to run. So that was number one. And then you're absolutely right. As Head of Heritage and Education, I had to look at this and say, okay, we bring in tens of thousands of people a year. My specific role is to bring in our trade guests from all over the world and take them to a beautiful house, which you've been to, and...

Kelly Molson: Yes, it is very beautiful. 

Alex Robertson: Show them around the distilleries. And I think it demonstrated that there was an opportunity. Suddenly we realised there was an opportunity to reach people through digital advocacy. And very quickly, I turned around a digital plan which would centre on Scotch whisky education in the Scotch Whisky Academy. This would address a thirst for knowledge, but within our business, because that was important. We also want employees to be engaged during this, Kelly, it wasn't just about the visitors. And then engage a global audience. 

Alex Robertson: And I would say the key learning is that we've actually extended our reach beyond those numbers that we would normally engage. We've got a much greater footprint, albeit digitally. And looking to the future, I would say that we will always place physical activations hand in hand with digital activations. And they will always go together from here on in once we can open again. And, of course, the distilleries are, the brand homes are open. I can tell you more about that. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right. And that's something that I have been thinking more and more of over the past few months, about at some point we will go back to normal. A version of normality. But all of these incredible things that have happened means that our reach for visitors and our reach for people that we can educate and get our brand in front of, has just expanded. And I don't want people to kind of go back to the old ways. I think like you say, it has to work really hand in hand. One of the things I really want to talk about it, Scotch Watch. 

Kelly Molson: So this is one of the things that has come out of the pandemic, in terms of your digital plan. And I think it's wonderful. I want you to explain what Scotch Watch is for us. And how did you come up with the idea? How did this happen?

Alex Robertson: I think Scotch Watch was important because there were a couple of drivers, I think. And it's amazing how we were able to learn from others, too, and see how others were prepared for digital in terms of offering virtual tours and so on. Scotch Watch had a couple objectives. The first was actually to meet the makers, the people behind our Scotch whiskies, in a very informal setting. And second, on digital, we know that seven percent of a presentation is what we say. The other 93 percent is our body language, it's how we interact, it's our tone, it's how we look, it's how we shape our conversation. But all of that vanishes on digital. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Alex Robertson: So I wanted to create something that was much more informal in nature, that took us away from the traditional pillars of heritage, craftsmanship, and flavor, and actually brought through the personalities of those involved. That gave an opportunity to meet the people who have decades of experience and real passion for Scotch whisky, and also showcase some great new whiskies and demonstrate that the work of Scotch whisky, the work of Chivas Brothers, The Glenlivet, Chivas Regal, Aberlour is very much still going on. 

Alex Robertson: Now, the idea wasn't mine. Although I'm perfectly happy to claim it. And the idea was our master blender, our director of blending, Sandy Hyslop, my co-host on the show. So he approached me and said, "Listen, what can we do here? We're doing the Academy, we know that we know we're supporting, mentoring globally. We've reached 3,000 people in three months. Incredible reach. What else can we do?" He said, "I want it on a show, on Zoom, weekly, or on other platforms, where we just informally have a chat." 

Alex Robertson: Sandy's a huge antiques collector, he's a watch collector. He wanted to talk about watches, he wanted to talk about... I'm a huge music fan, I wanted to get music in there. And then we would have a studio guest and we would just talk about whisky. And we had a great session recently where we went live to an ambassador of Poland, Anna. We had our brand manager Hannah in the Ballantine's team in London. And just the dynamic shows a real passion behind Scotch. We moved to a monthly show, and do you know what? We've already reached more than 30 countries. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. 

Alex Robertson: In that time. And more than 500 people. And this is just the start for Scotch Watch. I want to... We've now got it on YouTube, we'll have events every Thursday, they can just find out more on Instagram, my handle is at DramGoodLife. But I want to take it further and have Instagram lives. But really, it's an informal look at Scotch whisky, Kelly, so that's a very long-winded answer for you. 

Kelly Molson: I loved it. So I watched the last episode, I watched the October edition. And I think it's where you unveiled the new Ballantine's 7 Bourbon Finish. Now, I'm very appreciative of whisky, but I wouldn't call myself a whisky connoisseur. I've got a gin bar in my house, not a whisky bar. Sorry. But what I found really engaging, and it goes back to what you were saying earlier about being a storyteller and having that kind of connection with brands. I loved how each person on the webinar spoke really passionately about not only the whisky but something that was personal to them that was connected to the whisky. 

Kelly Molson: So, for instance, you mentioned Sandy being a big vintage collector. Now he took the whisky, and he associated the whisky with an item. He had a stopwatch. A beautiful, beautiful vintage pocket watch, sorry, a pocket watch. And he talked about it in terms of how that connected with the whisky itself, and then you spoke about a song, a record, that you connected with the whisky. And I loved that. Even for someone that's not a huge, huge lover of whisky, I really related to those things, because actually, I'm a big music fan, and actually, I really love vintage pieces. 

Kelly Molson: And then your, I think it was Hannah, the brand ambassador, brand manager, sorry. She spoke about a book that connected with it as well. And I thought, "I love all of these things." And it really made me feel a connection to the brand that I probably wouldn't have got previously if I'd have just seen it on a shelf or if you'd talked about it in some way. It felt very, very personal. 

Alex Robertson: I think that's a great observation, thank you. Because, again, it's how do you establish an emotional connection online? That's the challenge we're all facing. How do we bring to life these great distilleries and these great whiskies when, actually, we're on the celebrity squares of Zoom? And people are at home. And you've got to make that emotional connection because we all have it. And the second point is that, actually, whisky is accessible, you know? The most significant change I've seen in the past decade is the emergence and the rise of whisky cocktails. Superb. I love it. 

Alex Robertson: And I believe if you're going to make whisky accessible, then you can pair it with music. Because you can follow the rhythm of music in the high flavour notes and the low flavor notes of whisky. You can pair it with your favourite pocket watch, you can pair it with dinner. It's so accessible. And if we're doing that, if we're making whisky accessible, and someone sitting at home's saying... Actually, it was interesting, we had Jenna Mariwan who was a The Glenlivet ambassador on the previous episode, The Glenlivet is number one in the US. And I said, "Listen, what is it that makes The Glenlivet unique? What is it makes people in the US passionate about it?" And she said, "Because it's for people like me." 

Alex Robertson: And that's what I want the emotional connection to be when they watch, just as you said, Kelly. If you watch Scotch Watch and you go, "You know what? This is for me. I don't feel excluded from this, I feel part of this."

Kelly Molson: Yeah. That's exactly the feeling that I got from it. When I started watching it I thought, "Is this for me? Yes, I appreciate whisky, yes I work in a whisky world, but is this really for me?" And within ten minutes I thought, "This is absolutely for me." It really got me right here. And I really enjoyed that, at the end, it was Anna who took us through making an old fashioned. I was like, "Great, I could do this." And, again, it felt really easy, it felt really accessible. And that, for me, is the biggest part of building that audience engagement, is that you're making it for that person. 

Kelly Molson: I felt like you and Sandy were talking directly to me that evening. And there was a lot of people on that call. You were getting a lot of questions. But it really felt like you were connecting with me individually, and that is what's so important about the engagement level. It's really...

Alex Robertson: Yeah, that's wonderful, thank you. And I think that's the challenge, because for all of us, because people are at a laptop all day now, at home, too. And we're calling on them to then join us on the laptops again. There's no change of scenery. And that's a real challenge. How do we work against, shall we say, online fatigue? Is that a risk? Because I guess none of us predicted this still to be running. This started in March, you know? It's now December. 

Kelly Molson: What was nice, and obviously I didn't have the ingredients to do it, but I thought what would be nice is that actually, I could make that cocktail while you were doing it. So there's maybe that level of interaction is what differentiates it from your day. Where you've spent all day on Zoom calls. Actually, when you're doing something as well, it doesn't then feel like just another Zoom call. You've got that level of interactivity. Which I guess, is that something else that Chivas are now doing? Your virtual tastings, for example. That's something quite new. 

Alex Robertson: Yeah. We had to try this carefully. So the other brand homes, they did a great job of opening up safely to allow people to come in and taste whisky. And given the current restrictions, that's now been moved outdoors, though Speyside can be lovely in winter. If you come and visit. 

Kelly Molson: It's beautiful, but a tad chilly. 

Alex Robertson: So we had to move very, very quickly to an online advocacy strategy. And I built that, essentially, on three pillars. And one beauty was that you could get to meet people that you wouldn't normally get to. Or makers could, instead of having to travel across the globe and spend a week, all I needed of their time was an hour. Which is a complete game-changer. Our distiller's Alan Winchester, our blender's Sandy Hyslop. 

Alex Robertson: So the first thing we launched was our Scotch Whisky Academy, to address a real thirst for knowledge internationally. And that's been a huge success. It's now running every single week. And you can come on, you can attend three sessions, and you can learn all about Scotch whisky. Heritage, craftsmanship, flavour. What makes it unique. And that has been an enormous success. And that's largely been to an internal audience and customers. Our challenge now in 2021 is how do we take that, in partnership with our visitor centres, to the public? Because we know people want to engage. 

Alex Robertson: And then the second part is we've had a great amount of activity. We've launched Ballantine's 7 Bourbon Finish, as you said. We've launched The Glenlivet Spectra and Caribbean Cask. We have a new Chivas Regal 13 range, extra. And we've been supporting that internationally. And the team are working incredibly hard every single week, hosting sessions from the US to Canada to South America, all across Europe, as far afield as Australia. And we are doing that every single week to customers and consumers. We're reaching a much broader audience. 

Alex Robertson: And in addition to that, I have a team of about 50 graduate ambassadors in 27 countries, each and every country at a different stage of this pandemic. And they have responded just quite brilliantly to this. And my recommendation to everyone, bring energy to it. Bring creativity to it. Create dynamic content. And have people who understand the medium. Which is a challenge, because this is a brave new world for us all. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It absolutely is. And just touching on the graduates that you spoke about, for them and the world that they live in, this has not been as challenging for them. They live their lives relatively digitally, so for some people, this has been a huge, huge, huge change, but for them, actually, the assumption is that they've dealt pretty well with this. 

Alex Robertson: Yes. Yes. Superbly well. I can't praise them highly enough. Of course, they're a digital generation. They don't know a time where they didn't have that access to social and digital. So they're able to drive content. But what they've managed to do is create engaging content and have actually been creative in the process. They've brought energy to this for us. And actually, at a very difficult time for them. The majority are far from home during a pandemic. And often in a lockdown. Then have been creating cocktails online, have a look at Chivas graduates on Instagram, you'll see them. We've been engaging local bartenders, have been supporting their own trade. They have the consumers, they've been doing really creative videos online. Really, really proud of them, an incredible effort. 

Alex Robertson: But the lesson for us all is how do we bring creativity and energy? And for us, it was also how do we get the glass in hand? How to look definitely at e-commerce, too. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's right, actually. Chivas has been through... There was a lot of e-commerce stores that have launched through the lockdown, which is actually, it's quite a new thing, isn't it? There's not been a real focus on direct sales through the brands. 

Alex Robertson: You know, Kelly, it's really interesting, I don't know what you think yourself, but people really had to rethink this. And I don't want to say that I don't know if we were all well-prepared for digital advocacy because you place such value on physical interaction, and rightly so. But I think it had to make us think differently. You know, if someone came to a whisky tasting that I was hosting in Mumbai, we knew the whisky was there on the table. If we were launching an international Scotch Watch from Scotland, how are we going to get that whisky into their hand? 

Alex Robertson: And that became the challenge, you're right. We had to link it, because, let's be honest, we have to build a benefit to all of this. And the way to do that is through e-commerce. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think it's worked beautifully. And, actually, the speed and the turnaround that things have been able to happen and to launch during this time is testament to the people that you've got in your team, as well. Coming to the end of the podcast interview, I've got a couple of extra questions I'd like to ask you. I think, really, it's what's next. You've done an incredible job. Scotch Watch I genuinely think is just such a fantastic thing. And I really, really hope that it continues. But what can you see that's coming next for the brands? 

Alex Robertson: Yeah. I had almost planned to first of January. And what we need to do is get back to physical activations when it's safe to do so. That's engaging people face to face, inspiring them on our Scotch whiskies. The Glenlivet, Chivas, Aberlour, Ballantine's, and Royal Salute. But I still think that is some way off. Great news that a vaccine appears to be in the pipeline for the spring. So in the meantime, we need to look at how we raise to another level. I've almost seen this, that we established the base with our Scotch Whisky Academy, we created another level with Scotch Watch and the renovation support, looking at the new whiskies we were launching. 

Alex Robertson: But I think the challenge for 2021 is really how do we continue to impact globally with Scotch whisky aficionados and Scotch whisky novices? And we really engage them, both with our Scotch Academy, linking in our Scotch Whisky Academy to our brand homes. The Glenlivet Academy. There's a great prospect. 

Kelly Molson: Wow. Yeah. It is. 

Alex Robertson: What a great prospect. How do we continue to excite, inspire, engage people creatively? And I'm going to be honest, that's a job I'm doing now. It's really a bit... We're almost planning day by day, week by week at the moment. But I'm excited we can respond, we're about to recruit 20 new Scotch whisky ambassadors for 2021, which is amazing news...

Kelly Molson: Fabulous.

Alex Robertson: It shows you the confidence that Chivas Brothers has in Scotch whisky in the future. Our markets are confident. Our countries, I deal with about 30 countries around the world. They are confident, they have strong rebound plans, and we know that advocacy, ambassadorial work, both physically and digitally, will absolutely be at the heart of it. I'm optimistic about 2021. 

Kelly Molson: This is a lovely, positive way to end the podcast, Alex. Thank you. I have to say, the grad scheme that Chivas have, it's phenomenal. And I know that every year, you are completely overwhelmed with applicants for it. So we've got a little bit of a scoop there, that that's coming out soon. But you've got a really hard task ahead of you, I'm sure, because this year I'm positive that you'll be completely inundated when those come out. What we'll do is all of the things that we've discussed today and all of the links to everything that we've talked about will be in the show notes. So we'll have links to Scotch Watch, we'll have links to the Ambassadors website. We'll have links to everything that you can go and look at. 

Kelly Molson: We always end the podcast by asking our guests if they have a book that they would recommend? Something that they love or something that has helped shape their career in some way over the years? Have you got one you can share with us? 

Alex Robertson: Wow. I read a lot and lost track as I get old. Which I've touched on a few times, the passage of time. As he buys time to answer. I actually, in a professional sense, I listen to podcasts as often as possible. I'm a huge fan of Dr. Rangan Chatterjee, I don't know if you...

Kelly Molson: Okay. 

Alex Robertson: He wrote The Four Pillars of Health. And I listen to that a lot because I really believe it's important to bring balance to our lives in everything that we do, whether that's in diet, sleep, exercise, and digital. In fact, really fascinated by the impact of digital technology on our experiences at the moment, too. I guess the book that's always had a lasting impact on me is East of Eden by John Steinbeck. 

Kelly Molson: Great. 

Alex Robertson: Is number one. The sheer scale of it, the sheer drama, the way he paints colour throughout it. The emotion contained in the book. The generations which it spans. It's incredible, and I'd recommend it to everyone. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. That is a superb book. Now, as ever, we offer your book as a prize to our guests. So if you'd like to win a copy of this book, then if you head over to our Twitter account, it's just Skip the Queue. And if you retweet this episode announcement saying, "I want Alex's book," then you will be in a chance of winning it. 

Kelly Molson: Alex, it's been an absolute pleasure to have you on today. Thank you so much for your time. Now, it's just after 11 in the morning, but I think the only way to end this podcast, unfortunately with my cup of tea, is to say Slange Var.

Alex Robertson: Yes, Slange Var. Thank you, it's been an 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. 

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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?

• How the Sampson family transformed Broxbourne Zoo (known for being one of the worst zoos in the country) into Hertfordshire's number one tourist attraction, Paradise Wildlife Park.
• What Lynn's role as Director entails
• How the park prioritises education through different events and partnerships
• What the team's brainstorming process looks like and how they choose ideas
• How the park uses feedback to improve their offerings
• The importance of conservation to zoos and aquariums
• The value of bloggers, vloggers and video content
• Lynn's approach to fundraising

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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.

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 SkiptheQueue.fm.

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  or Bluesky for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.

Competition ends on 5th February 2025. The winner will be contacted via Bluesky.

Show references:

Website: https://www.agility-marketing.co.uk/

https://www.agility-marketing.co.uk/service/digital-advertising-survey/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-dimes-agility/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anitaagility/

Liz Dimes is a Digital Marketing Director for visitor attraction specialist, Agility Marketing and the lead behind their digital advertising and conversion optimisation strategies. She boasts over a decade of experience in delivering tangible results. With a relentless drive for results she has steered impressive returns for clients across the attraction industry.

Anita Waddell is MD and founder of Agility Marketing, visitor attraction marketing specialists.  Anita has been a Visit England judge, currently sits on the BALPPA Management  Committee and looked after the National Farm Attraction Network during Covid.

Anita fell in love with the sector during her first ever marketing role at London Zoo.   Having always worked in the attraction sector, she founded Agility at the start of the millennium.  In total, across her career she has worked with over 70 attractions.

With a passion for digital and data driven marketing, she adores seeing clients get results and enjoys mentoring her team to deliver winning campaigns.

Transcription: 

Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden. For many regional attractions, the Head of Marketing is a one person marketing machine expected to be all over digital, email, social and out of home advertising. 

In today's episode we're joined by Anita Waddell and Liz Dimes from Agility Marketing who'll be sharing insights from their attraction marketing academy to help power up your marketing in 2025. After starting her career in attractions marketing at London Zoo, Anita has run Agility Marketing for over years, working with clients like Camel Creek and Blackgang Chine. 

Liz is the expert behind Agility Marketing's digital advertising and conversion optimization strategies, having found her love for visitor attractions when joining Agility in 2017. 

Paul Marden: Liz, Anita, welcome. Skip the Queue. 

Anita Waddell: Thank you. 

Liz Dimes: Great to be here. 

Paul Marden: So this is not our first episode of the new year, but it's the first episode we're recording in the new year. And as I was saying before we started, my rule is that I can still say Happy New Year up until the end of January as long as it's the first time I've said Happy New Year to somebody. So Happy New Year to both of you. 

Liz Dimes: Happy New Year to you. 

Anita Waddell: Happy New Year. 

Paul Marden: As you know, we always get started with an icebreaker question. So I've got a couple of little icebreakers for you and they are topical, relevant to where we are right now. So I'm going to go with Liz. Which is better, Christmas Day or New Year's Day? 

Liz Dimes: Christmas Day. Although I must admit I prefer the run up to Christmas than the actual day. 

Paul Marden: Oh, okay. So it's the excitement of going out and doing all the prep and the present wrapping and yeah.

Liz Dimes: Christmas trees, pretty lights, shiny things. Excitement. But yes, I think I'd definitely choose Christmas Day over New Year's Day. 

Paul Marden: It's funny, isn't it? Because we'll split. I'm definitely Christmas. Much more Christmas than New Year's. I'm quite happy on New Year's to be sat watching hootenanny on telly while I'm going out and doing a big go out and party with lots of people. 

Liz Dimes: But absolutely, I agree.

Paul Marden: my age, but there we go. Anita, do you chuckle the Christmas decorations and the lights into a box and throw it into the loft or are you Ms. Neat and everything is neatly folded and packaged away ready for future Anita to thank you and be able to do everything easily next week? 

Anita Waddell: I would love to say I was the latter, but having done that on Sunday, I think it's more about getting them away in a box and deal with the problem next year. So, yes, so, yeah, I aspire to be the neat queen, but unfortunately it is just, yeah, time takes its toll and it's a matter of getting the job done. 

Paul Marden: There's a real spread in our house. Mrs. Marden is tidy it away as fast as you can. I will sit there literally for hours straightening all of the out and making sure that it's right. And then next year you can figure out who was responsible for the packing away because you could just see it straight in front of you. 

Liz Dimes: I saw a recommendation the other day, actually, that you should put sort of £20 or something in with your Christmas decorations so when you get them out next year, you can buy yourself a takeaway while you're sorting them out from last year's. You. I didn't do it, but I thought that was a brilliant idea. 

Paul Marden: So I came back to work on Monday and I went. All the stuff from the office was all packed away and I went to put it in the storage locker and we share our storage with the building owners and I just found the Christmas tree stuck in the cupboard fully decorated and I think, is that really putting the decorations? Is that really taking it down? Have you broken the rules or is ihat really a cunning plan?

Anita Waddell: That's one way of doing with it, isn't it? Definitely. 

Paul Marden: Exactly. Look, we have got lots to talk about, but first tell me about yourselves and tell me about your background. Anita, tell me a little bit about you. 

Anita Waddell: I suppose visitor attractions has always been my thing, ever since my first marketing job, which was at London Zoo many years ago, I caught the bug really. But I suppose I was at London Zoo. I was very. They weren't in the strong financial situation, so there was actually a recruitment ban. So I was a young aspiring marketeer who joined the company. And as everybody who was experienced and worried about their own career path left, I just absorbed their role. So over the spate of three years I had a huge amount of experience and from there then left to become a marketing manager of a much smaller attraction. 

Anita Waddell: And having doubled their numbers from, you know, up to over 200, 000 over a year, I suddenly thought, hold on a minute, I actually, this is really fun industry and something that's actually, I can do okay. So from there I went on and ended up working for an agency myself who were specialists in visitor attractions. And then 20 years ago I thought, “Well, hold on a minute, maybe I should try this for myself. Maybe I can have my own agency.” I thought, “What's the worst that can happen?” I just have to go back and do the day job again. So over those years more people have joined me. I've got three cracking directors, really good senior leadership team and Agility now is a visitor attraction marketing agency. 

Paul Marden: Amazing. How about you, Liz, how did you get into this industry? 

Liz Dimes: Well, I started in a very different interest. I did an automotive and I started doing more PR than marketing definitely, but it just wasn't. I enjoyed it a lot and I learned a lot about cars but it wasn't really my passion so I sort of left and thought I'm going to try something else. I was more interested in learning about the digital marketing as that was really starting to kick off in the world at that point. So I got a digital marketing role at a business school which was near to where I live, which is very different. And I really started to get the bug for the digital marketing aspect and just in general enjoyed learning more and more and more about that. 

Liz Dimes: But the whole sort of B2B business school side, little bit dull for me if I'm totally honest. So. And actually that business all got sold to another one so I was made redundant at that point. So it gave me a little bit of a chance to sort of sit back and go, right, what do I actually want to do? And digital marketing was definitely the thing, particularly sort of paid advertising for me. And that's when I found Anita and Agility Marketing and they happened to have the perfect role for me and that was in 2017 and then just loved the industry very quickly from joining and sort of have no intention of ever leaving it, to be honest. 

Paul Marden: It's super fun, isn't it? It's fun doing the marketing thing that we do in this particular space because it's all about helping people to enjoy themselves. 

Liz Dimes: So what could be more fun and families and I have a, I've got a five year old so I really in that moment at the moment, I'm my own target audience at the moment, which is always nice. 

Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things that Agility has recently done is set up the Attraction Marketing academy and I think today we're going to talk, not talk about that, but we're going to talk about some of the stuff that you cover in that academy. So why don't we just start by telling listeners a little bit potted understanding of what the Academy actually is so. 

Anita Waddell: I mean the Academy is what it says on the ting. It's a marketing academy for visitor attractions and it actually, the re. Where it came from was out of COVID Some obviously don't want to go back to Covid ever again. But during that time everyone was in survival mode and they really shared, they collaborated, they did everything they could to work with each other and once life got back to normal a bit more, that collaboration stopped. There wasn't the need for it but we really enjoyed sharing all of our knowledge and expertise during that time. So the Academy was really has really been born to allow us to continue to do that. So it is a visitor attraction masterclass I suppose. So we have pre recorded content, we have fresh content through live sessions monthly. 

Anita Waddell: We have ask me anything clinics so people can, our members can jump on board and say, look, you know, actually we had a brilliant ask me anything clinic in December where they were, were talking about events for one particular member for the forthcoming year and there were loads of fresh ideas that came out of that for her. So it is really providing that mentoring but also that detailed knowledge and expertise which all attractions, if you're a one man band, you don't necessarily have, you're having, you know, you have to be jack of all trades. So. So we're a helping hand really. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. I think it's really interesting, isn't it, that many of the attractions that we deal with are massively well known brands but actually when you look at the team behind it, they are more like a small business or small to medium sized business. They often don't have massive teams even though they're brands has massive recognition and you can often be quite surprised, can't you, that it is this kind of one person marketing machine at the centre of what is a really well known brand. It's quite surprising sometimes and I think the more we can do to support those people the better really. So why don't we delve a little bit into some of the stuff that the Academy covers and then we can talk a little bit about some of the ways that marketers can help improve their outcomes for this year ahead. 

Paul Marden: So one place to start is always about benchmarking. This is something that at Rubber Cheese we find really interesting and we care a lot about with our Rubber Cheese survey. But I think benchmarking and understanding where you are against the competition is not competition against the rest of the sector. I should say is really important because you can understand what good and bad is can't you? And this is something that you guys care quite a lot about as well, isn't it? 

Liz Dimes: Absolutely. It's really at the heart of everything we do for our clients. We benchmark with the industry. That's the brilliance really for us of working solely in the visitor attraction industry. We can really see what's the good, bad and ugly of all things marketing within that industry. So we recommend that you'd benchmark everything really. But obviously it depends on what you're doing. So you'd benchmark your socials, your emails, your website performance, your reviews, your paid advertising results, just anything you, anything that you collect data on for you. If you don't know whether that's good or bad, how do you know what you're looking at really with your data? 

Liz Dimes: So  you might see that this year you were 2% up on your last year's results and think, great, but if everyone else is 10% up, then actually maybe there's something key in there that you're missing that would really be a quick fix for you to do. And without knowing that it's impossible to do that, it really, I mean, the majority of the benchmarking we do is digital advertising because that's, it's 70% of our work for our clients. But as say we do benchmark across everything and by benchmarking we know that we can ensure that we're optimising well to make sure that we're achieving the best results possible for all our clients. And at the end of the day that's what we're here for and that's what we all do. 

Liz Dimes: I'm going to push this over to Anita a little bit, but it's because benchmarking is such a key thing for us. We've actually got a new initiative we're announcing now in January. So I'm going to let Anita do that. 

Paul Marden: Oh, come on then. Drum roll, Anita. 

Anita Waddell: Okay, so this spoilers. The inspiration of this came from Rubber Cheese and your website benchmarking for the visitor attraction sector. And we benchmark all the time. But actually we know that we work with 15 to 20 attractions across the year. But you know, the attraction sector is so much bigger. And what we wanted to do was launch an industry wide survey on digital advertising so people can identify how big their budget should actually be for digital advertising. What performance, what click through rate, what cost per acquisition, what cost per click is actually good and average across all of the platforms. For example, we know in our business a lot of our clients will use the Google search, Google performance match, Meta, TikTok. 

Anita Waddell: But we also know that when we start working with some attractions, they're only using Meta or they're only using Facebook. And so it's really just taking a broad brush of the sector to actually understand what is happening out there across whether it be theme parks, whether it be a heritage attraction, whether they're a zoo. Just a broad brush to really give something back to the sector. Like you've done with Rubber Cheese. Really. 

Paul Marden: I think it's so important, isn't it? Because paid advertising can be a bit scary for some people because it feels a little bit like you're gambling or it feels like a fruit machine. But I always think that it's a fruit machine where you can figure out the odds. And once you figure out the odds, you just have to decide how much money you can pump into the top of it and magically at the bottom money comes out in relation to the odds that you've calculated. But if you can across the sector. 

Anita Waddell: Yeah, exactly. I mean, the beauty of digital advertising is that it is, you know, there is a system and a process to it. So you know that you've got to get people to your website. You know you've got from the website, you need to get into your landing page at every stage of the journey. Coming back to benchmark working, you can identify what is working well and what actually can be tweaked to optimise it even further. And we've got clients now after Covid, there was with that when we focused purely on. Well, actually to be honest, during COVID there wasn't a lot of marketing going on at all because people were so desperate to get out the organic, social and email marketing could just cope with it. 

Anita Waddell: But then people came back and they started to do a lot more out of home. But now we're finding clients are actually saying this year in particular with the increased costs in the budget. Sure. We know we get a lot of, we know we get a lot from digital advertising. Shall we actually reduce our home budget and put more into digital advertising because it's more measurable and that confidence can be given. 

Paul Marden: We've all only got limited budgets and it's all about deciding where the best place to spend your money is. So, yeah, we'll come back to this benchmarking point a little bit later, I think, because I think is really important. But let's dive into some of the channels that marketers can use and talk about some tips and tricks across each of the channels. Maybe should we start with social? Is it important top attractions? I think you've already answered that. But how important? 

Liz Dimes: I guess I think it's very important. I think we all know that's where people spend their time at the moment. Depending on who you're. Because in general as a sort of blanket, a lot of the target audience for all attractions is very similar. But depending on where you are you a tourist destination, are you more of a regional destination, are you a heritage site, are you a zoo? It will depend. So. But most of those audiences are spending a lot of their time on socials. But because of that and because everyone knows that their concentration is much less, your competition is much higher. But you see, but you got to be there. If you're not there, you're not in with a chance. So it is, it's incredibly important and I think it's about what should your focus be. 

Liz Dimes: So actually if you are a one man band and you have a certain amount of hours in the day to do it, what are you going to focus on? Maybe pick two or three. So if you are going to pick two or three, I think at the moment you would pick Instagram, TikTok and Facebook, still. I know we all think Facebook is disappearing, but the grandparents take their grandchildren on these days out. 

Paul Marden: Exactly. And that landscape of the different social platforms was stable for a very long time, wasn't it? But it's changing quite a lot. So should you be on Twitter? Is it a scary place to be now? Should you be on Bluesky? But, but in you're saying TikTok still, Facebook, Instagram, those are the key places that you should be focusing attention. Probably. 

Liz Dimes: Absolutely. I think if you've got extra time, if you have extra resource, then absolutely test those extra platforms out and see where you've got. But actually if you're, if your time is limited, then focus on doing the best for the top platforms of where your audience are. And at the moment we believe, and all the data believes for that for our audiences it's Facebook, Instagram and TikTok. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. And, and what are the basics that you've got to be covering there? What should they be posting about? To be able to kind of meet the bar. 

Anita Waddell: I feel the key with social media is that you know you can, it's got to convey a message that is going to provide overall reason to visit. So you need to get your planning right. And so yes, you want to have different formats and you want to make the posts are not wallpaper posts and you want to make sure that the post you're saying are said. You know, the same message is said in three or four different ways but ultimately you know, you're trying to stimulate an action and whether that's just engagement at this stage, you know, people aren't necessarily going to visit immediately after seeing a post but if they engage then see more posts and over time when they do want, they do want that day out, you'll be in their, in their top of mind. 

Anita Waddell: So I think the key we always say is like no, make sure you get your planning right. Your, your commercial messages in January are going to be totally different to your commercial messages in Summer or Easter when you know, in January you might be thinking about we've got, we need a value, a volume driver promotion because people haven't got any money. We want you Season passes are always sold in the first few months of the year. So you want to make sure you've got some promotion, you've got your season pass messaging out there. So it is, you know, make sure you've got your planning and messages right and from there you can then be creative as you like. But you've got to make sure that you're saying the right thing. 

Paul Marden: Let's follow that thought. What are the special little sprinkles that people could do this year to really energise their social media? What is it that they can do to inject that creativity? 

Anita Waddell: I think different formats, I think, you know, you can say the same thing, overlook different formats to really make them zing. 

Liz Dimes: One of the things we're really seeing good trends on and again this does depend on who you have in your team. But if you've got a member in your team who is willing to be on camera and is entertaining, is witty, can be a bit different. There's, there's a few attractions that are doing this really well already. But if there's something about. So we all talk about user generated content and absolutely you should be sharing user generated content. You should be making your most of your micro influences and your. All that kind of thing. But actually there's sort of EGC which is Employee Generated Content as well. And I think a bit of behind the scenes is still works well. 

Liz Dimes: A bit of witty content from someone and if you' the right person who's willing to do it and has the great personality and is happy to be on screen, then please take advantage of that person. Really, please use it. Because also they'll probably really enjoy it. I mean, there's a number of attractions where I know because we've spoken to them, where they're sort of bit famous. So yeah, people go round, go and they spot them and they want to go and say hi to that person and that. And if it's the right person who's comfortable with that, they really enjoy that. Yeah, so if you've got that person, go for it. That's a real, it's a real trend at the moment that's working well. 

Paul Marden: Okay, let's move channels then. Let's talk about email marketing because interestingly, in the Rubber Cheese survey this year, the data that we had showed that this was the weakest source of leads for attractions. Now, as I always say when I talk about our data, you know, there's statistics involved and you know, what we know is about the data set that is in front of us. It's not always completely reflective of the entire sector. So is that illustrative of what you guys see as well or is it more effective than that for you? 

Anita Waddell: I think I would say that we measure our email marketing. We put UTM codes on all of our links so we can actually track effectively. I would probably say they're not seeing it either because they're not tracking it effectively and UTM codes are so easy to set up these days or they're not. You know, the end of the day, the emails is a channel of communication. So if your email says exactly the same thing every single month, you just need to, with your, with your programming. And I think programming is going to be such a big thing, continue to be such a big thing this year. You need to really stimulate that repeat business. Really stimulate, give people a reason to revisit it. Your email marketing needs to be saying something different every single time. 

Anita Waddell: Otherwise people will just get bored with it. So I would say it's those two things. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. So it's all about keeping the faith. It is a valuable channel. You should focus on it. But you need to be able to have all of the tracking in place so that you can attribute the leads to that source and then a decent story to tell that's going to engage people. 

Anita Waddell: The only other thing I would say is that, and I don't. I think most people have got their heads around this now. But GDPR, when it came out, everyone was terrified of not getting, you know, you can only email people if you get an opt in. Well that's correct. That's one method of consent. But with legitimate interest, if they visited you already then you've got a reason to remarket to them as long as your Privacy Policy is correct and you've your, your everything else. So I think that's why some people go out. Some people are, we're amazed when we start conversations that they still are asking people to opt in and not using legitimate interest. So that could be another reason why in your survey results they were a bit skewed. 

Liz Dimes: I think there's quite a bit of scaremongering out there a little bit with email marketing at the moment because Apple are, they have updated their privacy settings a while ago which means that effectively when you're looking at your email results anything that's gone into an Apple mail will be marked as open even if it's not. So effectively your open rates are a little bit pointless since that update. So what's important to look at is your Click Through Rates because then you know those people have opened it and then how many have clicked through. Which is why the UTM codes are particularly useful because that helps with that. The other thing that Apple are doing at the moment is they're suggesting they're going to start the sort of promotions tab. I can't remember what their terminology is. 

Liz Dimes: Like you have in your Gmail when you log on your laptop, on your desktop as opposed to in your phone. So that will affect, that absolutely will affect email marketing. But what it will affect is email marketing that isn't tested, updated, optimised and tried and best. So if you do just keep doing what you're doing. Absolutely. Your email marketing is gonna, you're gonna lose on that. 

Paul Marden: So good email marketing is a worthwhile thing to do. 

Liz Dimes: Absolutely. And it is about testing because actually one of the things that we don't know yet because it's not happened yet but one of the things that might work is by making sure, rather make sure you're not sending from a no reply or admin at or an info at send it from a person's email that's less likely to be marked as spam or promotions. So all these things are as these updates come through test if suddenly you see a massive drop off in your click through rate, something's happened. Try something different on the next go. 

Paul Marden: Yeah. 

Liz Dimes: So I think, I imagine people are worried about whether Email marketing is going to continue to work and there probably will come a time when it doesn't. But at the moment I think it's still an important part of the mix. Absolutely. 

Anita Waddell: I think for Life Stage as well, it's worth taking it into account because there's some real hard data that's come back which suggests that the younger audiences are not using email marketing anymore. And I think that's really, that's quite true. But that is that Life Stage or is that young people? And I think that will play out because when people get into the office world, the world of work, they start using email a lot more and they become more familiar with it. So I don't know if it's Life Stage or if it's actually happening. We work with Tullis and Tully's obviously run a lot of brands which are aimed at sort of a 20 to 30 year old market and one of their biggest drivers is still email marketing. 

Anita Waddell: So I think, yeah, I think, but I think as Liz said, measure, optimise, test, do all of that and it should still deliver. 

Paul Marden: Good. Let's cut to the web. What are the problems with websites that you're seeing for regional attractions at the moment? 

Liz Dimes: One of the things we see quite a bit is that people who look at their own website as them, not as their customer. So they'll look at their website on their laptop. Their customers are not looking at their website on their laptop. They will look at it as someone who already knows the product, who. And even if you think you're not, your unconsciousness does know. So I mean, the average for visitor attraction websites is that nearly 90% of your sessions are happening on a mobile. So if you are ever looking at your own website, please look at it on your mobile. It's so easy to go, “Oh, I'm on my laptop because I'm doing my admin work right now and my admin work includes. I'm going to have a quick look at our website.”

Liz Dimes: If you are going to do it on your laptop, press F12 please, because if you press F12 on your PC, you'll be able to look at it as a mobile. It won't be quite exactly what it is in as a mobile, but it's a good go. Not everyone knows about F12, so hopefully that helps a few people. But I think that is a real, it's a real key thing that we do find that some people tend to look at their own website not as a customer. So really think about it. 

Liz Dimes: If you are, say your key audience is a 35 year old mother of two, one has a toddler and one is a school child, put yourself in that place or ask do you know someone, one of your friends, that audience, ask them to go through your website blind and is your customer journey working? Do they immediately understand what you are? Can they quickly find out your opening times? Can they quickly find. If you have parking, can they quickly book? Is the booking, is the. Is the push through to booking which at the end of the day is the ultimate goal for pretty much everyone. Really, really think about it as your customer. And I think sometimes that's really difficult to do when you're so ingrained in your own attraction. 

Paul Marden: I can't stop myself grinning like a loon. You're talking about my life. This is the conversation I have over and over again. User testing. That's one of the questions in the survey that always blows my mind. How few people do user testing and how few people do user testing on a mobile and putting themselves into the shoes of their customers. I don't care if you like your website or not. I care whether your customers can do what they want to do. That's the only thing I care about. That's a bit untrue. I'm playing to the audience a little bit. 

Liz Dimes: But no but it is so true. And I think there are. If you can't, there's ways you can look at it from a more sort of data perspective. If you're a data person in your. I know people are still getting their heads around GA4 and to be honest, so am I. Even though I'm in it all the time because they change it every five minutes, hate it and you have to build a lot of it yourself. But there are a lot of positives of GA4 as well. You can see relatively simply how many people are going from your homepage or your landing page or your event page, whichever page you want to look at. 

Liz Dimes: If you want them to go to your ticketing site because most people use external platform ticketing sites, what percentage are landing on that page and going where you want them to go. Now it will be a low percentage always, even if you've got a really good system because they will want to find out more on different things and in lots of ways you want them to. But actually if you've got a return visit on your website, really that's when they should be booking. They've had a look, they found out where you are, they've talked to their friends on WhatsApp. Yes, that is one of the key options. Can they really quickly get to your booking site and book have a look at that data? If you can. 

Liz Dimes: And if it's really low, maybe you haven't got the right call to action buttons on your page or they're not as obvious as you think they are because maybe you're looking at it on a desktop rather than a mobile. 

Paul Marden: Amen. 

Liz Dimes: Good. Oh, I'm pleased because you're the number one expert in the website, so I'm glad you agree with me. But there's. Yeah, there's lots of things, there's lots of quick wins by just having a look. 

Paul Marden: Right, let's just very quickly touch on some of those then. So what are the quick wins that people can do with their websites right now that is going to turn it into a lead generating machine for them? 

Liz Dimes: What is your load speed? Are people bouncing off because you're not loading quickly? If it is low, do something about it. What are your call to actions? Are they obvious? Are they clear? Have you chosen one key call to action per page? Don't confuse your customer. Their attention span is really low. Does it show off what you want it to show off? Those are the top three things I would say look at. 

Anita Waddell: The other thing I would probably add to that is look at your home page. Make sure you're updating it regularly and giving those people the reasons to visit. I'm often quite surprised how they update the rest of the website but then they don't update the homepage on what is coming and what's next and what's on and also what's on now. So I think, yeah, I would say look at the homepage. Think of the homepage as really a signpost page. Once they live there, you want, they want to go, they've got to find something on there that's going to interest them and so that would be my recommendation to add to that. 

Paul Marden: Good. So those are all great things to do once they hit your website, but you've got to get into the website in the first place. So let's talk about paid advertising because that's something that you guys do a lot of, isn't it? Yeah. And that's the thing that can drive reliable traffic to your website. So it's hugely important. 

Liz Dimes: Absolutely. 

Paul Marden: I bet there's some real howlers that you see when you're first engaged by a client and you come and look at what they're doing in paid advertising. What are those real gotchas that you see? 

Anita Waddell: God, it's like opening your. Yeah, go on, Liz. You can reveal some secrets of what people are doing. 

Paul Marden: This is therapy session. This is a friendly, safe space. Just unburden yourselves. 

Liz Dimes: Yes, we won't name any names, don't worry. Well, while we're talking about website, I think one of the things with paid advertising that people really don't, they forget to think about or forget how important it is what web page are you sending that traffic to? Because absolutely, it might be your homepage, if your homepage is the right page, but equally it probably isn't your homepage. It needs to relate to the ad you are placing. So I think sometimes it's the last thought. It's, “Oh, we want to do an ad, we want to do an ad, do it.” And then, “Oh, don't even think about where we're going to send it. Send it to the homepage.” So I would say that's a really key thing that people sometimes forget. 

Liz Dimes: And actually, if you think about again, always come back to what will the customer think? Would it annoy you if you clicked on an advert for red shoes and the ad opened a page for trousers? It would annoy you. So why would your customers not be annoyed if you click on an ad about summer and it opens a homepage and there's not a really quick call to action to get to that summer information? So again, always think about the customer. One of the other things. Well, the other thing that is incredibly important in our industry is your location. Who are you targeting, location wise? And we have regularly taken on clients who have done it themselves or had previous agencies or whatever, doesn't matter where it happened. 

Liz Dimes: And they're targeting the whole of the uk, maybe they're in Cornwall and they're targeting Scotland as well for a term time visit. 

Paul Marden: Right. 

Liz Dimes: Someone in Scotland is not going to drive seven hours to come to you for a day out. Look at where your customers come from, map them. If you can really find that, you've got that data. If you're taking online booking, you have got the data of where the people live who come to you, find out where those people live and use that information for where you're going to generate the best results for your targeting for your adverts. I think that's incredibly important in this industry.

Anita Waddell: And I think it goes, that goes beyond just radius targeting. Oh, absolutely. You really do need to map your audience to find out where they're coming from because, you know, like road systems will change the direct. No, change the layout of where people come from. Competitors will change, will give your some areas higher propensities to convert those visitors than others. So it really is worth investing in some mapping geo mapping tools and time to get it right. 

Paul Marden: I bet this is probably. How long is a piece of string quite type question, but broadly is the paid advertising for attractions? You know, there were terms, there are search terms that people are going to be searching on that you're going to want to sponsor or you're going to be sponsoring things in social platforms. There are some spaces that are, you know, fantastically competitive and hugely expensive. I'm thinking car insurance. You know, it will, you know, the cost per click of that is going to be phenomenal, but the return on investment for them is great. Yeah. Is this space a competitive and expensive space or is it remarkably reasonably priced? 

Liz Dimes: That really is. How long's a piece of string, I'm afraid, when it comes to search. So if we're just going from a search perspective. So if you're using Google Search Ads, absolutely. It depends what the keyword you are using is, how expensive that cost per click is going to be and really. Or you can help it by having an amazing ad, having an amazing landing page and being really relevant and your location targeting being right for that place. So you can be the low, you can get yourself to the lowest in the range that's possible for that keyword, but you're never going to get a keyword that cost £2 to cost 10p. What you can do, and what I would always suggest you do is use more longer tail keywords, which is the correct terminology, longer tail. 

Liz Dimes: But so if you're, if you're using, rather than maybe using day out, use day out in Yorkshire, family day out in Yorkshire. So you're extending the, the detail of it. Yeah. And the more detail you have, the less competition there will be within Google. You can do some really good keyword planning and get an idea of what your, what the type of cost will be for the type of keyword you're going for. If we stick on the Google search point. Actually, one of the other real howlers we regularly see is people actively targeting or not realising they're actively targeting their own brand name and therefore. And Google's algorithm, if you're doing a list of keywords you're going for, will always do what works best. 

Liz Dimes: So if you have either on purpose or accidentally put your brand name in there, all your budget is going to go on your brand name. Now, as long there are occasions when you might do that. If your SEO is terrible and you're coming up on page three for your brand name, go for your brand name. Absolutely do it in a separate campaign. So you're spending only a certain amount of money. But in general I'm yet to find attraction that isn't coming up on the map, on the Google map or on the top of the search results for their own brand name. So you are effectively paying Google for website visitors, clicks, conversions that you would have got for free. Don't do that. Please don't do that. And we see that relatively regularly.

Paul Marden: You differentiated between paid advertising for search and paid advertising in social platforms. So we've got the tooling in Google to be able to estimate how much things cost. Go for those long tail search terms because they're probably going to better value for you, probably have better landing pages. And be really clear, if you've got a nice long tail search, you know that person is looking for something very specific. So serve them a really specific landing page to arrive at on the other side. That speaks to them and they'll love it, won't they? They'll be much more likely to engage. So you get that return on investment even further. What about in social, what. How are you planning out? You know what the cost is likely to be and where you should focus your energy. 

Liz Dimes: So because we are doing this all the time, we have a good idea of what that. So in social you'll look, you want to look at the cost per thousand impressions, what's called the CPM as opposed to the cost per cl. That's the, that's the bit in social that you can't affect. Meta, for example, are going to. If the cost per thousand for the target audience you are going for in the location you are going for is £4, it is £4, there's nothing you can do to change that. £3, it's £4. And unfortunately it is depending on where you are. For some people it's lovely. If their location's less, that's great. But if your location is more expensive. You've got to just deal with that. 

Liz Dimes: Unfortunately, in the last few years the cost per thousands have gone up around 12% and they're estimating this year it will be around 4%. So to get the same number of impressions in 2025 that you got in 2024, you're going to need to spend 4% more. Unfortunately, it is what it is. I hate saying that, but it's true. You can't. We can try and lobby meta all we like. The cost is what the cost is. It's a demand and supply thing. 

Paul Marden: Exactly. 

Liz Dimes: But what you can do is be realistic. You are going to have to get the same number of impressions. You need to spend 4% more. However, if your budget has to remain the same, how can you improve your click through rate one? Well, 0.2% to get. So although you'll get less impressions, you'll try and aim to get the same number of web visits and clicks from that. Can you then improve your conversion rate on your website? 0.2% and therefore you actually, for the same budget, you may get more conversions. So although you have to understand as we all do, that costs of everything are going up and impressions are one of those things. 

Liz Dimes: Actually, can you optimise and improve your ads because minimal improvements in your click through rate, minimal improvements in your conversion rate on your website are going to result in more revenue at the end of the day for potentially the same budget or a minimal increase. 

Paul Marden: And what are those? Again, this is such a sweeping, broad question, but what are those things that people could do to improve the engagement in the ads themselves? 

Liz Dimes: I'd say the number one thing to look at is your targeting correct? 

Paul Marden: Yeah. 

Liz Dimes: Is your location targeting correct? Is your audience type targeting correct? And then are you tailoring your ads to your audience? So if you're doing a target and you're targeting grandparents, for example, maybe your ad needs to be slightly different if you're targeting the parents or maybe your ad needs. And then your ad again will need to be. If you're, if you're remarketing and you're going to your sort of what we would call a hot audience that needs a very different ad to prospecting, a cold audience. So really focus on your targeting and focus on speaking. Again, think about the customer. Who are you speaking to with that ad? 

Anita Waddell: I think the other thing to mention and add to that is also the number of ads you're putting out because you never know exactly how your audience is going to react. So we actually do a lot of testing for a campaign. We would put a lot of ads out and it could be marginal differences in an ad because that's what, that's really what you want. So is it a bold heading? Is it not a Bold heading is it use the word say to save or best prices or you know and each of these will result in say that we're looking for that marginal gain because over time all those marginal gains will add up on the creative and the messaging and you'll get the best result. But it's time, energy and to get there completely. 

Paul Marden: Look, this has been really interesting but I want to just leave people with two or three things that they ought to prioritise to get 2025 off to a great start because last year was rubbish for so many people, wasn't it? So let's what can we all do to help get the show on the way for the attractions this year? 

Anita Waddell: I think the key thing is giving that people a reason to visit. It's getting the programming right. What people should be doing is looking at the last two years, breaking down the visitor numbers throughout the year, ascertain where there's opportunity for growth. We know people is much easier to build those peaks when, during the school holidays when people are actively looking. If you still, if you're not reaching capacity in those periods, that would be our, you know, build the peaks rather than the troughs. If however you've got to the stage where you think on your, you're creaking a bit at the seams and actually you want to build the term time campaigns, consider that as a secondary but again giving them that reason to visit now rather than waiting to a different time. 

Anita Waddell: And then once you've done that, you can plan your marketing budget around those opportunities. If you know that you've got more capacity in the summer, give more budget to the summer or if you know you've got more capacity in the October half term, give more budget to the October half term. So it's all going to start of where you want to get those extra people from and to and where. And then as some, as Liz mentioned later, postcode mapping, making sure that whatever advertising and marketing you're doing, you're hitting the people in the right areas who are going to have the biggest propensity to convert. And I've only got one other last thing to add is it's looking and learning from last year. 

Anita Waddell: Looking back at the data points, look at your benchmarks, your email, but email open rates, your landing pages, your digital advertising, try and get that margin of 1% improvement. If you can improve all of your marketing just by 1%, that's a lot of 1%. 

Paul Marden: That's a lot of people, isn't it? At the end of the day coming through the door. 

Liz Dimes: Absolutely. 

Anita Waddell: Yeah. So, so that would be sort of my kind of, you know what I would do. And Liz, has you got anything else you want to add to that? 

Liz Dimes: No, I think that's all of it. I think as say for, from the digital advertising side, postcode map if you can and absolutely look back and then test based off that and then test again. 

Paul Marden: Well, there's some homework for everybody. We always finish with a book recommendation and that book recommendation can be fiction or non fiction and I've got two guests so there's got to be two books. So Anita, what's your book recommendation for our listeners? 

Anita Waddell: This, this was a really tough question actually because one of my new year objectives is to read more. But I looked back and thought, “Okay, over the last five years, what books have I read and what's, what can, what's really resonated and what still I feel I can remember really”. So, so the one, I think it's Who Moved My Cheese by Dr Spencer Johnson. I don't know if how regularly it's mentioned on, on this podcast, but it's not a new book but it all talks about how you got, you know, you've got two stories about two little mice and two people and they, and the two little mice go off and they find cheese in this maze every single day. 

Anita Waddell: Whereas the two people found their cheese, they're happy with their cheese, they really like this certain cheese. Why would they look elsewhere? And then that cheese and then ultimately that cheese supply from the two people runs out and it's talking about having to innovate and change to survive. And I, and it's done in a really easy reading and fun way. And so yeah, I think that would be my recommendation to anybody. 

Paul Marden: Right Liz, what about you? What's your recommendation? 

Liz Dimes: Well, this was actually recommended to me because I thought about it. Okay, what have I been recommended that I've read? And actually it was recommended by a member of my team, Miles. So this comes from him. It's Never Split the Difference by Chris Voss, who I don't know whether you've read this book, but he was an FBI negotiator and he has since written this book and it's actually written in a really easy to take in way. I just found it really interesting and just started reading it and read it basically which I don't do nearly as much reading as I used to before I had a child. So if I've managed to do that, you know, it's a good one. 

Liz Dimes: But my key sort of takeaways from it was how if you first think about negotiation skills, you probably think, “Well, what would I say?” And actually, that's not what you should be thinking, it's what are they saying? Your key negotiation skills is actively linked listening. And if you're actively listening, then you can follow the other key skills which are mirroring what they're saying, repeating the last of their three words, things like that. I just found it really interesting and it has made me rethink how I engage with people. So I would recommend it as a good read. 

Paul Marden: You got me thinking about my. What I was going to say now. Thinking about what were the last three words that you said? Oh, patting your head and rubbing your tummy part to this. Isn't there as thinking about the conversation and having it? 

Liz Dimes: Exactly. I think that's what he says. He says, while you're having a conversation, there's two of you. You're half listening, but actually the majority of you is thinking about what you're going to say next. If you're thinking about what you're going to say next, you are not listening, so you are not taking in what that person is saying in the way that you should be. And actually, if you can switch that bit off and really listen, what you say next will be the right thing. It's really hard. It's really hard to do, but I have actively tried to do that. When I think about it sounds. 

Paul Marden: A little bit like interviewing on the podcast, because this is a skill I've had to learn. This does not come naturally to me and it. It felt like a hostage negotiation at the beginning and it did feel a little bit like I had to negotiate my way out of the podcast episode. But with time and with practise, these things become easier and you can focus on the conversation whilst you're doing figuring out where the conversation is going to go. But, yeah, I've heard reviews of that book. I've not read it myself, so you've got me thinking I need to go and get that. 

Liz Dimes: It's worth a read. 

Paul Marden: Dear listeners, as always, if you would like a copy of either Anita or Liz's book recommendation, then the trendy thing to do is to go over to Bluesky now, not Twitter. Who wants to go onto Twitter? It's full of megalomaniacs. So go over to Bluesky and retweet the show message and say I want Anita or Liz's book. And the first person to do that will get a copy sent to them and I will be generous. It can be the first person for each book will get a copy. I'm not getting bankrupted this time with loads of book recommendations. I just want to leave people with one last thought. We know that benchmarking is important to you guys and this is something you're going to be doing a lot over the next few months. 

Paul Marden: So if people want to get involved with working on the benchmarking project for digital advertising that you guys are doing, what do they need to do? 

Anita Waddell: They need to go to our website where there'll be more information about it, and that's agility-marketing.co.uk.

Paul Marden: And hopefully it will be in the show notes as well. So you can jump over to the show notes and follow the link there. But agility-marketing.co.uk and people will find all they need to know about the benchmarking that you're currently doing and how they can get involved in it. Brilliant. Ladies, this has been a wonderful conversation. Thank you very much. 

Liz Dimes: Thank you for having us. 

Paul Marden: We will catch up again soon. 

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.

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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.

Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.

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Competition ends on 3rd July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

• Lego House in Billund
• Sutton Hoo (National Trust)
• Sutton Hoo at the British Museum
• The Dig on Netflix
• Sutton Hoo mask on Lego Ideas
• The Dig: Lego version of Sutton Hoo treasure 'amazing' (BBC News)
• Events at The Hold Ipswitch

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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.

Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual 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 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://carbonsix.digital/

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://rubbercheese.com/

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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:

https://www.roarrdinosauradventure.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/charles-adam-goymour-5248832a/

Instagram #roarr_dinosauradventure

www.facebook.com/roarrdinosauradventure

www.twitter.com/roarr_dino

www.primevil-scare.com

www.applewoodholidays.co.uk

www.goymourhomes.co.uk

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. 

In today's episode, I speak with Adam Goymour, Company Director, and Park Manager, at Roarr! Dinosaur Adventure. Sorry, I couldn't help myself. We discuss the government support for the sector. Reopening plans, audience engagement, and the positive impact of reopening with brand new 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:

Adam, it is so great to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming in. As you know, these podcasts start off with a little icebreaker question. So I have prepared some new ones for you today that you have not been able to prepare for. So have you ever met any of your idols?

Adam Goymour:

Have I ever met any of my idols? No, however, during the summer periods we've had a couple of celebrities visit us. Jimmy Doherty from Jimmy's Farm.

Kelly Molson:

Great.

Adam Goymour:

He came with his family, he spent the whole day here. I met him, we had a few photos. We also collaborate with our membership schemes and it was really a good occasion because we had the chance to have a chat, talk about business, just talk about life really. He asked for my number to ... sounds like a date really doesn't it?

Kelly Molson:

It does a little bit, yeah.

Adam Goymour:

So we could carry on that chat that we had, which was really good. The unannounced one we had was Tom Hardy himself, who came to the park, which was unexpected. I think a lot of guys were unsure if it was him or not. We had one of our bloggers in the park who did talk to me and say, "I think he's on the park." But she couldn't really confirm that or not. But learn to behold, until he was then leaving, to be only then know that he was on the park, but thankfully the blogger had some pictures taken off him and we could just re-share that.

Kelly Molson:

Brilliant.

Adam Goymour:

I didn't get the chance ... well, I haven't had the chance as yet in my life to meet my idol. But I think those are two significant people that were quite nice to have at the park.

Kelly Molson:

Are you a little bit disappointed that you didn't get Tom Hardy's number?

Adam Goymour:

Absolutely, that would be a cool collab, if I could get him to do a dinosaur video or one of those things he did on CBeebies Storytime, that would have been amazing.

Kelly Molson:

There you go. You've got a goal. You've got a goal for next time, right? That is brilliant. I love that, great story.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. I don't know that we're going to be able to beat those answers, but what is your favorite meal to cook and why?

Adam Goymour:

I love Italian food, but something I do cook because I rarely have a lot of time, being in a business, being quite active, having a few hobbies, I have a dog as well, I'm rarely at home for that long. So something I cook is quick and easy using Jamie Oliver's books, it's salmon fillets, and then I have gnocchi, some broccoli, and it takes 15, 20 minutes. So that's probably my go-to meal.

Kelly Molson:

Perfect. Nutritious and healthy as well, Adam.

Adam Goymour:

Absolutely.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. If you could watch only one film for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Adam Goymour:

Easy question.

Kelly Molson:

Oh?

Adam Goymour:

Jurassic Park, the original.

Kelly Molson:

I wasn't expecting anything less than that.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, it's a keen favorite. My mum and I always used to watch it, and we used to have coloring books when I was four or five years old that we always used to do together. It was a film I loved, so yeah.

Kelly Molson:

And definitely the original as well, right? It was the best.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, it was.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. So I know that you've listened to a few of these podcasts, so you might have already prepared for the last icebreaker question that I always ask. Tell me something that's true, that almost nobody agrees with you on. So your unpopular opinion.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, I love that Greg James show. Rugby is better than football.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. See I always wonder what people are going to comment on, on Twitter, when we put stuff like this out. But I think that will be probably quite 50, 50.

Adam Goymour:

Well, football's a global sport, isn't it? Rugby's getting there. I think for all of the community values that rugby brings and the atmosphere you see at a rugby club. I've played it since I was about nine years old and joined my local club, Diss, when I was living in Banham in Norfolk, from about from the age of 16, I think it was. I've played there ever since, and it's been a fantastic environment to make friends, and to take myself away from the working environment, and keep myself fit and active really.

Kelly Molson:

Is that one of your hobbies still today, playing rugby?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah. I don't play it perhaps as regularly as I used to now, but I still play it fairly regularly.

Kelly Molson:

It's a real complete contrast to your working day isn't it, being on the rugby field?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, it's still in that team environment. I love the team environment, I feed off it. So yeah, it's something where I've captained and I've been a part of the senior squad, so I do enjoy being in that leadership role. So that's another reason why I love it.

Kelly Molson:

Great, thank you for sharing. I hope Greg James does listen to this podcast one day and knows that I've still stolen this from him, but with the greatest intention because I'm a big fan. Thanks, Greg.

Kelly Molson:

Adam, I really want to ... there are loads of things that I want to talk to you about today and with a lot of these podcast interviews where we're talking about the future, I have to go back, because we can't not talk about what's just happened and what we're still dealing with. So I want to ask you a little bit first about how lockdown has been for you.

Kelly Molson:

What I saw was how very open, and authentic, and very quite vulnerable you were throughout it actually, in terms of the press reports and the news stories that we saw. I think that's really admirable, and it's something that I really admire you for. I just wanted to get a feel for how you felt and what you were going through?

Adam Goymour:

I think I can start off by saying it was a rollercoaster of emotions, particularly as an owner/operator in the sector. I furloughed myself after the initial onslaught of working through an unexpected closedown, and the implications of it. It was a balancing act, you balance out the practicality and emotions of closing down your business, having a hundred-plus staff that you're not able to offer work to, and finding yourself, after I furloughed myself, with time on my hands, which I never have had before. As I've been ingrained in a family business since I was a child, and it was the first real opportunity in a family business to stop, take a step back, and look at it from a different perspective.

Adam Goymour:

On a personal side, I was excising my dog Millie quite a lot, spent time with my girlfriend, Rosie, reading, catching up with films, phoning friends that I've not spoken to for a long time because I've just been so busy with work. Apart from that, however, it gave me a good deal of valuable thinking and planning time. But also as the prospect of reopening loomed, there was a huge amount of planning and preparation to do for Roarr! that was eventually closed for 105 days. Zoom meetings were essential to work with managers remotely prior to returning to work at Roarr! Also.

Adam Goymour:

So yeah, heck and all it went very quickly and it was surprising. There was calls to BALPPA, so the British Association of Leisure, Piers, Parks, and Attractions, and also NFAN, National Farm Attractions Network. They held some twice weekly, some of them were once weekly. There's also support from the Council, Norfolk Chamber of Commerce, and I was the representative, and that was obviously after I was furloughed, and I was the representative for the park.

Adam Goymour:

So, I was being pulled left, right and center, and trying to keep everything together as well as understanding it myself in the limited time that I had. So yeah, it was full-on really. It was going from, okay, this has just happened, to having time to myself which I've never had before, to then being pulled to left, right, and center to get things sorted. But I love a challenge, I'm a young man, I'm 32, nearly 33, and I enjoy the challenge and it's all about survival, but also the grace time as well. So it's really important, I want to come out of this growing and all the better businesses do in the tough times. So that's what I want us to accomplish.

Kelly Molson:

It actually sounds incredibly positive, Adam. I mean, I can completely appreciate how challenging the time was, running my own business myself on a much smaller scale than yours. I know the kind of challenges that we had in terms of team and making sure that we had enough revenue, and work, and things like that. But actually, it sounds to me from what you've just said, that it gave you quite a lot of time to reflect on where the business was, and maybe positive changes that you could make when you came back.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, it certainly forced a lot of changes perhaps earlier than we had planned to because of the situation, which I love change. I'm a driver with change for the better, not for the sake of change. I've enjoyed that as another challenge really. That's the opportunity it's given, and I think in life you can look at things two ways can't you? You can either look at it and think poor old me, or you could look at it and think, "Are we going to nail this or what?" It's then given the motivation to the leadership team around me to drive it forward.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, I love that. That really came across in some of the things that you were doing whilst you were locked down as well. Because one of the things that I noticed was how brilliantly you were engaging with your audience. Even if your audience couldn't come to the venue, you did a lot of things. Like there's a brilliant activity pack that you put together, for kids obviously, but I downloaded it. I mean, look at the backgrounds that you've got, your marketing team went into overdrive a little bit and it was really super positive. What was the response like from your customers during that time?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, well firstly, with the marketing team, we didn't furlough them because they're our sales team, they're our communication team externally, and it's a backward step if you furlough those guys. They have really done a fantastic job, really proud of them for what they've done. But yeah, I mean with the audience in their own homes, what was the response like from the customers? We knew we had to keep connected with our customers and we had to look to engage with them in their homes. So we brought the Roarr! experience to them. We created a number of free downloads as you spoke about, from our coloring in dinosaurs, then making face masks, through to full-on activity book. And even a live dinosaur tour of the park.

Adam Goymour:

The response to the activity has been fantastic. We've had so many social engagements, customer survey responses, and feedback, in general, to say how welcomed they were in such a hard time, especially with kids at home and parents looking for activities to keep them busy. Something we're keen to continue to produce also, that we've spoken about, especially over the winter period as well.

Adam Goymour:

We also partnered with the local press to provide creative competitions over a four week period where kids and adults could both get creative, and also win a free family pass to the park. We had some great entries and it's been a really successful strategy for us during a pandemic to keep the brand alive, but also to engage with our audience and ensure we're the first place they wanted to visit once we are back open. Our visitor numbers have reflected that. We plan on keeping this going as part of our marketing strategy, ensuring we're giving added value and also ensuring our customers are engaging with us even when they're not on the park.

Adam Goymour:

So that hopefully gives a round synopsis, and I did speak with my head of marketing on that question really, because she is the brains behind it, being given the full trust and talent to get on with it. She definitely performed, she being Natalie Douglas, rather than she, her. Really proud of that, so that's something we had an opportunity to try, and that's what I said to the team, "God, we've got so much opportunity to try things. Let's see what customers do like, don't like, and just keep trying new things and just seeing what we can get out of it." Which we have got a heck of a lot. So yeah, a real positive.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, it is a lovely positive. It's really lovely to hear you actually thank your team as well. I mean, I spoke to Natalie during lockdown down and I know how challenging that was for her as well. I know how much she had on her plate. So it's really nice to see you give that recognition. But I think what you did was perfect, and like you say, now that people are coming back, you've actually seen that translate into visitor numbers. I want to talk to you about that in a minute, but I think just going back to through lockdown like I said, you were very, very, open about the challenges that you were facing. I really respected that, you spoke out on BBC Radio Norfolk, you were in the local press quite a lot. How much of a help has that government support been for you, because you were very, very, vocal about needing help and needing support to keep the facility there?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, well we are the worst-hit industry, one of the first to close and last to open and yeah, we need that support. I mean, the VAT reduction from the government from 20% to 5% has been a godsend and really helped us financially, especially since we have reopened. That ends, I think, end of January next year. I hope that extends. We had MP Jerome Mayhew visit us. He was specifically interested in looking at how we're doing, and he was the original founder of Go Ape! But also owns three trampoline parks. So we had a good chat and I said to him that these are the things that we need, but also explained about what government support we have managed to achieve because quite a lot of them we were over the threshold, so that was difficult. But the reduction for VAT for the tourist industry is something that the industry has campaigned for, for many years. We pay a lot more VAT than other countries in Europe in the same industry and it always baffles me considering how many jobs we provide, especially in the local industry, and especially in Broadlands, which is the council area in Norfolk and being Norfolk's largest visitor attraction. The council is certainly on board with doing what they can to help us and have been great through this period. So yeah, all the level of support they provided and devised with the rate support has been useful and welcomed.

Adam Goymour:

Unfortunately, the banks have not been as supportive as they could have been, despite all the government's best-laid plans. We lost a million pounds worth of income, which is obviously significant to hit our business. We have utilized the government's furloughing scheme. We have some concerns about the furloughing scheme stopping at the end of October and the impacts that we'll have on the hospitality, leisure, and tourism sector. So we hope that can continue, and I know there's been stuff in the news about it, but let's hope that they listen and that they do support us because I think the demand, especially in Norfolk, has been incredible. I had a rare weekend off last weekend and I spent time at another visitor attraction with my girlfriend, Rosie, and her friends. And you could just see the demand is there, and we also have a holiday park, it's called Applewood Country Holiday Park, it's in Banham behind the zoo, which my sister runs. The demand has been exceptional, but obviously, we've had to manage that as well.

Adam Goymour:

So, that's the support we've had, has it been good enough? I think it's as good as he can be, I'm not going to criticize the government. It's been an unprecedented time, they've done everything they can. I think we can always moan but what does it achieve? Not a lot. You either need to take what you can and campaign, and fight for it, or you can moan. So we decided to say, "Look, this is what we've been handed and we now need to look at it and resolve it." So yeah, I think it's been there or thereabouts, I just think a little bit more support from the bank would be helpful, however. We're looking at that at the moment with some help. So that'll hopefully put us through to ensure that our longer-term plans are not affected by sales of other things. So, yeah, interesting future ahead.

Kelly Molson:

Well, yes, it still is an interesting time, isn't it? I guess it doesn't stop when the parks open. That's what we need to look at. So let's talk about reopening because I guess it was a really difficult place to even start to think about because you've got so many variables to think about, the demand has been there, but I guess at the time you're questioning whether it will be, whether people want to come back or not. You've got challenges, operational challenges, in terms of how many of your staff can you bring back and how many staff will you need? How did you even start to put those plans in place?

Adam Goymour:

Well, initially I was going, "Oh my God." It's just absorbing information from all the different avenues you've got available to you. And just listening, and just watching, reading, taking everything on board. Thankfully I'm a really good, big communicator with people in the industry. So I knew where the help was, I sought that help. I attended Zoom meetings even at seven, eight o'clock on a Friday night, every Friday night, throughout the whole lockdown period. Speaking to the council, speaking to other owner-operators, and listened to the guidance from the government and just listening to them. But the government as we know, they did what they could and we didn't get the details until very last minute. They're telling you, you can reopen, but then give you the guidance five days before, or four days before. You've got to turn that around, trying to anticipate, try, and preempt what they're going to provide you.

Adam Goymour:

So the best way to look at it was also listening to other operators in other countries. So for example, Efteling in Holland, Europa-Park in Germany, big family-run businesses, they're just sitting behind Disneyland Paris as the biggest theme parks in Europe. I've got friends in the industry all over the UK. So speaking to them about specifics in some of our attractions where we have a common denominator in terms of similar attractions. So speaking to them. We did, however, still have animal keepers at the secret animal garden at the park, which was one of our attractions, worked throughout. As did a couple of our parks and gardens staff so it wasn't like a jungle when we got back because we quite like to have really nice prim and proper parks and gardens. It is a massive task, not only return to the park to its normal high standard presentation, but also to bend really with the whole situation to understand and implement all the additional COVID-19 protection requirements.

Adam Goymour:

So first goal was to COVID-19 train our various managers, understand what we're up against. Look at how many visitors we think we could get in the park before the guidance came out, and look at how many staff can we actually operate with to be profitable on less visitors, but also supplying that excellent service as best we can. Then it's also the denominating fact that we might have some staff that don't want to come back because they're scared, which is absolutely okay. We had to have those chats with people, and it took some time. But our managers were committed. Our leadership team was firmly committed and we had to collectively agree and implement COVID signage, sanitizer points, which probably cost us about six to eight grand. PPE for the crew. I worked with a company called Regency Purchasing Group, they were a fantastic group of people led by Alex Demetriou. He also owns a Pier, Weston-Super-Mare Pier, he's a fantastic person, very helpful. His team are brilliant, so they really helped to source a lot of things that we needed. We've worked with them for a number of years, can't recommend them enough.

Adam Goymour:

We had the closure of Dinomite, our indoor play. Dippy-Ville, which is another indoor soft play. Predator high ropes initially, but thankfully it reopened not soon after we had reopened the park. During lockdown period I was speaking to Innovative Leisure, so Phil Pickersgill is the MD for the UK side of that business. I was speaking to him on and off about how's that going to work? How are we going to do it? What information have you got? He collaborated with all the other high ropes manufacturers, suppliers. So they came as one and they worked together on how all these operators could open them up. They did a whole guidance document, which they went through the HSE to then support us as businesses, rather than them all working individually, which is fantastic to see, and to get hold of that early on, gave us a fighting chance.

Adam Goymour:

It has probably been our biggest challenge because there's only so many people you get on there, and obviously it's included in our price. But yet, to make it pay, we need to get certain amount of business in. So we then found out how many people use the attraction, because although we were counting the amount of people on there before, it was really interesting to see how many people went on that, but also other attractions that we didn't have to log how many people went on there in a day because it just happened. We didn't have to worry about social distancing.

Adam Goymour:

We had to look at toilets in terms of that was always the biggest conversation of any Zoom meeting with BALPPA, and NFAN, with owner-operators, how the hell are we going to do this?

Kelly Molson:

Yeah.

Adam Goymour:

You can do something different, some people did this, some people like that. I had backup plans in case something didn't work and I knew the cost of those as well. We had one way systems, we had a whole new IT system in terms of getting people pre-booked onto the park. Then it's working with our iPAL system who are inundated with all of their clients in order to get what we needed to open. So that was a challenge.

Kelly Molson:

It's incredible, I mean, just hearing you talking it through, everyone that listens to this podcast will be ... they are in the sector. So they do completely understand the same challenges as you, but I mean, it is quite epic, isn't it? When you start to go through that list of things that it's affected, or that you've needed to change, or review, or adapt in some way, it feels never-ending doesn't it?

Adam Goymour:

It is a huge, enormous task, it was high magnitude. It was something I enjoy doing because I must admit, I think I've walked our 85-acre park now a hundred times in terms of the customer journey. So I did it on my own to start off with, I got it in my head. I had to do it, but I needed the team to help me deliver it. But I had to start somewhere and say, "This is what we're going to do." So that was really exciting because it was my chance to go, "Look, I'm going to lead us from the front and this is how we're going to do it guys." I did it on my own, it took me a full-on day. So I probably got there by eight, left about seven at night, racking your brains with it. Then I got my health and safety advisor in, we went through it, we spent all day as well. And then we had a plan. We knew how we were going to do it. Obviously, we had to work with the local EHO, to go through all of that, and away we went.

Adam Goymour:

Then it's just putting the plans in place, getting the staff in, staging them as well. Then working on the details of how we're going to do it once we brought the managers in because they're the ones that are going to be operating it. Then it's just supporting them and being with them at every stage, and getting their teams in. Who's going to come in, who doesn't want to come in, all this sort of stuff. That was really interesting. Obviously, risk assessments had to be thorough. They had to be at the pinnacle of everything, without a solid foundation of a risk assessment, you cannot operate. So that was also something that we had to look at.

Adam Goymour:

Then you've got the additional things that the government gave. So it's like, now face coverings are required in shops. Thankfully, we'd already produced obviously with our great marketing team, all of our branded face coverings.

Kelly Molson:

Of course, you did, dinosaur masks. That's what we all need, dinosaur face masks.

Adam Goymour:

It's great. We've got a few different designs and we are the first people in the UK to really come up with them, I believe, I didn't say anybody come up with them before us. We worked with Regency again to get those made, and on the different BALPPA and NFAN calls, other attractions were saying, "Well, where do we get one of those?" And I was like, "Here's the information, go get it. It's a fantastic thing." You need to make it fun. We're a fun place to go, why be boring, be run of the mill, and have a boring face mask. You're here for a day out with family, make it fun. We don't want to scare children, obviously, so we need to have some tamer ones, but for those that like him, we've also got some other ones. And then after that, we saw an Instagram, that Jurassic Park, they decided to start doing some.

Kelly Molson:

It all started with your park. It all started with Roarr! Adam. Roarr!

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, and I can vouch for that because I didn't see anything on the internet that anyone else is doing with dinosaur masks, I think we can stand proud of that.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, I really liked ... I love that, that you've injected that level of fun into something that actually could be quite frightening for kids. If they don't really fully understand what's happening, but what you've also talked quite a lot about, and it's something that we've just recorded an episode about is this sector cooperation. The sector coming together to help each other. I guess it has been one of those sectors that has always spoken to each other quite a lot, but it really seems like this situation has just brought out the very best in people. There's been so much knowledge share between attractions and suppliers, and that's just wonderful to see.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, I think the industry is a lovely, lovely industry. Most of us are family-run businesses. We're families that are running these places. The biggest family-run theme park, I believe in the UK, is Paultons Park down in Southampton, the Mancey's, fantastic family, a very reputable business, a good brand. Like us, we're a family run business and we're similar age, the son, the owner there, James, and he's a really nice guy. We kept in touch all the time. There's a whole host of other young persons, similar to my age, where we meet up probably quarterly to chat through ideas, to talk about the industry. It's a lonely place and it's not ... although it brings so much to the country in terms of income, and jobs and everything, believe it or not, there isn't that many of us. It's nice to meet up and I really love the industry. It's great.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, I bet. So let's fast forward to being open. You talked earlier when you said demand has been pretty incredible. What's it been like? What has it been like? Has it gone crazy?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, it has and I think in a good way. I think it's taught the English people to love where they live. The amount of campaigns coming from Great Britain, which has been then put down to their local DMO's, Destination Management Organizations. So Visit Norfolk. Then you've got Visit Suffolk, obviously. Then that goes up to Visit East of England, who we're working a lot more closely with Visit Britain, to get the attention of the government, to give us some money. We're a larger tourism industry or area of the country than Cornwall, people don't know that and they should. We've got to shout about it more and more. So I'm certainly whenever I attend Visit Norfolk meetings saying, "We've got to do something about it." And keep putting my voice across with that because I've been given an opportunity to have a voice, which I love. So, again, a great bunch of people.

Adam Goymour:

So yeah, what's it been like since we reopened?

Kelly Molson:

Nonstop?

Adam Goymour:

Nonstop, it continues to be a roller coaster, lots of learnings. It's been busy. It's been exciting. We've managed, fortunately a bit after reopening initially, officially opened to new attractions that haven't been opened before. We had Dippy Live Show, so Dippy is our trademarked character. So Dippy the diplodocus, then we've had Dippy's Raceway. So we've got a specific area in the park now dedicated to Dippy, this yellow and purple dinosaur, which the kids absolutely love. Great merchandise, great brand bible-based around him. We managed to open those up. We already had some money spent on it, so it was just about putting it together. So thankfully it wasn't a huge cost, but it allowed the same amount of attractions to be open where we had to close some indoor areas. So that was a real, real plus, a real positive, something that we were very proud to be able to do in these really hard times. It gave something for our guests to talk about, and to think, "Oh yeah, that's new. We got to go there."

Kelly Molson:

No, that's a really interesting point actually, isn't it? Because like you say, you're opening up and you are competing with everybody else that's opening up. To be able to open with something new that nobody's been able to see before, that is really positive and really exciting. Obviously, going to be a crowd draw for you.

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, and Dippy's Raceway, side of Dippy's Splash Zone, which is a fantastic attraction and that's been our most popular attraction, which tells us we are putting in the right things. We're listening to our guests, we know what they like. For them to enjoy that, which clearly shows by the daily figures we get knowing how many people are using those attractions. That's been a real nice plus really, to see that materialize and come to the floor really.

Adam Goymour:

Other things it's just been seeing guests' behavior, seeing staff behavior, how we react in these times, and just seeing how we've pulled together as a team. We've had, at times when we do have crew shortages, which everybody knows you get, we've had teams muck in and do other jobs, which has been really good. That was something I set out when all the managers started. I said, "Look, we may have to obviously all muck in, which is pretty usual, but more so than usual to ensure that the park runs smoothly for our guests." And they have, as when the needs arise, they done just that. So it's been a lot about learnings, note takings, reacting really quickly when we needed to, constantly monitoring, adapting, and just getting things right.

Kelly Molson:

It is a lovely, positive story and it's wonderful to hear that you've been inundated with people coming back, and so positive that you've been able to open these new rides and these new areas. What does the next six months hold for you? You have PrimEVIL don't you, which is obviously big around Halloween time? What, what does the next few months look for you in the run-up to Christmas?

Adam Goymour:

Yeah, well number one, that'll be the reopening of our award-winning and Norfolk's largest indoor play area at Dinomite. Today we had our annual roster inspection, so we know where we're up to with that and can make all the necessary repairs. We've got a cleaning company coming in next week to give it a full-blown clean. Then we've got all the signage that's been re-wrapped today, using all of our trademark characters, to make it really fun and immersive because we've got to have one way systems, good ventilation, lower capacity numbers. So that's been a whole different ball game, setting all that up.

Adam Goymour:

What else have we been doing? So whilst we continue to enjoy some plans, we've had to sort out September tickets, October tickets, Halloween during the day, Halloween during the night, which has been a big topic of conversation as of late. Look at Christmas, we've got our plans, but we haven't completed them yet.

Adam Goymour:

PrimEVIL is something we've had to completely change how we do it. So we've got a dedicated team in house that look after it, we've been chatting with the other big Halloween operators in the UK. So Tulleys Farm, Stuart Beare, has the biggest Halloween attraction in the UK. So I've been chatting with him. Doug Douglas, from Avon Valley, near Bath. Tom Pearcey from York Maze, and a couple of others where you got Iver and Tom Robinson. We've just been going through the plans, what can we expect? What ideas have we got? There's also to ScareCON Group with Michael Bolton. It's going to be in bubbles, obviously, a lot lower capacity, walk around the attractions. We're going to have to eliminate some of the things where obviously it's not possible to have those during these times.

Adam Goymour:

We're also creating some fun stuff around it. So that's going to be called Route 666, which has got some fantastic graphics which we've done internally. We'll release tickets, and we'll just have to see what happens and just see what comes up. If we have to close it, we have to close it. We know what the cost is going to be. If we decided to go ahead with it and then we have to close it before we even start, we're prepared to make that risk, but it's a small risk in terms of what we could make if it does go ahead.

Adam Goymour:

So, that's what we've got going on at the minute, but obviously see next year of certainly got a lot of plans, what I want to do for the future. And we've got a longterm plan, which I've been doing in the meantime. Which is the future of the business and to make it what I want it to be? So we're working on that as well. So yeah, they're the main things at the moment.

Kelly Molson:

Good, it sounds super positive. I'm really pleased that you've been so busy. I genuinely have been just really impressed with the openness of how you shared what you were going through during lockdown, but also, it's just lovely to see how positive the reaction has been from your customers coming back. So thank you for being really open on today's podcast and sharing all that with us.

Kelly Molson:

I always like to end the podcast by asking about a book that you would recommend. So a book that has helped shape your career in some way or something, one that you would recommend to us all.

Adam Goymour:

Well as I said earlier, lockdown gave me the opportunity to indulge in some reading, which I've not always had the opportunity to do, or as much as I would like. There's been a couple of books really that have made a real impression on me, and Simon Sinek, I love listening to him and reading his books. You've got the original books like Why. And then there's, Leaders Eat Last, and I'll probably say Leaders Eat Last, to be honest. It talks all about leadership excellence, and I've got notes here right in front of me, which I make as I read the book because my memory's awful. So I have to write down notes and just refer back to it. I've got a huge green board behind me on my office wall, which is basically my brain and I'll just put it on there.

Adam Goymour:

He talks a lot about leadership excellence. Values talks about the value of empathy, a whole host of other things. The willingness to listen to your team, it's now really utilize everything that I've learned from that book and sharing it with my management team because they're a young bunch, and they're dedicated, enthusiastic, and I certainly want to invest in them. As a leader, I want to inspire, and to do more, learn more, and become more. We've got a real opportunity here, so it's just working with them, with my head of HR. He's fantastic, he helps me when I struggle to get my words out from the head when we got so much going on. It's working with them really and just utilize whatever I've learned from that.

Kelly Molson:

It's a great book, great recommendation. I love that you've turned that around and you want to empower your staff and your team to be able to use that as well. Well look, if you would like to win a copy of that book, then if you head over to our Twitter account, which is skip_the_queue, and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Adam's book." Then you could be in with a chance of winning it.

Kelly Molson:

Adam, it's been lovely to have you on today. I think it would be lovely maybe to get you back on in a year from now and find out how all of those plans have developed as well. I think that would be great.

Adam Goymour:

I'd absolutely love to, that'd be great.

Kelly Molson:

Thanks, Adam.

Adam Goymour:

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
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• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
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• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

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Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 April 29th 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://waterandsteam.org.uk/

https://twitter.com/epuddick

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-power-a79717198/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nggnfC6B8

https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/

Liz Power has been the Director of the London Museum of Water & Steam since 2018, which follows 20 years working in Museum learning at the Science Museum, Imperial War Museum and London Transport Museum. 

When not at a Museum Liz can be found running around after her three children, volunteering as a trustee for her local grassroots youth work charity, or playing the Baritone horn badly in her local brass band.

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.

 In today's episode, I speak with Liz Power, Director of the London Museum of Water and Steam.

 We discuss their excellent reopening video, and how they drove their summer visitor numbers sky-high by focusing on their local community.

 If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: All right, Liz, welcome to Skip the Queue.

Liz Power: Thank you so much for having me.

Kelly Molson: Well, it's my pleasure and I'll tell you why it's my pleasure in a little while. But first, ice breaker questions. So, if there was a zombie apocalypse, which three people would you want on your team? And they can be friends or celebs.

Liz Power: Wow.

Kelly Molson: Or famous, not celebs.

Liz Power: We’ll see, for years and years me and my husband had a zombie apocalypse plan when we lived over in Wimbledon. We'd meet at the windmill on the common, and so we would... This is before we had children, we had this actual zombie apocalypse plan, so I think I'm going to take him, because he's in on the plan already and I think it's completely rational to have a zombie apocalypse plan, completely. So, I'll have him because he's good. And then who else would I have? I mean, I basically want somebody who knows a lot about zombies. There's not many of those around. Maybe I'll just take any mortician.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Liz Power: Because they're used to handling the dead, and it's not the zombie's fault that they're trying to eat our brains, so maybe they would handle the zombie relationships while I do fighting.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I like that you've thought so in-depth about this. Now I feel like I need to put my own zombie apocalypse plans together.

Liz Power: Everyone needs one.

Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, if you could eliminate one food so that no one ever had to eat it ever again, what would you destroy?

Liz Power: Without a doubt it is celery. I mean, it is obnoxious, horrible, does nothing for you. Just the presence of it in a space stinks it out. I can spot it in a mixed up food a hundred miles. It is the filthy devil's food, and eating it would kill you if you ate nothing else. So, the world could do without it. It's very much the mosquito of the food world, celery. Yeah, everyone would be delighted. Nobody would believe me for that.

Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, good. Exactly how I feel about peas, so... It's similar.

Liz Power: Similar. Similar. Maybe we could do both, sort of a two-for-one offer.

Kelly Molson: I'm all down for that. Celery has no part in my life.

Liz Power: No, nor mine. Nor anybody's I'm sure, but anyway. Still should be banned.

Kelly Molson: All right. Final one, what is the best advice you've ever been given?

Liz Power: So, I have three children, and my daughter turned two the day after my twins were born. It was unbelievable chaos for the last... Well, for the last eight years to be honest, but particularly the first kind of six months. At one point, I cried on a health visitor and said... Because they would just scream and hit and it was oh, they were such messy little creatures. I said to her was it ever going to be like this forever? Had I ruined everyone's lives? Had I ruined my daughter's life by bringing these two horrible screaming babies into her world, and she said to me, "They are learning about relationships in the safety of your love."

Kelly Molson: Aw, that's lovely.

Liz Power: And it was the best bit of advice, and I probably reference it about three times a week, because even though they're now 10 and eight, my boys are eight, it's still chaotic and it's still argumentative. The small one had an argument over jumpers. I mean, it is that... They are going to just be the best humans, they're going to make the best friends, they're going to have the best relationships because they're learning about that in complete safety. So, that's what reassures me when it all goes horrifically wrong.

Kelly Molson: Oh my God, that is so special. What a... That's a really lovely gift that she gave you with that saying, isn't it?

Liz Power: Yeah, and I was at a very, very low point, and it just gave me enough to keep going, that I hadn't ruined everything. Not that you can choose to have twins, but it just felt like I'd blown everything apart. She was like, "No, this is for their good." And it is for their good.

Kelly Molson: Hats off to you, because I'm juggling a four-month-old right now, and that's tough enough. So, well done you. All right, what is your unpopular opinion?

Liz Power: I've been thinking about this, because I have so many opinions, but I tend to have a tendency to think I'm right, so I think they're more popular, but I thought of one particularly for museums. We have so many museums in this country. That worries me. We just have so many, and I'm not sure that every single museum in the country is viable, so I think my unpopular opinion should be that if we're going to have to make choices about which museums we can sustain as a country, then we should make it purely based on which ones have mannequins or not, and get rid of every single mannequin museum. If you have a mannequin, I don't care how pretty it is, it must go. The things are terrifying, horrific. Maybe we'd have an amnesty and give everyone 12 months to get rid if they wanted. And then anybody who was like, "No, my mannequin must stay." I'm like... I don't mind a headless one to display clothing, but the ones that are just kind of an actual person. Horrific.

Liz Power: When I worked at the Transport Museum, there was one... Well, Transport Museum, I love it dearly but they'll definitely have to close or get rid of the mannequins. There's one there that is actually modelled on Sam Mullins, the director. And so, it's even more horrific, and then in their store in Acton, there's just trains full of random mannequins. I mean, it's horrible.

Kelly Molson: Kind of spooky having a mannequin of yourself, isn't it? That's a bit creepy. But where would all the mannequins go, though? There would just be a landfill of weird, creepy mannequins.

Liz Power: No, we'd burn them.

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Liz Power: Yeah, we'd burn them. We're very industrious in museums. We'd probably sell tickets to the bonfire. We'd burn all the mannequins that were given over in the amnesty, and the museums that don't comply, that is it. No more of your museum. You just have to be... Though, I think that's probably going to turn out to be an incredibly popular opinion.

Kelly Molson: I think it might as well. Let's find out. Listeners, can you let us know how you feel about the burning of the mannequins?

Liz Power: I think it just feels right. I don't know how you'd object to it. It's so good.

Kelly Molson: Also, let me know if you buy a ticket for that as well. I'm intrigued.

Liz Power: I'll get that Arts Council application on the go right now.

Kelly Molson: Liz, thank you for that. Okay, I've had so many wonderful unpopular opinions this season already, I just... Yeah, where you pull them from, I do not know. Right, tell us a little bit about the London Museum of Water and Steam.

Liz Power: Well, of course, everyone has visited, but just for a couple of people that have never been, we are a very small micro-museum over in West London, and we're based at Q Bridge train station, but actually in Brentford and Hounslow. We are a historic site, and we have 200 years of water pumping history and the impact it has on London. So, we have a collection of static steam engines, we have a small, really small [inaudible 00:08:22] gauge loco that runs around our site, and we are a community museum, so we're really focused on what we can do for our local community. That's a massive part of what we do, and then the other part of what we do is our visitor profile is the classic split of the under-fives and the enthusiasts.

Liz Power: So, it's a really unusual place and massive plug for everyone to come and visit and come and see me because everyone at all. Yes, I know this standpipe tower, so if you've ever sat on the traffic queuing to the A40 with that big tower that you're like, "Oh, I don't know what that is." Yeah, that's us, and it's a standpipe tower, not a chimney. So, come educate yourself, because everyone's like, "Oh, I've queued past so many times." Yeah, that's us, that's the Water and Steam.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. That was a very good synopsis, and you mentioned community. We're going to come back to that because that's what we want to talk about on today's podcast. But listeners, as you know I basically stalk people on Twitter and LinkedIn and various social media platforms and ask them to come on the podcast. I'm always looking out for interesting guests, interesting stories, and I have been stalking Liz for a little while, actually, after I saw their rather brilliant reopening video that the museum produced. 

Kelly Molson: Now, this was when the museums were allowed to reopen after the first wave of pandemic. I know we are still in it, but I thought it was such a great example of one, a video that was on brand. It was really fun, really authentic, and I'm going to say really inexpensively-made, and I just thought, I just thought it was perfect. It was such a lovely way of kind of showcasing to your potential visitors that it was a safe place to come.

Kelly Molson: It was really fun. You really explained visually really well what they could and couldn't do, and I just think it's excellent. I've referenced it in many... Well, I've referenced it on the podcast, I've referenced it in a few webinars that we've done for ASVA, and I just think it's banging. Can you just talk us through the process of how you... I will put the link to the video in the show notes, so if you haven't seen it you can have a watch.

Liz Power: Cool, thanks. We were fully furloughed as staff from April the first, including myself. So, we were out of work, but that didn't stop you from attending webinars, and so myself and the team were attending anything we could do to just feel like we still had a job. One of the webinars, we heard Bernard Donoghue who I know you've had on before talk about a reopening video that would be an important part of reopening. We didn't have any money or any budget or anything, but we had enthusiasm and an incredible ability to chuck ourselves into having a go at anything. And I just thought we could do it. I looked at some of the ones that other people were making, and I was like, "You know what, it doesn't look that hard."

Liz Power: So, we filmed it on my iPhone, because I had the newest phone of the team, so that's how that choice was made. Myself and Gemma, who... We only have three staff majoritively, so the two of us filmed it together and we wrote a little skit. We filmed it in order, so we'd find it easier to edit, and we filmed it without a microphone or anything, and then we took a few takes of a few things, but pretty much did it short and sharp, under a minute long. We knew the messages we wanted to get across about space and fun...

Kelly Molson: That's my favourite bit. The space bit is my favourite bit.

Liz Power: There's so much space.

Kelly Molson: There's so much space. But it's filmed from really far away, so it sounds like you've got loads of space as well, and I was like it’s really brilliant.

Liz Power: In our garden, yeah. And then we used free editing software to bring it together, and then my friend Vicki Pipe, who is the manager of the amazing Bow Street Police Museum, check that out, who's a brilliant editor. She's @vickiexplores on Twitter. She did a time to edit for me and put some music over the top, and that was it. And then we did a really important thing, and I know this sounds silly, but I lost all sense of shame and I set up a WhatsApp group which was absolutely everybody I knew who I thought would retweet it for me. I sent out a WhatsApp group to them and sent a message to them all saying, "I really need your help. Good news, I'm not asking for money. All I'm asking for is a retweet. Can you retweet my video when I bring it out next week?" And sent them a little preview.

Liz Power: And then everyone did, including the amazing Scummy Mummies, who retweeted it for me, and they've got a massive following. So, it really got out into the world. It was fantastic. Anyway, so we loved it so much that we made another one for October when we reopened, so that was our outdoor spaces. When we reopened our indoor spaces, and this time I roped in my kids to star in it, and we did exactly the same process. For us, it worked really well. When we'd had to close, all of our engagement with our audience had gone on to social media, and there was nothing else we could do. We were furloughed, we were really tight but we have always been really open with our visitors and our community about who we are as an organisation but also as individuals.

Liz Power: So, it's really not unusual for our social media to feature us messing around, or us just talking about our lives or... It's not my kids' first appearance. It is very much community work. You have to give so you can receive, and it fitted our brand because if we'd suddenly had come out with something that was so slick, they'd all gone, "Well, they said they have no money." We haven't gotten any money, so we have to film it like this. It fits. This is us, this is me and Gemma. We're the people you will meet, and so in every way, it fitted what we did. It was so well-received, and it really held its own against people who spent a lot of money on theirs, and we spent, for the record, nothing.

Kelly Molson: Amazing. Yeah, I love that, and I think that's part of seeing... The pandemic has forced people to be more innovative and be more creative with the budget that they've got, which was zero, and to do things like this. I think one of the nice things that you mentioned is about, you were in it and your children were in it, and it was... If people are going to visit, they're going to meet those people, and that brings me back to that community aspect that I want to talk about. Because you've had a really, really successful summer, and this was something that I saw on Twitter a little while ago.

Kelly Molson: You posted, and again, I'll reference this in the show notes, but you posted up a graph. Your tweet said, "The grey are the numbers we expected. Yellow is what we had before, and blue is what we got." And basically the numbers were phenomenal. They were far over what you were predicting, like far over.

Liz Power: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: You said this had all come about because you'd focused on your local community. I want to know what you did.

Liz Power: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So, you've got your summer 2021 results are pretty phenomenal. Talk us through how you got them, because they were so much better than what you expected.

Liz Power: So much better, and I just want to say that halfway through the summer, I had failed the basic mantra of "know your numbers" and was in the pit of despair unknowing if we were doing well or not. And then I was like, "Actually, Power, sort yourself out. Just count the numbers up and have a look," and we were doing so well. We had forecast that we would get 25% of our normal visitor numbers. Now, for a sense of scale, we are tiny, so if we get over 200 visitors, we're emergency going to say we need to get more loo roll, just to give you a sense of scale. But we had forecast 25%, and we were smashing it. Absolutely smashing it.

Liz Power: We are very lucky in Brentford where we sit. We're surrounded by people, so we're overlooked by the Brentford Towers Housing Estate, which is a high-rise accommodation, high-density, and then we have new-build flats all the way around us, and that's why in the summer of '21... In the summer of '20, we had decided to open this outdoor space, because to be brutally honest, nobody needed a static steam engine at that point in their life. Did they need a place to play with their kids? Absolutely. So, we did that instead. When it came to this summer, what we really wanted to do was kind of take that same approach and feel, and bring it into the museum. Despite all the new people we met last summer... All the new people we've met since we reopened in May, come to the museum and just, we want it treated like a park.

Liz Power: We want people to feel like they can come time and time again, have a play. That kind of feel, so when we had opened... I don't know what you call the October opening. Almost open. When we'd almost opened in October and done the half term, and then again when we reopened in May, the first thing we did before we let the public in is have a week of community opening, where we invited all of our local community groups in to have the space for themselves, get them back through the door, just kind of build up those relationships. We'd had some funding from the Council over the autumn of '21 for a project we called Sharing Spaces. Sounds really posh, but what they actually did was pay for a duty manager and a cleaner so that we could open the museum not for the public but for community work, because we were a large space.

Liz Power: So, we were ventilated and groups could meet inside, and particularly for the local communities work we do with people with autism. Having a regular meeting place had been really important. So, it started to kind of snowball all of this work we were doing in the local community, being helpful. Helpful is one of our museum values, and so we're like, "What would be helpful to do now?" Again, still nobody needs a static pumping engine, but they do need a place to come and do a regular craft group or whatever it is. We had carried on this mantra, and then we'd closed again and gone into that really long lockdown. Then, with the help from the Culture Recovery Fund, we'd been able to open up in May, and again, focus on the community groups. What can we do that is helpful?

Liz Power: We've got a brilliant new community partner in the Au Bon community, who are a charity who work with young people with learning disabilities. They're our new café, and that's really exciting and we've got all these new community groups coming in and out. And then we've just got local people, and we swapped our annual tickets, so we are unashamedly a Robin Hood organisation. If you travel from Brighton to buy a ticket for the day, we're an expensive day out for you at 17 pounds. If you live next door, we are an absolute bargain. 17 quid for the year, come in every week. Brilliant.

Liz Power: So, we have this. We knew we'd have people coming time and time again, and annual ticket members bring other annual ticket members. And then we knew we couldn't do seven days a week. We didn't have the staff, so we consolidated down to five days a week. Still, at five days a week, we beat what we had done in 2019.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Liz Power: It was just local people because we know them, and we see them, and we chat with them. They help us find the leak buckets when the roof rains, and they say things like, "Are you doing that story again, Liz?" And you're like, "Yes, I'm doing that story again." And we put together a simple program that we felt was manageable and deliverable, we had a good summer. But local people had built this relationship with us, which meant that they knew what they were getting, they know the approach they're getting. We're a friendly place. You really can't go far wrong. Of course you can touch something. You're going to get covered in oil, but help yourself. Come in the water play, just come and sit and chill. You walk a coffee through our museum, it's absolutely fine. We want to be that kind of relaxed environment, and that's just what people needed this summer. We just got it just right for our local people, and I think we've done a lot of listening and a lot of thinking about them.

Liz Power: And also a lot of reflecting on our own lives. What do we want this summer? I certainly don't' want anything too intense. I wanted a chill place that made me feel safe and relaxed and happy, and that didn't have to go too far. So, that's what we provided for a lot of people in Brentford.

Kelly Molson: How did you get the word out? Did you use... You've obviously got quite a tight-knit community around you anyway, so you've got people that would come back and visit regularly, and they're going to spread the word organically for you. Is that what happened, or did you go to any other lengths to...? So, did you invest in digital, for example? Did you do any online campaigns? Or did you do any flyer dropping, or...?

Liz Power: No. The Cultural Recovery Fund’s money, obviously, was only for the three months and it ran out before the summer holiday, so we had pre-invested in that well-known marketing tool, the banner. We have two banners out saying what we were doing for the summer, and we use our social media a lot, so we chat to people and we often say to people, "Oh, if you want to know what's going on, just follow us Facebook." We've got a big Facebook following, big for us. Lots of people do follow us on that, but then also, we're really unashamed about it. This half term, we've been doing science shows and at the end of every science show, we end with an appeal, thanking everyone for coming, saying that museums will only keep going if we have visitors. It's their homework to go away and tell five people, "Help keep us going."

Liz Power: I think a lot of it is word of mouth, and just kind of the good feeling we can create from being helpful, from being positive, so you get people whose child maybe attends a club that meets in the museum, or maybe they're a carer to one of the young people who does their bunchy work in café... That kind of good atmosphere, and then that's it. We don't have any money for any new marketing or leaflets or anything like that, so it's simple at the moment until we build our income back up...

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Liz Power: ... and are able to put a bit more money behind it.

Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. To have achieved those kinds of visitor numbers without actually any additional spend is pretty impressive.

Liz Power: Yeah, I forgot one thing, as well, which was before the summer, I did a request out to Thames Water. Thames  Water doesn’t fund us or anything, but I kind of think they should. So, I'd phoned them up and asked them if there was anything they could do for the summer to help us, and their engagement team came down every Wednesday with a bunch of activities, and so we were able to have additional programming for no additional cost. If in doubt, ask.

Kelly Molson: That's excellent.

Liz Power: Yeah, and that came out of... I was at training or networking, and somebody said, "If you need help, ask for help." And I was like, "We need help. We need help to put on programming for this summer. Let me ask." And they said yes.

Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. So actually, a big part of it is finding new partners to support you. It's not just about relying on the general public to spread the word. That's one part of it, but the other channel is actually, if we look at the community and we look at partners that can come and support us, that's another way of developing... Because, are you getting new people coming through the doors as well? You talked a lot about your annual visitors, but are you getting new visitors? You can see that split?

Liz Power: Yeah, we can see the split. I'm not very good on stats, so I haven't got the stats for you, but yeah. We can see the new people coming in, so when I was changing the ticket prices... In 2019, we had 13 different ticket prices, and to volunteer on our front desk, you basically needed a degree in mathematics. We simplified it and we now have the classic two ticket prices, adults and concessions, and we made all kids go free because it's such a good line. I worked out when I was doing the calculations for that ticket change, the percentage of new tickets that we would have coming through the door, and I was heavily indebted to the AIM guides, an Association of Independent Museums who are brilliant. I mean, they've got a guide for everything you need... If you want to run a museum, just use that website. Their ticket guide basically said, "If you change to an annual ticket, annual tickets bring other people." As soon as you read it you think, "Do you know what? I've done that."

Liz Power: So, you get an annual ticket to somewhere and then you say to your friend, "I'll tell you what, I've got a ticket to Kew Gardens, do you want to meet me there? That would be great, and then you could get a ticket, and then the two of us can meet in Kew Gardens." And then they say to their friend, "Do you know what? I've got a ticket to Kew Gardens..." That's the word of mouth that comes with that investment in that annual ticket for those families, and we'd had people who'd bought annual tickets at October half term, we're very liberal at just extending those, thanking them for support. Lots of families said, "Don't be ridiculous, we'll buy a new one," which is lovely. But the annual ticket is something that... Now, you can come every weekend like everyone else.

Liz Power: You can just have a play, or did you know the trains are coming back? Or did you know that we've got the model railway, or whatever is coming in, they feel we are a hop in-able venue, and then that's how they kind of spread the word to their friends, really, and start the snowball off.

Kelly Molson: And is this kind of constantly evolving? Because I guess just going back to what you mentioned right at the start, is that you said, "What is it that people need right now? They need outdoor space, they need somewhere to come with their kids where they can burn off steam, and they need it to be a calm space where they don't have to worry about anything." How does that translate now that the winter's coming? Are you speaking to the community to find out what it is that they need?

Liz Power: Yeah, so on our community work site, at the moment we're only open to the public at weekends, during term time. But we're open for the community Thursdays and Fridays, and that's when we're also starting to welcome schools back in. Watch this space, and also when we have our volunteers come in on Thursdays and Fridays. The big request from the community is to open more. I mean, we could fill the building four days a week, easily, with community work. So, that's a real challenge for us, to look for sources of income to make that happen, so I have a couple of proposals out with corporate donors who, I think it should help the community by opening our museum for a couple extra days a week. For them it would be, in case they're listening, a very low-cost investment, so we need a duty manager and we need a cleaner, and that's pretty much it. And some overheads to keep the lights on, so we know that's what the community really need.

Liz Power: They need a dry space, they need a ventilated space, they need toilets. So, that's really, really important, and then for our kind of family visitors, it's really interesting. So, half term just gone, we had good numbers. I was really pleased. We beat our 25% target, we didn't have those numbers like the summer. What is really interesting, families were saying to me, "I'm so glad you're not busy. I thought you were going to be busy."

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Liz Power: Which I think is fascinating. I mean, it's an independent museum's worst nightmare, that people want to avoid busy places because busy is what we love, but I thought that was really interesting and made me think about kind of the messaging we're going to do this winter. We are big, we do have plenty of space. You can safely navigate our museum without hitting a queue or feeling hemmed in. So, I think that we're going to have to think about how we communicate that, and how we make sure that we... Instead of going what is more traditional for us pre-pandemic years, October half terms is manic, and then winter toddles along. How can we spread that out? How can we say to our families, "You know the offer that you love at half term? Well actually, this weekend in November, we're also doing some of that."

Liz Power: So, we can spread all visitors out and make them feel safe and secure this winter, and safe and secure I think is just about not being busy for them. Actually, it's going to be a really fine balance.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? It's a conundrum of... And I guess this comes back to a pricing strategy as well, is do you have less visitor numbers, higher entry price? But then that's a challenge in terms of the local kind of community you've built up. You don't want to whack the price up for them, but will people travel and pay more to come?

Liz Power: Brentford's a very deprived area, and Hounslow is a little rich borough, and I'm very aware of not wanting to kind of price our local community out of the museum. For me, working in independent museums as I have for the last 13 years, for me it's all about demonstrating worth, so £17 is a lot of money. Some families, for an adult, I can't do the maths quick enough to tell you what it'd be for two, but for some families that is beyond their reach, right? They're never going to be able to afford that. Those families, we will give tickets to for free. That is not a lost income for me, they are never coming. So, I will give them a ticket because that is gained love, gained support, gained word of mouth. That's all pluses for me, there's no loss at all.

Liz Power: In the past, we've given away tickets with a food bank, which has been really good, and we're delighted to see some of those families in. We work very closely with the Children's Centre, who hold a stay and play on a Thursday in term time in our museum, and we give tickets away to those families, and all of my duty managers are on strict instructions that if somebody arrives with a family and when they're told the price, they say, "This is not for us, then," and you can tell, you know those families aren't faking it. They absolutely can let those families in.

Kelly Molson: That's wonderful.

Liz Power: That's not lost money. That's just a total bonus, but it's about demonstrating 17 quid, for a lot of people, is a big spend. So, what are you getting? What's your value for money there? I always think about the cinema, the thing about paying for the cinema is you know how long you're going to be in it, you know what it's going to be like, and you know what it's going to be like when you finish. So, that's a safe bet for a family, they understand that transaction, and I think the thing with museums is people who aren't museum-goers don't understand that transaction. They don't see what they're getting, and this kind of loops back around to the film and the social media and the being very open, and welcoming community groups in.

Liz Power: All we're trying to do is show you what you're going to get, that it's not scary. You're going to meet me and Gemma. It's really fun, your kid doesn't have to behave, tantrums are incredibly welcome and totally normal, as is shoplifting from our shop. Toddlers running across the carpark with a bouncy ball, you don't have to put on your best. I don't want it to be a place where you feel you can only go if your children are on their best behaviour. You need us most when your children are at their absolute worst. That's when you should feel safe to come to us and go, "God, they're having a hideous day. Water and steam, that's what we need. Let's go get wet in the splash zone." Doesn't matter if they've got soaked. They keep their clothes. Doesn't matter if they're having a screaming tantrum on the floor, Liz has got that secret packet of stickers that she gives to screaming kids.

Liz Power: That's the kind of safety we want to create, and then that means for them that they know that value of that 18, 17 quid. They really understand what they're getting in return, and it's a good investment for them. And we've done this... Hounslow Council have given every household a 20 quid voucher, like an e-voucher thing, and we've signed up and some families have been swapping that for their adult ticket.

Kelly Molson: Ah, that's great.

Liz Power: Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant, because 17 quid, you could spend it in lots of different shops in Hounslow and restaurants and things, but if they spent it with us, they get something that lasts all year. That's been wonderful to see that coming through.

Kelly Molson: That's really smart. Liz, I don't think that you could have sold a trip to this museum any better than you just did. It's just perfect. It's perfect. I'm bringing Edie, I'm bringing Edie.

Liz Power: Yeah, do it. Bring her when you're having a rubbish day. I will happily cuddle a baby for you.

Kelly Molson: Excellent, I'll take that. I'll definitely take you up on that. Liz, what is next for the museum? We talked a little bit about how your offering is going to change slightly, and obviously, there is still a nervousness from people, and they want to know that they're going to have enough space and be safe over the summer months. What comes next?

Liz Power: We've got to work out how to grow. Okay, so we've luckily not had to make anyone redundant, but we haven't replaced anyone who's left, and so I think we've kind of been in survival mode quite a long way. But I wrote a business plan in 2019, and I've got to trash it because we've leapt so far forward in everything we wanted to do, so that's fantastic news. There's a bit of kind of structural replanning that needs to happen, thinking about our business plan going forward, and then how do we grow back to where we were? How do we get back to the starting levels? Then, how can we do more for our community?

Liz Power: We're just about to advertise for a volunteer coordinator part-time if you'd like to come work with me. That is going to be a really big thing for us, and we need to build our volunteer team back. That's incredibly important, we have started a years' worth of work, working on young volunteering. A lot of young people who are long-term mates, volunteering in the museum, so I'm just trying to explore every version of volunteering possible because I think we're a fantastic resource for skills and all the rest of it. I'm having conversations with all sorts of people that might be able to make volunteering doable for us. That's really exciting, and then we're again thinking about what our community needs.

Liz Power: I want to do some work on our outdoor spaces, which are before the pay line. We're very lucky, we've got a beautiful garden with frogs and a playhouse and more children's watering cans than you've ever seen, but there's space at the back that I'm hoping that I am going to be able to redevelop into a wild play space that could be used by the local community for playing for a school. Something that's kind of lacking in Brentford. I'd like to get open more, because I think we need to be doing more community work. So again, as you can see these things are about kind of what can we look for funding to take our work forward, while maintaining our core work of the work that we do with the communities and the work we do with our visitors who come in all the time?

Liz Power: So, slowly, slowly nudging forward and always just being really honest with people about where we are, and just explaining we can't do everything, and the things we can't do, explain why we can't do them. Just the things we can do, being enthusiastic and going for it. We try to have an attitude of promising to everyone that we'll say no if we can't do something, because in some cultures, saying "no" is perceived as incredibly rude. So, people don't ask, because they're worried they're going to put a burden on you. We want to have the opposite, so we operate on a promise to say no, so you may as well ask because I'm going to feel I have to do something.

Liz Power: Kind of continuing to listen and respond to the community, and just trying to be the most helpful, responsive, reactive museum we can, and get our reaccreditation. So, just a couple of things.

Kelly Molson: I mean, that's not a shortlist by any means, is it? What we really need are those corporate sponsors to get their wallets out, get their purses out, and spend some money.

Liz Power: Absolutely. To spend some money, and to think about how they can support the museum because the visitor numbers will return and that income will return, but it's going to be a slow-moving thing. There's no rushing that, and I don't know if we'll ever see numbers like we did before the world changed. So, this is time to think differently, and think a bit laterally about how can we still achieve what we want to achieve? And it might work, might not work, but at least they're going to try, and try everything.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Liz, I've really loved speaking to you about this, because you can see when you talk, you can see the enthusiasm that comes through you, so I just think it would be... Definitely, I'm going to come and visit, because it would be so lovely to meet you in person because you kind of... The museum just is you, you just glow when you talk about it. It's really lovely.

Liz Power: I was very lucky. So, I've only ever worked in museums. I've never worked anywhere else, and then slowly over the 20 years of careers, I've made a list of all the places I would never work, which I might tell you if you come in and have a coffee. I was really, really lucky I was working so much on community engagement in museums and younger people in museums. That's really where I felt my focus should be, is on the social purpose of museums. I'm just really lucky that when I went to the interview at Water and Steam, I pitched them this left-wing community utopia they went for it. They trusted in me and backed me, and I think it's starting to come good.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is. Absolutely. All right, so something else that I want to discuss with you. Now, this is the time in the podcast where I normally ask our guest to give a book recommendation. So, something that they love, something that maybe has shaped their career, and when I asked you this, you very... No, it was really such a valid point, and I thought, "No one's ever said that to me before, and nobody's ever raised this as a topic," but you basically said that books, they're not at the top of your list of things to do, because you have Dyslexia.

Liz Power: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Let's talk about the... museum and cultural world is extremely academic. How do you deal with this? What's your strategies?

Liz Power: Well, it's super academic, isn't it? And I've got a terrible degree in drama. I could be a tree, but that's kind of where my academia ends. And as I made my way through my career, I was very aware that you just... Goodness, people are clever, aren't they? And they've done all sorts of qualifications and all the rest of it, and my idea of hell is doing an MA. Sounds horrific.

Kelly Molson: Same.

Liz Power: Degree in drama was bad enough. I'm not a studier, I hate it. The day I worked my first job, which was at Buckingham Palace, I worked in the security team. Literally, I was like, "Oh, I'm a worker bee. I'm happy. I don't want to study, I just want to work," and it's not been easy, because there is this presumption that you come from this academic background, and that you will gain your knowledge about the sector through reading and absorbing this. I could read a textbook on museum practice. I am not going to remember it, I'm not going to be able to take it in, and I won't understand the majority of the words, so my reading and writing age is about that of a 12-year-old, and that is not what museum books are written for. Though I am excellent at editing texts for exhibitions because 12 is what we should all aim for.

Liz Power: So, I'm not a natural museum person like that. I also don't particularly like exhibitions, because I find reading hard, and so why would I choose to do that, stood up? If I'm going to read, and I do read for pleasure, I will be sat somewhere snugly, and so I can give my full concentration to it. Certainly not in a room with other people stood looking at a wall. So, accessing information throughout my career has kind of come from two places. First of all, from being brutally honest about my abilities and my limitations. My dyslexia affects my short-term memory, it affects my processing skills, it obviously affects my reading and writing skills. If I had to read something, then I need to kind of set aside time to actually do that, and be in the right environment to make myself read it.

Liz Power: My own learning has mainly come from people. I mean, the best source of learning, they are. They are the people that write the books, after all, so you just go talk to the person. Skip out the middle page. I've done a lot of kind of following and networking and chatting to people. I've worked with some extraordinary people, and being so lucky to manage some brilliant people who have really challenged me in what I think and do, and if I'm able to kind of share how I need to work... If you're going to be managed by me, this is what you need to know. If I'm going to report to you, I mean, my poor trustees, what a learning curve.

Liz Power: This is how this information will be coming to you, and best of luck deciphering this. So, I do do written reports, but they will quite often say, "Well, we'll have a verbal report on that one. Have a verbal report on that." And we only do one basic written report, so like our board meetings, that's majoritively kind of bullet points and things like... They kind of adapted to my issues, but the massive, massive plus side, and the reason I wouldn't turn off my dyslexia even if I could, is you choose me to be part of the team. You get all that hard work, but you also get an incredible dyslexic superpower, which I that I can see something complete. I can see what Water and Steam will be. Not might be, not could be, but will absolutely be. I can see the people walking through the door, I can see the interactions, and then what I can do once I can see something, I can take it apart and work out how to get there.

Liz Power: I didn't realise this was a superpower until a former line manager said to me once, "You have three good ideas a year, Liz, and that's what we keep you around for." I said, "I do actually." But my ideas come fully formed, and that's really unusual to go, "I have a fully-formed vision of this." I woke up the other day and I had a fully-formed vision of how I would revolutionise sports engagement for the under-16s. I mean, for God's sake...

Kelly Molson: Is there nothing that you can't do, Liz?

Liz Power: No. Well, I'm not going to do it. But it's like, seriously brain, could you just switch off? That's the plus side of my dyslexia, is that I see things in a very different way to a lot of people, and then I have the ability to kind of undo it all. Yeah, so super dyslexic, now parent to two, potentially three super dyslexic children. I was lucky to be brought up in an incredibly dyslexic-positive household. My dad's dyslexic, my brother's dyslexic, my poor mother dealing with us all. It's got lots of downsides, but the upsides are so totally worth it. But it does mean I can't recommend a book.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's fine. Liz, this has been better than a book recommendation, because the fact that you've been able to kind of speak so openly and humorously about the subject, that's going to help more people than reading a book.

Liz Power: Yeah, absolutely. If you have somebody who's dyslexic who's joining your team, or you're going to be working with them, there's a lot of resources from the Dyslexia Association that can talk to you about managing somebody with dyslexia or working with somebody with dyslexia. That really helps. It's a neuro-difference the same as any other, so get yourself clued up, work out what the plus sides are, and adapt as best as possible. I wouldn't change it, it doesn't make life easy, but it certainly makes it more interesting. I definitely couldn't do my job if I wasn't dyslexic. No chance.

Kelly Molson: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that, Liz. Again, we will pop all of the links to the Dyslexia Association in the show notes as well, so if you haven't ever gone and looked at their website, go and browse it. I'm sure there's a lot of things on there that would be able to support your teams. Liz, it's been brilliant to talk to you. Thank you. Wishing you all the best of luck as you head into the winter months, and I'll check back in on you in a few months, and see how it's all going if that's okay.

Liz Power: I would love that, and you must come in and have a coffee. And anybody else who wants to come in and abuse my brilliant coffee shop, then just send me a message on Twitter, and yeah, everyone's welcome. The more people I can show my museum to, the happier I am.

Kelly Molson: Well, you heard it there, folks. Everyone needs to head over. Please, I know we did mention it earlier, but don't steal anything from the gift shop.

Liz Power: I will catch 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 for this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

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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

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Show references:

www.designedbyesther.co.uk

www.princes-trust.org.uk

https://www.linkedin.com/in/esther-johnson

Esther Johnson is working with the leading tourist attractions. Creating contemporary illustrations based on extensive research of each subject for commercial use.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for 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 Esther Johnson, a freelance designer and illustrator specialising in working with heritage sites. 

We discuss the importance of having niche products in your gift shop, how you can develop these for your attraction, and what you need to think about before taking on the plunge. 

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Esther, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today, it's so lovely to see you again.

Esther Johnson: Thank you very much for having me, very flattered. 

Kelly Molson: I love the backdrop that you've got there as well, for everyone that's watching this on YouTube, I can see your beautiful illustrations that we're going to talk about in the background. It's a lot more beautiful than my background. 

Esther Johnson: No, it's authentic. It's authentic working from home. We redid it last year at the start of April and didn't know that it was going to be really useful for having meetings like this. 

Kelly Molson: Who did?

Esther Johnson: [crosstalk 00:01:05]. So, thank you very much.

Kelly Molson: You are welcome. As ever, we're going to start off with some icebreaker questions. So, if money was no limit, what would be your absolute dream holiday?

Esther Johnson: Easy, Nashville. I'm such a big country music fan, absolutely love Nashville, and I would love, love, love to go and listen to the music, and drink the beer and everything. Proper Nashville, want to do it, that is on my bucket list. So, if I had all the money, that's straight where I would go.

Kelly Molson: I love that. There was no hesitation whatsoever in that at all, "I've got this planned already". 

Esther Johnson: Literally, country music... It's all I listen to. During the day, it's all I listen to.

Kelly Molson: Who is your favourite country music artist? 

Esther Johnson: So, a bit of a girl crush on Carrie Underwood. I've seen her I think three times in London. I think she's just such an incredible performer, and I love her outfits, and I love just everything that she's doing. Carrie Underwood. 

Kelly Molson: You've just set the Spotify playlist for me for the rest of the day, I'll have to check her out. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, [inaudible 00:02:26] playlist, definitely [inaudible 00:02:26]. 

Kelly Molson: What is your food-based guilty pleasure? 

Esther Johnson: Probably After Eight's. I have a few food allergies, so my palette is barely limited at times, so After Eight's are literally my go-to for everything. It's the only chocolate I can have, so it's definitely my guilty pleasure. 

Kelly Molson: The only chocolate you can have? Wow. Do you play the After Eight game when you eat them as well? 

Esther Johnson: No, wastes time, wastes time, straight in. 

Kelly Molson: Messy too, depending on the time. 

Esther Johnson: Of course, yes.

Kelly Molson: This might tie in actually to your dream holiday, if you could only listen to one album for the rest of your life what would it be?

Esther Johnson: Probably Tommy Scott, this is very Scottish, but it's literally my family's favourite tunes and songs. Tommy Scott, he'll do a range of, We Belong to Glasgow, and all these very Scottish things. So, Tommy Scott. I don't know what album, but anything he's done we'll listen to that.

Kelly Molson: Alright, I don't know Tommy Scott, I'm going to have to put him in my playlist. 

Esther Johnson: I'm sure you maybe recognise if you've been to a Burns Night, or [inaudible 00:03:47], or New Year's Eve literally they'll play some of his music. 

Kelly Molson: Esther, it's unpopular opinion time.

Esther Johnson: My unpopular opinion is I really don't like pasta, and I'm sorry. I really don't like pasta. If you've gone out to a restaurant and gone to an Italian, and you have Pizza, why would you choose pasta over pizza? I just don't get it.

Kelly Molson: I get you on that. There is no decision to be made there. 

Esther Johnson: [crosstalk 00:04:20] all the way.

Kelly Molson: But, you don't like pasta at all?

Esther Johnson: At all. I like rice, so I'd rather have rice. If mum and dad are having pasta I will have rice or something else, or potatoes. I don't know if it's the texture, or if it's the taste. I don't know. Just not for me at all.

Kelly Molson: I'll accept your unpopular opinion. 

Esther Johnson: Thank you.

Kelly Molson: I don't agree with it, but I think that there might be a few people that will.

Esther Johnson: I'm very much alone in this house as well. 

Kelly Molson: Let's get on to the serious questions. So, Esther, I think we connected on LinkedIn quite a while ago, and I have to say, I'm really blown away by the illustrative work that you do. I think it's absolutely beautiful. You're a freelance designer, but you specialise in illustrations and products for heritage sites. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Tell me a little bit about how you started your business. 

Esther Johnson: It was back in 2017, I'd just been on the Prince's Trust course. They do an enterprise course and it's a four-day crash course into running a business. So, it does your taxes, your marketing. So, four days of full-on business stuff. And, they were doing pros and cons of being an entrepreneur or being self-employed, and every single one I was like, "Yeah, I really want to be self-employed, I want to make my own day job and routine." So, got partnered with a mentor, and we started talking about what I could do as a business really, so creating that idea. I said, "I really like sketchbooks, and drawing, and things like that, but things that I like drawing are the quirky characters, not characters as in Disney characters, but characteristics of places. 

Esther Johnson: And, there was a program recently that really summed up my mindset into what I, hopefully, what I'm into the business. It was Tony Robinson, and he did this documentary on Cathedrals in England, and he was saying that, "Unless somebody pointed out these little details, you wouldn't know." So, so many people would just walk past, and that's fine because it's all this history. And, it's those kind of quirky things that we was talking about that I really loved and wanted to capture through illustration. 

Esther Johnson: So, there was a video, on Facebook I think it was, and it was all these railings that were really bizarre in London, and they were old World War 2 stretchers, and they'd been recycled into railings. And, it's that kind of idea that I really like drawing. So, we were like, "How can we get that concept?" Because, it's heritage, it's history, and quirky characteristics, "How can we get that concept into a business?" Basically, so, we started thinking of places that were local to me, so in Medway, and Chatham Dockyard came to the list. 

Esther Johnson: So, one day, just basically walked in, I had a couple of designs in a folder, and went, "Can I speak to the retail manager?" Hadn't planned anything, didn't know what I wanted to say. And, he didn't laugh at me at the door, which was really nice. He said, "Come back", he had a look at my designs in the folder, seemed to like them. He said, "Come back with some designs and we'll go from there." So, that was it. I went around the site. Chatham Dockyard I think was the biggest employer for Medway before it closed. But, there are so many different aspects of it. There are the three ships, there's a Victorian Ropery where they filmed Call the Midwife, and there are all these buildings. So, there were so many different aspects that I wanted to capture, that I felt that it couldn't go into one design, I felt like it would go as a collection. 

Esther Johnson: So, I did By the Docks, so focused on the ships and the maritime aspect of Chatham Dockyard, and called it By the Docks. And then, The Long Walk, because of the Victorian Ropery. I'll probably get this wrong, but I think it was a quarter of a mile long building. So, called it The Long Walk, and the colours were brown and earthy in the style that you would see when you go and visit. And then, finally, I wanted to capture all the different buildings, because it was like a little community in the Dockyard. They had a little church, and they had a Commissioner's House, and it's all things that you see passing by. 

Esther Johnson: So, I had the three designs, came back, and he seemed to like them which was really lovely because I had no degree, no experience, absolutely nothing to my name. And, I thought, "No one's going to take me seriously", but I think he saw that I was really interested in the Dockyard in particular and finding out the history of it, and capturing that through illustration. Some of the comments that he said as well was that it was quite unusual that an artist potentially or a designer would go and do some work specific to them. Normally they would either buy in stock or they would buy some designs from a catalogue, kind of thing. And, the fact that I went and wanted to get it bespoke for them was a bit different. And, it was those nuggets of information that built to this idea of what I wanted to do for a business. 

Esther Johnson: Then, we went into a product launch, we had all these products. And, having my name on these actual labels, and there would be barcodes, and everything so professional, it was like, "Wow". Lit the fire for what I wanted to do.

Kelly Molson: That must have been such an amazing feeling, to be able to go into a shop and pick up something that you have designed or you've illustrated, and it's there, it's a physical thing. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, I've definitely been in there a few times just to take pictures and just be like, "This is so bizarre". It really sparked that idea that heritage is definitely the market that I want to go in and do it for other places. There are so many other museums in Medway and in Kent. So, that's where it started really.

Kelly Molson: It's a brilliant story. I love that you were supported by Prince's Trust as well, I think they're such an incredible organisation, what they do for young people, really fantastic. 

Esther Johnson: Yeah, they still are.

Kelly Molson: You're a mentor for them as well, aren't you?

Esther Johnson: I'm a young ambassador for them. 

Kelly Molson: Ambassador.

Esther Johnson: Over lockdown, there's been so many enterprise courses that I've been running. And, on the week you get... They call it an inspirational speaker, it's strange to be called that. I go in and tell my story about how I run the business and how the Prince's Trust has helped. So, I did eight of those over lockdown. So, the demand for small businesses and people setting up their own business has definitely been on the increase. Prince's Trust, still keeps in contact with my mentors and in contact with the South East and London region, which is incredible. I've never met a bunch of people that are just so willing for you to do well. Across the board, everyone is so happy and so excited about what you're doing. It's really encouraging. 

Kelly Molson: It's amazing. I love the progression that you've made in what you've achieved so far. The reason that I got you on the podcast today is there's a few things that you mentioned, as you were telling your story about how you set up, that tie in really lovely with a past episode that we've had on the podcast. Back in November time, we had Simon Jones from Digital Visitor on, and at that point we were talking a lot about the fact that attractions have been closed for a huge amount of 2020. As they were starting to reopen again, they needed to look at different ways of engaging with the visitor when they came. And, not just when they come, but when they're buying from them online, or when they're buying from them on the gift shop on-site. 

Kelly Molson: And, Simon and I both very much talked about the fact that attractions need to stock products that you can't buy anywhere else, that's the whole point of going to that gift shop. You don't really want to just pop in there and buy something that you could pop to Tesco's and buy, or pop to your high street gift shop and buy. The reason for going is, you've been to this fantastic attraction all day, if you're going to go into the gift shop and buy something, you want to buy something that you can only get there that is very individual to that venue. And, you touched on that a little bit when you were speaking about your client had said that it's unusual for them to have illustrations that were very much focused on them, rather than just buying something that was stock. 

Kelly Molson: So, I wanted to talk through your process really, because I thought that would be really interesting for our audience, how you work with an organisation to do this. So, can you tell us a little bit about how that process starts? What do you do when you're first speaking to an attraction? How do you start that process of designing something that is bespoke for them? 

Esther Johnson: Most importantly, I need to visit the place. There's obviously so much that you can get from the internet and looking at social media, but actually visiting, as a visitor and as a customer, you see things that you wouldn't necessarily get on the internet. And also, I think a hugely important part of when I do design, is speaking to the staff, some of the visitors, and some of the people that work there because they're the experts in that place. Some of them have been there for their whole career and know every inch of the history of the museum or heritage site. And, it's that kind of information that I think is crucial and is really helpful in making a really good design. Because, they'll know what visitors are always keen to go and look at, the best sellers or the must-sees of each place. And, it's that kind of information that you wouldn't get maybe on the internet. You get a feel, you get an idea of the colours, and what the place is laid out like. So that, when you've done the whole journey and then you finish up at the gift shop, which sometimes that is how it works in museums, you know what they're expecting, and what kind of products they would want to have as part of their trip and day out. So, definitely very much go and visit it first, see it firsthand, and get imagery, photography from those places. 

Esther Johnson: And then, I'll go back and do some illustrations, do some designs, and put together something. I'm very lucky that I get free rein to start off with, "Here's the brief, here's what we want", go in, create something. So then, after that, we'll put together a design and I'll maybe put together some products that I think might work. And then, we go from there, we tweak it, sometimes the information might be incorrect, or they prefer to take out some images. It's a very partnership kind of relationship, because, the people that I'm working with, they know the place inside out. So, if I've taken something that I thought was interesting but doesn't quite work with their branding or with their ethos, then it will be taken out. And, that's absolutely fine, because it's them that will be selling it, it will be them that are talking to the customers, and knowing what's going to sell, and things like that. 

Esther Johnson: So, design is created, and then we'll put it onto products. And normally, I help find the suppliers and recommend some products that I think might work with some designs from previous examples, previous museums that I've worked with. And then, I also like doing the end part, the packaging, because I found some clients it's quite a small team in the retail side, and don't necessarily have the time to look at swatches for binding for oven gloves, and looking at fabric materials, and all those details. I'm putting my name on it, so I want to make sure it's the best product that it can be for the customer, and I want it to be well-thought-out. Because, like you say, they're spending their money and they want to have something that is bespoke for that place. And, also you can add a bit of a premium to that product that has been well-thought-out, and things like that. So, I really try and go for the full process from start to finish, and they're helping with the packaging, and if you need labels designed. I'm really interested in that whole design process.

Kelly Molson: It's really collaborative, isn't it? You're working really hand in hand with them.

Esther Johnson: Yeah. I definitely feel that is the better way to go about it, rather than just, "Here's a design, you pay me for that, you've got to deal with it, you've got to sell it." I'd rather it be something that they're proud of as well, and that they're passionate about it. That really does help actually with the design. When you're speaking to the staff and customers, the passion of their site and the story that they are telling, when that passion comes over, it really influences the design. And, I get that passion as well, and then I get really excited thinking, "I really hope that they like it, and I really hope that they can see that I've listened to what they've said." So, little details that go in the design, I hope that comes across.

Kelly Molson: And, how do you work with the site to define what those products might be? Because your illustrations can be applied to a variety of different products, how do you help that site define what products are going to be the most popular for them, and how they can make the most of them?

Esther Johnson: So, normally they already have a shop and a product range that they have already, and sometimes it is just a new product collection. So, I can say that "This design particularly works well with confectionary or kitchenware." If it's a place that's not really had product development, or they've just potentially bought things for stock, it's kind of, "Who's your target market? Who are the people that are coming in and buying tickets? Who are the people that are spending the most time in the gift shop?" It's really the research that they have, and it's all their knowledge that really influences what the products... I can suggest and say, "I think this would work really well for this target market", but they are the people that would know who is their customer. I'm not there to tell them, "This is what you should do", at all. It really is a, "I would like to help", or, "I'd like to contribute". So, it really is down to them, to be honest.

Kelly Molson: If we talk about things that people need to think about before they start to speak to somebody like you who will help them develop those products, what do they need to know before they engage with you? What do they need to prepare beforehand?

Esther Johnson: I suppose it depends on what their end reason for having a design. So, an example would be, some design I did for a client was not used for products, it was used for educational purposes. So, getting the school kids would be a big part of their attraction, and they needed a branding or a mascot that could be targeting to the children, and have little speech bubbles, and giving them the educational purposes, and the facts and figures of that. So, that was a very different market.

Kelly Molson: If I gave you an ideal brief, what would be in that brief? What would you need to know, that you would have everything that was in that brief, that you'd go, "This brief is perfect. I'm going to take that away and..."?

Esther Johnson: A perfect brief would be fairly minimal. It would be, "Come and visit on X, Y, and Z", and then I go and take inspiration from the place, and go from there. That would, I'd say, be the perfect brief. Or, another one would be, "We've got five sites, and we're trying to collaborate them together because they're all a bit disjointed", or something like that. And then, I'll be like, "Okay, I'll go to each five sites, find out something specific, and then a design will be created that can collaborate each five site, and then you can sell it in each five sites, so they're all brought together." Finding out what their unique characteristics are to go on.

Kelly Molson: Is that harder to do? Because, if you're going to one site there will be individual things about that site that are really bespoke to that site, it feels like it would be easier to create on thing. How do you manage it when it's five different sites? Do you have to go through the same process at each site? 

Esther Johnson: I suppose. There's one particular client that I'm working with, the Brighton Pavilion Trust. So, they've got five museums down in Brighton. The Royal Pavilion is a classic, beautiful architectural building.

Kelly Molson: Such an iconic building, isn't it?

Esther Johnson: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Everyone remembers it.

Esther Johnson: Beautiful. And, I didn't know that they had five other sites that were all linked in the same thing, and they wanted to create something that was uniformed. So, went around and found all these quirky little things that were in each site. So, I've drawn all the buildings, and then added little elements that were relevant. And then, put them into one design... I know I put it into repeat, just for a textile design background, I suppose. Customers, I hope, will be able to recognise all these different elements, and know that they can go to each different site and then find something else there.

Kelly Molson: That makes sense. I guess you might be a bit biased in [inaudible 00:22:40], how important do you think it is that heritage sites do have niche products?

Esther Johnson: I think it's very important. So, yes, I'm probably biased. I think it is very important because... My mindset for it is that you're spending X amount of money to get into the place, and it's a day out. And, you wouldn't go there if it was just a park, or it had no memory or meaning to it, you go there because there is a purpose to that place. And, the people are passionate about their history and what they are offering. They are, ultimately, offering a story and a place to go. And, I think that it's only fair to capture those stories into something that they can take home as a souvenir. And, the meaning of the souvenir is the whole reason why I create bespoke-ness, is because you want something that you can only buy from that place. And, I also think that well-thought design is important, rather than something that you think, "They didn't really care much about the product." I think it's important to make sure that you do care about the end product so that your customers know that you're passionate about the story, and you want them to come back, and you want them to remember. And, it would be a nice gift that they can give to somebody else as well. 

Kelly Molson: It's helping them continue that story as well, isn't it? To continue the journey that they've been on by buying something that is only available there, they then bring it home, which then sparks those lovely memories of that day. And again, does it act as a reminder to say, "We need to go there again", it's something that's in their house, they physically see it all the time, "We need to go back there. We need to revisit."?

Esther Johnson: Yeah, of course. And, if you go to John Lewis and they've got some beautiful collections from maybe artists or just well-designed products, you think, "Wow, that's really nice. I might want to go back and add to the collection." So, you've got a set of some really nice products. And, I think, why couldn't you do that in the museum setting, and a visitor site setting? Why can't you have really beautiful products that maybe you want to go back and get the set. Or, maybe you see what else they've developed and think, "I'd rather spend my money here than on a high street store." It's making that decision made easy for customers to spend their money in a museum and visitor site rather than somewhere else online.

Kelly Molson: That's a great answer. I completely agree with you on that. I think it's part of that whole mindset... There was a majority of people that were trying to shift to buying local, and buying [inaudible 00:25:43], buying smaller products anyway. But, there's definitely been a shift towards that more so since lockdown, buying local, supporting independents and things. So, I think if you can intertwine that into your visitor center as well then that's a perfect offering.

Esther Johnson: Yeah. I totally agree.

Kelly Molson: You might not have facts and figures and stuff for this, but it'd be interesting to know if you've spoken to any of the attractions that you've worked with and seen what the uptake has been in those niche products, compared to something that was a stock product that people would have been able to buy previously?

Esther Johnson: I don't have facts and figures. I would love to be able to say their revenue was amazing after they had worked with me. In 2020, I had five projects that was going onto products that all got put on hold, and I only really started the business in 2018. So, in terms of facts and figures, it's quite difficult to get them because it's quite a short time. However, I did get contacted by a charity called ABF, the national Soldier's Charity, I think it was March/ April last year, so during the lockdown. And, we created a design, and we created some products, and it went quite well. And, they had to reorder within a couple of months. And, we did some Christmas cards that were e-cards, and they were doing them onto physical Christmas cards. And, we're doing some new product collections that are now stationary. We did confectionary, we expanded on the confectionary style. And, the response has been really good. It is a different market in terms of that it's a military charity, rather than a visitor attraction. But, the process is still the same thing. I still get in elements from what they do, what their ethos, why they do what they do, and put that onto design.

Esther Johnson: And, people took... I think they liked it. Because, they were like, "Yes, this is the charity that I support and have a lot of relationships or memories within this charity, and I want to support them. And, the fact that they've got a lovely designed product, even better." So, instead of just donating money, which people do every month, they actually get a product for it. And, something that they can admire... Not admire, [inaudible 00:28:16].

Kelly Molson: I totally get that. I think it's really relevant, regardless of whether that's a charity or an attraction that you're talking to. Again, it comes back to that idea of people are making really big choices about where they spend their money, and that charity or that attraction is really important to them, therefore they're choosing to spend their money there. And, they want something that they can only get at that venue. That's the message that we're driving through today. It is really important that your venue has something that is so special, and so unique to you, that people can only spend their money there on that product.

Esther Johnson: Yeah, because, ultimately, the people will go there for a particular reason, because of the story that they tell. And, if it can be someway reflected into a lovely product that they can then purchase and help, then the money goes back into the refurbishment or the continuation of that organisation, I think all the better for it. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. So, other than behind your head, where I can see some of your beautiful products. Again, if you're not watching this on YouTube, apologies. What attractions have you worked with? Where can we find out a bit more about your work?

Esther Johnson: Chatham Dockyard, to start off with. They still sell the three designs that I started my business on, so you can go and find them there. Chelsea Pensioners was such an amazing project to work on, going around the Chelsea Pensioner site, the Royal Hospital, and speaking with Chelsea Pensioner, and getting all that thing. So, they have products and they have it online as well. So, if you have any connections with the Chelsea Pensioners, that was a really good project to work on. The Brighton Billing Trust, I really hope I've got that name right, this year we're working on some products that will combine all the five sites that they have, and we're putting them on to products. So, it would have come out in 2020, but obviously, it was postponed. So, hopefully, this year, maybe next year, Brighton will have some new products designed by me.

Kelly Molson: So exciting. I think it's wonderful. I've really enjoyed chatting to you today, just to find out more about that process and how it works. If anyone wants to get in touch with you, where's the best place that they can do that? 

Esther Johnson: Website, email, designedbyesther.co.uk. Instagram, I try and put a lot more on Instagram. 

Kelly Molson: Fabulous. And, we will put all the links to Esther's contact details in the show notes anyway, so don't worry if you didn't grab that. You'll be able to pop over and hit her up if you want to chat with her and find out a little bit more about how she can help. We always end our podcast with asking about a book that you'd recommend to our listeners. So, a book that you love, or something that's helped shape your career in some way? What's your suggestion for us today?

Esther Johnson: Ashamedly, I've not read many books. However, over lockdown, there's a lady called Holly Tucker, who co-founded Not On The High Street, and Holly & Co, and she's been doing these Instagram Lives two or three times a week, and they've been so inspirational, so motivating. She really just captures what small businesses and small entrepreneurs are going through. She answers questions, she's just so helpful. She has a book coming out called Do What You Love, Love What You Do. I've pre-ordered it, and I am so excited to read it. I've gone against the rules, that I haven't read it. Over lockdown, she has really inspired me to think, "Why do I want to run a business?", and, "Why do I want to continue what I'm doing?" So, she has been a big boost in the daily running of my business. I really recommend her. And also, if you just watch her Instagram Lives, she's so interesting and so personable, she's just incredible. 

Kelly Molson: I love that. I think that's a perfect book for this episode.

Esther Johnson: Perfect, yeah.

Kelly Molson: It fits really well with what we've been talking about, in terms of products. Good recommendation. As ever, listeners, if you want to win a copy of this book, then if you head over to our Twitter account, which is Skip the Queue, and if you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Esther's book", then you will be in with a chance of winning it. 

Esther Johnson: It should be a good one. 

Kelly Molson: Esther, thank you so much for coming on today, I've really enjoyed finding out a bit more about what you do. I think understanding a bit of that process that you go through when you work with attractions will definitely help our audience if they're thinking about developing a bespoke product in some way that is going to be really individual for them. So, thank you.

Esther Johnson: Thank you very much for asking, I hope it has been of some use. 

Kelly Molson: It absolutely will be.

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 March 31st 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

Laura is Head of Content at the National Football Museum in Manchester, UK, where she is responsible for overseeing the collections, exhibitions and communities teams. Prior to working at NFM, she held leadership roles at Oxford University Museums and the National Trust. Laura has 8 years’ experience as an independent museums consultant, a role in which she worked with museums of all types and sizes to improve resilience through transforming organisational practice, better understanding audiences, improving evaluation, and developing innovative programming. Laura holds a PhD in Museum Studies from the University of Leicester, UK, for research into resilient community engagement practice in museums.

Outside of work, Laura likes going to gigs, exploring new places and visitor attractions, watching football (her own footballing ability is, sadly, non-existent), enthusing about dogs (particularly her own rescue Staffy, Chance), and spending far too much time scouring vintage shops to find the perfect 80s dress.

www.nationalfootballmuseum.com

https://www.linkedin.com/in/laurafcrossley/

Twitter: @lfcrossley

Jon is Exhibitions Manager at the National Football Museum and has worked in the sector for 15 years. He’s worked on a number of exhibitions including Curator of the show ‘Strip: How Football got Shirty’. Born in Blackpool, his seaside upbringing has had an impact on his exhibition ethos of bright colours, cheeky humour where appropriate, experimentation and “what’s the worst that could happen?!”. Prior to working at NFM, he served candyfloss to the punters at Blackpool Pleasure Beach and worked in the curatorial department at the Manchester United Museum. With a remit to lead the National Football Museum’s move into digital, Jon has co-presented the Museum’s successful podcast and developed a popular online version of the ‘Strip!’ exhibition.

Outside of work, Jon is a vinyl obsessive and adores electronic pop and guitars. He supports the mighty Tangerines of Blackpool FC and is a season ticket holder at the cathedral of football, Bloomfield Road. He likes visiting attractions and travelling a lot, with a preference for open spaces where he can freely walk and drink ale (not at the same time!) in the countryside.  

www.nationalfootballmuseumstrip.com

Twitter: @introspective81

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. 

In today's episode, I'm joined by two guests, Laura Crossley, Head of Content, and Jon Sutton, Exhibitions Manager at the National Football Museum. 

We discuss why it's helpful for museums to have a podcast and what you need to think about strategically if you're going to create one. We also talk about their new podcast, Strip!, and all of the lessons learned from creating it. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Jon, Laura, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. Look at us as well. We've dressed for the occasion. We'll have to do a little standup, we've all got our strip on. Our favorite strip and all will become clear a little bit later why we are dressed as our favorite football teams today. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. As ever, we start with our lightning round. Jon, I'm coming to you first. What is the greatest movie that you have ever watched?

Jon Sutton: I don't know. Karate Kid's very good. Karate Kid's a good film.

Kelly Molson: With Karate Kid, are you a massive '80s fan? Is this your thing?

Jon Sutton: Yeah, that's one of the films that left a great impression on me. I'm watching Cobra Kai at the moment, which is the follow-on.

Kelly Molson: Can we talk about Cobra Kai? Because we were obsessed. I wasn't feeling very well, and I tucked myself up on the sofa with a duvet and Karate Kid. I was like, "Everyone keeps talking about Cobra Kai. We should do it. Let's start it tonight." Oh my God. Genuinely, did the whole two series in less than a week. We just smashed through it.

Jon Sutton: Yeah, I'm stopping it. I'm calming it down because I don't want it to end. I think we got a bit giddy and then I'm calming it now because I want to... Series three is coming very soon so I want to make it that I'm there for it.

Kelly Molson: So, you haven't seen the last episode yet?

Jon Sutton: No, I've not seen the second, I've only just joined the party.

Kelly Molson: It's feel good, isn't it? That's what I love about '80s films, they're really feel good. That was a great answer.

Kelly Molson: Okay, Laura, I'm coming to you. What fictional family would you be a member of if you could be?

Laura Crossley: The Simpsons. That's really obvious, isn't it? Partly because my family was absolutely obsessed with The Simpsons and even now, I find myself saying catchphrases. Like, "I have a feeling that we are going to win the lottery." Or like, I'm a vegetarian and I always quote things from the Vegetarian and I think other people know what I'm talking about but I'm like, "Oh no, it's just me and my family who know that."

Jon Sutton: It was on the first day when you said, "Cowabunga dude." 

Laura Crossley: I skated in, in a hat. 

Kelly Molson: Love it.

Laura Crossley: When I was younger particularly, I would get a lot of grief about basically being Lisa. Like when I was younger, I was very, very right on. I was a vegetarian and in the episode where she becomes a vegetarian, she can see bits of animals. That was exactly like me.

Jon Sutton: Can you play the saxophone then?

Laura Crossley: Can't play the saxophone but I could play the flute. I was in an orchestra, I could play the flute.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's close enough.

Jon Sutton: Going to play the piano.

Laura Crossley: And in my peak teenage years, I did go out, but I also spent early Friday evenings in Salford Youth Orchestra. So, I was really cool.

Kelly Molson: You really are Lisa. You've already joined the family, you're there. Oh, I love it.

Kelly Molson: Okay, we're going to go to your unpopular opinions. Jon, I'm going to come to you? What's the thing that you think is true but nobody else agrees with you on?

Jon Sutton: I think it's humanity's worst invention, umbrellas should be banned really. I hate them. They're a weapon, pretty much, and particularly as people are more and more on their phones these days while they're walking down the street, if they're carrying an umbrella, you could lose an eye.

Kelly Molson: Do you not think that this is an issue with people looking at their phones rather than the umbrella though?

Jon Sutton: No, I think it was even before. I thought everybody hated them. Apart from Rihanna, I thought everybody hated them.

Laura Crossley: I don't think I've ever hated an umbrella. I lose a lot of umbrellas. My mum once bought me 11, you know those little pocket-sized ones? She bought me 11 of them for Christmas one year. I had a whole stocking full of one pound bargain umbrellas because I just leave them in places.

Jon Sutton: That's the thing, you think, "Well I don't want to spend a lot of money on them because I'm going to lose it," but if you buy a too cheap one, it's going to be inside out, probably leave things, it just doesn't stop revolving that's the problem.

Kelly Molson: That's a great answer. Again, not really what I was expecting but interesting. All right, Laura, what's yours?

Laura Crossley: Mine's going to sound really geeky now which is that I think that often theme parks are better at talking about history, teaching people about history and the environment than museums are.

Kelly Molson: Oh wow, okay.

Laura Crossley: Do you remember when we could go on holiday and things like that last year?

Kelly Molson: The good times.

Laura Crossley: We could go to other countries and it was really nice. I went to Florida last year and I didn't really go to Disney as a kid or anything but it was really fun last year and I nearly came back and wrote a big blog post about all the things that museums can learn from theme parks because I think they can learn absolutely loads. But one of them definitely is about teaching people about history and the environment and science because it just talks about things, you don't even realize you're learning. You think you're just on a ride or having fun or in a queue or just walking for a different land or watching a film or doing something that's just really fun and then you come out and you're like, "I've just learned about this new [inaudible 00:05:55] a new kind of animal that I didn't know about. I've learned about this really interesting thing in history that I didn't know about."

Laura Crossley: Obviously, we can't see the original objects and that is a really good thing about museums but I just think the way that theme parks are quite sneaky about the way that they teach people history. Maybe it's mainly Disney because that is a big theme across Disney.

Jon Sutton: I worked five years at the Pleasure Beach, Blackpool Pleasure Beach, for five years. I must admit I didn't really think about it from that point of view. I felt that I was not getting paid enough. I wasn't very good at doing candy floss either, terrible. If you asked me for a stick of candy floss and I would give you them through gritted teeth. I'd really try and shove a bag onto them because a bag was much easier to make.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I always fancied a go of that though.

Jon Sutton: Oh my god, it's really hard. It's so hard. 

Laura Crossley: Really?

Jon Sutton: Particularly in Blackpool where it's windy all the time. The machine's quite dangerous as well because it spins around but you have to make sure you've got the right amount of moisture on the edge of the... You can't have too much moisture but you need some moisture for it to stick to the sides. It's really, really hard.

Laura Crossley: It's like science.

Kelly Molson: I've learnt so much today, I really have. I haven't even asked you any good questions yet. I've learnt loads.

Jon Sutton: Museums are a breeze compared to producing candy floss.

Laura Crossley: That's really interesting.

Kelly Molson: I think, Laura, it's about making it fun.

Laura Crossley: Yes absolutely, and immersive.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, and then you don't really realize that you're learning, so you suck it in.

Laura Crossley: Yeah, the other thing I really like is that it's really multi-sensory. You can hear music or read stuff and the atmosphere and so you just, yeah exactly, you don't realize you're learning. It's just really cool. Whereas at museum's I think sometimes, we don't talk enough about the story. I think sometimes it's just like, "Oh, there's another object." As Jon knows, I'm not the biggest fan of labels in museums. Maybe that's an opinion that won't go down well with the museum sector but I do think we put far too much stuff on labels and always want people to read everything.

Laura Crossley: And I think sometimes it's nice to also help people use their imagination and tell a story, and not just be like, "This is a thing. Look at this thing and here are some facts about it." It's just, I don't think it's very engaging.

Kelly Molson: Well, this leads us really nicely actually to what we want to talk about today because the reason that we are dressed in our strip is because we want to talk about your new podcast, it's called Strip the Podcast, but it's in line with the exhibition that you've got running at the moment which is Strip! How Football Got Shirty. And I guess that goes a little bit hand in hand about what you're talking about in terms of telling a story about something. So Laura, just for our listeners, can you just give us a little overview of what the National Football Museum is.

Kelly Molson: I mean, it says very clearly what it is in its name, but what do you do there?

Laura Crossley: We do all sorts of things. We are England's only national museum for football and we basically explore the impact that football has on all our lives and how it shapes identity and a bit like I was saying about telling stories, we are moving much more towards telling stories and sharing other people's stories about the diversity of the game. So we are not just about talking about men's elite game, although that's obviously a big part of football but we're also about the women's game and also, I think a really good thing that we can do is challenge attitudes around homophobia and racism. 

Laura Crossley: I watched that Anton Ferdinand documentary last night and just thought, "Gosh, there's still so much work to do in terms of challenging racism in football." So we're trying a lot more to tell those difficult stories and hopefully change attitudes and make football something that's really welcoming for everyone because it's something that touches all of our lives, even if you're not a football fan, it's not something that you can escape. It's something that you might dip in and out of or you'll know people who like football and so it is about telling those really broad stories and for me, about celebrating diversity and making everybody feel like they have a place in the game and that they're represented in football.

Kelly Molson: Lovely. And Jon, the exhibition is something that you've been organizing. So can you tell us a little bit about what this exhibition is about? Again, How Football Got Shirty, I think we could maybe hazard a guess at that.

Jon Sutton: There's no shorts or socks in the exhibition. That was the first thing. We're not having shorts, we're not having socks, it's just shirts. So yeah, it's got over 200 shirts going right back to the Victorian era, so it's very comprehensive. We did the first century of football shirts because there wasn't an awful lot of change and then we branch out into the '70s of Admiral and the dawn of replica shirts. And then we've got some bangers from the '90s, lots of the bright and the garish ones. We've got a bit about the retro revival. Got a real controversial hall of shame area which actually, the six shirts in the hall of fame are all pretty good shirts, to be fair, generally. But they're there almost for a malfunction of design, that's why they're there like that.

Jon Sutton: And then right through to the present. So one of the big things now is eco-friendly shirts, so sustainability and we've also got loads of shirts from the women's game as well because I think we're the first exhibition that have worked out that basically women can play football too and women wear football shirts.

Jon Sutton: There's been football shirt exhibitions in the past or there's almost like kit experts and things like that but I don't think the women's game and the shirts that women wear has been told yet. So it's really comprehensive. One of the toughest things is having to do the top 20 shirts of all time. It's so subjective.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I'll bet.

Jon Sutton: I'm a Blackpool fan and I didn't put a Blackpool shirt in the top 20.

Kelly Molson: There's no Tottenham shirt in the top 20 either, I checked.

Jon Sutton: There are a lot more Arsenal shirts than Tottenham shirts as well.

Laura Crossley: Oh dear, anyway.

Jon Sutton: The shirt you're wearing is in the exhibition. 

Kelly Molson: It's a great shirt.

Jon Sutton: We've got a Jurgen Klinsmann shirt as well when he did the dive celebration. We've got that in the museum as well. It's not in the exhibition.

Kelly Molson: Perfect moment. Okay, so great exhibition, great museum. You've been shut for most of this year which has been a challenge all around in the sector. So what I really want to talk about is what you've done to engage your audience while you've been shut, and one of the great things that you've done is launch the podcast. It's a big thing to do, it's a bold move, and that's what I want to talk about today really. So I guess my first very short question, which has probably got a really long answer is, why a podcast?

Jon Sutton: To be honest, I don't really listen to podcasts, so it was quite hard presenting one because I didn't really know much about the basis of being the host on a podcast, I'll be honest. And I think David realized that very quickly, our digital producer. I think David realized that too when we started.

Kelly Molson: What have I let myself in for?

Jon Sutton: I was amazed. On the day, luckily Tim, who is our graphics and interpretation producer, basically the three of us in our exhibitions team, we kind of led it I suppose, and luckily, he'd done a script which was really helpful because I was going there without even a script. Laura, why did you [crosstalk 00:13:36].

Kelly Molson: Yeah, how did you come to the decision that a podcast is the thing that you're going to create to engage people with? How did that process work?

Laura Crossley: I think a podcast would... because I joined the museum almost a year, just over a year ago, and even when I joined there were talks, before we even knew about COVID, there was talk about doing a podcast as a way to reach the audiences and share our stories in a different way. I think because our mission is all about sharing stories and a podcast, I think, and that narrative, is a good way to do that.

Laura Crossley: So we'd always thought about doing a podcast and then Jon's team got some funding and it made sense to make that about the Strip exhibition. But certainly, when we then shut, for me it became more of an imperative. I know that museums decided to see lots of different things during lockdown but we have on our strategy, the aim to build a virtual museum, basically reflect the galleries and the content of the museum, but digitally, whether that be in our social media content on YouTube or via podcasts or whatever it might be.

Laura Crossley: And so I saw this year as a way for us to just experiment because what other year do you get... I mean, obviously, it's been a bad year but the one positive, I think, is that it's allowed people to throw caution to the wind and just say, "Well, we'll just experiment with lots of different ways to engage people because why not? And if it doesn't work then it doesn't matter and we learn from it."

Laura Crossley: And I really hope that that's something that museums take into the future. I think we always try and plan and try and be perfect, whereas actually, I think experimentation is much more exciting and just seeing what happens and not really worrying too much if things don't work because so what? You've learnt lessons and you try again. So for me, that was the really good thing about a podcast and also, I did really feel for them. Strip opened in my first week at the museum, and so it was open for what, three months, and then shut.

Laura Crossley: And I could tell when I joined, I mean, Jon can talk a lot more about it because it's his exhibition, but I went to the opening night and I remember just thinking, "Wow, so much passion and love and care has gone into this exhibition," and it was incredibly sad to see it have to close, well, the whole museum have to close. So I think we focused a lot on putting content out about Strip. Partly for that, because it was just such a great topic, something that was really engaging. Something that we know that if the museum had been open, lots of people would have come to the exhibition and we really wanted to give them the chance to experience it in a different way.

Jon Sutton: Yeah, on the day, the last day of March before we closed, we did a frantic tour around the exhibition and we got our own Strip website as well dedicated to the exhibition. And in co-curating the exhibition, we had so many assets. I'd spoken to a lot of the kit manufacturers, a lot of the kit experts. We'd had a panel discussion, been out to some clubs. We had so much and then only so much of that can go into the exhibition.

Jon Sutton: So we're sitting on all these assets and I think we divided it so some went out onto the Strip website but then even then, we had so much and we just thought, "If we theme it right, we've definitely got a podcast here." And so we've managed to use some of those assets in the podcast but also recorded new interviews with people as well for it. So luckily, I think we've done a decent job on it.

Kelly Molson: So you've done six episodes, is that right? Six episodes so far. Let me just go back a bit because what you said is really interesting, Laura, and I think I agree with you in terms of playing with things this year. We all know it's been a challenging year but it has given us that opportunity to do some new things and do some different things that we don't know if they're going to work, we don't know what the reaction's going to be but let's try it, right? Very much the same with this podcast that we're on. I had no idea what the... We'd pre-launched it the previous year. Hadn't really got a lot of traction and thought, "Let's bring it back. There's a lot of people that are potentially sitting around maybe with not a lot to do at the moment. Maybe we can give them something to listen to."

Kelly Molson: And so, that was the objective really. What can we push out there that'll be helpful and engaging for people right now. So with the podcast, did you actually set any objectives for it or was it purely, "We're just going to do this, see what happens."

Laura Crossley: I think this is what we were grappling with a little bit because we were kind of pushed into doing digital before we'd written a big strategy about it, and as I said, I don't think that's a bad thing. It's kind of like writing a strategy for research and development which isn't a bad way to do it. For me, Jon might disagree I don't know, but it's about engaging more people in a deeper way and growing those audiences and also hopefully, some of the people we engage will actually physically come to the museum. Acknowledging that some people who live in different countries might not actually physically be able to get to the museum now or in the future.

Laura Crossley: But for those people, making them aware of us and getting a kind of loyalty to us and looking out for our stuff and feeling part of the museum and then for other people, hopefully encouraging them to come through the door and become physical visitors.

Kelly Molson: And I guess you won't see that until a bit later on potentially, whether you do make that shift from people that are listening to the podcast, to coming along. Jon, I've got so many questions about the podcast because I know myself personally, how much time and effort and a challenge it can be. You said earlier, you've never made a podcast before. Have you ever been a guest on a podcast? Have you ever had any interaction with any of them?

Jon Sutton: No, I don't think I have. I don't even think I've been a guest. I think I just assumed they were a bit like radio but not live. I have listened to some podcasts but not many, so I had no experience really.

Kelly Molson: All right, so you were at the point where you've got all your assets and you think, "Yeah, we've got a podcast here. We can create some content and its valuable content, it's interesting." Where did you start because that's a big learning process, right? To saying, "I've got this idea about a podcast, I've got all this stuff, now I need to make a podcast." What did you have to learn?

Jon Sutton: Well luckily, [crosstalk 00:20:02]. The first episode was a bit... Looking back now, if I listen to it now, I think it would be quite rustic and a little bit raw. One thing I did before we did the podcast, I listened to some other podcasts about football shirts. They were all pretty good, generally, but at the same time, I thought they might be slightly better at presenting than we would be. They may be more confident in front of a microphone, et cetera. But at the same time, I thought they might not necessarily have the assets we've got and also the knowledge that we've acquired in curating the exhibition.

Jon Sutton: So that was a bit of me that thought, "Well, what's the worst that can happen with this thing and if we are terrible, at least we've got the guest to pull us out." The first one we did wasn't the best but then the next one we did was really good and then what we did was we went back to the first one and re-recorded it. But we did that with most of them, so it wasn't necessarily really a quick process. Sometimes we'd start in the morning, rattle through in say, an hour, get lunch. Then we'd go, "Actually, I think we could do that better now."

Jon Sutton: So most of them, we did it in two takes. There was a period where we recorded, I think, probably three or four within a two week period because we were going into the museum, say, once a week when we could. And we found that we found a rhythm to it and then there was one episode, the last episode in the podcast, which I think is actually somehow the best one. We'd been about three, four weeks between recording the fifth and the sixth and that day, we had Linda working on it. She was fantastic. We had Tim working on it, he was fantastic.

Jon Sutton: Whatever reason, I think I might have had a couple of too many drinks the night before or something, but I was absolutely appalling. Nothing was flowing that day, it was awful, but listening to it, you can't tell. So, David's a magician.

Kelly Molson: So you had in-house editing skills, which is a huge bonus because we outsource our editing, we've got a brilliant, Steve is our... He's an award-winning podcaster. I have to just give him a little plug there. But that's the one thing that we didn't have in-house, so we were like, "Well that's something that we need to get professional help with." That's a huge cost saving and, like you say, it means that you can go back and do things again, so you've got that time.

Jon Sutton: I mean, there's a lot of to-ing and fro-ing as well. David would cut something, for example, and I'd go, "David, you just cut me." The pinnacle moment of the podcast, for once I was really funny in that point and David's just like, with a straight face, "It wasn't very funny at all, Jon."

Kelly Molson: Steve does this to me all the time.

Jon Sutton: That's the thing. Just because you're the host doesn't mean you get any kinds of rights, do you?

Kelly Molson: None at all. My bits are always the bits that have been cut. 

Jon Sutton: The weird thing, I've been finding myself cutting myself as well. So when we have the to-ing and fro-ing, I'll say to David, "You need to cut me at this point," because I sound like an absolute imbecile. And it feels weird being the... It's almost like if you did an exam or something and you're the teacher putting the red pen through your own examination.

Kelly Molson: What about equipment or anything like that? I'm just thinking about other museums that might potentially be looking to make this decision and do something like this. Did you have to invest heavily in any specialist equipment or did you have things that you just got? Did you just get by with what you had?

Jon Sutton: Yeah, I think what we try and do with each exhibition is we try and purchase bit by bit, like piecemeal, I suppose. Little bits that make us stronger in the future so we've got a legacy from each project we work on. I'm not really technical, I'll be honest. I think we got new headphones and the new microphone but we had some other microphones. I remember though, I had the worst microphone. It wasn't a massive outlay. The other thing is, David is really particular and Tim, we are quite particular, but I think really, you don't have to have mega-quality to do it.

Jon Sutton: For me personally, I think the stories and what you're going to tell is more important than if there's a little bit of hiss on it, for example. And we did have to lower our standards a little bit because we did some interviews with people via Zoom, et cetera, for it. So it's not all slick, I suppose. But yeah, it wasn't a massive outlay and luckily we've managed to, each exhibition we do, we try and buy a little bit of stuff.

Kelly Molson: All right, two questions. What went well and what didn't go well?

Jon Sutton: I think we managed to replicate the themes of the physical exhibition, I suppose. If you hadn't seen the exhibition, I think you would've got a good flavor of what it was about and I think, actually, at times, we even went a little bit further. In the exhibition, for example, there's a Lewis FC shirt and it's got What If on it as a hashtag and it's about the fact that they are the world's leading club on equality. Their men and women's teams get exactly the same resources, same pay. There are not many clubs doing that.

Jon Sutton: And you've got a label on it and we're really strict, I think it's 50 words on a label, but we then take it one step further, so we then in the podcast, feature somebody from the club about what that stance means. So in a way, it looks at it and expands on it. It adds more to it. So I think in that respect if you think about the podcast and the Strip website as a duo in digital terms, I'd still want people to come and see the exhibition but you're getting a really, really good flavor of what we're about.

Jon Sutton: Things that didn't work was, you can't really tell, but it's quite a time consuming, I think, recording a podcast. David's having to do a lot of editing. Tim, our digital producer's doing the theme music to it which obviously you don't have to do, go down that route, but he was bringing his own symph-pop tune-age to the proceedings. But even writing the script's quite time-consuming as well, so you've got to dedicate quite a lot of time to it really but luckily this year, we've been able to do that with lockdown and that experimentation aspect.

Jon Sutton: I suppose one thing is that if you're doing it, don't see it as an add-on to what you're doing really. I think you need to build it in from the start. I think in the past, we'd never done a podcast. We've done online exhibitions on our website but they've been very much afterthoughts. Whereas we did build it into our thinking when we opened the exhibition in, I think it was November. 2019, we knew we were going to do some of this stuff but when we had the lockdown, it almost accelerated it, I suppose.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that makes sense.

Jon Sutton: Nothing major. I remember the police sirens going off quite a lot when we were trying to record and then the lift would be going up and down, so it makes a racket. You've got to choose your space as well. 

Kelly Molson: That is really good advice actually because our podcast has been a lot better since I've been recording it at home. I do get the occasional dog bark but that's better than the constant trains that go past our office. So, it's swings and roundabouts.

Kelly Molson: This brings me to a really good question to come back to you on Laura, actually, and it's something that you mentioned before we started speaking which is around what you said about not just bolting a podcast on, thinking about this strategically. Why is it helpful for museums or attractions to have podcasts and what do you need to think about strategically from the start if you're going to go down this path?

Laura Crossley: I'd say this for everything about digital museums, that I think we can get a little bit excited about the word digital and just go, "Oh yes, we need a thing. We need a digital thing and if we get a digital thing then we're going to engage lots and lots of people and then they're all going to come to the museum and it's all going to be amazing." And I try and remember back to my Masters, which was a long time ago now, so before we were talking about things like podcasts, we talked a lot about digital interactives and it was in the first session where the lecturer was like, "Digital interactives are great but they will break and you have to have a reason for doing them and there has to be an audience in mind."

Laura Crossley: And I think sometimes with digital, we don't plan with audiences in mind. It's like everything that we know about audience-centric planning goes out the window because we think, "Digital. Cool. Amazing." And I love digital stuff and I do listen to podcasts. Adam Brookson's podcast is my happy place and I do think they can be really good for museums in order to tell those stories and engage people who might not have heard of the museum before. Build the brand. Engage them with stories that they wouldn't hear if they weren't in the museum. 

Laura Crossley: Keeping engagement with audiences. I suspect that some people who listen to the Strip podcast have come to the exhibition but want more information and also, as I said, potentially convert people into visitors to the museum. But I think it's really important firstly, that there's a reason to do it. The podcast took a long time, it wasn't the quickest digital thing that you could do, so you do have to have a reason for doing it. I also think, really thinking about who the audience is and is the audience right for a podcast or should you do something like a YouTube channel or should you get a TikTok channel. I don't know, all the various different digital things that we can do.

Laura Crossley: And also really plan it into strategic planning because the time it takes, the capacity, the resources. It can feel like it's free because you might not have to buy loads of equipment but it's not free because it takes people away from doing stuff on the galleries and the museum. So it is really important to schedule it in and make sure that you have the provision for it. And although I think that museums are getting better at having roles, actually it's been really interesting, over lockdown, I've seen so many more roles for digital content producers who just solely focus on blogs and podcasts and digital channels. So I think that's definitely going to be a trend that continues but you do need someone to take ownership of these things and not just say, "Oh well, someone will do it at some point."

Laura Crossley: So yeah, definitely have it in the strategic plan. Have a reason for doing it. Know who your audience is. Test if it's the right thing to do, and it's fine if you have all of those things and then you try it and it doesn't work because then you can evaluate why it doesn't work, but you need to know why you're doing it. And also I'd say, next week, we're doing an evaluation session about the podcast which is really important to me because again, I want it to be a learning experience. So there'll be things that have gone really well and there'll be things that haven't as much but it'd be good to really test that. And I'd also really like us to talk to people who listen to the podcast and hear what they think about it and whether it has done what we set out to do.

Kelly Molson: That is really good advice, and actually, my next question was going to be, what would be your best piece of advice to other museums who were thinking about doing this? But I think you just summed it up absolutely beautifully there, Laura. Jon, have you got anything that you would add to that in terms of your best piece of advice for a museum that's thinking about starting a podcast?

Jon Sutton: Yeah, I think I might have covered some of it already but it's things like building the time, don't see it as an add-on, what's the audience? The Strip, I knew that we already had an engaged crowd for that and also it's not particularly niche either. We're not going for necessarily the most niche subject in the world, football kits and what they represent. Particularly at the moment, I think lockdown brings in... This year, if anything, has brought in a real nostalgia to yesteryear, hasn't it? 

Jon Sutton: The first shirt, basically, I ever had. Wore it when I was eight years old. It's an adult one but it's the same design, so I knew there was an audience for it. So that's how we built around the exhibition but if we were talking about football studs, for example, boot studs or something like that. I'm not sure whether that-

Kelly Molson: That's like the niche that, isn't it? I definitely wouldn't have listened to all six episodes of that podcast, Jon.

Laura Crossley: [inaudible 00:32:44].

Jon Sutton: Exactly, but the thing is, you need to realize what you're presenting isn't niche. I'm not sure all museum people do that, I think you get bogged down in the day to day and maybe you need that bigger picture of actually what I do is quite a niche.

Kelly Molson: Great advice.

Jon Sutton: So we knew with this one it wasn't too niche.

Kelly Molson: Really, really good advice. We're coming towards the end of the podcast. On every episode, I ask my guests if there's a book that they would share with us and it can be a book that's either helped you in your career or just a book that you really love and our lucky listeners get to win this book. So Laura, what have you chosen for us?

Laura Crossley: Well, I was racking my mind for museum books because I did a Ph.D. in museum, so I have obviously read some amazing and really not so amazing type of books. Some amazing museum books that have really shaped my career but I was thinking about what book do I actually really love and again, remember that I'm a geek. The book that's really stayed with me for a long time is, Of Mice and Men, which I read when I was in year 10 doing my GSCEs, a long time ago now. And I was thinking, "Has that affected my museum career?" And I think it has because of all the books that I like, like that and The Catcher in the Rye and A Room with a View. Well firstly, they're all set in the past. Well for me anyway, they might have been contemporary at the time but for me, it was reading about the past and so I think that kind of bringing history to life.

Laura Crossley: A bit like I said about theme parks. I think that books can do that as well really, really well and sometimes in a more emotive way than museums do. I think museums have the power to do it but they don't always do it. And also, all those books are about this big and you can probably read them in a day if you put your mind to it. And again, I think that's why I really like the power of storytelling but not over using words, just telling, a bit like with films. I just want an hour and a half. I just want to watch Stand By Me in an hour and a half and be told a really good story. 

Laura Crossley: And the same with books, just tell me a really emotive, evocative story, that paints this amazing picture and transports me into that world. I don't need too much and that's what I think museums should really aim to do as well. Think about storytelling and description and emotional engagement, as well as just, "Here's an object," and expect people to be engaged with it. 

Kelly Molson: I love that. I love that you've tied your book choice in with your career and how it's focused you on what you do. Jon, what about you? What have you got to share with us?

Jon Sutton: Bringing you back to football shirts. When we were starting this exhibition, there was two books that stood out. One of them was book that was The Worst Football Shirts Of All Time, and I was flicking through it and I was like, "Well, that's a banger, that's a banger. These are amazing shirts. This book is so wrong." But the thing is when you look at these best ever shirts and worst ever shirts, often they're the same, they've just put opinion. But the book really that got the exhibition, made me say, "We're definitely doing this exhibition and we need to bring this author in," is a book called True Colors by John Devlin. He's done various books. His latest book is all about international kits.

Jon Sutton: He does these beautiful illustrations of the shirts. He draws every single shirt, for example, England. He will have drawn in that book, every shirt that England have worn. Really nice illustrations. The passion for the subject comes across, the depth comes across as well. His books are amazing and we actually hired him as an exhibition consultant on the basis of his brilliant books.

Kelly Molson: Wow, bet he never saw that coming when he was writing his books.

Jon Sutton: No exactly. We can't feature every club in the exhibition, we've got 200 shirts, but there is this rainbow of football shirts that he drew for us and so most clubs are covered under that, for example, Derby under white, for example, Tottenham under white. And so, True Colors by John Devlin is my choice and it's the right one.

Kelly Molson: Great but I love that book has been part of this journey that you've been on with the podcast as well. It's really great to tie it all together. Well as ever, if you want to win a copy of those books, then if you head over to our Twitter account which is Skip The Queue, and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Laura and Jon's books," then you will be in with a chance of winning them.

Kelly Molson: I've loved having you both on today, it's such an interesting topic because I've a personal experience of just how difficult it is to start a podcast, edit a podcast, all right, Steve does the editing, but pull a podcast together. Think about who you're going to have on as guests. It's a huge amount of work and I think it's a brilliant task that you've gone ahead and done this.

Laura Crossley: Can I just say, I think yours is brilliant. It's so good.

Kelly Molson: Thank you.

Laura Crossley: I think that visitor attractions have a lot to learn from each other and I sometimes think museums can be quite snobby and not see themselves as a visitor attraction. Whereas actually, one of the best things we can do is give people a good day out. We should sometimes just relax a bit and say, "Actually, a really great thing we do is give people a good day out."

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's making memories, isn't it? So six episodes of the podcast have been released, what's next? Do you think there's any more episodes coming?

Jon Sutton: David was really, really brutal in his editing, so I think there could be something in a bloopers episode, like a special. He'll probably tell me, 'No," but I was thinking like some of the bits, sort of me being stupid generally.

Laura Crossley: You've said it now in public, so that's it. [crosstalk 00:38:40]. 

Kelly Molson: It's a commitment.

Jon Sutton: It'll get vetoed, I know it will. It never gets their own way. I think it's probably it for Strip for the time being but then we're going to look at hopefully something that talks about the other stuff we do as a museum. So something that isn't exhibition focused but is about our general offer and the stories we want to tell and the power of football ultimately.

Laura Crossley: I think for me, really feeling down to who it's for because we could just do it in so many ways and tell so many different stories and maybe that's something that museums do grapple with a bit, that unless it's about a special exhibition, you have to really think about who it's for and what you're trying to do, otherwise you could do a podcast that just never ended and you talk about a different random thing every week.

Jon Sutton: That doesn't mean it's not going to have those studs [crosstalk 00:39:28].

Kelly Molson: Honestly Jon, if anyone wants to listen to a podcast about football boot studs, email me and let me know and I'll pass this onto Jon but I think I'm going to get very few emails about this.

Laura Crossley: That's episode 527.

Kelly Molson: Guys, it's been so good to speak to you today. Right everyone, if you want to listen to the podcast, it's called Strip! The Podcast and you will find it on all of your usual podcast channels. Go and download it, it's really entertaining. I have listened to five of the six episodes now and look, I'm a football fan, I love football shirts and I really, really enjoyed it. I think you'll get a lot out of it if you're a football fan in general. So definitely go and download it.

Kelly Molson: All that's left for me to say is, "Thank you both for coming on."

Jon Sutton: Thanks very much, brilliant.

Laura Crossley: Thank you, I love the Skip The Queue podcast, so it's really cool. Thank you so much for inviting us.

Kelly Molson: Thank you for making it... It's the guests that make it, so thanks.

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

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Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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:

www.LeeCockerell.com

www.linkedin.com/in/leecockerell/

www.leecockerell.com/books

www.leecockerell.com/podcast/

www.leecockerell.com/courses/

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 Lee Cockerell, former Executive Vice-president of Operations for the Walt Disney World Resort. We discuss day-to-day challenges running a large operation, the legendary Disney customer service, and Lee's biggest piece of advice to anyone operating a visitor attraction right now.

Kelly Molson:

So, Lee, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, I'm happy to. We're missing all the UK people here in Florida.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, I know. We're really missing traveling as well. Everyone that I'm speaking to is really missing going to all the amazing places that we're not able to go to at the moment. So it's such a shame. It must be strange there, it must be really quiet for you in Florida.

Lee Cockerell:

It is. We don't even have much traffic, which is amazing. Yeah. It's very strange times.

Kelly Molson:

That's maybe not a bad thing, less traffic though. Less traffic, better weather apparently.

Lee Cockerell:

But there's no place to go. So that's the bigger problem.

Kelly Molson:

No, well look, we haven't spoken before and I normally like to find out a few things about you, personal things upfront. So I wondered if you'd mind answering a few icebreaker questions for me?

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah. Go ahead. Sure. No problem.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. So, Lee, do you prefer cats or dogs?

Lee Cockerell:

Well, I had a dog the whole time I was growing up from first grade until I left home and I loved that dog more than anything. We had a cat once too, but it was not as friendly as the dog, so I would have to go with dog.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. That's a good answer. That means that we can definitely be friends because I'm a dog person too. I've got one of them sitting down here on the floor next to me as we speak.

Lee Cockerell:

Oh, good.

Kelly Molson:

What's your hobby? What's your favorite hobby?

Lee Cockerell:

You know my hobby, I quit playing golf because I was so bad at it. I gave my golf clubs to my son because nobody claps when I play golf. So public speaking is kind of really my hobby because people clap and I'm a very insecure person, so I need that kind of feedback from people.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, I love that. That's very honest, Lee. Thank you. Okay. And so, tell me something, you are very good at many things, but tell me one thing that you're not very good at, apart from golf.

Lee Cockerell:

You know, I was in business for 42 years and I hate the finance department. So I always had to have a good finance person around me because somehow the numbers bored me and I never worked very hard to understand them. So I had somebody explain them to me every month.

Kelly Molson:

Lee, you sound so much like me. I think there's a lot of business people that do not like the numbers and they just need someone to take over that side of the things.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, exactly.

Kelly Molson:

Listen, I would love to just hear a little bit about your background and how you came to be the VP of Disney World. How did that come about?

Lee Cockerell:

I think it was magic. It's a miracle actually. I grew up in Oklahoma on a little farm. We were as poor as could be. We didn't even have indoor plumbing. And later on, we moved to the bigger city, and my mother was married five times. That's kind of interesting. She was a busy woman.

Kelly Molson:

Whoa.

Lee Cockerell:

I've been adopted twice. I got my name Cockerell when I was 16, by husband number four. So I'm already really screwed up. Then I got to go to college because the doctor had money, she started making better choices, but I didn't go to class. I just had fun and I flunked out and I went in the Army. When I got out of the Army, I went to the Washington Hilton in Washington, D.C. that's where John Hinckley shot President Reagan back in the eighties, coming out of the hotel.

Lee Cockerell:

I was a waiter there and I got into a management training program, and I worked for Hilton for eight years in Washington, Chicago, and New York City at the Waldorf, Los Angeles. I joined Marriott Hotels, worked for them for 17 years. Since I had focused on food and beverage, I became the vice-president of food and beverage operations for Marriott.

Lee Cockerell:

Then I got recruited by Disney in 1990 to go to France and open Disneyland Paris, which we did. Then I came back to Orlando in let's see, '93. I stayed there 13 years and I was in charge of all operations there. So I don't know how it happened. I think I had them fooled for all those years. People thought I knew what I was doing, but then I decided that nobody knows what they're doing so I was in good company.

Kelly Molson:

You absolutely are. What an amazing story. What an incredible story.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah.

Kelly Molson:

When you were at Disney, I mean, this blows my mind anyway. So you led a team of 40,000 cast members and you were responsible for the operations of 20 resort hotels, four theme parks, two water parks, the shopping and entertainment village, and the sports and recreation complex. I mean, it's not like you had enough to juggle on a daily basis.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah. I didn't have any idea what was going on, but I surrounded myself by incredible people. They knew what was going on and that's pretty much how I stay out of trouble, I get experts around me.

Kelly Molson:

That's the key is it, surround yourself with good people?

Lee Cockerell:

Absolutely.

Kelly Molson:

What was the biggest day-to-day challenge that you had when you were running such a large operation?

Lee Cockerell:

Getting everybody to behave themselves and be professional, and not do inappropriate things, and come to work on time. So basic human problems. People are always the problem. It's never anything else.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah. Yeah. I hear you. Whatever size your business is, that's always the challenge, isn't it?

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah. It's the only problem you'll have in your life are people.

Kelly Molson:

What about the customer service side? Because I mean, you wrote a great book on customer service called The Customer Rules, and in my eyes and in many people's eyes, Disney, they are just the best at customer service. They are the pinnacle of customer service in so many people's eyes. How do they keep the standards so constantly high?

Lee Cockerell:

Well, it's pretty simple and any of your listeners can do the same thing. It's a matter of, I would say we do three things better than anybody else. Number one, we hire better. We're very careful. We have high expectations for performance and we explain those to anybody that wants to work for the company so that there's no misunderstandings about being professional and doing your job the way we train you.

Lee Cockerell:

Second thing is training. We train you and test you and we enforce the training, and we're very serious about that. It's like we're putting on a show. It's just like on Broadway, you got to be able to do your job on the stage or you won't be on the stage. So we audition you. We train you. We rehearse you. Then we create a culture where I would say most people that work at Disney wake up in the morning and are excited to come to work because of the way we treat them, out of respecting them.

Lee Cockerell:

They have opportunity to get promoted. They have opportunity to get development and learn and move up and get promotions. And so, I always say, "Hire them right. Train them right, and treat them right, and it'll work just fine in any company." That's just one of the things I think the problem is, people get bored with the basics. They don't realize it's about people and there's no upside to not treating people really well.

Lee Cockerell:

I always tell people, "If you think there is, try it on your wife, and then you'll find out." And so, no upside, there's only a downside. So we're very respectful. We're very professional. We care about people having success. When they have that environment, they go out and take care of the guest because they want to, not because they have to. That's the difference, I think. When we want to do something, we just do it no matter what, if the boss is around or not. When people make us do things we only do it when somebody is watching you and we want it that way all the time. It's a pretty simple formula. That's how we think about it.

Kelly Molson:

I mean, that's so true, isn't it? So keep your team happy and then they keep your customers happy. Disney has a real ... I mean, I've been to Disney on a number of times and I love it. I told a story this morning on LinkedIn about visiting the Magic Kingdom for the first time when I was a 10-year-old girl and walking through the gates and walking down Main Street, U.S.A. and seeing Cinderella's castle and being just so blown away and in complete awe of the kind of the spectacle of it. But the thing that really makes that Disney experience is the people and it's the cast members. And so, I wondered what's the most elaborate thing that you've ever witnessed or seen in terms of customer service at Disney, for cast members really going out of their way to make people feel special?

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, well, I saw it so often because it's not an unusual thing that cast members do things that you don't expect. I mean, after 9/11 we had one of our people that worked in the hotel, a bellman, give his car to a guest who needed to get back to New York and told him he'd pick it up later. There were no rental cars left. You couldn't fly out after 9/11. This guy said, "Hey, take my car. I'll come and get it later."

Lee Cockerell:

I mean, I see this all the time. I mean, a cast member, you lose your phone charger and they go to Walmart and get one for you. It's just an amazing thing. It's not because we train them to do that. We train them to take care of the guests. So we allow them to do whatever they decide is something that would be really appropriate and helpful to every customer. So if a little girl gets her dress wet or dirty or falls down, the cast member can give her a new dress, no [inaudible 00:10:15]. So they have authority, our people have authority to do the right thing.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah. You've empowered them to make their own decisions about the level of customer service and what they can do to help people.

Lee Cockerell:

Sure. I mean, if you hire the right people, you train them and you're very clear with your expectations, they'll do a great job. If you don't trust your people, then you've probably hired the wrong person or you personally have some kind of control problem. I always tell people, "Maybe you need to see a psychiatrist," but other than that, that's what we do. We expect people to do their job, not have to have somebody watching over them every minute, they're adults and your people are your brand. Let me tell you what, at the end of the day, your people are your brand.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, I hear you.

Lee Cockerell:

It's always the people, the rides they know are going to be good, the attractions, the shows, but the people are so different and people compare from other places they've been. The comparison is why we are rated so high, we just are better.

Kelly Molson:

How do you think that with the COVID-19 situation, that we've all been part of, how do you think that Disney magic is going to be with the kind of safety precautions that Disney will have had to put in place now that they're starting to open up and people will be allowed to come back? Do you think it's going to change it at all?

Lee Cockerell:

Well, I think that's going to be an every different guest's point of view. I mean, it's going to be rough. It's going to be tough. I do worry about it because if you're comparing from your visit last year, it's going to be totally different and it's not going to be as individualized as it was before where your kids can get close to the characters on all those sites. So it's a worry, no question about it.

Lee Cockerell:

I think the attitude of the cast members will be great. I think Disney will do a good job of enforcing the safety policies, but yeah, it's an issue. Wearing a mask in July and August in Florida. It's so hot here now it's already a problem. So it's just a matter of what kind of attitude the guest has about understanding what's going on.

Lee Cockerell:

A lot of guests right now around the world are not being very cooperative. So I don't know, I hope it'll be fine. I think it'll be good when you're in the show and it's air-conditioned and you're watching it, or you're doing your rides, or in the evening when it gets cooler, but there's challenges and we've never been through anything this extreme. And so, it's hard to say, unless we'll just have to see, and I'm sure there'll be adjustments every day to policies, procedures, operating guidelines, rules, regulations, as we learn more. And so, I'm pretty glad I'm retired.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah. You've swerved that one.

Lee Cockerell:

Oh, yeah. Timing is everything.

Kelly Molson:

Well, yeah, definitely. I guess that that's a challenge for Disney as well, isn't it? Because all eyes are on them. So, you know, the world of attractions, I guess, looks at Disney to see how they do things and then follows. So there's a lot of people that are watching at the moment to see how they operate and what the guest experience is like.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, and the other problem is trying to get halfway productive. So many countries where there's blockage about people being able to come. A lot of people are older that grandparents used to come with their kids and their grandkids. If you're in the older age group, you're worried about getting this. And so, there's going to be multiple complications.

Lee Cockerell:

As I always say, "All they can do is do their best and just work through it and see where this thing ends up." It's really crazy right now around the world, actually, it's just too bad. But then there are Disney people who, God, they would fly to the Moon to go to Disney. So they may love it, the only thing I will say.

Kelly Molson:

No, but that's true, isn't it? Because Disney fans are really ... there are a big contingency of them that are really hardcore Disney fans and they'll go back over and over again. They've been on the rides, hundreds and hundreds of times.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah.

Kelly Molson:

I can't see that that's going to deter them so much.

Lee Cockerell:

Oh no, it's not going to deter a lot of people. But on the other hand, Disney needs a lot of people to pay for all that overhead expenses. You know, if you've got one person or a hundred thousand at night, the fireworks cost the same amount. So keeping it safe, keeping it halfway profitable, keeping the guests happy, keeping the cast members safe, and making money, that's like a dilemma.

Kelly Molson:

So now you've taken ... Well, I mean, you say you've retired from Disney, but I mean, you haven't actually retired at all, have you? So you are public speaking. You're an author. You have a brilliant podcast, Creating Disney Magic, which I listen to frequently. What else is keeping you busy at the moment, Lee? Do you advise other attractions on operations and customer service?

Lee Cockerell:

Sure. I advise anybody who'll pay me. I tell people, "I know things you don't know and if you pay me I'll tell them to you." But I just have been working on a new product coming out in the next couple of weeks called Cockerell Academy. It'll start out with eight to 10 courses on leadership management, customer service, videos and audios for students who are trying to get in the workforce now. Advice for them. A course on decision making. A course on time management.

Lee Cockerell:

Those will all be rolling out where it's going to be a subscription, it'll be $249 a year for the access to the library. It'll be updated every month with more stuff, new stuff. I just did that because I've wanted to do it for a long time, but I always had a good excuse. I didn't have time. Now I don't have an excuse anymore.

Kelly Molson:

No, that's it. You've got all the time now.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, and I need to go up to my office and work so my wife doesn't leave me, you know? So this is how we figured it out.

Kelly Molson:

So with the fact that ... so you advise attractions, you advise, as you've said, anyone that pays you. I know that you work in other sectors as well, but if there was one piece of advice you could give to anyone who operates an attraction at the moment, what do you think that would be?

Lee Cockerell:

Well, the key to leadership in my mind and getting people feeling good about trusting you. Every job I had at Hilton, Marriott and Disney, I'm out in the operation, everybody knows me. They know I'm available. They know I will solve their problem. I will deal with their issue and they know I'll tell them the truth. I'll be like their mother, I might love them and tell him, I love them, but I might kick their rear end too if they don't do what they're supposed to do because I want them to be successful.

Lee Cockerell:

I think that's the problem with most organizations, they're not taking a personal interest in the training development of people and improving their self-confidence, their belief in themselves. I really focus on getting the people right. I don't really want to know how to run the ride. I could care less. I just focus on the people and then I know that they will do a great job.

Lee Cockerell:

So it goes back to this, anybody out there in business, hire them right, train them right. When you train people right they actually get that feeling that you care about them. You know, there's only two things parents worry about in the world, and if you apply these in business, you'll be successful.

Lee Cockerell:

Parents worry only about two things, safety and education. That's it. There's nothing else. So don't get confused, make it a safe place. I mean, emotionally too, not just physically. So a place where you're appreciated, your opinion counts, people care about you. Everybody wants to be in a place where they matter. That's all, that's what everybody wants. Your wife, your husband, your kid, everybody wants to matter.

Lee Cockerell:

Leaders can pay attention to that and make sure people know they matter. If you do that every day, you'll be amazed. Your productivity will go up 50%. Your turnover will go down. People will be nicer. They'll have less anxiety, less depression. I mean, create an environment and a culture where people wake up in the morning want to come to work, not have to come.

Kelly Molson:

Great advice. I think we all want that.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah. I mean, it's basics. This is the basics in life. It's not hard. Your mother taught you this already.

Kelly Molson:

She did. It's very true. She's a clever woman, my mum.

Lee Cockerell:

Of course.

Kelly Molson:

But that's right, isn't it? A lot of people don't focus on the basics and then that's where they make the mistakes.

Lee Cockerell:

Exactly. That's why all these politicians are getting in trouble. They did not focus on 100% safety. When people don't feel safe, they don't trust you, and when they don't trust you, they won't do what you tell them to do. You know, trust is the number one thing in the world. You know who you trust. It's probably very few people. You probably trust your mom, maybe your dad, your grandmother, but think of all the people that have let you down, or they don't do what they're supposed to do. It's unbelievable. I work hard always to make sure people trust me, and if they trust me, they'll do anything I want them to do and I'll do anything for them, and the next thing you know we are happily married.

Kelly Molson:

How do you build that trust? How did you build that trust when you had so many people that you were managing? I mean, I have a small team. There's six of us. We all trust each other, but we're all together a lot of the time. So how do you build that trust when there's 40,000 cast members that you need to build that with?

Lee Cockerell:

Well, first I scheduled a lot of time out in the operations every week, walking, talking to the cast members, checking in. My calendar put me out on the face-to-face with people. I published a newsletter every Friday, encouraging people, telling them what my expectations were, what I needed them to do. Today, I would do a podcast for every employee, like this. They would be hearing this every Friday for five or six, seven minutes.

Lee Cockerell:

They knew that my reputation was that anybody who wants to see me can come and see me. When I started, that the manager started doing it because they didn't want their people coming to see me. So they started taking care of the problems. I got a reputation for being somebody that followed through. I had a confidential voicemail. People could leave me a message about something that needed to be fixed or was being ignored or wasn't safe, or their manager was doing something inappropriate. All of our executives had that.

Lee Cockerell:

So I had many, many ways to make sure I knew the truth. Second, that when I learned the truth, that I took care of it and made it right. So over time, even if I've never met with people, they had heard about me. Other employees had told them, other cast members told them, "Hey, you can trust Lee. He's on top of this." All of a sudden your reputation grows because people say good things about you behind your back, not the kinds of things most people say about their manager.

Lee Cockerell:

Somebody says, "You want to be trusted, you've got to be trustworthy." That's it, you know? You got to do the right thing even if it's hard. A lot of people don't want to do the hard thing, they want to do easy things because hard things are hard. I tell people, "If you can't make hard decisions and you can't have hard conversations with people, don't have children and don't be a leader."

Kelly Molson:

Good advice.

Lee Cockerell:

That's all you do. That's your life.

Kelly Molson:

I love that you do a podcast with your team now. I love that you've embraced technology and that would be the way that you'd keep in touch with everyone. That's great.

Lee Cockerell:

Hey, I'm on TikTok every morning.

Kelly Molson:

Even I'm not on TikTok. You're way ahead of me.

Lee Cockerell:

I know, you know why you should be? You'll understand the young people like a thousand times better.

Kelly Molson:

I'm sorry.

Lee Cockerell:

It's a little scary.

Kelly Molson:

It is a bit scary.

Lee Cockerell:

But I give them messages every morning and I'm slowly getting people's writing me say, "Oh, I liked it." I only do 30 seconds, maybe a minute. There are a lot of videos on there about police brutality and all. I've been recommending to police chiefs and enforcement, start watching TikTok and you'll see the attitude of young people around the world. You need to understand where they're coming from and you don't because you're too isolated. And so, I'm on all the social sites every day.

Kelly Molson:

I love that. Do you know what? I'm going to download TikTok tonight and I'm going to follow you. You're going to be my first follower, Lee.

Lee Cockerell:

Like now, I gave advice yesterday for everybody to vote and get Trump out of office.

Kelly Molson:

Whoa. Okay.

Lee Cockerell:

Because the young people don't like this and they're the ones. There's going to be four million people turn 18 before the election to vote. And so, I can reach them that way.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah. That's good. It's good that you're using your platform for good, Lee.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah, I am. Also, I'm promoting my work. So you got to be out there and it changes, you know, you got to really be on top of watching where people are getting their information. If you're on Facebook, like I am, you're getting people that are about to die anyway. So I mean, LinkedIn is great, professional. I did a post the other day about something, I've had over 20,000 views on it.

Kelly Molson:

Wow.

Lee Cockerell:

That sells books. That sell speeches. That gets me be known who I am. And so, each one has a different audience and you got to stay on top of that because it's changing rapidly.

Kelly Molson:

Yes.

Lee Cockerell:

You know, right now the US government's trying to stop TikTok because that's owned by the Chinese. As soon as they do, somebody else will open another one. You can't stop it. People are going to give their opinion.

Kelly Molson:

No, you can't stop free speech, Lee, for sure.

Lee Cockerell:

Yeah.

Kelly Molson:

What I'd like to do is ask you ... well, actually I've got two more questions to ask you. One I'm not sure about, because I spoke to a friend just before I came on here and he wanted me to ask you this and I don't actually know if you like rides, but he's asked, "If you could only go to one Disney park in the whole world and ride one ride, what would it be and why?"

Lee Cockerell:

It's not so much the rides for me, but I like to go to Epcot around four o'clock in the afternoon. After it's starting to get a little cooler, I like to go to the French pavilion, the UK pavilion. My wife loves to go to the UK pavilion and shop, and French pavilion for perfume. Then around 5:00 or 5:30, we have a little cocktail, and then we have dinner at one of the pavilions. Then we watch the fireworks and go home. So we're there for like four hours and one of them were five hours. That's my favorite thing to do. Rides, you know, they're okay. I mean, I've been on all of them so many times, the Rock 'n' Roller Coaster, I kind of like it.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah, that's my favorite one. That's my favorite one. I love that.

Lee Cockerell:

I think that's incredible and it goes off at a million miles an hour. So yeah, that's fun. I've been on every ride so many times because when my grandkids were growing up they lived in Orlando, the three of them, and I used to take them all the time.

Kelly Molson:

Oh, that must have been an amazing experience to share that with them.

Lee Cockerell:

Well, I had to ride the rides they liked, not the ones I liked.

Kelly Molson:

Did they like a Small World though? Because that's a bit repetitive, isn't it?

Lee Cockerell:

I think they might have until they could speak, talk, listen and talk. I don't think so. No, not really. They like Buzz Lightyear.

Kelly Molson:

Okay. Good choices. Well, look, Lee, we're coming to the end of the podcast and I really want to ask you the last question and it's, is there a book that you recommend that's helped shaped your career in any way?

Lee Cockerell:

Oh yeah. You know, I was not a big reader when I got out of school. I personally learn best by doing, so experience is a big deal to me. Then one day I started reading and I found out, "Wow, I'm learning a lot here." Reading, looking at websites, reading the newspaper every day. But I would say one that struck me was The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People by Stephen Covey.

Kelly Molson:

Yeah.

Lee Cockerell:

Because it was very basic and it's all focused on people. I started thinking about my own behavior, my own communication, my own reaction to things, and that book helped me a lot. I've had it on my desk for, oh God, I think it came out in '89 and that's 30, 31 years ago. So yeah, that had an impact. I read now every day. I read a lot. And so, there's so much to learn and to understand, and if you don't read, you're probably not going to get the truth because half the people in the world don't know the truth. All they know are rumors or what their parents told them. I tell people, "Half to stuff in your brain's not even true, so be careful."

Kelly Molson:

Well, I mean, that's a great book recommendation. Just remember listeners, we always give away a copy of the book recommendation from our guest. So if you would like to win a copy of this book, then just head over to our Twitter account that's Skip the Queue and retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Lee's book," and you will be in a chance of winning it.

Kelly Molson:

Lee, thank you so much for being on today. It's been such a pleasure to speak to you. I have been so excited about this all week. It's been brilliant to hear about your leadership skills and customer service experience. And so, thank you.

Lee Cockerell:

Okay. I'm going to work on Congress here. You work on parliament and we'll try to straighten out the world.

Kelly Molson:

Tag team, Lee. We've got it covered between the two of us, for sure.

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. 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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.thenma.org.uk

www.twitter.com/mj_ellis

www.linkedin.com/in/markjellis

https://thenma.org.uk/about-us/news/arboretum-app-launch

https://thenma.org.uk/visit-us/what's-here/the-memorials/memorial-woodland

Mark Ellis is the Head of Visitor Experience at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, the UK’s year-round centre of remembrance. He is responsible for the overall visitor experience, including commercial operations and overseeing the 150-acre site’s diverse events programme; frequently over 250 Remembrance Events each year. In the five years since he joined the Arboretum team, he has helped deliver a wide range of new events, activities and commercial opportunities including an immersive World War 1 Trench installation, Summer Proms, an Illuminated Arboretum light trail, and a range of activities to help visitors learn more about the stories behind the memorials.

In 2018, the Arboretum opened Aspects, a state-of-the-art events and conference facility. Mark was the client lead from initial concept through to completion and was proud to be part of the team that delivered the project on time and to budget. Aspects complements the award-winning Remembrance Centre at the entrance to the site and has provided a fitting venue for high-profile remembrance events as well as creating a new income stream through corporate hire.

Mark has operated across the charity, public and private sectors in several senior roles, consistently demonstrating his ability to deliver great visitor experiences and commercial success in a way that supports the core objectives of an organisation.

Outside of work Mark is an experienced Scout leader and enjoys the opportunities that this provides to take part in a range of outdoor activities and adventures. He has worked on international scout camps in the UK and overseas and believes that no food is finer than that cooked on a stick over the embers of a real fire.

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.

In todays episode I speak with Mark Ellis, Head of Visitor Experience at The National Memorial Arboretum.

We discuss their brand new augmented reality experience, tips for other attractions thinking about investing in new technology, and the Memorial Woodland being created in partnership with The National Forest to commemorate all the lives lost during the pandemic.

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels, by searching Skip the Queue. 

Kelly Molson: Good morning, Mark. It is absolutely lovely to speak to you for the first time today. I feel like we've chatted a lot on Twitter, but this is our first...

Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it feels like your voice is very familiar, and likewise feels like we've chatted a lot. It's a delight to be here, thanks for asking.

Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. Before we start, I would like to say a very public thank you to you, Mark, because I think that you are one of our most engaged listeners, and that really means a lot to us. I think every episode that we've put out you always go to a lot of effort to tweet about it and say what you liked about it. And, you tag people in on our Twitter account who you think that might be really interested in listening to it, and I'm really, really grateful to that. So, thank you.

Mark Ellis: Thanks, Kelly. Maybe I'm just a frustrated marketeer at heart. 

Kelly Molson: Maybe. But, I'm going to take it that you're a Skip the Queue podcast supporter.

Mark Ellis: I am. It's a fabulous podcast. It's helped and inspired us a lot because it's over the last 12 months. I only retweet and tag because it's so brilliant, so thank you.

Kelly Molson: That is lovely to hear, thank you. But, that doesn't mean that you don't get away with answering some of my...

Mark Ellis: [crosstalk 00:01:53].

Kelly Molson: ... quite mean icebreaker questions, unfortunately. Let's go in. When you hit the dance floor, what is your signature move?

Mark Ellis: I'm the worlds best dad dancer. I move my hips left and right, left foot forward, right foot forward, a bit of funny stuff going on with your arms. And then, if you get some electro-funk going on, the arms are pumping up in the air as well. 

Kelly Molson: Electro-funk, I'm going to remember that.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, late night at a festival in a field with a few pints of cider, no one dances better.

Kelly Molson: I feel like we're going to need a demo of this when we're all allowed to meet properly in real life. We need to see this, Mark. 

Mark Ellis: We'll do it. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, if you were in a zombie apocalypse, which...

Kelly Molson:... Considering what's been thrown at us the last year and a half, that could happen, who would you want on your team?

Mark Ellis: I'd have The Doctor. Obviously. No problem too bad, no villain he can't defeat with a bit of wit, and panache, and charm. He, or her, whichever incarnation of The Doctor it happens to be. I started with Tom Baker, love David Tennant, love Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker's taken it to new and brilliant places. So, I'd have The Doctor, every time.

Kelly Molson: It's a really good choice. Good. What is the strangest gift that you have ever received?

Mark Ellis: Bootlaces. 

Kelly Molson: Someone bought you bootlaces?

Mark Ellis: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Was that a birthday present?

Mark Ellis: That was a Christmas present. That was the year when I bought my lovely, fantastic, gorgeous wife some diamond earrings, and she bought me some bootlaces. 

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Mark Ellis: This was probably 15 or 20 years ago. She did tell me that she was busy making me something, I have no idea what, and I'm still waiting. So, the bootlaces are a classic.

Kelly Molson: Okay. So, she bought you something to unwrap with the premise that there was something else coming.

Mark Ellis: To be very fair, just before Christmas I broke a pair of bootlaces and my boots were held on with a knotted bit of string. So, it was practical and thoughtful, and considerate, and practical so it was a very good gift.

Kelly Molson: This is what us women do, always thinking ahead, we knew that was going to happen. Mark, what is your unpopular opinion?

Mark Ellis: Before that, Kelly, I've got an icebreaker for you, because I like to turn the tables. Your podcast is brilliant, and you have that uncanny knack of making it feel like it's just a chat between you, your guest, and a listener, and that pulls everybody in. So, if you could have coffee and a chat with one broadcaster, dead or alive, who would it be?

Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh, I was not expecting to be tested this morning. Nobody's done this to me yet. 

Mark Ellis: I'm so sorry.

Kelly Molson: Who would be the broadcaster I would sit down and speak to? There's quite a few that I can think of, but I'm going to go current, because I really love this person. I'm going to say Greg James, from the BBC Breakfast show. I know that I have stolen his unpopular opinion segment, which hopefully he won't find out about at any point. Or, maybe he will and he'll appreciate that I'm inspired by him. I just think he's great. I just think he's really fun. What he's done with that Breakfast show, he's completely transformed it. He's also a local lad. He's from Bishop's Stortford originally. I'm from Waltham Abbey, which is not too far, but we live in Saffron Walden now, and the office is in Sawbridgeworth. I feel like we would be friends because we're from the same kind of area, do you know what I mean?

Mark Ellis: Excellent.

Kelly Molson: We could sit down, have a pint, we should definitely be buddies, Greg, if you're listening.

Mark Ellis: Brilliant, great choice. Well done, and sorry about that. I'll behave myself as a guest now.

Kelly Molson: Too right as well, Mark. So you should. 

Mark Ellis: So, unpopular opinion. I thought long and hard about this, and didn't know whether to go with the incredibly trite, or something a bit more meaningful. And actually, somebody said something to me over the weekend that just sparked me going with this one. Which is, when people go with the customer service advice of, "Treat other people like you like to be treated yourself." Which, really winds me up. Because, do you know what? Why don't we treat other people like they want to be treated? So, if I treat everybody like I treat myself, then I'm going to disappoint an awful lot of people. My case in point would be, if I was running a restaurant, which I do as part of my job, I don't eat fish, I don't like fish, I've never liked fish. So, if I treat everyone like I want to treat myself, there'd be no fish on the menu, our incredibly popular Fish Friday would be a bit of a disappointment. So, don't treat people like you want to be treated yourself. Find out how they want to be treated and go with that.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I've actually never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Let's see what our listeners think. If you don't think that's an unpopular opinion, Tweet us.

Mark Ellis: We'll have a Tweet war about it.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, let's have a Tweet war about it. Thank you for sharing those, Mark, that's great.

Mark Ellis: No problem. 

Kelly Molson: I'm going to ask a little bit about your background because it's quite interesting. You've been at Twycross Zoo, and English Heritage, and now you're at the National Memorial Arboretum. Can you tell us how you got to there, how you ended up there?

Mark Ellis: There are two versions of this story. One, it was a bunch of random factors that ended up with where I am. Or, I can post-justify and describe a thought out plan all the way through. The truth is, when I was a little boy I wanted to drive one of those cranes with a ball and chain on that demolishes buildings. Never got that chance. So, ended up on a retail career path in high street retail, which was great. Worked for a company called Rohan for many years doing travel and outdoor clothing, absolutely loved it, really high service standards, really quality product, that was great, and really learnt some great customer service skills on that journey. 

Mark Ellis: Moved on from that. Tales of redundancy and all the rest of it that many people's careers involve. And, ended up moving to Twycross Zoo, as you say. Initially as Head of Retail, taking those [inaudible 00:08:07] high street retail experiences into the visitor attraction area. Twycross Zoo's not far from where I grew up, I've known it for many, many years. It's a place that's special in my heart. So, really, really enjoyed joining the team there. And, pretty quickly, realized that maybe the Guest Services Team could do with the benefit of some additional thinking. So, ended up running the Visitor Service department as well. That's really where I made the hop over from pure retail into visitor attractions. Had a great time there. Zoos are just fantastic places to work. You've got thousands of animals doing the hard job of keeping visitors happy, you're just making sure there's a great experience wrapped around that. 

Mark Ellis: Ended up moving on from there. Again, the financial crash of 2008, and restructuring, and all the rest of it. So, a bit of a hard hit on that one. And then, worked for PDSA, the pet vet charity, for a while. Which, really enabled me to put completer-finisher on my CV. Which, had been possibly missing up to that point. I'm sure some of my colleagues will smile at the thought that I needed to prove I was a completer-finisher, as I do tend to get slightly distracted by new and shiny things. 

Kelly Molson: Were you an ideas person?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, very much so. A broad overview is the way I like to think of it. Managed a couple of projects for PDSA, and EPOS roll-outs, and reporting things. So, it's really detailed and good work with some brilliant people there.

Mark Ellis: Then, got the chance... English Heritage had been through a period of not recruiting, they'd restructured what they were doing. And, I was in the first tranche of people they went out and recruited a new group in. Some really brilliant people at English Heritage, made some lifelong friends while I was working there. Met some of your previous guests, Paul Griffiths, for instance. We shared about three months together at English Heritage. I started just as he was going. And, really did enjoy that. Looked after an area from Peveril Castle, Castleton up in the Peak District, all the way across Norfolk, Suffolk, the East Midlands. So, a huge area, with everything from 5000-year-old flint mines, Grime's Graves in Thetford Forest, through to late-19th century windmills. So, really was the full breadth of English history. Thoroughly enjoyed that, and was settled to keep developing career there.

Mark Ellis: And then, the opportunity at National Memorial Arboretum came up, they were looking for a Head of Commercial Operations at the time. I have to say, it took me about half a second to decide whether it was a jump I wanted to make. Again, Arboretum, 20 years anniversary this year of our official opening, so a relatively young site. And so, going from needle flint mines to an arboretum that's only 20 years old was quite a change. But, joined the team here, and working with, again, brilliant people, hopefully making a real impact on the way people remember and enjoy outdoor spaces, and think about the past.

Kelly Molson: Great journey. I love that. I find it quite fascinating, listening to how people get to where they are, because it's always kind of a bit squiggly, and I quite like that. There's always a little bit of a twist and turn, it's never a straight line. 

Mark Ellis: I'm always slightly jealous, the people that say they thought about what they wanted to do when they were at school and they followed a progression and done it, in some ways, I think, "Well done you." But, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, other than drive that crane with a ball and chain on it. We'll see what the future brings.

Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer. 

Mark Ellis: Well, there you go.

Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer on the West End stage. When I was younger I was really into tap dancing, and modern, and acrobatics and stuff like that. And, I thought, "That's what I'll do. I'll be on the West End stage and I'll be a tap dancer." But then, you start to get a bit older and you're like, "I'm a bit of an average tap dancer, and I'm 5'2, it's probably never going to happen." 

Mark Ellis: When we get together to do this big group dance, you're really going to show me up with my dad dancing, aren't you?

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Do you know what? The last time I put on a pair of tap shoes I was about 21. I decided to go back and do it as a fitness thing and it was really fun. I could make a lot of noise with the Blakey's on the bottoms of my shoes right now, but I don't know if I could pull off any tap moves. Let's see when it happens. 

Kelly Molson: If our listeners have never been to the NMA, tell us a little bit about what it is and what we can expect to find there?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. It's something that never comes over that well in the telling. It's a site that people have to come and really experience to appreciate. So, that's a very open invitation to all your listeners from around the globe to head over to Staffordshire and come and find us. Entry is free, so we're here ready to welcome you. What you'd find is 150 acres of relatively young woodland. 150 acres, to put it into context, if you're doing your Couch to 5K, then the 5K is about around the perimeter of the site. So, it's a nice, large site. Young Arboretum, an arboretum being a scientific collection of trees. So, we've got around 25,000 trees on-site, every indigenous species in the UK is here. And, we've got examples of trees from around the world as well.

Mark Ellis: Dotted throughout the trees you'll find, it's now around 400 memorials to people that have served, and sacrificed, and have been lost on behalf of those of us that are still here. About 75% of the memorials are Armed Forces related, and around 25% are civilian organisations, that includes police, fire, ambulance. We've got things like the WI, Salvation Army, Scouting. So, we cover a very broad spectrum. The military ones cover specific campaigns, cover specific regiments and associations. And, we're also very proud to be the home of the Armed Forces Memorial, which is the national memorial to all of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed. And, that has carved onto the walls the names of the 16,000 members of Armed Forces that have lost their lives in active service or through acts of terrorism since the end of the Second World War. So, a very, very special place, and very poignant.

Mark Ellis: It's easy for that to sound like it's a slightly sombre place, and certainly, it is a place where people do come and reflect and remember because the final part of remembrance is generally happy memories. We think about those that we've lost, and always brings a smile to the face to remember the good times. And, that's very much what the arboretum is. It's a living memorial. It's a growing memorial. It's ever-developing. It's ever-changing. And, when people leave the site, they often use words like uplifting, and life-affirming, and joyous. 

Mark Ellis: We have around 250 volunteers, and they really do bring the arboretum to life, all about storytelling. Without the stories, it's just memorials in woodland, and it's the stories behind those memorials that really do tug at the heart, and make people smile, and make people laugh, and make people cry, and other things that are so important. Our volunteers do a great job of telling those stories, and it's always done with a smile and a twinkle in the eye, and remembering some great times in amongst some amazing stories of heroism, and service, and sacrifice. 

Mark Ellis: So, it's a very special place. We try to operate in the best possible way. We've got a couple of award-winning buildings on-site, our Remembrance Center, our Visitor Center with a large restaurant, a shop, our dedicated classrooms is very special. We've got our Chapel of Peace and Reconciliation, which was the first building on-site where we're the only place in the country that holds the Act of Remembrance on a daily basis. The building I'm talking to you from at the moment is our Events and Conference building, which opened in Autumn 2018. Which, is a state of the art, bespoke conference and events facility as well. Where we can host events for those that are carrying out remembrance activities, but also opens up corporate hire activities, and those important come streams as well.

Kelly Molson: I have to say, if we do a live Skip the Queue conference, that is where it will be held, Mark, isn't it? We've already had that mini discussion.

Mark Ellis: Brilliant, absolutely, the offer's there. And, the coffee's great.

Kelly Molson: I have to say, it comes across what you were talking about in terms of it being a place of remembrance, but also a place of celebration, that comes across really well on your website. I haven't actually had the opportunity to visit the centre yet. It is something that we've had this conversation about, about doing a little bit of a group visit, haven't we? With some of the other Skip the Queue podcast guests, which I'm sure we'll arrange for later on in the year. But, it really does come across. It's a beautiful, beautiful venue. And, it does come across as somewhere really, really special. And, I think that that's important to get that message across, that it is very much about remembrance, but also very much about celebration as well. For me, it doesn't have a sombre feel to it, the way that you present it and the way that you talk about it. And, I think that helps to draw more people to come to it, right?

Mark Ellis: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right, Kelly, and thanks for the feedback from an expert on the website. In the words of our Founder, back in the mid-90s, we were always designed to be a place that commemorates lives lost and celebrates lives lived. It's getting that balance right. And, of course, a lot of that is very personal and depends on each individual on where they are in their particular journey. The feedback we get suggests that we generally get that balance pretty much right, and we're really pleased to be able to provide that for people.

Kelly Molson: Let's go back to what you were talking about, about stories, because I think that ties in really well with something that I'd like to talk to you about today. You've recently launched a brand new app experience, and I love the name of this, very clever. It's called The ARboretum. Hello? Good use of pun there. It's an augmented reality experience, and it takes families on a journey to learn about everyday heroes. This sounds fabulous. Going back to our first season of the podcast, we had Alex Book on, from Arcade, who is an augmented reality, virtual reality specialist organisation. And, they talked a lot about how your guests... No, you don't call them guests, call them players, because you're getting them to interact with the building and the environment that they come to. It's such an interesting concept. I just love what you've done with this because it is a really fun interactive way of sharing those stories about the heroes that are part of that place that you're at. How did this come about? Where did the idea for this start?

Mark Ellis: "Need is the mother of invention", is the phrase I'm just trying to get my head around. We've always done Easter activities on-site, put some budget aside and do something to attract people in. Those are often built around a trail. A lot of our memorials have animals on them, so we'll do an opportunity for children to go around, find the animals, put together an anagram, and come back and grab their little chocolate treat from the welcome desk, always very popular. What works really well with that, is getting families to interact with the memorials as part of the activity. And, that's very much what drives a lot of what we do, is trying to make sure there's authenticity in there, and it gives people an opportunity to learn more about the site.

Mark Ellis: So, at the start of this year, of course, in January we'd just gone into that extra lockdown, and it was a pretty bleak time, wasn't it?

Kelly Molson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mark Ellis: And, we were talking about what we were going to do at Easter, when we had no idea what sort of numbers we'd be able to attract on-site. But, we still wanted something that would enable people to engage. And, our Head of Participation and Learning, a chap called Chris Ansell, who is a genius, came up with a brilliant idea of actually taking that budget, and instead of spending it on a physical manifestation on-site, which perhaps we wouldn't be able to get people on-site to involve, said, "Let's go digital." And, went away and came up with the idea of augmented reality. I can't remember who first came up with the ARboretum idea.

Kelly Molson: Very clever.

Mark Ellis: As you say, it was an inspired piece of naming. And, it does very much the same thing. There are three characters in the app, Blu, Kit, and Sam. They are 13 to 15 probably, so they're pitched for slightly younger kids. It's that aspirational age of the 9, 10, 11-year-olds really want to be the 13, 14, 15-year-olds. We've given them a little bit of a backstory. So, Blu is probably connected to somebody that served in the Armed Forces, doesn't necessarily articulate that, but she's really interested in memorialization and the site from that aspect. We've got Kit, they are a very eco-centred person, they like to be out in the woods. They're probably more interested in the bugs, and the birds, and all the rest of it. And, you have to work quite hard to get their loyalty and their friendship. But, once you've got that they're going to be incredibly loyal and friendly towards you. And then, we've got Sam, and he's the get in there and do it, action-first, think later. He happens to have a prosthetic leg, but that doesn't stop him getting stuck in and doing things. Probably, if there's something going a bit wrong and a bit right, it's probably Sam that's in the middle of that.

Mark Ellis: So, we created these characters. And then, we've created eight locations around the site where there's a visual thing that you scan with your phone. And, one, or two, or three of the characters pop up and they get you to do an activity. Some of those are centred around the woodland. There's one where there's wellbeing, it encourages you to do some forest bathing and listening to the sounds around you. There's some that's very much based on reflections at memorials. So, in our poppy glade, you're read out a poem about loss and memorialisation. And, you think about and talk to the rest of your group about what that means to you. And then, some are very physical. On The Beat, which is an area dedicated to the police. You do a beep test, so you do shuttle runs, you've got a minute, in times, and you can see how many shuttles runs you can do. There's hide and seek, there's some puzzle solving. So, there's a real mixture, something for everybody. And, of course, something that ties into the things that each of the three characters likes. You can take photos through the app, and then tag those and upload them onto social media as well. So, it really is a good way of getting people to move around the site, take them to some areas where perhaps people don't normally find things and interact. You can come back and do them again.

Mark Ellis: And, the really good thing is, we launched this at Easter, so normally that budget that we spend on Easter Activities... We'll do peak activity of the Easter Weekend, and then a little bit more of the two weeks in school holidays. And, we have the added complication, we're right on the border of four counties here, and they all have different school holidays. So, the Easter holiday actually spans three weeks of time. I'm sure we're not the only people with that complication. With this, we took that money and we've run the app from Easter, and we'll finish it at the end of June, just after Armed Forces Day, which is a big weekend for us. So, it's covered a three month period. And, it's in the bag, we can always bring it back out and run it again in the future. And also, we have the three characters who, you never know, might feature in activities and on-site interpretation in the future. My aspiration is we'll have models of them that appear in the shop at some time.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I love that there's that longevity to this thing that you've created. I had no idea about how difficult that would be to plan your activities around all those different Easter holidays as well. But also, it feels like it's something that could just run, and run, and run. You've put a window on it that it's going to end in... Did you say June it's going to come to an end?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, end of June. 

Kelly Molson: But, that's something that, potentially, people would engage with all year round, depending on when they come to the site. It's lovely that you've been able to invest so well in something that you can bring back, and you can bring back year on year and maybe tweak and stuff.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. One of the really nice things as well, I think the characters are very authentic. As I said, they've all got that backstory, they've got very different personalities, I think they're all relatable in different ways. And, we actually got a young person to design them. We wrote a design brief, and a young person got hold of that and she produced some characters which we had a look at, and thought, "Do you know what? She's pretty much nailed that." So then, worked with the app developer and designers, and they came back to her on several occasions and used her designs going forward. That's a bit of a Skip the Queue exclusive.

Kelly Molson: Ooh.

Mark Ellis: I'm really proud because I know that young person particularly well. It was my daughter that actually did those initial designs. It's really great. And, something that really excites me, is each of the characters has some form of a particular characteristic within their story. And, it's such a non-issue for... My daughter's 13, 14 next week, and it's such a non-issue. You want people of a different ethnic background, or you want somebody that's got a disability, or you want someone that's non-binary, "Yeah, fine, this is what they're going to look like." And, that's the real hope for the future, isn't it? It is that, hopefully, as we pass onto future generations... And, part of what we do here is passing on the baton of remembrance to future generations, so we're very engaged with working with young people. Is hopefully, that acceptance of things that older generations have had to work hard to understand.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. I think what's really interesting is that you've actually engaged with someone of that age to say, "What would you want to see? How would you want these characters to be?" Because that's something that I think potentially a lot of organisations don't necessarily do. We're all guilty of it. We design a website and we're testing it, but we're not potentially the user who should be testing it. So, you need to think broadly about who your audience is and how you engage with them from the start of a project like this.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a proud dad, and it was purely chance. Working at home, I just said to her, "Look at this brief, what do you think?" But, it was the next stages that really were the eyeopener for me. When the initial designs came back we showed them to her, and it was just the little things. Particularly it was Blu, the girl character that was designed first, and Harriet, my daughter, was, "The eyes are just a little bit too big, and the lips are just a bit too full." And effectively, it wasn't childlike enough. It was a slightly more Disneyfied aspirational image that perhaps isn't healthiest for us to be pursuing. It was subtle. It was a great design, we just signed it off and it would have been fine. But, getting a younger person just to shape that final design, I think really has given it that added layer of authenticity, and we're very proud of what we've ended up with.

Kelly Molson: You should be. I think it's fantastic. 

Mark Ellis: But, the real see was Chris' idea to come up with it in the first place, and to make the app work so well, and tie it into the authenticity of the memorial. That's what makes it a really special thing. 

Kelly Molson: Completely. I've got a list of questions here that I wanted to ask you, why an app? Why augmented reality? But, you've answered them so perfectly, in the sense that you had these challenges, and actually, this digital application that you've developed solved those challenges. It solved the issue of the various different Easter holidays that you've got. You've now got something that's got longevity to it. You've got something that people are really engaging with. 

Kelly Molson: To ask you about what the objectives were to start with, my assumption is that it was about engaging people with the different aspects of what the arboretum means to people, those stories behind it. And, like you say, getting them to explore areas that they might not necessarily always go to. If they're coming back time after time they might have their favourite places. What do you think that the impact or the results of that have been so far? Is it a bit too early to tell? Or can you see?

Mark Ellis: We've had some really positive feedback. We've had some really good download numbers, so it's reached a large number of people. Not enough, because like everybody else, we've not got enough people on our sites at the moment, with static constraints in place. And it's strange, is judging things not necessarily on the straight metrics that you use in the old world, of actually, "What does good look like now?" We've had some really good feedback. We've seen people looking at some memorials in a bit more detail. We've had people. Dwell time is up on-site. People just saying, "It's been great, the kids have loved it. It's given us something to do." We don't charge for it, it's a free app and a free to enter the site. It's got that educational twist to it as well as being fun. I think it's ticked a lot of boxes. But, actually just seeing kids run up and down seeing how many shuttles runs they can do in a minute is great to see.

Kelly Molson: I'm definitely going to test that out when I come. Because it might be a little bit later on in the year, can we just reactivate it for that day when we come because I want to do the shuttle runs?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, of course, we can, for you, Kelly, absolutely. There is a rather sad picture kicking around somewhere that Chris took of me doing the shuttle runs in the rain when we were testing it. Dedication to the cause.

Kelly Molson: I think we need to see that on Twitter. We need to see that on Twitter, Mark. 

Mark Ellis: I'll see if I can drag it out.

Kelly Molson: If there's no photos then it didn't happen.

Mark Ellis: Fair point. 

Kelly Molson: What tips could you offer, if there is any organisations that are thinking about investing in this technology, for whatever challenges they have that they want to overcome? What would be a few tips that you could give them about how you would approach that process?

Mark Ellis: I think it's knowing what you want to get out of it first. We started with an idea that we could do, augmented reality, but then the next thing was sitting down and saying, "Who's it for? What are the characters? What are the backstories? What's authenticity? Which memorials?" So actually, we knew what we wanted to do with it before we went and engaged with something to deliver it. And, that meant that it was a very specific project scope when we went out to tender with it, we knew exactly what we wanted to get out of it. Which, probably stopped mission creep and somebody saying, "You could do this that and the other." And, it meant that when it came back the quality of the digital experience is really, really good, but we weren't chasing Pixar quality output from it. We knew it was delivering what we wanted. 

Mark Ellis: Probably not as expensive as perhaps people think. So, with that tight scope, it didn't cost much more than we'd normally spend on our Easter activities, with that added benefit of a bit of longevity in there. So yes, it does cost money, but it certainly wasn't a bank breaker. And, having a limited budget, when you go out to tender, gives people the opportunity to scope what they're going to give you against that. 

Mark Ellis: So, I think authentic, know what you want, and explore the financial possibilities. It might be more within reach than perhaps people think it is.

Kelly Molson: That's really interesting. 

Mark Ellis: All this technology is becoming more accessible all the time, isn't it? So, there are opportunities out there. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it absolutely is. I think you're right, it's about scoping what you want and giving people the opportunity to say, "We can do this much of it for that budget", or, "We can do this much for that budget." It's kind of like a starting point, isn't it?

Mark Ellis: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's good that you said about don't be scared by new technology, because I think that there is still an element of overwhelm about. People don't understand how much digital costs, and there's still a lot of education that we could do around that, definitely from a web perspective. AR isn't anything that we do ourselves, but I think that it sounds quite frightening, doesn't it? It sounds like it's going to be a very big, expensive project. Where actually, what you've just described, seems quite manageable. 

Mark Ellis: This is where I shamelessly introduce other products into the conversation. It supports what we move onto, which we've just launched this week which will now run to the Autumn, which is our escape challenge. And again, this is Chris' idea, he really is a genius. 

Kelly Molson: You want to hold onto this Chris, he sounds great.

Mark Ellis: Absolutely. He should come on and be a guest for you some time, Kelly. He's much better than me. But, Escape challenge. And again, this was necessity being the mother of invention, I said it right that time. Last year we wanted something to bring people onto site, experiences, escape rooms, massive growth. So, actually taking the escape room concept and delivering it as an outdoor environment. So again, a series of memorials that you walk around with your puzzle book, there are clues at memorials, there are clues in your puzzle book. This is a paid-for one, so we charge people to do this. Two levels, one pretty tricky, but a family will probably work their way through it. The other one, pretty challenging. It's probably people that enjoy the odd cryptic crossword clue and those types of things. Takes two to three hours, eight clues. This year's based around everyday heroes and people that have worked in the emergency service, so it's based around the work the police do. We're dedicating the new UK Police Memorial on-site this year, which is a spectacular memorial worth coming to see. So, it's based around that. There's a gang planning a bank heist, and you're going to try and head them off at the pass, and solve the clues, and solve the crime. 

Mark Ellis: So, again, a real opportunity to learn more about memorials. You're looking for some really fine details of the memorials there, and some of the symbolism, and some of the stories. Perhaps, again, you've walked past it a dozen times and never noticed that, so it just gets people to look. And, that covers the RNLI, the Police, Fire Service, the Ambulance Service. So, a lot of the civilian organisations come through on this year's escape challenge. 

Kelly Molson: I love that.

Mark Ellis: Available live now. It will be here when you come up, Kelly. 

Kelly Molson: Oh good. I'll do the easy one, obviously. I won't be doing that difficult one. 

Mark Ellis: We put a package together for corporate groups that want to come and do team building events here. There's a corporate package built around that escape challenge as well, which is a great way to get execs to come and scratch their heads as well.

Kelly Molson: That's a really lovely idea as well actually, because you've mentioned quite a few times that the arboretum is free to visit, and actually a lot of these things that you're offering, they're free to do as well. So, the challenge for you is you need to drive revenue. You can't be based solely on donations. Charitable donations, difficult at the best of times to get from people. So, I think it's lovely that you're now starting to look at this, what you can offer people, and bringing different groups of people in to build that revenue base. It's really great.

Mark Ellis: Yeah. generally works very well. Summer Proms is a good one as well in August. Tickets go on sale this week, so look out for that.

Kelly Molson: He's getting all the plugs in. There's something else that I want to talk to you about as well. Thank you for sharing all of that.

Mark Ellis: You're welcome.

Kelly Molson: I think that will be really useful for any organisation that is thinking about going through that process. 

Kelly Molson: You've just announced something which I think is super, super wonderful, and I'd love to hear a bit more about it. It's just been announced that in partnership with The National Forest, you're going to be creating a memorial woodland. Which, is a new woodland to commemorate all of the lives that have been lost during the pandemic. How amazing. 

Mark Ellis: It's a privilege to be involved in a project like this. The last 12 months or so, of course, have been tough on absolutely everybody, and it's a tragedy that's still unfolding. It is difficult. And, there is a time when people want to come together and remember and reflect. The memorial woodland is very much designed for everyone that's lost their lives as a result of COVID. That includes the people that have missed diagnosis, haven't had treatment, have had their mental health irreparably damaged by it. So, it's not just the people that tragically lost their lives because of Coronavirus. The number of civilians that lost their lives through Coronavirus is now twice the number of civilians that lost their lives in the UK in World War 2. It's massive.

Mark Ellis: We're very fortunate. We're in The National Forest, which is across this part of the midlands, a project that's been running for 30 or so years to reforest this area. In this area, we had a lot of clay pits, mining, those kinds of things. They're all being turned into country parks now. It's a lovely part of the midlands. We've got a long-lasting relationship with The National Forest Company. They'd been asked about what they might want to do for memorialisation. And, right back at the very start of Coronavirus, people were contacting us and saying, "What can you do? What will you do? What can be done?" 

Mark Ellis: Fortunately, at around the time, Tarmac, who are our neighbours, they're quarrying the land around us. And, the land we're on used to be their quarry and we had it off them in the mid-1990s on a 999-year lease on a peppercorn rent. There are 25 acres that sit right next to our site that they finished working with, it's been inert for a decade or so, it's scrubland, and silk washing lakes. So, they've now very kindly gifted that over to us as well, likewise, on a 980-year lease on a peppercorn rent, which has been fabulous of them. So, that's given us 25 acres where we can create the memorial woodland. And, our aspiration is very much to make it a living memorial, something that becomes very special. 

Mark Ellis: There will be memorial woodlands all over the country, and absolutely there should be. And, what we want to do is to create something here that is memorable, is special, is living, is developing. There are so many stories that have come out of the last 12 months, the experience of all the key workers, the experience of the NHS people, the experience of those in care homes, the experience of children who've missed going round to friend's houses and play and have missed the rites of passage of end of year school plays. So, so many different stories, and try and bring those together in a living memorial. Somewhere too, I've said it before, I'll say it again, commemorate lives lost and celebrate lives lived. And, create something that really works in a very special way. 

Mark Ellis: We want it to include reflection areas, multi-faith or people of no faith can come and reflect as well. And actually, Westminster Abbey are supporting us as well. We will be holding service there in the Autumn to dedicate trees that represent all the different faiths from around the commonwealth. So, there will be a service there that will dedicate those, and those will be some of the very first trees that will be planted in the new woodland. So, it's a wonderful opportunity. We're working very hard to make sure that it's suitable and fitting for everybody.

Kelly Molson: I think that you could not have picked a more perfect location for it as well. It's really interesting, the things that we've talked about today sum up exactly what the arboretum stands for. We've talked about these really fun engaging ways to look at the stories that you have there and celebrate the land and the people. And then, we have this wonderful memorial wood that's going to be developed to really commemorate everything that's happened in the past 15, 16 months. It's fabulous.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. That woodland will be very poignant and very special, but we also want it to be a place of joy and hope as well. And, hope, and looking forward, and rebirth, and regrowth. President Biden said in his inaugural speech about healing and remembrance going together, and that's what we want to do. I'm very hopeful that in the future will be a woodland where, as well as the opportunity to reflect and remember, there'll be the opportunity to enjoy and have fun, and play, and celebrate as well.

Kelly Molson: Sounds perfect. When does the work start? What're the timeframes?

Mark Ellis: The work started a wee while ago. 

Kelly Molson: It's in progress already, great.

Mark Ellis: Absolutely. We signed the lease on the land within the last couple of weeks, so we're surveying the land at the moment, and seeing what's there and what we need to do. We're hoping to, with The National Forest Company, start a public engagement piece this Autumn to really get to understand what people want from it and what people's hopes and aspirations would be for space. And then, probably start the work at the backend of 2022, with a view to having visitor's feet on the ground sometime in 2023. So, in arboreal terms, quite a short timescale. Hopefully from this Autumn, we'll be able to talk about people. And, there is an area on our website dedicated to it, so if people want to know more or want the opportunity to get involved, pop to the National Memorial Arboretum website. There's a Contact Us form, specifically for the memorial woodland on there as well. We'll be absolutely delighted to have conversations with people. And, even just going out and public talking about it, that's already opened up some really great conversations with lots of different groups that perhaps we normally wouldn't get a chance to speak to. So, it's already beginning to develop its own opportunities and create interesting conversations for us.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Mark, you've done my work for me, because what I was going to say is what we do is put all of the links to all of these things that we've talked about today into the show notes. So, we'll have links to that specific page where you can get involved and find out a little bit more about what's happening there.

Mark Ellis: Fabulous. 

Kelly Molson: And, we'll put links to Mark himself, so you can find him on Twitter, and you find him on LinkedIn. And, everything, again, that we've talked about today, you'll be able to find in the show notes.

Kelly Molson: Mark, we always end the podcast by asking our guest to share a book. It can be a book that's helped shape your career in some way, or a book that you just love. So, what have you got for us today?

Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it upsets you when people go with more than one book, doesn't it? Because, it breaks your marketing budget. So, I've got 43 recommendations for you. The first 41 of which, are books that I love, it's the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, that's fine.

Mark Ellis: Don't put those on your list, that really would break the bank. But, I love the Discworld books. I love the slanted way he looks at the world. There are not many management meetings where I probably don't quote Granny Weatherwax, or Sam Vimes, or somebody at some point, so love those. The other 42 and 43, one is Tom Peters, The Brand You 50, which is a small book that Tom Peters has done. It's been out for quite a while now, might have been the late 90s. But effectively, it's saying think about yourself as a brand. It's got 50 tips in there for how you build your own personal brand. And, I found that very useful, having switched jobs a few times, of actually saying, "These are my core values. This is what I hold dear to me. That's what you get from Mark Ellis." It helps when you're looking at new opportunities of saying, "Is the cultural fit going to be right? I know what I want out of a role." And, making sure the interview is a two-way process, and it's going to tick the boxes for me. So, that's one.

Mark Ellis: The other one, which perhaps will be the one that you might want to put on your, "I want Mark's book". It's a book called Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill. Paco Underhill is an American. He's done a whole bunch of research on customer's behaviour, particularly in retail. I first came across this book in my retail years, but it absolutely carries through into visitor attractions. He talks an awful lot about signage placement and product placement. And, if a gondola in a shop is just six inches too far out, then when you bend over to pick things off the bottom people are going to brush past your backside as you're shopping. So, actually observing that and moving it six inches might increase sales of that gondola massively. He talks about signage and being shown a sign for an airport somewhere in a boardroom and saying, "That's no good", and taking it out and standing in the middle of busy concourse, and leaning it up against a wall and saying, "Now can we see if that sign works?" So, it's a great book for that. 

Mark Ellis: I have to say, the prose style irritates me greatly. So, Paco, if you're listening, sorry about that. It's done in a very narrative way, and it's probably slightly condescending in places, and it's a really quick read. I first read it probably 25 years ago, and I refer back to it on a pretty regular basis, in terms of those core messages. So, Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill would be my recommendation.

Kelly Molson: Let's give that one away then, Mark, because that sounds really relevant. So, as ever, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Mark's book", then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Good choice with the Discworld as well, I have to say, good choice. My great-auntie Doris, who my extremely naughty Dachshund is named after, she was a huge Terry Pratchett fan. I grew up with those books and reading them with her, and they bring back some really lovely, lovely memories when you talk about them. So, thank you for putting that in my head today. 

Mark Ellis: No worries.

Kelly Molson: Also weirdly, my dad got... I don't know why I'm sharing this with you today, but my dad was mistaken for Terry Pratchett one night. We took him and my mum out for drinks, and the barmaid came over and said, "You're him, aren't you? You're Terry Pratchett." And, dad was like, "I think he's dead." 

Mark Ellis: That's awesomely cool though. 

Kelly Molson: "It's not me." He does look a little bit like him, I have to say. 

Mark Ellis: You see, that could be a plot from one of the stories, couldn't it?

Kelly Molson: Could be, yeah. My dad reincarnated as Terry Pratchett, that's quite odd. It's because he's a hat wearer and he's got a beard. 

Mark Ellis: There you go, that's all it takes.

Kelly Molson: Anyway, don't know why that came out, but thank you for putting that in my head as well. Mark, it's been so lovely to chat with you today, I've really enjoyed it. I think there are some wonderful things that are happening at your attraction, and I cannot wait to come and see it and meet you in real life. 

Mark Ellis: Thanks for having me, Kelly. As I've said before, you're welcome up here any time at all, look forward to seeing 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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
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• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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.

Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual 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 on 31st July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://rubbercheese.com/survey/

https://carbonsix.digital/

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://rubbercheese.com/

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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.

Fill in the Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - the annual 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 on 17th July 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://aerstudios.co.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jamesliweb/

Tools for Sustainability:

https://ecograder.com/

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 is Head of Technology at creative technology studio, aer studios, leading the technology team delivering outstanding work for clients including Dogs Trust, BBC, Historic Royal Palaces, and many others. Prior to joining aer studios, James was Head of Engineering at digital agency Great State, where he led a multi-award-winning software engineering team working with clients including the Royal Navy, Ministry of Defence, Honda Europe, the Scouts, and others.

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.

The 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey is now LIVE! 

• Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industry
• Gain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion rates
• Explore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performance
• Learn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion rates
• Uncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversions

Download the 2024 Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey Report
 

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 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..

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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.

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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.

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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 podcast

Competition ends October 1st 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://www.pensthorpe.com/about-us-history/

https://www.edp24.co.uk/news/business/why-running-pensthorpe-near-fakenham-makes-you-feel-good-by-1395106

https://www.bbc.co.uk/norfolk/content/articles/2008/05/23/springwatch_jordans_interview_20080523_feature.shtml

Leading the flock are the enigmatic owners of Pensthorpe; Bill and Jordan. Prior to purchasing Pensthorpe in 2003, the couple lived in Bedfordshire where Deb had a successful career in fashion and photography, and Bill ran Jordans, the hugely successful cereal business he co-founded with his brother.

Wanting to raise their two children in Deb's native Northfolk, they jumped at the chance to buy Pensthorpe and combine Bill's knowledge of sustainable farming practices with their longstanding love of nature.

They've been part of the landscape ever since.

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 Bill and Deb Jordan, owners of Pensthorpe. Bill and Deb share the heartwarming highs and lows of creating this multi-award-winning tourist attraction. Have a listen in to find out what part Bill Oddie played in it all. 

If you like what you hear, subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Bill and Deb, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's absolutely lovely to see you both. We're going to start off with a few small icebreaker questions just to get us warmed up. So we're going to talk a little bit about cereal today. It's going to be part of the conversation. I want to know, what has been the worst food that you've both ever eaten?

Bill Jordan: Oh, my word. I think school food didn't exactly do much for us.

Kelly Molson: School dinners?

Deb Jordan: One of my flatmates once complained that I had a tin of meatballs in the fridge that was open. So now I realise that many moons ago, I did used to eat badly in London.

Kelly Molson: All right. Tins of cold meatballs in the fridge. To be fair, I quite like cold beans straight out of the tin.

Bill Jordan: Oh, really.

Kelly Molson: So I'd probably go for the cold meatballs, actually.

Bill Jordan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I might be all right with that. Let's go for your unpopular opinions.

Deb Jordan: An unpopular opinion. I get very wound up about spin. I really do go off on one. It could be about anything where people actually say, so they pick up on something like children using mobile phones. Therefore, they will say that their business prevents that, and it's all to do with the fact that X, Y, Z. I just get frustrated when people use something that they've heard of in the press that is good for people. Even if it's like a cereal packet where it's saying this is healthy for you. Probably because I'll know that Bill will tell me exactly how many calories it's got in it. It's all a load of rubbish. But that is an opinion I get very wound up about. I hope I don't then fall into the frame of actually being accused of doing the same thing.

Bill Jordan: I think when I heard the question, I got slightly concerned that I'd reached a sort of age where I didn't even recognise whether the views are unpopular or not.

Kelly Molson: We're all getting there, Bill. Oh, I love that. Well, that's a good opinion to have. I wouldn't say that's very unpopular, but I think that's a good opinion to have.

Bill Jordan: Might be the definition of being out of touch.

Kelly Molson: I doubt that very much considering what we're going to talk about today. We're going to talk about Pensthorpe today. I mean, I think it's one of Norfolk's best-kept secrets. Whenever I talk about Pensthorpe, I have been describing it to people recently and telling them how fabulous it is, and they go, "I've never been there. We go to Norfolk quite a lot." And I'm like, "Right. Well, you have to go there now." So I've convinced at least 10 people recently that Pensthorpe is top of their list of places to go. It's just phenomenal.

Kelly Molson: But, I want to know what were your backgrounds prior to Pensthorpe? Because they're very different. They weren't in the attractions industry at all, were they?

Deb Jordan: No, not at all. I think Bill needs to lead on that one.

Bill Jordan: Okay. Well, mine, for about 30 ... Probably more years than that. I'd founded and was running with my brother a breakfast cereal company. I guess you'd call it such a natural food company in the days when there was a natural food movement. There was quite a reaction against factory food, which of course still goes on today. So my background was much more about food and land use and farming practice and local food and nutrition and all of those things, which I still find very fascinating. Although, thankfully, I'm not that closely involved as I used to be, because it's hard work.

Kelly Molson: I can imagine that's hard work. Did you come from a farming background prior to that? Did you grow up in that environment?

Bill Jordan: Yeah. We all grew up at on a flour mill, which still exists in Bedfordshire. Our mum still lives there. She's 96.

Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.

Bill Jordan: She's lived in the same house for over 70 years. Yeah, we were lucky. We got brought up as kids kind of above the shop, really. It was a mill that made white flour. It made brown flour. It made animal feed. It was an interesting place to live. A lot going on.

Kelly Molson: Wow. You were kind of in it, right? You lived and worked there?

Bill Jordan: Yeah. School holidays, you had to bag up animal feed or pack flour or something. It was kind of went with living there, really.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Deb, what about you? What's your background?

Deb Jordan: Well, I was very lucky to be born and live in Ringstead in Norfolk, which is only about 20 minutes, 25 minutes drive away. My dad was a farmer on the Le Strange Estate. The farm ran at the back of old Hunstanton. Yeah, idyllic. In the summer holidays, we were very lucky to just be out, left to just roam. I think actually once I ran away. I found a really nice spot to sit for the day. And by about 7:00 PM, I thought, "Actually, nobody cares. Nobody's noticed." And that did actually really make me laugh. I remember saying to my mum when I got back, "Did you not know? Did you not notice I'd run away? So she'd, "No. I know you went out in a very mad mood. But no, I hadn't noticed yet, darling. The good thing is you were hungry and here you are."

Deb Jordan: I just remember thinking, "Gosh, when you look back, how lucky that was." It sort of made you stand on your own two feet. You used to get involved with a bit of wild oat picking and have jumps around the farm, around the house. But sadly ... I say sadly because it didn't really suit me. I was sent away to boarding school quite a long way away and was rather rebellious and unhappy, but a very privileged start. I think that probably stays with you forever about the nature and the fun. There's so much to explore, and you don't really need too much else other than a bicycle and the nature to make a very happy childhood.

Kelly Molson: Oh God, that's really lovely. Ringstead is a very beautiful place as well. There's a lovely pub there called The Gin Trap that I've been to a number of times. Yes.

Deb Jordan: Spent a lot of my youth in The Gin Trap. Yes. Sipping gin and orange or something ghastly with a boyfriend from cross lake.

Kelly Molson: Oh, what a lovely, so that's really nice to hear, actually. I didn't realise how kind of embedded nature had been into both of your childhoods really, which I guess brings us to Pensthorpe. And you purchased it in, it was in 2003, wasn't it? And it was originally a bird reserve. What made you make the jump into buying something like this and you know, how did that happen?

Bill Jordan: Well, it was a very unusual day when we first got to see the Pensthorpe, we had the children were, I don't know, kind of able to walk by that time. And we had a day in wandering around Pensthorpe.

Deb Jordan: Six and eight.

Bill Jordan: Six and eight. There you go. I'm no good at it. So we had a day looking around Pensthorpe which kind of came out of the blue and no, I think we were sort of rather bowled over, knocked out by it all. It was, the kids was surprisingly quiet and reflective. We were having a good time and we'd read somewhere that it was possibly up for sale. So when we were walking out of Pensthorpe, we asked the lady behind the counter, "Is it still for sale? Has it been sold?" And they said, "Well, you better go and speak to that gentleman over there. That's Bill Mackins." And we did. And then we kind of got pulled into the whole site. Yes that's how it happened.

Deb Jordan: It was actually, Bill had been looking for some years. He was always interested in properties for sale in Norfolk. I think he may have been thinking that his connection with Jordan's and conservation and great farming and that he, I think he was already feeling he needed to put his money where his mouth was and start something to do with food in the countryside. A bit like the sort of taste of north, but type thing I think was going on in the back of his head. So he was often buzzing around on the bicycle looking and when Pensthorpe came up, I actually saw it and he was looking at my magazine and I said, "No way, no, no, no." So actually then we were visiting Norfolk because we did a lot with our children to see my parents and it sort of came to that.

Deb Jordan: Well, why don't we just go and look? And I really wasn't very on board at all, but I have to admit that once here it's an extraordinary site and it sort of pulls you in. It's a place that you sort of, not too sure why, but you feel very connected to it. And I think that it really surprised us that day that it took us in and it took us along and then meeting the owner and him connecting with the children. It must have been about this time of year because then obviously the birds molt and there was a lot of feathers that the children have just spent the whole time looking for feathers and putting them in a bag. And we had to sort of say to the owner, look, we haven't been plucking your birds. This whole collection is then explaining to us the molting, that how at this time of the year, everything, all the ducks and geese use their feathers and can't fly.

Deb Jordan: So they're all on the ground. And it's extraordinary at the moment how we've got hundreds of gray legs and geese all sitting, waiting for that time where the feathers have grown through and they can then take off again. But it was just that he then had some peacock feathers and said, "Look here kids take these home." And he knew my dad. So he was saying that he had known my dad before he died. And so there was a sort of an immediate connection there. And then I think he could see that Bill was very interested. And then he suggested before we left, because we'd asked about it being up to sale, he told us that it'd fallen through and he suggested that Bill meet somebody called Tim Neva, that was working in Cambridge and was working locally. And that sort of rather started the ball rolling. Yeah.

Bill Jordan: Yes. I think another sort of link had been the fact that with Jordan, so amongst other things, we'd done quite a lot of work on the supply chain for the cereals. So we were working by then with quite a lot of farmers who were quite conservation minded and were putting habitats onto their farm for increasing wildlife and doing all of those sort of things, which of course was being done at Pensthorpe. So it was an aspect of what we'd been used to in the food industry. And it was done being done very well here at Pensthorpe. So yeah, that's kind of how it fitted in as well.

Kelly Molson: What a wonderful story. You went to visit and then ended up buying the place. I love that.

Bill Jordan: Well, it was bit of a shock. It wasn't kind of on the cards that's for sure.

Deb Jordan: No, I think it was funny things to, you could have looked back and at the time I think we could see the beauty of the place, the fact that you thought, oh my goodness, Nancy's bringing up a family here and getting connected to all this and the bird life and everything else. I think what probably happened, which was, in hindsight, wasn't so good was that this connection with somebody that was a very good salesperson on behalf of filmmakers, who was saying I'll bring my family from Brisbane in Australia because they ran the Mariba wetland out there. So I can run this for you. So we actually spent a lot of time working with Tim prior to buying it and hearing how he was going to bring his wife and do the total daily running of the place. And that it would be Deb, you can get involved in the hub and bringing in crafts people and local produce and local gift and Bill can get involved in farm when we see him, because it's going to, you were still at George.

Deb Jordan: And it wasn't. So we signed on the dotted line up on December 20th, 2002. And about three weeks, four weeks later, we had a phone call from Tim Neva there about saying, "I'm really sorry, but my wife, my boys are older than I thought. They're very at home in Queensland. And Gwyneth doesn't feel that it's actually something she could do at the minute, but I will be very supportive and I will come and be helpful." So that was a big shock. And so we put the house up for sale and pretty well moved during Jan, Feb, March 2003.

Bill Jordan: I think within about 10 weeks, poor Deborah had to move the children from one school to another and make sure he got some housing. You trying to sell the housing you're in Bedfordshire. So it was a bit of a traumatic time.

Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness.

Bill Jordan: Amusingly, our children, children. They're big. Now they remind us every now and then that what we put them through and shouldn't we be guilty. We have to take it on the chin every time they raise it.

Kelly Molson: I bet. I mean, that's incredible. Isn't it? So you, so suddenly you've gone from, oh, okay, well we're going to do this, but we've got someone that will manage it for us to that's it. They're not coming and you are in it. This is your deal. You've got to do it. So Bill, were you still juggling Jordans at the same time? So you had,

Bill Jordan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: You had both responsibilities.

Bill Jordan: Jordans were still going full ball. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: How did you manage that?

Bill Jordan: Well the usual thing, I handed it over to the lady on my left here.

Kelly Molson: Of course.

Bill Jordan: We done most of it since then.

Kelly Molson: Wow, Deb. That was, so that was not what you were expecting at all. And then suddenly you've had to completely change your life, move your children, move them to school, move home, and now you are managing a bird reserve.

Deb Jordan: Yeah, we were very naive and it was a struggle. Yeah. I think we're both quite resilient and there really wasn't much that could be done other than let's just crack on. And just try and keep really focused and learn from all the people that were already here. And Tim was definitely in the mix, but I hadn't realised that it would mean moving that quickly or looking for somebody to manage it. It was pretty full on to suddenly find yourself as the person. They had an amazing book in the shop, which was all the garden and it was wildlife of the waterfowl of the world. And I remember putting it under my bed and got some binoculars and looked out at the lake every morning to see what was on there to identify what we'd got.

Deb Jordan: And then it was such a small team. There was just four ladies in the shop that ran seven days. Two of them did. You know, and we had about two, two wardens or yes on the farm banding Paul and you know, it was, it was just a very small team and they were really helpful and they explained what I was meant to be doing what happened. And then Tim came and went and we sort of, and it grew. We didn't really have much of a plan I don't suppose. Bill kept saying to me all along whenever I said, "Look, we need a five or a 10 year plan." Or we just sort of, it evolved. We worked with the team and we started to sort of move slightly more towards trying to, we realised our kids aren't kids all get nature you don't have to explain it to them.

Deb Jordan: It's just ingrained in them. So we realised we haven't got any young members. That everybody was older and more bird related. We'd really upset one or two of them who wrote in, we just, we had a woman that would offer to become a volunteer here. And she was a fabulous lady and she'd actually been GM at the Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust. And she said, "Look Deb it's really important. We need to get more of a younger generation here. And so what we're going to do is we're going to do play. I worked at Fowl and Wetlands trust. And they did Wellie Boot Land and I'll eat my hat if it doesn't work." And Bill said, "I'll eat my hat if it does work." So we had to park Bill, luckily because Bill went home every Monday night, we'd sort of work on it quietly, Veronica, I and Mark, as to how we were going to get round Bill.

Deb Jordan: But by actually investing in an outdoor play area that was as though it was in the water as though it was a nature child. We encouraged people to bring their kids so that by getting them further out into the park, they could learn more about nature. But actually sometimes I think it's the parents that you have to encourage to come to a nature reserve, because they sort of think, what am I going to do with the kids and the kids actually get it and love it. So and one or two of the members that sort of said, I'm sorry, but we are now dropping out. We think that you are making a big mistake. I'm pleased to say that I bumped into the grandparents one day who said, look, I'm going to own up we're the people that wrote to you and were very rude, but this is Dudley and he's our grandson and we can't get enough enjoyment and make enough lovely memories with Dudley. So we forgive you.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's so nice.

Deb Jordan: Yeah.

Bill Jordan: So we found quite a lot of the heavy duty birders might have started a bit nervous when they saw children's play and different things happening. But yeah, just as Deb explains, after a bit, they realised that yeah, they got grandchildren and here was somewhere that worked for them and you know, actually got to a couple more levels of generations within their family. So we were lucky there. And within the year I told Deb that it was all my idea anyway.

Deb Jordan: As you do.

Bill Jordan: As I like to.

Kelly Molson: It's interesting because earlier you used the word reflective about Pensthorpe and that's very much how I felt when I visited there. And what I found really interesting is that the children's play areas because now you have an indoor play area and the outdoor play area, they have been designed so well that they don't detract from that reflective feeling. Does that make sense? Like I could, I came on my own, I didn't bring my daughter, but I could still see how you could bring your children there and just have the most brilliant day of fun. But it is still a very calm and peaceful. It has a very calm and peaceful energy to it, the place that, and that's, I think that really comes through the minute you arrive. That's that's how I felt.

Deb Jordan: Yeah. I think when we tried to look at the site, which is really unique, because it's got so many different habitats and we sort of said to ourselves, "So how can we best use this?" And I think what we've tried to do is just like the play, which looks very natural. We've tried to continue the journey and so that you leave the play and then you head towards the wetland area. But there is a diversion where at the top of the Sandhill, there's in the wood, on the top of the Sandhill, overlooking the lake, there's this amazing den building area. And when you go up there you know very well that this is a family affair. There's no way that the kids have done the den building, but you pass through an area where we cut into the wetland and put a big ponder thing.

Deb Jordan: And then we sort of take you further along to a wood at the end where if a huge tree has fallen in the middle of it Richard leaves it there. And then the root base is all explained as to what's going on there, wildlife and we mow a path to it. So you can actually know that you're meant to get on the tree and run along the trunk. And, and I think, in fact we had a meeting here two weeks ago, Eco Attractions and they were saying, which was the best thing I'd heard, best acclaim I'd had. They said, "We've been out there Deb. And we sort of get what you're talking about, that you come across all this wild play, this just natural what's there is being used to tell a story, but have fun with. And we think that the best way of explaining you is a bit like the lost gardens of Halligan." Well boy, that was-

Bill Jordan: We didn't mind that at all.

Deb Jordan: We didn't mind that.

Kelly Molson: That is perfect.

Deb Jordan: What we are trying to do is keep the natural, but just encourage people to go out and get further and further from the hub with the trails that Natalie does and her team, which is so brilliant.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it definitely comes across. So that is a perfect description of how I felt when I was there. I want to go back a little bit though, because we've kind of jumped forward. Let's go back to 2008 because you get a call from Springwatch. That must have been pretty exciting at the time. What did that do for the venue?

Bill Jordan: Well, perhaps even before answering that, you ought to hear how it actually happened.