Skip the Queue

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.lumsdendesign.com/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/callum-lumsden-b8473a3/

https://www.instagram.com/lumsdendesign/

https://www.linkedin.com/company/lumsden/

Callum Lumsden is a leading design expert for cultural and visitor attractions. He is the co-founder of Lumsden, a specialist design studio delivering bespoke retail and leisure environments for the world’s most renowned museums, galleries and visitor attractions including V&A Dundee, MoMA (NYC), Warner Bros. Studio Tour – The Making of Harry Potter London, and M+ Museum, Hong Kong. 

Transcriptions:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Callum Lumsden, Co-Founder and Creative Director of Lumsden Design. Callum shares his journey to founding Lumsden, an interior design agency that creates iconic retail spaces for museums and attractions all over the world. Listen along to hear why retail space is pivotal for today's visitor attractions. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the user channels by searching to Skip the Queue.

Kelly Molson: Callum, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. It's a pleasure to have you with me.

Callum Lumsden: Thank you. Thanks for inviting me. I'm looking forward to this.

Kelly Molson: I'm glad that you're looking forward to this but we are going to start with our icebreaker questions. Yeah, it might be a think, you never know. So at the start of every podcast, I always ask a few icebreaker questions to our guests. Mostly they're really stupid and just a chance for us to find out a little bit about you. So I would like to know, when you were a child, what did you want to be when you grew up?

Callum Lumsden: Oh, that's a good one. What did I want to be? A rock star.

Kelly Molson: Oh really?

Callum Lumsden: Oh yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Okay. And did you ever come close?

Callum Lumsden: I managed to get a flute from school and I was big into a band called Jethro Tull at the time. So Ian, I can't remember his last name. He used to stand on one leg and play a flute. That's as far as I got.

Kelly Molson: Oh, right. Okay. Can you do the one-legged flute playing?

Callum Lumsden: Maybe I can do the one leg, but not the flute.

Kelly Molson: It doesn't sound very rockstar-ish, does it? Flute player.

Callum Lumsden: No, no, no, it doesn't, but Jethro Tull were pretty good. But I was also roadie for some mates of mine. They had a proper band and that was in Edinburgh. So I got to get a little bit of taste of that, but I've always been massively interested in rock music or music of any kind, really.

Kelly Molson: Oh well this is really handy then, because my next question for you is, what is your karaoke song?

Callum Lumsden: It's got to be Sweet Caroline.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's a classic, isn't it?

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. That's the one. Because you can get everybody joining in on that. Because nobody knows the words, but they get the bah bah bah so that always works.

Kelly Molson: That's the key to a good karaoke song choice, isn't it? Pick something that everybody else knows. So you're not the only one singing it.

Callum Lumsden: Oh, things they know. Yes.

Kelly Molson: Great. Okay. Last one. If you could switch lives with anyone for a day, who would it be?

Callum Lumsden: Somebody who's just starting to go to art college?

Kelly Molson: Well, that's a good choice. Is that because you would be full of the wisdom that you have now or you would want to go in a different direction?

Callum Lumsden: Yeah, it might take me in a different direction of what I originally wanted to do, which was to be an artist.

Kelly Molson: Hmm. Interesting. Okay. Maybe we'll talk a little bit more about that. All right, firstly though, I want to know what your unpopular opinion is.

Callum Lumsden: Here's one. I think musical theatre is the most unattractive part of the creative industries. I absolutely hate musicals.

Kelly Molson: Oh no.

Callum Lumsden: Come on. Bring it on.

Kelly Molson: I love it. Oh no, really? What is it that really upsets you about it?

Callum Lumsden: I just think it's so pretentious and naff and horrible. And then-

Kelly Molson: Isn't it the naffness that makes it great though?

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. And I just love ... I'm surrounded by people who love musical theatre so I really like winding them up about it.

Kelly Molson: Do you get dragged along though?

Callum Lumsden: No.

Kelly Molson: Yeah but you point blank refuse.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Oh yeah. Yeah. I wouldn't even think about ... People don't even think about asking me because I'll just sit there and be embarrassing.

Kelly Molson: So not even a little Mamma Mia trip would inspire you.

Callum Lumsden: Nope.

Kelly Molson: Oh no. I had really high hopes for this interview. I thought we were going to get on so well.

Callum Lumsden: Sorry. Is that the end of it?

Kelly Molson: We're done. You can leave. Get out of my podcast booth.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Yeah. And let's not get onto ABBA either.

Kelly Molson: Oh God. Can we not? Because yeah, that'll go right off. There's a lot of people listening to this that love ABBA and I bet Eurovision as well so-

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Yeah. Sorry everybody.

Kelly Molson: All right. Well let's just, we'll park that then. Callum you tell me about your background and how you have come to found Lumsden Design.

Callum Lumsden: Well, it started it by me going to art college. At art college, I ended up studying furniture design. Then I went to Royal College of Art to do what was then called interior architecture. And that opened me up to all manner of different people and processes, et cetera. And then when I graduated I knew most of the people in the fashion department and they went off to work for various retailers and their bosses started saying that there's any of your mates, any good interior design, we've got a shop to design. And lots of them said, "Oh I know this guy called Callum. Give him a shout." So that got me into that. So I've been designing shops ever since then.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Callum Lumsden: So that's how it started.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And so how long has Lumsden Design been around?

Callum Lumsden: Well, it's been in a few different variations because when I left the RCA, I worked for myself and then I went to work for various retailers in house, such as Jaeger for instance. But I was also freelancing myself and then I eventually joined various big design companies. And then I formed London Design Partnership, it was called, oh 20, 30, 35 years ago. Something like that.

Kelly Molson: It's the longest job you've ever had.

Callum Lumsden: Well, yeah it's gone through various different for formations. I did merge with another design company for a couple of years and then I started what it is now, which is Lumsden Design. Although we're getting rid of the design, just calling it Lumsden now.

Kelly Molson: I like that. That's quite rockstar, isn't it? You just got the one name now.

Callum Lumsden: Well, yeah, it's keeping the Lumsden name, it's had its advantages, but there's also disadvantages. Because how long can ... Lumsden isn't just me. I have a team of people, a great team of people and everybody has to be part of all of that. And clients need to understand that I can't be there on every single one and all of those kind of things. So this one, this variation, which will stay the same, probably goes back to 2010. Yeah. So 12 years in the way that we're doing it now. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. And so it's really interesting the way that you've ... Because this podcast is obviously for people that work in and for the attraction sector. And you have kind of evolved a little bit over the years, haven't you, in terms of working in that sector. So it that wasn't what you set out doing. Was it?

Callum Lumsden: Yeah, there's a bit of happen chance that has gone on. The route to where we are now started probably in the year 1998, when we pitched for the retail for Tate Modern. And I'd always done retail, but I was asked to pitch for Tate Modern. I presume that you've been there or people that are listening to this know it. And we won it and I had no idea about the importance of retail to the cultural sector. And that opened in year 2000, 22 years ago, believe it or not. And then that got me into this sector. So I started, Tate Modern kicked it off. And then it was people like the V&A, the Natural History Museum, the Science Museum.

Callum Lumsden: So I started spinning into this and then that went into loads of different places. And I'd always worked in retail, but retail, if you take mainstream retail, from a design perspective, you come up with a concept, you build it and if it's successful, then it gets repeated again and again, and again. The Americans call it cookie cutter. If you think of Gap, whichever Gap you see, it looks exactly the same. With this sector, every single client is different. And then eventually took the decision that we would just concentrate on that sector. And the route to visitor attractions was winning the Warner Brothers project in Leavesden, just outside of London, doing the retail for the Harry Potter-

Kelly Molson: The name that everyone always gets wrong.

Callum Lumsden: Studio tour. Yeah. It's the Harry Potter Studio Tour. No, no. It's the Warner Brothers Studio Tour, the making of Harry Potter. There we go.

Kelly Molson: We had Jeff Spooner on-

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Sorry Jeff.

Kelly Molson: Sorry, Jeff. But he said, everybody gets it wrong. They either call it the Harry Potter tour or the Warner Brothers tour. It's always a different, a different name every time.

Callum Lumsden: And it's interesting connection with the route to get to them because the reason that I got contacted about pitching for that project was a couple of the directors from Warner Brothers in LA went to the British Museum and we'd done all the retail for the British Museum. And one of the library rooms in the British Museum is called the Greenville room. When you walk into the British Museum, you turn right, and it's where all the high end products are sold. Everything from statues to jewelry to watches to da da. And it's got loads of books. And Harry Potter is that. And they said to the guy who's in charge of British Museum commercial side, who did this? And that was me. Well, me and my team. And we pitched for it and we won it. And that started us into this amazing journey with Warner Brothers and various other places.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. It's a really ... I wanted to ask you how you became specialists. And I love that you've said it's like a catalyst process, because that's what happened to us as well. We won a big project for an existing client, for Pernod Ricard. So we worked on a project for the Plymouth Gin Visitor Centre. We created their ticket booking system and their website and it was such a brilliant experience going through that, to understand about the experience economy and visitor experience and how you take somebody on a journey through that. That was the catalyst for us. That was a really exciting project. And it was a world that we just thought we want to be more and more involved in. And it's really lovely to hear that was kind of a similar effect to you. It's brought you into this incredible world of ... It's fun, isn't it? All of these things that we work on, they're really fun.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. And that's what's interesting about all the clients that we work with, they're all entirely different and the we've got a who's who of clients. Abbey Road, everybody in the world knows Abbey Road. You can talk to somebody from China and they'll know what Abbey Road is all about. And that's as much about visitor experiences as the studio tour in Leavesden.

Kelly Molson: So I've got quite a few questions for you today, but I just want to touch on what you said earlier, because you were talking about Gap and the cookie cutter experience of their stores. So with that, I guess people work out what works and they just replicate it. Yours is so different because every store that you're working on is completely different. Everything has a different brand story, has different values. How do you even start to approach a project when it's so different each time you do it?

Callum Lumsden: Well, it's a very overused word, but immerse ourself in that brand, as much as we can. We sit down or walk around and just talk to people, observe, find out who the visitors are, the fans, are they school kids? And that's the difference in this sector. Because if you go to, say a high street brand, again, you probably got every retailer saying, well, our core customer is ... For the people that we work for, there is a bit of a core customer, but actually it can be anybody from two years old to 82 years old. The Warner Brothers Studio Tour, it's international, it can be grannies and grandpas to a whole trip of school kids to teenagers or moms who were reading the Harry Potter books when they were six, who are now reading that to their own kids.

Callum Lumsden: And if you go to, we worked for MoMA in New York, you've got absolute fans of MoMA products. The New York dinner set will go and buy their china and their cutlery at the New York design store, the MoMA design store. Go across the roads to the museum itself and you'll get a tourist, who's come from Austria because ... So actually defining who the ... So understanding that is completely different every single time. The National Theatre that we did in the South Bank, the shop there, the book shop that you went to find a particular book on a particular play, we changed that around to actually make it about stories about the productions that were going on in the theatre, the theatre itself. And they have three or four one time because there's lots of different theatres and that help the retail team there design the products that will fit that store, but still have the bookshop at the back because they weren't making any money out that, but they are making money out of the products.

Kelly Molson: Right.

Callum Lumsden: And understanding how ... Because it's not just about making the spaces look great or seamless, which is another part of what needs to be done, but they've got to make money. They have to increase revenue. That's why they're there in the first bit, apart from everybody expects to go into, I hate the term gift shop, but 96% of people will go into the shop and buy something-

Kelly Molson: Exit through the gift shop. Yeah.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. And they will buy something. So make the most of it.

Kelly Molson: It's a fascinating process, isn't it? I think you touched on it there in terms of the commercial, but why is retail space so important to the sector? It is about commercials, right?

Callum Lumsden: Yes it is. But it does have benefits as well. Visitor attraction are slightly different to the cultural sector because the cultural sector, the money that's generated goes to the curators to help them buy the objects that they want in their collections. And it also helps in the education part of what they do and the events and everything else. If you take MoMA, their retail turnover is $52 million per year. That's a lot of money.

Kelly Molson: That is a lot of money.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. I'm not able to tell you what Warner Brothers is, but let's say it's really quite successful, but that goes back into them to be able to develop the next part because a studio tour can't stand still, everybody has to look at, all right, what are we going to do in the next year, the next two years. Because they want repeat visits. So to be able to do that and to be fair to Warner Brothers, they also put a lot back into the local community education as well, developing their staff, all of those kind of things. So there's a whole load of other aspects to it. So the money that's generated is really important to everybody.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. Completely. How does it help to sustain their visitor engagement? So what part does retail play in making that visitor maybe come back or be more engaged with the brand?

Callum Lumsden: Well, again, the retail offer is done to the merchandise. The merchandise has to be looked at as creatively as possible in terms of, okay, what else can we do that will grab people's attention? So there's an introduction of hampers at Warner Brothers for Harry Potter. So you could actually take a whole Harry Potter based hamper with loads of product in it so you've got a whole set of something. That was introduced and that's been really important. That's been a really successful one. Personalisation, doing lots of different things to actually make a wand that's just for you or all of those kind of things and personalisation is becoming really ... Well it's there. It's become really important also in the cultural sector as well where you can get your own name on it. You can get things custom made according to ... Because people like Adidas and Nike, they're doing that. You can get your trainers personalised, all of that needs to seep into the sector that I work in as well. And that's becoming really successful.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I guess some of the retail spaces that you've owned, most of the retail spaces that you've designed, they almost become experiences in themselves. Don't they? Like a mini attraction within an attraction.

Callum Lumsden: Well, yeah. Well, a lot of ... Yeah. There's quite a lot of stores that we've done that people go to but they don't go into the museum. The Tate Modern is one example. MoMA is another example. But that's not the point. The point is that what is being sold and how you actually design that store needs to reflect the brand of the institution that it is part of. And it should be, in our view, a seamless thing. So you shouldn't feel, all right, well, I'm now going into the shop. You should feel that it's part of the Harry Potter experience or the museum or the theatre experience in terms of look and feel. So that means that the space could be inspired by, well, for Harry Potter, it's about the props that are in there, referring to Diagon Alley in terms of the look and feel of the place.

Callum Lumsden: Or, if you take the British museum, it reflects the architecture, because it is a completely ... That's big tourist ... That people want British Museum because it's a fantastic building. It's got an amazing collection. Everything that's in the shop is telling stories about what they've just seen as they've walked around the museum. And that's what they want to take a piece of. They want to take that memory away either for themselves or to buy for somebody. And that's where the click happens between retail and the actual experience of walking around the rest of the building, et cetera.

Kelly Molson: I would love to know the process that you go on when you start to work with the visitor attraction. You touched on it earlier about immersing yourself into who their clientele is, who their customers are, who's going to be visiting. Can you share the process that you take? You take the cultural institution on, or the attraction on. So things that they need to think about or research that they need to carry out if they're going to go through this process with you?

Callum Lumsden: Well, most of the institutions that we work with or the companies or the brands, they have their research anyway. So the demographic for instance will be well and truly looked at by ... Without exception actually. There's usually something. Except when it's a brand new, we haven't done this before that. That's usually very interesting. We just did the stores for amazing new museum that's been built in Hong Kong called M+, that's M with a plus sign, which has the largest collection of contemporary visual culture in Asia. It's an amazing building. It's taken something like 20 years to finally come to fruition. We've been working with them for five years. It opened last November. Sadly Hong Kong is closed because of COVID, et cetera. So I haven't actually been able to visit what we just sweated tears over.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh, that must be really hard, to not be able to see it.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah, it's really difficult. Yeah. But they are anticipating that people from Hong Kong, but also most of, when they're allowed to, people from China, but also Asia, but they're also expecting other international tourists. So deciding who was going to be the demographic for there was a little bit-

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Very tricky.

Callum Lumsden: Hit and miss. Abbey Road was the same. They knew that everybody, so many people, tourist buses, et cetera, were rocking up to walk across the zebra crossing and really upset London taxi drivers the whole time. But they had no idea people would actually walk into the building to buy anything, but that's been an enormous success. So you have to make assumptions is a long way around of saying that. But most of the time, the details of the demographics, who'll be there, talking to the curators, talking to the management, talking to the retail teams, as well, is our way of doing it.

Callum Lumsden: And an awful lot of the time we're working in, such as the M+ in Hong Kong example, working with a brand new building, you've got super important architects who are being commissioned to design these amazing buildings. So being allied with them in terms of their vision for the building is another part of what we like to understand. In terms of the materials they're using, the space they are going to give us, where it's actually going to go, because the location of a shop, it's not always exit through the gift shop. All of those ... Are there other opportunities? So we look at all of that with the client teams that we work with. And then that starts to, for us, that's the kickoff point.

Callum Lumsden: Understanding what the merchandise is, a lot of the time that's been developed at the same time as we're ... Because it actually takes longer to get merchandise together than it does to build a shop.

Kelly Molson: Oh really?

Callum Lumsden: Oh yeah. Sometimes it can be two years. In museums, if you say somewhere like the National Gallery, their most popular product is the sunflower painting by Van Gogh, which they've got on everything from beer maps to fridge magnets, et cetera. Working to get permission to do that from artists can take ages. Andy Warhol, working at Abbey Road, trying to get The Beatles, the guys who are looking after The Beatles or Pink Floyd or Rolling Stones, they are super sensitive about, no, you can't do that. Or you can do that. For Abbey Road to really get the products, they've done it, but it's taken a long time.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I wonder what they' vetoed. No, you can't put my face on a tea towel.

Callum Lumsden: Well, I had an idea about Mean Mr. Mustard socks and that didn't happen.

Kelly Molson: Disappointing.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. I would've worn them.

Kelly Molson: Me too. That's brilliant. Thank you for that insight into the process. I guess then, the brands that you work with are phenomenally well known or they have such rich history or such good stories like Harry Potter, or I know you mentioned the National Gallery there, the designing of the stores and what they're going to look like, interior. That must be the easy part. You've got so much to work with.

Callum Lumsden: No, it's never easy because there's lots of layers of people that you need to go through. And navigating that it can be quite interesting, shall we say. Because every everybody's got an opinion.

Kelly Molson: And there are quite a lot of boards involved in cultural organisations as well. Aren't there? So there's a lot of layers of people to come through.

Callum Lumsden: Well, yeah. And if you're working with a museum, you are working with academics and they don't have conversations, they have debates. And inevitably that debate will mean there'll be 25 people in the room who all have to say something and you come away with, was there a decision there? And then you've got the architects. The architects can be very easy to work with or very opinionated and have one direction. So actually navigating that can be quite entertaining sometimes. We did the V&A Dundee, which is an amazing building, that was designed by a Japanese architect called Kiakumi. And they were fantastic. They were just so ... Yes, this is ... We'd like this, da da. Everything fitted. It was good. But there's other examples that I won't go on air to talk about-

Kelly Molson: I was going to ask you, I was going to ask you-

Callum Lumsden: Nose to nose.

Kelly Molson: Without naming any names, can you tell us about an experience where you couldn't get what you wanted.

Callum Lumsden: I usually get what I want.

Kelly Molson: Oh, right.

Callum Lumsden: Or there's-

Kelly Molson: You're very persuasive.

Callum Lumsden: Or there's a bit of a compromise. Yeah. There was one example where it just got so stupid that the head of the museum walked into one of the meetings that I was having alongside the retail team and the architects. And he came in and said, I've had enough of this, the architects ... You're no longer involved in this, get out.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Callum Lumsden: And let Callum do what he wants to do. So there you go.

Kelly Molson: Oh right, I love it.

Callum Lumsden: No name, no name was mentioned.

Kelly Molson: No names mentioned the power that you have Callum, as well, I love that.

Callum Lumsden: I have since worked with those architects on another project and everything was fine.

Kelly Molson: We all have our little friction moments.

Callum Lumsden: But that was 15 years later and they'd calmed down.

Kelly Molson: It took them that amount of time to mellow.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I'm glad there was a happy ending. What about retail spaces that aren't at the actual attraction itself? So we talk about Harry Potter, they have retail stores all over the place. So King's Cross is the one for me because obviously that is very pertinent to the film. So I will be queuing up to get ... Waiting for my train to be announced and I'll see hoards of people queuing up to have their photo taken with their trolley wedged into the wall there and the shop there. Do you get involved in that element as well? So retail-

Callum Lumsden: Yes we do. Yeah. We designed that shop and that was a moment of genius by somebody ... A guy called Jonathan-

Kelly Molson: Very clever.

Callum Lumsden: Johnathan Sands. He saw the opportunity and he opened that up and he eventually joined up with Warner Brothers. He's since moved on. But with those ones, we did that shop. We also did the airport shops, but because of COVID that didn't work out. Then there was Cursed Child, we did all the retail and the theaters for that. And that went world wide, New York, Hamburg Sydney. I can't remember all the cities that that went to. And then we didn't get involved in it, but Warner Brothers opened up the store in New York, a full blown store right next to the Flat Iron building, that's been enormously successful. We didn't get involved in that one, but there's the shops that Warner Brothers have done, but there's also the shops that lots of other people have done copies of. And if you go to Edinburgh, you've got six versions of Harry Potter shops, nothing to do with us.

Kelly Molson: No claim on those. Someone once described a retail experience as a bit like a theatrical experience. Not a musical theatrical experience, because we know how you feel about those, but ultimately you are taking the visitor on a journey, aren't you, around the store and you are making that a real experienced for them. Can I ask you, and this might be like what's your favourite child, but what has been your favourite store to design from that perspective?

Callum Lumsden: Definitely the Warner Brothers Leavesden store, because that's gone through the number of iterations as well. They've expanded it. We've moved it around. We've done different things. We've developed the restaurants and the cafes. That's been great fun too. Every project, I'm thinking ... Because it's recently opened, the M+ in Hong Kong has been a great experience. And that's an interesting one about where it's going in the sector because within that, it wasn't just about a whole lot of shelves with products on it. A number of what we've called pavilions that were inspired by Hong Kong. And, for instance, the central pavilion in the show is a combination of a place where artists can do master classes and talk about what they're doing. And the retail guys developed products based around the artist or the artist has designed some of those products.

Callum Lumsden: And then there's another space where artists are given the market stalls in Hong Kong, which I don't know if you've been to Hong Kong, but the markets are amazing. And the stalls are called pai dongs. We based one of our fixtures on pai dongs, and the idea. And that's what's happening, is that one of the pai dongs could be taken over by an artist to do anything that they want on it.

Kelly Molson: Lovely.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. So sculptural or lighting or sounds because they've got sound artists and all of those kind of things. Or it can be handed over almost on a concession basis. So it could be, I don't know, a sports retailer, if they take it over. All of those things, or personalisation again, where you could actually get, if you're buying a wallet, you can get your own initial put on it, all of that kind of stuff. And then another part of it was for gift wrapping where we were commissioning Chinese calligraphers who will actually sign it.

Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.

Callum Lumsden: Or showing origami, how you can actually use origami to make your gift wrapping look even more different.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's incredible. That's really theatrical, isn't it? That's a real experience.

Callum Lumsden: So you've really got activity going on and that's what happens with Harry Potter. When you're buying a wand, you've got somebody showing you how everything works and how to wave it and what to say and all of those kind of things. And that just gives people something. They'll remember that, they'll love that. And hopefully they'll also buy something, but it's adding something extra into that visitor experience. That's the way it's going for mainstream retail as well. That whole thing.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Callum Lumsden: Experiential.

Kelly Molson: So I guess it's like the Hamley's thing, isn't it? Because I can remember as kid going around Hamley's and you watch the people, they show you how to use the toys and they show you how they work and to play with them.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly Molson: There's a guy ... Do you know what? I hope I don't misquote this because I think it was Geoff Ramm that told me this story where ... Geoff Ramm is a public speaker and he told me this story about how he just got mugged off but he spent so much money in Hamley's because of somebody who was there demonstrating the product. It was some like paint blocks and they were painting these pictures and then talking them through and his kid was watching them paint and she asked the child what her name was. And then she drew this picture with her initials and blah, blah, blah, and then gave it to her. And he was like, well, that's it. I have to buy that product now, don't I? I've got this picture that I'm taking home with me, but I've also got to buy those things because my kid wants the magic. She's just seen the magic happen.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Well, if you think about it, you go down to a food market and you've got the guys, come and get your apples and pears and all of that kind of thing. It's actually, it's not you, it's the way that people have always been persuaded to buy things or the butcher show that will remember your name when you walk in and say, did you enjoy that steak last week, we've got a nice piece of roast beef here. It's interaction. It's not just about how great the shop is, it's to do with the staff, the product, the atmosphere, the layout, there's so many different aspects that we've got to work together.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. All the facets coming together. I think you've described that perfectly there, Callum, thank you. We're at the end of our interview, which I'm quite sad about, if I'm honest, I've really enjoyed this.

Callum Lumsden: Nice of you to say.

Kelly Molson: I always ask our guests a final question, which is about a book they love, but actually I've got one more question for you. I would love to know. Your list of clients is incredibly prestigious. Is there anyone that you would love to work with that you've not got your hands on yet?

Callum Lumsden: That's a good one, Hamley's.

Kelly Molson: Hamley's. Oh okay. Yeah. There's some work that could be done there.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I think if you put stuff out in the universe, you never know what's going to come back, do you?

Callum Lumsden: Yeah. Yeah, no, I think there's ... Well, if I ever get to speak to them, I'll tell them-

Kelly Molson: You'll tell them.

Callum Lumsden: I think what Hamley's used to be and what it is now is in need of a little bit of TLC.

Kelly Molson: All right. Well, universe, let's see what you can bring to Callum. Thank you for sharing that. All right. What about a book that you love or something that you love, something that's helped you in your career? What would you recommend to our listeners?

Callum Lumsden: Well, there's a beautiful book by a fantastic illustrator called Charlie Mackesy. I think that's how you pronounce his name. It's called The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Horse. And it's all illustrations, but with lovely little writing from him, and it's all about being gentle and kind to people. And that sounds a bit naff, but the illustrations are absolutely fantastic. I follow him on Instagram and it's just a lovely, beautiful book. I came across it as somebody else had it. And then somebody bought it for my birthday and I've actually used it a couple of times when I've done talks, et cetera, to illustrate different things. I highly recommend it. Charlie Mackesy, The Boy, The Mole, The Fox and The Hare.

Kelly Molson: Ah, it is a wonderful book.

Callum Lumsden: Oh, you know it?

Kelly Molson: I do. I also follow him on Instagram and I have the book and it is a beautiful book and a number of people have recommended that book because I think it touched a lot of people at a really challenging time.

Callum Lumsden: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: As well. I think a lot of people were drawn to that book during the pandemic. And it's become a bit of a staple in, especially in nurseries as well, to be honest. A little bit of love and a little bit of hope that we all needed at that time.

Callum Lumsden: Sorry. Lots of other people have recommended it as well. I thought I might have come up with something that would nobody else-

Kelly Molson: No, it's a good thing. I always think it's a good thing if people have recommended it, because it's testament to that book, isn't it?

Callum Lumsden: Oh yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's a-

Callum Lumsden: No it is good.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So as ever listeners, if you want to win a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this podcast announcement with the words I would like Callum's book, then you could be in with the chance of winning it.

Callum Lumsden: Oh that's nice.

Kelly Molson: Callum. Thank you. Yeah. Isn't that lovely, people can win your book choice. Thank you so much for coming on the podcast. Been lovely to chat.

Callum Lumsden: My pleasure.

Kelly Molson: We will put all of Callum's details in the show notes, we will put links to some of the case studies so you can see some of the incredible work. I'm sure most of you listening have visited many of the places that Callum has designed. So you will see firsthand what they look like, but we'll put links in the show notes and you can go and check that out. And if anyone has a connection at Hamley's that they would like to put Callum's way, pass it on to me and I will make sure he gets that. Thanks Callum.

Callum Lumsden: Thank you, Kelly. Nice to see 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 episode.

Competition ends October 1st, 2022. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://www.iaapa.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jakob-wahl/

Jakob Wahl is the Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer at IAAPA, the global association for the attractions industry.

Wahl has ten years of experience working for IAAPA. He first came to IAAPA as program manager where he served the association for five years in the association’s office in Brussels. He then went on to work at Europa- Park in Rust, Germany as director of communications before returning to IAAPA in 2017 as Vice President and Executive Director of IAAPA Europe, Middle East, and Africa (EMEA). He was promoted in November 2021 to Executive Vice President and COO.

Wahl holds the German and French master’s degree in economics from the IUP of Aix-en-Provence.

Transcriptions:

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

In today's episode, I speak with Jakob Wahl, Executive Vice President and Chief Operations Officer of IAAPA, International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions. 

We discuss just why the attractions industry is so exciting, the ongoing labour shortages, sustainability and where the attractions industry is headed in terms of technology. 

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

Kelly Molson: Jakob, thank you so, so much for joining me today. You're a very, very busy man, so I'm very grateful that you could come on and spare some time.

Jakob Wahl: It's a pleasure to be with you today, Kelly, so thanks for the invite. I'm honoured.

Kelly Molson: The honour is all mine, trust me. But you might not be so honoured once we finish with our icebreaker questions, although I feel like I've been quite kind again, today.

Jakob Wahl: Okay.

Kelly Molson: All right. I want to know what is the best theme park ride that you have ever been on?

Jakob Wahl: Wow. That's difficult... I think it's as difficult as, say, a favourite car; because there's a specific mood for everything. And if I... It also depends on the company. If I go with my buddies, probably I would have said Boulder Dash at Lake Compounce, which is an intense wooden coaster. If I go with my kids, I'd take any kind of Disney ride, or whatever. And if I go with my wife, it's probably no ride at all, but it's a great restaurant in a park. So, it's actually very, very hard to judge.

Jakob Wahl: But I have to say, and obviously, the big things in the industry always blew me away; and that was Indiana Jones at Disneyland, Anaheim. It was Spiderman at Islands of Adventure. It was the first Harry Potter rides. It was really kind of those, where I would consider revolutionary developments in the dark ride industry, where you just walk out and say, "Wow. What was that?" And Star Wars was the most recent one.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that was a great answer. I think that was a brilliant answer. I love that you gave different answers for the different people that you were with, as well. I think that was-

Jakob Wahl: Yeah, but it is.

Kelly Molson: Right.

Jakob Wahl: I think it's the same thing about favourite parks. I have... I love the atmosphere in a Scandinavian park at night, when it comes alive with the lights, with concerts. But if I would go just for rides, it would be probably the Universal Parks. If I go with my family, it's something else. It really depends on the mood of the day.

Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Perfect answer, could not have been better. Right. If you had to listen to one album on repeat, continuously, what would that album be?

Jakob Wahl: Wow. It would be a classic album, I think; because as much as I love all kinds of music, if I would need to listen to something continuously, I need something which doesn't stress me and which kind of relax me. I don't know the English term. It's a track called Moonshine Sonata. It's a sonnet of the moonlight, or Tchaikovsky, which I like a lot as well.

Kelly Molson: Well, that sounds lovely. I actually do this in the car; so I've started to listen to Classic FM, which is a radio station in the UK, because it's really calming.

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: And if you're just... It's just really relaxing and really calm; and it just puts you in a really kind of Zen mood.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I'm sure that's all right for driving, to be Zen. Sure, that's fine.

Jakob Wahl: Especially in a traffic jam, if you have aggressive drivers around you, that is actually...

Kelly Molson: Exactly. Just wind the window down, take in my Classic FM. Okay. What would be your favourite tradition? Something that you do every year, or something that you do every month?

Jakob Wahl: It's probably a ski weekend with my best friends. I'm moving to Orlando, so that's actually the hard part; because I love skiing, and I probably spend most of my money on skiing because this means... I think it comes back to what you say in music. There's nothing else where I can more relax and unwind, because you're just in the nature, you're doing sports... Well, it's not really challenging as a sport, but it's just wonderful to be out there. And I think that's something I really, really love; to go with my best friend, just for a weekend, and whiskey and ski.

Kelly Molson: That sounds pretty cool, doesn't it? That's going to be a big change for you then, moving-

Jakob Wahl: Oh, yes.

Kelly Molson: ... to Orlando.

Jakob Wahl: Yes. I live right now in the Black Forest, and we have the four seasons here. In Orlando, I think it's the four seasons of humidity. But there are other great things about Orlando. So, I will definitely miss the snow, but there will be plenty of other things I'm very excited about.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Well, yes. For an Attraction Specialist, could there be a better place to be than Orlando? Maybe not. Right. Jakob, what's your unpopular opinion?

Jakob Wahl: I don't like special days in theme parks. And this comes from a longer history. We have seen, in theme parks, days for special needs, or days, or so-called gay days. And I think I would like us to be so inclusive that we don't need special days to accommodate those people. It should be a normal thing. It should be just... I don't also like when you go to toilets, and there's a special sign for disabled people. It should be that they are always accessible. And I think it should be a regular part of our business that you don't need to market designated days for designated groups; because we should be so inclusive that it's every day.

Kelly Molson: That's a really good opinion. And I'm pretty sure that a lot of people would agree with you on that one, as well. So maybe it's not going to be quite as unpopular as you think.

Jakob Wahl: Then I have another unpopular opinion, for sure.

Kelly Molson: Oh, well, throw that at us. If you're going to get... Let's have another one.

Jakob Wahl: I'm tired of the word immersive. I don't think every attraction needs to be immersive. I think it's totally fine that you have a great thrill ride, that you have a great rollercoaster. It doesn't always need to have a storyline or own soundtrack or a big theme. It's also fine sometimes, to just have a great ride in itself, and to let it stand for itself without any IP, without a branding, without a soundtrack, without all of that stuff.

Kelly Molson: Hmm. All right. Well, listeners, I would love to know your thoughts on these. Tweet me, let me know what you think. Thank you for sharing, Jakob. Can you tell us a little bit about your background and where you are now?

Jakob Wahl: I'm sitting right now in Germany, where I'm originally from. I work for IAAPA, which I have done now for four and a half years; it's my second time with IAAPA. Beforehand, I worked for Europa-Park. So this is why I still kind of live in that area, because I was lucky enough to meet my wonderful wife here in this region. So I stayed here even, when moving away from Europa-Park.

Jakob Wahl: But I have been, what you would consider in this industry, aficionado. You can call me nerd, enthusiastic, whatever you want. But I think, as many people, I started in the industry as a teenager. My first job was when I was 16. I checked tickets Phantasialand at the entrance, the Mexican side entrance to Phantasialand. And I fell in love with this industry. And I never left, for the disbelief of my parents, who still hope one day I have a serious job. But I think I even got them so far that they understand what this is about, and what it means for me, and that we are huge industry.

Jakob Wahl: But since then, I think I love this industry, and I'm sometimes like the child in the candy store, because I think we have the privilege of... Actually, our only purpose is bringing joy to the people. And there are not many industries is out there which can say that for themselves. And in that way, you see lots of discussion about human resources, about bringing young talent to the industry.

Jakob Wahl: And I think we need to highlight that more; because you see that it's those companies which have a purpose, which have a mission, which are very popular among young people. Patagonia, Oakley, Veja, other sneaker brands. It's those which say that they're doing good for the people. And ultimately, yes, we are. As an industry, as our members, we are commercially driven, but hey, we bring fun to the people. And I think that is unfortunately, today, more needed than ever before.

Kelly Molson: Ah, I could not agree with you more. Bringing fun to the people; there could not be a better definition of what the sector is all about. I absolutely love that. What's really interesting is, most people that come on here that are attractions aficionados, as you called yourself, they do start very young in the sector. So it is an industry that... It really, it does retain people. Right? People fall in love with it at a really early age, which is really lovely to see. And I want to ask you a little bit about this later on in the podcast, actually, something that you talked about, in terms of recruitment and getting more younger people into the industry.

Jakob Wahl: We always said two things; we said, "Once you work for the industry, you will never work for anything else, for two reasons. Because you don't want to work for anything else." And actually, the second one is, "No one will take you seriously once you have worked with us."

Kelly Molson: That's it. You're done in, so you have to stay.

Jakob Wahl: Yes, you have to.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Okay. Well, let... You are now at IAAPA.

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: And you've just taken on an incredibly senior role there. Can you tell us a little bit about that, and then what that role involves?

Jakob Wahl: Yes. My first time at IAAPA was from 2009 to 2014, and I worked with Karen Staley, who was back then the Vice President. Today, she's with Sally Dark Rides. And I fell in love with this association, because I think, again, we fulfill a role in trying to promote the industry and in bringing people together; and I think that's a wonderful thing.

Jakob Wahl: I left then for Europa-Park, where I had four amazing years with the Mack family, with Michael Mack, where I learned a lot. And then, this job opened up at IAAPA EMEA, and as the Vice President. And I always had two hearts in my chest. I was very passionate about the association, and then I took that chance, and I have had four and a half fantastic years with IAAPA EMEA.

Jakob Wahl: And then, I was lucky enough to have a great CEO with Hal McEvoy. And we discussed, and then one moment, he changed the strategy in saying that he wanted to be also more in presenting IAAPA on a picture, and asked me to take over the role as COO. And this is a great opportunity, and I'm very happy about what we have achieved in the EMEA region. And I look forward to work with the regional leaders, which we have with June Ko in the APEC region, with Michael Shelton in North America, and with Paulina Reyes in Latin America. And my successor now, Peter van der Schans, to try to bring that industry further, and to deliver more membership services and be of help for our members.

Kelly Molson: So, what is your role there now? And what is your kind of purpose at IAAPA? What do you drive?

Jakob Wahl: So, I lead the operations of IAAPA across the world. And so that means I'm in charge for the four regional offices, for the global sales, for our three expos. We have IAAPA Expo Asia, which unfortunately, we had to cancel due to the COVID situation in Hong Kong, or in the region and in Shanghai, where the expo was supposed to take place. And the one in Europe, which takes place this year in London, Kelly, I hope to see you there.

Kelly Molson: Yes, I will be there.

Jakob Wahl: And then, obviously, our big ship, the one in Orlando, which always takes place in November. So, I'm ultimately in charge for those big trade shows for the regions, but also for the many regional events across the world, where we try to bring together people, to learn from each other, to inspire each other, to connect with each other.

Jakob Wahl: And we have the next upcoming event in Orlando now, where we are going to see the new Ice Breaker coaster at SeaWorld. We are going to have in mayor region, an event in May, in Italy, where we are going to see Cinecitta World, Magic Land, and Zoomarine, where we'll really try to look into things: what's hot? What should be seen? What can we tell, in terms of educating our members about best practices? That really, everyone comes and sees something and walks away back home to say, "Hey, I can apply that in my business to become better." And I think that's what drives us in trying to come up with those events.

Kelly Molson: It's been an incredibly difficult time for the attractions industry-

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: ... full-stop. But for you personally, that must have been very difficult. Because I guess that you are used to traveling a lot all over for the world, to all of these incredible places and attractions that you described. That must have been really tough for you.

Jakob Wahl: Well, I think... First, I have a very passionate team; and I think the whole IAAPA team is very passionate. And we felt for our members. We struggled because we had to cancel shows as well. It was sad, because we put a lot of work into things which had to be canceled. But I think we suffered mainly seeing our members struggling with changing rules, with being forced to close down, with all of those things.

Jakob Wahl: And I tried to look at the good sides of things. And I think during those past 24 months, our industry grew together. And I think when the pandemic first hit, it was in very short notice that we got together the key leading experts, health and safety experts from all the big parks across the world, who developed a paper on safe re-opening for theme parks.

Jakob Wahl: And seeing that, how we worked together as, or unity, how we work with national associations; how we tried to support each other, how we sent letters, how we talked to governments; I think that was actually where the association came alive. And yes, it was hard for us to not being able to bring people face-to-face together, but it was, I think, good because we saw stronger than ever before, the value of an association. And it was... We got many feedback from members across the world saying, "Listen. I went to my government with this paper, and they saw that we are safe. And they saw it, and they let me open again." And that was very fulfilling, obviously, for the members, but also for us; because we saw that what we did was of purpose.

Kelly Molson: That's incredibly powerful, isn't it?

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: That document had such a huge effect on attractions all over the world.

Jakob Wahl: But that is again, a privilege of this industry, I think. In a way, yes, parks or members or facility members or our supplier members are in a certain way competing. They're competing about the same money, about the same time. But I think if we have certain discussion items of whatever nature, and I call the different members, they all group around the table, they all share their learnings, their best practices. And they walk away, and everyone is kind of doing their thing again.

Jakob Wahl: But I'm not sure if this is the same thing in many other businesses: in the car industry, in the computer industry, in the mobile industry. I don't think people are that open with each other. And I think this is where it's special to work for this association; because you feel that. One member thinks, "Listen. If a client, if a guest, has a good time in a different park, it's helpful for me as well. But if they have a bad experience somewhere, they are probably less likely to visit other amusement parks." And I think this is what makes our industry special, because I think we have understood that.

Kelly Molson: That's really interesting. And that is something, again, that's come up time and time again, when we've spoken to people in the sector. It's just, one, is how collaborative it is and supportive of each other. But two... Do you think that that... Do you think it's more so since the pandemic? It was prior to, but do you think that that's accelerated because of the pandemic situation?

Jakob Wahl: It was always there. I think it was always there. And I think we always have had those dedicated members which have contributed massively through committees, through white papers for all members on best practices, on right commissioning for example, or on right of a creation; those really kind of guidelines where we get safety experts together, creating a document for those parks which might not have the same resources, and trying to level that up.

Jakob Wahl: I think what we have seen through the pandemic is that we got those members who might have been inactive before, to get them closer; to get them closer to the association, closer to other members. And I think that has been a benefit. I think we have never talked to so many members throughout the pandemic; and sometimes listening, and sometimes giving advice, and sometimes we only let them vent. But it was good to realise that none of us was alone in that time. And we did some live chats where we had 50 or 60 water park operators; and everyone shared their story. And maybe there were some learnings, maybe there were... But I think it was more important for them to actually see, "Hey, I'm not alone in this. And others go through this as well." And to create that community feeling while we could not have those face-to face-experiences at the events.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Wonderful. It is phenomenal that you've been able to facilitate that level of support for your members. Let's talk about what's coming next, though; because I guess one of the positives from going through that process, is that you did get to speak to so many members. Like you said, some of them had... There was things that you could share to support them; some people just wanted to rant. But I guess all of that knowledge helps you understand what more you can do for your members, and then develop new kind of support programs for them for the future. So what have you got in development? What can you share with us about what's coming next for IAAPA?

Jakob Wahl: I think the pandemic has probably been an accelerator to things in the same way it has been to members as it has for us. And we see that with operators across the world, that those past two years have been a huge accelerator for everything digital. And I think that is something which we see for ourselves as well. If I remember trade shows three years ago, we always have the sign at the exit, "See you next year." And I think this is 2019. Today it is, "See you tomorrow on a digital space." Because you need to create those connections all year round; because people have learned to live digitally, and don't want to wait to be face-to-face to be able to do that. And I think that is something where we, for ourselves, and also with our board of directors, have decided, "Listen. We want to invest more into digital options." We already have great, great digital learning availabilities and those offerings. But I think it's really kind of the networking, the connecting part, where we want to become stronger in the years to come.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Because with digital, we can facilitate conversations like this.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: We're in different parts of the world, and we're just having a lovely chat on our podcast. But you can bring together people from all over the place in one central location. It's so incredibly powerful to be able to do that. And it seems crazy that we've only been doing that for the last couple of years because of the pandemic. Right? It wasn't mainstream prior to that.

Jakob Wahl: No. No.

Kelly Molson: It is crazy. Well, that's brilliant. So we're going to be seeing more digital engagement for IAAPA, bringing people together more frequently; which is absolutely what people, I'm sure, want.

Jakob Wahl: And I also think what we are going to see, and what we are already doing, is to try to be more regional. I think we have seen that with the trade shows last year, those in Barcelona and Orlando, that they were good trade shows. They were smaller than they used to be. And they were more regional, because of travel restrictions and because of everything. And I think we have seen that there's a need for the regional presence. And those success stories of the regional offices of IAAPA come from that; because we have people on the ground, they speak the language, they understand the market, they know of the players. And this is where we want to offer more small opportunities of bringing people together face-to-face. Obviously, digital, we do that; but also face-to-face. Because as great as this all is in connecting, it's still a difference also, I think for the two of us, Kelly; if we sit down in front of the screen, how much nicer it would be if we sit somewhere next to each other and talk about-

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jakob Wahl: And this will never replace it. I think it complements each other. And this is where we try to be closer to actually our members, to go towards them; to see what they're doing, and to highlight what they're doing, what innovations there are. There's so many wonderful innovations, facilities, stories to tell out there. And ideally, I would like to do something every week. We don't have the resources for that, but we want to be closer to our members.

Kelly Molson: Brilliant. It's interesting you said about that, the kind of face-to-face and in-person; because nothing will ever replace that whatsoever. But I had this-

Jakob Wahl: Especially in our industry, I think; because we are a very social industry.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. And you've got fantastic venues and spaces to do that in as well; so why not?

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: But I had this conversation with somebody last week, about how it's just kind of cut down a lot of the longevity and travel that was associated with kind of little mini, micro meetings. You want to meet someone for a coffee, and kind of see if you get to know them first. Right? This is a great way of doing that without spending two hours on a train to get wherever they are.

Jakob Wahl: So true.

Kelly Molson: So, I see this is the first date. The second date is the coffee in real life.

Jakob Wahl: Yes. Exactly.

Kelly Molson: I want to go back to something that you talked about right in the beginning.

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: You said about you worked in the sector from a young age, and that they're good at retaining people because they fall in love with the sector.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So, in the UK, there's a huge labor shortage in the UK currently. And it is a huge challenge to the sector, especially in the kind of hospitality roles that attractions have.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Is this something that's widespread across Europe and the US?

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: So you're still, you're having those problems as well?

Jakob Wahl: Unfortunately, yes.

Kelly Molson: What do you see as a solution to that? I don't know if you have seen any kind of interesting examples of attractions that are doing things really well to hire new staff and retain the ones that they have?

Jakob Wahl: I think what you said, unfortunately, it's a global problem. And I don't know where everyone went, but for sure, we all lack, and we all lack of workforce. And I think that's a huge problem. And the pandemic has not helped that, because, I think we have seen many people who received furlough money. And they were all okay, but people want to work. And if you have that chef who sits at home and can't work, he might not come back to a theme park, because we were so affected by that. And I think this is something first, where we need to create the circumstances that we can operate and that we can actually employ our people, that we stay open.

Jakob Wahl: What I see as several trends; I think one of the things is that many parks try to extend their season, to walk away more from seasonal workforce to all year round; so that creates a better, attractive place. I think then, what we have also seen, is that... How to say, sometimes our jobs lacked a little bit of content, in the external view. I think people have had not the highest regards of our industry. And I think this is where we need to kind of diversify our offering a little bit more, and actually tell people what a great job they can have with our industry. And I'm very impressed by initiatives which you see popping up all across members, to highlight what a great place this is to be.

Jakob Wahl: I'll give you two examples; Europa-Park in Germany, and Amelia Mack, one of the family members of the Mack family, she introduced a health program for her staff, so that they have very good health benefits. They all have those values which are of relevance for young people today, where they care about. I think it's less about the money, but it is about, "What can a company offer to me in the overall package?" We will not win the race for money. You can, I think, probably increase the salary; but I don't think that the young generation is about money. It's about what we discussed before; purpose, it's about what does the company deliver?

Jakob Wahl: And then, we have a third example, or a second example, from the US. Herschend Entertainment Cooperation, with beautiful parks like Silver Dollar City, Dollywood. They actually introduced free education for all their 11,000 employees; completely free.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Jakob Wahl: And this is where you see, they kind of try to work on the benefits; not only on the money side, but really try to make people, young people, understand, "Hey. This is a great place to work. We educate you. We promote you. We give you options." And it is the same way why I'm sitting here. I started at 16, and I checked tickets; and now, I'm sitting here where I am today. And there are hundreds of those stories. And I think that is something where we need to highlight that, "Hey. You might start only putting down seat belts, or checking, or selling burgers, but there's a great career path ahead of you."

Jakob Wahl: And we, as IAAPA, sorry for taking that so long, but you feel it's close to our hearts. We, as IAAPA, try to work closely with universities across the world, which specialise in Attraction Management program. We, just like three days ago, we had the first intern in our office from BUas, in Breda, which is a university specialised in attractions classes. And it's those people kind of, when they come in huge groups to the trade show, they usually come with 40 students; you see the passion for that industry. And this is just one example of many, where we are very grateful for working with those universities, to try to highlight how attractive we are actually as an industry.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely brilliant examples, then. That'll be really, really useful to our listeners, I'm sure. And it goes back to what we were saying. It is about value driven, purpose driven.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Explaining what it is, that is the benefit of working there. Not just, "This is how much it is, and this is the role that you'll do." "This is where you can go. This is where you can progress." And really showcasing the kind of culture of the attraction as well.

Kelly Molson: And now, I know sustainability is something that you like to talk about quite a lot; I've seen some of your posts on LinkedIn. So it is a real big, hot topic now, as it should be. How can attractions start to put sustainability at the heart of what they're doing? And have you seen any great examples of that that you could share with us as well?

Jakob Wahl: Yes. I'm actually the staff liaison for the Sustainability Committee. IAAPA, two years ago probably, introduced a Sustainability Committee under the leadership of Andreas Andersen, the CEO from Liseberg. And to be very frank with you, we probably have not been on the forefront of that subject as an industry. And I think we have to pick up a little bit, but I see a huge interest in that. And I see when we started the Sustainability Committee in the past years, we noticed all the big power groups of this world are enthusiastic about collaborating with us. They all want to say, "Listen, we want to do more. What can we do more? We need to step up the game here." And it's very nice to see the growing importance of that.

Jakob Wahl: I'm not a firm believer, or it's a thin line between educating people, and still let them have fun. I think you... It's always difficult, because you don't want to spoil the day by kind of delivering all those horror messages. And we just had an event in... Yeah, in end of February at the World Expo in Dubai. And we had a great session with the head of the Sustainability Pavilion, which did a fantastic job about telling a story, telling about what needs to be better, but not kind of being Debbie Downer, and depressing the guests.

Jakob Wahl: But I think what we need to understand, is that sustainability is more than just the ecological aspect. And we refer to the 17 goals of the United Nations, in which I think are at the core of sustainability. And there are some beautiful examples in this industry; and it starts with small attractions. One of our board members, Massimiliano Freddi, he has a small attraction called Wonderwood in Italy, which is not the biggest facility, but they only kind of produce food from the local farmers, and they only serve that. And they're very inclusive to everyone; and they really stand up for their values, which is beautiful. Another wonderful example is Miniature Wonderland; that... Craziest place. I'm not sure. Have you heard of that, Kelly?

Kelly Molson: No. No. It sounds up my street, though; I'm 5'2". I feel like I would fit in well there.

Jakob Wahl: It's absolutely... No, it's absolutely crazy. It's a place in Hamburg, which started as a miniature railway. And it's so in love with details, I think they make more than a million guests every year. It's three brothers, and I think no business plan, no feasibility study would have ever expected this to be successful. But it was their passion and their heart which made them come this way.

Jakob Wahl: So what they did, is that they introduced, I think two weeks in spring, weeks where they let in everyone for free, who comes to the entrance gate and says, "I can't afford it." And if you don't feel comfortable in saying that, you can put a paper, and they let you in for free. And interesting enough, I think it's a wonderful gesture in a very social, ethical way, of allowing people to experience what they normally couldn't. But they actually also said, "Listen. This was commercially successful for us because it brought such an attention to our place, such an awareness, that it paid off." And I think this is a wonderful example. And if you have time for one more example.

Kelly Molson: Please. Yeah, please.

Jakob Wahl: Karl's Strawberry Farms, also Germany. It's a place which grew out of a strawberry farm. They had so many guests that they built a cafe, and then a restaurant, and then attractions. They built a hotel completely up-cycled; so all the material they used is recycled. And I think this is, all those things, examples for wonderful, sustainable policies without hitting you like, "You are a bad person. You must not do that. You must not do that." But kind of showcasing, "Hey. We do something with the right values, and we do it, and it's actually still a beautiful experience for everyone."

Kelly Molson: It's about weaving it into the whole experience, isn't it, like it's a story? It's part of, it's at the heart of the attraction.

Jakob Wahl: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Rather than kind of something that you've stuck on as a plaster at the end of it. "Oh, by the way, this is our sustainability policy, and this is our recycling policy." And it's about kind of living and breathing it.

Jakob Wahl: It needs to be lived. Yeah. It needs to be lived, it needs to be led I think also; and it doesn't help to say, "Listen. We do it because we have to. And everyone is doing..." It's a classic greenwashing example.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Jakob Wahl: But I see in our Sustainability Committee, we have wonderful members from all across the world. When you look at what Liseberg is doing, what Monterey Bay Aquarium is doing, what all those fantastic and wonderful places are doing to be more sustainable in what they do, to try to, through their business model, I think it's very impressive. And again, to quote my Chairman, Andreas Andersen, of that committee, he says, he thinks that, "Sustainability will be in five years as important as safety is today for our industry." And I wouldn't disagree with that. I think it will be a basic of our industry. If it's in five years, if it's in seven or in 10, we will see; but I think it will be a basic expectation of our guests.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Yeah. I think you're absolutely right.

Jakob Wahl: One more thing. It comes back to HR as well. That is also something young people look at. And if people today, if the generation that looks for employment, I think they also want to see, or many of them want to see that those values of sustainability are lived within the company.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. You're absolutely right. And it's the change in demographic or age brackets of people that will start to visit those attractions. Right?

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Because that's what the younger generation are really interested in, sustainability, caring for the environment. And that's what they'll be looking at; places that they come to work for, or places that they come to visit and spend their hard-earned cash. Yep.

Kelly Molson: I'd like to just go back to something that you said earlier about the shift in kind of digital advancements in the sector. So, we've seen the kind of contactless economy grow rapidly during the pandemic; the shift to digital ticketing and payments in the attractions industry has rapidly, rapidly accelerated. What do you think is next? And what do you... Because you didn't... Because you said that you need to be at the forefront of what's hot and what's coming next; so I'm testing you now. What do you think is next for the attractions industry, and where do you see these things going in the next kind of three to five years?

Jakob Wahl: I think that there are two sides to the story. I think there's a back-end side and the front-end side. I think what we have seen is that people won't get rid of this little thing. It's everywhere; they can't let it go. They're all addicted, including myself. It's horrible.

Kelly Molson: He's talking about... Jakob is talking about the phone, just for everyone who can't see it.

Jakob Wahl: Oh, the phone, yes.

Kelly Molson: Just in case you don't know what he's holding there.

Jakob Wahl: Everyone knows. I we say we're all addicted to it, we all know about those smartphones dominating our day. And I think this is where we need to incorporate the smartphone, the mobile, into the experience of day. And that is kind of where I say, "This is the guest excitement." Because while 20 years ago, they only looked at the scenery all day long, now they look at the mobile half of the day. So the question is, "How do you bring the park experience on the mobile?"

Jakob Wahl: And I think there are some great examples. There's this wonderful little Danish park called Summerland Sjaelland. And they have a great owner called Kare Dyvekaer. Probably I pronounce it wrongly, but he's a technology aficionado, the same way I'm about amusement parks. And he kind of plays with his app in a way that you can shoot water canons, you can feed the animals, all with your smartphone. And I think this is funny, because it's an enhancement of the experience through your phone; and I think that is something which we will see further.

Kelly Molson: That's a really important point to make, is that it's about enhancement and not detraction.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So we... Just to compliment that, we had Jakob Thompson on from Attractions.io a few weeks ago. And this was a question that we posed to him actually, is that, how do you... You want people to engage with the app, but you don't want to distract them from what's actually going on around there. So it has to be an enhancement; it has to be things that you... You use it. For example, he painted a really great picture of... He said, "Okay. Well, look. Imagine that you are in one of the play areas at the park, and your kids are going crazy. They're running all over the place. They're hungry. You are starting to get hungry. Everyone's a bit angry because they're hungry. You can just grab your phone now, place your order for your food, and then five minutes later, go and collect it. You haven't got to trudge around trying to find where it is, or wait in a massive queue.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And it's those little things that make that experience better, and they solve a problem that you have instantly. But they're not detracting you from the experience at all.

Jakob Wahl: Yeah. And I think that comes actually, to my other aspect. Because I think there's an experience aspect, in a way of experiencing the fun part. But I think technology is probably even more important today, in terms of the customer journey. I think we have an expectation today, and I always say, "It's the opposite of a car rental company at an airport." You go there, you have booked everything, you have put in all the data beforehand; and still, you need 10 minutes or 20 minutes to give them all the data again.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Jakob Wahl: And that is kind of the worst example of customer flow. And if you think about this as a worst example, you need to think about, "How can I use technology to make it as easy as possible for my guests to come, to book his ticket, to have the best day ever, and in the best way, actually, in the end to recommend it?"

Jakob Wahl: And there, I think that there are those very innovative people. I am coming back to what I said before: skiing. I recently went to a ski resort in Switzerland, Laax. And they have an app, which is perfect; because if you don't want to go by a car to the lift station, you can order a shuttle. If you go by car, you can order a parking space. You can buy your lift pass. You can extend your lift pass. You can buy a virtual line. You can order a restaurant table for lunch. You can see, through all cameras, how many people are waiting at which lift, so you can plan your day.

Kelly Molson: Nice.

Jakob Wahl: You can actually, in the evening, you have kind of the same idea of Uber Eats. You can order your food all through that app. And this is just in one flow, where you really kind of just make it as easy as possible for the guests to enjoy and to have the best time ever.

Jakob Wahl: Because I think what we have seen in the past years, that time is limited. And if people, especially now after the pandemic, if they want to get out, if they want to make an excursion, if they want to do a trip to an amusement park, to a ski resort, to whatsoever, they want this to be seamless, to be perfect from A to Zed.

Jakob Wahl: And the masterminds in this industry, and I'm happy that they are an IAAPA member, is to Tomorrowland, the Music Festival in Belgium. They are so sophisticated in what they're doing. It always blows me away. Have you heard about it, how they work?

Kelly Molson: No. Please share.

Jakob Wahl: So, it's a festival which takes place this year on three weekends. I think each weekend is sold out within like 10 minutes, one of 80,000 persons each weekend. And when you book your ticket, when you get one, when you're lucky, you get after probably like eight weeks out; it might be more, but some weeks out, you get a box home with a wristband. On that wristband, everything is safe: your name, your access ticket, wherever you can go, because there's special categories. You can upload money on that wristband through a credit card online. So you don't need anything than this wristband. Two weeks prior to the event, it starts actually living. It breathes, it blings. There are little LEDs on it. And when you go there, this is your only thing which you need all the time. And this is where I think using technology to make things easier, but at the same time, enhancing the experience again; because it is themed, it looks beautiful. Really, Kelly, I will send you a link afterwards. You should have a look at it.

Kelly Molson: Please do, yeah.

Jakob Wahl: It's so thought through. You can pay. And it's a temporary festival; you can pay everything cashless on site, and everything is settled. And I think it's just fantastic. And we looked at several technologies of that, and you could even, if you want to, you could even use it in a way that if someone comes, I would recognise who that is. And we thought about it, at one moment, how great this would be for Halloween. When you walk into a horror house or into a maze, and I would know, through your wristband, "Oh, Kelly is coming." And I'm the scare actor, and I can say, "Hi, Kelly." I could see you. How great is that? And this is, I think, where digital technology has abounded so much. The only problem is, it advances so quickly that I have no idea, probably in four years, we will laugh about where we stand today.

Kelly Molson: Yes. That's true, isn't it? It's an unfair question. We are developing so rapidly in that area, who knows what the next three or four years will hold?

Jakob Wahl: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: That's been fantastic. Thank you so much for your input today, Jakob. I've really enjoyed talking to you.

Jakob Wahl: Same here.

Kelly Molson: I always ask my guests for a book at the end of the show, that they would recommend to our listeners though. Now, it can be something that you love, personally, or it can be something that you've read that's maybe helped shape your career in some way. Have you got anything that you'd recommend for us?

Jakob Wahl: I have a favourite book, but it has absolutely nothing to do with my career or whatsoever.

Kelly Molson: That's fine. That's fine.

Jakob Wahl: I really, really enjoyed reading Tender Bar. I don't even know who the author is, I'm afraid to say. But it's a wonderful story about the love of a young boy to a bar. And he grows up with that bar, and it's a beautiful story. They actually made a movie out of it. The movie was not so great. So don't watch the movie, read the book. And then, what I actually also like, from a personal development kind of thing is, there's a book called The Courage to be Disliked.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I like it. Okay.

Jakob Wahl: It's a very nice book. Not that it helped me, but I enjoyed reading it. And it gave some great inspiration.

Kelly Molson: Is it about forming opinions? So, not being scared to state your mind?

Jakob Wahl: Yes. And it's also about not trying to set as an excuse where you come from. You shouldn't excuse yourself for the person you are because of your history. You can change every day, and you can decide to be a different person every day. And I think that is something which is very, very interesting.

Kelly Molson: That's a great book. I'm going to get that book.

Jakob Wahl: You should. It's very interesting. And if you don't like it, blame it on me; and then the drink is on me the next time we see each other. But I honestly, really, really enjoyed it.

Kelly Molson: I'll take you up on that. Well, look; listeners, as ever, if you want to win, head over to our Twitter account, and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Jakob's book," then you can win it. I'm going to go and buy myself a copy and read it before you guys get it. But Jakob, thank you so much for your time today. You're an incredibly busy man, so I'm very grateful that you've been able to come on and share with us. And I look forward to meeting you in person, hopefully at the IAAPA Conference in London.

Jakob Wahl: Same here, Kelly; it was a huge pleasure to talk to you. And if I can, and I don't want to do a commercial thing here; but I was just trying to explain what IAAPA does. But we want to be there for our members, and also for those who are not members. So, whenever you thought I said something great, or you thought I said something horrible, reach out to me. Disagree with me on LinkedIn, on Twitter, on wherever; send me an email, and say, "Why did you say that?" An, "Have you ever thought about doing this?" I think we can only serve the industry as good as we know what the industry needs. And this is where I'm always happy for any kind of feedback.

Kelly Molson: What we will do, is put all of Jakob's contact details. I might not give you his email address, but I'll put his LinkedIn address in there.

Jakob Wahl: Oh, it's out there, anyway, for dealing with me.

Kelly Molson: All right. All of his contact details will be in the show notes. You know where to find them. Take him up on that offer, and you'll have a great conversation if you do. Thanks, Jakob.

Jakob Wahl: Thank you, Kelly. It was a 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.

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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.

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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.

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Show references:

https://www.nationalgallery.org.uk/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/katie-weller-8171688b/

Katie Weller has been appointed Travel Trade Sales Manager at the National Gallery. Joining the fascinating world of art, she is excited to be embarking on a new challenge. Having worked in the tourism, entertainment and leisure industry for over 18 years, her roles have ranged from working at James Villa Holidays as a Travel Advisor, Tour Guide at Shakespeare’s Globe to PA for the critically acclaimed band Westlife. 

Starting her trade career at a top ten visitor attraction- Royal Museums Greenwich as Trade Sales Executive, she developed an award-winning product for the international education market and gained a wealth of knowledge about trade. Katie then went on to work as Trade Manager at the iconic Westminster Abbey and went on to open her own business as a successful sweet shop during the pandemic. She is now very excited to be developing and launching new products at the National Gallery. 

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 Katie Weller, Travel Trade Sales Manager at The National Gallery. 

We discuss the process of developing new paid for guided tours, making the gallery inclusive for all and how travel trade works for attractions. 

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

Kelly Molson: Katie, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's lovely to meet you.

Katie Weller: Thank you so much. I'm really excited to be here.

Kelly Molson: Ah, me too. We've been chatting for a little while on LinkedIn, haven't we? So I'm glad that we've got this booked in the diary now. So I'm going to ask you loads of questions. We've got something really exciting to talk about but first, icebreaker questions.

Katie Weller: Yes, go for it.

Kelly Molson: Okay. What sport would you compete in if you were in the Olympics?

Katie Weller: Oh gosh, that's a hard one, isn't it? I'm actually rubbish at sports. Oh gosh. What would I go for? I was always good at javelin. Is that a sport?

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Katie Weller: Can I compete in that?

Kelly Molson: Absolutely.

Katie Weller: Let's go for it. I'm going javelin.

Kelly Molson: All right. I like it. Take your anger out.

Katie Weller: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: All right. Last place that you went on holiday?

Katie Weller: Oh, we went to Mykonos in Greece.

Kelly Molson: Oh, lovely.

Katie Weller: Well, so it was supposed to be... So I'm getting married in a couple of months and so it was my hen do. And we managed to do the hen, but not the wedding. I was happy with that as long as I... 

Kelly Molson: This bit.

Katie Weller: Exactly. And do you know what? It was just so lovely to get on a plane and travel again. So yeah, we had a brilliant time. Spent way too much money, but yeah, absolutely fantastic.

Kelly Molson: Oh, lovely. What a treat. I'll bet you had a whale of a time.

Katie Weller: Oh, we did.

Kelly Molson: We won't ask because what goes on in hen stays on hen.

Katie Weller: Exactly. I think it's for the best.

Kelly Molson: All right. If you could choose any two famous people to have dinner with, who would they be?

Katie Weller: Gosh. Leonardo DiCaprio, just because he's always been my number one. I'd always have him at the table there. And the second one, who would I... Does it have to be someone alive?

Kelly Molson: No, it can be anyone you want.

Katie Weller: I would go for Van Gogh.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Katie Weller: It would be a bit of a messy dinner party, but I think he would just be so amazing to talk with, try and get into his brain. Yeah, I'm going to go Van Gogh and Leo. What a party. Do you like an invite?

Kelly Molson: What a mix. Will there be cocktails?

Katie Weller: I think we'll need it.

Kelly Molson: I'm there. All right. Katie, what is your unpopular opinion?

Katie Weller: Oh, do you know what? I've really been thinking about this and I didn't think it was an unpopular opinion, but it clearly is and I've got a lot of passion about it. Crocs should stay in hospitals. I can't even look at them. They're just the most ugliest shoes. How last year they were like trending number one? Why people put them on their feet? It really upsets me. You will never, ever see me in Crocs, ever.

Kelly Molson: Wow. That is a massive passion.

Katie Weller: Can you feel my anger? This is why I want to do javelin.

Kelly Molson: Now, listen, I'm just going to say, I should probably hook you up with Michelle from Eureka, the National Children's Museum, because she was very passionate about wearing Crocs with socks at work.

Katie Weller: She wants to do that?

Kelly Molson: No, she does do that. Yeah, no, she does.

Katie Weller: Each to their own, but not for me.

Kelly Molson: All right. Okay.

Katie Weller: Fantastic quote.

Kelly Molson: They are. Let's see what our listeners feel about that. I think there might be a few people that agree with you on that one.

Katie Weller: Yeah, I think since lockdown a lot of people went in that direction. But yeah, not for me. Sorry, guys.

Kelly Molson: Those things. Okay. Love it. Katie, tell me a little bit about your background before we get onto what we're going to talk about today.

Katie Weller: Yes, really I've been in arts and tourism for about a 20 years, which makes me feel really old now. So I started off as just a theatre steward, so working in the local theatres, and I loved it. How cool to be able to get paid and just watch shows? And back then I thought I was going to be an actor. And obviously life changes, you realise you need to get paid. So I didn't end up going down that route, but I always had a passion for it. So in terms of getting involved in sort of travel trade, that was a bit later on. I was a PA for a very famous boy band, Westlife, if you've heard of them. So I've had lots of random jobs as well. But yeah, it was the Globe Theater. So I was a tour guide there for quite a few years and absolutely loved it. And that's really where I started sort of finding out about travel trade.

Katie Weller: We attended a few shows and then from there I started at Royal Museums Greenwich, and that's where I really started my career, built up all of my contacts and really got to learn about travel trade and just loved it. It's such a niche thing. And a lot of people don't understand what travel trade is and how it works.

Kelly Molson: Well, actually, for the benefit of our listeners that might not know, can you explain what that actually means?

Katie Weller: Yeah, definitely. So you will actually find in a lot of attractions, they have a travel trade and groups department. So travel trade works on a business to business basis. So we would push our product through third party platforms. So I don't know if I'm allowed to mention names on here?

Kelly Molson: Yeah, go for it.

Katie Weller: Like Virgin Experience Days or Viatour or Golden Tours. I'm not pulling out favourites at all here, but it just means that you are pushing out your reach to new markets, new audiences that you wouldn't necessarily get in otherwise. You pay them a commission and in return they push out your marketing, they'll do campaigns for you and they just drive in different people. So yeah, most attractions have a travel trade team, but a lot of people just don't really understand what it is. But it's a huge income driver to attractions.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, great explanation.

Katie Weller: I hope that makes sense.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it made perfect sense. And I also really appreciate that you thought we were a little bit like the BBC there and you couldn't mention other brands on it.

Katie Weller: I know. I know. Well, just in case. I'm going to get other partners ringing me now like, "Why didn't you mention me?" Sorry.

Kelly Molson: All right. So this is really exciting. So we had a little chat on LinkedIn quite a while ago actually now, isn't it? We were chatting. But National Gallery, where you are now, is launching paid for guided tours which are geared towards kind of tourist, domestic and international.

Katie Weller: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: This is really exciting because the National Gallery is a free gallery. So you don't need to pay to go into this. So this is quite a new thing that they're launching. How did this idea come about?

Katie Weller: So it's a bit of a long story. With the National Gallery, yes, it's always been free of charge. However, it can be for, not just for an international customer, for a domestic one as well, if you're not necessarily an art buff, you can walk inside the Gallery, it can be quite overwhelming because you don't really know where to start, what to look at. So we know there is a demand for tours because they're coming in anyway. So they're coming in. So other tour companies are charging the customers and they're coming in and doing tours. So the issue with that... It's great because there's a demand there and we know people want to be educated and that's what we want to do. We want to educate them on our amazing collection.

Katie Weller: However, sometimes with that, it means that we haven't really got any quality control over what's being said. A lot of people think they're buying an official National Gallery tour and it's not. So we get customers coming through to us. So for us, how it all came about really is my head of department, Claire, she looks after events and our catering team as well. And next year we're closing our Sainsbury Wing. So the entrance is actually going to be the Portico Terrace, so the beautiful steps going up, only because we are just completely redeveloping that side of the Gallery. And it means that we lose a lot of our daytime space. So we would normally get a lot of income coming through from daytime hire, that's going to be lost. So she thought, "Do you know what? Let's bring in travel trade."

Katie Weller: We actually worked together at Royal Museums Greenwich so she was head of events there. And she just saw the benefit that travel trade had and she knew there's a demand for tours. So she just decided, "Let's get up and running." So it wasn't really anything off the back of COVID. It was always there as a plan because we knew we had those closures coming up.

Kelly Molson: That's interesting. Yeah, because that was going to be one of my questions, actually, was this something that came out of COVID? Because obviously being a free museum during that time, it's really difficult. You've got additional challenges that some of the paid institutes might not have had in terms of raising funding and keeping the building and the paintings safe and looked after. So yeah, it's really interesting that hasn't come from that, which is a good thing.

Katie Weller: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I guess an element of it has been about customer feedback, right? Like you said, there is a demand for it because people are already booking tours elsewhere.

Katie Weller: Well, yeah, and they're paying anything between 10 pounds... You'll be amazed at what has been pushed down there. PDFs, where customers pay 10 pounds for a PDF and walk around. So that's what I mean about the quality. You think we want to mirror a high quality tour in line with the National Gallery, but some people are paying up to 400 pounds for a tour that's happening during the day. So we want to make sure that it's a fair price but we are delivering a top quality experience as well. I think people... Yes, we are free of charge, but the British Museum, they do the same thing. So you do have paid for tours as well. And I'm such a tourist. When I go abroad, I always pay for a tour because I think it's the best way. You've got an hour, for example. The international market, they're very tight on time. They've got one hour, what's the best way to do it? Actually, not everyone wants to do the free thing where you walk for... People want to have a better understanding of where they are.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's interesting that you mentioned the time thing, isn't it? Because if you've just got that restriction you would want someone to show you the best of the best, "I'm coming to this gallery. What is the best thing that I need to see while here? What's the thing that I can't leave without seeing?" And actually, if you are kind of left to your own devices, you might not find it. You might not know where it is and your time is then gone.

Katie Weller: Exactly. So I just think, with the guided tours, we are really going to ensure that it is a highlights tour. You could go on a tour with a curator or you could have a bespoke experience. Most of these tourists, they just want to get a sense of the Gallery. They want to hear brilliant stories that you just can't pick out of a book or, "Let's talk about the fun stuff." I said to the Blue Badge Guides, I was like, "Sex, drugs, rock and roll." I was like, "That's what they want to hear." I was like, "Maybe not too extreme. It is the National Gallery, but let's tell them just brilliant stories and they'll leave and ..." And when you go on tours, do you remember the dates? Not really. You remember the amazing stories that they tell you. So yeah, the guides have been brilliant at putting this all together and we've sort of left them to their own devices because their knowledge far exceeds mine. So yeah, really, really looking forward to pushing them out.

Kelly Molson: It's really the stories thing is something that keeps coming up and up again, again, again on the podcast too. We just spoke to Kelly Wessell from London Zoo and she was kind of talking about the visitor experience and engaging people back, like their team, back to the zoo, getting them to fall back in love with the zoo. And she was saying that it is the stories that they know that makes people's experience better on the day. And it's only the stories that the team know, like little things about, I don't know, the giraffe house and how that was constructed. And it's those stories that make the visit more memorable for people. And that's what people are looking for, isn't it? To make that more kind of personalised and more special.

Katie Weller: Well, that's it, it's about personalisation. And it does make them feel special because they probably think they might be the only person that's been told that. And also the Blue Badge Guides, we've said to them, "It's flexible. If you want to tell a different story on a different tour, that's absolutely fine." Obviously, they keep to a bit of a structure, but if they've got something cool to tell, go for it.

Kelly Molson: So the tours, so how have they been developed? You decided, "We need a tour." How do you work out what are the highlights that people need to see on this tour?

Katie Weller: Yeah, so really, it's been six months in the making. I don't know why I gave myself this, but I was like, "April, that's the go." I think it's beginning of financial year. You go, "Yeah, that's fine." But obviously, it's quite hard to push out something new especially in a Gallery as well. So everything can be a bit slower, I guess, and it has to be approved at so many different levels. But really, starting off with the tours, initially, we'd love to have kept it in house, but of course the resource isn't available at the moment. So we decided, "All right, second best thing is to use the Blue Badge Guides." They've just got such a wealth of knowledge and they're accredited. Tourists trusts them. They know what a Blue Badge Guide is. And the joy of having the Blue Badge Guides is that there is such a large pool of them. They can speak in different languages so that means that we can offer multi-language tours as well if you're a private group.

Katie Weller: And they guide inside the Gallery anyway so they know the space very well. And they were so excited at this opportunity. I think we went to a show, it was a trade show on the Strand and it was just a happy accident. I bumped into a lovely Blue Badge Guide called Sarah. And she said, "Oh, you're from the National Gallery?" I said, "Oh, well actually I'm looking for some Blue Badge Guides." She was like, "Right, that's it. I'm your main contact going forward." And Sarah Reynolds, her name is, and she's been brilliant at... I just gave her a brief and I just said, "Storytelling." I know I keep going back to this, but I was like, "You need to tell great stories. I don't want the tourists to be drowned in facts. Let's make it fun for them." In terms of highlights, it's a difficult one but it is up to the guide. Obviously, we've got some of the most famous paintings in the world. So we've got Van Gogh Sunflowers. We've got the Turner. We can't guarantee on any given day that they will necessarily see those pieces of art.

Katie Weller: So we don't promise that they're going to see those paintings because the paintings move around quite a lot. We might have room closures, depending on what's going on. So the tour is very flexible, so we really do leave it up to them. But as I say, for us, it really is about bringing the Gallery to life and just telling the best stories they can, but yeah, without going into too much depth. It can make people feel unwelcome and a bit out of their comfort zone if you start going into so much detail.

Kelly Molson: So this was one of my questions, actually, about accessibility. So I think when we chatted and what you've mentioned at the start of this chat is that the National Gallery, it can seem a bit daunting for people if they're not art buffs or they maybe feel that it's not the place for them.

Katie Weller: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So yeah, part of what you've described, in terms of accessibility, different languages and things like that, how do you make people feel that these are inclusive for them, that it is for me or for Joe down the road?

Katie Weller: Yeah, I think this is going to be a really interesting year in terms of learning as we go. There's going to be a lot of test and trial. Actually, only last week we had some EDI training, so equality, diversity, inclusivity training that was put on by the Gallery and it really opened my eyes up. It's such a big beast, doesn’t it? And there's so many things to tackle. So I think it's really important when you push out a product, you've got to keep developing it. You can't just leave it. It's not done. It's not done with, so we really need to listen to our customer feedback, "How can we make them more inclusive?" So I don't know. I think that would just be a thing as we go and we will have to develop and change it. But we are aware that people have that view of us and we are actually going to be celebrating NG 200 soon and we want to change our customer welcome and we want to make it more friendly.

Katie Weller: And that's the whole part with the Sainsbury Wing at the moment, it's not very friendly. It's not a friendly welcome. So we're going to get rid of the big black gates and we're going to make it more open. It's going to feel a lot more airy in there, whereas at the moment it can be, like you say, a bit daunting, I think, for customers. We want the Gallery to be for everyone. So that's really important.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think that is really important at the moment, because we need to get more people back to seeing these incredible spaces that we have and the incredible artwork that you have. People kind of need to see themselves there to be able to do that, don't they?

Katie Weller: Yeah, of course. So we've got a lot of people coming on lunch breaks as well. So if they work around here, people do just come in on their lunch break, which is lovely.

Kelly Molson: That is really nice. That's something that I spoke with Jon Young about, from BVA BDRC, which I might have just said wrong because I always say that wrong. But he was saying how he loves that flexibility of just being able to pop somewhere after work because he's in London and I'm like, "Oh yeah, that's really nice." I'm not in London so there isn't really anywhere that you just pop to. And I'm like, "How lovely would that be, just to be on your lunch break and go, 'I'm just going to go and look at Van Gogh on my lunch break?'"

Katie Weller: Exactly. Why not? Or Mondays with Monet?

Kelly Molson: I love that. Is that a thing? That needs to be a thing.

Katie Weller: Do you like it? Yeah, I might do that tour on a Monday, Monday with Monet. I think it's something... I read an article about this. I think that was yesterday, actually. And they were saying people aren't traveling into London as much, maybe two to three times a week, because there's that hybrid way of working which we do at the Gallery as well. And when people are in London, actually, they want to make more of their time while they're here. So I think people are starting to do that. And actually, "What can I do? I'm in London. I've paid to come I'm in. What else can I do when I'm here?" So yeah, I think there's going to be a bit of a change there. But yeah, always welcome. Anyone who's around the National Gallery, come in on your lunch break, come on a tour.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I really love that. Yeah, do the tour. Monet Mondays, like that.

Katie Weller: Do you reckon I've got something going there?

Kelly Molson: Ticked a massive box there.

Katie Weller: Probably right.

Kelly Molson: You mentioned the Blue Badge team that you're working with.

Katie Weller: Yes.

Kelly Molson: And I know that you are leaving it up to them. But there must be some way that you kind of map out what they have to do, like where they take people around the Gallery. Do you have a loose plan of how you work it out or is it just like free reign to them to say, over to you, what do you think you should deliver to someone?

Katie Weller: Yeah, as I say, they've got a structure. However, because the Gallery, on any given day, we might have 10 rooms that are shut so it has to be flexible. They can't have set routes. So that's really important because also we are looking at pushing out not only the daytime tours but our exclusive tours as well when we can. So with that, we might have an event being set up. So they might not be able to go in the room that they always go in. So it's really important that they have that flexibility. But they're brilliant at it. And also I've been on the tours obviously just to make sure that they are saying what we want to... Again, it's just reviewing as we go along and really listening to the customer and their feedback and we can change as we go.

Katie Weller: But I have full faith in the Blue Badge Guides because they're just so fantastic at what they do. They've got a huge amount of passion for it. So I can't imagine we'll get many complaints from people saying they haven't covered the highlights. Because they've got it, they know what they're doing. It's not in my place to tell them otherwise. But, yeah. But no, we will review as we move forward.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that process. It's about iteration, isn't it? So you'll run them, you'll run a feedback process and then find out what your customers are really thinking about it. And then I guess just kind of evolving those tours as you go along.

Katie Weller: Absolutely. And it's so important to listen because what if, all of a sudden, well, once international tourism really starts to make a comeback, maybe we can start doing French tours on a Friday. I don't know why I have to make this rhyme, French on Fridays.

Kelly Molson: But I like what you do there.

Katie Weller: Yeah, I know. I've just realised. So if there's a demand for it, let's go for it. So yeah, that's really an important part of the process for me, just reviewing that feedback on a really regular basis. And next week, we're doing staff tours. So I think it's really important. We are driving out this new product, actually let the staff be part of it. What do they think? What's their feedback? It's just as important.

Kelly Molson: That is a really, really relevant point actually, because if they don't know what to expect and they can't answer questions about them either, can they? They don't know what the tour actually holds for them.

Katie Weller: Yeah, and working in a big place like the National Gallery, communication is key. And we've actually put together some operational processes in place. We've got some PDFs so if they've got frequently asked questions from customers, they've got something there in front of them. If not, they can obviously come through to me. But that communication element we've really tried to lay the groundwork now so there's not so many issues when the tours do kick off.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, you mentioned lates. So you mentioned like evening, after hours or when when the Gallery is not open events, which is really exciting. I think that that is such a treat to go somewhere when it's closed, isn't it? That you are like, "Oh, nobody's in here. This is exciting." And I know that those lates have worked really well for other organisations as well. So prior to the pandemic we worked with Eureka, the National Children's Museum, and they ran a series of lates for adults. And they were incredible. They were so much fun because obviously it's a children's museum so all of the galleries are geared towards children and they're fun and entertainment. But really, the adults just want to get in there and have a bit of a go.

Katie Weller: Oh yeah. Well, didn't they do that with their dinosaur sleepovers, that they did it for adults?

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Yes, at the Natural History Museum.

Katie Weller: At the Natural History Museum. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And then yoga. They did yoga sessions at the Natural Museum. And I just think that's such a massive opportunity, isn't it? So what might that be that you're going to instill?

Katie Weller: So with that, we've had so much excitement. So every time I say, "Oh, the out of hours tours..." Since coming out of the pandemic, people, they want new experiences and they want to do things which are Instagrammable if you like. "Look at me. I'm in an empty National Gallery." It might not be empty. We're probably setting up for events and there's curators walking around and conservation, but that's all part of the experience. Also for me, we're in central London. There's that beautiful hour between six and seven where a lot of the attractions have closed. People are milling about because they're waiting to go to dinner or they're waiting to go to the theatre. Actually. let's plot some tours in and use that time where they can come in and have an absolutely fantastic experience.

Katie Weller: People are willing to pay a higher price point because it's more exclusive. So I have no doubt that they will do very well. Our partners are so keen to get those up on sale. And yeah, I can't wait. And we will develop other products as we go, but initially we'll just be pushing out the daytime tours followed by the out of hours.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's a great time as well, what you said, isn't it? Six to seven, because it is a bit of a dead time while, like you said, you're waiting between stuff or maybe waiting for the later train home so it's not busy.

Katie Weller: Exactly. And we're right in the middle of London so it's like all these people wandering about, "Come in, come in." But again, we're going to make sure that it really is about that quality experience. So we'll only have 25 people on that tour which makes it a bit more special as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that level of exclusivity. It does make it feel like a real treat, doesn't it?

Katie Weller: Definitely.

Kelly Molson: All right. So let's talk about the benefits. What is this going to bring to the Gallery? Because it's obviously going to bring in revenue, but it's going to hopefully bring in a new audience.

Katie Weller: Well, that's it, isn't it? It's bringing in those new markets, those new audiences, which we wouldn't necessarily be able to target otherwise or it would be really, really expensive for us to do so. So that's why we use trade because that maximises our marketing budget as well. So it will be really interesting to sort of review who is coming in and we'll capture all of this data as and when bookings come through. And yeah, we'll just go from there. But I can't remember what your question was now because I've just gone off.

Kelly Molson: It was about what is it going to bring the Gallery? But I think one of the things that you just mentioned there is about using trade again. And I think this is quite important to highlight. Because one of the questions that I was going to ask you was where's the price point for these and how do you buy them? Are they available to buy? Can we go and get a tour now? But you're actually going to sell them through a third party.

Katie Weller: Yeah, so I guess it's a little bit different here because at the National Gallery, there's no products to necessarily push out. Or there is, but through commercial, like the exhibitions, but we don't touch those. Or they are using us, I guess, as a bit of a trial to see how it goes with the tours, push them out to trade, iron out any problems. And it would make sense for them to sell it B2C, business to client, eventually. So that will probably happen. But initially, if you want to book a ticket it would be through those trade platforms, like I said before, Golden Tours or Expedia or any of those platforms. Because I guess it really is probably geared more towards the international market, but it is domestic as well. And something really important to remember, pre pandemic, the Gallery, 80% were international tourists, 20% were domestic. Obviously, there's been a bit of a change during the pandemic, but it's really important that we don't forget about our international audience.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. And I guess it's a good way to trial it working as well, isn't it, rather than committing? So if you think about the process of where attractions have been able to reopen after the pandemic but it has to be buy a ticket in advance, times ticketing as well. That's a big financial commitment to make in terms of your digital processes. Someone's got to manage that process, get it all up and running. This gives you a way of operating like that but without those digital financial commitments until you know that it's working.

Katie Weller: Absolutely. And it makes it nice and easy for the team who will then push it out because everything's done for them. They can just go, "Okay, that process has worked well, that hasn't." And they will review it and I'm positive they will push out the tours. When I say to people that we're doing tours they are, "Has the National Gallery not got tours anyway?" And they do. Sometimes they put on random free tours, but it's not necessarily advertised, "It's this time every day." So it is sort of as and when people will come in, "I'll join this tour." So we just want to put structured tours in place like most other places do, like the British Museum. We did a lot of benchmarking for the price points. I know you mentioned about those. We do have to be careful because we are free of charge. But that's why we did a benchmarking exercise and things might change.

Katie Weller: We might push these out and actually those out of hours tours, they might go up in price. They're 35 pounds for the out of hours, which I think is fair. And I think we don't want to outsell... Is that the right word, outsell? Because you think some people, if we go into corporate, they've got a lot of money to spend. But actually your general tourist, you don't want to push it out so that it's not attainable. Does that make sense?

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it can't be unaffordable to people, especially to a new demographic that you're hoping to bring to Gallery and that going back to what we said about making it accessible for more people and for all. You don't want to kind of out price yourself. But then also, on the flip side, it is a very exclusive tour. 25 people on a tour, that's very small. That's really kind of exclusive, isn't it, for an out of hours? So yeah, you've got to try and get that balance right to what that's going to look like.

Katie Weller: And again, it's all test and trial, isn't it? And I think if they're really in demand, we can push it up a bit, then fantastic. Great. But yeah, again, it's just a matter of reviewing it and seeing what happens. But I'm hoping for lots of sold out tours.

Kelly Molson: I have no doubt there will be. But we're recording this. This is the end of March we're recording it. It's the 30th March today. When do the tours go on sale?

Katie Weller: So actually one of our partners went live yesterday.

Kelly Molson: Oh wow.

Katie Weller: So you'll see, over the next couple of weeks, ticketing will go live. It's been a bit challenging because there's been so many loopholes to go through. And there were no contracts in place so I've been working very closely with legal and with finance. And putting these processes in place, it's things that you don't think about when you're developing a product. And we've just had to make sure that we've got that right ahead of going live. And we had to put in a system that would fully support travel trade as well for our ticketing and making sure that we can connect live with partners. So there's been lots of stuff going on in the background. But the tours start April 12th.

Kelly Molson: Oh, amazing. Literally, a couple of weeks.

Katie Weller: And then I decided to get married a few months... I don't know why I did this to myself.

Kelly Molson: When is the wedding?

Katie Weller: June, June the 6th. I keep forgetting the date. So obviously, I'm the whole team at the moment. I am travel trade so I've already given Claire, my head of department, the heads up, "I hope you're available because I might need a bit of help." But we'll build and we'll expand as we get into next year and what have you.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. And listen, hopefully, you'll only get married once.

Katie Weller: Exactly. Well, let's hope for the best. We got through the pandemic, so...

Kelly Molson: Oh, Katie, thank you so much for coming on. It's been a real pleasure to talk to you today. I love the passion and enthusiasm that you've got for this.

Katie Weller: It's been lovely. Oh, thank you.

Kelly Molson: I'm looking forward to coming and visiting as well.

Katie Weller: Yes.

Kelly Molson: But before we go, I always ask our guests to recommend a book. So something that they love. It can be a personal choice, it can be a work related book. But yeah, just something that you'd like to share with our listeners.

Katie Weller: So this book, you do have to take it with a pinch of salt. But it is such a good talking point. Let me know if you've read it. It's called the Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.

Kelly Molson: I have not read this.

Katie Weller: You have to read this. So basically, in a nutshell, without spoiling too much, the Five Love Languages... So basically, he's looking at couples and he says that everyone's got a different love language. So the five of them, I've written them down so I don't forget, words of affirmation. So you might prefer it if your partner is, "Oh, you look lovely today. I love you," that might be your love language. Physical touch, so you might like it if your partner is very touchy, feely. Acts of service, so if they mow the lawn or do the washing up. I know for a lot of all people they're like-

Kelly Molson: All of these things.

Katie Weller: Yeah, you'd like every one, but they do say you normally have two. Quality time, so going out on day trips, going to the beach and stuff like that. Or receiving gifts, so that might... And they say it fills your love tank. It is a bit cheesy. It fills your love tank. So you normally have one or two that are your most prominent ones. For me, mine is quality time. I love experiencing. That's why I'm in this industry. Experiences and doing things. But my best friend, hers is acts of service. Or if he does the washing up she is so happy. Her love tank is full to the brim.

Kelly Molson: That is really funny.

Katie Weller: Isn't it?

Kelly Molson: I've never heard of this before. I'm going to read this. This is really interesting. Mine would definitely be the time one as well. I think that it's so important. So you find this out about yourself and I guess then that sets you on your path of, "We need to make time for these things in our relationship?"

Katie Weller: Well, what's really interesting about it is usually you reflect your love language on someone else because you think that's what they want. And this is where communication breakdown comes from. I think the couples that he's talking about, they're in bad times. And so it's like, "How could you actually communicate? He's cleaned up for you, but actually you are not very touchies because it's not your love language. But if he'd gone on a day trip with you, that might not mean much to him, but to you, "wow." So it's more about understanding what each other's love language is. So actually you might have to do things in a different way to what you would want. Do you know what? It's good for a pub chat.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. This is a book to read.

Katie Weller: Oh, you can read it in a day as well. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Love it. I'm going to pop out and buy a copy of this. Oh, but listeners, if you want to win a copy of this, head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Katie's book," and you will be in the chance of finding out your own love language. I feel like this podcast has gone a whole different way.

Katie Weller: Well, I know. I know. I can't wait for you to read it. You have to come to the Gallery and we'll go for a lovely coffee and have a chat.

Kelly Molson: I think that would be a treat, Katie. I'm going to do that. Thank you. Thanks so much for coming on today.

Katie Weller: Oh, you're so welcome.

Kelly Molson: Good luck with the tour launch.

Katie Weller: Thank you so much. 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.

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

Show references:

https://www.zsl.org/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kelly-wessell-8517b484/

Kelly Wessell's bio: My career in Visitor attractions started with a seasonal role at Chessington aged 18, I worked there whilst studying. After I finished studying I was lucky to get a managerial role there and in 2014 progressed into a role at ZSL as Experiences Product Manager for London Zoo.

I've been fortunate enough to develop my career at ZSL and I am now part of the Senior Management team as Visitor Operations Manager for London Zoo! I am responsible for the Security, First Aid and Duty Management teams with a key focus on Visitor Experience.

Our focus for 2022 is all about Visitor Experience and to kick off our peak season we launched Operation:OKAPI this was also an opportunity for all of us to fall in love with the zoo again after a tough few years!

Outside of work I enjoy spending time with my family, I have daughter who is 4 we're always out and about on the go! 

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 Kelly Wessell, Visitor Operations Manager at Zoological Society of London. 

We talk all about reengaging your team with their workplace and the internal program that they've developed to help them get to know and love the zoo again. 

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

Kelly Molson: Kelly, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. That's lovely to have another Kelly on the podcast. Two Kelly's. Double treat for everybody..

Kelly Wessell: You're welcome.

Kelly Molson: As I've always started, with our icebreakers. So, Kelly, I can't not ask you this question. What is your favourite zoo animal?

Kelly Wessell: Oh, that's like the worst question you could ask, because we should say all of the animals are our favourite.

Kelly Molson: Of course.

Kelly Wessell: But I love giraffes. I have done, ever since I was really little. Also, I'm only small myself. I'm only 4'11", so I would quite like to see what the world would look like up there and being so close to animals that big is amazing. So, yeah. I've just loved them ever since I was really small and then being able to work at a zoo where they live is just fantastic.

Kelly Molson: Oh, Kelly. That's so awesome. They actually, they're my daughter's favourite animal as well. She's a big fan of them so you're in good company there, and also,4’11”? I'm 5’2”. We were destined to be friends.

Kelly Wessell: There we go. And both called Kelly, that's it, it's fate.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Okay. What hobby have you always wanted to do? But you've never jumped in with two feet to give it a go?

Kelly Wessell: I would love to be able to speak different languages, but at GCSE, I went to a language college actually at secondary school, so we had to take two languages. I took German and French and I was awful for whatever reason it was, nothing would stay in my brain. I'd love to be able to speak different languages, but for some reason it's just something that I can't quite grasp. I can't quite learn. I was very good at other subjects, but just languages have never been my forte. I've gone back to try and learn through different apps and things, but for whatever reason, it just won't sink in it.

Kelly Molson: It is really hard though, isn't it? I did Duolingo all throughout lockdown. I was trying to learn Spanish and I realised that I was... I could read and listen and understand more than I could actually speak it because you're not doing that element of it and you need to immerse yourself into the place. Don't you? You need to really throw yourself in. It's really, really hard. Yeah. I think I agree with you on that one. I think I would like to be better at languages, not very good.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Okay. What is, this is a weird one, and you might have a really good answer to this because of where you work. What is your favourite smell and why?

Kelly Wessell: Oh. It's not going to be zoo related.

Kelly Molson: I should hope not, to be honest.

Kelly Wessell: I know a lot of people don't like this smell, but when it's just rained and it's got that muddy, earthy smell. I love it. Absolutely love it. Love it. On holiday, you have that smell at home when it's really rained and you go out and it smells. I don't know what it is. It just smells nice to me. Yeah. A lot of people don't like it, but that I say that would be my favourite smell.

Kelly Molson: Good smell. Yeah. It feels it's like the world has been refreshed to start again.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I like it. All right, Kelly, what is your unpopular opinion? What have you prepared for us?

Kelly Wessell: So, it's food related. I detest them. I absolutely hate them. When I turn 30, everyone was like, you'll love them, everyone does. I would love to ban them in any food whatsoever, and that is olives. I cannot stand them. Anything they touch, anything they've been in, you pick them out, the whole dish still tastes like olives. Yeah. I just really, really dislike them.

Kelly Molson: I knew that you were going to say olives when you said everyone had said I'd like them when you turned 30.

Kelly Wessell: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Because that you're supposed to mature into olives, aren't you? The taste of them.

Kelly Wessell: Exactly. Wine and olives. It sounds great. Oh, I just can't. Any of them. Any colour. Just can't eat them.

Kelly Molson: I feel the same way about peas, if it makes you feel any better, they taint everything that they touch for me. But I mean, you don't, I mean... I can have happily have a glass of wine without having to have a bowl of peas put next to me.

Kelly Wessell: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: A bit of a nicer experience.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: All right. Brilliant. All right, listeners. Well. I mean, you might feel the same about olives, let me know. Kelly, tell me a little bit about your background before we get into what we're really going to talk about today.

Kelly Wessell: Yep. So, I'm currently the Visitor Operations Manager at ZSL London Zoo. I have been there for seven years now. I started out in attractions very, very young, actually. 17, 18 as a seasonal host back at Chessington, who are owned by Merlin and worked there while I studied and went to uni and then I was very lucky that a role came up there, which was managing their fast track and animal experiences team. So, I gave it a shot and I got lucky. I stayed there in that role for about a year and a half, and then did exactly the same job pretty much, but starting from the ground up came up at ZSL.

Kelly Wessell: I've always loved animals. I love what ZSL does. Being a conservation charity, I felt that sat really well with my ethos and morals. So, gave it a go, applied for the role and took on their experiences at the zoo there, and then slowly worked my way up to now being part of the senior management team at London Zoo and heading up visitor ops, so I look after security and first aid for the site. It's all our emergency procedures and incident management, as well as having a real focus on visitor experience now, which we hadn't had for a few years, especially with COVID hitting us. But now we're really a driving force with that. That's a real part of our plan for this year.

Kelly Molson: I mean, what an amazing place to be able to work at, Kelly. Obviously, like what you've said, it just fitted so well with your ethos and what you love. There must be a bit of a pinch me every day and you walk in there. Ooh, this is it, I'm here.

Kelly Wessell: I feel so privileged. I feel really privileged to work there. I've got a four year old daughter who tells everyone at nursery that I work at the zoo, and being able to inspire her is amazing. It's such a fantastic organisation and I work with some absolutely amazing people. I feel very, very lucky to be where I am.

Kelly Molson: That's lovely. That's really good to hear. I'm sure they would love to hear that as well. But we had a really good chat a few weeks ago about a really interesting topic. It's very topical actually, this topic. So, obviously the pandemic is now over. Restrictions are done, pretty much and so there is a resurgence of people going back to their workplaces in some way, shape, or form. We might have this hybrid mix of people working a little bit from home and back in their offices.

Kelly Molson: We had this talk about it in respect to the zoo. You've been tasked with developing a really interesting program to support your team in getting to know and love the zoo again.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Which I thought was really interesting because, for me, if I worked at the zoo, I'd be like, oh my God, this is the best place ever. I'm going back to it. But I think people have been at home for so long and haven't been able to engage with their workplaces. You've got to spur them back a little bit, right? You've got to show them how amazing it is again. Can you, how did this all come about? Can you tell us about it?

Kelly Wessell: Yeah. Yeah. So, obviously COVID hit the zoo, let's say for the last two years. We've been operating very differently to how we did prior to COVID. A lot of learnings and a lot of changes operationally, which have been really, really helpful and have changed us for the better. But what we found was that our teams were tired. Our operational teams have been working so hard and we've been putting a lot of pressure on them in regards to getting us up and running and operating. Things changed quite a lot, sometimes very quickly. My chief operating officer, who is my boss, she said people are feeling a bit flat, what's going on? I'm one of those individuals who... I'll talk to everyone who works at the zoo. I will ask how people are, what's going on, how people's teams are feeling. I started to put feelers out as to how teams are feeling. Across the board, everyone was knackered. Everyone was feeling a bit flat.

Kelly Wessell: Taking that back to her and speaking to her about what we could do, and we'd come up with this concept that we would create a pre-peak season launch, but it would be for everyone. So, whether you worked in marketing or HR or our Comms teams, and those teams worked throughout the whole entire pandemic, all of them from home. Most of them haven't come back to the office full time. As well as our operational teams, including all of us in something that could get everyone excited again and show off how good of a job we are doing and what we are going to be doing, and really give everyone some key skills in regards to speaking to visitors, whether you work in catering or whether you are just on site, hot desking and going to, and from meetings across site, you'd be able to interact with our visitors and just make everyone realise what a good job we've done and that we are doing. That's where Operation OKAPI was born, really.

Kelly Molson: Operation OKAPI. Is that what it's called?

Kelly Wessell: Yeah. Yes.

Kelly Molson: What does that, is that... What's the meaning behind that?

Kelly Wessell: So, OKAPI is an acronym for Operational Knowledge and Procedural Information. One of our retail team came up with the name, so I'm not going to take any credit here for that, but also everyone loves the okapi at the zoo.

Kelly Wessell: We had a baby last year and they're just amazing animals. They were discovered by someone who used to work for ZSL. So, it's got a really good link back to our history, and they're just super cute.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Oh, that's lovely that it's gone a little bit full circle with the name then. This sounds great. It is, I guess... I mean, everybody that worked through that pandemic was exhausted. I mean, anyone that's gone through the pandemic regardless of whether you were working or not working is exhausted because it was such a difficult time. So much to process each day, so much new things to process each day. Never really knowing where you are at all the time, so to be able to reengage your team in such positive ways, obviously you're going to have some really strong benefits for them and for the visitors. What are some of the things that you are actually doing with the program? Can you talk us through that?

Kelly Wessell: Yeah. Yeah. We actually run it for the whole of last week. So, Monday to Sunday. We did two hour sessions. We did tea, coffee, and biscuits. Always gets people to come along to this type of stuff. That was the thing we offered.

Kelly Molson: Well, get me. Definitely.

Kelly Wessell: We then refreshed everyone on our emergency procedures, which is something that we need to do anyway. It's super important, but I think people just assume they're doing the right thing sometimes because they've been there for so long. So, we did emergency procedures. We then went through what was coming up for 2022. Our whole entire program is planned by our programs team. They're absolutely fantastic, they bring in some amazing stuff so we could really get people excited about what was coming up for Easter,Summer, Christmas, the Jubilee.

Kelly Wessell: Then had a bite size session on customer service. We're just about to embark on a really big customer service journey. Our operational teams are about to start mystery shopping and put together a program. So, this was a really good opportunity to put customer service on everyone's radar and that we all have the responsibility for it with our internal customers, each other, as well as our visitors. So, we did a bite size session on that and then we went through some accessibility and disability awareness. We're a nearly 200 year old site, and all our staff thought, "Oh, we're so inaccessible. We're not accessible at all." We are, and it's really amazing to share that with everyone, that actually there's only two places in the whole entire zoo that are difficult to access for someone who has additional needs and special care. But the rest of our zoo is totally accessible. All of the additional engagement pieces that we do are part of that as well.

Kelly Wessell: It was really nice to be able to share a really good story and message with those teams. Then we did an orientation activity. Bit of a scavenger hunt, and that was to get people out of their seats. Not sitting there just listening to us talk to them, but to go out on site and see some of those things. For example, we have a changing places toilet, which is phenomenal to have and means that individuals with extra needs may have only visited us for a couple of hours because they need to get home and use facilities. We've now ensured that those individuals can have a full day out with us and be dignified and have a space to go if they need it. So, we showed everyone that. We took them to key areas around zoo, and we just made it fun.

Kelly Wessell: Talked to people about us having a giraffe house that was, is the only building now on site that is [inaudible 00:14:42] purpose it was built for, and that the people who built it had never seen a giraffe.

Kelly Molson: Really?

Kelly Wessell: Yes. All these quirky facts, all the historical facts we should be using to our advantage. If you can give visitors little nuggets of information like that, they go away saying, “I never knew that”. I've had, they've told me something secret about the zoo and in turn, hopefully that then retains them, turns them into a member or gets them to visit or share their experience.

Kelly Wessell: So, we just tried to make it as fun as possible but giving that really key and core information to everyone. In total, Monday to Sunday, we had 250 members of staff attend, which is a really good turn out for the first time running something like this. All the anecdotal feedback that we've had at the moment has been super positive. We've already had emails saying, "I need to get this team on, or these people couldn't attend. Are you going to run anymore?" So, it is really positive and I have to thank my deputy, Karl, for organising the presentation section and the orientation because actually he did a fabulous job getting all that information together from key teams and was a real big player in delivering. So, yeah. It was a really, really great week.

Kelly Molson: Oh, what fantastic feedback that you've had. So, that's really positive, isn't it? Think what you said was really interesting about, and we'll go back to the giraffe house that you said that fact about, whoever had designed and built it had never actually seen a giraffe before, which is crazy. Can only imagine what was going through their heads. But you said that little fact is something that you can share with the guests and they'll be really engaged with it because it's like a secret piece of knowledge that they just discovered, but I guess that's the same for your internal team, right? How many of the people on that day didn't know that little fact? It's those little things that you can share with your team to re-excite them about the place that they work, right? They've just found out something new that they didn't know about yet.

Kelly Wessell: Definitely. There's another one where we've got photos of Walt Disney filming our old penguin pool that no one's seen before. So, we're able to share really amazing facts and information, like you said, with our own teams. Going to go away and say, did you know that about the zoo? I think sometimes we see the zoo as being really old, and we are, we can't shy away from that. We are, we have restrictions, we have listed buildings and things like that, but we're really trying to show it in a positive light and share our history because actually that's what's really unique about us.

Kelly Wessell: We were founded in 1826 and we were the first scientific zoo and we shouldn't shy away from it. I think that's what we were really trying to get across to people that we know that we have restrictions and barriers because of being one of the oldest zoos, but actually that's really cool, and share it with people, tell people that we are that because then they ask, well, what else can I find out, or why is that like it is? And we can hopefully explain it. So yeah, it was really nice to share historic stuff in a really positive manner.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Kelly Wessell: And it not be seen as a barrier, but be seen as knowledge.

Kelly Molson: Well, it's a massive benefit, isn't it? I guess that was one of my questions about this process that you're going through. So, you are, you said earlier that you are now behind driving the visitor experience. But, I mean, that drive can't really happen without an engaged internal team, right? So, what are the benefits of doing this for the team?

Kelly Wessell: When you are having a good day, every person that you speak to is having a good day. That's what we are instilling in the teams. If you are excited about coming to work and you are doing something that you're engaged with and you are having fun, people see that and it radiates off of you. In turn, people feel happy and you're giving them a good day.

Kelly Wessell: By giving someone a fact that we've given you in their coffee sessions, you could potentially make their whole entire day by just sharing that nugget of knowledge with people. I think that's one of the things that a lot of the teams sat there and went, actually, I can make a difference. I can just turn someone's day around by just interacting with them or sharing some knowledge. That's from teams who aren't visitor focused or aren't out on the ground. We're asking anyone and everyone to just acknowledge obvious to say hello as you're walking across the zoo, because that can really make a difference. I hope that all those people that we had the sessions with last week, if they take anything away that's what they take away and use the most.

Kelly Molson: That's really nice, isn't it? It's empowering them to make someone's day a little bit more special.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Love it. I guess then the benefits to the visitors are they see how engaged your team are that work there. They get a better experience because people have been really positive to them throughout the day. Does it... Is there any other benefits for the visit, for the visitor's perspective?

Kelly Wessell: Ultimately, them having a good day out. There's lots of opportunities to potentially transform those day visitors into members, which commercially is fantastic. We've got a huge membership base already, but our members are really important to us and we want to keep growing that, as well as... Someone might see one of our volunteers and see that they're having a great time volunteering with us. They might then want to lend us their time and be engaged in that sense, as well as, we've tasked all the teams with just trying to get people to write in about their day. People love to write a TripAdvisor about a bad day, and we are trying to change that narrative and get people to write about having a good day out with us. Bonus if they mention someone's name. Amazing, because we can track it back. But ultimately, we're all responsible for visitor experience wherever we work. So, we want to try and push those positive reviews and give people the best day out with us.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. That's a big statement, isn't it? Ultimately, we are all in control of the visitor experience. So, that's quite a big statement when you put that out there, isn't it? I guess that's a hard thing to instil into someone who works in an office in the middle of the zoo, for example, or isn't a zookeeper, because you could see how the zookeeper would change someone's experience, but they might struggle to engage with it if they just, well I'm so... The job that I do is so detached from the actual day-to-day experience that people are getting here. What other things have you been doing as part of the program that you could share with us?

Kelly Wessell: Talking about the power of hello, I think people don't realise how amazing it is to be able to just say hello to someone and welcome them. Also, it helps you with that awkwardness at times. We've got a part of the zoo as you come in the entrance, there's a board, there's a big map. You've walked in, you don't know where you're going, you're excited. The kids are running around and you try to find the first place that you want to go to. Just turning around to that person, seeing that family and saying hello totally sets the tone for their day out. You're proactive. You're saying, “I can see you. I want to help you.”

Kelly Wessell: That's what we've been working with and that's just the bite size bits of customer service that we've been doing with the teams, is just trying to say to them, we're not asking you to look at Disney and be that Disney member of staff. When you go to Florida and you get treated like royalty. We're literally just asking you to be confident and to just use everyday skills that we all have. So, just acknowledging visitors detecting that they may, I need help and just start with hello.

Kelly Molson: It's such a powerful word, isn't it? As you were describing that scenario, I could feel my shoulders just relax a little bit when you said hello, because you'd be like, oh, yes. There's someone here to help me. Brilliant. You can put yourself in that picture, can't you?

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: You've developed this program with your deputy, Karl, you said earlier. So, you've looked at how you bring all this together. What advice would you give to other attractions that are looking to go through this process? Where is the starting point for all of this and how do you work out what this looks like and how you build it?

Kelly Wessell: We went out to the teams out on site, especially the operational teams, just to see what they felt, they needed clarity on. You get the stuff like emergency procedures, like a fire, animal escape that we have. All that stuff, all the fundamentals that we wanted to include to make sure everyone was confident in them. So, you have your core health and safety stuff, but then we started asking teams about how they felt about customer service. Looking at training records, had teams even had customer training? I don't think we've had any customer services training for a good couple of years in some of our teams, then looking at what our visitors want, what do we want to do with our visitors? That sounds really a weird way to say that, but do we want to convert them into members? Do we want them to essentially be inspired to be our next generation of keepers or horticulture do want to encourage volunteering?

Kelly Wessell: So, we asked those teams that look after those areas about how we could then thread that in, and the beauty of QR codes, we all know how to use them now. We've armed our team with little lanyard packs now with QR codes that if you want to be a member, you just scan that code and it pops up and you'll be able to upgrade there and then standing in front of them, help them to do it, as well as volunteering. Scan code and you'll be able to see all our volunteering opportunities. We are talking the talk and operation OKAPI is helping us to walk the walk now because we are now giving everyone the tools that they need to be able to give business what they're asking for.

Kelly Wessell: So, we compiled feedback from all of last year, which was the most huge Excel document.

Kelly Molson: I bet.

Kelly Wessell: That our marketing team pulled together, and we looked at key trends there as well. That was our baseline and our foundation for being able to develop what information we needed to give to teams. Just looking at those trends, I think... You sometimes read TripAdvisor or Facebook reviews and they don't make you feel great sometimes. I think, I know teams try hard. I know we are busy, but then stepping back from that and looking at what positives we did have, what negatives we did have, drawing a line and saying, this is what we're doing about it.

Kelly Wessell: You don't feel so bad if you read them now because you actually know what we've delivered and what we're asking teams, we know what we're asking them to do. So, we can hopefully be confident that any of that negative feedback, hopefully we can address it, or sadly get those people who are just having a really bad day. We've just said to everyone, people will just have a really bad day and that's fine, as long as you've done what we've asked and you've followed this little nugget of service training, then that's all we can ask you to do. So, yeah. That's where we started and how hopefully we will continue moving this forward.

Kelly Molson: So, the program is in progress now, we're recording this on the, what is it? The 21st of March. When do you... How will you review the process? I guess, what you've just described as to how you've gone through the process to put it together, I guess you'll do that in reverse, right? You'll start to then review what the reviews are like and the feedback that you're getting.

Kelly Wessell: Yep. So, conveniently our biggest time for membership acquisition is April. We've trained everyone and given them all the information about upgrade into membership and all the detail about it in March ahead of what we hope to be a really big busy Easter. We've got three weeks of Easter this year. So, between myself and my deputy and the other senior management team, we will start to review our social media and our TripAdvisor reviews from... We've targeted from the 1st of April for three weeks and we will see whether any of that narrative changes, but also look at membership acquisition. Has that increased? Have the visits to the QR code that we've given the teams, how many visits we had? Has that changed into members or not?

Kelly Wessell: Also, just get live feedback from the team as well on just a roll-in basis. We've just sent out a review, those who have attended to just see what else they might need, or if we were to run again, what would they like? What did we miss out? Because this is a learning curve, it's the first time we've done something like this, so we can always grow and learn from it.

Kelly Molson: It's like you said, it's about engaging with the feedback and seeing what you can improve on or add for the next one. I guess, same question, we focused on the visitors there and what their experiences is in there and how that's improved, but how do you monitor it on the flip side? So, you've got a huge team that's coming back and reengaging with the zoo. How do you assess whether the program has worked from them in terms of their engagement levels?

Kelly Wessell: We, as a duty management team, host briefings every morning with the ops team managers, and then also our volunteers and our engagement team. So, the first protocol will be to be there, talk to them about it, keep it alive by talking about what we did last week, what we're hoping to see. Also, just in general, be out on the ground. I think as one of the senior management teams, one of the best things that you can do is just be visible to those teams and be supportive.

Kelly Wessell: We'll hear it ourselves. I very often base myself on the exit of the zoo for last 30 minutes to hour for the end of the day, saying goodbye to people, and you just get anecdotal feedback there. Those individuals who didn't have such a good day normally will tell you, and then you can talk it through with them and hopefully help turn it around there and then. So, it's about going out to those teams who are there face to face and speaking to them and giving them the opportunity to feed it back to us. So, creating ways for them to be able to feed back to us, how they're feeling, and whether they feel confident in delivering what we've asked them to do.

Kelly Molson: Kelly, I've loved this chat. It really shines through how engaged you are with the zoo and what a special place it is to work at. I have no doubt that your enthusiasm and the program that you've put together will pull that through to the whole rest of the team that are coming back now as well.

Kelly Wessell: Oh, I really appreciate that. I really do hope so. I'm super passionate and we want to make the staff's day as good as a visitors day. You're giving us your time and we want to make it fun. When it's fun, the day goes quick. You don't realise that the day's gone when you've had a great day, so let's try and make it a great day every day for everyone.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's perfect. It's a perfect way to end the podcast interview. But I always ask my guests about a book that they love. So, something, it can be personal, it can be work related.

Kelly Wessell: This book, How to Be a Productivity Ninja. So, I went to a webinar that ran with an external company, and this book, I haven't actually opened it because I've got a digital copy, but they posted us all one of these after and it was so inspiring. I think working at a zoo, we get so many emails or you get CC'd into so many emails and being part of a senior management team, you do need to know everything that's going on. But I think at times it's very overwhelming. I think we are an email culture now, especially with having to work from home and COVID.

Kelly Wessell: So, I went to this webinar and got some really amazing tips and tricks on how to manage your time, but also your work and... So, just learning ways of organising your emails to go into certain folders because it's not as important for you to look at now or only checking your emails between eight and nine, and actually having your email app closed then for the rest of the day until a set period of time. There was just some really, really useful tips and tricks that if you are one of those people who is drowning in emails and always trying to get organised, but this has been super helpful. I always go back to it. When you get off the wagon a little bit and you'll go, oh, things are starting to feel a bit unorganised. I'll always go back to it, especially my notes from the webinar, but also just having some bookmarks saved that just, yeah. Ground me again and just set me back up.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, that sounds perfect. That sounds like something that we all need right now. I don't know about you, but I definitely am drowning in emails most days. I do get that anxiety of, oh, God. I've got to go out of the office for a few hours, or I'm going to a conference for the day. What am I going to find when I come back from it? Complete and [crosstalk 00:33:36]

Kelly Wessell: Yeah, and I find being in an operational role, if I am in the zoo, I'm not at my desk. I am out and about doing things, I'm speaking to teams, I'm popping in and out of meetings here and there. I do find that when I work from home, that's my catch up days. That's when that really helped, because I just need that time to be able to catch back up. I think people forget that when you are part of ops teams, emails are great, but I'm not going to read it there and then. I'm not going to necessarily do anything about it until I've done my ops stuff. So, I think sometimes also people email us too much. We need to be honest about it and say... “Drop me a line and I'll probably answer the phone quicker than I'll answer the email.”

Kelly Molson: That's really good advice actually. Yeah, pick up the phone. It'll probably get responded to quicker. Yeah.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Something that I always try and tell my team actually, if there's something that needs to be done urgently, you're actually probably better off phoning than you are emailing, but.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Great advice, Kelly, great book as well. Well, if you want to win a copy of Kelly's book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, 'I want Kelly's book', then you will be in with a chance of winning it. Kelly, I've really loved this chat today. I think it's so relevant and so... Just in my head when we chatted, all I was thinking about was people going back to an office and I was like, oh, it's a bit boring, isn't it? Do people want to go back to offices? It's same old, same old. I can't imagine not being excited about going back to a zoo, but then I've never worked in one. I just think it's been really interesting to see, to hear the small things that can make such a big difference to your team and to your visitors. So, thank you for coming on and sharing that. I hope you have hope you have a brilliant summer. Come back and talk to us next year and let us know how it's all gone.

Kelly Wessell: Yeah, definitely.

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

Show references:

https://twitter.com/PeteAustin_

https://www.iwm.org.uk/visits/iwm-london/new-galleries

Yemen: Price of War - the 'unaffordable' vending machine

https://www.iwm.org.uk/history/yemen-price-of-war

Second World War and Holocaust Galleries - It Happened To People Like You On A Day Like Today

Metro: https://metro.co.uk/2021/10/18/haunting-picture-of-londoners-sheltering-during-the-blitz-is-recreated-15443152/

Pete Austin is Assistant Director for Marketing & Communications at Imperial War Museums (IWM). He is responsible for audience, marketing, brand, comms and PR strategy across all five branches of the museum; IWM London, IWM North, Churchill War Rooms, HMS Belfast and IWM Duxford. 

Before IWM, Pete worked in Higher Education; running External Relations for UAL (University of the Arts London) and Goldsmiths, University of London where he helped to launch the Goldsmiths Prize for literature. He trained as a news journalist and was a Deputy Editor of a regional newspaper before his move into comms and PR.

Transcriptions:

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

In today's episode, I speak with Pete Austin, Assistant Director of Marketing and Communication at Imperial War Museums.

We discuss the emotive marketing campaign developed for the opening of the new Second World War and Holocaust Galleries, the ‘innovation marketing’ strategy IWM has adopted, and what innovation actually means. 

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

Kelly Molson: Pete, it is a pleasure to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me.

Pete Austin: No worries. Happy to be here.

Kelly Molson: Maybe you won't be after the icebreakers. Although I thought I have been quite kind. Right. I want to know, what was the last song that you played on your Spotify account or other music streaming account?

Pete Austin: That would be a song by Tom Odell called Heal, which makes me sound quite indie alternative, but it's actually because I just finished watching Giri/Haji, I don't know if you pronounce it like that, but there was a show a couple of years ago, Japanese show in London and Tokyo, it's on the BBC, but there was this song that kept popping up in it, so I had to find out what it was, it was Tom Odell, Heal. So that's the last song I listened to.

Kelly Molson: Is that not your normal kind of music taste then?

Pete Austin: It's not far off. I quite like the indie music, but I also like a lot of different music. So it depends on your mood, and I know that's a bit of a cop out, but genuinely anything. You could have asked me a few days ago, it could have been Bon Jovi while I was cleaning the bathroom.

Kelly Molson: Because that is what you listen to when you clean the bathroom.

Pete Austin: Exactly. Yeah. So you asked me on a day where I could appear cool, although now I've undone all that by mentioning Bon Jovi and the bathroom.

Kelly Molson: I think that's fine. I used to have a running playlist, back in the day when I used to run, that doesn't happen anymore. And I had Eye of the Tiger on there because it was my eight mile track and that was like I really need to get through this eight mile, I need some motivation. Maybe Bon Jovi would have done that for me as well.

Pete Austin: Maybe. Depends on the song, depends on the song.

Kelly Molson: All right. If you could have an extra hour of free time every single day, what would you use that free time for?

Pete Austin: I'd like to say something like playing guitar or writing or doing something I feel like I should be doing, but probably would just end up just sitting and having a coffee. I love that time in the morning when you can just chill out and have a chat before the day starts. So I'd like a bit more of that time before I get into it probably. But yeah.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's nice, isn't it? A coffee and a magazine, or a coffee and a book just an hour of complete indulgence in something that you don't have to be productive for, you just enjoy.

Pete Austin: Yeah. 100%. And I think I'm one of those people quite hard on myself about how I use my time as well. So even that question kind of brings me out in kind of sweats as well. It's like what would I do with that time? How would I make sure it's as productive as possible.

Kelly Molson: You don't always have to be hustling, Pete, every day.

Pete Austin: I know. I know.

Kelly Molson: All right, what is the worst advice you've ever been given?

Pete Austin: The worst advice I've ever been given. I've been given probably some awful advice. I think a bit of a cop out but I kind of went through school and sit and didn't really have any advice on what to do next. I'm probably of an age when a kind of careers advisor was probably quite a new thing, and I definitely didn't have any of that. So I suppose it's not the worst advice, but I got a lot of people telling me don't worry about this, don't worry about that, don't worry about university, do worry about university, it was all very mixed. I know everyone kind of carves their own path, but when I look back now and especially with friends and children of friends, they're just kind of getting to that age, I'm like just help them through it, help them decide what they want to do. So it's not necessarily worst advice, but definitely kind of absence of advice-

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absence of advice is probably worse than bad advice, right?

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Not having a clue what to do. 

Pete Austin: I've had some awful advice just generally in life about go to this pub, don't go to that pub. You go into that pub you're like why did I listen to this person? So it's often when you take that advice you realise through the lens of which it's given, so you're standing in the world's stodgiest pub going oh this is why that person told me to go here, because they would fit in here.

Kelly Molson: We will put the name of this pub in the show notes after for everyone.

Pete Austin: Probably not just one.

Kelly Molson: All right, Pete, what is your unpopular opinion? What have you got lined up for us?

Pete Austin: My unpopular opinion, it came to me quite quickly and then I thought I can't really say it. My unpopular opinion, and I'm not sure if I'm going to get disowned by the entire nation, but is that Sunday roasts are a bit of a scam.

Kelly Molson: What on earth? Honestly, this is the second time this has happened.

Pete Austin: Is it?

Kelly Molson: I cannot believe this.

Pete Austin: Well firstly I think, to defend my position, I am coming at it mainly from the point of view when you go through a pub and have a Sunday roast. So, especially in London where I live, it's nearly 18 quid for two slices of meat and some vegetables. So that's a joke in itself, although that could be extended to a lot of pub and restaurant food. I just don't understand it. Yeah, my wife she's Greek Australian, she came over from Australia, she's got Greek parents. She is baffled by the notion that the roast as a concept doesn't make any sense, and when you really start to think about some of the stuff we do as a country, you start to question it. So yeah, that's my unpopular opinion. I've even tried defiantly to ignore it, I've cooked roasts, I've made roasts, big beef joints, big lamb joints and stuff, but I don't understand it. It's a lot of effort and I'm not sure what you get out of it at the end of the day.

Kelly Molson: Oh god. I'm not even going to try and start thinking about it because everyone's going to ruin it, it genuinely is one of my favourite things is to go for, I think it's because my partner is a wedding photographer, so he works a lot on Fridays and Saturdays and so sometimes we'll go out and do something and we love going to the pub, a few beers, and a Sunday roast.

Pete Austin: The pub bit.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. The pub bit is okay, but cut out the roast for you. I'm not going to think about this too deeply because it will ruin my favourite day of the week, Pete.

Pete Austin: Okay. I'm sorry.

Kelly Molson: You should speak to Neil Dolan from Madame Tussauds, because he had exactly the same unpopular opinion, and he'd rather have a pizza.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So there's plenty weird out there, that's all I'm saying.

Pete Austin: But just for the record and for clarity, one of my favourite things is a British pub. One of my favourite things is the pub. Everything about it. The older, the better. The cozier, the dingier, the better. So it's just the roast bit.

Kelly Molson: Okay. So we can go for a beer.

Pete Austin: Yeah. You can have your roast.

Kelly Molson: We go for the roast, it's fine. We're all friends here, Pete. Okay. So we want to talk about marketing today and innovation in marketing.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I want to set the scene about why we're talking today. So back in October 2021, to mark the 80th anniversary of the outbreak of the Second World War, Imperial War Museums opened new Second World War and Holocaust galleries. Now, the marketing campaign for this launch was incredibly emotive and I think it's fair to say that neither of us expected to be speaking about this topic whilst there is an unjust war raging in Ukraine. So it's very important and we acknowledge that. But last week I actually saw a connection share one of these images on LinkedIn, and it felt scarily relatable for what those people are actually going through right at this moment in time. Can you just kind of talk us through those images to set the scene of what we're talking about, Pete?

Pete Austin: Yeah, of course. So for anyone who hasn't seen it, and we can obviously share it as well, but we kind of took the decision, as you say, we were opening the Second World War and Holocaust Galleries Imperial War Museum London, and massive investment, massive moment for the museum, and the idea was that we wanted to kind of break away from the traditional museum marketing, which as we all know is kind of spotlight object and put the poster up. It's challenging with our subject matter to do that anyway, because lots of our objects even themselves require so much context. So we're always in a bit of a tricky boat on that front anyway. But we also wanted to innovate and we'll come onto that in a minute I'm sure, but the images that we used to kind of juxtapose against each other was a 1941 image of Londoners sheltering in a tube station during the Blitz, and we recreated that photograph as closely as we possibly could and bring it up to date.

Pete Austin: So for example, people were sat looking at their phones, had their laptop cases, sat there with puddies on, whatever they would have probably had to do if they had to go and shelter if there were an air raid siren. So we recreated that image, and we didn't recreate it with any kind of drama added, or any kind of artistic license, it was really just to try and bring up to date and make relevant what normal people went through during that time, and this idea of it happened to people like you on a day like today was the tag, and that's very much what we tried to do with the image. It was shot by an amazing conflict photographer called Hazel Thompson. So we actually even got that kind of level of authenticity about how it would have been approached, and it formed the hero image for the campaign.

Pete Austin: We did some other assets as well, but that's the main image, and that was really what we were trying to do was try and put people into feeling how it would have felt then, and that's a really challenging thing to do with that subject, for obvious reasons.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I mean it's incredibly emotive, as I said, to look at this picture, because you can see yourself in it. You can see somebody that looks like you, you can see that they would have been on their way to work, or on their way home at that point in time. They've got the things that you would be carrying, they're wearing the clothes that you would be wearing, and it is quite frightening to be able to visualise yourself in that situation. Is that what you were trying to achieve with it? To kind of make people feel like this literally could happen to them like this?

Pete Austin: Yeah. Well I think it's a hard one. With ours, we're never trying to make people feel how it feels to be in any situation across our entire remit, and our remit is First World War to contemporary conflict, right up to the present day, because one, that's impossible to do. And two, it would be incredibly distasteful to try and replicate that kind of stuff. So we've got a very fine line to tread editorially anyway. What we're always trying to do, however, is to make things relevant and create resonance with the audience that just makes them think about what it would have been like then, and the easiest way to do that is to try and put it into people's worlds.

Pete Austin: So it is a very challenging, we went through an extensive editorial processes on this because there are some images that you simply couldn't recreate or bring up to date or put into the 21st century, put into 2022 or 2021 without it just being a leap too far. This idea of the mundane, the mundanity of war in a way, like how it effects your every day, we've all seen those striking images from the front line and they're incredibly harrowing, incredibly emotional, but what we're trying to do with this is try and say this effected everyone. It was a global war, it would have effected you, it would have effected you differently to someone in a different country or down the road even, but it would have effected you, and it's trying to get that relevance across because the Second World War is falling out of living memory now, the Holocaust and the Second World War, it's becoming the only way to tell those stories will soon be through museums and through kind of archives and through objects. So we just needed to make it resonate really.

Kelly Molson: Which it certainly did. I mean the launch campaign was an incredible success in terms of the press coverage and obviously what it did for the launch of the galleries itself. Was this part of, and we touched on innovation earlier, was this the start of your kind of innovation marketing strategy? Because that's something that you've tried to do a lot more of in your organisation.

Pete Austin: It wasn't actually the start. So the strategy was signed off in 2018, I think. The first major campaign we did which had innovation at the heart of the strategy, and by the way, innovation is quite literally written into the strategy, so that's a brilliant place to start and a great thing to have for that kind of endorsement and mandate. The first campaign we did was a campaign for an exhibition at IWM North, which is in Stretford, about Yemen. And that was a different one as well and it comes back to that idea of how we can really bring it into people's lives, how you can make it resonate, how you can talk in the language of people that are going to visit the exhibition. And for that we did a public marketing stunt where we put a vending machine in the middle of Manchester Piccadilly Station, and the vending machine had all of the objects you expect to find in a vending machine, but they were all priced at the kind of multiplication of the inflation of the price of food that was currently in supermarkets in Yemen.

Pete Austin: So one of the big issues with the Yemen conflict, especially at that time, was that it was in economic famine. So there was food on the shelves, but no one could afford it. So we were trying to bring that idea to people who were just getting off of their train in the morning coming to Manchester, Piccadilly, rushing up to our vending machine trying to buy a bottle of water for like 15 pounds. And then talking to them and going, obviously there's an exhibition where you can find out lots more information about this, but not just that, this kind of public service remit explaining what was behind it.

Pete Austin: So we did that, in fact our campaign for that, outdoor campaign, the assets and the creative was all around a kind of fake supermarket price reduction campaign. So we had a box of eggs that were reduced from 32 pounds to 28 pounds, or something like that, and people would look at it and go what the hell is that? So we started with that, and we've done a couple of others, but then yeah, it was a big move to go from a relatively small exhibition at IWM North to one of the opening of our new permanent galleries at IWM London, but we just believe in this approach and we've seen the results of this approach. So for the Second World War and Holocaust galleries, we were like, this was just over the first two weeks, we were like 19% up on what we were supposed to get. So we got out there and we got into people's psyches I think.

Kelly Molson: Brilliant. So it had a really positive effect, you achieved the remit that you set for it.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: How do you, this is probably a massive question, but you don't wake up one morning and go right, we're going to be more innovative, and everyone's going to give us the budget to do this as well. How do you embed that culture of innovation into your strategies and into the marketing teams?

Pete Austin: Yeah. It's a process for sure. I think the first thing to say is that when I joined IWM, IWM was doing brilliantly. This wasn't innovation through need of just changing everything or overhauling everything. I came in 2017, towards the end of the First World War centenary. Obviously massive program of activity. But one of the things and one of the main drivers for the innovation strategy is we have a really strong core audience, but we want to develop new audiences. And to develop new audiences, you have to look at how you're doing things and potentially do things slightly differently.

Pete Austin: So the first step was taking on board that which kind of, I'm the senior [inaudible 00:16:24] kind of audience growth strategy, so having a look at those audiences in which we want to grow, who they are and how to reach them, because obviously innovation is great, but innovation isn't just about having loads of fun and trying things. You have to have a strategy behind it as well. So step one was really looking at that audience growth strategy and saying these are the audiences we want to reach and we've got to innovate. And it's interesting you mention budgets there because part of the innovation is really to try and do it within the existing budget, because actually the opposite of innovation would just be investment. Because we could just say look, I'm a marketeer. You want to reach these audiences? Give me a massive pile of cash and I'm sure I can reach them. But that wasn't an option, obviously. So it was a case of how we innovate within what we currently do, and that was a massive, massive driver.

Pete Austin: So to use the Second World War and Holocaust Galleries example, we got double our spend almost by creating something that was a moment that also got media coverage, that also became something within itself that people were talking about. So there's the marketing spend, the marketing application, so the marketing mix, out of home, digital, plus the press we got. So it's really bringing that markings together. But step one was going to the exec board and to the trustees and saying I want to put innovation at the heart of our marketing strategy and here's why, evidence with data that says that innovating in these ways would be reaching new audiences, and that's definitely something that started to happen.

Kelly Molson: Where did the data come from? Was that just researching the target audience that you were trying to get more of?

Pete Austin: Yeah. We do a lot of data research, market based data. So we had our market based data. We had some existing segments. We had to rationalise them, we had to really examine whether they were the right ones we were going after. One of the jobs I did when I came in was to really look at how well we penetrated those segments because to be honest, some of them we were over investing in and getting under return. So it was really about rationalising those, and getting the organisation on board with them as well.

Pete Austin: So part of the issue I had with the first round of the audience strategy was there was a lot of different audiences, and now we've got a core audience and it's across all five branches of the Imperial War Museums, and we've also got these development audiences as well which we know a lot about, we know how they behave. We've also gone through enough cycles now to plug that back into how they behave when they come to the museum. They're no longer just a hypothetical audience on a pen potrait, they're out there in the world, they're coming through the museum now, and we can say more about what our version of those development audiences look like and what they want to see in marketing, what they want to resonate with, what they most engage with, when they come into the branch, what do they most want to go and see? So building up this picture is kind of alongside this innovation strategy, so we can then plug it into that and amplify the results.

Kelly Molson: So how do you empower your team to be more innovative? Where do the ideas come from? How do you kind of create that? You mentioned the campaign that you had with the vending machine, I think that's incredibly innovative and I can see the power of that. I can see myself walking up to it and being really interested in it. So where did the ideas come from? Is it like a team collaborative effort?

Pete Austin: 100%, yeah, it's definitely within the team. So marketing communications and the digital team as well, and actually an idea can come from anywhere in the organisation. It genuinely is democratic when it comes to where the ideas come from, and often it's a collaborative process, so the vending machine idea started life within the team, but it didn't start life as a vending machine. It started life with that was the idea, what if there was a whole shop that you went into where you couldn't afford anything. Which wasn't a massive kind of cerebral leap, because that is what we were seeing in Yemen. But then we were like we can't do that. The branch of test is quite expensive marketing campaign.

Pete Austin: So then the vending machine idea came through. Then the really amazing people in the team, the marketing team, who had to deal with the very interesting ins and outs of, I don't know, there was even stuff around obviously there was really basic stuff like where do we buy the food from? What do we put in it? What should the actual calculations be? Because obviously the inflation is a figure, but it's not necessarily a universally defined figure, so we had to kind of make it roughly accurate. What do you do with the food afterwards? There was so much stuff we had to think about. But the ideas come from anywhere, and they come from largely within the marketing communications digital team, but they really just get brought to life collaboration across those teams, but I'm so lucky to have such amazing teams that do that.

Kelly Molson: I mean you obviously, what you've been doing, the strategy has really resonated with the audience that you're trying, because you've seen the campaigns have been successful and you've had people come through the door that you're wanting to attract. But it feels like it might have really invigorated the team internally as well. There's much more opportunity to be creative within the budgets that you have. Much more opportunity to collaborate. It feels quite exciting.

Pete Austin: Yeah, hopefully. You'd have to ask them. Yeah, no, it is exciting. I think there is a bit of a misnomer about what innovation really means as well, so we have to go through a process of kind of turn definition and myth busting. Now, the vending machine is almost, for the sake of trying to explain to the team what innovation is, it's almost a bad example, because it's totally new, it's totally something the museum hasn't done before, it's a stunt. And I think sometimes innovation is seen as a marketing stunt. Well that's not necessarily innovation, putting a wrap all around Oxford Circus Chew for Stranger Things, the next series. That's not innovation, that's called having millions of pounds.

Pete Austin: So I wanted to get into the team that innovation doesn't have to mean big public stunts. And a really good example is, one member of the team innovated something that was so simple, but it was such a great example, I keep using it about obviously we've got vending machines, we put a spitfire in London Bridge station for D-Day 75. This is all innovative, but it's also big and it's stunty and I don't think that's necessarily what it's all about. One of the members of the team, we're seeing that we actually put a lot of marketing spend, or maybe not a lot, but more than we'd want to in kind of shoots and modeling shoots for our campaigns, and we weren't always getting, the classic point is you put people in your marketing that you want to come into your museum, so we're not always getting what we wanted and it was always a challenge. And she was like look, we've got loads of volunteers who are people that are massively engaged at the museum, they do look like our audience, and a lot of them look like who we want our audience to look like. There's a pull there, they're engaged, they want to be involved.

Pete Austin: So she started this pool of models within our volunteer group to be in our marketing. And that's just a great example of how that is exactly what we're innovating to try and innovate to do which is to diversify our audience by making people see themselves in our marketing, not a model family, no matter what they look like, they don't look like necessarily like people like themselves, and it also cuts down on marketing spend, which means we can invest it into reaching wider audiences.

Pete Austin: So that's such a tiny example, but I was really pleased when that came through because I was trying to get across to the group that innovation wasn't about just going wild, having fun, and seeing how it works, and if it doesn't, don't worry about it. I was like no, we still have to be incredibly strategic about this, and obviously responsible about it as well. I didn't get given any extra money to enact this innovation marketing, so that was almost well if you want to do it, you've got to innovate on that front as well.

Kelly Molson: That is such a perfect example, because I think when the word innovation is thrown into the mix, you do automatically go oh it has to be something new. It has to be something that we've never done before, and it does have to be big, a real statement piece. And I think that's what scares potentially some museums, or scares organisations because that sounds expensive, and that sounds frightening, and nobody likes big change, right?

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: But something like that, that's an amazing way of being able to innovate, and it's saved you money, and it doesn't have to be big and shiny and flashy, but it's absolutely perfect.

Pete Austin: Yeah. Well I love that example, because don't get me wrong, we've done some amazing big things as well, and the Second World War and Holocaust Galleries poster is really the biggest thing we've done because it was the biggest risk. Essentially our senior leadership and trustees were signing off a non traditional museum marketing campaign for the biggest thing the museum has done since the First World War Galleries at IWM London. So that was big and that was innovative, and its seen great results, and as we've mentioned earlier on through absolutely no foresight or nothing we saw coming, it's perhaps even more resonant and relevant right now, and that's great. But those smaller things about innovating, and that was the big process I was talking about going through with the team, you can innovate processes, you can innovate anything that makes the marketing more efficient, more spend available, we can put it into reaching those new audiences. It doesn't have to be on that front line of the creative for the campaign, it can be way further back. We've innovated some really small internal processes as well about how we do things, how we collaborate. So it hasn't all been this all singing, all dancing, nominated for awards stuff. It's been this kind of behind the scenes stuff too.

Kelly Molson: This is what I was going to ask you, because it's difficult to know how you gauge the innovation strategy is successful, but I guess there's two strands to it, isn't it? And you talked a little bit about the campaigns that you've done, they've achieved what you've set out to in terms of getting the numbers through the doors. But I guess there's the other strand of internal processes like you say have been improved. So how do you know if what you've done has really hit the mark, how do you look at what the KPIs are and whether it's achieved that?

Pete Austin: Yeah. Well we set KPIs and we set targets like we do for all of our campaigns, and because the innovation element of the marketing is so intertwined with the whole campaign, in essence, we wouldn't reach KPIs if it wasn't working. But that's kind of how we look back on the campaign and see how it worked. But I think if I just looked back at how long the organisations had these developed and audiences in place and how we hit target for different campaigns, we've definitely seen since we took this new approach, we've hit targets and over achieved. But also interestingly, it's hard to attribute that success directly to just the kind of marketing obviously, because part of that innovation, part of what happens in an organization when you get that senior level sign off for this approach is you then have to start having conversations with the exhibitions team, the design team, the curators.

Pete Austin: It then genuinely kind of becomes cultural. So for example then, you're not sat there just receiving the next exhibition or season and being asked how to market it, because you've had these conversations, you're helping to lead that conversation, you're helping to embed that from the start, and it's nice to hear now when it's referenced as Pete's strategy, or this strategy that we've got to do, how would it fit to this if we were doing this thing? And then the great thing about that is if you're starting from that process, the KPIs are even easier to reach, because you're not pushing uphill anymore, you're kind of it's all happening together.

Pete Austin: But the crucial thing for us as well, and it kind of comes back to that point you said about what other organisations do, or how it all started, is not to throw the baby out with the bath water. I think one of the big things about innovation is people are scared of it because they're like hang on a minute, I don't want to massively effect what's going really well already, and we definitely didn't do that. If you look at IWM's output, we've not stopped doing what we think is really appealing to our core audiences. We still do a lot of that. Its just also happening alongside it and to compliment it, and it's crucial that you can kind of do that sensitively as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So that's really important, isn't it? Because it's not all in one or all in the other. You've got to have this as part of kind of an intertwined strategy I guess with the core audience that you have who are maybe not going to be as kind of engaged with some of the more innovative things that you've done.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: What would you do differently? Is there anything that you've learned while you've been through the process that you think that you would have done in a different way? You can say no if you feel like you've nailed it. No, nothing.

Pete Austin: No. I think I would have, I think it was a really, really collaborative process, but there were definitely areas of the museum I would have engaged earlier in this process, I think. Ideal world, I would have sat down with everyone, one by one, and we would have talked about what this means and their hopes and dreams and fears for what innovation in marketing means, and I think it was sometimes hard for me to have conversations with perhaps curators and people that were working, because often this manifested itself in the marketing for an exhibition. So these people are in this day in, day out, and for something like Yemen as well, not necessarily this is an example, but for something like Yemen, these are curators who are actively trying to bring objects back from a life conflict. To say they're invested and to say they're kind of absolutely in this would be an understatement. Some of the stories they can tell you would be amazing about how we get these objects back from essentially a live conflict.

Pete Austin: So then to say to someone, I'm going to put a vending machine in Manchester Piccadilly Station and the poster for your exhibition that you've probably almost risked your life on is going to be a box of eggs. It's like okay, that's not the time to have that conversation. The time to have that conversation was 12 months earlier and really talk it through. But 12 months earlier, the strategy hadn't been signed off. So I think I would just try to speak to teams who were actively involved in whatever product it would be that we were doing the innovation marketing for as early as possible, and the great thing now is everyone knows this and we're in a process. For example, the Second World War and Holocaust Galleries, we set out our ambitions through that kind of campaign from the very start, pre COVID that was our plan, and then we ended up delivering it in October last year. So that's a great example of how it does work, but the challenge is getting those people on board and helping to understand why you're doing things, and also crucially understand why you're not doing it, not just, like I said, for a laugh, or just because it's more fun. It's like this will genuinely resonate more with the audience we want to visit the exhibition.

Kelly Molson: The crux of it comes down to communication, communication, communication with anything like this.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: There will be other museums, there will be other attractions out there that I think there's something they definitely need to do, because everyone's in a situation now where they have a core audience, but yes, they do need to look at new audiences coming through and how they're going to attract those.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: What advice would you give to other museums at this point who are thinking they would like to be more innovative about the campaigns that they're launching.

Pete Austin: Yeah, I think my advice always would be to start with the audience you're trying to reach, and that's what we did, and that's really where it was all formed from, really looking at the audience growth strategy that we've put in place and go how do we want to reach them, and do we need to innovate to reach them? Or do we just need to keep doing what we're doing, but do it slightly differently. And I know that's technically innovating, but it's not really. Do we just need a slightly different marketing mix is not innovation. I'd root everything in that. We had some audiences that we ended up reaching way more effectively than we thought. We had some that we didn't. That was the kind of landscape I was coming into. So it's really a case of trying to work out and crucially agreeing with the organisation who you should be targeting, and then whether you really need to innovate to do it.

Pete Austin: I think you definitely, definitely need buy in, you need senior buy in. It's not something, not that any strategy is, but something like this is definitely not something you can just do, because if you just do it, and you don't do it with a plan for how you're going to continue to keep doing it, then it's just a flash in the pan and it's the very definition of a stunt rather than a strategy. I was very fortunate in that the senior team and trustees were on board with this idea and this approach.

Pete Austin: And then I suppose, just to come back to that point I made earlier, don't overhaul change things. Don't go too far. Innovation doesn't mean chucking everything out and starting again, it can mean tweaks. It can just mean how are we going to innovate in this one area. It's like a research and design department in a way, just focus on one area at a time if you want to see where the results might come with out effecting the entire organisation. There's no way we'd of started any of this with the Second World War and Holocaust Galleries and maybe even if Yemen didn't reach over visitor target and the campaign didn't get as much press and didn't get as much attention as it got, maybe we wouldn't have carried on with it. It's just we would have always reflected and worked out whether that was the right thing to be doing. We're not carrying on belligerently in the face of the whole world telling us it's not working. This is kind of the process we're going through.

Kelly Molson: Communicate and then actually listen to what your audience is telling you.

Pete Austin: Yeah. Just basics.

Kelly Molson: Good advice, Pete.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: What's coming up next for IWM? What interesting things are happening in the next few months?

Pete Austin: We've got a lot going on. Like all visitor attractions and museums, we're just getting back up and running, really. We're really enjoying that. We've got a big exhibition coming up at IWM London later this year on war gaming, so that should be really interesting. And yeah, trying to get people back on the HMS Belfast, onto the ship on the Thames. Summer campaigns around that, more activities especially for families, getting people used to going out again, visiting London, going to those big attractions. Churchill War Rooms, we're slightly revising the offer at Churchill War Rooms with a view to getting more people back there, hopefully international tourists come back, that's a common theme, a common thread with all your guests and all of the discussions around the sector. And yeah, just really getting things up and running again and getting people back, I suppose.

Pete Austin: I'm interested as well, not to make a big point about it, but for us as well, we're looking at how we do or don't react and reflect and contextualise the current world events. We have a role and a remit and our role and remit is to really kind of deepen understanding of these conflicts and how conflict starts and how it progresses and the impact on peoples lives, and I don't think we could necessarily ignore what's going on at the moment in Ukraine, but as an organisation it's how we react to that, what our role should be, because that's a really interesting life topic at the moment.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. And yeah, there's a level of sensitivity that needs to run through everything that you're doing in terms of that as well.

Pete Austin: Exactly. We're very well placed for that. I always joke that we're the experts on dealing with sensitive topics. We really, really do it every day. You're not the global authority on the Holocaust or one of the world's most respected Second World War and Holocaust galleries without knowing how to tackle a few tangled subjects. So I think it's something we can do, it's just something we've got to look at how we do it and how we execute it. But yeah, it's really interesting time.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Well I have one more question for you, but I also have a request, Pete, while I have you here. So it's for Duxford, which is my local Imperial War Museum.

Pete Austin: Okay.

Kelly Molson: I'm like 15 minutes away from Duxford.

Pete Austin: Right.

Kelly Molson: I mean, Duxford is fantastic, it's an awesome place to go and have a look around. I'm not necessarily even a plane nut, but wow, it is seriously impressive. You do need to be, and we've seen the air shows multiple times. I had a brilliant evening out at Duxford a few years ago where they had an open air cinema, and they showed my favourite film, Pete. They put Top Gun on. We watched Top Gun underneath the planes, we had to walk into the hangers to go to the toilet, it was absolutely phenomenal. Can you make that happen again? Can you make that happen? Put in a word?

Pete Austin: I'm sure we can, yeah, I'll put in a word. Those kinds of things are amazing, aren't they? I'm sure you and anyone that's ever worked in visitor attraction and organisation knows how hard those things are to put on as well, because they often sit so isolated from your kind of rolling program and all that stuff. You mention air shows, you get into a rhythm of running two, three air shows a year, and suddenly they're really well oiled machines, and those stand alone events are sometimes a challenge, but they're also a massive example of how we can get people in who, like you say, don't just want to come necessarily to see the planes. I'll put in a word.

Kelly Molson: Appreciate that.

Pete Austin: And if we can't do it, we'll just get you to drive in, we'll put a TV screen up, you can just park your car in front of a 40 inch screen, we'll put Top Gun on.

Kelly Molson: Great. I'm down for that as well. All right Pete, what about a book that you love? We always end the podcast asking our guests if they've got a book that they love that they would like to share with us?

Pete Austin: Yeah. Again, I had a long think about this. So I used to be a journalist, so I feel like it kind of reflects on you when you're asked about your favourite book. I don't ever really recommend or have any strong recommendations for kind of marketing books. I'm not one of those people. I've always been a learner through people teaching and listening and engaging, so I'm not a big book person up front. I think a book that is definitely, I've read at every stage of my life is Animal Farm, by George Orwell, and it's meant something at different stages. I always come back to it, there's a few books I always come back to, and maybe I'm not going to re read it, but I've genuinely re read that book so many times, and I just think maybe that's what maybe early days when I was reading it, Orwell's kind of approach and commentary was something that made me even want to become a journalist.

Pete Austin: So that's the main book, but then I'm also, my wife made me say that's a great answer, but if anyone ever sees you now going to see you reading a trashy poolside thriller and they're going to ask why you're not reading something from George Orwell's cannon, and that is true. I don't know about you, but when I go away, I don't want to have to think-

Kelly Molson: No. You want escapism.

Pete Austin: Yeah. So go and buy and book, or usually go to the charity shop, grab the trashiest thriller book you can get. So yeah, if anyone ever sees me at the Holiday Expo, don't expect me to be reading 1984 or anything. It's going to be-

Kelly Molson: Some James Patterson on his back, that's what he's got.

Pete Austin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I love it. Brilliant. All right. Well thank you, Pete. That's a great recommendation of a book. So as ever, if you want to win a copy of Pete's book, if you go to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Pete's book, then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Pete, it's been really lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Just for anyone listening, what we'll do is Pete will very kindly share me links to all of the things that we've talked about today, so you can go and have a look at the campaigns that we've discussed from the show notes. Please go and visit the Imperial War Museums if you haven't been. If you haven't been and you're listening, you're mad. Go. They are absolutely incredible places. Go and learn and understand about the things that have happened to people from the past. Thanks, Pete.

Pete Austin: No worries. 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, 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.madametussauds.com/london/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-dolan

Since recording this podcast Neil has since joined Little Lion Entertainment as their Operations Director.

Neil Dolan's Bio: My career in Visitor Attractions started at The Edinburgh Dungeon while I was at University in Edinburgh studying Chemistry when I quickly realised I was more passionate about working in attractions than working in a lab.

After graduating I stayed with Merlin Entertainments and moved to the London Eye (EDF Energy London Eye at the time) and held a couple of different operational roles before moving into the Head of Operations role at the start of 2018. Working in the Attractions and Hospitality industry had never been a specific plan but our industry is so unique in terms of the amazing people that work within it that it has become my passion area and I moved across to Madame Tussauds London in December 2020 to further grow that experience.

I believe that an attraction is only as good as the Guest Experience it delivers and I truly believe that a guest first mentality is what turns a good attraction in a world class attraction. Guests and People have been the focus at Madame Tussauds London in 2021 and the work we have done together as a team over the last 12 months is something I’m truly proud of.

Outside of work, I’m kept busy by my 3 year old son Brodie and when I can I try and keep up with my ice hockey and a bit of exercise, albeit the exercise consistency probably needs working on in 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.

In today's episode, I speak with Neil Dolan, Head of Operations at Madame Tussauds, London.

We'll talk about Neil's experience of switching the attraction from a predominantly international market to a domestic, how they've heavily invested in the experience and what cocktail making has to do with all of this. 

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

Kelly Molson: Neil, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. It's really lovely to see you.

Neil Dolan: No, it's great. Thanks for inviting me on. I was really looking forward to it.

Kelly Molson: Good. Well, you might not say that after we've done the icebreaker questions. Okay. Let's go straight in. If you could be anywhere in the world right now, where would you choose to be?

Neil Dolan: I always have to do this comparison in my head that, because I think when I was probably 10, I got to go to Disneyland for the first time and absolutely loved it and became that sort of kid that every year, just almost like "We're going back to Disneyland. We're going back to Disneyland." And it was almost that amazing moment I remember when I was a child. And then me and my partner went again before we had a child and it was still just as amazing. So whenever me and my partner are talking about holiday, we use almost Disney as the par. It doesn't matter if we're going to the most luxurious resort, we always talk about the first time we get to take him to Disneyland.

Kelly Molson: Oh, my god.

Neil Dolan: Because that magic is just awesome.

Kelly Molson: How old are your... You have children?

Neil Dolan: Yes, I've got a son who'll be three in April.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Right.

Neil Dolan: And so I actually spent a good three hours of my night, last night, sleeping on his bedroom floor.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. I'm so with you on Disney. I think it is just the most magical place. Your child is three now. What age are you like waiting until they're ready to go?

Neil Dolan: And this is where we were a little bit selfish, because we were almost like, "How tall will he be when he's six? How tall will he be when he's seven? And does that mean we can go on these rights? I think it does." So we want to have that perfect... Because, when you're there, you see all those amazing play areas that they can play when they're really, really young. But we almost want that magical age where they really associate everything with films. And then when you almost walk through the gates at Magic Kingdom for the first time, they get what that is. And that amazing look on the face is what we're aiming. So we think probably six or seven.

Kelly Molson: We have just had this same debate, but I've actually had it with my parents because they're massive Disney fans as well.

Neil Dolan: Right.

Kelly Molson: And they turned 70 this year. And so Edie is nearly eight months old now. And they're like, "Well, so we are thinking five because then we'll be 75 and we won't be too old that we won't enjoy it still." And I'm like, "Well, okay. I get it. But also that's a bit selfish."

Neil Dolan: We've got the same train of thought. Everybody absolutely got themselves at the forefront because it doesn't matter how old you, it's just such a great place.

Kelly Molson: No. And I'm five 5'2 and Lee's only about 5'8. So there's no hope that she's going to be a tall grower at so we're "Yeah, I think six is all right." Thank you for sharing that. That's so weird that we've all have the same chat about that. Okay. What did you want to be when you grew up?

Neil Dolan: So I actually read through my primary school yearbook about three, four months ago. And I read, we got asked the same question and I've played ice hockey for about 25 years and I was really specific. There's a team called Colorado Avalanche. And I wrote in my yearbook because I wanted to be the left defender for the Colorado Avalanche.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Neil Dolan: And I was like, "That's a really specific position and team and everything." So yeah, for years I wanted to be an professional ice hockey player.

Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness. But you still play? So you got to a certain point.

Neil Dolan: Yeah. I still play. I played when I was at university, played for the Edinburgh team for a year and it was significantly detrimental to my studies. And so I continued to play for fun when I was at university. And then, when I moved to London, there's not as many ice rinks and they're more difficult to get to. And I played a little bit in Streatham, when I lived in old street and I had to get two night buses back from Streatham at half past midnight. And I thought, "Maybe I'll wait until I move somewhere else."

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: So I played with a team in slack which is great. It's just a good bunch of guys having a laugh.

Kelly Molson: It is absolutely brilliant to go and watch. Yeah. And quite brutal as well. Quite like that.

Neil Dolan: Yeah, they do it and everyone always says, "Were you one of the people that was absolutely brutal?" And in my head I want to say, "Yes." Definitely not, as much as I would love to hold that up, I was not that guy.

Kelly Molson: Okay. It's good that you're still doing it, though. I love how niched that was. Okay. What show on Netflix did you binge watch embarrassingly fast?

Neil Dolan: Embarrassingly fast? It's probably not so much embarrassing, but the one which is almost like one of those golden nuggets was, there was a show called Lilyhammer that was about six years ago, which was a dark comedy drama about a mob boss who becomes an informant in America then goes to live in Lilyhammer because they hosted the Winter Olympics in the nineties. And it's the actor from The Sopranos, whose name always escapes me. But it's one of those embarrassing things that I can never do it justice. So, whenever I try and explain it to someone, they think, "That sounds terrible. It's an awful show."

Kelly Molson: It's not something that I've watched. I haven't heard of it.

Neil Dolan: It's so funny. If you're into that kind of dark sarcastic humor, it's honestly brilliant.

Kelly Molson: All right.

Neil Dolan: Whether or not it's still on Netflix or not.

Kelly Molson: I'm going to add that to my list. That wasn't as embarrassing as I was expecting it to be. Mine's Cobra Kai, which is pretty embarrassing. I got a little bit obsessed with Cobra Kai. Okay. What is your unpopular opinion?

Neil Dolan: So, this is probably the most difficult one to think of actually, but I think it's probably that I think that the Sunday roast is overrated.

Kelly Molson: What?

Neil Dolan: I think I would prefer to have an expertly made pizza than a Sunday roast because I think they look better. I think the product looks amazing on Instagram and there are very good Sunday roasts, but the effort to make a Sunday roast, I don't know. I just don't think the hype is.

Kelly Molson: I can't agree with you on this. And I love pizza, don't get me wrong. But a Sunday roast is my favourite meal of the whole week. It is a lot of effort, I know what you're saying, to cook it all and it's gone really quickly, isn't it?

Neil Dolan: Yeah, it is.

Kelly Molson: But, no. Okay. All right, listeners, Tweet me. Let me know what you feel about that. I reckon I might get some stick about that, Neil. Okay. Neil, you began as Head of Operations at Madame Tussauds, in December 2020, which must have been quite an interesting time to start a new job, I can imagine.

Neil Dolan: Yeah, it was my first day at Madame Tussauds, it was actually the first day of lockdown three. I basically didn't get to meet anyone. In fact, the first conversations I had with my new team was almost telling them about furlough coming back. So it began this really weird phase where I was in the role for quite a long time, but I just hadn't really met anyone. There was only a very small number of people who were still working. And, fortunately, we had weekly Zoom calls where I got to meet some of the team and get to know people to an extent. But it was nowhere near as good as it is when you actually get to go in and meet people for the first time and get to understand who people are, what makes them tick and actually get to know people.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: So it was a really, really, really bizarre time. But, in many ways, it was quite exciting because I almost got to look at everything. While you're closed, you ought to look at almost the bare basics, which you don't always get to do when you're caught up in, I guess, the business as usual, the normal trading.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. That's quite interesting, isn't it? Because you're looking at it from the perspective, "Okay, well, no one can come anyway." So actually this is almost like a blank canvas, so to speak, to see where the pitfalls are or the challenges are, or what's working well and what isn't working well.

Neil Dolan: Yeah. And I'm still so fortunate here because the team I've got are incredible. And what I knew in the very... I mean, we're talking days where I got to speak to some people. I guess the passion that the people who work at Madame Tussauds have for Madame Tussauds I've never seen anything like it. They're so in love with this place. It's very difficult to get people to be passionate about something that they may not be. But that passion was already there. So when I started, I was like, "Well, I don't have to worry about that because they're already so far gone. They just absolutely love what they're doing.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So there wasn't a lot of, you didn't have to be really motivational for them. You didn't have to-

Neil Dolan: Absolutely not. No, because they have that. We've got some people who are in my team that have been here for 30 years and they just love their job. And, when you get to sit down and speak to them about what is it that they love, they just like, "Well, I just love this place. I always worked here." That's so nice to hear. You don't always get that in new establishments or I guess different sectors.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Oh, that's really lovely, isn't it? I guess that helped with some of the things that we are going to talk about as well, because you've been through some quite big changes, haven't you? So one of the things that you needed to do was make quite a significant switch in terms of who your audience was, because you've gone from predominantly having an international market to domestic because they're international travel. Where do you even start with that?

Neil Dolan: Yeah. So we were a little bit unique, I guess, in comparison to some of the market, because just before one of the lockdowns, there had already been some plans for, I guess, some renovations and some investment. And there was probably a stop/go time where the decision was made. Do we keep investing, given all the challenges that are going to come and cash flow being such a topic amongst our industry in particular? And what was really nice when I came was the view was, "We need to invest in the product, we need to invest in the experience." So we almost went the opposite way. So, rather than going into a shell of, "We need to be really conservative." It was, "We need to invest back in the experience," because London's one of those places that tourism will bounce back because London as a city is just such an amazing place.

Neil Dolan: And Madame Tussauds London is such an institution that I think there is good confidence that, once the markets are back, they'll come back when they're back in the city. But to get that domestic side it was almost to think about, "Well, what is that maybe the domestics think? Or what is it domestics are passionate about?" And fine tailor the investment we were going to do to ensure that we were speaking to them.

Neil Dolan: So, when we reopened, we launched our new Awards Party and we'd moved Harry and Megan, which the press jumped at because originally they were with the Royals in our Royal area. And then, when they decided to take a different step down from Senior Royals, we moved them into our new Awards Party area to be with the likes of your Leonard DiCaprios and Dwayne Johnsons. And that PR hook that we got was amazing because we were then able to speak to our domestic audience of, "Look what we're doing at Madame Tussauds. Look what you can come and see. Come and see what's on your doorstep."

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: And that was the first thing that we did when we reopened, that we would've probably done anyway. But the message we were trying to get to people is, "This attraction has always been here and now it's probably going to be slightly quieter. So even better, come and enjoy."

Kelly Molson: It's funny, isn't it? Because I guess you've had to go through changing the perception of what Madame Tussauds is for the domestic market, because I've been there, years ago, with my parents. I can remember it. I've got my Novelty eraser from there. I've got it. I've got it right next to me, I've got my rubber from Madame Tussauds, it's for my collection. But, in my head, I do see it as a tourist destination. It's somewhere that I would love to take my daughter one day for her to experience it. But it's changing that perception of what it is in people's heads, isn't it? And that's quite a difficult thing to do.

Neil Dolan: Yeah. And it's come with some with some challenges. And, going back to the benefit that I had of being able to, I guess, look under the bonnet when I started, was there was probably some things that as a team we focused on quite heavily when we reopened that have probably gone to benefit, I guess, that domestic market to maybe see a different side of us. So, when we reopened, we were very much like, "Experience. Experience. Customer service. Customer service." And what has been really, really nice is that we've probably, I guess, focused quite a lot on what our external reviews are looking like. And we don't have to shy away from the fact that we've probably had a reputation for queues. You know, everyone who used to talk about Madame Tussauds would start with the queues.

Neil Dolan: So we are very much focusing on, "Let's get that reputation down about us having queues and being crowded." And what's been really nice because we've done that focus, and ultimately, I guess, simplify it a little bit, make things a lot easier. We've seen our review scores go up, we've seen the theme of our reviews completely change. And that's really good because when domestics are looking at reviews, they're rightly seeing that there are long queues and it's over crowded. And I guess by us taking a step back, looking at, "Okay, why is that the case?", we've actually been in such a better place. And the fact that that's now showing in our reviews is great because you can do all the marketing you want in the world, but if your advocacy's not strong enough, or people go into Google Reviews and have a look at what people are saying and it's all negative, people won't go there.

Kelly Molson: Just talk us through a little bit what you did there, because the queue issue is the big issue to address. What did you put in place to make that better?

Neil Dolan: So we've always had almost a time ticketing system. It probably improved over 2017 to 2019. But there were some technological challenges we still had, where there were some guests who still had the old school paper voucher who then had to come to the attraction to exchange that, to then get a time ticket, to then almost come back later. So already that guest has had this really mixed experience because it's not their fault. They've already bought their ticket from someone. And then the system has then almost said, "Well, yeah. But you have to come back later and queue again." So that already is completely confusing and it's a bad experience. And potentially, because we are quite an international audience, if that person doesn't speak English particularly well, it's even more frustrating.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: So, when we reopened, we worked really hard with our partners so that everyone who books, I guess, even through a third party has a ticket that they only have to queue once, that has a time on it with very clear information. So we almost, instead of having, I guess, the bulk of our guests turning up within, I guess, the two to three hours in the middle of the day, when everyone tends to go to attractions, just spreading them out through the day means that there's less queues, there's less people going into the building. It's just a better experience. And it sounds really simple, but the pandemic was horrible for so many reasons. But in some ways for, I guess, the technology side businesses had to adapt and we had to do things better. And that's been a massive change for us.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. We've had this conversation numerous times on the podcast about pre-booking and the benefits of it and why most will want to keep it past the pandemic, as well. So, how does it work with the international audience for you? Would people predominantly buy tickets in advance or were you more a walk-up attraction?

Neil Dolan: I guess, again, that's changed or we've seen it change at the moment, since the pandemic. So we used to do quite a lot of tickets from a walk-up perspective and we do a good proportion on online and, because we are quite internationally heavy in some respects, we would do a lot through third parties and through the trade industry, what we've seen at the moment is there's been a massive swing from walk-up tickets to online booking. And it's difficult to draw conclusion from it because it's very domestic heavy at the moment. And we are just so used to doing that, it's almost ingrained. In fact, I pre-booked to go to the swimming pool the other day.

Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. I have to do the same.

Neil Dolan: Which we usually just wouldn't do. You just turn up with your arm band, or I turn up with my arm bands anyway.

Kelly Molson: Don't we all?

Neil Dolan: Yeah, we all. Absolutely. In some ways that's really helpful because it allows you to make sure that you've got the right resource in, it allows you to plan throughout the day properly, you don't always get caught off guard. So, again, it's a massive benefit for us be able to actually manage the experience. Whereas walk-up is great and I don't think it's anything we would ever stop doing, but if you get a massive surge of people who just turn up on the day, you could be caught off guard and that, again, can be detrimental.

Kelly Molson: That's an interesting question, isn't it? So, how much of your market did you lose overnight? What did it go from?

Neil Dolan: Well, we're probably the majority international and even the minority domestic that we had before, there was a good proportion of that with schools. So you almost turned off the majority of our market and then, of the domestic market, we lost the school bookings because they weren't doing that either. And that's not just for us, that's almost for London, that these people just weren't there. In fact, I walked through Covent Garden two Fridays ago, on a Friday night, and it was dead.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Neil Dolan: And you just think that there's, I don't know, 6 million tourists or whatever it is that comes in a short period of time that just aren't in the city. So we knew it was going to be challenging and we knew, in particular, it was going to be challenging in the times when schools weren't off because you're more reliant on, I guess, overnighter couples or families who aren't in school. So people with really young children. So just a really tough position to be in.

Kelly Molson: Thinking about what you said about the pre-booking and you are always going to welcome walk-ups as well. I think that's the nature of where you're located and what you do and the market that you have. How did you counter that? For example, if you're going to keep pre-booking and you're still going to keep the time slots where you've got people, and then you get an influx of people that just want to come on that day for those times, how are you going to keep the experience as good as it is now when that market comes back and that shift happens?

Neil Dolan: Yeah. So, a big part of it is communicating. A lot of it is communicating to our guests really, really, really clearly. So the benefits of almost a high percentage pre-booked model are you can get in, in the morning, and know where your full slots are. And what we've kind of got into a good position of doing now, when we know we've got capacity challenges and I'm hoping that you want to have capacity challenges in some instance, because it means you're busy, is being quite honest and telling people. So I know certainly when I was in my previous role at the London Eye, when we had a busy day and it was almost sold out, we would put that on the website, or we would maybe put it on Twitter or try and tell people in advance as best we can.

Neil Dolan: What we did, and this weekend was a good example of it, where we were really busy, was that we just made the decision that we'll just stay open for a little bit longer and we can add additional availability after we would've closed. So, for anyone who does turn up, we keep the doors open a little bit longer, because we don't want them to go away disappointed. From a business perspective, we want to capitalise when there's people there to buy the ticket. And I would like to think we probably would've done that before, but I think certainly this post-COVID rebuilding time we've been trialing lots of different things and thinking probably a lot more differently than we probably would've. Less rigid, I suppose.

Kelly Molson: That was going to be one of my questions. And, just to go back to address that about staying open longer, that's really surprising for me because I wouldn't have expected that level of flexibility from such a large attraction because that's... Okay. You make the decision, "Are we going to stay open an hour later tonight?" That's a lot of people that you've got to get to agree to do that, isn't it? That's really great.

Neil Dolan: It is. And, again, going back to my comment about the team here, they generally just love this place and they love it when it's really busy. And I think that's probably anyone who's an operator. As much as they think, "Oh, I'm really tired after that peak period," the off peak period comes and, "Oh, wish it was peaking again."

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: The credit of that needs to go to my team of management, because they've got that relationship with the team that the team also know it's more beneficial because they would rather we were open a little bit longer rather than us trying to put more people through the doors, because that could be the other way of doing it. But then, going back to that whole point of you need to protect the experience to improve the advocacy, to make the business more appealing, we're very honest with our team in terms of what our strategy is. And our strategy is we need to maintain the experience. And it was one of those proud moments actually, when one of the team messages say we're going to stay open later because we're really busy, I was like, "That's awesome." And that's almost them feeling that they're empowered to make that decision. I was just like, "That's great. Do it."

Kelly Molson: That is lovely. You've done your job well, that's it. Like you say, you've empowered them to do that and that's the benefit of the visitors as well. That's really fantastic. I was genuinely really surprised by that. You mentioned doing things differently and that was one of the questions that I had for you is some of the benefits of the pandemic for organisations is that we've had to think really quickly and change what we do in and take chances on stuff. Are there things that you've tried that you previously wouldn't have thought about?

Neil Dolan: Yeah. So, one of the phrases that I used a couple of times was, "Let's try it because if it's 5% wrong, it's 5% of not a lot."

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: Whereas, if you do it in summer peak period and normal times, that could be quite massive. So we tried different promotions, we tried different pricing strategies, we tried new products. So we did a product where, last year, the last hour of the day tended to be the quietest. So we did a product with a gin company that it'd be almost a discounted ticket. And someone got a free glass of this cocktail that was made. And normally you wouldn't have been able to do it because you'd be so nervous that not too many people buy it, and we won't be able to serve the cocktails enough, who's going to make the cocktail? And in the end we was thought, "We'll just make it work. It'll be fine." So we ended up doing a cocktail making class.

Kelly Molson: At Madame Tussauds?

Neil Dolan: Yeah, they came in, they taught us-

Kelly Molson: That's really cool.

Neil Dolan:... How to make a cocktail. And then members of our frontline team, if they were happy to do it, the last hour of the day, it was called Fame & Fizz. And they were on the Fame & Fizz position, were they had to make cocktails for people who bought this ticket.

Kelly Molson: Nice.

Neil Dolan: And, if I'm honest, we wouldn't have done it before because I think everybody was probably in that mindset like, "Well, it wouldn't work," because operationally it wouldn't work. And no one would be able to tell you why. And I was always guilty for it. If I went back a good few years, I probably would've said the same thing, but we thought, "Let's try it. Let's see what happens." And it was good for what it was. And the guests obviously loved it, because who doesn't like a cocktail?

Kelly Molson: Who doesn't have a cocktail? And if you don't, crazy. Like one of those crazy people that like pizza over roast dinners.

Neil Dolan: Probably gonna be the same.

Kelly Molson: So, it's quite liberating to try new things, isn't it? Like, "Let's just give it a go and see what happens." Do you feel like you can embrace that now with things going back to normal? Do you think that you'll still have the opportunity to try different things?

Neil Dolan: Yeah. I think you have to. And I think, again, it's one of those things that we've... I'm going to put enjoyed in a certain way, because for some of the team, they'll be like, "Ah, it's another idea. Oh, no." But, again, it's almost that point of, "What have you got to lose?" And, if it's a success, then amazing. We'll ride that success throughout. And the important thing even with the things that don't work, what we made a really conscious effort of is make sure that we almost document why it doesn't work and keep that somewhere really available. Because the worst thing, if I use the example of some of the team that have been here for 30 years, they probably will have seen the same thing tried over and over again. And it's never fair for those people to provide almost experience of why something hasn't worked and for someone to go, "Yeah. But it's just being amusing." And actually, sometimes it hasn't worked for a very good reason, but sometimes with turnover people don't remember why.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Neil Dolan: And if there's anything certainly from the last year, is that just trying things and seeing what happens and, if it doesn't work, just don't try it again. We'll keep doing that.

Kelly Molson: I like that idea of documenting it because you could get into that situation where you just think someone's being a bit of a Debbie Downer, but actually no, you have tried this before.

Neil Dolan: We've tried it, yeah.

Kelly Molson: Let me get the book out and tell you exactly why this didn't work. I'm intrigued to know what other crazy ideas might be your sleeves. I bet your team is quite intrigued, as well.

Neil Dolan: Yeah. When I open my door, they're just about their eyes.

Kelly Molson: So what about your marketing? You would've had to have made quite a significant switch in terms of what you were doing with your marketing, because domestic and international audiences, you would market to them in a completely different way. What was that shift? What did you change?

Neil Dolan: So, there is some similarities we would still have selling the peak periods. We still had an element of out of home, we would still do your more traditional location advertising. And it's speaking about London here because you don't have all of the internationals in the city, you can't really focus on that location domination in the same way, because you're talking to not that many people. And that kind of marketing is just incredibly expensive. So when we were looking at, "Okay, so we've got an element of which are going to be day trippers." So we need to be speaking to them either through social media, which everybody uses more than anything else in the world now, and to an extent PR. But you also need that reach of working with the right partners, because we want to be speaking to probably people in the Northeast of England, the people in the Southwest of England, people in Scotland, because we want them to come to Madame Tussauds when they're in London and that's half the battle.

Neil Dolan: But the other half, which was incredibly difficult for us, wasn't something we could do by ourself was, was getting involved in the Let's Do London campaign, because what came out of the pandemic was this buildup of demand amongst the domestic market who couldn't go abroad, but then the coastal areas did incredibly well. Cornwall I don't think will have ever recovered from the influx of people that it had. But everything you saw on the news was, "The underground's unsafe. There's too many people. It's too busy," when actually it was the complete opposite. London was dead. There was just no one around. So, whereas we would normally never have done it, a lot of what we were trying to say to people was, "We are safe. Here's the measures that we've got in place. We know what we're doing." The good-to-go thing was a great initiative that we could shout out about.

Neil Dolan: So, rather than always talking about the product, we had to do an element where we were talking about, I guess, the health and safety side. And a lot of that, again, was done through PR, was, when we did have these launches, trying to caveat a bit of both like, "Come see this amazing figure. We've preserved the experience. It's absolutely safe. We can't wait to see you."

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? The couple of times that I went into London during the pandemic, just thought London was really lovely.

Neil Dolan: It was amazing.

Kelly Molson: It was so nice. Just walking around, no one was bumping into you. I could get a seat on the tube. It was glorious. I wasn't in anyone's armpit.

Neil Dolan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: That should be the marketing campaign.

Neil Dolan: That's the marketing campaign. Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: "Come now. You won't be in anyone's armpit on a tube." So what next? International travel is resuming.

Neil Dolan: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: You mentioned that you were really busy this weekend, which is fantastic.

Neil Dolan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So what is next for Madame Tussauds? What can we see on the horizon?

Neil Dolan: A couple of things, really. So some of it is the learnings that we've taken from having a domestic focus, is not to lose it, because I guess what's been really reassuring is that we've and if it wasn't probably for, I guess, the Omicron variant over Christmas, we'd probably be further down a recovery in London than we are because October, half-term last year was really promising. And we've learned a lot about what it is that domestics like about the product, we've learned a lot about what is hopefully driving domestics here. So the main thing that we're going to do is to keep that focus, because we done to drop it. For us, that investment continues. We're continuing to invest in the product. So we've got a brand new music zone, which will open for Easter, which is going to be incredibly exciting. We had Zendaya launch in February, which has been received incredibly well. We did a documentary. That was the other thing we did last year, Madame Tussauds' documentary where it was talked about the return of the Chamber of Horrors, will come back to Madame Tussauds.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Neil Dolan: So, that product focus is going to stay because if it there's one thing that I think we certainly learned from the pandemic is that you can never take your experience for granted, because your market share is not guaranteed and advocacy is not guaranteed. And we've been probably really proud of the fact that we've not been scared away from our plans because what guests are telling us, and it's also great for the team here because they're seeing great amounts of investment and areas of building just just looking amazing. Our new Awards Party is just so, so good.

Neil Dolan: That continued investment, that continued focus on PR that continued focus on the experience will do us absolute wonders when internationals come back. And we talk a lot about one of our, I guess, target audiences being families with younger to middle teens who come, just really getting excited about celebrities. We talk a lot about we really want to show how amazing this is because we then want those teens to come back with their families, later on. And that continual evolution, because celebrity landscape changes all the time. That continual change at Madame Tussauds is important because we need to reflect what the landscape is. And who knows what it will look like in five or six years?

Neil Dolan: So that's something we're very aware of and something we're going to have to, I guess, keep an eye on, as time goes on. Because, as we found, I think it was in 2020, there was a petition from people to not take away the One Direction figures. People are really passionate about our product, as well. So, we have to take what's being said seriously.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Gosh. People do get really upset about things, don't they? I hadn't thought about it.

Neil Dolan: One Direction is a very, very passionate subject.

Kelly Molson: Are they still there or did you take them away?

Neil Dolan: One Direction, they were in a music zone just now, which we'll launch, as I said, it'll be for Easter. They may or may not be there when we opened, but we'll see what's the public saying.

Kelly Molson: They're gone, but not forgotten.

Neil Dolan: Never forgotten.

Kelly Molson: Never forgotten. Neil, thank you so much. This has been such an enjoyable talk. Thanks for coming on and sharing everything that you've been through. It's been a bit of a whirlwind, I can imagine. We're at the end of the podcast. And I always ask our guests to share a book that they love. So something personal, something work related, just something that you really enjoy, that you think our listeners might, as well.

Neil Dolan: Particularly, when I was coming to work, I guess, during the third lockdown, lockdown has been confusing. When you've been at work and you always use the train journey to switch off from work. I said, my son is absolutely obsessed with dinosaurs, to the point where, by virtue, now I am obsessed with dinosaurs. So I spent a good part of those train journey to reading Jurassic Park books, because I'd never read them before. I'd watched the films hundreds of times, but I'd never read the books. And I used to do this and my partner was probably sick of me talking about it. I just basically go home and tell her about what I dread in Jurassic Park. And it was such a good way to switch off because, particularly when you've got little one, you definitely need that separation of work and home. And that was almost the transition where my son, who was pretty good at talking, but was correcting me on dinosaur pronunciation, when they were years olds was bizzare.

Kelly Molson: Where does this come from? Because Edie is too young for this right now, but I really liked dinosaurs when I was a kid. But our friend's little boy is obsessed, obsessed with dinosaurs. Knows all of the complicated words that I can't even pronounce.

Neil Dolan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I have no idea where it's come from.

Neil Dolan: No, I have no idea. I have no idea. But being corrected by a two year old was [crosstalk 00:34:41] I didn't know what a Zuniceratops was, but when I Googled it and I was like, "He's right. Okay. I'll take that one away."

Kelly Molson: Mind blown.

Neil Dolan: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Okay. So we're recommending the Jurassic Park books. This is so great.

Neil Dolan: Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: I love this. Okay. Well, listeners, if you want to win Neil's books, then if you head over to our Twitter account and you Retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Neil's books," then you may be lucky enough to win them. Who knows? Neil, thank you. That's been a really lovely chat. I've really enjoyed it. Thank you for coming on.

Kelly Molson: Thank you to Paul Griffiths of Painshill Park, who put me in touch with you in the first place after I put my little shout out about my Novelty rubbers. And let's try and get all of the attractions on the podcast. I'm very pleased you did because it was a really great chat. So, thank you.

Neil Dolan: No, thanks for having me on. It's been great. It's been really enjoyable.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

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

Show references:

https://www.weteachcro.com/

https://www.weteachcro.com/download-guide

https://www.kallaway.co.uk/blog/post/id/141

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattscaysbrook/

Matt Scaysbrook, Founder & Director of Optimisation at WeTeachCRO, a specialist Conversion Rate Optimisation agency working with enterprise-level clients such as GoDaddy, Nando's & Sage.

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 Matt Scaysbrook, Founder of WeTeachCRO. We explain exactly what Conversion Rate Optimisation is and why it's so very important for your attraction's website. 

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

Kelly Molson: Matt, it's so nice to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for joining me. We start off with our little icebreaker question. So I want to know, what are your hobbies outside of work?

Matt Scaysbrook: Not as many as I had back when I was a salaried employee. Rugby is the main one.

Kelly Molson: You play?

Matt Scaysbrook: Yes. Yeah, I still play. There will come a point where physically, I can't do it anymore, but I haven't reached that point yet. So my wife has reconciled to the fact that I will continue to play until such time come.

Kelly Molson: Until there is a broken bone that you decide is taking too long to heal and that's it.

Matt Scaysbrook: Well, yeah. I mean, you can come back from broken bones. It's more of, that I physically can't get out of bed on a Sunday morning. I've noticed post-30, it does... Like the recovery speed is definitely not what it used to be.

Kelly Molson: Mate, wait until you're post-40 and then you'll [inaudible 00:01:25]. All right. What's your favourite all time movie?

Matt Scaysbrook: Oh, that's a difficult one. I'll probably go, Gladiator.

Kelly Molson: Oh, good choice. Good choice.

Matt Scaysbrook: There a lot that are at that level, but probably Gladiator. I've seen it God knows how many times. Maybe 25, 30.

Kelly Molson: I bet you know the words as well.

Matt Scaysbrook: I know quite a lot of them. Yeah, which is one of the reasons why I always have to watch it on my own if I'm going to watch it, because otherwise, I annoy everyone else in the room because I do know what's coming.

Kelly Molson: All right. If you had to eat one meal every day for the rest of your life, what would it be?

Matt Scaysbrook: Probably... It's really sad.

Kelly Molson: It's a tough choice.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. I'd probably just have burger and chips. Well, when I say chips, sweet potato fries.

Kelly Molson: It's quite specific.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. It's quite specific and there would have to be cheese and bacon in the burger with a bit of barbecue sauce. I don't think it would be good for me to eat that every day of my life.

Kelly Molson: Well, that'd end your rugby career.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. Pretty rapidly, I imagine. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: All right. And what is your unpopular opinion?

Matt Scaysbrook: Oh God, I've got loads of... I got thousands of unpopular opinions.

Kelly Molson: I love loads.

Matt Scaysbrook: I guess I'll use one from agency world. So from my experience, and I coach a number of other agency owners as well, and what I have found is that the principal problem in most agencies is the person who runs it.

Kelly Molson: Oh, well, I have to agree with that. Being an agency owner who runs an agency, I'll definitely say yes, tick.

Matt Scaysbrook: 95% probably of the problems, the things that we're dealing with in our businesses, we caused either consciously or unconsciously. Unfortunately, generally speaking, we are the problem.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I mean, there will be other agency owners listening to this and I'm pretty sure they'll agree with you. So I'm not sure how unpopular that opinion is going to be, but thank you for sharing.

Matt Scaysbrook: Well, I've told people in the past and it's been great. Oh, well, I'm doing my best for those. I'm not having to go. I'm just stating a fact that [crosstalk 00:03:20].

Kelly Molson: We're all doing our best, but it's still us.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: All right. Okay. So before Christmas, the lovely team at Kallaway, who we've had on as a guest previously, invited me to present a webinar. And the webinar was titled, why your website isn't selling enough tickets and how to fix it. And I will pop the link to this in the show notes, if you haven't been able to catch up on that recording, and then you can watch it for yourselves. But the main focus of the webinar was around cart abandonment and why it happens and what can be done to avoid it. And I touched on a process that we use internally called Conversion Rate Optimisation, or CRO for short. And I thought it'd be really great to have a dedicated CRO expert on the show to discuss this in a bit more depth, because although it's a process that we use, it's not what we specialise in as an agency. And this is what Matt's agency, WeTeachCRO, specialises in, that's what you do, isn't it?

Matt Scaysbrook: It's the only thing we do. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So Matt is a great person to come on and talk to us about it. And the relevancy of this to the attraction sector is, there's lots of things that you can do to improve your booking process. And CRO is a process that we would use to go through and make those improvements. So they're some of the things that we want to talk about today. But Matt, big question, what is CRO? What is conversion rate optimisation?

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. So one of the things that just about everyone in the CRO industry agrees is that CRO is a terrible description of what it actually is. Obviously the words conversion rate optimisation suggests that it's all about that. How do you get the most number of people through that process? For the vast majority of businesses, there is a balance that needs to be struck there between effectively the revenue that's generated through that process and the number of people who do it. So it's always a balance between what the conversion rate is of a process and the average order value or average booking value. Are people adding extras, q-jumps, et cetera, into that?

Matt Scaysbrook: We always liken it to a bell curve, I guess. At one end, you've got an absolute total conversion rate, 100%. The only way you will ever achieve that is if you gave everything away for free. And even then, you'd probably have some people who are suspicious of it. But if you assume at one end, you'd have to give everything away free to have a perfect conversion rate, that makes you no money whatsoever. At the complete opposite end of that bell curve, there is absolute perfect order value or booking value, that is obviously an infinite number and therefore impossible. What you are trying to get to is the point in that bell curve in the middle, where you've got a balance between the number of visitors coming through and booking and the average value of that booking. So you're just trying to move that needle left and right to get the right balance between the two.

Kelly Molson: Talk us through a little bit about what you do at your agency then, what you do for your clients.

Matt Scaysbrook: I guess where you start always has to be about the people that you are trying to influence. One of the most common mistakes in our industry is that people spend too much time looking at numbers and go, "Oh, we need to move that rate." Or, "We need to move this rate." It's like, no, you don't. What you need to do is change how people act and what decisions that they will make. So the sooner you start thinking about those people, their concerns, especially the objections that they're going to have to following something through, the sooner you can do that, the more effective any of your optimisations will be. For us, the vast majority of those optimisations are done in the form of a test, usually in AB tests. So where you have the current version of the page tested against a new version of the page. If you've ever done any sort of user testing with new elements for the site, similar principle, the difference being that number one, these people don't know they're being tested against.

Matt Scaysbrook: Number two is scale. Obviously, user testing is hugely valuable, but the total number of people you can talk to is limited because per person is expensive. So if you can run that onsite, you can do it a much greater scale. And the last part is that rather than someone in user testing, who's usually being paid for their opinion, visitors that you are testing in this way, they're voting with their own money. I have seen too many times over the years, user testing that presents a certain picture and says, "Oh, okay, this is what our visitors want." When you put it at a grander scale where people don't know that they're being tested against, they do something different. So it's getting a balance between those two things, user testings, brilliant for a depth of insight. But if you want to look at, can that be applied more broadly running something at scale on the site itself is a great way to work that out.

Kelly Molson: So I'm going to get you in a minute to talk through a case study that you've worked on for Nando's, which I think is really... Although it's hospitality, food and drink, it's really relevant to what we talk about a lot from the attraction sector. So some of the things that we at Rubber Cheese talk about all the time is, can visitors find what they're looking for? So essentially, what we are trying to do is funnel users through the right places on a website. So can they find what they're looking for? So essentially, if you are an attraction, your number one objective is to sell tickets. So can they actually find the area to sell the tickets? Is that simple enough to see? Can they follow a simple journey from entering your site to actually purchasing the ticket? Do they understand what the next step is to take? Are you confusing them with multiple calls to action?

Kelly Molson: So all of these questions and what we are asking our users over and over and over again. Can they find their opening times? The prices, how is it big? Is your booking system integrated? Does it pop them off somewhere else, which is again, causing them a distraction. And the process that you've been through for the Nando's case study is very, very similar to the things that we talk about. So I wondered if you could talk us through what you did for them and the improvements that you made and how that affected that booking journey.

Matt Scaysbrook: So we've worked with Nando's for almost three and a half years now, when we first started working with them, they didn't have an online ordering process at all. And we came on board because they knew they were working towards that launch and we came on board so that once it was live, they would have a means of constant improvement and iteration to it. And there's been a huge number of changes, obviously in that industry, over the course of the last few years and online ordering has become... It's no longer like the poor cousin, I guess, to bricks and mortar. So with Nando's, this is one that did start with some user testing that they did. They sat down with a group of users and found that the order process, particularly on mobile, was... The word cumbersome came up quite frequently.

Matt Scaysbrook: And it wasn't something that the guys in Nando's didn't know. They knew that bit already, but it's one of those challenges of getting what is effectively a large offline menu, which is, I guess A3, folded out double-sided A3. You've then got to get that on a screen that's seven or eight inches. It's a challenge in itself. What that user research flagged up was that it was just moving through the different sections of that menu. You constantly had to go backwards and forwards. So if you clicked into Peri-Peri Chicken, for example, you couldn't then immediately jump to say burgers, pizzas and wraps. This is where you realise how sad I am, how much the Nando's menu I know, but we won't talk about that. But it's constant back and forward.

Matt Scaysbrook: As you mentioned a moment ago, about a process that can be followed, virtually, no one wants to go back and forward. People do not like going backwards or do not like feeling like they're going backwards. So we knew that the current navigation and the menu selection was not as good as it could be. The bigger question was, how do we improve it? Because it is to some extent, like I said, a menu of that size being dealt with on a screen that small, it is going to be reasonably cumbersome to some extent, but we were adamant that there had to be a better way of doing this. So the first time around, the first test that we ran on this, rather than making a visit, jump backwards and forwards, we put a menu across the top of the screen, which was scrollable. So instead of scrolling up and down, you could scroll left and right across this menu. There were a couple of challenges with that.

Matt Scaysbrook: Firstly, the width of the element that you would have to tap on to get there was dictated by the length of the title of that section of the menu. So it is inherently inconsistent with itself. It's not particularly visually appealing and also it isn't something that's all that commonly used. And what we found, having run that as a test, is that more people use the navigation in that format, in that side scroll, the problem was that fewer people actually went on to buy. So as with a lot of tests, there are two core things that most clients are trying to get out of it. The first one is I guess, some sort of commercial benefit, but the other one, which should be viewed at least, at least as important, if not more important, is why. Why have we got the results that we have?

Matt Scaysbrook: So what we found from this one has said, more people would use the menu now than they did before is their means of navigating through, but they actually viewed fewer sections of the menu in total. So that tells us two things. One from a data perspective, they absolutely must have been clicking on the same things multiple times. So again, that behaviour that we were trying to avoid with people having to go backwards and forwards, we hadn't solved it at all. And the reason that that impacted on revenue was that what we found is that visitors do a fair amount of impulse purchasing. So if you led them through a process, they would be like... They wouldn't consider an item until they saw it. And then they saw it and like, "Yeah, you know what? Yeah, I am going to get some ice cream. Why not?"

Matt Scaysbrook: I guess similar in a booking journey, if somebody doesn't know that you could buy a season pass for 50% more than the one-day ticket, well, they aren't going to buy it, are they? Because they don't know they exist. They're not against the idea. They just didn't realize the idea was even an option. So it seems odd to use a case study where a test that we ran that results in effectively a negative outcome, but what you will find if you run tests frequently is, that is often the case. If we knew all of the answers, we just make changes. I wouldn't run a business that prizes itself on testing. I'd also be a billionaire by now if I was always right about stuff.

Matt Scaysbrook: So the key thing is what do you do when the test doesn't win? And that's where the learning element comes in because saying, "Yes, this is better because it makes more money," is great when it wins. When it doesn't, you need to understand why, so that you can look at, okay, well, what do we do next? So we sat down with this one, and I'll be honest, myself, the team here, the client as well, we all thought this would win. And it didn't. So we sat down to understand, okay, why do we think that is? Effectively, what we came to is that we're over-engineering this entirely. One of the problems with the existing menu is that it was not the way that most other menus work. So we invented another menu that was different to the way that most menus work. It was technically more complicated, but it wasn't easier to use. So the next iteration of that test introduced effectively a burger menu. You just tapped on it and it opened with all of the elements that you need.

Kelly Molson: So for anyone listening that doesn't understand why we're talking about burgers, a burger menu is a little icon that's used on websites or apps. And when you click it, it opens the navigation or like a little side menu. It kind of looks like a burger, so we call it a burger menu.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. And is it as visually appealing as the side scroll? No. And there were some members of the wider organisation at Nando's who weren't entirely happy with it visually, and understandably, it's a bit dull. And Nando's as a brand, is anything but dull. But they allowed us to test it. So instead of this big side scroll, just had a burger menu, three lines, the word menu, and there you could go. So we ran that and navigation usage increased again, but this time the conversion and the revenue uplift came with it too. And I think therein lies, I guess the value of testing is that as good an idea as you think you've got, there is at least a 50% chance you're wrong. It'll make a positive improvement. Whenever you make those changes without testing them, you are effectively assuming the risk there for yourself straight away. If it tanks, and it might, how are you going to back it out? How quickly can you back it out?

Matt Scaysbrook: If you are running a test, I tell you how quick it is to stop. About five seconds. You open whatever platform you're on the test and you hit stop. And that is, I guess, the side of CRO that people don't necessarily... And it doesn't necessarily come to mind first and foremost, they think of it as a way of helping their site to make more money. The bit they overlook is its ability to help them manage risk. And the bigger a business is, the more you have to lose if you get things wrong. There is a phrase that I've used repeatedly over the last almost two years, I think after coining it in, it was in the middle of a webinar that I was doing. And it was DAB, DAP, which is design and build, deploy and pray. Because for the vast majority of changes two-way website, that is how it's done. There is a design phase. There is a build phase. It goes live and everyone crosses their fingers and hopes it works. That introduces a certain level of risk.

Kelly Molson: I mean, Matt, I'm not going to agree with you there. There's still the testing that goes through on our part before we launch. But no, I hear what you're saying. So all the will in the world, we can do all the testing internally. We can do all the testing externally, but essentially, when you release something to the world and you have thousands of people using it, problems are going to come up that you just haven't been able to come across throughout that testing process. It's really interesting what you were saying about the solution that looked beautiful, but didn't work that well. And I think that's something that we are always really acutely aware of when we were designing things because let's face it, everybody wants their site to look great. We work with attractions. The sites have to encompass the feeling that you're going to get at that attraction before you've got there.

Kelly Molson: We always say "The fun starts from the first click" and they have to give the perception of what it's going to be like, if your attraction's really exciting, your website has to be really exciting. And sometimes attraction websites can look really fun, but work really badly. So that's something that we are really aware of all the time when we are designing, is that you have to go sometimes from like a desktop solution that does look really beautiful down to how does that translate to mobile? How is that actually going to work at, like you say, like six or seven inches screen width? Can we still make it functional and beautiful? Or are we going to have to make some compromises there? And testing is the only way to know whether you've got that right or not.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. I think one of the things that comes up a lot with that is basic common UI elements. I have seen so many sites over the years that have gone, "You know what? We're not going to make a button a button because we want to be edgy." And it's like, yeah, but people understand buttons, they are drawn to them because they understand that it is usually a step forwards. Same as the example of the burger menu for Nando's is that, it isn't flash and you're not going to win any design awards for it, but you will sell more stuff. Therefore, we can iterate from there on and go, "Okay, is there a way that we can make that same function, but in a prettier and more visually appealing way? But if for overall that time you are benefiting from the extra conversion value of something that just works that people understand, you're effectively then helping to pay for the extra iterations that you want to do again in future.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Matt, I am going to try and pronounce some words here that I always get a bit tongue-tied with. So forgive me, but quantitative and qualitative, did I get that right?

Matt Scaysbrook: You did.

Kelly Molson: Well done me.

Matt Scaysbrook: I have to say them the exact same way you do. Very slowly, syllable by syllable.

Kelly Molson: I'm glad this is being recorded for prosperity. Look, I know that when you are going through your processes, you are looking at both of those options. Explain what the difference is and why they're both equally important.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. So quantitative, that is numbers-based stuff. So for the vast majority of sites that comes through Google Analytics, that is those what most people use, what it is presenting to you is effectively a count. A count of X number of people did this, these things or X number of sessions or this action take place, but that's all it is. It's just numbers. And obviously, it's always backwards-looking as well. It's what they did do. It isn't what they're going to do. On the qualitative side, this is basically data that isn't just numbers. And it comes in a lot of different forms. So heat maps, so for where people click, where their mouse is, how long, certain elements of the screen are in view on a particular page, how far down a page they scroll, that's one element of it. Session recordings, where you can watch how a visitor interacted with a particular site or a particular page.

Matt Scaysbrook: And then you've got the other, I guess the complete opposite end from the numbers, where you've got feedback. So verbatim feedback from surveys that run onsite and offsite, your user research as well comes into that. So there's a lot of things that qualitative covers and the best description of it is it isn't just numbers.

Kelly Molson: It's description.

Matt Scaysbrook: It's description, it's not the other one, basically. Why does it matter? So if you're looking to identify areas of improvement, it is easiest to do that from a numerical base. Comparing numbers is a lot faster than comparing 100 survey responses. Numbers are simpler to do that with. The problem with them is that they only really tell you what occurred. They give you a very limited view on why, and if you're going to solve some of those challenges that you've got, it is the why that will help you to solve them. And that's where the qualitative side comes in. So my recommendation on this stuff is that, use your quantitative, use your numbers to identify those areas. Then once those areas have been identified, then go to your qualitative tools and investigate those more closely.

Matt Scaysbrook: If you go into Hotjar, as an example, as a qualitative tool, if you go into that, searching for problems to identify, you will lose days, weeks, months of your life, because it is not designed to do that at scale. It is great if you have a specific question or set of questions that you're trying to ask. It is not really there for, call it high volume discovery. So one is good for telling you what happened and identifying areas where improvements could be made. The other one is a lot better at understanding, okay, well, why aren't people getting from point A to point B? And therefore, is a key part informing, okay, well, how are we going to execute that page or that process differently in order to see a change in the quantitative?

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So to be able to make real improvements, you have to take a holistic approach. You can't just rely on one or the other. And obviously, there's nothing better than getting people in a room and actually watching what they're doing as well while they're using the site too. This might be a difficult question to ask because I'm sure there are different answers to this question depending on when you ask them. But what do you think are some of the most important metrics that attractions should be tracking?

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. So what you tend to find is that if you ask someone about their key metrics, they'll tell you what their conversion rate is globally across the site. And they will tell you what their average booking value is. Those are great as a report to the board, but they're borderline useless in helping you to advance the site yourself. I have worked with clients who have a conversion rate of 0.5% who are very happy with it. And I've worked with some who've got a conversion rate of 8 or 9% and are disappointed. There is not a rate that is good or a rate that is bad. Also, there are so many different types of people, different types of visits in those global metrics. They're basically a mess. You're not going to get actionable stuff out of going, "Well, our site conversion rate is 3%."

Matt Scaysbrook: So whenever we look at a site, and this applies to eCommerce the same that it applies to attractions or to ordering of food, is that you break the site down into effectively three blocks. So out of every visitor who comes to the site, how many of them bounce? So how many of them see one page and nothing else? There are two types of bounce, but basically, there's hard bounce and soft. Hard is hits page, does nothing and leaves. Soft is, comes to the page, reads 50%, 75% of that page, and then leaves. By default, they'll track the same, unless you do some additions, but obviously, that experience is entirely different. Hence why you want to know the difference. So first one is bounce rate. If that is super high, you are losing your opportunity right there and then to ever sell to those people.

Matt Scaysbrook: Landing page, job number one, keep people on site. So if you've got a rate there that is particularly high, that's probably the first place you're going to look. A lot of the time is, what's happening offsite? How are you linking people to that site? Is it advertising that you're doing? If so, the two need to marry up. What someone's being advertised and what is on the landing page? So it's bounce rate is the first one. Then we look at, of everyone who does not bounce, what percentage then add to basket? And again, that applies the same way, regardless of whether you're talking about physical items or digital items, or even the ordering of food, is how many people actually add something into the basket?

Matt Scaysbrook: The reason for that is, basically, is it the process for the checkout, that is part of your challenge or not? How are you explaining effectively the product value and at least enough that somebody is confident to make one of the first decisions they need to make, which is "Yes, that's the one I'm interested in". So non-bouncing people to add to basket, that's the next rate that we look at. And then it's, of everyone who adds to basket, what percentage then go on to buy? So that obviously is looking at how your checkout process works out.

Matt Scaysbrook: So we split those three up, identify which of those we believe to be the biggest challenge. And then you want to take whichever one you've picked and split that down again. So I'll give you an example from one we did recently, eCommerce client, their belief was that their checkout process was too long and that was what was negatively impacting their conversion rate. And now, okay, their checkout process was quite long. I think it was seven steps, which is probably a little excessive. But what we found once we broke that process down is that actually, they lost over 50% of people in the first step to the second, the rest from there on it was pretty good. It was actually really good.

Kelly Molson: And this is at the checkout process, the first step of-

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Alright. Okay.

Matt Scrasbrook: Yeah. So from the basket page itself to the next step was a log in step. They lost most people in that block.

Kelly Molson: Was that because they made people log in?

Matt Scaysbrook: No. The problem was people weren't even getting to that log in step. So that tells you a lot. What we then did, as I mentioned earlier, we then went to look at the qualitative stuff. What are people on that page doing? And what we found was that you saw video after video, after video, of people going back to the main site from the basket page and looking at either alternatives for the product that was in their basket, or at the product that was in their basket, to read more information about it. It's like, okay, these people have zero confidence in what they've put in that basket. They thought, "Oh, I'm going to add it". But then when it came to the next point of, "Yeah, okay. I'm going to move through this process," they weren't sure.

Matt Scaysbrook: It's like, okay, how do we reassure people that this brand is one that they can trust, that this process is one that they can trust? What are the things they're going to be thinking about? When am I going to get it? What if I don't like it? All of those objections that you need to handle. I think you mentioned earlier, Kelly, about how people got all the information they need. And it's like, we all buy stuff online, we all book events and attractions and the such like online, so what questions do we ask ourselves? What if I can't go that day? What if I want to move my ticket to another day because it's hammering it down with rain and I don't want to get wet?

Matt Scaysbrook: All of the things that you would ask, that's what thousands of other people are asking. And you need to, I guess, to think about, when are those questions going to get raised? The basket step is quite a common one because it's the move from... The brain has moved on from product selection and it's now on effectively the buying element of it. So the kinds of questions that you need to ask are then different. It was a really long explanation, wasn't it?

Kelly Molson: Yeah. But it was a really perfect explanation of why it's so important to do the qualitative and the quantitative testing. It's a really very clear example because obviously, that client had made a massive assumption about what they thought the problem was. But actually, without doing those two testing processes, you would never have found the actual correct answer as well. I love that, it's such a good example. Thank you. Okay. So being a CROer, you need a lot of different skills, don't you? So I'm guessing that in your team, you've got strategists, you've got data people, you've got designers as well. What skills do you need to be a CROer?

Matt Scaysbrook: So we actually have a model for this, which probably tells you how sad I am. But we have a model called CATSPA. So it's split into two halves, CAT and SPA. So CAT is skill areas that you have to have, so it's creative, analytical, technical. I guess every single person who does this work is better at one of those three than the others, and they're weaker at one of those three than the others. So for me, analytical is my strength, always has been. My technical skills are pretty good, years of practice didn't have them when I started doing this work. I'm not particularly good with pictures though. I am not a classic creative person.

Kelly Molson: That's where I come in. I'm the designer to your analytical skills.

Matt Scaysbrook: Yeah. Exactly. There are other members of my team who are creatively very, very good, technically strong, analytical, not as good. We all have those strengths and weaknesses, but the role sits so perfectly on that, on the cusp of those three, that you can't be useless at any of them, I guess. And then the SPA element of it, that is we call those the sub-roles of the job. So you're effectively a subject matter expert, but for a client, you are also their project manager and to some extent, their account manager as well. Our work is very collaborative. We speak to most clients most days in some form or other, be it on call or Slack or emails, whatever it is. So it isn't an easy thing to get into. You have to want to practice all of those things.

Matt Scaysbrook: And so when we take on someone new, the time to getting them up to speed is pretty long. But if you can master things that are creative, analytical, and technical, and talk to people for whom those things are specialisms, can you converse with developers? Can you converse with analysts? Can you converse with designers? If you can do that, pretty much any job that our guys may go into in future, they'll be good at it, because they can speak the language of three different people. And that makes a massive difference.

Kelly Molson: Oh God, doesn't it? So considering that to have the skills to do this well, it's quite rare to be pretty good at all of those things, I would say. So that's quite a hard person. You need to fit someone to quite a difficult mold. Can our listeners start to do this process themselves? Because I guess our listeners vary from huge attractions, thousands and thousands of people through the day to down to some quite small museums who might have a very stripped back team, but still need to be able to look and analyse their site and understand how it's working. Can people do this? Can they do this themselves?

Matt Scaysbrook: They can. One of the things that you have to believe in, if you do this work, is that whatever you are doing today is not as good as it could be. And that goes for ourselves as well. What I know about my industry now, versus when I started my agency five years ago is massive. The only way to improve is to accept that today's you is not the best version that it could be. And the only way that those improvements will happen is if you try things. The very core of testing is accepting that improvement is out there, but you'll make some planners along the way before you get there. We actually wrote, few months back, we published a guide, which is for that exact purpose, which is okay, you can do this yourself. Here are some of...

Matt Scrysbrook: I can't remember how many questions they're in it now. I think it's like 51, is basically 50 odd questions that every experienced CRO person has asked at some point. Because what I know about the industry and its practice, I didn't read a book. I'll tell you that. I spoke to a lot of other people who gave me their time and their input to answer, at the time, what probably seemed like quite dumb questions, but we're all built on the back of other people's selfless efforts, I guess. So they absolutely can do it themselves. There are free tools available to help you start running tests. What I would recommend is that you do do some reading about it. I can give you the link to our guide afterwards, Kelly, and-

Kelly Molson: I already have it, Matt.

Matt Scaysbrook: Oh, you already got it. Okay.

Kelly Molson: I have already prepared for the show notes.

Matt Scaysbrook: Oh yeah. You've actually downloaded it, haven't you?

Kelly Molson: I have downloaded it. It's called 52 Questions Every Experienced CRO Once Had To Ask Because We All Started Where You Are Now. It's a brilliant book actually. I've learnt a lot from it and we'll pop the link to this book in the show notes. So if you are thinking of looking at this process, this is a really, really great place to start.

Matt Scaysbrook: Laura, our marketeer, will shoot me for not remembering the name.

Kelly Molson: Don't worry about it, this is what I'm here for. I prepared. No, I do highly recommend it. So I've learned so much from having a look through this booklet. And like Matt says, it's a really great place to start. And in it, you do actually recommend some of the best tools to use, which are free or some that will then start to incur costs as well. Brilliant. Matt, thank you. I have really enjoyed having you on to chat today. We always ask our guests to recommend a book for us. Something that they've loved, something that's influenced them, their career. Can be absolutely anything. What have you prepared for us?

Matt Scaysbrook: So mine's boringly professional, I'm afraid.

Kelly Molson: Nothing's wrong with that.

Matt Scaysbrook: Mine is a very small book actually called Built to Sell by John Warrillow. It is about a fictional agency that the owner decides he wants to sell. And he goes to someone who's built, installed multiple businesses, who advises him on how to move his business to a point where it is sellable. But even if that's not the thing that you're interested in, what the book really focuses on is how do you make sure that you are not the problem in your business? So to my unpopular opinion earlier, reading that... I can't remember how long it is. It's like 120 pages maybe, you literally can read it in a few hours.

Matt Scaysbrook: But the first time that I read that book, I was just looking at all the things he says, points out, make sure you don't do this, make sure you don't do this. And you sat there thinking, yeah, I'm doing that. There's like 15 or 16 lessons that you should learn from it. And I just remember looking at it thinking, I'm literally doing pretty much all of those. And it's just that one of those proper sorts of light-bulb moments where you realised that you didn't have to learn all this stuff yourself through painful experience. I had a fair amount of painful experience by that point anyway, but it's like, other people have been here before. You're not unique as they were, other people have been through this experience, you learn from them and they will help you.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Great book. Listen, as ever, if you want to win a copy of Matt's book, then head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Matt's book". I might get there first because I feel like this is a bit for me. I've had 19 years of making mistakes.

Matt Scaysbrook: It's really good. Really, really good.

Kelly Molson: I'm pretty sure that paints a good picture of me in that book, but we're all here. We're all doing our best. Matt, it's been a pleasure having you on today. Thank you. If any of our audience wants to get in touch with you to talk through CRO, ask a few more questions, where's the best place they can get a hold of you?

Matt Scaysbrook: On our website, there is a page where you can basically book in directly with me just to have a conversation. Those things have been from, some people want to talk about formally working together. Other people just want to have a chat about what they're currently doing. I keep my diary open on that because I have so many good conversations with people. And if I can help someone out, even if they're not someone who's ever going to work with us, I feel good about it at the end of the day, still, I'll share the link with you.

Kelly Molson: Matt, thank you. That's lovely. I think that's a brilliant way to end the podcast. Thank you very much for coming on and for your generous offer of helping out our audience.

Matt Scaysbrook: 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  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

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Show references:

https://attractions.io/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jacob-thompson

Jacob Thompson joined the industry at the height of the pandemic and heads up business development for Attractions.io, a mobile app platform dedicated to creating better guest experiences.

Before joining Attractions.io, Jacob has worked across varying sectors, including financial services, not-for-profit, education and tech, and has a passion for helping businesses realise the fantastic opportunities that technology presents us with.

When he's not working, Jacob is a keen reader, an average basketball player and a below-average golfer.

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 Jacob Thompson, Business Development Manager at Attractions.io. 

We discuss exactly why your attraction needs an app, and the incredible positives of going digital, from an environmental perspective. 

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

Kelly Molson: Jacob, thank you for coming on the Skip the Queue podcast this morning. It's lovely to have you.

Jacob Thompson: Thanks for having me. Listened to it for a long time. So it's an absolute pleasure to finally be on it as well.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. I love it when guests come on and they already love the podcast. Maybe I'll be kinder to you with the icebreaker questions because of that. Or maybe not.

Jacob Thompson: Please do. Please do.

Kelly Molson: Right. Let's get cracking. I want to know what your favourite movie quote is?

Jacob Thompson: "We're going to need a bigger boat." I think it's got to be, hasn't it? Iconic. And I find myself using that expression a lot, especially with how busy things are currently. I think it kind of translates very well.

Kelly Molson: Love it. Yeah. That is a perfect one for how we're all feeling right now. Jacob and I had a little conversation just before we started recording, about how busy we all are right now. There seems to be an influx of very positive, new leads and inquiries, which is wonderful, but also, oh, I think that probably sums up how we're feeling, right?

Jacob Thompson: Absolutely. Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could get rid of one food, so nobody ever had to eat this food ever again, what would it be? What would you destroy?

Jacob Thompson: Oh, Stilton. Oh, is that going to be an unpopular-

Kelly Molson: Cheese?

Jacob Thompson: Can I use that as my unpopular opinion? It's just when you have a cheese platter, the smell just ruins it for me. And I think just get rid of it. There's plenty of other cheeses to choose from, so that... Can I use that as my unpopular opinion as well, maybe?

Kelly Molson: No, you can't. We were getting on so well up until that point as well.

Jacob Thompson: I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Had to be honest.

Kelly Molson: Wow. Okay. This might not go as well. All right. Okay. Tell me something that you are not very good at?

Jacob Thompson: Oh, there's a lot of things. I think maybe this is a little bit deep, but I think reflecting on previous achievements, I think I often get so focused on what needs to be done that actually, I forget all of the things that I have done already. And I think maybe that's a bit deep and philosophical for what you are looking for. But that's yeah... That's what I go with.

Kelly Molson: That's a really good one. Because I think that that is a good reminder that we all need to celebrate the small wins, don't we? We really need to take time out. And I think that's quite a common challenge with a lot of us. I am exactly the same as you. I'm always focused on what's next. What's next? What's next? And then don't sit back and go, oh actually we did a really good job there.

Jacob Thompson: Definitely.

Kelly Molson: Pat ourselves on the back a little bit.

Jacob Thompson: Need to do it a little bit more.

Kelly Molson: Definitely. All right. You're unpopular opinion. Not about cheese.

Jacob Thompson: Oh, so I've probably already alienated that half of the listeners already. Probably more than half, but oh, yeah. What could I give you that's not too controversial? I think firstly, I fully get behind the England team and really get into it when it comes to the World Cup and the Euro's. But when I put them side by side, I think rugby is the better sport, over football. So sorry if I offend anyone there.

Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. No, that's fine. I think this has come up before as well actually, that rugby is the far superior sport to football. I'm a massive football fan.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So I'm going to disagree with you.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: But I think there's plenty of people that will agree with your unpopular opinion. Let us know what you think about that one listeners? And Jacob, tell us a little bit about you, and what your role is at Attractions.io?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. So I'm the business development manager for Attractions.io. So basically my role is to speak with attractions at an early stage to understand obviously, what we can help them with, what they're struggling with at the moment. And I've been doing that for the past two years now. So a relative rookie in the industry compared to some of the big hitters that you've had join you on the podcast. But yeah, it's really just, I'm here to help attractions, especially not just with a mobile app, but just their approach to their digital strategy. How they can engage their guests, how they can better communicate them. And obviously, most importantly, create better guest experiences. And that's what I'm here to do.

Kelly Molson: Did you come from an attractions background? Have you got a slightly different...

Jacob Thompson: So I'm still pretty young. So I left school with not really a clear direction on what I wanted to do. But I thought if I give everything to go work hard at it, and see what opportunities present themselves to me. So after leaving school, I quickly moved into to the tech background, and working with mobile app providers, for conferences and events. And after a few changes and moves, I found myself at Attractions.io. And I think obviously there was huge imposter syndrome entering the industry because I know, I learned very quickly how kind of tight knit it is. But I guess I kind of went in with a mindset of, if I've been visiting attractions since as young as I can remember. So I've got the experience, I know what a good guest experience feels like. And I've just tried to bring that to the role. But yeah, so still very, very new to the industry.

Kelly Molson: But you've got real world experience. So that's-

Jacob Thompson: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: ...what's important. And I love that you mentioned customer experience there.

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: Because that's what I really love about Attractions.io. So all the content that you produce or the webinars that I've watched, that yourself and Mark have spoken on, is that you are all about improving the customer experience. And I love that because that's exactly what Rubber Cheese is all about as well. But it's interesting because we come from slightly different ways of looking at that.

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: So I guess we are all about that kind of pre-visit experience and making people feel excited about what they're potentially buying and what they're potentially going to see. And then you guys take over with the-

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: ..app visitor experience. So we are very complimentary. I've got loads of questions around what you do today, but I think the most important question that I want to know is, why does an attraction need an app?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. So I think there's kind of two sides to this. I think firstly, and this has been largely because of the pandemic, but it's always changing, is guest expectations. So I think we all know that we spent however long in lock down. Everything turned digital for us, our whole lives and experiences were digital. And we got very used to being served personalised content, whether that's Netflix, given recommendations, personalised ads, Amazon offering discounts on products we've viewed, things like that. It shaped that, experienced in the expectations we now have, is that wherever we go, we want that same personalised experience. It makes us feel special. It creates a better experience. I think also there's now more digital natives. So people that have grown up with technology, than there has been previously. And I think, I know for one that I'm comfortable and happy to order, when I go to McDonald's or Wetherspoons, or wherever I may go, ordering through my phone as much-

Kelly Molson: Still, insight in there, to get your free time Jacob.

Jacob Thompson: I don't get, don't go to McDonald's as much as they used to. So yeah, no, but I think it's that whole expectation. It makes people's lives easier. And I think, tying into that, is actually solving the problems that I guess, some we knew of and tried to hide. And some, we hadn't even really kind of come across before, that were highlighted during the pandemic. So I think that the biggest one was queues, and social distancing. Queues are kind of that number one complaint that guests have, especially a theme park, you spend more time queuing than you do on rides. So suddenly, parks and operators needed to look at that, and go, how do we remove those physical queues? Because we can't have people standing next to each other for that long.

Jacob Thompson: And that's where things like virtual queuing came in, and just adapting to use technology, to solve a lot of the problems that already existed and unlock new benefits that we didn't have before. So being able to have that direct channel of communication. You mentioned that pre-visit experience, you've got so much control around building that excitement, understanding who's on your website, what they're clicking on, what they're engaging with most. But then they arrive on site and we've lost that channel there. And that's obviously what we're out here to provide.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Yeah. And it's really important. Isn't it? Because like you say, once someone's in, you've essentially lost them. If they're not attached to their app or they're not like engaged with it in some way. You're giving them, it's harder to understand where people are, where they're interacting, what their challenges are, what their frustrations are, what their positives are, I guess. So tell me some of the biggest challenges that attractions will bring to you, that might shape what their app would look like?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. That's a tough one, because I think every attraction is slightly different. And I mean, we work with theme parks, zoos, resorts, heritage attractions. They've all got their independent challenges. I think when I joined the industry, so I joined right in the middle of the pandemic. So early on, maybe just before summer 2020. So right in the middle of it, and obviously everyone was panicking, going, how do we reopen safely? And a lot of that was around, obviously supporting social distancing, with things like virtual queues, using heat map data of guest flow to understand where people going, and making sure that we're spreading people out. Now we're, fingers crossed, at the tail end of that. I think it's still highlighted a lot around the guest experience. So making sure guest flow is spread out. So people aren't queuing for ages.

Jacob Thompson: That they're not having to wait to get on rides, or to see an attraction, that they can move around freely. I think another thing, and it starts to crop up a lot more, is ungated attractions. So whether that's free to enter attractions, there's some theme parks that we work with, where you can go in for free and you just pay per ride. A lack of understanding of who's visiting them.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Jacob Thompson: So they may get the odd bit of information, maybe on pre purchase of car parking, but largely they can maybe only understand 10% of their visitor base, which we need to unlock as much of that data as possible. By having that app there, is we can collect email addresses and behavioural data to attach to that, which in turn, just opens up that world of possibility, to engage guests and understand who they are.

Jacob Thompson: But I think the biggest thing now that I've noticed is that people, as we spoke about expectations, changing, do understand the importance and need for that digital presence and that experience on site. So I think the biggest challenge that's coming to us now is, how do we do this right? Because there's so many ways to approach building an app and it's about rethinking, okay, how can we not only benefit the guest and create a really good guest experience, but how can we obviously gain those benefits as operators? So that data, those insights, and often rushing into building an app can lead to just an interactive map and not much more, and not giving much substance. So yeah, again, from your experience, I don't know from the previous experience, what it's like for you, when you get operators coming to you, because digital is so important now, how they approach that. And whether they want to jump in and just make sure they've got the basics, or it'd be really good to understand how you've approached that as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So I guess it is interesting. So as a web design agency, we often get asked about apps. And it's always, okay, well, we've had this idea and we think that we need an app. And you go, okay, well, let's pull that apart. What does this app need to do for you? What does it need to deliver for you? And then essentially they will kind of explain something that their website already does. And so we are like, okay, well, you don't need to create an app that's a carbon copy of your website. It has to do something more for the guest. They can go to your website and they can find that information. What is, what's the use of just replicating that in an app.

Kelly Molson: And I think that's the challenge, is understanding really, what the benefit to the client, what the benefits are to the customer is, and what the benefit to them is going to be, and not just replicating what they already have, because that doesn't make any sense. So that's what I see as the biggest challenge is. Do attractions, and then not just attractions because we work with a variety of people. Do people really understand what that need, and what that benefit is going to it be by having an app? I think that's what we get asked all the time.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. And I think one thing that people often, until they start to speak to us, and I think the biggest thing is, is that education piece around, there's no point in doing this kind of just have an app for the sake of it. It's really making sure that it's delivering value. And most people see the app, but then forget that we've not just spent a long time building an app dedicated to the attraction's industry. We've also got a whole operator experience as well in the background, where it's given those data and insights, allowing you to use the data capture, to communicate with guests. And I think that's one thing that the education is so important, because what we don't want is, is attractions taking that leap, trying to build an app themselves, and have not really thought it through.

Jacob Thompson: And we really want to make sure that they've got all the information they need to make an informed decision around how is this going to add value to the guest experience. And also how is it going make our lives easier, solve our biggest challenges, and obviously bring the benefits of increased revenue, increased NPS. So there's a whole host. And I think education's just that big piece that we really have to work with when we speak to attractions.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. And I think what was really interesting. So I listened to Mark.

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: Founder of Attractions.io. I listened to his podcast interview that he did with the great guys at AttractionPros. And I really liked how he described the approach to what you guys do for app development, as a holistic approach. And this was really interesting because he described it as, "A lot of the time when attractions want to develop an app, it will sit with marketing, and it'll be very much in the marketing departments pile." But where he said, actually, this is a whole operational piece, that this app could be. And it was really interesting to hear, how this app can have an effect on so many different departments. From operations, in terms of customer flow, like you mentioned, yes it is a marketing piece as well, but yes, you can order your food.

Kelly Molson: So the beverage team need to be involved in these decisions as well. And I just, I kind of thought, yeah, that this is so much bigger, isn't it? It's such a, it could be such an integrated piece that could really help so many different departments across the organisation, rather than it just being something that marketing pick up and go, we need an app.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. Yeah. And I think that's, again, it's probably my biggest challenge when speaking to attractions, is getting that message across. And yeah, like you say, it's very easy for marketing to have, own the app and do a good job with it. But in that siloed approach, they miss out on so many opportunities. And just from the deployments we've done, and even attractions that have apps with different providers that have done it right, or built it themselves, is the best ones are where it really just span the entire guest experience, which as you mentioned, it spans the whole team at that attraction. So retail, food and beverage operations, ride operators, even senior management, in terms of planning, expansion, understanding what guests are doing, where they're spending the time. It really is. Yeah. That, that holistic approach to the whole digital strategy.

Jacob Thompson: And I think it also ties into, again, what you and the team do is, tying the whole journey together. So it's a seamless digital experience from the moment they see an advert online, to going through to the website, to purchasing their tickets, uploading their tickets into the app, using scanning it when they arrive. Using the app through the whole experience. And then obviously the data that we've captured from the start of the journey. So the booking phase to the app phase is then continuing to own that relationship going forward, and being able to communicate with them. So you want people to come back, you want them to bring friends and family, you want them to purchase season passes. So by creating that end to end guest journey, you've then got full control to engage and influence that the guests that are visiting with you.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's really powerful, isn't it? When you actually timeline that journey through, that's a really powerful, to be able to contain that data for so long. Here's a question for you. Now this is something that's come up a few times when I've had guests on. And I think actually it was one of our guest's unpopular opinions. I'm pretty sure it was.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: How do you get the balance right, of wanting guests to engage with the app, but not trying to detract their attention from the attraction that they're currently in. So this was definitely, I can remember now, it was the interview that we carried out with Edinburgh Zoo.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: David Field of Edinburgh Zoo.

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: The unpopular opinion was, "I just, I don't, I want people off of their phones while they're here. I don't want them on their phones. I want them to be present. I want them to be in the moment." And so I guess that's really tricky, isn't it? Like, how do you do that?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. And do you know what? That is quite a common early objection that we'll come up against. And I think the kind of highlight is, is we don't want people on the phones the whole time. We don't want them staring at the phone. We want them experiencing it. We want to enhance that experience. I think there's a few ways we do that. And just that is, firstly, it's getting people from A to B quicker. So let's say we're at the zoo and we want to go find the penguins. So a paper map, obviously we can talk about sustainability, and the printed maps aren't great for the environment and cost money. Having the app there, we've got, rather than having to rotate the map, you've got the whole family standing around. It is, we can quickly find where we want to go and use the wayfinding abilities to get, to see the animals quicker.

Jacob Thompson: So we don't miss the keeper talks, the animal feeding time. So it's removing some of those challenges to allow people to actually spend more time engaging, whether that's getting on the ride, seeing the animals, rather than all the little bits in between. The other thing is reducing, as I mentioned, some of those real pain points around queuing. So let's say the kids are on the playground, and you want to go and order food. Normally you'd have to queue, but now with a mobile app, you can stand there, watch your kids play in, they can have fun, you can order your food and you'll get an alert to say, right, go and pick it up now. And you've just saved all of that time where the kids would be kicking and screaming, because you're dragging them away from the playground. That you can just sit back order your food, and wait for it to be ready.

Jacob Thompson: And then the other aspect and the third aspect that kind of ties it all together is, enhancing the experience. So when people are looking at, let's say some of the animals is, that we can supplement that with audio and video guides, to just really educate. And that's one big thing that we work with zoos on, is more than just having kind of the name plaque and the name in Latin, is how can we engage, especially a younger audience, and educate them and start to promote those conservation initiatives, which obviously drives revenue.

Jacob Thompson: So there's a few different areas, but I think ultimately we just want to enhance that physical experience. We're not here to replace it. And I think, hopefully, all of the attractions that we've work with, will affirm that, and understand that it's helped. It's really helped engage guests in a better way but still hasn't taken away. Because you can't replace the feeling of seeing your favourite animal for the first time or going on that roller coaster. So it's all about being that companion, to make that experience better and not take away from it.

Kelly Molson: That's a great word, a digital companion. I love that.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely.

Kelly Molson: I actually prefer that to app. We should all use-

Jacob Thompson: Yeah, there you go. Maybe we'll, yeah, I'll rebrand my sales material. But yeah, I think that's exactly what it is and yeah, we're here to supplement and enhance it. Not take away from it, or replace it.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's great. And there's some great benefits in there as well. Just from, from talking about that, I could, it was, I could see myself kind of at the playground waiting for my kids.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I could put myself in that situation. Something that you touched on actually was sustainability. And I'd really like to talk about this. I mean, sustainability is something that all attractions need to be really focused on anyway. But we had a really great past episode on this specifically, with Lucy Downing and Sue Pennington from Holkham Hall. And they talked through, I mean, phenomenal sustainability policies that they have in place there and their Wonder program that they've initiated there, which is incredible. There's a really good case study on your website that I've read a number of times now, from ZooTampa.

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: I would really love to hear a little bit more about this, because it does some really incredibly positive things for the environment, the sustainability around the zoo. And they've made some, like quite phenomenal cost savings as well.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. So I think that the case really kind of came off the back of, I think it was Green Loop. Me, Mark, and the team at ZooTampa, did the talk just around how having a digital presence like that, and having a mobile app can help with sustainability. So yeah, hopefully I'm quoting it right. So I think the kind of amazing results, that even blew me and Mark away, when we heard them, was that ZooTampa were able to save $50,000 a year, which is just phenomenal. Especially for a charity, a zoo. But they're cutting their print waste by 95%.

Kelly Molson: That's amazing.

Jacob Thompson: And it's almost nothing. And what that has done, obviously apart from having that immediate impact on the reduced print and the cost savings, is that there's two things that have happened. Obviously, those cost savings can now be redirected to something much more important. Whether that be the conservation initiatives that they run locally, to them, or obviously internationally that they're involved in. But also the way they went about it was not only digitising maps and not printing maps anymore but pushing for digitised tickets.

Jacob Thompson: So they now get people to upload their tickets into the mobile app. And that means that more people, because there's a need now to have everything within the app, that they now can communicate those conservation initiatives, because they've got that direct channel during the visit, during the experience. So they can educate and really capture the whole audience. And I think it's not just ZooTampa obviously that yet, absolutely incredible results that they've seen, but we've seen a lot of attractions, not just zoos, but theme parks as well. In some of our partner attractions, reducing printed, like guest printed information, completely. So the only option is that digital companion, we'll call it now, I like that one. So I think it's been a real shift and it's so important. And I think it's been ever present recently, but it's something we need to continue to think about, sustainability, and it all ties back to those expectations as well.

Jacob Thompson: And the digital natives especially is that people either expect or are really comfortable now, in the majority of cases, using a digital channel. So if it makes life easier, if it enhances the experience, then it's a perfect way to channel people in that direction, rather than picking up a printed map. And I know a lot of parks that haven't, are on that path now, from handing out loads of maps, to now, just printing maybe 10, 15% of what they used to. Just to have it on hand. But I think over the next couple of years, especially we're just going to see that shift towards a 100% digital, because it has all the added benefits, not only just of the sustainability angle as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I mean, it's phenomenal, isn't it? The cost savings.

Jacob Thompson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: And the advantages to sustainability that, that can bring. I mean, I think it's important to acknowledge that, we probably talk from a place of privilege that we have mobile phones, and we know how to use them, and there will be a lot of people out there that, it's accessible for them. So there is self place for printed maps.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: But to be able to save so much and channel that into other things, is just incredible. Who knew that an app could be so valuable?

Jacob Thompson: Who knew, and yeah. It's just been, yeah. It's been amazing to see. And I think the results like that, when we can save charities money through our product, it's obviously, yeah. It's very rewarding to see. And yeah, I think, always got a soft spot when working with zoos, because I know there is that opportunity out there to really help them.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. I want to go back a little bit. To what we talked about earlier, about some of the common challenges that attractions bring you. And kind of what I mentioned as well, about how we often get asked, hey, I need an app, but then it's not really, they are not very clear about what that app needs to do. What do you need to understand from an attraction to be able to work out what would be the perfect solution for them? Like, what do they need to think about before they come to speak to you?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah, well, there is a lot to think about, and that's what we're here to help with. I think firstly, it's really zooming out a little bit. And we did run bit of initiative last year to help attractions around mapping out the entire digital guest journey. Because as we mentioned, that timeline is really powerful, but we almost want to see it as a bit of a flywheel rather than an end to end timeline, because what we want to do is make sure the app is connecting the start and the end of the visit, but ties it all back together. So I think firstly just, just mapping out, understanding what technology they're currently using. So things like ticketing providers is incredibly important because we want to be able to integrate with them, through to point of sale, CRM systems.

Jacob Thompson: Once we've started to tie that together, it's then to really look at guest feedback, and feedback from the wider team as well. When we look at that holistic approach, to understand, okay, what challenges can we solve? So what are the biggest pain points for the guest experience right now? And like I said, that they'll differ for each attraction. But once you can pinpoint those, whether that be queue times, whether that be everyone is going into the same food outlet at lunch, and we're just getting people waiting around for ages. Whether that be the animals, aren't always visible. It's how can we communicate with guests, to let them know when the animals might be visible or when there's the next keeper talk so they can make sure they can obviously see the animals they've gone there to see.

Jacob Thompson: I think obviously that's just a flavour of some of the problems. But I think most important, is mapping that guest journey out and then pinpointing where an app is going to be able to solve those problems. There'll be some added benefits along the way. And once you've got that, and that's what we are here to help attractions do is, then you can start to really evaluate the process of, okay, how do we go about implementing an app. So it's not just let's launch an app in the app store. It's how do we market that properly? Because otherwise, if you don't explain the benefits or the reasons behind the launch, the app, people won't download it, if you don't make it visible. So if you don't promote it, when people are purchasing tickets, when they're receiving the ticket confirmation, when they arrive on site.

Jacob Thompson: So again, it's that holistic approach that attractions need to just zoom out a little bit, understand what they're currently doing, identify those pain points, and then start to evaluate the solutions that are out there. So there's kind of three approaches that we often see. There's the do it yourself, which larger attractions, no doubt, have the capital to throw at that kind of project. It takes millions of pounds of investment and years of work to get a solution, to be that world class solution. And obviously, Mark and the team at Attractions.io, have learnt that the hard way I guess. And they've gone and done that, so other attractions don't have to. There's bringing in teams to help with that, which especially with an app for a visitor attraction, it's such a specific thing. So things that need to be considered like battery life conservation.

Jacob Thompson: So it's not just like ordering a Domino's and you can put your phone away, you out for the whole day, you need to make sure that your battery life will last. And there's loads of work just around optimizing that. Things like being an offline solution as well, that often someone coming in wouldn't really understand if they're not from the attractions space, is that we know you can go to a lot of visitor attractions, and I think most of them admit themselves, there's always going to be a patchy signal in some places.

Jacob Thompson: So we need to make sure that experience doesn't, isn't impacted because of that. And then I think finally, is ourselves and obviously platforms like ourselves. So like I said, there's been loads of investment going into the platform and it now means that we can scale that out to attractions very quickly. And they're kind of the three approaches that people will look at. So yeah, I guess looking at their current guest journey and then starting to evaluate the approach to how to launch a mobile app. And that's, they're the two big areas that I guess attractions will look at, on that journey.

Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. Thank you for detailing that out for us. It's interesting, because it's a really similar process that we go through when we are asking about websites at the start.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: What technology are you already using? What does it need to integrate with? What are your challenges? What are your customers saying are big issues with stuff. And again, taking that real holistic approach, and making sure that everybody is having their say, and what gets produced, and what is going to be of benefit. So, yeah. Brilliant. Thank you. We always ask our guests that come on the podcast, if they can share a book that they love with us, something they love, something that's influenced their career in some way. It can be personal, it can be work related. What have you got to share with us?

Jacob Thompson: Yeah. So I know that, I think I've seen Mark Ellis and Johnny both recommended, I think Mark went to the extreme of recommending 43 books, I think. I know it was obviously part of a larger series and I could have easily done maybe not 43, but a few, but I have taken it down to one book, which is Atomic Habits, by James Clear. I don't know whether it's been recommended before, but I picked this. In fact, I listened to it on audiobook first, and then loved it that much, that I bought the physical copy. I think it's impacted so many areas of my life personally, professionally. I think it's, I won't give too much away. People should read it, but it's all about making change. So whether that be implementing new habits, getting rid of old ones, it's all that, there's so much really useful information and tips in there that a lot of books tend to waffle on and pad it out.

Jacob Thompson: This is page to page, really actionable advice on making change, implementing change and basically just starting off small. And then yeah, like you say, look back and see all those changes that come together to have that big impact. So that's, that's my one recommendation, I'll stick to.

Kelly Molson: One book recommendation. Did you hear that listeners? One book. Well done Jacob.

Jacob Thompson: Yep. It was hard.

Jacob Thompson: It was hard.

Kelly Molson: Following instructions though.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's a great book. I have read that book.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And it is an awesome book. I really like, it's about marginal games really, isn't it?

Jacob Thompson: Yep.

Kelly Molson: It's about being one percent better. One percent better all the time.

Jacob Thompson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: And that is something that I think is really important, rather than taking a massive jump into trying to do something huge and looks really scary. But yeah, it's a big thing about celebrating your progress in there.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So that's one that we all should take away from today. Thank you. As ever, if you want to win a copy of that book, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Jacob's book", then you will be in with the chance of winning it. Jacob, thank you. I've really enjoyed our talk today. It's really interesting to see, I think how aligned both of our approaches are. And I hope that our listeners today will take away from this, how important and how beneficial an app can actually be, as long as it's thought out, and processed, and constructed in the right way.

Jacob Thompson: Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. You've summed that up perfectly. So yeah, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk about it today, and yeah, thanks for having me on the podcast.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us, and remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese,, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions, that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

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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.linkedin.com/in/laura-chiplin-85468b42/

https://experience.tottenhamhotspur.com/home.htm

https://www.tottenhamhotspur.com/

Laura Chiplin has over 12 years’ experience in the heritage, arts and attractions sector. With a passion for delivering great visitor experiences, Laura is currently Head of Visitor Attractions at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in North London.

Laura’s early career was greatly influenced by her love of music and theatre, taking up her first role at the Barbican Centre whilst studying at the City of London University in 2007. Laura spent the following 9 years at Europe’s leading art centre, before embarking on a new chapter in her career with the V&A Museum, where she headed up the visitor experience team.

During her time here, Laura lead a growing team at a key period in the museums history with the opening of the Exhibition Road Quarter; the first major expansion in the museum’s 100 year history.

This influential period in Laura’s career fuelled her passion for delivering exceptional visitor experiences and she was ready for a new challenge…one with slightly different goals.

With a ground-breaking stadium project underway in North London, Laura was approached to lead the Visitor Attractions team at the newly built Tottenham Hotspur Stadium in N17.

As Head of Visitor Attractions, she leads a 70 strong team at the Premier League ground, developing and delivering world class experiences, in an exciting and fast paced environment.

When not in the office, Laura enjoys reading, eating out and walking her dog, Morris in North East London.

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 Laura Chiplin, Head of Visitor Attractions at Tottenham Hotspur Football Club.

We discuss the concept of a football club as an attraction, and how Spurs have taken the visitor attraction concept to a whole new level.

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

Kelly Molson: Laura, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm really excited to chat with you.

Laura Chiplin: Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be talking to you too.

Kelly Molson: Well, I'll be very kind with the icebreaker questions, I think.

Laura Chiplin: I hope so.

Kelly Molson: Don't worry. Okay, so start with this one. If you could take three things to a desert island, what would they be?

Laura Chiplin: Ooh, I would take sun cream, because I don't want to get a sunburn. Very important. Maybe a barbecue, so I can cook some nice fish. I don't think I'd be that good at making a barbecue on my own. I probably wouldn't last very long at all, but I could, lying there, a bit of fish on the barbecue. What would my final thing be? A good book, a really long book, so it will take a long time to read.

Kelly Molson: A long book that could read over, and over, and over again and not get bored.

Laura Chiplin: Exactly, yeah. That's on my list.

Kelly Molson: Now I've got this picture of you hunting for fish as well, with like a spear. Strong woman.

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, absolutely. That's definitely the vibe I'm going for.

Kelly Molson: Good, okay. If you could choose a talent to grow and to develop, what would you most like to learn?

Laura Chiplin: Actually, this one's quite topical. So at the weekend, my brother and I made some curtains. And when I say we did it together, he mainly did it. He's very talented, he can really turn his hand to anything. But now having made the curtains, I know I need to make other blinds and curtains. So I think having a practical skill, like sewing or something like that, actually it's nice because you can help other people, it's something can do yourself. It's quite mindful as well, if all goes well. Something like that, I think would be quite good. And curtains are also very expensive, so that's also another positive.

Kelly Molson: They are really expensive, phenomenally expensive. I really like that you picked that one, because that's one of my goals this year is to learn how to use the very beautiful sewing machine that is sitting up in my spare room, just looking pretty and not getting a lot of action.

Laura Chiplin: We'll have to learn together.

Kelly Molson: We can be accountability partners on that one. All right, noted. Have you ever been mistaken for somebody famous?

Laura Chiplin: Oh, don't. When I worked at the Barbican, the guys always used to take the mick out of me and said I look like Celine Dion, which I absolutely do not look like Celine Dion. I love her, absolutely love her. She's brilliant, obviously some great tunes, but she is quite a bit older than me. And I'm not sure we look like each other, but yeah, my old colleagues at the Barbican can had a bit of a running joke with that one. I do love karaoke as well, and singing, so that was probably part of it.

Kelly Molson: There's a bit of a link there then. You are very fresh faced, she is considerably older than you. But there is a little touch there, I would say there is a touch of Celine there.

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, okay. I slightly walked into that one.

Kelly Molson: Thank you for sharing. What's your unpopular opinion, then?

Laura Chiplin: Oh, my unpopular opinion is fruit in puddings. If it's got fruit, in my mind, it should not be a pudding. Pudding should be chocolate, meringue, cream. I don't want to see any fruit inside.

Kelly Molson: Not even an apple crumble?

Laura Chiplin: I knew you were going to ask this. So apple crumble is only acceptable, if the ratio of apple to crumble is like 25% apple and 75% crumble. And then like a hundred percent cream on top of that.

Kelly Molson: Very specific ratios there.

Laura Chiplin: There's no thin crumble toppings, I'm not into that. It's like a very thin layer of apple, and then hell of a lot of crumble

Kelly Molson: And really it's all about the cream, in all honesty.

Laura Chiplin: Absolutely, yeah.

Kelly Molson: All right, thank you. I would love to know what people feel about the whole fruit in pudding scenario. I'm probably with you, because mine's a chocolate brownie. That's the best pudding.

Laura Chiplin: Yeah. Anything chocolate, I'm more than happy. I'm up for that.

Kelly Molson: Good. Excellent, thank you for sharing. I want to talk about today, the concept of a football club as a visitor attraction. Now listeners, you'll know that I am a big Tottenham fan, so I'm really excited that I've got Laura in from Spurs today. And I think we've all become quite accustomed to stadiums having stadium tours, and that's pretty much the norm for a football club. But Spurs have taken the visitor attraction concept to a whole new level, and I want you to tell us about it today. So, can you share with us the experiences that Tottenham now offer as a visitor attraction?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, absolutely. So as you mentioned, stadium tours, which are something that happen in many stadiums across the UK and the world. So, we have a stadium tours program here, so we offer a number of stadium tours. But our main one, which most visitors will go on, will take them through some of the key areas of the stadium, so really go behind the scenes and get to see the places that they would never normally get to see, if they were coming on a match day. And those are mainly the player areas, so they would go into the first team dressing room, walk out the tunnel, pitch side, sit in the dugout. And also with this stadium, they would also go into custom built NFL facilities, explore some of our premium areas, and really get an overview of Tottenham Hotspur the club, but also Tottenham Hotspur the stadium. So, that's our stadium tour that we offer and deliver.

Laura Chiplin: And you mentioned taking things to new heights, so this is very relevant for the Dare Skywalk. So, this is a new attraction which opened in August, 2020, so this really takes visitors on a different experience in the stadium. And people harness up, they clip on, and they go on a journey which takes them up to the roof of the stadium, across an apex which is 46.8 meters above the pitch. So it's clear glass, you can see the stadium below, and then onto a viewing platform which has amazing views out to London. Because we are in North London, a really different aspect of the city, and quite a wide panorama which is absolutely lovely. So visitors can have a drink there, a glass of champagne, a beer. And then our latest attraction is the Dare Skywalk Edge, which if visitors are feeling particularly brave, they can finish their Dare Skywalk experience by going over the edge, and descending on a controlled descent 42 meters to the South podium below.

Kelly Molson: Crazy.

Laura Chiplin: You've been, right?

Kelly Molson: I have been, yes. We actually went in September, 2020, so during the pandemic, but at a point where we were all allowed out to do things. And we actually saw Jose that day, so he came out while we were up on top of the roof, he came out on the pitch and shouted up. I can't remember what they were saying, but people were shouting down at him and he was shouting up. So, it was incredible. It was such an organised experience, like everything felt very safe, everything felt very slick. And actually being on the roof of your football stadium was mad. I could look down and see where my season ticket seat was. Yeah, it was just a really crazy experience. Like you say, part of it, looking at the views of North London and then into London, far across London was pretty spectacular, actually. Yeah, where did the idea come from to do this?

Laura Chiplin: So, I guess Tottenham Hotspur Stadium is home to Tottenham Hotspur Football Club, but it's much more than just a football stadium. It's host to other sporting and entertainment events. So the stadium is the London home to the NFL, so it's the only stadium outside of North America that's been specifically designed for American football. So we've got custom-built NFL spaces, locker rooms. And we actually have two pitches, so we have a grass football playing surface, which then slides out, and underneath there's an NFL artificial surface below. So, we've got a partnership with the NFL that they will play at least two of their London games here for over a 10 year period. We've already hosted a major boxing event, we've got rugby coming later this year, we've got concerts coming later this year. So, it's already been announced that Lady Gaga and Guns N' Roses will be playing in the summer.

Laura Chiplin: So, it's really a multipurpose sports and entertainment venue, and a new landmark in London. And I think that's where the idea of the Skywalk and the attractions, they really support and tie into that idea of it being a London venue, that's host to major events, and is also open and activated throughout the year. So, it's not just on traditional football match days, which there's 25 days a year, and there's a lot more that we can be doing with the stadium. So, it's about activating the stadium throughout the year, and it's about bringing people to Tottenham and the local area, creating new opportunities.

Laura Chiplin: And also we're engaging with, and connecting with new people beyond our fan base. So, you could argue that the stadium tour is perhaps more aligned to her football fans, which of course it is, but there are lots of interesting elements about our stadium, the architecture, the design, the technology. But especially with something like the Dare Skywalk, we do see it as, it's an attraction within London. And you can come and enjoy amazing views of London, it's adventurous, there's lots of things that it ticks. So yes, of course it's for our fans, but also it's beyond, and helping us to engage with new audiences as well.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that idea. I think that the idea that a football stadium, if you are a fan, I think obviously if you're a Tottenham fan, these are a attractions that you want to go and visit, you want to be able to take part in. But as a football fan, the stadium is a huge draw. It is a phenomenal piece of engineering, it is beautiful, the facilities are incredible. I think anyone that has an interest in football would love to go there and to be able to see that. So, that must be a draw for some of the stadium tours. What was interesting is when we were on the tour, there were actually two Arsenal fans.

Laura Chiplin: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: Which was like, oh, okay. They kept it quiet for a while, and then told us when we were at the top. But from their opinion, they wanted to come and see... It wasn't necessarily about the football stadium, it was about the attraction and being able to take something fun.

Laura Chiplin: Exactly, yeah, definitely. We welcome anyone, no matter what team they support. Obviously it's quite fun, have some fun with anyone who supports our North London rivals. But that's exactly it, it's about an attraction in London, a fun thing to do, things with families, couples, there's lots of different people that we're trying to attract.

Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. What were the biggest challenges in getting those attractions up and running? Obviously from a health and safety point of view, I can imagine that that conversation was like, "We've got this idea about taking people up on the roof, and then dangling them over the side. How do you feel about it?"

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, exactly. I guess the biggest challenges, firstly, just going back to the stadium tour, so we opened a stadium tour in July, 2019 and the stadium opened in March, 2019. So it was an exceptionally busy time at the club, not only were we opening a new attraction experience, but we were opening a brand new stadium, so it was a rapidly expanding team. We'd been at White Hart Lane, capacity of 36,000. The club had been playing at Wembley, and then we were opening the new Tottenham Hotspur stadium, which has a capacity of over 62,000 and it's a multipurpose venue.

Laura Chiplin: So, the first priority was obviously to open the stadium, to have Spurs return to playing, and fans return to being at home. So what we needed to do as an attractions team, was to develop and open the tour experience against this backdrop. So, much of our planning was when the stadium was still a construction site, there were thousands of trades working on the stadium a day, it was so, so busy. But what we really wanted to do, was there was so much momentum and it was such an exciting time at the club, so we worked with our colleagues to be involved in that momentum. And how could we get involved in the match day experiences?

Laura Chiplin: One of the key things the club wanted to deliver with this new stadium was an unrivaled fan experience, and that's what we want to do, an unrivaled fan guest experience on the visitor attraction. So, much of the things that we did when we were setting up, were also aligned with the opening of the stadium. So for example, part of that, we delivered our Spurs Way training to a wide range of people who would be working on a match day. I'm talking people who do sniffer dog patrols, to catering, to retail, and the attractions were very much a part of that. So, that meant that we could be involved with the approach for the stadium, and make sure there was that cohesion and consistency across what we were doing.

Laura Chiplin: And then on the other side, we also needed to make sure we could actually deliver something with a moving timeline, and work out what we could open realistically, that matched the ambition that delivered a great thing for our guests, and for our visitors and fans. So, we decided to open with a guided stadium tour, and really tell the story of Tottenham and the stadium through people when we first opened. So, that enabled us to incorporate with obviously the focus of opening the stadium, and then deliver the first of the attractions quite quickly after that. And then we knew we would develop them further on.

Laura Chiplin: And then with the opening of the Skywalk, so all of this was incorporated into the design of the stadium, which is obviously great because we're not retrofitting everything, it's all very much part of the stadium build. So, a lot of those conversations began 10 years ago before I was at the club. So that was very much, that was intrinsically part of the stadium build and design, which obviously always helps.

Laura Chiplin: I guess, really the biggest challenge from our side, was that we ended up doing a lot of the last four months, yeah, four month period, we were doing it in a lockdown. Because as I've mentioned with the dates, where we've all tried to slightly block out of our minds, we opened the Dare Skywalk at the end, very end of August, 2020. I think we opened it on the 31st of August, that was our first public day. So, much of the things that when you are mobilising a new attraction, that come in that last three to four months, they're very much the onsite, the people, the recruitment, testing, training, all of those things. And that ended up having to be done within the national lockdown, and a very strict national lockdown, as was right of course at the time. But not work from home if you can, it was like everyone was working from home.

Laura Chiplin: So, we were already very much on the journey in terms of when we were going to open the Skywalk, and then the pandemic happened. So we moved the timeline slightly, it was probably about six, maybe six to eight weeks from what we had originally planned. Obviously you never normally plan to open a new attraction the last day of August, but yeah, we decided that we were still going to open it, and open it when it was safe and we were allowed to do so from a government perspective, and also when we were ready. So, that was the biggest challenge. Loads of people have talked about pandemic challenges on this podcast, and just generally of course, it was a very challenging time. But especially with such a physical attraction, where people are coming and doing an activity, yeah, it brought new challenges.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I can only imagine how challenging that was. It's interesting though, because it wasn't delayed as much as I thought it was, only six to eight weeks actually. I would have thought, oh, it was going to be months and months and months where you had to keep pushing back. But in the grand scheme of things, that doesn't sound too bad. What were the reactions from visitors, when they were able to come? Was there a pent up demand, because you'd been talking about it for so long?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah. The reaction was really fantastic, feedback has been really, really positive. The funny thing for us, is that we've been open since the end of August, 2020, but we've never actually done a full year of operation, so that's the difference. And it's like the stadium's been open three years, but we don't have three years worth of experience, because it's been such a fragmented time within that period. We opened in August, we had a good September, then I think October was good. Then we got to the end of October, half term, and then I think we went into the circuit breaker lockdown for November. We then reopened for a bit in December, and then we ended up closing. And then we had that, I think at the time we thought, oh, maybe it's like a month lockdown. And then of course it ended up, I think being until around April.

Laura Chiplin: And we could open the skywalk earlier, because it's an outdoor traction, so that was a positive, so we were able to get people through. But yeah, the initial reaction and the reaction we've had subsequently, feedback's been really positive, which is great. But it's also on the flip side, we are now I feel in a period where we've had like a good run at things, but we've kind of missed out that first bit that you would normally get with something new, where you're tweaking and perfecting in the traditional sense. Whereas we were tweaking and perfecting. Right, outdoor attractions. Okay, so this is outdoor, but some of our elements are inside. How do we re-look at that to bring them in line, make sure everyone's safe and things?

Laura Chiplin: But actually, in doing that, we have slightly changed the flow of things, that they actually work better. So we're, of course, obviously looking to constantly improve, constantly tweak, constantly monitoring customer feedback, net promoter scores, Trip Advisor feedback, all of those kinds of traditional things that you would think. But also then having the pandemic side within it as well.

Kelly Molson: That's really interesting. So, do you think that the kind of stop start challenges that you've had, have actually helped in some way, by making you step back and refine it maybe quicker than you would have?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah. I guess if we were to take a positive, which I'm always happy to try to have a positive, yes. I think it was obviously very challenging at that time trying to work out. But yeah, I think subsequently we probably have made some tweaks and small updates to the overall visitor flow and operation, which probably worked better, that had we not been forced into that situation they may not have arisen. So yeah, probably a small few things like that.

Kelly Molson: There's always a positive, isn't there?

Laura Chiplin: Exactly. I'm desperate to find a silver lining in anything.

Kelly Molson: I like to find that spin as well. And so, I can remember when we came on our visit, and there was certain hashtags that we could upload our pictures and social media and stuff too, which we did, we loved to get involved. How much has digital and social media played a role in the marketing of that attraction?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, hugely. We haven't done any out of home marketing yet, and that was really a decision at the time, because why would you do that when people aren't necessarily traveling in the normal way? So yeah, digital and social were hugely important. We also had a really great launch, which our PR team did, and working with influencers, and key people on social media, and also digital channels to make sure that we could get the message out there, launch it, so that was really fantastic. We always want people to review us on Trip Advisor and share their experiences there. That's a huge thing for us, because obviously with attractions it's so vital, people finding new things to do.

Laura Chiplin: And especially because of the situation that we've been in, there's obviously a huge market that missing, and that's the international market. And at the beginning, the pandemic and that time, actually people were wanting to go and do things outside of London, and outside of the city. And that was also a concern, especially with the attractions and venues in London, that actually people were going to stay away because they wanted to go to seaside locations, countryside. So yeah, that was really important. And that's something that we're building on, and making sure that we can build on, and again expand to new audiences. So we also used a lot of our own channels at that time as well, and we're really lucky that we've got such a fantastic fan base that we can talk to. And we do have a lot of internal channels that we can use. So that along with digital and social, was a key thing that the marketing teams focused on. And now we're looking to take that, to develop that even further.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So I guess now that we're seeing people starting to come back, there's more opportunity to start looking at that international market, and really getting new people through the doors.

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly Molson: What about people coming back? Because this is always a thing with repeat visitors. So an attraction like a theme park, there's annual passes that you can purchase. You might take your kids to that every couple of months depending on where you live, if you're located to it. How do you keep these attractions current, and how do you keep people coming back to do return visits?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah. It's so important to keep the attractions current, and it's something that we very much focus on. So talking about stadium tours for a bit, so as I mentioned, we opened with a guided stadium tour, but it was always our ambition that we would go to a multimedia guide option. But guided tours perform very well with focus groups, and they perform very well based on feedback. Customers really like guided tours, but it's how we could take those elements and use more of multimedia, the technology that we have in the stadium to help bring in the story to life even further? And also offer more flexibility, and also more personal experiences for our customers, that was something that was really important to us.

Laura Chiplin: So, we've already done quite a lot of updates to our stadium tour just in that time period, and we have a program of work scheduled to make sure that we can keep things current, keep things fresh. It's really important for us that we can keep using new technologies that are coming out, that maybe we already have in the stadium, or that are perhaps more traditionally attractions focused that we can bring in. We are lucky that we have lots of brilliant spaces in the stadium, and actually to do a whole tour of the stadium, we'd probably be here for about five hours. But it's how we can bring in different areas on the route that people haven't seen before, add new things in, and also looking at certain periods where we might open a space during the summer period, or tying into things like that. So, that's really important for us.

Laura Chiplin: And then on the Skywalk, so we started with the Skywalk Roof Walk Experience, which I've mentioned. And then the Edge, which is the controlled descent element that opened in summer last year, so we've already added onto the experience within that time. And we're looking at ways in which we can, I guess, use the space that's up there. You've been up there yourself, but for people who haven't, there's actually quite a large viewing platform, so that would really lend itself to events or pop up things, so that we can incorporate things within that experience that are perhaps a bit different.

Laura Chiplin: And then the other things we are looking at is just how we talk about, and also market the different climb experiences. So for example, coming on a day like today, which actually would be a perfect day, because it's such a nice sunny day with a blue sky. But coming on a day like today, versus coming in the evening, when it's sunset or the stars are out. So, it's how we talk about those different experiences, because it's a different element. Or coming on a match day, so the Dare Skywalk is open up to two hours before kickoff. So as you said, when you came you actually saw the manager at the time, which was a real treat. And it's not saying that, obviously we don't have that every day, but if you come on a match day, obviously that is a completely different experience, and there's lots of activity happening in and around the stadium. Both in the exterior with people arriving, but also when you're looking down into the pitch, that's a different element, as opposed to a day like today where it's probably a bit more calm and quiet down there.

Kelly Molson: It was super windy the day that we came as well. I've got this video of me, and my hair is like.

Laura Chiplin: That's just part of the experience.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it was great. It was good fun.

Laura Chiplin: Even more adrenaline.

Kelly Molson: I'm thinking weddings on the roof. That is a lovely big space up there with the beautiful views. I'm thinking weddings up there.

Laura Chiplin: Well, we've had quite a few proposals, which is lovely. So yeah, and again with those personalised experiences, so we do proposal packages for people that really want to take that proposal to the next level, no pun intended. But yeah, we have had quite a few up there, which is really lovely, and also a few in the stadium as well. But we are licensed for weddings up there, so if anyone's interested.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm glad that this is going out after I've just got married, because I'm pretty sure that would have been on Lee's list of venues to do the wedding at. And I love Tottenham, don't get me wrong. Just not sure if I'd want to get married up there.

Laura Chiplin: A climbing suit and a wedding dress.

Kelly Molson: It's not a good look for me. Too windy, it would mess up my hair. So, what's next? Are there any more exciting plans for different attractions, or anything new that's coming that you can share with us?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, so there are some new things coming. Probably not that I can say right now, but we are looking at a number of new attractions that we could add into our existing experiences. We're also going to be launching later this year, technical tours. So these are quite detailed and specific, but they will give customers another kind of view of the stadium, and really focus on the technical capabilities, the design, the architecture. So, it would take people underneath the pitch pocket, underneath the pitch, so to really get a completely different perspective. So, we're really looking at how we can bring in different interests, again, attract different audiences that perhaps wouldn't necessarily come to go in the dressing room, but they're very interested in the architecture and the design of the stadium. And then yeah, with the Skywalk, as I say, looking at how we can use that space on the roof and how we can incorporate different things into there, to give different experiences to our visitors.

Kelly Molson: Love it. I'm very excited to see how these new things develop. I do probably need to come back, and be brave, and dangle myself over the side of the building as well. Because that wasn't open when we came, so that was my excuse for not doing it.

Laura Chiplin: You absolutely do.

Kelly Molson: Oh God, I don't know. I don't know. I'm actually not that great with heights, but I did feel very safe and secure up there, so I was okay.

Laura Chiplin: If I can do it, you can do it.

Kelly Molson: Have you done it?

Laura Chiplin: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Oh, you've got to test them all, of course.

Laura Chiplin: Of course. Yeah, no, I couldn't possibly not do it. But I also would not naturally dangle myself off the side of Tottenham Hotspur stadium. But I have done it a couple of times, so yeah, you must come back and do it.

Kelly Molson: That's something to tell, "What did you do at work today?" "Oh, just para-sailed down the side of the building. Standard day in the office."

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, exactly. Just another day.

Kelly Molson: I love it. Thank you for coming on and sharing. We're at the end of the podcast, and I always our guests, if they want to share a book that they love. Something that can be work related or just a personal book that they really love to share, what have you got for us?

Laura Chiplin: So, I'm going down more a personal route. I do love self improvement, I call them self improvement books, but kind of mindset, and I'm really interested in those things. But I was thinking about it, and I was like, sometimes actually just reading a good novel, if you're feeling quite stressed, or you've got a lot on, sometimes just reading a good book can really take you out that headspace. And actually, that's always a good thing. So I really like the writer, David Nichols, so I really love The Understudy. I also really like it because David Nichols used to be an actor before he was a writer, and actually The Understudy is a bit... It's not autobiographical at all, but it does take a bit from, he was an understudy for a long time. And I guess from working in theatrebefore, I just really like that book.

Laura Chiplin: And that led me to One Day, which you might have seen the film, you might have read the book. But One Day is a really beautiful book, in my opinion, to the point where I'll always pop into a charity shop, I love going into charity shops. And they'll often have it in there, because it was a such a best seller, for a pound or something. So I'll normally pick them up and then just give them to people, for a nice, "Have you read this book?" "No." "Oh, here it is." It's a nice thing to do.

Kelly Molson: That's really lovely. That's such a nice thing to do, I think giving a book as a gift that you love is such a personal thing to share.

Laura Chiplin: Yeah, so I've also kind of cheated because I've given you two things, two books. Sorry.

Kelly Molson: Everyone does this, everyone blows my marketing budget on a weekly basis on this podcast. But thanks.

Laura Chiplin: You just need to go to the charity shop.

Kelly Molson: Yes.

Laura Chiplin: I'll have a copy at home now. I was looking at my bookshelf last night, and I actually have two copies of One Day on there at the moment. So, I should just send you one.

Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. So if you want to win Laura's book, as ever, if you go over to our Twitter account and you share this announcement, podcast announcement with the words, "I want Laura's book," she's going to send you that. I'll get her to send it directly to you.

Laura Chiplin: I will.

Kelly Molson: Thank you, you've saved my marketing budget. It's been so lovely to have you on today. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. I didn't ask you though, are you actually a massive Tottenham fan?

Laura Chiplin: I wasn't a Tottenham fan before I started working here. That's what I'll say, but I'm absolutely a Tottenham fan now.

Kelly Molson: It's evolved, the love is there. Thanks so much for coming on, it's been great to chat to you.

Laura Chiplin: Thank you so much for having me.

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 

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