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.linkedin.com/in/david-hingley-58471524/

https://www.tate.org.uk/

https://twitter.com/David_Hingley

David Hingley has over 20 years experience leading large teams in delivering customer and visitor experience.

A lifelong lover of history (honestly there used to be a badge for that in cubs and that’s where it all started), David followed a history degree by joining the graduate trainee scheme at Sainsbury’s before moving on to a number of roles in Marks and Spencer, ending up running a department store when they were still fashionable. Having been told during a career development conversation that a future desire to ‘run a castle’ was a daydream not a career plan - David was able to combine his passion for history with transferrable retail skills in the role of Head of Operations at Hampton Court Palace for Historic Royal Palaces. During this time he worked on projects such as the 2012 Olympic cycling time trial, the 2014 Poppies installation at the Tower of London, and the Magic Garden. He is currently Head of Visitor Experience at Tate Modern and Tate Britain which, thanks to Covid, has involved a lot more discussion about one-way routes, Perspex screens and face-coverings than the initial application process suggested.

As well as Tate, David’s a Trustee at Painshill Park, an average runner and a keen reader and walker.

He believes that ‘people make places’ and it’s the shared enjoyment of unique sites by the volunteers and staff who care for them, and the visitors that make their memories there, that ensure they continue to thrive.

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 David Hingley, Head of Visitor Experience at Tate. We discuss the visitor experience restructure at Tate, why people make places and how visitor experience makes crazy ideas happen. 

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

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

David Hingley: Great to see you. Thanks for having me on.

Kelly Molson: Well as ever, we are going straight to icebreaker questions. I would like to know if you could live anywhere in the world for a year, where would it be?

David Hingley: At the moment, I think I would like to live... This will be popular with some people I know... in Iceland. It's because we went years ago on a whale watching trip to Iceland in the coast, and it was fantastic. Ever since, I've wanted to go back, it is just completely different to anywhere else I've been on, I think, on the planet. A week wasn't enough.

Kelly Molson: Totally agree with you. We went... Oh, 2017, maybe around then. Absolutely spectacular. Like you say, so different to anywhere that we'd ever experienced before. Bonkers, bonkers snow and weather and just everything is icy, but magic. Absolutely magic.

David Hingley: Yeah and the belief in that magic as well. It's the whole mythology and stuff that's going on there, but also I loved... At the end of it all, we were in the back of beyond for a lot of the trip, obviously, but we're in Reykjavík. I think it was 20 degrees, and everyone was complaining how hot it was. We went to this little coffee shop. It was all as if you were in the busiest part of London, but there were honestly maybe three, four people there. It was, "You're in the big city now. This is how we roll." I just love that.

Kelly Molson: While we're on this subject, did you eat the fermented shark?

David Hingley: Yes, not much. Not very much at all.

Kelly Molson: So bad. Yeah, so bad.

David Hingley: We had a tour guide who was very keen that we did, and we did the very British polite thing, but it was not good.

Kelly Molson: Was not for me, David, either. Okay. Would you rather be a super hero, and what would be your superhero talent, or the world's best chef?

David Hingley: I feel like my family would say that if I was the world's best chef, that would be a super talent, compared with where we are at the moment. I'm not really sure about being a superhero. I think I'd rather be a chef. There's a lot rests on you as a superhero. I'm not sure. Especially after the last few years, I'm not sure I could deal with it. I think to be a chef and have people come and enjoy the food, that'd be great. I'm not sure how my signature dish of Toad in the Hole followed by like a kind of version of school dinners, chocolate concrete and custard would go down, but I'm sure I could deconstruct it.

Kelly Molson: The Toad in a Hole sounds okay. The rest that came afterwards, let's just park that, shall we? Okay. I don't ask enough people this, and I should, but often it's like asking what your favourite child is. But what is your favourite attraction?

David Hingley: Oh, that is...

Kelly Molson: It's a hard one, isn't it?

David Hingley: I think a lot of it's down to what your mood is at the time. It's predictable. I would probably go for Hampton Court. I know I've worked there, but I do... The reason I say that is even though I kind of know how it's done, I still love going back and visiting it. I can properly enjoy it as a visitor now because I was a visitor before, then I worked there. Now, I'm a visitor again. It's still got something about it because there's so many different facets to it with the gardens or the kind of... It's family friendly. It's got all the history. So yeah, that would be my favourite attraction.

Kelly Molson: That's good. That's good that you can step away from it, having worked there because I think sometimes that might ruin it a little bit for you. It's good that it still got the magic. Great answer. Thank you very much. All right. It's time for your unpopular opinion. What have you prepared for us?

David Hingley: I feel quite strongly that Ant & Dec's early work was their superior period. As much as I know the nation loves Ant & Dec, I think you look back on Let's Get Ready To Rumble, I think... The fact that when they revisited that it went... Everyone was so pleased. For me, that shows the quality was there from the start. I think growing up Grange Hill might have done Just Say No To Drugs, which was very laudable, but Ant & Dec were in Biker Grove. We got that warning about the dangers of paintball. For anyone in my generation that had to go on a lot of management away days, where people thought it'd be fun if we did stuff like paintball, I think that kind of early warning was important. And, yeah, Wonky Donkey, I mean, you're never going to beat that.

Kelly Molson: Oh my God. Wonky donkey is the best.

David Hingley: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I mean, there's nothing like an aggressive Dec, is there? Nothing. It's glorious.

David Hingley: Saturday morning with a bit of a hangover watching them basically losing it with kids, who are trying to answer a very simple question. I mean, I don't know why they don't bring that back on Saturday Takeaway or something like that. I just think it would... I do think it's a superior period. I mean, I like what they do now, but I think they've lost some of the edge. Got to be honest.

Kelly Molson: I agree with you, David. I am completely on the same page with you. Ant & Dec were... They're like my little heroes that I grew up with. I actually saw them perform Let's Get Ready To Rumble live once at an under 18s gig in Romford.

David Hingley: Wow.

Kelly Molson: I don't know why that was important, but yeah, it was a great, great moment. Really great moment. Thank you. Let's see what our listeners feel. Please tweet me. Let me know how you feel about Ant & Dec's earlier work and whether they should bring back Wonky Donkey obviously. Right, David, let's get onto the serious stuff. I'd like to know a little bit about your background. You alluded to the fact that you've worked in other attractions as well. So tell us about your background and where you're at too now.

David Hingley: My background's kind of fairly mixed and quite a lot of different things. Years ago... My daughter reminds me years ago. Years ago, I did a degree in history. Absolutely loved it. My parents always said, "You know what'll happen with that? You'll end up working in a shop," because nobody knows what to do with a degree in history. So I proved them right and went and worked in shops. I worked for Sainsbury's on the graduate training scheme. I thought I'd do it for 12 months, just get some great knowledge, and then I'll move on.

David Hingley: I did that for seven years, did different jobs there, night shift managers, fruit and veg managers, that kind of stuff because I just like working with the people. Then I went work for M&S when running department stores was still a thing. God, I spent seven years with M&S. I was a food hall manager because that's what they do with anyone who's come from supermarkets. I worked in some really interesting shops. I worked in the Kings Road, which is quite a fancy place, obviously. Ken High Street, where we used to have flamingos on the roof because the roof gardens were above us, so that was quite cool. Then Marble Arch and Oxford Street.

David Hingley: But all the time I was thinking I'd really like to do something that I felt more at home with. I was reading my history books on my breaks. Then Hampton Court advertised for a head of visitor services, I think it was. I thought, "I'll give that a go." I stuck my CV in and yeah, I was successful. I got the job, which feels like a real cheat, because I know how hard people work and. I feel like I had loads of transferable skills, and the organisation took a bit of a flyer on me.

David Hingley: I know that's true because on the first morning when I started, I was having a coffee with the director, and he's very... You can imagine, all the rooms at Hampton Court are very grand. It was quite a grand room. He just said, "It's amazing who comes out top of these recruitment processes, isn't it?"

Kelly Molson: "Oh, thanks."

David Hingley: ... which I think was well meant. Then I got to work at Hampton Court. It was head of visitor services and it became head of operations. As those roles always change names. Then we had the Olympics, the Jubilee. We had the Magic Garden opened, which was massive for Hampton Court. The kids' garden opened. I was involved with the Tower of London when they did the poppies in the moat as well.

Kelly Molson: Oh, amazing.

David Hingley: Remember the delivery of every one of those because that was part of the team I was involved in, delivering them for like a year afterwards. Then I did a bit of time at Landmark Trust, where I was the Chief Operating Officer. They've got about 200 historic buildings all over the country, rescue them. If they're not big enough to be a tourist attraction, you can get the keys to a castle and stay there for a weekend, which is amazing, but they don't like you popping in to see how their holidays going, those visitors, so you miss all the... I missed all the kind of visitor interaction.

David Hingley: Then the Tate role came up, which is Tate Britain and Tate Modern and working with the teams, looking after the day-to-day visitor experience. I've been doing that for a couple of years, although sometimes feels like it is longer given the last year and a bit.

Kelly Molson: Imagine. Yeah, I could imagine.

David Hingley: That's really potted history of how I ended up where I am.

Kelly Molson: So it's Tate and Tate... Sorry, Tate Modern and Tate Britain.

David Hingley: Yes.

Kelly Molson: What does a typical day for you look like then? Are you rushing from one to the other and working out what the hell's going on?

David Hingley: Not as much as it used to be, thanks to Zoom. Used to spend quite a bit of time on the boat going between the two sites. Anyone who works at Tate would tell you, it's quite nice if you've got to go from Tate Modern to Tate Britain from me. You can get the boat because you feel like a tourist for that 25 minutes. I know this sounds like every glossy catalog, but there isn't a typical day. Whilst my teams are making sure the doors are open, all the exhibitions are staffed and we're all looking ready to go and everything, my job is kind of 50% thinking about what's going on at the moment. I often say I have to think about the worst day out anyone can have and then stop that happening. In the last year with COVID, how do you open sites with COVID and make sure they're still fun?

David Hingley: Then the other 50%'s kind of looking at what's coming next. Typical days can be in the mornings, I could be in meetings about exhibitions that are going to open up at Tate Britain or Tate Modern in next kind of two years, 12 months or just around the corner. Then there's all the stuff around looking after the team, one to ones with colleagues, look after the senior teams at each site, planning what we're going to do to kind of train everybody up on whatever's coming next, all of the business continuity planning stuff, making sure that we're operating safely, thinking about risk assessments, kind of all the-

Kelly Molson: All the fun stuff.

David Hingley: All the fun stuff, yeah. I say if it's kind of tricky, tedious or terrifying, it's probably going to fall into the operations teams part. Not in a bad way because we like doing all that stuff, but yeah, a mix of project planning, thinking about how we work with the programming teams and bring that to life and then looking after our own teams day to day and making sure they've got what they need to get through a day and operate smoothly.

Kelly Molson: I can only imagine how reactive that has needed to be over the past 18 months and potentially the next few months to come.

David Hingley: Yeah. Constantly. I think the trick is kind of finding the spot as well between being reactive and trying to be proactive, which has been even harder in the last year because many of us don't know what's going to happen until the evening before, do we?

Kelly Molson: No. No. Then you found out from Bernard in his updates rather than the government.

David Hingley: Yeah. Bernard and his flowers and his updates.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah. Famous flowers. We've been emailing backwards and forth and talking about different topics for the podcast. One of the things that you mentioned that I think is really interesting is about the visitor experience restructure that you were looking at at Tate. You said it actually accelerated a not-change program. Talk us through what you mean by that because I'd love to understand, one, how that came about and, two, what it kind of looks like.

David Hingley: Yeah. Kind of fortunate, unfortunate, I took the job about two and a half years ago. So I didn't have that long really before COVID to get my head around the two sites, Tate, the way things worked, but when I started, the role was very much... It was a slight rejigging of roles as happens in organisations. Was talking to obviously the team that recruited me about what it was they wanted from the role. It was about moving from, if you like, a more traditional visitor service, visitor operations to engagement.

David Hingley: Engagement was a big word that was used a lot. I don't think any of us were quite sure exactly what that meant. It was quite terrifying for some of the team not because they can't do it, but because the word was used a lot. The team were like, "Well, we do engage with people. We talk to people all the time," or, "We were taken on as gallery assistants back in the day when engagement would mean telling someone to back off if they got too close to a painting because it was our job to protect the stuff."

David Hingley: It was always going to be about looking at how we could change the way that we worked as a team because Tate obviously used to millions of visitors, operated very smoothly. I mean, you go in and do your kind of casing the joint before you go for the interview. You can see there's kind of a well oiled machine, but one of the things is that it can be quite hot and cold as you go around the building. You can have brilliant individual interactions and then they've asked buildings... There's other areas where you don't meet anyone.

Kelly Molson: Right.

David Hingley: How can you help a thinly spread team to embody the place and have confidence and get it right for all kinds of visitors? From a visitor to Tate Modern's wandered in off the South Bank just to have a look around because they're curious, to someone who's come to Tate Britain on a mission to see a particular painting because that's what they want to see. That's their day out.

David Hingley: I call it a bit of a not change program because it deliberately didn't do a change program. I think as soon as you start saying like, "I'm the new person. I'm here to do a change program," it terrifies people quite often. Everybody knows that if somebody new turns up when there's a new structure, that there is going to be change. So rather than labeling it in that way, what I did and what my team did and what we agreed to do was to work collectively on what that needed to look like because many of the visitor assistants, they knew what they wanted to do differently.

David Hingley: It was a case of doing a lot of... I don't know. It sounds kind of slightly old hat, but focus groups, discussion groups with those teams to just tease out of them what great service looked like, what got in the way of delivering it, how they would like things to be different and then being able to almost play that back to the teams and use that to shape the changes that we were going to make. You can write a lot of that down in advance on the back of an envelope, if you like, because you genuinely know what people feel makes a good experience or you can generally guess what the barriers are going to be.

David Hingley: But it's about making sure you've uncovered that all as a team. We really took... Tate, fortunately for me, had just had some new values that they've been working on, again, as an organisation around being kind, rigorous, open and bold. What we were able to do was we were able to say... Well, I was able to say, "I'm not sure how a painting or a piece of art is kind, but I know how a person can do that if I come in as a visitor and I'm looking a bit lost or my kids desperately need the toilet and I need to find it first.

David Hingley: We took on thinking about how we, as people, embody Tate's values and really pulling it all back to that, which on the one hand, can sound a bit corporate, but actually I think it was really important that we... What we wanted to do was build a common language and a way of talking, so we could sort of hold ourselves to account and work out whether we'd had a good day or not.

Kelly Molson: It's interesting because when you talk about it like that, from the aspect of our values, it feels very much that the visitor experience is... It's almost about giving... It's giving people the allowance to do what they need to do at that time. We had Liz Power on from Water And Steam a few weeks ago. That was one of the things that she spoke about in her team is that she empowers them to make the right decision about a circumstance. That might be somebody gets to give a free ticket away to somebody for them and their family. That, to me, sounds very similar to what you're talking about.

David Hingley: Yeah. I think it is about that. It can be really hard, particularly in big institutions where you've got people, let's be honest, standing in certain spaces and galleries... I mean, that's part of the insurance and the fire evacuation, right? That's what's led to a person being stood there, first and foremost. You've got to do that and it's really important, but then how can you enable that person still to kind of bring themselves... A lot of my team, they're highly skilled. A lot of them are artists. This is another job that they do. It's how you can enable them to bring that to an institution and yet still kind of have a feel of like, "Okay, this is Tate. This is what Tate feels like."

Kelly Molson: Yeah. How difficult was this to do because I guess, did this start just before the pandemic?

David Hingley: We started just before the pandemic with all my kind of like... Having talked to everybody, we kind of set the direction. There was this brilliant five-year plan because we all [inaudible 00:17:39]. "And this is what we're going to do in year one."

Kelly Molson: Then it got ripped into tiny little pieces.

David Hingley: Absolutely. It was hard. Most of the core team were furloughed because we weren't open. So I think what we did, those of us who were still in, was we kind of already pitched where we were going to the team. Then we were able to... In one sense, alongside planning how to reopen, we were allowed to do a lot of work on what kind of material we needed, training materials, what kind of... Just going back on basic stuff like we have a handbook for people. Just getting that all tidied up. It kind of really captured the role.

David Hingley: Then we were already thinking about what change to the job role we would want to make because the key change, I think, in terms of the restructures actually have been keen to make sure people understand the skills involved in being a gallery assistant, for example. We call it visitor engagement assistant now. We do laugh and say that all of our jobs have gained an extra letter. The visitor engagement managers are now visitor engagement and operations managers because that shows the breadth of their job. We have redone everybody's job descriptions based on the fact that as time's gone on, people have taken on a lot more of the kind of security aspects. The duty management aspects become bigger.

David Hingley: People are more demanding. We deal with more incidents than we used to in the past. For the visitor assistants, there were seven things on their job description, which I think somebody thought was kind of, "Let's keep it nice and simple and have some basic stuff on there," but actually it meant a lot of the time, the team were... The team themselves said they felt they were defined by what they weren't. We were able to take some of those ideas and suggestions that they had and incorporate them into a job description and have that ready for when they returned. Then when we returned and we were back in the galleries, then we'd be in again, doing same process. We went through what the proposed changes were, what that would mean and getting people to buy into it and agree to it.

Kelly Molson: Do you think that that was harder to do because of the pandemic, trying to get people motivated to make those changes?

David Hingley: Physically harder to do? Everything's been hard, I think, from a mental health point of view for people in terms of the backwards and forward of the pandemic, but I think some of the changes that potentially people would've seen as major actually in the scheme of all our lives and what's happened in the last year and a bit, people were... They're almost like, "Oh gosh, is this all you want me to do?"

Kelly Molson: "Phew."

David Hingley: I also think one thing that's helped a lot is during the period when we've been in and out... At the moment, we've got people working from home, largely if they can office based. Most of my team, we're in most of the time... So my team have to be in all the time. You can only do your job face to face.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

David Hingley: But it really showed how... It sounds daft because it's obvious, but it really showed how important those teams are and the weight that they take on. We found that because there's been a, "What's the latest legislation? How does it work... And you go to the operational teams because they're dealing with it all the time. The teams get much more listened to than we perhaps did in the past because it's been really necessary and really important. I think the organisation as a whole never intended not to listen to those teams, but I think it's just kind of fine tuned the need to hear what's said and what the experience is on the ground.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's really interesting. How have you been able to test the impact of the program? You've been open for pockets of time, obviously clearly open at the moment. Let's hope that that continues. How have you been able to test it with the general public?

David Hingley: Yeah. There's a few things that we've done. We've started doing a mystery visitor. I mean, that's not groundbreaking. Loads of people do it, but I think it's good to have kind of a snapshot. We started to do that before we ran some of our training. We worked with a company called the Whole Story on our customer engagement style, if you like. We ran sessions on that before we reopened last time from the last lockdown. We were able to benchmark where we were before and where we are now. We've seen positive movements. We're in a good place, we're in a better place.

Kelly Molson: Great.

David Hingley: Especially around consistency. The feedback we get from... Visitors because we've had booked tickets, which we haven't had before for the free collection. So there are issues with that, but one of the positives is we ask people for feedback afterwards and we get really good rates of response. Those responses have been... We saw them become more positive over time.

David Hingley: I think part of that is because we've got better with our COVID measures and some of that, but also positive comments about staff and what they're doing. I think there's another element of reopening after the first lockdown, certainly, we did have visitors in tears because they were seeing staff again that they hadn't seen for ages. It just been spaces. I think that probably gave some of the team confidence to realise that they do play a significant part in people's lives, even if those people don't spend a lot of time interacting, don't know them by name. Some of them, they do, but that's kind of reaffirmed the importance. We've seen more positive comments definitely, and I think that is testament to how hard the team have all worked as well actually because it's been a tough time generally.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. What an amazing reaction though. Isn't that just lovely? I mean, that really showcases how important people are.

David Hingley: Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Kelly Molson: What tips would you give other organisations attractions that are thinking about going through this process?

David Hingley: Again, it's tried and tested, but definitely over communicating all the time. I mean, I'm not going to say... Obviously there've been times when some of the stuff we've been doing has not been so popular with some of the team, and I kind of understand that. I think it was important to hear that and to be honest about what I could change and what I couldn't change. I do think there's a point around when it didn't go well. I could think of at least one occasion where I stuffed up when I just went out to everybody and went, "Do you know what? I stuffed up. There was an email you shouldn't have received... It wasn't a particularly batting, but... You shouldn't have received that email timing wise." I wanted to make sure that I communicated things differently, but I did the classic thing and sent it to the wrong people.

David Hingley: I just went straight out and to everybody, "I stuffed up," and a lot of the team came back and said, "We really respect that." Then we just quickly arranged meetings afterwards. I think we did listen, and we made changes to the proposals in some areas. So if I take this idea of more engagement, I know some of the team have worked with us for over 20 years, and they're fantastic, and we don't want to lose them. But what we're asking them to do is very different from what they signed up for. I think we would... I used to joke.. I still do that... that some people were worried that engagement meant kind of almost juggling in front of their favourite painting.

David Hingley: It doesn't. If you've been there for 20 years and you've seen Tate Britain evolve or Tate Modern from when it opened, those people have got great stories to tell. What we've got, for example, in one of the job descriptions is there's almost kind of three options where it's like if you want to be someone who knows the history of the building and shares it with people, build that up and do that. That's your interaction, but that'll be what you work on. If you want to give a talk in front of people, great, you can work on that. We need people like that. It's part of our recruitment process now. We'd recruit people who wanted to do that.

David Hingley: But if you're someone who joined us before then, and that's not your thing, but you've got years and years of research, as some of my team do, then you can, by all means, provide that content for somebody else to deliver the talk for you. So trying to just, I suppose... Again, it's an element of being realistic and working with the team you've got because none of us are great at everything. So long as we've got all the bases covered and everybody's kind of pulling their weight, that's what we're trying to create.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's playing to everybody's strengths using, everybody's talents in the best possible way and not by making anyone feel excluded because they're not comfortable standing up in front of an audience and delivering or that's just not their bag, but they have got the knowledge.

David Hingley: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And someone else can do that for them as well. I really love that idea of being able to collaborate with people to share your experiences. Fantastic. Is this leading anywhere? I feel like this change program could be rolled out elsewhere, couldn't it?

David Hingley: Yeah. Well, I really have been talking to colleagues. I really feel that we're in a tough time. We're all going to be struggling in different ways and in different contexts with things like budgets. It's always hard to get people off the floor to do training. It's something that we've struggled with for a long time. One of the things I'm keen to do is to work with other institutions and say this is the range of training programs we're running for front of house teams at Tate. What are you doing? Where's there some crossover. If we've got a room and we can get five people in it... And you've got a couple of people that want to come along and see what that's like, well, why don't we start to pair up? I don't think there's enough.

David Hingley: I know different organisations have done it at different times, but I think if you want to change the way we look at front of house teams, it's quite hard. You can be starting your career. You might start as a visitor engagement assistant at Tate, and it might not be where you want to be long term, but often people can get stuck there and think, "Well, how do I get to the next place? It's hard when you're in that role as well to network, et cetera." If we can open up opportunities for someone to go and do a few shifts at a different site, for example, and I can kind of backfill and swap it around between us... Because we know our teams have got very similar skills, then I feel like that's something that we could really be doing more of. Organisations like Tate, we've got an opportunity to help to do that.

Kelly Molson: Love that. It's building on what we've seen in the sector throughout the whole of the pandemic, isn't it? That kind of collaboration that's really come through and it's been there. It has been there to a certain extent, but it's been so much deeper whilst the pandemic has been going on, everybody helping each other. Something that you said about the networking thing when people are in those kind of entry-level roles, that's something that we spoke out with Rachel and Carlton quite a long time ago, actually right towards the beginning of the pandemic about the Visitor Experience Forum.

Kelly Molson: That was the reason that that organisation was kind of set up to be able to give that platform to some of those audiences as well. I can definitely see the benefits of what you are suggesting. The organisations working together for the greater good. I think that's a fantastic idea. That comes back to something else that you talked about as well when we were emailing. I love that segue so well in there, but you said you'd like people to understand that visitor engagement is a career choice.

David Hingley: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Your quote was "People make places, visitor engagement make crazy ideas happen."

David Hingley: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I love this. I love this. Where's this come from?

David Hingley: People make places, and my team now roll their eyes and repeat. Everybody repeats it, which is great actually because that's... But it comes from years ago when I worked at M&S actually. It's where it kind of triggered the idea. I don't think they used the phrase, but we went to... They used to do big conferences back in the day and get the store managers along. They showed this big black and white film. It was our latest store that was about to open. It was all black and white. It all looked beautiful, but it was all black and white.

David Hingley: Then they put the people in, which was the staff and the customers, and they turned it all to colour. It was like a goosebump moment, which it's supposed to be, but it did stick with me. Then when I started working in the heritage sector... It's not a criticism, but I think it is genuinely surprising to me how many areas of the organisation just don't... Because they don't interact with people in the same way, they're not out there seeing what the visitors are doing. Sometimes I bet that's a blessing for them. Sometimes I think they're really missing out, but we've all got our jobs to do.

David Hingley: I think there was a real... When I get emails... When we get emails in, and it's emails now rather than letters. It's never like, "I came... Well, very rarely is it, "I came to Tate and the art was amazing," because like that's a given. You come to Tate, you expect the... You might not like it, might not be to your taste, but you know it's a certain standard or the buildings were amazing. You expect the buildings to be amazing. Hampton Court, same thing. It's a palace. It's going to look good.

David Hingley: But people write in and say, "I met Frank" or, "I met James, and he told me why he loved this painting," or a story about this room. Or he opened a hidden door and showed my child what was through there. That's what sticks with people. It's the thing that you don't immediately come up on your Google search or isn't in the guidebook, those are the kind of moments where memories get made. Bernard always says staff, not stuff. I think it's a version of that really. It's like the stuff's important, but the people make the interaction, and they're what you come back for.

David Hingley: That's that element. It is definitely a career. I know lots of people join front of house teams, and they want to get on and work in other areas of heritage, culture attractions. That's absolutely fine, but I think we need to be quite honest about where we can get people. We managed to get to a point when I was at Hampton Court, where at the end of a summer season quite a lot of our staff would get stolen by interpretation or membership or other teams because they knew they were good with people. That's great, but there's only a limited number of opportunities.

David Hingley: I used to say to people you can't hang around in the Great Hall at Hampton Court and hope that Lucy Worsley's going to pluck you for obscurity and make you curator because that isn't how it works. It's about people using their in to kind of look at where they want to go and to understand what they might need to do to get other roles rather than... It's just a bit disingenuous to lead people thinking if they work really hard front of house, that they're definitely going to get a different role.

David Hingley: But then I would also encourage people to stay front of house, stay in the teams that I get to work in because I look at the meetings in other people's diaries. I say I don't have a typical day. I don't know many other people that get to go along and talk about future acquisitions for Tate in terms of paintings, go along to what's the next project that's coming up, hear about what a curator's working on next, then be in a meeting about membership. The variety, you get to stick your oar in everywhere when you work in visitor experience. That's cool.

David Hingley: We used to have museum studies group come every year to Hampton Court. I always used to think if I can convert just one of those 35 people who are all hoping to become curators or similar to operations, then that's like a win. That's where the crazy ideas happen thing comes in. You can dispute whether the ideas are crazy, but I've been in meetings where somebody says, "We're going to plant 888,246 poppies in the Tower of London moat and then sell them around the world," and everyone's gone, "Really?" Or, "We're going to have a pie that opens up every day and the kids are going to jump out of it in front of Elizabeth the first. The kid that's going to go in the pie is going to be one of the visitor's kids."

David Hingley: "Oh right, okay. That's safeguarding risk assessment." "We built a dragon that gave out steam in the kid's garden." There's all kinds of issues there you've got to think about. I think operations teams can be seen as people that say no quite a lot, and sometimes there's good reasons, but actually the job is more yes if or how do we do that? I think it's a really creative job and people don't see it like that.

Kelly Molson: That needs to go on your job ads, doesn't it? "Come and work with the team that puts children into pies."

David Hingley: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Maybe not. Maybe not so much like that, but that's part and parcel of it, isn't it? I spoke to Kate Nicholls from UK hospitality about the real challenge that we've got at the moment with recruitment in that sector. I think it's about making the best of it. It's about finding those hooks that make it an interesting place to be and to explain the career path. Actually a lot of front of house, they might only be thinking one way. They might be relatively narrow minded in the sense of that's the way that they see their career going, where it's about showcasing all of these brilliant things that they could go on and do, but making it fun and making it interesting. some of the things that you've just described, I wouldn't have even put in the operations hat?

David Hingley: Yeah. I think this is it because operations are so different at different places as well. You kind of have operations experience, business services, engagement, and they're all so different. Some people doing my job are looking after all of the maintenance as well. I've done the job where I've looked after security. At the moment, I work with security. I don't have to look after them. So often it is configured around what it isn't. It's really clear what a curatorial job is, for example. I'm not picking on it. It just is really clear. If you ask most members of the public who works in a museum, the first thing they'll say is a curator understandably.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

David Hingley: But they don't really appreciate all the different jobs that surround that. I think that's a problem because then people think it's not the place for them.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

David Hingley: If you want a more diverse workforce, it's about saying, "Well, these are the opportunities we've got. This is the stuff we do."

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Brilliant. David, thank you. I've really enjoyed this talk. We always end the podcast with a book recommendation from our guests. Something that they love or something that's helped shape their career in some way. It can be anything. What have you got for us today?

David Hingley: I had a real think about this. It's tricky. I always recommend any book by John Falk. Got one here at the moment. He's just got one out called the Value Of Museums. You've probably come across him. I'm sure quite a lot of people will have come across him. I think he writes brilliantly about not just museums, but about all the kind of baggage that we all bring on our visit. I think he really, in his writing, gets that when somebody rocks up, we do a lot of work on things like personas all of us, but you can be in a different persona depending on who you come with. My experience when I used to take my daughter when she was small round somewhere would be that I'd see the whole exhibition at a million miles an hour, maybe read one label because then we're off to get a brownie and a cup of tea.

David Hingley: But if I went on my day off on my own, could be there for two hours. It could be a completely different visit. I think he really gets that in his writing. I think he really kind of sums up the operational side of it. Then I've got a slightly off the wall one, which is Dylan Thomas. The Dylan Thomas Omnibus has his broadcasting about... He just used to do weekly broadcasts. I pulled one out because he's got a bit about the Festival of Britain Exhibition in 1951.

Kelly Molson: Right.

David Hingley: He's just totally gets what visitors are like. I didn't know whether I could read you just a paragraph of it.

Kelly Molson: Please do.

David Hingley: Pitch people if you work in visitor attractions, look it up. He talks about visitor flow basically. This is the exhibition in 1951. It says, "Most people who wish, at the beginning anyway, to make sense of the exhibition follow the course indicated in the official guidebook, a series of conflicting arrows, which lead many visitors who cannot understand these things splash dash into the Thames. And work their way dutifully right through the land of Britain, the glaciers of 20,000 years ago, the inferno of blown desert sand, which is now Birmingham, out at last to the Pavilion of Health, where perhaps they stop for an envious moment at the sign that says euthanasia." It just goes on. It talks about levitating doors and basically how people prefer the cafe to the rest of the site. It's like four or five pages, but I would recommend looking it up. I can't find it anywhere else.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's brilliant. Yeah, he really did get it, didn't he?

David Hingley: Wasted as a poet.

Kelly Molson: David, thank you so much. Listen as ever, if you'd like to win a copy of David's books... Are there two books there? Two books?

David Hingley: Yeah. I've got two books. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: There's two. If you'd like to win a copy of David's books, as ever, go over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words "I want David's books", then you will be in for a chance of winning them. David, thank you for coming on. What's next? Is it all rolled out now, everything's working?

David Hingley: Now is the fun bit I hope. We keep talking about 2022. Let's hope with where we are at the moment with the virus, but now is the bit where we can really concentrate on the team. We've got the team all in place. We've kind of got them the job roles that they kind of deserve and hopefully the recognition. Now should be the bit where we can really develop the people. Our aim is we know it's been a success, we've said if everybody wants to steal our staff, but nobody wants to leave. That's kind of the challenge. By the end of the year, the next year, that's where I want to be.

Kelly Molson: All right. Well, come on at the end of next year and tell me how that worked out. I hope all your staff are still with you, but they're being poached like crazy.

David Hingley: Yeah. Fingers crossed.

Kelly Molson: Thanks ever so much, David.

David Hingley: Thanks 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 the 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.ukhospitality.org.uk/

https://twitter.com/UKHospKate

https://www.linkedin.com/in/kate-nicholls-093b0514/

Kate Nicholls is CEO of UKHospitality, the powerful voice representing the broad hospitality sector, having previously worked as CEO and Strategic Affairs Director of the ALMR.

In July 2019, Kate was appointed Chair of the Tourism Alliance, the membership organisation for the tourism industry comprising of leading trade associations/trade bodies within the sector. Kate is also Chair of Mayor of London’s Night Time Commission and is also a member of the Events Industry Board, London Food Board, Tourism Industry Council, Cultural Cities Enquiry, London & Partners Members Group and the Advisory Board for the Institute for Industrial Strategy.

After gaining a degree in English and a post-graduate diploma in competition law, Kate worked as a researcher in the House of Commons and European Parliament before joining Whitbread as Government Relations Manager, starting her career in hospitality in 1993. Kate was Director at one of the largest independent public affairs companies, working with a number of hospitality, retail and leisure accounts before establishing her own strategic communications consultancy in 2000. She is a graduate of Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and Kings College London.

A highly motivated Board-level adviser with a proven track record in devising and delivering strategic public policy and communication campaigns. Over 25 years experience working in a variety of government, corporate, agency and freelance roles.

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 Kate Nicholls, CEO of UKHospitality and the Co-chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. Kate answers your burning questions on how to attract and maintain talent in the current challenging climate. 

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

Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I know how incredibly busy you are, so I'm very grateful.

Kate Nicholls: Thank you. It's great to be with you. I don't think I've had any time in the last two years really where it hasn't been incredibly busy, so it's good to take some time out and have a chance to have a chat. So thank you for having me.

Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. You are very welcome. I'm glad I could give you that time. Right, Kate, icebreaker questions, because this is where we start all of our podcast interviews. I want to know what is at the top of your bucket list?

Kate Nicholls: Ooh, well, for the last two summers we'd been planning ... My eldest was just about to go to University when COVID hit, and for the last two summers we'd been planning to go to Costa Rica as a sort of last big family holiday. And of course that's been canceled for the last two years. So top of my bucket list at the moment is to go on holiday with my two daughters, ideally Costa Rica, but actually I'd settle for anywhere at the moment. I haven't really had a proper break. But yeah, Costa Rica.

Kelly Molson: Costa Rica, definitely. Yeah. I hear you. I feel like anywhere with some sun right now would probably do you the world a good, Kate.

Kate Nicholls: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could bring back any fashion trend, what would it be?

Kate Nicholls: Well, to be fair, they've never gone away from my wardrobe, but I would really like to bring back the wrap dress. They were such a good staple for anybody who worked in the '80s and '90s and the early '00s. Quite like to bring them back as a major fashion trend.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, good. Can't go wrong with a wrap dress, can you? Boots, wrap dress, cardie, done.

Kate Nicholls: You can't. Very forgiving, pair with boots or heels or flats or trainers, and you can just adjust it according to how you're feeling during the week.

Kelly Molson: It's the perfect work-to-evening outfit. They're perfect.

Kate Nicholls: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: Okay, Kate, and this might be a little bit like asking you what your favourite child is, but I want to know what your favourite restaurant is?

Kate Nicholls: Oh, that's the difficult one because it changes so much depending on how I'm feeling and the time of day and what I'm doing. But during the lockdown, my local Korean cafe has been my go-to place for getting a quick fix, some comfort food, and they've kept me going throughout lockdown. I'm a big fan of street food.

Kelly Molson: Oh yeah, love street food. We have a really big street food community in Cambridge, actually, and it's just amazing, isn't it? Like being able to try all those different cuisines in one place? Fantastic.

Kate Nicholls: It is. It is. And I think I've got kind of a butterfly brain, so being able to go try lots of little things, lots of little samples and eat that kind of stuff is great. But the other thing we did do over the summer, my daughter and I, we went and celebrated the new three Michelin star female chefs that we had in London that were awarded. So again, I go from street food to high-end.

Kelly Molson: Love it. Absolutely love it. Okay, Kate, it's unpopular opinion time. I ask everybody that comes on the podcast to share an unpopular opinion with us. It can be humorous, can be serious, whatever it needs to have to be your unpopular opinion.

Kate Nicholls: Well, I did think long and hard about this one because there are so many unpopular opinions I think I could have. But if I'm sort of talking about the biggest one that would sort of divide a lot of people, cats are better than dogs. I'm really not a dog person.

Kelly Molson: Oh, okay.

Kate Nicholls: That's going to be controversial and split.

Kelly Molson: It's very controversial. And I'm not going to lie, I've got two dogs, so I am a dog person. But Kate, my dogs are a nightmare at the moment. We've had a flea situation this year. I've got a very noisy little dachshund who is absolutely filthy. The weather is disgusting. You have to go out with them all the time. Cats are sounding more and more appealing to me by the day.

Kate Nicholls: Cats are sort of neat, clean, undemanding. They're not as problematic as dogs. I always think dogs, you feel as though you've got another kid in the house. I mean, my unpopular opinion is based on the fact that I did have a nasty encounter with a dog when I was little, so I am quite scared of them. But yeah, dogs are not as good as cats.

Kelly Molson: All right. Well, let's see what our listeners think. I'm not going to lie because it's the time of year I'm swaying towards a swaying cat, Kate. Yeah. You might have changed my opinion there. Nice. Listen, thank you again for coming on the podcast. I really do appreciate it. I mean, I'd be super gobsmacked if anybody that's listening to this podcast episode doesn't know who you are, but just give us a little brief overview of what your role is at the moment, just to explain how critical it has been over the past couple of years.

Kate Nicholls: Yeah. So I'm currently Chief Executive at UKHospitality. That's the national trade body that represents hospitality operators and businesses and employers. And so we have 700 member companies. Between them, they operate just over 100,000 outlets across the UK, from a single-site pub, coffee shop, cafe, restaurant, park bar, hotel, holiday accommodation, right the way through to the national chains.

Kate Nicholls: Our role as the trade body is to be the voice and face of the industry to promote the sector as a great place to grow, work, and invest, to engage with the government, to make sure we've got the most supportive regulatory and tax environment within which businesses can thrive and survive. And then to provide insight, advice, and guidance to our members on the way in which they can operate to be compliant and to help their businesses grow.

Kate Nicholls: And so normally that's quite a broad-based role, but it was really front and centre as soon as COVID hit because clearly, we've got inbound tourism. We've got hotels that were hit first. City centre restaurants, pubs, and bars started to feel the effects of COVID back in February. And really since February ... I mean my first meeting on COVID with the government was the 28th of January last year.

Kate Nicholls: And since then, it's been pretty full-on making sure that in real-time we can present the views, concerns, impact of COVID on our business sector and try and make sure that we get the support needed to sustain those businesses, to maintain the employment, to protect jobs within the industry when we've been so hard hit by COVID.

Kate Nicholls: So really a big role with government, meeting government ministers and officials two, three, four times a week at the height of the crisis, and also being on the media to try and explain what the impact is of what appeared to be relatively small scale changes, what big impact that can have on business viability and really spelling it out to make sure that people understand what that means potentially longer term in terms of viable businesses, the economy, employment in the UK.

Kelly Molson: And, as I said, you have been the spokesperson for the sector throughout the pandemic. And I have to say, Kate, you were in my top five Twitter accounts that I followed continuously throughout. So I had Kate's, I had Bernard Donoghue, I had ALVA, ASVA and Blooloop. And that was my top five to find out what the hell was going on in the sectors that we worked in. So thank you so much for sharing and for doing that role.

Kelly Molson: So what I want to talk about today is about attracting and retaining talent within the attractions and hospitality sectors. But I guess, from a ... I don't run an attraction. I work with them. I'm an associate in that sector. So I guess I want to ask a couple of questions about the general public and what we can do right now.

Kelly Molson: So we have a situation in our local town. I live in a town called Saffron Walden just outside Cambridge, a beautiful town, a market town, lots of lovely pubs. One of my favourite pubs, which is one of a chain, has had to close for a good couple of months now. And essentially, it closed because some of its other restaurants were so overwhelmed and so busy but so short-staffed that they had to redistribute staff from our pub to their pubs.

Kelly Molson: And I guess that's happening in a lot of different places as well. So if we're unable to book a table because a venue is short-staffed, what can we, as the general public, do right now to support the sector?

Kate Nicholls: Well, I think it does highlight a challenge that the industry has got. It's more acute in certain parts of the country, but up until Omicron hit and we were all going back eating and drinking out more regularly, the industry as a whole just did not have sufficient labour to be able to operate at full strength. So a quarter of our businesses in the same situation as the one you just describe saying that they were having to restrict hours, cut covers, not open for certain days of the week, turn away bookings simply because they didn't have the staff.

Kate Nicholls: So I think as the general public, what we can do with those businesses is try and be a bit more creative in supporting them. Is there a different time that we can book? Because everybody tries to book dinner or lunch at the same time. Can we spread it out a little bit throughout the day? Can we look at going for early suppers or late suppers or brunches or afternoons? If we can't, then can we help them in other ways if they're still doing takeaway, if they're still doing delivery, we can support our businesses in that way. Or booking ahead in advance and making sure that we take out gift cards and those kinds of creative solutions some of our businesses have done where you can get cash through the tills and book two or three meals in advance.

Kate Nicholls: So that's a main bit of support. The second thing is that if you do have a booking and your plans change and you can't make it, let them know, and let them know in sufficient time. Because we still are getting quite a lot of no-shows that people make these bookings, something changes. Plans always change, we do know that, but people aren't letting them know. And particularly at the moment when you've got larger scale bookings for Christmas, people will have bought that food in well in advance and will start cooking it well in advance, so you do need to let them know the day before or at least a good couple of hours before if you can't make your booking, and then they can pass it onto somebody on a waiting list.

Kelly Molson: That actually leads to another question is how is the sector feeling right now? So with Omicron, with the Christmas rush, what's the general mood like in the hospitality sector at the moment? Are we seeing a lot of people booking, cancelling reservations that they have for large groups of people? Is it quieter than it should be?

Kate Nicholls: Quieter than it would be at a normal Christmas. So even before we had Omicron, we knew that we weren't having the same level of bookings as we were seeing Christmas 2019 and previously, so trade is down. We have seen cancellations. They're running at about 10% at the moment, and we have seen a downturn in footfall over the last week. Not just for those bookings and corporate events, Christmas parties, Christmas socials, but just a more general decline in walk-in bookings and walk-in activity. So we are seeing revenues down over the course of the last week, 15, 20%, and that's as a result of the uncertainty.

Kate Nicholls: There's a high degree of nervousness within the industry and a great degree of fear at the moment because we've all been in this situation before. Sadly, this time last year, people will have invested heavily to be able to open and operate at Christmas, and unless you get that Christmas trade-in, it can be very damaging to the businesses. They rely on having a good December in order to get them through the quieter months of January to March. And without that good December, there are many businesses that will undoubtedly go to the wall. What should be a very optimistic and hopeful time has, in the space of a week, turned to be very uncertain and very concerning.

Kelly Molson: Okay. So look, some great advice there from Kate. If we can look at when you're booking, changing times, if you can look at supporting your local restaurants by booking gift vouchers, for example, or if they are doing takeaway, please do do that and let's try and get them through this really difficult period that we're seeing.

Kelly Molson: Now Kate, as I said, I want to talk about attracting and retaining talent in the visitor attraction sector. I don't run an attraction. So what I did, and what I thought was a good idea, is to ask some of the past guests that have been on to ask me to ask you questions. And I've had some fantastic questions in from many of the different guests that we've had on. So let me just ask you a few of the things that have come in. Gordon Morrison, the CEO of ASVA, and Adam Goymour, park director at ROARR! Dinosaur Adventure, actually had really, really similar questions. So let me read out what Gordon wrote over because he puts it far more eloquently than I ever could.

Kelly Molson: So Gordon said, "Staff are the beating heart of every tourism business and can undoubtedly make the visitor experience memorable both positively and negatively. As we face up to what is quite possibly the most difficult recruitment and retention environment in the tourism industry has ever seen, is it right that we should continue to rely on our people so heavily to deliver outstanding experiences? And if so, how do we ensure that our businesses are attractive, and how do we keep that top talent in the industry?"

Kate Nicholls: I think this is the number one issue that all operators are grappling with at the moment as we come out and we've got a very tight labour market and we've got a real battle just to get staff in, nevermind the battle for talent that we had going into COVID. So we were already facing those challenges. I do think what we need to do is to use COVID as a reset moment and look again at our ways of working, style of working, what we're expecting of people. This gives us an opportunity to revise terms and conditions and to look again at hours of work in the sector to make sure that we are being as flexible as we possibly can and we are being as responsive as we possibly can to what new recruits are telling us.

Kate Nicholls: Because we've got lots of new, younger people coming into the industry, many have had no experience before and are questioning, quite rightly, some of the ways that we do things. So particularly in food and beverages and things like that, less so in attractions, but you do get some antisocial hours. You do get double shifts. And people have different ways of paying people. And I think the labour scheduling and the flexibility that we can provide should be a positive rather than it being something that holds us back.

Kate Nicholls: So I do think we can look again at making sure that we are as attractive as we possibly can be and that we've got our best foot forward. I think secondly, what we need to be doing as an industry is to look after the sector's employer brand. Individual business is very good at doing this, promoting themselves as a career of choice, but we want to get across the fact that we're a career and we have a great plethora of opportunities available to people if they come and work within our businesses.

Kate Nicholls: Because we're an industry largely of small and independent businesses, we don't have the size and scale, but I think we can look again at the sector branding to be able to make sure we put the best foot forward, that we describe how important it is as a career, how meritocratic it is. Because there's no sector likes ours that provides young people with such opportunity where you can come in with limited experience, limited qualifications and skills. We will upskill you very rapidly and you can move into management within about two years. There's no other sector that will give you that level of responsibility and authority at such a young age and at such a low level within the business, and the pay and salary that goes alongside it.

Kate Nicholls: So I think there's more we can do around that in terms of communicating career of choice. And also communicating that even if you only want to come with us for a short time, we will equip you with common transferrable skills that other employers will find valuable; business, finance, people management, leadership, conflict management. You get that by working in hospitality businesses and visitor economy businesses, again, at a very low entry-level, and these are soft skills, people skills that are valuable at all levels.

Kate Nicholls: And then the final element is about making sure that we do invest in our people, that we do train them to provide continuing professional development and we invest in leadership and management as people go through. We're very good at taking people at entry-level and doing the immediate skills and training they need to be able to function. We need to look at how we can continue to invest in those people. That's what young people particularly are looking for from careers and employers now.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It's really interesting what you said about the soft skills as well, because I think that one of the best starts that I ever had to my working career was working in hospitality and in retail because it gave me so much experience of understanding how to talk to people, how to communicate with people. And from that customer service perspective as well. I think it gave me such a good grounding in my career, and all of those skills I learnt then, I've taken through into what I do now in terms of sales and an account management role.

Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. And if you think about some of the young people who've been most affected by COVID and had their schooling disrupted, their social lives disrupted for a couple of years, those are the skills that they are lacking. When teachers are talking about young people coming back into school, it's time management. It's personnel skills. It's social skills. It's communication. That's what they get from us.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Completely, completely agree. Mark Ellis, who's the interim lead at the National Memorial Arboretum, actually has asked a question that picks up on some of your earlier points there. He says that, "One of the outcomes of the industry-wide staffing shortage is that staff are able to negotiate a better work-life balance, which is a really good thing. Ultimately that is going to lead to better conditions throughout the industry, hopefully, more job satisfaction, higher standards and a better customer experience." Mark asks, "Do you think that we will see the appearance of some widely-accepted examples of best practice?" So things like how businesses will manage seasonal contracts or flexible hours or unsociable hours like you mentioned?

Kate Nicholls: Yes. I think we will start to see that evolving as we go further forward and as we come out of this. I think that's what I mean by a COVID reset moment, that we can look again at the ways that we've done things to be able to offer that kind of attractive proposition to people. So moving away from some of the zero-hours contracts, moving away from some of the seasonal changes where people don't have that much certainty, and towards one that is focused on what the applicant is looking for and wanting and the flexibility that they're needing, and presenting it in a way which is appealing to them.

Kate Nicholls: I think we will, if we work carefully at it, I think there's a great opportunity for us across the entire sector to pick up some of those really good case studies and examples and promote them and push them out around the sector so that we have a positive employability story to tell.

Kelly Molson: That is great. Now, I'm going to pick up on that a little bit later on because we've had a really good question about that very topic. Let me ask you about the supply chain, though, and again, this is another question from Mark at the National Memorial Arboretum. So the supply chain at the moment is disrupted. Food costs are increasing. We all need to find a more sustainable way to feed humanity. What can we do as an industry, and this is the attractions industry, to help the public recognise that hospitality outlets that source locally, use seasonal ingredients, increase their plant-based options, that they are the best place to respond to these pressures? But at the same time, costs are going to rise through dual pressure of food and wage increases.

Kate Nicholls: Well, I think this is going to be a collective challenge for all of us because it's inevitable that with the cost pressures that we've got that are building across the sector, and not just our sector but across the economy, prices are going to have to go up to consumers irrespective of what we're talking about in terms of local sourcing, et cetera, and the positive efforts we've got. So I think as an industry we're going to have to work to be able to communicate to consumers clearly why we are having to put prices up post-pandemic, and it is going to be a struggle and a challenge and there's going to be that juggling act which there always is around pricing decisions about how far you can push prices onto consumers before you turn off demand.

Kate Nicholls: But with VAT alone going up, there is going to have to be a price increase that we are going to have to pass on. So I think that's one challenge that we need to look at separately. I think the advantage is it's going to be across the economy as a whole and we're not going to be doing it in isolation. So I think customers are going to get more used to hearing about prices and hearing about costs coming through.

Kate Nicholls: And then I think, you're right, there is a real opportunity there for turning that conversation around and explaining about how local sourcing is more beneficial, meets the broader sustainability issues that consumers are increasingly concerned about. Not just consumers, potential employees. So sustainability and environmental and social governance issues are coming higher up the agenda when we're talking about recruitment and putting ourselves out as an attractive proposition.

Kate Nicholls: People are looking for authentic stories about local sourcing, local supply chain, carbon net zero, limiting waste, all of those kind of positive issues that we can turn to our advantage. But I do think customers understand it doesn't come cost-free. So I think they are two sides of the same coin. I don't think we should be apologetic about the fact that we need to be able to invest in good quality produce in order to deliver a more sustainable food supply chain.

Kelly Molson: Do you think those conversations are slightly easier to have now as well, since the pandemic? Because I think what we did see when attractions were able to open up and hospitality were able to open up is that we saw a huge increase in demand for things that were local. We wanted to understand more about our local environment. We wanted to be able to support our local independents. So do you think that's going to be an easier conversation to have now that we're in that mindset already?

Kate Nicholls: I think so. I think COVID provides us with that opportunity. Certainly one of the strong trends, and it sees no sign of abating as we come out of COVID, localism and hyperlocalism was a trend we saw during lockdown when, inevitably if you can't travel, you explore in your neighborhood. But even as we reopened, people were exploring in their locality before they've got confident enough to go further across the country or into city centres. And clearly you're moving away from global travel for two years. Again, those are trends that become sticky with consumers and consumers are interested in hearing and exploring it more.

Kate Nicholls: So I think neighbourhood is going to stick with us for a lot longer. Certainly as well in terms of the different ways in which we work, I don't think it's going to be as polarised as in the office or at home, but I do think you're going to be working remotely and people are going to be looking at neighbourhood and local options to be able to facilitate that. So I do think that that frees up the conversation to be had more generally about how we are making a more sustainable, more robust, more resilient supply chain by looking locally. But equally, that doesn't come cost-free.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Let's talk about opening hours. So Mark had a really good question around that. So he says, "Over the last few months, as venues have reopened, we've seen many places change their opening hours, and that's to enable them to offer fair shifts for their staff in response to business needs." He actually says some are open fewer days each week, and some are closing earlier. The micropub and brewpub and taphouse that he tends to frequent, he does put in brackets here, "On an all too infrequent basis though. Nights out are a rare treat. But they're all offering a brilliant experience with great staff during their opening hours. Does Kate think that the public will learn to understand that not opening all hours is a new thing to be embraced, or do you think that pressure to increase the venues to go back to 11:00 to 11:00 will be the norm?"

Kate Nicholls: I think it's probably too early to say yet with consumers and consumer habits and trends because I don't think people are going out in the same way that they were yet. What we have seen after this reopening, post the 19th of July, that there is an expectation from consumers to go back to normal and they're not very forgiving of those who aren't. So I think consumers during COVID have got used to having things when they want it, at the time that they want it, and rapidly, and they don't take kindly to things not being available for them.

Kate Nicholls: So I suspect it will be more challenging to have that on a longer-term basis if that's a longer way of working. What we do know, however, is that what consumers really don't like is uncertainty. So if they can guarantee that you are always open for these particular days, these particular hours, they will understand that more readily than they turn up at your door and you're not open today because you can't get the staff. That's the bit that seems to create the disconnect.

Kate Nicholls: And what we don't have yet is a loyal customer base back. So if they can't get it from you, they will go and find it somewhere else is what we're seeing very rapidly. So I don't think it means that everybody has to go back to 11:00 to 11:00, seven days a week and full service, but you do need to get back to some consistency and some standardisation for customers. And certainly what we're finding in the restaurant side, for example, are quite a lot of businesses in city centres are closing Monday and Tuesday, and that causes a degree of confusion for consumers when they're back out.

Kate Nicholls: Now, having said that, our customer habits are going to change a little bit again over Christmas if we do have restrictions brought back in due to Omicron and therefore customers again will be adapting to changes and the ways that they're doing things and changes in the ways of working. But I do think that will depend on where you are located. If you are located in a city centre and people are not visiting the city centre as regularly, you need to have that certainty about when you are available and open that matches and meets with them. If you are in a local neighbourhood and a local area and you're part of the community, I think there will be increasing pressure back being available when the customers want you.

Kelly Molson: Earlier in this question you mentioned that it's too early to tell because we're not seeing the demand, we're not seeing people going out as frequently as they were. It's a difficult question, but how long do you think that we need to leave it until we do start to see some data around that?

Kate Nicholls: Again, I think that's difficult to be able to work out because of the uncertainties of new variants and changes in restrictions. We haven't had a clear consistent period where we've been able to trade normally. Had we not had Omicron coming along, I think we would have got a better feel for it. After Christmas, we would have been able to look back at five, six months where we could see what customers were doing, how confident they were, and could try and see trading was doing without the blips that were caused by supply chain shortages, delivery shortages, pingdemics, labour shortages across our industry. I suspect that it's going to be until the middle of next year before you can really start to plan with any certainty around what's stuck, what's a long-term trend and what's something that you're nudging consumer behaviour around.

Kelly Molson: Thank you. You mentioned earlier about sharing best practices and we've had a great question from Hannah Monteverde who's the Park Manager at BeWILDerwood in Cheshire. So Hannah says, "It's not always feasible to be able to offer an increased salary or market-leading benefits." She'd be really interested to know of any examples of curveball ideas that have attracted staff recently. Do you have any case studies or examples of attractions that you feel have really bucked the trend for recruitment particularly well?

Kate Nicholls: I think the ones that are doing interesting stuff around flexible hours, hours when you want it, more frequent pay. One of the things that we found across our sector was that people were getting paid after four weeks, six weeks in some cases when they were a new starter, compared to some of the newer startup companies and labour scheduling companies and temporary recruitment from Amazon where they were getting paid within the week. So as soon as they did a shift, they were getting paid.

Kate Nicholls: And actually that was something that people found was really attractive, that as soon as they'd done their job, they were getting their pay almost immediately, so a return almost back to weekly pay packets was quite an interesting one. It's not necessarily creative or curveball, but it's just listening to what people were saying that was a frustration for them that they wanted to be able to have.

Kate Nicholls: Food, uniforms, selling those kinds of benefits, the walking to work for anybody who's in a local attraction or provision of transport for those people who were off the beaten track and people relying upon cars, et cetera. Those are things that have been used quite creatively. And then flexible labour scheduling, giving people the ability to tell the employer when they were available to work and how many hours they had rather than getting that rota coming down on a fixed basis saying, "This is when we rota-ed you and you have to go away and work out somebody else to swap with if it coincides with your yoga class or your student lesson or a GP's appointment."

Kate Nicholls: So I think putting more power in the hands of the employees and giving them the ability to be able to ask for what they want, when they want, hours and pay, those are the two creative ones I've seen most frequently.

Kelly Molson: That's fascinating. I mean, the crux of it is flexibility, ultimate flexibility as the employee. That is such a simple change to be paid weekly, so that instant gratification, "I've done a really good job. I've been paid for it." What a simple change to be able to make that could make such a big difference.

Kate Nicholls: Yeah. And there's technology that enables you to do it now. So on the labour scheduling front in terms of, "I'm available for these hours and I'd like some work." Stint provides the opportunity and there's labour scheduling that provides the opportunity to do that, to just log on and say, "I can do four hours," rather than, "I can do a full day." And that sometimes is better. And equally, there's technology that allows you to drawdown. So if the business still wants to keep a monthly salary payroll, you can draw down earlier ahead of your salary, so you just get it a bit more when you've been doing your work. Particularly relevant for young people coming into the sector.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. And hopefully retaining them for a little bit longer, because that is the challenge with the sector is that it has always been seen as a bit of a stopgap, hasn't it? And ideally, we want to-

Kate Nicholls: It has, and in some respects, we shouldn't be apologetic for that because it is a good first job. It's a good first base. Transferrable skills that we talked about before. We obviously want to keep and capture those people who want to use it as a career. But equally, given the labour shortages we're facing, if we can keep those people with us for longer who are just looking at it as a stopgap, that's all to the good as well. And that's about making sure we invest in them and make sure that they're supported as they come into the company.

Kate Nicholls: Because at the moment, churn is so high across the sector as a whole. People come in, find that the work's too busy, too demanding, not for them, and they go away again. So let's just support them, nurture them and try and help to make sure that they have as good an experience as they can while they're with us.

Kelly Molson: Definitely. Final question for you from our attractions audience. And again, this is from Hannah. So Hannah asks, "Do we have any realistic idea of timescales in terms of the forecast for recovery?" And this is specifically around the recruitment challenges that we're having at the moment. She asks, "Is this something that we have to adapt and change to live within the long term, or is it something that we could potentially predict will slowly improve and recover back to a pre-Brexit and pre-COVID-19 scenario?"

Kate Nicholls: Gosh. There are two factors to that, particularly if we're talking about labour markets. So the government-commissioned independent research to look at when domestic tourism for fallen revenues would recover to pre-pandemic levels, and I suppose that's the best indicator of when do you think demand is going to get up there? When do you think your money is going to come back? And the independent forecast suggested that domestic tourism revenues would recover by the end of 2023 and international, that's not until 2024.

Kate Nicholls: Now the government has said it will work with the industry to try and bring that forward a year, but that still looks as though you're going to have most of 2022 where you are operating suboptimally, that you're not operating at full demand. And I think in terms of labour shortages and challenges, again, likely to be temporary but let's not forget that pre-COVID, we had a 5% vacancy rate. Post-COVID, it's 10%. So it was a tight labour market before we went into the COVID crisis.

Kate Nicholls: How temporary is temporary? I think you're going to be living with cost price inflation and the disruption to the supply chain for at least six months of 2022 and I think the labour issues are going to be with us probably for a year or two. If nothing else changes, our biggest challenge for getting people back into work is twofold. One is we've got a hiatus in the talent pipeline where we haven't been able to train our own. Our apprentices haven't been able to go through people and vocational training, haven't been able to go through catering colleges, et cetera. Haven't been able to go through because people have been disrupted in education.

Kate Nicholls: And the same goes at the higher levels for hospitality degrees, but also curator jobs and those kinds of occupational training skilled jobs in the sector. So you've got a two-year talent hiatus, talent pipeline hiatus, and you've got COVID travel restrictions that are preventing people from moving globally. And you can only see what's happened with Omicron to see that that's going to be with us probably for at least another year. So you are going to have a global disrupted labour market and you're going to have global disrupted supply chains for at least another year.

Kelly Molson: Gosh. Another year of this.

Kate Nicholls: Sorry.

Kelly Molson: Weren't we saying this last year? We were nearly-

Kate Nicholls: I don't mean that we're going to be having another year of COVID restrictions or the challenges that we've got, but I think the global supply chain, the global economy is still going to be in quite an uncertain state for the whole of 2022. And people certainly won't be moving around the globe as freely as they have been pre-pandemic. We're not going to get back to that sort of free movement. It's nothing to do with Brexit, but just that movement of people isn't going to be happening to the same degree, hence you've got a delay in domestic and international recovery. You've got a delay in international recovery.

Kate Nicholls: The people who've moved abroad during COVID or people who would normally be coming into the UK to look for work or those with settled status who might be returning, they're not moving around because of COVID and they're not moving around because of the problems of international travel.

Kelly Molson: Kate, thank you. Thank you so much for answering the questions today. It's been incredible to have you on. I'd like to end the podcast the way that I always end the podcast which is to ask you about a book that you could recommend to our listeners. It might be something that you love. It might be something that's helped your career in some way or helped shape your career in some way. What would you recommend for us today?

Kate Nicholls: I am a voracious reader, so I usually have three or four books on the go at any one time. But I'm definitely a fiction reader. I've got two books. One that was really ... is a business book that I found really quite useful when I first was made chief executive about six, seven years ago. And that was Sheryl Sandberg's Lean In, which I would definitely recommend for any female leaders in the industry to look at. It talks about some of the different ways that people experience things at work and certainly helped me to think about how I wanted to support the next generation of women coming up and making sure that we had more female representation on boards.

Kate Nicholls: And then my absolute favourite book, which is my go-to book at any time that I just want a little bit of escapism and a really good story is Wuthering Heights. However bad you're feeling, there's always something entertaining and enjoyable in getting lost in somebody else's story and that's my recommended read.

Kelly Molson: Fantastic recommendations. I actually do remember on Twitter you tweeting photos of your book pile, your COVID book pile. They were huge.

Kate Nicholls: Yeah. Because everybody knows I'm a reader and I read an awful lot, at Christmas I get big ... And that's what everybody buys me as a gift. So I always get quite a lot of books at Christmas, and last Christmas I got 20. And as we went into lockdown, of January, I thought, "Right, can I complete my reading pile before we come out of lockdown?" Actually, I had to go and buy another 30 books. By the time we came out of lockdown on the 19th of July, I had read 56 books.

Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness, 56 ... Well, I guess books are a much better option than getting socks for Christmas, right?

Kate Nicholls: Absolutely. Absolutely. So yes, I do have big piles. I still have piles of books all over the house that I'm still reading. But yeah, I usually have ... I finish three books a week.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Well, listen, so if you want to win a copy of Kate's books, you know what to do. Go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter, retweet the announcement with the words I want Kate's books, and you might well be in with a chance of winning them. Kate, thank you once again for coming on the podcast today. Very, very grateful that you've been able to spare us some time to come on and chat, and I very much hope that you get that well-deserved rest and holiday to Costa Rica sometime very soon.

Kate Nicholls: Thank you so much. It's been an absolute pleasure. Thank you 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 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.edinburghzoo.org.uk/

https://www.rzss.org.uk/support/

https://www.highlandwildlifepark.org.uk/we-are-open

https://twitter.com/Lisa_Robshaw

https://twitter.com/EdinburghZoo

https://twitter.com/HighlandWPark

David Field, Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS) CEO, returned to RZSS in 2020 having been a section moderator at Edinburgh Zoo early in his career. David’s previous roles include chief executive of the Zoological Society of East Anglia, zoological director of the Zoological Society of London (ZSL), curator of ZSL Whipsnade Zoo and assistant director of Dublin Zoo. An honorary professor of the Royal Veterinary College, David has served as chairman of the British and Irish Association of Zoos and Aquaria (BIAZA) and is the current president of the Association of British and Irish Wild Animal Keepers.

Lisa Robshaw is a visitor attraction marketing specialist with 20 years’ experience of working in the tourism and hospitality industry after studying International Tourism at the University of Lincoln. She joined the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland (RZSS)  in August 2019 after a brief stint agency side. Prior to this she has worked for Historic Environment Scotland, Continuum Attractions and British Tourist Authority (Now Visit Britain).

As Head of Marketing and Sales at RZSS, Lisa leads the teams responsible for the wildlife conservation charity’s marketing, sales activity, membership, adoptions, events and experiences . No day is ever the same and what she enjoys most is sharing the amazing experiences Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park have to offer and telling people about the important work RZSS does to protect threatened species in Scotland and around the world .  When she’s not working, Lisa can usually be found chasing after her young family and planning visits to the south coast of England from where she originally hails!

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 David Field, CEO, and Lisa Robshaw, Head of Marketing and Sales, at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland. 

We discuss the zoo's experiences over the pandemic, highs, lows, and why you really can't furlough a penguin. 

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

Kelly Molson: Lisa and David, thank you so much for coming on the podcast today. I'm really looking forward to speaking to you both.

Lisa Robshaw: Yeah, looking forward to speaking to you. It should be good fun.

Kelly Molson: Well, let's see how we get on with the icebreaker questions, and see how much fun it is going to be.

David Field: Yeah. I'm dreading this.

Kelly Molson: I've been quite kind to you both, actually, I feel because we've got two of you today and we've got a lot to cram in. So what is the worst food you've ever eaten and why isn't it peas?

Lisa Robshaw: Oh my God. I think it was snails for me. And it was when I was 12, in France. So that probably doesn't help. So we're talking like 1990, giving away my age now. And we're in this awful school canteen on this French exchange trip, we were forced to eat these snails. We weren't rude to our hosts. I don't actually think they were cooked particularly well because I think some of us were ill afterwards.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh.

Lisa Robshaw: The texture, the smell, the whole experience.

David Field: Yeah. I adore snails and I adore peas. I'm not sure your listeners would particularly want to hear about my adventures when we've been out on ... doing field work in Indonesia, some of the things that we had out there. But we did have to eat animals which were hunted and caught, and we ate. And they were kind of animals, which suffice to say, had a very strong aroma about them. So you're in the jungles, you're surviving, and it was not nice. But it was the aroma of their scent glands which permeated the meat.

Kelly Molson: Oh Gosh. Yeah. I'm getting a really lovely ... a lovely image of that, David. Thank you.

David Field: It makes celebrity in the jungle thing a walk in the park.

Kelly Molson: You were the real celeb. Get me out of here.

David Field: I really wanted to get out of there.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Brilliant. Thank you. Okay. To both of you, if you could have an extra hour of free time every day, how would you use that free time?

David Field: I would do more moth hunting. I like trapping moths and counting moths. And I never get a chance in a morning to do that. So that's what I would do, every single day if I could.

Kelly Molson: Moth hunting, can we just elaborate on this? So this is a hobby of yours?

David Field: Yeah. Yeah. You just hunt ... and butterflies. It's amazing. It's the best thing in the world. And you just ... every night you set at this light trap and moths are attracted to it at night. And then you get in there in the morning, first thing in the morning, and you've got all these hundreds of different species of moths, and it's just the most beautiful thing. They are the most gorgeous thing that we never think about that just roam our gardens. And I'd do that every day if I could.

Kelly Molson: Oh wow. I honestly have never heard anyone have that as a hobby before. That's something completely new for me. How lovely.

David Field: Yeah. Try it.

Kelly Molson: This is why I ask these questions. You never know what you're going to get. What about your unpopular opinions?

Lisa Robshaw: Harry Potter books should not be read by adults. They are a children's book.

Kelly Molson: Oh. I mean, no one can see my face because this is a podcast. So if you're not watching the video it's ... Gosh.

Lisa Robshaw: But I don't know what it is. I remember when Harry Potter came out. Again, I'm aging myself here. I was at university and I didn't understand why people were going mental. And then I think right about the time of ... in the middle of it all, they re-released the same book with a different cover to appeal to adults. And I was like, that is wrong. You're ripping people off. It's a children's book. That’s what I talk about. No, no, no.

Kelly Molson: I am quite shocked by that. I love the Harry Potter books.

Lisa Robshaw: I'm sure they're great. I've tried reading them. I just ... they're not for me.

Kelly Molson: What about the films? Fan? Not bothered?

Lisa Robshaw: I kind of class those as a sort of Boxing Day, fall asleep in front of it after a few glasses of red wine type of film. Anything that keeps the kids' kids quiet for two and a half hours. You know what I mean? It's that kind of thing. But I just don't ... I mean, this is ironic that I've been to a Castle and done the broomstick riding three times and my kids, and it's a brilliant experience. But like grown adults losing their minds over it, I just don't get it.

Kelly Molson: Oh my God. Well, David, I don't know, can you top that for an unpopular opinion? I'm not sure.

David Field: Well first off, who's Harry Potter?

Kelly Molson: What are you doing to me, David?

David Field: So perhaps this segues a little bit into talking about the visitor attractions and that type of stuff, but mobile phones should be banned at visitor attractions because it's about family time.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's a bit serious.

David Field: I really do think they should be banned from visitor attractions.

Kelly Molson: I can see where you're going with that. Yeah. Like being present, not on your phones, not looking for the opportunity to be on your phone, but just being present with your family. I get that.

David Field: Yeah. Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Oh, this is ... isn't it really interesting though. But from the perspective of being a CEO of an attraction, wouldn't you want people to be engaged with the stuff that you have there so that they share that on social media, so that then drives more people to come?

David Field: They can do that when they go home. They can do that on their way there. They can do that every time. When they're in, and particularly when they're in the zoo, we want them to be engaged with nature, we want them to be there in front of them, not encasing them in some sort of cloak of electronic gadgetry, putting these barriers between them and nature and putting the barriers between them and their family. Live in the moment, not on your phone.

Kelly Molson: Oh, what a great quote. Okay. Listeners, I really ... well, I want to hear what you've got to say about both of those unpopular opinions. Thank you for sharing. Okay. I was going to ask you what you do in your roles. But I think from your job titles, it's probably pretty obvious to people, especially the people that are listening to this. So I thought I'd actually ask you if each of you could tell me what your favourite thing is about the zoo or the wildlife park?

Lisa Robshaw: It's like choosing a favourite child, isn't it?

Kelly Molson: I've only got one, so it's really easy.

Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. Highland Wildlife Park. For me, it's the expanse and the fresh air. I mean, I'm a city girl. I'm originally from Portsmouth. I've lived in New York and all this kind of thing, and I've lived in Edinburgh for 20 years now, but ... or 15 years. But when you get up to Highland Wildlife Park in the beautiful Cairngorms and it's just the fresh air and the space, and even when the park's busy, it's almost still silent. Do you know what I mean? It's just this sort of really relaxing place. When I get the chance not to be sitting in meetings all day, as is the danger sometimes when you're on the kind of hamster wheel of working and that kind of thing. So I love getting up there and just spending time and relaxing and enjoying the surroundings.

Kelly Molson: Great answer.

Lisa Robshaw: That's my professional point of view. I mean, the animals are amazing, and asking me to pick my favourite animal is always a difficult one. Red panda, but ... penguin. Now see, that's the problem. But yeah, that's mine.

Kelly Molson: I love it. David, what about yours?

David Field: So, as part of my job ... and I've been knocking around this zoo world since I was 12 years old. So for me, it really is about the animals and the beauty and that connection with the animals. And as part of my job now, I insist that I have a couple of hours ... an hour or so in the day that I go pottering around the zoo. And zoo directors need to potter around their zoo. Because every day, every different hour of the day, every season, there is something different going on. There's a different animal, doing something different, something exciting. And my favourite animal changes each day. But I go out and because the zoo and the wildlife park are so different, every single time you go around, that's what makes them so amazing and beautiful and inspiring and glorious, and why I've been doing this for 30 odd years.

Kelly Molson: Oh, perfect answer. I love that you're just pottering around, just having a little walk around your zoo, just checking out the animals. It's really nice. I'd like to do that. There you go. And I'd like to spend my hour pottering around the zoo if I got my extra hour. Thank you both. So the title of this podcast episode is You can't furlough a penguin. Experiences from the last 19 months at the Royal Zoological Society of Scotland.

Kelly Molson: Now, I was at the Visitor Attractions Conference a little while ago, back in October and you can't furlough a penguin was something that I heard Bernard Donoghue say while he was given one of his very fantastic talks, as always. And I thought, that's a great podcast title. I'm going to use that when I get Lisa to come on this podcast.

Kelly Molson: I want you to take us back to kind of Feb., March time 2020, when coronavirus was something very new and nobody in the UK had ever heard the word furlough before. I can very vividly remember what it was like for me with a team of seven thinking, gosh, we've got to pack up, we've got to work from home. Is anyone actually going to buy anything from us for the next ... I've got no idea what's going to happen. I can only imagine what was going through your heads, having a team of people that you were both thinking about and thousands of animals that you have to care for, that you're responsible for. What was that even like?

David Field: Well, I think every day you are looking back on that time and hindsight's an amazing thing, to look back on how you handled it, how many hours you spent lying, awake thinking about it. But then, in some respects, we were no different to others. And everybody was facing a crisis in so many different ways. And this has been one of the most important sort of most significant kind of social impacts in our lives. Hopefully we'll never get anything like this. My parents, my grandparents had world wars and stuff like that to deal with. We just had to deal with a bit of a pandemic, which quite frankly, we should all have been prepared for. It was coming. And the next one will come.

David Field: For me, it was very odd because just February, March, I was leaving my previous job, ready to come up to Edinburgh to start a new job. So I was having to sort of resolve the issues in one zoo and leave it in a good enough state, ready to come to Edinburgh, where my board, etc. at the time were already trying to deal with the organization that at the time, we didn't have a CEO in place then, did we? You just had to react. You just had to understand that you had so little information that you had to be incredibly dynamic and react to situations.

David Field: And the crucial nature, before anything else, was just securing money, was securing funding, just so that you could make sure that you could stay open. And the difference in dealing with governments in the UK as compared to governments in Scotland, were miles apart. And so that was the crux. And you were so focused into that, that other things did disappear. Once you could get the money, once you could get the bank loans, once you got that, then you could start some sort of planning. So that was the crux. It was money, money, money all the way, just so you could stay open. Now, as good charities, we all had some reserves, but we just didn't know what the endpoint was going to be. And so securing funding was the be all and end all.

Kelly Molson: And I guess, so David, were you ... I mean, you talked a little bit there about the challenges dealing with English government, Scottish government. What were the differences? What was difficult about that process?

David Field: Access, getting people to listen to you. Now look, we know the governments had so much on the plate that wanting to listen to the zoo director down the road was probably fairly low down the list. But it was trying to get the message across that you couldn't, not so much furlough a penguin, but you couldn't furlough a penguin keeper. And just trying to get those individual messages through. But being able to get that through to Scottish government made life so much easier, having people that would listen made so much easier for you. To be fair, DEFRA were excellent, but it was trying to get to the ministers. The civil servants, hats off to them, amazing. But try and get through to ministers who actually make the decisions, was nigh on impossible.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I can completely imagine. And Lisa, so where did this leave you? Because I guess you then have to think of different ways to drive donations. You have to think about how you're engaging with the audience who aren't able to come to your venues. You've got to engage with them on social media, online, and virtually in some way. How did you even ... how did you start that process and where did some of the ideas ... and what did you do? Where did they come from?

Lisa Robshaw: I mean, for me, it was a massive learning curve. I'm a visitor attraction marketer by trade. I'm not a fundraiser. And it's obviously a different discipline. Although we're talking to the same people, we're having to talk to them in a slightly different way. So I mean, back to that week in March, it was a sense of disbelief of what was going on. All of a sudden, I had to put a different hat on and I was learning a new trade almost from our sort of development team, and all that kind of thing. We put a lot of people on furlough, which meant we all had to wear different hats and support people in a different way. I suddenly became a web developer and yeah, I'm a digital marketeer, I'm not a web developer.

Kelly Molson: You want a job because it's really hard to find web developers right now.

Lisa Robshaw: I don't think anyone would want to employ me, to be honest. I gave that part of my career up as soon as I could. But very quickly, it was long hours, long days, adapting our messaging. Because to be fair, Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park, visitor attractions first, almost kind of ... in terms of individual giving, it was such a small part of our charitable income at that stage that we just had to completely do a 360. So in terms of fundraising, it was really just making sure that our development team were well supported in making sure our messages got out, and working with the comms teams to make sure the messaging was appropriate, emotional enough to elicit that donation.

Lisa Robshaw: And then it was working with kind of our discovery and learning team, I think there was only one after we'd furloughed everybody, on how are we going to engage with people virtually? So obviously we were looking at the great work that other zoos were doing. Chester, for example, with their Friday kind of online videos and Facebook lives and all this kind of thing. Almost, okay, what can we do, which is really Edinburgh or Highland Wildlife Park-esque? You know? And all this kind of thing.

Lisa Robshaw: And one of the light bulb moments, I think in think in lockdown two, when we were all getting really quite professional at lockdowns, professional lockdowners, all this kind of thing, was thinking about how we can do virtual birthday parties and take that experience into people's homes, and do something different to what other people were doing. That's what we wanted to do. And that's how we honed our kind of skills, I guess, and how we developed, and how we all evolved during the two lockdowns. It was incredible.

Lisa Robshaw: But the outpouring of support from people we had. I mean, I was very much the same as David, how ... and other attractions, not just zoos, but other attractions, how are we going to keep the money coming in while we're closed? How am I going to sell a membership to somebody when the zoo's closed and they not having the experience? It's things like making sure the membership didn't start until we reopened, so people felt, we'll get them the money at that point, but their membership wasn't starting. They were getting the added value when we opened. And our membership, the support we had from our members and our new members was just incredible during lockdown. It really was. And that just ... yeah, it was a massive learning curve.

David Field: I mean, that support Lisa, that you talked about, was huge, was overwhelming. It was remarkable. And certainly Edinburgh Zoo and Highland Wildlife Park, certainly the zoo, hadn't had that level of support previously. The level of support that we received from the community was incredible. But I think that came because the authenticity of our message. We were very, very transparent with what was going on. We spoke to everybody and anybody, whether they wanted to do a podcast, whether they wanted to do a newspaper piece, whether they wanted to talk to us on the phone. We spoke to anybody. And it was the honest truth of what we were putting out there, that we didn't know what was happening day to day. We didn't know about the future of some of these animals. There was questions about our pandas. There was questions about our penguins. But we went out there and talked. We opened our hearts, we opened our zoos to information and messages, and the response that we got was incredible.

David Field: Do you know, I think Edinburgh fell in love with its zoo again. They began to value what they might just miss. And it was about the ... I truly believe it was the authenticity of our message and what people saw and heard from our zookeepers, from our conservation teams. And that work with the D and L team, the Discovery and Learning team, was incredible, because they didn't just put material online. They made it just a zoo visit online. They made it so interactive. They made it one on one. It was remarkable. It was just so exciting.

Kelly Molson: I love what you said there about Edinburgh realises what they could potentially miss if the zoo wasn't ... if it didn't exist anymore. Have you seen, since the zoo has reopened, that you are getting a lot more kind of people ... a lot more local visitors? Have you seen that that's kind of increased, that people ... they are really loving Edinburgh Zoo again?

David Field: I think so. I mean, Lisa might ... you might be able to give a bit more of the kind of stats and facts of it all. I look at it from a more emotive sense and you do just get that level of feeling that people believe in what we're doing and they're really supporting what we are doing. But I think one of the most remarkable things for me was when we did reopen and you saw people coming back into the zoo for the first time. And it was also a time when the families were probably meeting each other for the first time again, because we were one of the few places that were open, one of the few places where people could meet. And suddenly the emotion of people meeting in a place like the zoo, it was remarkable. And we tend to forget the social value of our visitor attractions for quality family time. And that period of just as we were starting to reopen, just emphasized it perfectly of how important the zoo was as a family place, a place for real quality time.

Lisa Robshaw: Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree. And the amount of people that were coming back that were saying, "I haven't been for years, and I'd forgotten how wonderful it was or it is." You still get that in the school playground, anecdotally, the mums going, "Oh my God, I can't believe you work at Edinburgh Zoo. You've done so much amazing work during lockdown. The kids have loved the films and all this kind of stuff." And you just go, wow, that social value is an absolute, really good point. And yeah, anecdotal evidence is that everyone did fall in love with the zoo again. It's incredible.

Kelly Molson: And they're coming back in droves to show you that love now as well.

Lisa Robshaw: Absolutely, yeah. Our visitor numbers this year have been amazing, better than ... I think summer 2020 was better than summer 2019. But we have to make ... or '21, sorry, was better than 2019. But we have to remember 2019's a pretty bad summer weather wise as well. But I do ... so couple the bad weather with this new affection and the fact that people haven't been able to go anywhere else, I mean, it's ... yeah. We're reaping the reward and the challenge is going to be keeping the momentum going into next year when we've got so more competition.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

David Field: Absolutely. We've got to seriously up our game for the ... when the period sort of as we were reopening and lockdowns were being lifted, so people just wanted to get out and be local, there was a benefit there. People started to see, as Lisa said, actually this is a pretty, pretty great place. Look at all this exciting stuff that's going on. But now we've got to just keep going and maintaining that excitement and that wonderful visitor attraction element, which drives our charity mission, is essential. So it's challenging going forward.

Kelly Molson: It is. And actually one of the questions I was going to ask you is about how you kept your team motivated through the pandemic. Because, like you said earlier, it's not just, you can't furlough a penguin, it's you can't furlough the penguin keeper. So you had a lot of people that were still coming into work during the pandemic because there was a need for them. They had to be there. But I guess an extra question to that is how do you now keep your team motivated to keep that excitement and keep that enthusiasm going, to keep drawing the people in again? So two different questions, or same question, but for two different situations there.

David Field: Yeah. I think there's ... it's a really, really tough time for the staff. They're absolutely shattered. Staff such as the ... say the keeping staff, and I mean ... were coming through during the pandemic to work. So they weren't getting time off particularly. And even now our other teams, which are so crucial to making the place work and be great place to visit, there's so much going on that people can't take their ... are struggling to take their holidays because of the momentum that's going on. So people are tired.

David Field: And then with the challenges that we are getting there with trying to recruit new people, where there is nobody to recruit, it is putting pressure on people. But it's humbling to work for a team like team RZSS, because they just step up and go above and beyond constantly. And it's the belief in what we do. It's the love of the animals. It's the love of the institution, that people step up to such an extent. And it's remarkable. But they are tired. And we would like to recruit more staff so that they could actually recover.

Kelly Molson: We have Kate Nichols on from Hospitality UK, speaking with her next week about the recruitment challenge. So if you do have any questions that you'd like to pose to her, feel free to send them in, because I know that this is widespread right now. And if I'm honest, it's not just the attractions industry. We're struggling ourselves. Like I said, no joke society, if you have got web development skills hit me up. It is a huge challenge right now. And like you said, people are really, really tired. So there's still a long way to go to get everyone motivated and to keep everyone going. I really hear you on that.

Kelly Molson: Lisa, I want to talk a little bit about what you said earlier about the birthday parties and some of the things that you did in terms of engaging with your audience while you couldn't open the zoo. Will you still carry on some of those things? And if so, are there any new things in development or anything that's coming up that you're quite excited about that you'd like to share with us?

Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. I mean, the demand for the virtual birthday parties has obviously waned now. And actually they'll always be secondary to trying get these groups of kids into the zoo so they can actually, like David say, get close to nature and sort of be around the animals. That's our number one reason for being really, in terms of engagement. But that was great, to see the reactions and all that kind of thing. Not only because we tested it on my own six year old who had a second lockdown birthday, but also just the demand, and people by that point were wanting something different for their kids. That was great.

Lisa Robshaw: I mean, one of the things I loved were the amount of companies that came out and actually wanted to work with us, and companies that traditionally the zoo have worked for ... worked with kind of on a sort of cursory ticket selling level. So hotels, for example. We had so many hotels that wanted to come and work with us in a completely different way. So one hotel wanted to do a giraffe themed bedroom, and a certain portion of percentage of the room rate would come to the hotel ... to the zoo. So I mean, I'm under no illusion, a lot of that was for PR and unusual ideas. But never before have we had hotels being that actively courting us.

Lisa Robshaw: The big one is the Waldorf Astoria, the five star Waldorf Astoria Hotel, more sort of known as the Cally here in Edinburgh. And they did a zoo themed afternoon tea. Five pounds from every afternoon tea that they sold came to the zoo with an option to top up it to another five pound donation. And I think it was three and a half months that was for sale with, just as we were coming out of lockdown. So you could get home delivery or you could get the whole Waldorf Astoria experience. And they raised eight and a half thousand pounds.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Lisa Robshaw: So you work out how many they sold. And that was a partnership we would never have had the opportunity to do had lockdown and COVID and the pandemic not happened. So that was fantastic. So moving forward, I'm really looking forward to working with loads of other different companies, in the next couple of ... next year or so. We've started that initiative with our art trail that we're doing next year, called Giraffe About Town. So this is one of the Wild In Art trails. You might remember things like Cow Parade. Here in Scotland we have the Oor Wullie Bucket trail, but they're popular all around the country. I think there's been Elmer Elephants in Luton, that were involved with. All this kind of thing.

Lisa Robshaw: So we're going to have our own herd of 40 sponsored eight foot giraffes around the city of Edinburgh next summer. And at the moment we're going out and talking to companies about sponsoring those giraffes. And what ... this is a complete unknown of a project for me. I've never been involved in something like this to this scale before. But what is really heartening is that a variety of companies that are coming out and actually wanting to support their zoo, from big house builders to a company, a sort of a one man band who does synthesizer things for electric guitars and bands. It's just so random, but it's so amazing to see the outpouring of support that's happening.

Lisa Robshaw: And also the public are really excited about ... Every time we talk about Giraffe About Town, there's people making arrangements to come to the city and have a weekend break so they can find all the giraffes. That's kind of our way of giving back to the city as well. So that's a really exciting initiative. Alongside the day job, it's quite hard work, but it's going to be so exciting. And the whole process is a whole new thing for me, from talking to sponsors, to people who create concrete plinths and these things to sit on and then looking at venues for auctions at the end to raise money for our wildlife conservation projects around the world. So yeah, that's a really exciting initiative and that would never ... we would never have taken that type of project on if it wasn't for the pandemic and have the confidence to do it.

Kelly Molson: That's amazing, isn't it? That that's something so fabulous that has actually come out of something so horrendous.

Lisa Robshaw: I'm going to have a lot of gray hair by the end of it. It's great that I am already. But already. I get quite emotional thinking about what the end result's going to be, and from people ... sort of companies actually getting a lot of extra PR and marketing value out of working with us, to people having a great time around Edinburgh and exploring parts of the city they've never explored, trying to tick off all their giraffes, to the impact they're going to make at auction with real money for charity. It's quite exciting.

Kelly Molson: It feels like people want to take ownership of an experience in some way. They want to be part of it, not just come to visit. They want to be part of that for a longer period. Do you know what I mean? Like you come and visit the zoo and then you might adopt an animal, but actually being part of the walking trail, that's really kind of embedding yourself into that experience. Something that Gordon and I discussed actually, when we had it on, was the desire for more personalised experiences, that people want to do things that are not just the norm now. They want something that's really kind of tailored to them. Have you seen an increase in demand for your zoo experiences this year?

Lisa Robshaw: Yeah. Massive. Massive demand, to the point where we're getting so booked up in advance. It's great, but you almost get to a situation where we can't fulfill some of them. So we're having to manage that really carefully to make sure that we don't lose the sale, but we're also managing people's expectations. But people want that experience. And if nothing else, the pandemic sort of reignited that passion. People don't just want a tangible kind of gift. It's this thing where ... that experience that people really want, which is ... we are just made for that kind of experience.

David Field: I think that is really interesting with the need for personalised experience, but deeper and more emotive experiences. And I think that's a way ... not everybody who comes to the zoo can possibly have a personalised experience. We don't have enough animals. There's not enough time in the day. For all different reasons. I'm very lucky. I get that kind of contact with animals constantly. And people need that in their lives. They cry out for this contact with nature, and it makes people better.

David Field: And somehow we got to deliver within the zoo more and more of these emotional experiences. We've got to get people to not just look at an animal from a distance, but when they go into the giraffe house now at the zoo, they don't just see animals. They're really, really close. They can smell them, they can hear them, they can almost taste them. That sounds a bit weird, doesn't it? But it's a full multisensory experience. It's a deeper meaning, which is why the zoo experience means so much more than something you just see on screen. It has to be ... we've got to make the hairs on people's necks sort of stand up, get them really emoting, get those emotions running about animals. Then people care about animals more and want to hear our messages about how we can do more to protect them or conserve them. So emotion is huge for us.

Kelly Molson: And is that part of how you kind of inspire people to help you now? Because I guess the zoo ... we're heading into winter, so you're going to have less people visiting. I wanted to ask what the kind of shape of the zoo is as you head into winter this year. But I see that you've got the Help the Animals that you Love campaign still running. Is that something that you run all year through? Are you going to be doing a big kind of driver of that to kind of help get through the winter? Like where are you at?

David Field: I mean, I think there's a couple of questions there. I mean, in terms of ... we will do various fundraising activities at different times. And there's a recent appeal gone out just for more of our general work. When there's some specific project, we might do other appeals. But I think where we are really trying to get to is that ... and we touched on it before, is that long term relationship with the zoo. And I said, the zoo is different, whether it's winter, summer, spring, autumn morning, noon, evening, it's always something different. So we want people to be able to experience that and really pushing our membership, pushing that long term relationship with the zoo. And really there's a cradle to grave relationship that you can have with the zoo. And that's what we want to achieve because it's more than just a visit.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is. This is something that I saw Bristol Zoo has just said, that it's going to open its grounds to the public for free after it moves to a new home next year. Circling back to what you said earlier about the zoo being at the heart of the community and people falling back in love with Edinburgh Zoo, do you have any more initiatives to kind of connect with that local community aside from the walking trail that we've just discussed, which I think is an absolutely wonderful way of connecting with the local community? Have you thought about anything long term for the zoo where you get more of the community engaged with it?

David Field: Well, I would say kind of watch this space, because we will be launching next year, a major part of our future strategy is about community and it's about using the unique resources of the zoo and the power of animals to do good, to actually build improved wellbeing in individuals and also in the communities where we work, helping to strengthen the communities where we work. That's really powerful for us. When Edinburgh Zoo first opened back in the early 1900s, it was designed by the social architect, Patrick Geddes, so it was a place where communities could come and walk and commune with nature outside of all the industrial areas and built up areas of Edinburgh. And we still appeal to that. That idea appeals to us, so that it is a place of sanctuary. It is a place where people can come.

David Field: And we are undertaking a range of initiatives that we can link with the community. We already do that in many ways. We work with different community groups, both in Edinburgh and up at the Highland Wildlife Park. And we want to look at all of those barriers that are cultural, social health wise, which stops people getting to the zoo. We need to work with that. We need to work with local businesses, with local council, with Scottish government, in order that we can become the most inclusive and accessible visitor attraction, not just in Scotland, but in the UK and beyond.

Lisa Robshaw: It's probably worth talking about Highland, Wildlife Park as well, the developments that will start next year for the Scotland's Wildlife Discovery Center. We've got HLF funding for some massive new developments at Highland Wildlife Park, which are just around that sort of engaging with the community, the people that would normally be able to have those experiences, getting close to nature and that kind of thing, and really telling the story of sort of Scotland's wildlife heritage as well. And no better place to do that than in the Cairngorms. So we're really excited about that project and that's going to be an absolute game changer for Highland Wildlife Park.

Kelly Molson: Oh, can you share a little bit more about what makes it game changing? Or is this top secret information for the time being?

David Field: No, not at all. I mean, there's been quite a lot of information out there about it already. And the Scottish Wildlife Discovery Center is ... it's a transformational project, both for the park and for the society because it will be ... in reality, it's a network of hubs that takes you on an expedition across the Highland Wildlife Park. But this expedition exposes you to the people, the place, and the animals of the Cairngorms. It brings the beauty of the Cairngorms and all the knowledge and information that we need the people that will come and visit.

David Field: But we will have ... there's a large discovery centre where you can find all this information. There will be hubs, which overlook our wildcat breeding program project, and our peat restoration project. Then there's a wonderful new accessible learning hub, which will be open for the community as well so that we can bring people to the park that would never have dreamed of coming to the park before or wouldn't have been able to come to the park. But they'll be able to come for different events, community outreach. But it is designed so that we can celebrate the Cairngorms and the people, the place, and the animals therein.

Lisa Robshaw: What he said.

Kelly Molson: What David said. Do you know what's lovely? Is you speak ... there's a real sense of positivity in this interview. Whenever you both speak, there's a real kind of uplift and a real kind of sense of excitement about what's coming next. So it's been really lovely to hear that come through from you both.

David Field: Oh, fantastic. Thank you. I mean, we work with animals. It's amazing. You're having a bad day, go and sit with the penguins.

Kelly Molson: That is not dreadful, isn't it? Yeah. I mean, the closest I get is to picking up a dog if I'm having a bit of a bad day, but a penguin would top it.

David Field: But that is ... it's so important to us. And it's not a trite statement, but we know that people just visiting a zoo, your stress levels just go down. We know that. We know that again, it's that quality social time. It's memories. It's access to nature. All of this is important for us from so many aspects. And the power of animals to do good is just ... it's beyond. They're amazing.

Kelly Molson: Couldn't have said that any better myself, David. I totally agree with you. Thank you both for coming on the podcast today. I always like to end our interviews by asking if you have a book that you would recommend to our listeners. So it could be something that's helped you in your career. It could be something that you just ... you absolutely love. It's definitely not going to be Harry Potter. We know that. Hopefully Geoff is not listening to this, our past-

Lisa Robshaw: I'm to going to get an invite to the Warner Brothers Studio at any time soon, am I?

Kelly Molson: No, it's not happening, Lisa. But yes, I would like to ask you both if you've got a book that you'd like to recommend?

Lisa Robshaw: I'll let David go first.

David Field: Well, I love my books. Absolutely love my books. The Zoo Quest Expeditions by Attenborough were an inspiration to me. But more recently, it's The Invention of Nature: The adventures of Alexander van Humboldt. Amazing book by Andrea Wulf. Alexander von Humboldt, one of the greatest naturalists, a real kind of polymath that was there. He invented ecology. He saw climate change before anybody else. And it's so beautifully written and a real inspiration in terms of what he achieved. He's one of my scientific heroes.

Kelly Molson: Fabulous. That's very topical. All right, that's David's one. Lisa, what about you?

Lisa Robshaw: I'm now regretting asking David to go first. Mine is ... I'm not sure I'm allowed to swear on this podcast.

Kelly Molson: You can.

Lisa Robshaw: The Life-Changing Magic of Not Giving a F*ck.

Kelly Molson: Excellent book.

Lisa Robshaw: It was given to me, the actual book was given to me by a friend, God, probably about six or seven years ago when I was having a bit of a hard time. And David ... it'll probably make David smile, and my boss, Ben, but I give myself a really hard time over things sometimes. I just want things to be perfect all the time. It's quite topical at the moment. And actually, I just ... sometimes when I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed, I just go into this book and it reminds me that I can't control certain things. I just need to give a fuck about the things I can control and let go of the things I can't. I recommend it to so many friends that have found it useful as well. I know Ben, my boss, would probably want it to be like a bit of a marketing book that I'm recommending or something like that, I thought I really let him down with this. This is well worth a read.

Kelly Molson: Lisa, I have read that book. It is an excellent book. So basically what we are recommending is grab a copy of that book, head to the zoo, go and sit by the penguins, life will be sweet.

David Field: Perfect.

Kelly Molson: All right, well, listen, listeners, as ever, you can have the chance to win copies of those books. So if you would like to win a copy of Lisa's book and David's book, then head over to this episode announcement and retweet it with the words, "I want David and Lisa's book," and we will put you ... books even, and we will put you in the draw to win a copy of each of them. Thank you very much. I really like those suggestions and I really am very grateful for you both coming on and sharing your experiences today with the listeners for the podcast. So thank you.

David Field: You're more than welcome, Kelly.

Lisa Robshaw: 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.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

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

Show references:

https://waterandsteam.org.uk/

https://twitter.com/epuddick

https://www.linkedin.com/in/liz-power-a79717198/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B5nggnfC6B8

https://www.bdadyslexia.org.uk/

Liz Power has been the Director of the London Museum of Water & Steam since 2018, which follows 20 years working in Museum learning at the Science Museum, Imperial War Museum and London Transport Museum. 

When not at a Museum Liz can be found running around after her three children, volunteering as a trustee for her local grassroots youth work charity, or playing the Baritone horn badly in her local brass band.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world.

 In today's episode, I speak with Liz Power, Director of the London Museum of Water and Steam.

 We discuss their excellent reopening video, and how they drove their summer visitor numbers sky-high by focusing on their local community.

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

Kelly Molson: All right, Liz, welcome to Skip the Queue.

Liz Power: Thank you so much for having me.

Kelly Molson: Well, it's my pleasure and I'll tell you why it's my pleasure in a little while. But first, ice breaker questions. So, if there was a zombie apocalypse, which three people would you want on your team? And they can be friends or celebs.

Liz Power: Wow.

Kelly Molson: Or famous, not celebs.

Liz Power: We’ll see, for years and years me and my husband had a zombie apocalypse plan when we lived over in Wimbledon. We'd meet at the windmill on the common, and so we would... This is before we had children, we had this actual zombie apocalypse plan, so I think I'm going to take him, because he's in on the plan already and I think it's completely rational to have a zombie apocalypse plan, completely. So, I'll have him because he's good. And then who else would I have? I mean, I basically want somebody who knows a lot about zombies. There's not many of those around. Maybe I'll just take any mortician.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah. Okay.

Liz Power: Because they're used to handling the dead, and it's not the zombie's fault that they're trying to eat our brains, so maybe they would handle the zombie relationships while I do fighting.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I like that you've thought so in-depth about this. Now I feel like I need to put my own zombie apocalypse plans together.

Liz Power: Everyone needs one.

Kelly Molson: Okay. All right, if you could eliminate one food so that no one ever had to eat it ever again, what would you destroy?

Liz Power: Without a doubt it is celery. I mean, it is obnoxious, horrible, does nothing for you. Just the presence of it in a space stinks it out. I can spot it in a mixed up food a hundred miles. It is the filthy devil's food, and eating it would kill you if you ate nothing else. So, the world could do without it. It's very much the mosquito of the food world, celery. Yeah, everyone would be delighted. Nobody would believe me for that.

Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, good. Exactly how I feel about peas, so... It's similar.

Liz Power: Similar. Similar. Maybe we could do both, sort of a two-for-one offer.

Kelly Molson: I'm all down for that. Celery has no part in my life.

Liz Power: No, nor mine. Nor anybody's I'm sure, but anyway. Still should be banned.

Kelly Molson: All right. Final one, what is the best advice you've ever been given?

Liz Power: So, I have three children, and my daughter turned two the day after my twins were born. It was unbelievable chaos for the last... Well, for the last eight years to be honest, but particularly the first kind of six months. At one point, I cried on a health visitor and said... Because they would just scream and hit and it was oh, they were such messy little creatures. I said to her was it ever going to be like this forever? Had I ruined everyone's lives? Had I ruined my daughter's life by bringing these two horrible screaming babies into her world, and she said to me, "They are learning about relationships in the safety of your love."

Kelly Molson: Aw, that's lovely.

Liz Power: And it was the best bit of advice, and I probably reference it about three times a week, because even though they're now 10 and eight, my boys are eight, it's still chaotic and it's still argumentative. The small one had an argument over jumpers. I mean, it is that... They are going to just be the best humans, they're going to make the best friends, they're going to have the best relationships because they're learning about that in complete safety. So, that's what reassures me when it all goes horrifically wrong.

Kelly Molson: Oh my God, that is so special. What a... That's a really lovely gift that she gave you with that saying, isn't it?

Liz Power: Yeah, and I was at a very, very low point, and it just gave me enough to keep going, that I hadn't ruined everything. Not that you can choose to have twins, but it just felt like I'd blown everything apart. She was like, "No, this is for their good." And it is for their good.

Kelly Molson: Hats off to you, because I'm juggling a four-month-old right now, and that's tough enough. So, well done you. All right, what is your unpopular opinion?

Liz Power: I've been thinking about this, because I have so many opinions, but I tend to have a tendency to think I'm right, so I think they're more popular, but I thought of one particularly for museums. We have so many museums in this country. That worries me. We just have so many, and I'm not sure that every single museum in the country is viable, so I think my unpopular opinion should be that if we're going to have to make choices about which museums we can sustain as a country, then we should make it purely based on which ones have mannequins or not, and get rid of every single mannequin museum. If you have a mannequin, I don't care how pretty it is, it must go. The things are terrifying, horrific. Maybe we'd have an amnesty and give everyone 12 months to get rid if they wanted. And then anybody who was like, "No, my mannequin must stay." I'm like... I don't mind a headless one to display clothing, but the ones that are just kind of an actual person. Horrific.

Liz Power: When I worked at the Transport Museum, there was one... Well, Transport Museum, I love it dearly but they'll definitely have to close or get rid of the mannequins. There's one there that is actually modelled on Sam Mullins, the director. And so, it's even more horrific, and then in their store in Acton, there's just trains full of random mannequins. I mean, it's horrible.

Kelly Molson: Kind of spooky having a mannequin of yourself, isn't it? That's a bit creepy. But where would all the mannequins go, though? There would just be a landfill of weird, creepy mannequins.

Liz Power: No, we'd burn them.

Kelly Molson: Okay.

Liz Power: Yeah, we'd burn them. We're very industrious in museums. We'd probably sell tickets to the bonfire. We'd burn all the mannequins that were given over in the amnesty, and the museums that don't comply, that is it. No more of your museum. You just have to be... Though, I think that's probably going to turn out to be an incredibly popular opinion.

Kelly Molson: I think it might as well. Let's find out. Listeners, can you let us know how you feel about the burning of the mannequins?

Liz Power: I think it just feels right. I don't know how you'd object to it. It's so good.

Kelly Molson: Also, let me know if you buy a ticket for that as well. I'm intrigued.

Liz Power: I'll get that Arts Council application on the go right now.

Kelly Molson: Liz, thank you for that. Okay, I've had so many wonderful unpopular opinions this season already, I just... Yeah, where you pull them from, I do not know. Right, tell us a little bit about the London Museum of Water and Steam.

Liz Power: Well, of course, everyone has visited, but just for a couple of people that have never been, we are a very small micro-museum over in West London, and we're based at Q Bridge train station, but actually in Brentford and Hounslow. We are a historic site, and we have 200 years of water pumping history and the impact it has on London. So, we have a collection of static steam engines, we have a small, really small [inaudible 00:08:22] gauge loco that runs around our site, and we are a community museum, so we're really focused on what we can do for our local community. That's a massive part of what we do, and then the other part of what we do is our visitor profile is the classic split of the under-fives and the enthusiasts.

Liz Power: So, it's a really unusual place and massive plug for everyone to come and visit and come and see me because everyone at all. Yes, I know this standpipe tower, so if you've ever sat on the traffic queuing to the A40 with that big tower that you're like, "Oh, I don't know what that is." Yeah, that's us, and it's a standpipe tower, not a chimney. So, come educate yourself, because everyone's like, "Oh, I've queued past so many times." Yeah, that's us, that's the Water and Steam.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. That was a very good synopsis, and you mentioned community. We're going to come back to that because that's what we want to talk about on today's podcast. But listeners, as you know I basically stalk people on Twitter and LinkedIn and various social media platforms and ask them to come on the podcast. I'm always looking out for interesting guests, interesting stories, and I have been stalking Liz for a little while, actually, after I saw their rather brilliant reopening video that the museum produced. 

Kelly Molson: Now, this was when the museums were allowed to reopen after the first wave of pandemic. I know we are still in it, but I thought it was such a great example of one, a video that was on brand. It was really fun, really authentic, and I'm going to say really inexpensively-made, and I just thought, I just thought it was perfect. It was such a lovely way of kind of showcasing to your potential visitors that it was a safe place to come.

Kelly Molson: It was really fun. You really explained visually really well what they could and couldn't do, and I just think it's excellent. I've referenced it in many... Well, I've referenced it on the podcast, I've referenced it in a few webinars that we've done for ASVA, and I just think it's banging. Can you just talk us through the process of how you... I will put the link to the video in the show notes, so if you haven't seen it you can have a watch.

Liz Power: Cool, thanks. We were fully furloughed as staff from April the first, including myself. So, we were out of work, but that didn't stop you from attending webinars, and so myself and the team were attending anything we could do to just feel like we still had a job. One of the webinars, we heard Bernard Donoghue who I know you've had on before talk about a reopening video that would be an important part of reopening. We didn't have any money or any budget or anything, but we had enthusiasm and an incredible ability to chuck ourselves into having a go at anything. And I just thought we could do it. I looked at some of the ones that other people were making, and I was like, "You know what, it doesn't look that hard."

Liz Power: So, we filmed it on my iPhone, because I had the newest phone of the team, so that's how that choice was made. Myself and Gemma, who... We only have three staff majoritively, so the two of us filmed it together and we wrote a little skit. We filmed it in order, so we'd find it easier to edit, and we filmed it without a microphone or anything, and then we took a few takes of a few things, but pretty much did it short and sharp, under a minute long. We knew the messages we wanted to get across about space and fun...

Kelly Molson: That's my favourite bit. The space bit is my favourite bit.

Liz Power: There's so much space.

Kelly Molson: There's so much space. But it's filmed from really far away, so it sounds like you've got loads of space as well, and I was like it’s really brilliant.

Liz Power: In our garden, yeah. And then we used free editing software to bring it together, and then my friend Vicki Pipe, who is the manager of the amazing Bow Street Police Museum, check that out, who's a brilliant editor. She's @vickiexplores on Twitter. She did a time to edit for me and put some music over the top, and that was it. And then we did a really important thing, and I know this sounds silly, but I lost all sense of shame and I set up a WhatsApp group which was absolutely everybody I knew who I thought would retweet it for me. I sent out a WhatsApp group to them and sent a message to them all saying, "I really need your help. Good news, I'm not asking for money. All I'm asking for is a retweet. Can you retweet my video when I bring it out next week?" And sent them a little preview.

Liz Power: And then everyone did, including the amazing Scummy Mummies, who retweeted it for me, and they've got a massive following. So, it really got out into the world. It was fantastic. Anyway, so we loved it so much that we made another one for October when we reopened, so that was our outdoor spaces. When we reopened our indoor spaces, and this time I roped in my kids to star in it, and we did exactly the same process. For us, it worked really well. When we'd had to close, all of our engagement with our audience had gone on to social media, and there was nothing else we could do. We were furloughed, we were really tight but we have always been really open with our visitors and our community about who we are as an organisation but also as individuals.

Liz Power: So, it's really not unusual for our social media to feature us messing around, or us just talking about our lives or... It's not my kids' first appearance. It is very much community work. You have to give so you can receive, and it fitted our brand because if we'd suddenly had come out with something that was so slick, they'd all gone, "Well, they said they have no money." We haven't gotten any money, so we have to film it like this. It fits. This is us, this is me and Gemma. We're the people you will meet, and so in every way, it fitted what we did. It was so well-received, and it really held its own against people who spent a lot of money on theirs, and we spent, for the record, nothing.

Kelly Molson: Amazing. Yeah, I love that, and I think that's part of seeing... The pandemic has forced people to be more innovative and be more creative with the budget that they've got, which was zero, and to do things like this. I think one of the nice things that you mentioned is about, you were in it and your children were in it, and it was... If people are going to visit, they're going to meet those people, and that brings me back to that community aspect that I want to talk about. Because you've had a really, really successful summer, and this was something that I saw on Twitter a little while ago.

Kelly Molson: You posted, and again, I'll reference this in the show notes, but you posted up a graph. Your tweet said, "The grey are the numbers we expected. Yellow is what we had before, and blue is what we got." And basically the numbers were phenomenal. They were far over what you were predicting, like far over.

Liz Power: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: You said this had all come about because you'd focused on your local community. I want to know what you did.

Liz Power: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So, you've got your summer 2021 results are pretty phenomenal. Talk us through how you got them, because they were so much better than what you expected.

Liz Power: So much better, and I just want to say that halfway through the summer, I had failed the basic mantra of "know your numbers" and was in the pit of despair unknowing if we were doing well or not. And then I was like, "Actually, Power, sort yourself out. Just count the numbers up and have a look," and we were doing so well. We had forecast that we would get 25% of our normal visitor numbers. Now, for a sense of scale, we are tiny, so if we get over 200 visitors, we're emergency going to say we need to get more loo roll, just to give you a sense of scale. But we had forecast 25%, and we were smashing it. Absolutely smashing it.

Liz Power: We are very lucky in Brentford where we sit. We're surrounded by people, so we're overlooked by the Brentford Towers Housing Estate, which is a high-rise accommodation, high-density, and then we have new-build flats all the way around us, and that's why in the summer of '21... In the summer of '20, we had decided to open this outdoor space, because to be brutally honest, nobody needed a static steam engine at that point in their life. Did they need a place to play with their kids? Absolutely. So, we did that instead. When it came to this summer, what we really wanted to do was kind of take that same approach and feel, and bring it into the museum. Despite all the new people we met last summer... All the new people we've met since we reopened in May, come to the museum and just, we want it treated like a park.

Liz Power: We want people to feel like they can come time and time again, have a play. That kind of feel, so when we had opened... I don't know what you call the October opening. Almost open. When we'd almost opened in October and done the half term, and then again when we reopened in May, the first thing we did before we let the public in is have a week of community opening, where we invited all of our local community groups in to have the space for themselves, get them back through the door, just kind of build up those relationships. We'd had some funding from the Council over the autumn of '21 for a project we called Sharing Spaces. Sounds really posh, but what they actually did was pay for a duty manager and a cleaner so that we could open the museum not for the public but for community work, because we were a large space.

Liz Power: So, we were ventilated and groups could meet inside, and particularly for the local communities work we do with people with autism. Having a regular meeting place had been really important. So, it started to kind of snowball all of this work we were doing in the local community, being helpful. Helpful is one of our museum values, and so we're like, "What would be helpful to do now?" Again, still nobody needs a static pumping engine, but they do need a place to come and do a regular craft group or whatever it is. We had carried on this mantra, and then we'd closed again and gone into that really long lockdown. Then, with the help from the Culture Recovery Fund, we'd been able to open up in May, and again, focus on the community groups. What can we do that is helpful?

Liz Power: We've got a brilliant new community partner in the Au Bon community, who are a charity who work with young people with learning disabilities. They're our new café, and that's really exciting and we've got all these new community groups coming in and out. And then we've just got local people, and we swapped our annual tickets, so we are unashamedly a Robin Hood organisation. If you travel from Brighton to buy a ticket for the day, we're an expensive day out for you at 17 pounds. If you live next door, we are an absolute bargain. 17 quid for the year, come in every week. Brilliant.

Liz Power: So, we have this. We knew we'd have people coming time and time again, and annual ticket members bring other annual ticket members. And then we knew we couldn't do seven days a week. We didn't have the staff, so we consolidated down to five days a week. Still, at five days a week, we beat what we had done in 2019.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Liz Power: It was just local people because we know them, and we see them, and we chat with them. They help us find the leak buckets when the roof rains, and they say things like, "Are you doing that story again, Liz?" And you're like, "Yes, I'm doing that story again." And we put together a simple program that we felt was manageable and deliverable, we had a good summer. But local people had built this relationship with us, which meant that they knew what they were getting, they know the approach they're getting. We're a friendly place. You really can't go far wrong. Of course you can touch something. You're going to get covered in oil, but help yourself. Come in the water play, just come and sit and chill. You walk a coffee through our museum, it's absolutely fine. We want to be that kind of relaxed environment, and that's just what people needed this summer. We just got it just right for our local people, and I think we've done a lot of listening and a lot of thinking about them.

Liz Power: And also a lot of reflecting on our own lives. What do we want this summer? I certainly don't' want anything too intense. I wanted a chill place that made me feel safe and relaxed and happy, and that didn't have to go too far. So, that's what we provided for a lot of people in Brentford.

Kelly Molson: How did you get the word out? Did you use... You've obviously got quite a tight-knit community around you anyway, so you've got people that would come back and visit regularly, and they're going to spread the word organically for you. Is that what happened, or did you go to any other lengths to...? So, did you invest in digital, for example? Did you do any online campaigns? Or did you do any flyer dropping, or...?

Liz Power: No. The Cultural Recovery Fund’s money, obviously, was only for the three months and it ran out before the summer holiday, so we had pre-invested in that well-known marketing tool, the banner. We have two banners out saying what we were doing for the summer, and we use our social media a lot, so we chat to people and we often say to people, "Oh, if you want to know what's going on, just follow us Facebook." We've got a big Facebook following, big for us. Lots of people do follow us on that, but then also, we're really unashamed about it. This half term, we've been doing science shows and at the end of every science show, we end with an appeal, thanking everyone for coming, saying that museums will only keep going if we have visitors. It's their homework to go away and tell five people, "Help keep us going."

Liz Power: I think a lot of it is word of mouth, and just kind of the good feeling we can create from being helpful, from being positive, so you get people whose child maybe attends a club that meets in the museum, or maybe they're a carer to one of the young people who does their bunchy work in café... That kind of good atmosphere, and then that's it. We don't have any money for any new marketing or leaflets or anything like that, so it's simple at the moment until we build our income back up...

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Liz Power: ... and are able to put a bit more money behind it.

Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. To have achieved those kinds of visitor numbers without actually any additional spend is pretty impressive.

Liz Power: Yeah, I forgot one thing, as well, which was before the summer, I did a request out to Thames Water. Thames  Water doesn’t fund us or anything, but I kind of think they should. So, I'd phoned them up and asked them if there was anything they could do for the summer to help us, and their engagement team came down every Wednesday with a bunch of activities, and so we were able to have additional programming for no additional cost. If in doubt, ask.

Kelly Molson: That's excellent.

Liz Power: Yeah, and that came out of... I was at training or networking, and somebody said, "If you need help, ask for help." And I was like, "We need help. We need help to put on programming for this summer. Let me ask." And they said yes.

Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. So actually, a big part of it is finding new partners to support you. It's not just about relying on the general public to spread the word. That's one part of it, but the other channel is actually, if we look at the community and we look at partners that can come and support us, that's another way of developing... Because, are you getting new people coming through the doors as well? You talked a lot about your annual visitors, but are you getting new visitors? You can see that split?

Liz Power: Yeah, we can see the split. I'm not very good on stats, so I haven't got the stats for you, but yeah. We can see the new people coming in, so when I was changing the ticket prices... In 2019, we had 13 different ticket prices, and to volunteer on our front desk, you basically needed a degree in mathematics. We simplified it and we now have the classic two ticket prices, adults and concessions, and we made all kids go free because it's such a good line. I worked out when I was doing the calculations for that ticket change, the percentage of new tickets that we would have coming through the door, and I was heavily indebted to the AIM guides, an Association of Independent Museums who are brilliant. I mean, they've got a guide for everything you need... If you want to run a museum, just use that website. Their ticket guide basically said, "If you change to an annual ticket, annual tickets bring other people." As soon as you read it you think, "Do you know what? I've done that."

Liz Power: So, you get an annual ticket to somewhere and then you say to your friend, "I'll tell you what, I've got a ticket to Kew Gardens, do you want to meet me there? That would be great, and then you could get a ticket, and then the two of us can meet in Kew Gardens." And then they say to their friend, "Do you know what? I've got a ticket to Kew Gardens..." That's the word of mouth that comes with that investment in that annual ticket for those families, and we'd had people who'd bought annual tickets at October half term, we're very liberal at just extending those, thanking them for support. Lots of families said, "Don't be ridiculous, we'll buy a new one," which is lovely. But the annual ticket is something that... Now, you can come every weekend like everyone else.

Liz Power: You can just have a play, or did you know the trains are coming back? Or did you know that we've got the model railway, or whatever is coming in, they feel we are a hop in-able venue, and then that's how they kind of spread the word to their friends, really, and start the snowball off.

Kelly Molson: And is this kind of constantly evolving? Because I guess just going back to what you mentioned right at the start, is that you said, "What is it that people need right now? They need outdoor space, they need somewhere to come with their kids where they can burn off steam, and they need it to be a calm space where they don't have to worry about anything." How does that translate now that the winter's coming? Are you speaking to the community to find out what it is that they need?

Liz Power: Yeah, so on our community work site, at the moment we're only open to the public at weekends, during term time. But we're open for the community Thursdays and Fridays, and that's when we're also starting to welcome schools back in. Watch this space, and also when we have our volunteers come in on Thursdays and Fridays. The big request from the community is to open more. I mean, we could fill the building four days a week, easily, with community work. So, that's a real challenge for us, to look for sources of income to make that happen, so I have a couple of proposals out with corporate donors who, I think it should help the community by opening our museum for a couple extra days a week. For them it would be, in case they're listening, a very low-cost investment, so we need a duty manager and we need a cleaner, and that's pretty much it. And some overheads to keep the lights on, so we know that's what the community really need.

Liz Power: They need a dry space, they need a ventilated space, they need toilets. So, that's really, really important, and then for our kind of family visitors, it's really interesting. So, half term just gone, we had good numbers. I was really pleased. We beat our 25% target, we didn't have those numbers like the summer. What is really interesting, families were saying to me, "I'm so glad you're not busy. I thought you were going to be busy."

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Liz Power: Which I think is fascinating. I mean, it's an independent museum's worst nightmare, that people want to avoid busy places because busy is what we love, but I thought that was really interesting and made me think about kind of the messaging we're going to do this winter. We are big, we do have plenty of space. You can safely navigate our museum without hitting a queue or feeling hemmed in. So, I think that we're going to have to think about how we communicate that, and how we make sure that we... Instead of going what is more traditional for us pre-pandemic years, October half terms is manic, and then winter toddles along. How can we spread that out? How can we say to our families, "You know the offer that you love at half term? Well actually, this weekend in November, we're also doing some of that."

Liz Power: So, we can spread all visitors out and make them feel safe and secure this winter, and safe and secure I think is just about not being busy for them. Actually, it's going to be a really fine balance.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's difficult, isn't it? It's a conundrum of... And I guess this comes back to a pricing strategy as well, is do you have less visitor numbers, higher entry price? But then that's a challenge in terms of the local kind of community you've built up. You don't want to whack the price up for them, but will people travel and pay more to come?

Liz Power: Brentford's a very deprived area, and Hounslow is a little rich borough, and I'm very aware of not wanting to kind of price our local community out of the museum. For me, working in independent museums as I have for the last 13 years, for me it's all about demonstrating worth, so £17 is a lot of money. Some families, for an adult, I can't do the maths quick enough to tell you what it'd be for two, but for some families that is beyond their reach, right? They're never going to be able to afford that. Those families, we will give tickets to for free. That is not a lost income for me, they are never coming. So, I will give them a ticket because that is gained love, gained support, gained word of mouth. That's all pluses for me, there's no loss at all.

Liz Power: In the past, we've given away tickets with a food bank, which has been really good, and we're delighted to see some of those families in. We work very closely with the Children's Centre, who hold a stay and play on a Thursday in term time in our museum, and we give tickets away to those families, and all of my duty managers are on strict instructions that if somebody arrives with a family and when they're told the price, they say, "This is not for us, then," and you can tell, you know those families aren't faking it. They absolutely can let those families in.

Kelly Molson: That's wonderful.

Liz Power: That's not lost money. That's just a total bonus, but it's about demonstrating 17 quid, for a lot of people, is a big spend. So, what are you getting? What's your value for money there? I always think about the cinema, the thing about paying for the cinema is you know how long you're going to be in it, you know what it's going to be like, and you know what it's going to be like when you finish. So, that's a safe bet for a family, they understand that transaction, and I think the thing with museums is people who aren't museum-goers don't understand that transaction. They don't see what they're getting, and this kind of loops back around to the film and the social media and the being very open, and welcoming community groups in.

Liz Power: All we're trying to do is show you what you're going to get, that it's not scary. You're going to meet me and Gemma. It's really fun, your kid doesn't have to behave, tantrums are incredibly welcome and totally normal, as is shoplifting from our shop. Toddlers running across the carpark with a bouncy ball, you don't have to put on your best. I don't want it to be a place where you feel you can only go if your children are on their best behaviour. You need us most when your children are at their absolute worst. That's when you should feel safe to come to us and go, "God, they're having a hideous day. Water and steam, that's what we need. Let's go get wet in the splash zone." Doesn't matter if they've got soaked. They keep their clothes. Doesn't matter if they're having a screaming tantrum on the floor, Liz has got that secret packet of stickers that she gives to screaming kids.

Liz Power: That's the kind of safety we want to create, and then that means for them that they know that value of that 18, 17 quid. They really understand what they're getting in return, and it's a good investment for them. And we've done this... Hounslow Council have given every household a 20 quid voucher, like an e-voucher thing, and we've signed up and some families have been swapping that for their adult ticket.

Kelly Molson: Ah, that's great.

Liz Power: Yeah, it's absolutely brilliant, because 17 quid, you could spend it in lots of different shops in Hounslow and restaurants and things, but if they spent it with us, they get something that lasts all year. That's been wonderful to see that coming through.

Kelly Molson: That's really smart. Liz, I don't think that you could have sold a trip to this museum any better than you just did. It's just perfect. It's perfect. I'm bringing Edie, I'm bringing Edie.

Liz Power: Yeah, do it. Bring her when you're having a rubbish day. I will happily cuddle a baby for you.

Kelly Molson: Excellent, I'll take that. I'll definitely take you up on that. Liz, what is next for the museum? We talked a little bit about how your offering is going to change slightly, and obviously, there is still a nervousness from people, and they want to know that they're going to have enough space and be safe over the summer months. What comes next?

Liz Power: We've got to work out how to grow. Okay, so we've luckily not had to make anyone redundant, but we haven't replaced anyone who's left, and so I think we've kind of been in survival mode quite a long way. But I wrote a business plan in 2019, and I've got to trash it because we've leapt so far forward in everything we wanted to do, so that's fantastic news. There's a bit of kind of structural replanning that needs to happen, thinking about our business plan going forward, and then how do we grow back to where we were? How do we get back to the starting levels? Then, how can we do more for our community?

Liz Power: We're just about to advertise for a volunteer coordinator part-time if you'd like to come work with me. That is going to be a really big thing for us, and we need to build our volunteer team back. That's incredibly important, we have started a years' worth of work, working on young volunteering. A lot of young people who are long-term mates, volunteering in the museum, so I'm just trying to explore every version of volunteering possible because I think we're a fantastic resource for skills and all the rest of it. I'm having conversations with all sorts of people that might be able to make volunteering doable for us. That's really exciting, and then we're again thinking about what our community needs.

Liz Power: I want to do some work on our outdoor spaces, which are before the pay line. We're very lucky, we've got a beautiful garden with frogs and a playhouse and more children's watering cans than you've ever seen, but there's space at the back that I'm hoping that I am going to be able to redevelop into a wild play space that could be used by the local community for playing for a school. Something that's kind of lacking in Brentford. I'd like to get open more, because I think we need to be doing more community work. So again, as you can see these things are about kind of what can we look for funding to take our work forward, while maintaining our core work of the work that we do with the communities and the work we do with our visitors who come in all the time?

Liz Power: So, slowly, slowly nudging forward and always just being really honest with people about where we are, and just explaining we can't do everything, and the things we can't do, explain why we can't do them. Just the things we can do, being enthusiastic and going for it. We try to have an attitude of promising to everyone that we'll say no if we can't do something, because in some cultures, saying "no" is perceived as incredibly rude. So, people don't ask, because they're worried they're going to put a burden on you. We want to have the opposite, so we operate on a promise to say no, so you may as well ask because I'm going to feel I have to do something.

Liz Power: Kind of continuing to listen and respond to the community, and just trying to be the most helpful, responsive, reactive museum we can, and get our reaccreditation. So, just a couple of things.

Kelly Molson: I mean, that's not a shortlist by any means, is it? What we really need are those corporate sponsors to get their wallets out, get their purses out, and spend some money.

Liz Power: Absolutely. To spend some money, and to think about how they can support the museum because the visitor numbers will return and that income will return, but it's going to be a slow-moving thing. There's no rushing that, and I don't know if we'll ever see numbers like we did before the world changed. So, this is time to think differently, and think a bit laterally about how can we still achieve what we want to achieve? And it might work, might not work, but at least they're going to try, and try everything.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Liz, I've really loved speaking to you about this, because you can see when you talk, you can see the enthusiasm that comes through you, so I just think it would be... Definitely, I'm going to come and visit, because it would be so lovely to meet you in person because you kind of... The museum just is you, you just glow when you talk about it. It's really lovely.

Liz Power: I was very lucky. So, I've only ever worked in museums. I've never worked anywhere else, and then slowly over the 20 years of careers, I've made a list of all the places I would never work, which I might tell you if you come in and have a coffee. I was really, really lucky I was working so much on community engagement in museums and younger people in museums. That's really where I felt my focus should be, is on the social purpose of museums. I'm just really lucky that when I went to the interview at Water and Steam, I pitched them this left-wing community utopia they went for it. They trusted in me and backed me, and I think it's starting to come good.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it is. Absolutely. All right, so something else that I want to discuss with you. Now, this is the time in the podcast where I normally ask our guest to give a book recommendation. So, something that they love, something that maybe has shaped their career, and when I asked you this, you very... No, it was really such a valid point, and I thought, "No one's ever said that to me before, and nobody's ever raised this as a topic," but you basically said that books, they're not at the top of your list of things to do, because you have Dyslexia.

Liz Power: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Let's talk about the... museum and cultural world is extremely academic. How do you deal with this? What's your strategies?

Liz Power: Well, it's super academic, isn't it? And I've got a terrible degree in drama. I could be a tree, but that's kind of where my academia ends. And as I made my way through my career, I was very aware that you just... Goodness, people are clever, aren't they? And they've done all sorts of qualifications and all the rest of it, and my idea of hell is doing an MA. Sounds horrific.

Kelly Molson: Same.

Liz Power: Degree in drama was bad enough. I'm not a studier, I hate it. The day I worked my first job, which was at Buckingham Palace, I worked in the security team. Literally, I was like, "Oh, I'm a worker bee. I'm happy. I don't want to study, I just want to work," and it's not been easy, because there is this presumption that you come from this academic background, and that you will gain your knowledge about the sector through reading and absorbing this. I could read a textbook on museum practice. I am not going to remember it, I'm not going to be able to take it in, and I won't understand the majority of the words, so my reading and writing age is about that of a 12-year-old, and that is not what museum books are written for. Though I am excellent at editing texts for exhibitions because 12 is what we should all aim for.

Liz Power: So, I'm not a natural museum person like that. I also don't particularly like exhibitions, because I find reading hard, and so why would I choose to do that, stood up? If I'm going to read, and I do read for pleasure, I will be sat somewhere snugly, and so I can give my full concentration to it. Certainly not in a room with other people stood looking at a wall. So, accessing information throughout my career has kind of come from two places. First of all, from being brutally honest about my abilities and my limitations. My dyslexia affects my short-term memory, it affects my processing skills, it obviously affects my reading and writing skills. If I had to read something, then I need to kind of set aside time to actually do that, and be in the right environment to make myself read it.

Liz Power: My own learning has mainly come from people. I mean, the best source of learning, they are. They are the people that write the books, after all, so you just go talk to the person. Skip out the middle page. I've done a lot of kind of following and networking and chatting to people. I've worked with some extraordinary people, and being so lucky to manage some brilliant people who have really challenged me in what I think and do, and if I'm able to kind of share how I need to work... If you're going to be managed by me, this is what you need to know. If I'm going to report to you, I mean, my poor trustees, what a learning curve.

Liz Power: This is how this information will be coming to you, and best of luck deciphering this. So, I do do written reports, but they will quite often say, "Well, we'll have a verbal report on that one. Have a verbal report on that." And we only do one basic written report, so like our board meetings, that's majoritively kind of bullet points and things like... They kind of adapted to my issues, but the massive, massive plus side, and the reason I wouldn't turn off my dyslexia even if I could, is you choose me to be part of the team. You get all that hard work, but you also get an incredible dyslexic superpower, which I that I can see something complete. I can see what Water and Steam will be. Not might be, not could be, but will absolutely be. I can see the people walking through the door, I can see the interactions, and then what I can do once I can see something, I can take it apart and work out how to get there.

Liz Power: I didn't realise this was a superpower until a former line manager said to me once, "You have three good ideas a year, Liz, and that's what we keep you around for." I said, "I do actually." But my ideas come fully formed, and that's really unusual to go, "I have a fully-formed vision of this." I woke up the other day and I had a fully-formed vision of how I would revolutionise sports engagement for the under-16s. I mean, for God's sake...

Kelly Molson: Is there nothing that you can't do, Liz?

Liz Power: No. Well, I'm not going to do it. But it's like, seriously brain, could you just switch off? That's the plus side of my dyslexia, is that I see things in a very different way to a lot of people, and then I have the ability to kind of undo it all. Yeah, so super dyslexic, now parent to two, potentially three super dyslexic children. I was lucky to be brought up in an incredibly dyslexic-positive household. My dad's dyslexic, my brother's dyslexic, my poor mother dealing with us all. It's got lots of downsides, but the upsides are so totally worth it. But it does mean I can't recommend a book.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's fine. Liz, this has been better than a book recommendation, because the fact that you've been able to kind of speak so openly and humorously about the subject, that's going to help more people than reading a book.

Liz Power: Yeah, absolutely. If you have somebody who's dyslexic who's joining your team, or you're going to be working with them, there's a lot of resources from the Dyslexia Association that can talk to you about managing somebody with dyslexia or working with somebody with dyslexia. That really helps. It's a neuro-difference the same as any other, so get yourself clued up, work out what the plus sides are, and adapt as best as possible. I wouldn't change it, it doesn't make life easy, but it certainly makes it more interesting. I definitely couldn't do my job if I wasn't dyslexic. No chance.

Kelly Molson: Amazing. Thank you for sharing that, Liz. Again, we will pop all of the links to the Dyslexia Association in the show notes as well, so if you haven't ever gone and looked at their website, go and browse it. I'm sure there's a lot of things on there that would be able to support your teams. Liz, it's been brilliant to talk to you. Thank you. Wishing you all the best of luck as you head into the winter months, and I'll check back in on you in a few months, and see how it's all going if that's okay.

Liz Power: I would love that, and you must come in and have a coffee. And anybody else who wants to come in and abuse my brilliant coffee shop, then just send me a message on Twitter, and yeah, everyone's welcome. The more people I can show my museum to, the happier I am.

Kelly Molson: Well, you heard it there, folks. Everyone needs to head over. Please, I know we did mention it earlier, but don't steal anything from the gift shop.

Liz Power: I will catch you.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions for this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

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:

www.linkedin.com/in/gordon-morrison01

www.asva.co.uk

https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/scotlands-national-tourism-industry-conference-tickets-168074341881

Conference - Scotland's National Tourism Industry Conference

 November 24th-25th, 2021

https://scottishtourismalliance.co.uk/speakers/

Gordon Morrison is the CEO of the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions (ASVA), the representative body for the attractions sector in Scotland, a position he has held for the last 3 years. In this role, he has responsibility for the day-to-day operations and overall leadership of the organisation. Over the last 19 months, he has been instrumental in helping the sector in Scotland navigate a path through the pandemic, providing advice and guidance to attractions across the country and ensuring that the needs of the sector are heard within the corridors of power at Holyrood. He currently sits on a number of key industry groups, including the Scottish Tourism Recovery Taskforce, the Scottish Tourism Skills Group, the Scottish Thistle Awards Industry Panel and Scottish Tourism Emergency Response Sectoral Organisations Group.

Gordon previously worked as Quality & Tourism Manager with VisitScotland where he was responsible for the delivery of the highly regarded Visitor Attraction Grading Scheme. He was also Commercial & Visitor Services Manager with Museums & Galleries Edinburgh where he led on shaping the visitor experience at iconic attractions such as the Scott Monument and Museum of Childhood.

In over 15 years of working with the sector, Gordon has visited and offered advice to hundreds of different attractions across Scotland. He is universally known within the tourism industry as the authoritative voice on all things relating to the visitor attractions sector in Scotland. 

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 Gordon Morrison, CEO of ASVA, the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions. 

We discuss the state of the Scottish attraction sector, the need for more personal premium experiences, and what's happening at Scotland's National Tourism Industry Conference. 

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

Kelly Molson: Gordon, welcome to Skip The Queue.

Gordon Morrison: Thank you so much for having me, Kelly. I'm guessing that you've started at the bottom and you're going to work your way up for the rest of the series.

Kelly Molson: No, it doesn't work like that at all, started at the top, Gordon, started at the top. Now, as you know, I know that you listen to the podcast, so we're going into our icebreaker questions. I'm going to ask you what your favourite film is and why it isn't Top Gun.

Gordon Morrison: Wow, that's a great question. And how did you know it's not a Top Gun because Top Gun is a wonderful movie. I am a child of the 1980s. I could be obvious and I could go down the Star Wars route because I am a big Star Wars fan. But however, undoubtedly, the greatest movie ever made is National Lampoon's Vacation.

Kelly Molson: Yes, that's a great film.

Gordon Morrison: It's just beautiful in every way. It is funny, it is moving, it is heartwarming, and it's also a bit crude. All of the things that I really enjoy. And I'm a huge Chevy Chase fan, a huge Chevy Chase fan. We had the opportunity to meet him a few years ago in London. He actually was over in London and I paid a considerable amount of money to do a meet and greet with the great man himself.

Kelly Molson: That's amazing. I don't know anyone that's done one of those. This is-

Gordon Morrison: Really?

Kelly Molson: ... is news to me, no.

Gordon Morrison: I would not do it for, probably not for anyone else, but for Chevy Chase, I was determined to meet him before he pops his clogs because he's getting on. He's getting on, he's an older man nowadays. I also love The Three Amigos as well I should say. And Steve Martin and Martin Short are also two fantastic comedy actors and they've actually got a great show on Disney Plus just now, which is well worth watching. But however, Chevy Chase is my idol. National Lampoon's Vacation, I don't know how many times I've watched it. But I can pretty much recite it.

Kelly Molson: I love this. And National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation is-

Gordon Morrison: Probably the second greatest movie of all time and becomes the greatest movie of all time at Christmas-

Kelly Molson: At Christmas time, yeah. So I'm going to say that, is it my favourite Christmas film? It's definitely one or two. I think that and Home Alone are like the two, they're the ones that I would watch every single Christmas, got to watch those. Oh, this is great. I'm finding out so much about you today. Okay, if you had a human body, which you do, but the head of an animal, what animal would you pick?

Gordon Morrison: That's an interesting question that I haven't thought about before, strangely enough. I think if I could have any animal's head, I'd want it to be a really cute puppy. That's what I'd want it to be. I think I've got some doglike qualities to me anyway. But yeah-

Kelly Molson: Loyal.

Gordon Morrison: Yeah, yeah. Very loyal, like to sniff my own bum, that sort of stuff. So yeah, I think a acute, maybe a Golden Retriever, a Labrador, because it'd also be quite useful to have a really powerful nose and be able to sniff out trouble and things like that. So yeah, but mainly because I do quite enjoy getting my head stroked, so it'd be quite nice to constantly have that happening to me.

Kelly Molson: We are learning so much about you today, Gordon. I would go giraffe because as we met in person a little while ago, we are both slightly vertically challenged.

Gordon Morrison: We are.

Kelly Molson: So I thought giraffe would help me grab stuff from the top shelves.

Gordon Morrison: So you're including the neck then as part of the-

Kelly Molson: Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, that's part of your head, kind of, isn't it?

Gordon Morrison: Yeah, absolutely.

Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could be in the Guinness Book of Records, what records breaking feat you attempt?

Gordon Morrison: I would attempt the longest continuous Elvis tribute act performance. I have said that Chevy Chase is my idol, he absolutely is, but I'm also a massive Elvis Presley fan, to the extent that I used to, on occasion, don the outfit and take the stage as Elvis Presley.

Kelly Molson: Is there any video evidence of this?

Gordon Morrison: No, there is not because it was the sort of mid to late '90s or early, it was early 2000s. It was early 2000s that I did this. And it was still really early stages of mobile phones and all that sort of stuff. So therefore, there is unfortunately, no... But listen, if you want me to record something, I'll do it.

Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, I'm thinking at some point next year of doing, a group meetup for podcast guests and listeners. So maybe you could be the entertainment.

Gordon Morrison: I have a gold lamé suit and I also have a jumpsuit. Whether I can still fit into them is an entirely different... But surely that looks even better. That's more authentic if I can barely fit into-

Kelly Molson: Completely authentic, you are hired. Okay, and what is your unpopular opinion?

Gordon Morrison: Sure, I'll go topical. Adele is rubbish.

Kelly Molson: Oh God, oh wow.

Gordon Morrison: Cannot stand anything that she does.

Kelly Molson: Nothing at all?

Gordon Morrison: Nope. I thin-

Kelly Molson: Never had a little weepy moment to an Adele song?

Gordon Morrison: Not once.

Kelly Molson: You are stone cold.

Gordon Morrison: Well, I've had a weepy moment, but the weepy moment is more I'm like, "Good grief, get this awful banshee off of my radio." I cannot stand anything that she does. I think her vocal style is lazy.

Kelly Molson: Oh, Gordon.

Gordon Morrison: I think she sings in a lazy way.

Kelly Molson: I don't even know where to go with this, I really don't. Started with a bombshell people. Let's now-

Gordon Morrison: Keeping it topical. That's good, isn't it? Come on, keeping it topical.

Kelly Molson: It is topical. Let me know how you feel about that, listeners. I'm feeling uncomfortable. I'm really excited to have you on the podcast today. So Gordon and I, listeners, if you don't follow me... Oh, did I put this on? I think I'll put this on Twitter. If you don't follow me on Twitter, why not? But Gordon and I met in 2020. We met in COVID times, but we met virtually. So we didn't actually see each other when we first met. Gordon and I were at the Visitor Attractions Conference, which actually brilliant, a brilliant virtual conference in 2020 that they were forced to do because of COVID. And Gordon came to visit me on my virtual stand, which if you've ever done a virtual stand at a virtual conference, it's a very, very lonely place.

Kelly Molson: Not many people come and check in on you. It's hard enough when it's an actual stand and you have to drag people to speak to you. But a virtual one, yeah. It's tough times. But anyway, Gordon came over, had a little chat, and then we arranged to have a Zoom meeting, which we then had a great Zoom meeting. But I was a bit poorly and I did it in my pajamas because that's how all the best Zoom in start, in your pajamas. And then since then, we've gone on to do a few webinars for ASVA and their members. And the two of us have spoken quite a few times. And we actually got to meet in real life a couple of weeks ago, didn't we? At the Visitor Attractions Conference.

Gordon Morrison: Obviously lovely to meet you in person and see other people I've only communicated with via this medium before. So it was quite special actually, it really was quite special. And it was lovely to see just how diminutive you are, Kelly, such a big personality, such a diminutive form.

Kelly Molson: Big gob, small stature, I think that's how I would be described. So tell us a little bit about ASVA and what your role is there.

Gordon Morrison: Okay. So ASVA is short for the Association of Scottish Visitor Attractions. We are the trade body that represents the attraction sector in Scotland. We have over 250 member organisations, which equates to roughly 500 visitor attractions all across the country. I'm the Chief Executive. I've been chief executive there for three years. A particularly interesting last two years, as I'm sure you can imagine.

Kelly Molson: Yep.

Gordon Morrison: And really, the organisation almost like the way that our members have had to pivot during the pandemic, ASVA had to pivot during the pandemic. We certainly existed, initially, to provide inspiration and best practice. That really what we were there to do, shine a light on all that was great and good happening, not just in the attraction sector in Scotland, but nationally and internationally as well. During the pandemic, we really had to become much more of a lobbying organisation. I had to cut my lobbying teeth very quickly, Kelly and was fortunate to work with some great people within the industry, that helped me with that as well.

Gordon Morrison: I know that you had Bernard on your podcast the other week, who's a very experienced lobbyist. And I learned from people like him. We also had to take everything online as an organisation, which is truly fascinating for us because we were an organisation that did everything in person, absolutely everything in person. We are 32 years old and had never once hosted an online event, online meeting. Then, pandemic hits, everything changes. And we have now run something like 60 online workshops or events throughout the pandemic. All about supporting the sector, helping the sector get through to where we are today, which is still not in a perfect situation. There are still many challenges ahead for the industry.

Gordon Morrison: But ASVA played a hugely important role in informing the sector, and supporting the sector, and fighting for the sector throughout the pandemic. At the height of the pandemic, we were actually producing daily bulletins that went out across the entirety of the industry, about what they needed to know. All very much tailored to the visitor attraction sector, nothing cut and pasted from any other areas. It was all tailored specifically to visitor attractions. We've had many, many meetings with the Scottish government in particular, but also the UK government as well, to highlight just how desperate it was for a spell, just how desperate it was for a spell.

Gordon Morrison: And we were successful in getting funding for the visitor attraction sector in Scotland, which I was particularly proud that we were able to do. And indeed, we helped to ensure that when we got the funding, that funding went to the right places and went to the attractions that needed it the most. And therefore, we got ourselves into a situation where our sector has not had the catastrophic failure that we feared it may have had. Well, things are still not great. And I know we'll talk about that shortly. We are now seeing, hopefully, some of the green shoots of recovery and we'll get the sector back on an even keel in 2022.

Kelly Molson: That's really good to hear and we are going to talk about that in a minute. But I just want to, just something that you mentioned about how when this all kicked off, when the pandemic happened, I mean, that must have been unbelievably overwhelming for you. Because not only are you looking at your own organisation and saying, "Wow, we have got to change absolutely every way that we've done things in the past, everything has to change now. We can't do any in person whatsoever." So having to deal with all of that whilst also, like you say, learning how to lobby. So putting hat on, and then being there as a support. And I guess a shoulder for people to cry on, scream at, shout out, whatever they needed to do, for all of your members as well. That must have been an unbelievably overwhelming time. How did you feel?

Gordon Morrison: Yeah. I mean, overwhelming is the correct word. And of course, none of us had ever been through anything like this before. That's the other thing, there was no guide book for this. There was nowhere for me to turn and say, "What have you done when we've previously seen a pandemic such as this?" We had never seen anything like this before. You mentioned being a shoulder to cry on or cry at, that genuinely happened on quite a lot of occasions. I had members phone me up in tears, sometimes angry tears, sometimes just sad tears. And that was particularly challenging. When sometimes you didn't have answers, you couldn't just tell them, "Oh, everything is going to be okay." Because it didn't necessarily look like everything was going to be okay.

Gordon Morrison: I think for me, there was one crucial decision that I made, which at the time didn't actually feel crucial. But we looked at ourselves and our own operation at ASVA, and we're a pretty small team, Kelly. Well, at the time, there was only three of us working for the organisation. And I was and still am the only full-time member of staff. ASVA, we've got two and a half full-time equivalent staff working for us at the moment. We had, at the height of the pandemic, just two full-time equivalent staff working for us. We had an office in Glasgow and I took the decision that whilst we would get rid of our office and felt that we didn't need an office anymore, we would not scale down our operations. We were there to support our sector.

Gordon Morrison: We would actually scale up. We would do more to support the sector, which it was a difficult decision because the obvious thing to do was protect the business. And so therefore, why don't we put the team on furlough and you'll ride this through? But however, it was a no brainer for me in the end to say, "No, we are there to support our sector." Therefore, like I said, we scaled up what we did. We pushed everything online, we learned really fast. I developed really close contacts within the Scottish government as well. Not necessarily always talking to the ministers, officials are often the right people to get in front of and talk to.

Gordon Morrison: And as a result, ASVA actually grew. We were really worried at the beginning of the pandemic that we would lose members, obviously, because you think, "Well, who can afford a membership fee when they've got huge, huge financial problems?" But actually, what we found was that not only did we retain our members, we grew our membership because of that desire that we had to truly, genuinely support the industry. And I have to thank my own board as well, the Board of Directors of ASVA, for giving me steer on what the industry needed. We've got 12 board members, who all work within the attraction sector. And they were there at a drop of a hat every time I needed them.

Gordon Morrison: I said, "Right, what do we think of this? What do we think of this new guidance that's come out from the Scottish government? What does that mean for our sector?" And I could then feedback because the Scottish government were very much looking for me to feedback from the attraction sector and say, "Right, this is what this will mean. This is what will happen to the attraction sector if you do this." But I do think that decision to scale up, rather than contract and just try and save ourselves was the crucial, crucial decision. Crucial decision for ASVA, but also for the sector as well. Because we really did step up to another level at that point.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's brilliant. I mean the amount of content that went out, and the webinars that you put on, and the research, which we'll talk a little bit about now actually. Because throughout the pandemic, you were surveying the sector, finding out what was happening, where they were at, what the visitor numbers were like. And you've just released the latest survey, which was conducted by the Moffitt Center, which let me read this out.

Kelly Molson: It reveals that a majority of Scottish attractions are still in survival mode, which is not surprising. The sector is not seeing any evidence of a staycation boom. And obviously, the press have talked about staycation boom a lot. I think UK attractions have mixed results in that, depending on where they are located up and down the country. But Scotland seems to not be seeing any evidence of that. So can we talk about that? How's the sector currently feeling?

Gordon Morrison: So I think firstly, on the point about being in survival mode, that is still the case universally, I would say, doesn't matter which part of the UK you're in. I think that the vast majority of the sector is still in survival mode, rather than recovery mode. Actually, I was fortunate enough to attend the Association of Visitor Experience and Attractions Conference in Ireland, attended that virtually and it was exactly the same narrative there. That are still in survival, but looking towards a recovery. And that's where our sector is in Scotland. We are in survival mode, but very optimistic that we will recover, rather than now thinking we are going to lose 50%, whatever, of the sector.

Gordon Morrison: But in terms of the staycation boom, it's been a really... This is an area where I've been banging in my head against the wall sometimes, Kelly, because it's actually impossible for the majority of visitor attractions in Scotland and indeed in other parts of the UK, or it has been impossible for us to truly benefit from the staycation boom. Because don't get me wrong. I agree that there have been lots of domestic visitors, there have been lots of people going on holiday in the UK because frankly, they've got no other opportunity or no other option than to go on holiday in the UK. But there have been restrictions in place and let's not forget this.

Gordon Morrison: There have been restrictions in place in Scotland, on things like well, we call it physical distancing, social distancing in England. These restrictions weren't lifted in Scotland. We still had physical distancing restrictions in place right through to mid August. And if you've got restrictions in place that limit, that severely limit the number of visitors that you can physically get in your door, you can be at capacity. You can be, "Right, we're at 100% capacity." Which sounds fantastic. But that 100% capacity is actually only 20, 30% of where you would normally be. And therefore, we have missed the majority of the traditional season. And by missing the majority of the traditional season, you're then left with a very small window of opportunity, sort of mid August to October holidays, just beyond October holidays, to make your money.

Gordon Morrison: And that's a very limited window. Let's be honest, that really is. And that's why our sector's still in survival mode as we go into the winter. I think perhaps one of the most telling stats from the survey was in relation to the amount of reserves that attractions still had. And we've got more than one in five visitor attractions in Scotland, holding fewer than three months reserves, right? Why is that important? That is important because the winter is longer than three months and you need those reserves. In a good year, you need those reserves to see you through the winter. That's how attractions operate. They make the money in the summer, to then see them through the winter. So that's where the issues still exist for our sector. And again, it was interesting at the Irish conference, to see that the latest budget has just been published by the Irish government.

Gordon Morrison: And they have pledged to continue their version of the Coronavirus job retention scheme right through to spring of next year. And they've also pledged an extra 50 million euros of support for tourism businesses, to get them through to next season. And I think that's very telling that they have recognized the call that's come from the tourism industry in Ireland is, "We are still in survival mode. Let us get through to next season when we will fully lead the recovery." And I think that's a lesson that still needs to be heard in both Scotland and the UK. Because there seems to be a feeling that, "Well, you have made it through. Well done, guys, you've made it through." But there's still a proportion of the sector that will face a very difficult winter ahead.

Kelly Molson: So are you still in lobbying mode then? Because it feels like-

Gordon Morrison: Oh, must be.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, so the sector still needs support. So the results of this survey say that very, very clearly. So you're still in lobbying mode.

Gordon Morrison: Yeah, yeah. There's no doubt about that. I mean, the survey is produced. We like to do it for our members and they can get an idea of where they are sitting in comparison to other parts of the sector. But primarily, I'll be fully honest with you, we do it so that I can use it in my lobbying efforts. The first person that received this survey results, was the tourism minister. The very first person. I was like, "Bang, here you go. Can we now meet and discuss this?" Don't get me wrong, it's a challenge because there's also an element of politics being played in the UK, as you'll know, Kelly.

Gordon Morrison: The fact that the Scottish government takes a different route from the UK government, sometimes that that route is taken for, as far as I'm concerned, for political reasons, to create a differentiation. But also, that there are challenges with things. But when I speak to the tourism minister and say, "We really could use the Coronavirus job retention scheme extended, or we could cut to be extended further." Those are not really issues that he can do much about, other than agree. Other than say, "Yes, I 100% agree with that." That's then reserved at the UK level, which is why it's hugely important that I also feed into the lobbying that's done at a UK level as well, by the likes of Bernard and others.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, okay. So let's have a look more at some of the stats that have come in. So it says here, almost half, so 47.5% of the sector has seen a decrease in visitor numbers of greater than 50% this year compared to the same period in 2019. I mean again, that's not shocking, is it? Because, like you say, you've had so many restrictions still in place for longer than in the UK attractions.

Gordon Morrison: That's entirely it.

Kelly Molson: And it says turnover is down by over 50%, a third of attractions when compared to the same period in 2019. Again, not a shock, is it? None of this is a surprise.

Gordon Morrison: No.

Kelly Molson: What can be done about it? What's the positives that can taken from it?

Gordon Morrison: Well, yeah. I think that's important to emphasize here, Kelly, is that, don't get me wrong, when I'm doing my lobbying, I'm painting the doom and gloom picture to the government to try and leverage as much support as we can get. But however, there are positives emerging from the pandemic. Just now, for a start, when you delve into the data in a bit more detail, it's clear that the numbers are getting better. We are seeing an improving picture just now. And indeed, you mentioned yourself, it depends on what type of business that you have and where in the country you're located. If you were to look at, for example, wildlife related attractions or animal related attractions, they're booming.

Gordon Morrison: They are absolutely booming, or least the majority of them are booming just now. We just published our visitor figures for ASVA members, for the month of August. So that's the most recent data that we've got and the wildlife operators were up by 14% on 2019 levels.

Kelly Molson: Oh, wow, wow.

Gordon Morrison: Yeah, they're up on 2019, which is incredible, that really is. I mean, primarily driven by the huge popularity of Edinburgh Zoo, it has to be said, which you can imagine, if you're an outdoor family attraction, it's a good time for you. Speaking as a dad, you are desperate to take your kids somewhere. You are absolutely desperate to do that. And a zoo is an absolutely fantastic place to take the kids. So it's not universally the case that things are awful. That's the first point.

Gordon Morrison: And we are seeing a generally improving picture month upon month. If you look at the figures from July compared to June, compared to July compared to August. It's going in the right to direction. And of course, we have now got rid of the physical distancing restrictions entirely, which releases the sector to actually begin to trade at a viable level. Although, interestingly, in the survey, we did ask members whether they were maintaining restrictions themselves and many, many were. In fact, we had, was it 92% of the sector said that they were going to maintain COVID safety measures above and beyond what was required by law. And that again is useful for me when it comes to lobbying. Because what it shows is that our sector puts the safety of visitors and staff above everything else.

Gordon Morrison: You cannot necessarily say that about every sector in the UK. But for our sector, we have consistently proven, throughout the pandemic, that we are putting safety and wellbeing above everything else. And therefore, for me, if there are... We're seeing COVID spiking again, let's not beat around the bush here. The number of cases is at, I think it's highest level for something like six, seven months. It's a huge, huge increase. If further restrictions are introduced again, I think it's... But I've already spoken to the Scottish government about this as well. Our sector's the one sector that actually, you're not seeing any transmission come from, because we are very, very responsible. And I would hope that that would be recognised if restrictions get introduced again.

Kelly Molson: Well, I was going to ask about the locality thing. So obviously in the UK, during lockdown, there was a lot of appreciation for where you lived. I think that's how we looked at it. People went out on their hour's walk of exercise, and then they found new places to visit. But they actually, you've seen that kind of boost in tourism to the local places, people shopping more local. And again, that was happening prior to pre-pandemic, that was a trend anyway. But I think we're still seeing that happen. People stay local, people visiting. Is it the same in Scotland? Are you finding that?

Gordon Morrison: Absolutely. And on top of the fact that we're getting more of a sense of place. And I think attraction operators are actually understanding that sense of place a bit better as well. On top of that, the visitors that are coming to see us, our local bread and butter visitors, are spending money, Kelly, they really are spending money. And that is a key lesson that we need to take away from this. Secondary spend in shops and in cafes is considerably up on pre-pandemic levels across the board. Now that's a combination, I think visitors have maybe got a wee bit of disposable income to spend after being stuck in lockdown for a long period of time.

Gordon Morrison: Also, they want to spend. They want to get there and spend some money. And indeed, they are having a good experience. And that's probably the crucial point here. Again, looking at the results from a most recent survey, we asked a question about, right, what's happened to your visitor reviews? Are your visitor reviews on Trip Advisor, on Google, whatever platform you use, are they improving? Are they getting worse? And for the majority of the sector, the reviews have actually improved throughout the pandemic. And that is because visitors have had more time, more staff interaction, and a more personalised experience.

Gordon Morrison: Now, by having that, more time, more personalised experience, they then are more inclined to spend more. And this is not your rich international visitor. This is not an international visitor who's going to want to take back an expensive souvenir. This is a local domestic visitor, who's coming to your attraction and they are having a really great experience and therefore. They're spending money. And that is the key lesson that I think we have to take. And the key positive that we can take, out of the pandemic, which is that I think attractions have had the opportunity, in the various lockdowns, to take a breath almost, to think about their offering and what they're doing for their visitors.

Gordon Morrison: I think, are we doing everything we can do to ensure that our visitors get a great experience? Is the model of cram as many visitors into your attraction as possible, the right model that we want to operate? And it's proven to be throughout the pandemic, that that is not what we should be doing. What we should be doing is providing a high quality experience, which then encourages the visitors that we do have to spend a bit more money with us. And that's where we're going now, that's the direction of travel that we're going in. We're not going to see pre-pandemic levels of visitation for many, many years, possibly ever again.

Gordon Morrison: And I've spoken about this before in various meetings that I've attended. If we take somewhere like Edinburgh Castle, as an example, Edinburgh Castle, over 2 million visitors in 2019. If you speak to Historic Environment of Scotland about that. First it was, you're a big success to have that number of visitors. Was it actually great for the castle itself? Was it great for the visitor experience? Certainly not as good as it could be. Therefore, we should be moving more to the model of, it's been spoken about it before, value rather than volume. And that is where we are 100% going. And I think that's going to be really positive for the sector.

Gordon Morrison: And also, I think the sector actually now begins to understand what their value is. And the fact that attractions in Scotland and across the UK are actually offering really unique, memorable experiences, really fantastic experiences. And shouldn't be scared, therefore, to charge accordingly for those experiences. And we have seen some of our operators in Scotland have increased the pricing or are delivering a premium version of their standard experience and charging a bit more to do that. And that, to me, is the way that we should be going as a sector and we will continue to go as a sector.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I totally agree. It's weird actually, I gave a talk for Anglia Ruskin University back in summer about that very concept of attractions having less visitors, a more personalised experience that they will pay more money for. So ultimately, less visitors doesn't mean less revenue.

Gordon Morrison: Exactly.

Kelly Molson: That's exactly where I see the sector going. And that actually leads really nicely onto a new attraction that's opened, that has that mentality. And that's the Johnnie Walker Experience that's just opened, which looks absolutely incredible. And I know that you've been lucky enough to go and visit already, haven't you?

Gordon Morrison: Yeah. And it is actually the perfect model, Kelly, for what we've just spoken about there. It's an outstanding visitor experience, it's truly unique and it's personalised to yourself. The way I've talked about it since I've been is that you go in and you're immediately met, firstly with a smiling face, which is always a nice thing to be met with. Although, behind the mask, but still a smiling face. And you're instructed to create your own flavour profile for your best ever Johnnie Walker drink.

Gordon Morrison: It's like the Tinder of whiskey. You're swiping left or swiping right on whether you like mango, or whether you like apple, or whatever. And it then creates your ideal flavour profile. You get a wristband that is colour coded. And when you go up to experience the next part of the experience, you present this wristband to a dispenser and it pours for you, your ideal highball, Johnnie Walker highball. It's incredible. I don't know how it works. For all I know just everyone's getting the exact same highball. I don't-

Kelly Molson: Ah, but the experience is that it's personalised to you.

Gordon Morrison: That's exactly right. And what Johnnie Walker, what Diageo have successfully done with this experience, is they've said, "Right, we're not going to create a high volume, low value experience." They limit the numbers on their tours to a really low level. It's never going feature at the top 10 most visited attractions in Scotland or the UK. It's never going to feature on there because they're limiting the numbers. But I'm sure they wouldn't mind me saying this, unashamedly charging a premium for it. It's 25 quid if you want to take that experience, which in an attraction ticket entry place, is a high price point, it is a high price point to do that. But that is because you're going to get a unique, personalised experience. And of course, they'll chuck it in a high ball as well, which is a nice thing.

Kelly Molson: Oh, high praise indeed. I've got to give my friend, my good friend, Kazia, is actually the Brand Home Experience Manager at Johnnie Walker. So I hope that she's listening. She'll be thrilled to hear such fabulous feedback.

Gordon Morrison: That is a must visit, Kelly. I'm not just saying that because they're ASVA members. But anyone who gets the opportunity to visit Edinburgh, it's a truly unique experience. And topped off by this incredible rooftop bar that has got the best panoramic views over Edinburgh. Edinburgh Castle will argue they have the best panoramic views of the city. But what the Johnnie Walker Princes Street has got, is a view of the castle as well.

Kelly Molson: And they haven't got the whiskey, have they? Let's face-

Gordon Morrison: That's true. That is true.

Kelly Molson: They've not got the whiskey to have up there. I really would like to see where this leads. I would love other attractions adopting this model. So it'll be really interesting to catch up, maybe a year from now and see how attractions have kind of shifted their offer in Scotland, to see if they follow suit in terms of this kind of premium level, better experience, less visitor numbers.

Gordon Morrison: I think they're have to, Kelly. That's the interesting thing here is that I still speak to you lot of my members, who are waiting for things to go back to normal. That's how they put it, "I can't wait for things to go back to normal." And my answer to that is that they're not going to go back to normal. There is pre-pandemic times and then there is post-pandemic times or pandemic times, because the pandemic's not going away.

Gordon Morrison: We're still going to have COVID-19 for many years to come. And I think that the sector has to embrace this now and say, "Okay. Well, if we are not going to have those pre-pandemic level of visitation, we all have to adapt our experiences." And without doing a shameless plug, but why not? We hosted a conference this year in November and that is a big theme of the conferences, is looking at how you are shaping, how you are creating those memorable experiences in this new normal that we live in. And we'll be really shouting from the rooftops about that.

Kelly Molson: Let's talk about the conference. So Scotland's National Tourism Industry Conference, 24th to the 25th of November. This is a culmination really, of all of the support that you've been giving to your members throughout the pandemic anyway. So what's going to be there? Why should people come?

Gordon Morrison: Yeah. I mean, firstly, we're absolutely delighted to be hosting it, both in person and online. Again, one of the great things for ASVA actually, throughout the pandemic, Kelly, was that we delivered this host of great workshops online, including some with yourself of course. And it opened us up to a much bigger audience. When we’re delivering in person events, we were delighted if we got, say 40 people to attend one of our workshops, maybe 50 people to attend one of our workshops. And I thought, "That's a great turnout, that's really great." And all often from the central belt of Scotland, everyone from Edinburgh or Glasgow. Whereas, when we hosted events online, we opened it up to a much larger audience.

Gordon Morrison: And we had our members from Shetlands, from Hebrides, and far flung areas, joining as in taking part in these sessions. So therefore, when it came to the conference this year, we had a clear idea that we wanted to do it in person because we think the sector wants to get by it together. But it also needed that online element as well. So regardless of where you are, and indeed, regardless of whether you're an ASVA member, you can actually attend the conference virtually if you would like to do so. We're also doing it in partnership with other leading associations in Scotland, including the Scottish Tourism Line. So sort of the overarching Tourism Association representing the attraction sector. And we're doing that intentionally, because we want to not just bring attractions together, we want to bring the whole industry, the entirety of the Scottish tourism industry together, as much to celebrate that we've made it this far as anything else.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's really important to acknowledge that, isn't it? It's been so tough.

Gordon Morrison: It's been massively, massively difficult. And we've all had many stresses and strains throughout the pandemic. Not all of us have given birth to a child, of course, Kelly, which is even bigger stress and strain. But about, however, it has been a hugely difficult time. And we want to bring the sector together to just say, "Pat on the back. Well done guys, we have made it through to this level. Now, let's push on. Now, let's push on to the next level."

Gordon Morrison: And that is what the theme of the conference really is about. So I'm leading one of the days of the conference and I'm really excited about the part that I'm leading, which is all about delivering memorable experiences as we move into the year of Scotland Stories 2022. Yeah, Scotland has themed years every year. There's a tourism related theme year. So this year we're in the year, of course, of waters, for example. And like I said, next year we move into the year of Scotland Stories, which is a wonderful theme year for visitor attractions, because we're all about storytelling, that's what we're all about-

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's perfect.

Gordon Morrison: Yeah, exactly. So, so we are really, every part of the conference has got some link to delivering memorable experiences and delivering great stories. But what we're trying to do, Kelly, is really put it in a, not an airy fairy way at all, as in put it in a commercial way. Say, "Right, this is what delivering a great story will mean for your business. This is how you can actually improve business performance, by delivering these great stories." And we've got a host of wonderful speakers coming along. If you don't mind me saying it, I'm most excited about the fact that we've got the Creative Director from Walt Disney Imagineering joining us, to talk about the galactic star cruise experience that Walt Disney World is introducing next year, which is-

Kelly Molson: That's a clever coup, isn't it? You've got that speaker, it's amazing.

Gordon Morrison: That's a mind blowing story. They don't even call it storytelling, let's call it a story living experience because you actually go and live on a star cruiser in the Star Wars Universe for two days. Kelly, I'm there. I am there.

Kelly Molson: It's blowing your mind, isn't it, Gordon? I can see.

Gordon Morrison: Oh my goodness, yeah. But actually referring back to what we spoke about earlier, what's interesting about it is, that's a premium experience, that's about as premium as it gets. They are not ashamed of the fact that they are charging $6,000 for a two night experience, $6,000. And they know that they will get an audience for that.

Kelly Molson: Oh yeah.

Gordon Morrison: But that's because it is a high quality, truly unique storytelling experience. And those are the lessons that we're looking for, on a smaller scale to take. I'm not saying to our members, "Right, the way you create memorable experiences, have light saber jewels throughout it." As much as love that, I would love that and the Johnnie Walker Princes Street, that'd be fantastic.

Gordon Morrison: I think what attractions need to do is think about what their unique stories can be. And then implement those storytelling experiences at their attractions. And they will find that they can charge an appropriate level to their visitors, because visitors will eat these things up. They will want these truly unique, different experiences. And so that's what we're covering at the conference. And it's going to be a wonderful couple of days, it really is.

Kelly Molson: It really sounds like it. And I will be there virtually. I'd love to be there in real life next year, definitely. I don't think that tiny person that I gave birth to will be too comfortable with me leaving her for a couple of nights, to head up to Scotland. Thank you for sharing that. I do think that that conference is going to be a real celebration of just like you say, yes, we've absolutely made it. We've made it this far. Now, what can we do to push on and be better? Open better, that's what we need to be driving the message of. And that's absolutely going to do that at that conference. So I'm super excited about it.

Gordon Morrison: Thank you.

Kelly Molson: We are at the end of our podcast interview. And I always ask our guests for a book recommendation, so something that you love or something that's helped shape your career. Just something that you'd like to share with our listeners.

Gordon Morrison: I had a long think about this, Kelly, what I would recommend for a book, I'm an educated man. I'm a historian. I could recommend some really great historical texts and some very worthy books that have helped to educate me and take me to the level that I am today.

Kelly Molson: I feel like you're not going that way though.

Gordon Morrison: I'm not going to go that way at all, because it's not actually who I am. I am deeply in love, deeply in love with Calvin and Hobbes. I don't know if you've ever read any Calvin and Hobbes before.

Kelly Molson: I haven't, no.

Gordon Morrison: So for those who don't know, it's a comic strip effectively, a newspaper comic strip from the United States that has been brought into a whole series of different collections that are available in all good book shops. And it's two characters. Calvin is a five-year-old boy and Hobbes is his tiger. And Hobbes is a stuffed tiger, who only comes to life in front of Calvin. And there's a question about whether Hobbes is real and just no one else gets to see him as being real or whether it's all in Calvin's imagination.

Gordon Morrison: And Calvin is a wee cynical, hilarious boy, and Hobbes is a much more stoic and measured character. And combined, they have these incredible adventures. And it really is, it's a moral compass thing, that's the only way I can put Calvin and Hobbes. Calvin and Hobbes is a moral compass thing. You can read Calvin and Hobbes and it will set you straight on the path that you need to be going on because they are righteous. They are genuinely righteous. And it's also hilarious. It is one of the most hilarious things you could ever read.

Gordon Morrison: But my favourite... I mean, any of them are good, Kelly. Because I know you'll then say, right, here's one that you can look at. I would say that There's Treasure Everywhere is a great compendium. And the last one that was ever produced is called It's A Magical World. And it has the most beautiful end story of any story you can ever want to read. And the last words of it are, "It's a magical world." And I'm actually, I can feel my emotions rising as to talk about it just now. So Calvin and Hobbes, It's A Magical World. I would urge everyone in the world to read it. You'll feel like a million dollars.

Kelly Molson: Ah, what an absolutely wonderful book recommendation to end this podcast interview on, that's perfect. As ever, if you want to win a copy of Gordon's book, then head over to our Twitter account, which is Skip The Queue and retweet this episode announcement with the comment, I want Gordon's book. And you could be in with the chance of winning it. I feel all emotional. This is how I feel when I listen to Adele.

Gordon Morrison: Oh, oh, you've just ruined it.

Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by 

Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.

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

We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth.

Download your FREE copy here

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:

www.linkedin.com/in/sospot

https://twitter.com/sospot

www.eureka.org.uk

www.eurekadiscovery.org.uk

Alex Holliman’s - Choosing An Agency Podcast

www.alexholliman.com/podcasts

www.rubbercheese.com/insights/how-to-write-a-website-brief-that-agencies-will-thank-you-for

Sophie Ballinger is a Communications Specialist with a background of 10 years working in the NHS and universities, before hopping across to the charity sector in 2008. She’s a skilled communicator with a playful, creative outlook (on both life and work).

She joined Eureka! The National Children's Museum in September 2011 to develop their digital communications and press, having previously been Communications Development Officer at CDX (a national community development charity) and Communications & Social Media Officer at NAVCA (a national umbrella organisation for the third sector).

In 2014 she was one of two people that set up #MuseumHour - a weekly Twitter discussion (which she co-ran for two years) and regularly volunteer to help groups and organisations develop their communications.

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 Sophie Ballinger, Communication and Digital Content Manager at Eureka! The National Children's Museum. 

We'll be discussing the website tendering process and all the things you need to include to make a perfect website brief. 

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

Kelly Molson: Aye up, duck.

Sophie Ballinger: Aye up, duck.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I'm so excited. I've got the lovely Sophie Ballinger in here today from Eureka! Museum.

Sophie Ballinger: My official title-

Kelly Molson: Yes. Eureka! The National Children's Museum. We are going to talk all things how to write a website brief that agencies will thank you for. But first, it's the icebreaker questions time. All right. Weirdest thing you've ever won a prize for?

Sophie Ballinger: Oh. I got given a tiny, little trophy for the best social media response, and it was a visitor to Eureka! one very busy February half term who compared it to the fall of Saigon in '76. I just replied, "You weren't there, man." That was quite weird, I think.

Kelly Molson: That is excellent. I have to say, your social media feed is excellent.

Sophie Ballinger: Well, thank you.

Kelly Molson: You have a good Twitter chat, which I like. What is your favourite smell and why?

Sophie Ballinger: I could be really corny and say my daughter's head. I love the smell of creosote.

Kelly Molson: What?

Sophie Ballinger: I love the smell of creosote. I think it's an association with my nan, who I loved to bits. Absolutely adored my nan. In order to go into her house, you had to go past a fence, which she creosoted religiously every couple years. I think that's the association, but I don't know. I love the smell of creosote.

Kelly Molson: Wow. Nanas and creosote, it's quite an unusual combo, right? I thought you were going to say Werther's Originals from my nana. Nope, creosote. To be fair, tarmac is the same for me because my dad was a tarmacker years ago. He used to tarmac kids' playgrounds. So every time I smell the tarmac, it always reminds me of my dad because he used to come home stinking of it. Okay. What's your unpopular opinion?

Sophie Ballinger: See, I've really struggled with this. This is a relatively recent one that's just doing my head in, and it's why and how are Coldplay still a thing?

Kelly Molson: Oh, I've got someone that would 100% agree with you on this.

Sophie Ballinger: It's just doing my head in. I didn't even realise they were still a thing until relatively recently. I've got an eight-year-old daughter who has discovered Radio 1, and I haven't really listened to Radio 1 for years. I remember seeing Coldplay playing Glastonbury on the tele. I wasn't there. We're probably talking late '90s, I guess '99, around then, I think, "You know, maybe they've got something interesting." Then I got really bored of them really quickly, and I wasn't aware that they were still a thing all this time.

Sophie Ballinger: Then suddenly, every time I look at the BBC website, the other day there was a story about them going on tour. They're doing an eco-friendly world tour where people dancing on the floor charges. Now they've done a single with BTS.

Kelly Molson: I know. They're current now. That's why they've done it, right?

Sophie Ballinger: I know, but why? They've got teenage children. Their kids must be mortified. They're the same age as me. It's like me doing a collaboration with Doja Cat or something.

Kelly Molson: This is my favourite unpopular opinion ever.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. Why? How?

Kelly Molson: Why is Coldplay a thing?

Sophie Ballinger: Explain it to me.

Kelly Molson: Also, Chris Martin does dance like a nana as well if you ever watch.

Sophie Ballinger: Yes.

Kelly Molson: Excellent. All right, well. I mean, I look forward to the tweets about this. Tell me what you think.

Sophie Ballinger: If someone can explain it and if someone can tell me who it is that's buying their records, put them down.

Kelly Molson: The wrath of Sophie. All right, great. Thank you for sharing that.

Sophie Ballinger: I feel lighter for it.

Kelly Molson: Right. So a few months ago I was on a mutual friend's podcast. I was on Alex Holliman's podcast, the Choosing an Agency podcast. He asked me, "What is the best brief that you've ever received," like website brief. I said, "It was the brief that we got from Eureka! The National Children's Museum, because it was excellent." And I went into great detail as to why. I thought it would be really interesting to have a chat with you about that tender process that you went through and why I think that your brief is excellent or was excellent.

Kelly Molson: We actually wrote a blog, which is up on our website. It's called How to write a website brief that agencies will thank you for, which is the same title as this podcast. We detail in it all of the things that we would love to see as an agency from a brief, and it's things like really understanding your company profile, your project goals and objectives, target audience, what's up with the current website, really what you want from your new website, competitors, schedule, budget, what that selection process and the feedback is going to look like.

Kelly Molson: There's quite a lot to it. Probably some more things that we could add to that now. But I thought, "Yeah, let's have a chat about the tender process to start with," and then we can go through in detail why I feel like your brief is superb. That sound good?

Sophie Ballinger: Yep.

Kelly Molson: The way that we got involved in the Eureka! brief, it wasn't direct. It was a bit of a weird one. I think it was back in March 2016, you'd actually put out an invitation to tender for the new Eureka! website. It was an open tender, wasn't it? It went out.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. We did an expression of interest. We didn't put it on any kind of special tendering sites. We just put an expression of interest out on all of our social media channel, anyone that wants to get the tender once it was ready. We got, it was I think 100 or 101 expressions of interest. Rubber Cheese wasn't one of those agencies.

Kelly Molson: No. We were the 102nd one. We were 102 then.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Okay. We found out about it through another agency. A really good friend of mine, Eddie, he was at Hat Trick Media at the time. He'd done a photoshoot with you years before.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. His partner and children were... Oh no, and him. I've got pictures of him with a laundry basket under him.

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. They were the start of our Play 20 campaign and website randomly.

Kelly Molson: Random. I think he got the tender or he'd seen it somehow. Then it wasn't for him, and he called us and was like, "Guys, this is a tender for you. I'm going to introduce you to Sophie. I really feel like you should go for this." We saw it and went, "Uh, yeah. Defo." That was how we got involved. So yes, we were like the 102nd person or agency that got in touch. Wow. How do you even manage that? At that point, were you thinking, "Maybe an open invitation was not the best of ideas"?

Sophie Ballinger: Well, we had done just open tenders before. I think from the previous one we had really, really good response to, but we hadn't been anywhere near as open with that. I mean that was the bit of learning that I took from doing the open tender previously was that actually there were lots of people that just weren't able to do it.

Sophie Ballinger: The reason Eddie couldn't go for it was because one of the things I did specify in it was that I wanted the CMS, content management system, to be open source. And the CMS that they work with wasn't, but they said, "Look, we can't go for this, but we know someone who'd be brill for it." That was when they put it through to you. But again, had we not specified that in the brief, they would've wasted their time doing a submission for it, and they would never have got the gig, basically. That was actually one of those things, it was a learning curve from the previous time we'd done it.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. So 102 submissions of interest. What did that look like? Because I know what we went through, so we got in touch with you. We got the brief late, so there was timeframes in it that you wanted a response for. We got this a lot later than everyone else. You very kindly actually gave us an extension so that we could come up and visit you, really get a good feel for Eureka. Actually, you gifted us some time to talk to you as well.

Kelly Molson: But what I really liked about the brief, and this is one of the things that I think is key about a brief, is you said, "I'm happy to answer questions. I'm happy to schedule time to speak to people." That is quite a rare thing sometimes with a brief is that, especially with very formal ones that go out on the formal tender platforms that I can rant about all day long, you don't often get the opportunity to actually meet somebody in person or even grab a phone call to talk through the project and talk through the brief. But if you had 102 interests, how many people did you meet and speak to?

Sophie Ballinger: Well, the actual submissions, I think we got, oh gosh, 38. I did meet a lot of them, not all of them. But for me, first of all, when I've gone through tender processes previously I've often had my eyes pretty tied on them anyway. So I might be working public sector or other institutions where you are told what you can and can't say, and they're really strict on it. I've brought that approach across to Eureka!, and my Director at the time, that was how he viewed it. Whereas this time around, I just said, "But why?"

Sophie Ballinger: For me, the relationship and my ability to get on with the people I'm going to be working with and vice-versa, they might spend some time with me and never want to see me ever again, but that is a key part of an effective working relationship with an agency. So I did say, in fact, my boss then, who's my boss now, Michelle, was on here before, wasn't she?

Kelly Molson: Yes.

Sophie Ballinger: She was just, "Go for it." I said, "It will take a lot of time and I probably will have to spend a lot of time going and meeting people, explaining the museum. But I really want them to understand us." I want them to understand me. I want to see if we get on. I want to get some kind of feel for whether I think they get us, and a big part of that actually which you and Paul were brilliant at is I want to see if they're going to come into the museum and interact with stuff and have a go and throw themselves into it.

Sophie Ballinger: I can't remember how many people I met with. I basically say, "If you want to come, I'll give you some tickets and I'll give you some time." Everyone that took us up on that, I blocked out an hour to spend with them. It did take up a hell of a lot of time, a hell of a lot of time, but for me it was absolutely invaluable, absolutely invaluable. You just get a sense about people's creativity, just whether they get us or not.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love that. Actually, I would say from our perspective as an agency, it's a really generous thing to do. Because we want to see how the relationship is as well from our side, but also, there's something really important about visiting the place that you're pitching to do work for. I think that's a necessity. Yeah, having the generosity to give agencies that time is really, really important. You're asking them to commit an awful lot of time in putting a proposal together.

Kelly Molson: I mean when we pulled this proposal together, it was not a, "Oh, we'll just knock something out in a day and it'll be done." There was a lot of time and effort that goes into it, so I think it's really respectful to give the agency that initial time to ask those questions.

Sophie Ballinger: I was going to say, it's the least we can do. Yeah. We're expecting agencies to do or we're hoping they're going to put a decent amount of time in and thought. Yeah, as you say, it's respectful. It's good manners.

Kelly Molson: Fast forward to the chosen agency, which was us. Thank you very much. We obviously enjoyed your company and didn't want to sack you off as a client, which is good. Another thing that was really good about the process is you communicated really clearly. Well, you communicated really clearly upfront what was going to happen, what the evaluation process was going to look like, how long it was going to take, how many agencies you were going to shortlist to, and then actually what you were going to ask of them over the next stage as well. Because sometimes that's a bit loose, we're not sure.

Kelly Molson: I'll be honest, you did ask for creative for the next stage. So you shortlisted down and the next stage was meeting the agency with the team that were going to be making those decisions. This is always a really controversial thing in a brief is to ask for creative, but you did it in a way that, again, I think was really respectful of the agency and their time, is that you actually offered to pay for the creative. That for us, we very rarely do creatives as part of a tender process because I think that if you haven't had that chance to speak to the client and that team...

Kelly Molson: You know our process. You know it's really collaborative. We're going to ask a lot of questions. There's a lot of research and stuff that goes into that before you come up with the creatives for it. It's very hard to pitch something that you're never going to like what we pitch. It's going to be impossible. It'd be like one in a million if we pitched something in this process that you went, "Oh, yeah. That's it. We'll have that one." The fact that you offered to pay for the time for people to do that, again, brilliant. That was a massive tick for us.

Sophie Ballinger: I'll be really honest about that. Again, the previous brief that we'd done, which was I guess four or five years before, we asked for creative and we didn't pay for it. We had a similar level of interest and we got one agency that contacted us and said, "Nah, we don't do creative." That was it. This time around, actually initially we asked for creative and we weren't giving a payment. We got within hours people saying to us, "We're not so sure about that. We're not very happy with that."

Sophie Ballinger: Of course, there were agencies that were fine and probably would've gone ahead with it, but for me, I guess partly because my background, I went to art school and did all that stuff. And it's like, actually, I know how much goes into the creative process and it just absolutely resonated with me straightaway. It was really interesting the huge sea change in the space of a few years from people just sucking it up and doing it to actually raising concerns.

Sophie Ballinger: I think it was literally within about 24 hours of us sending that information out, we'd backtracked on it and we re-enhanced the budget. Actually, we knew as well that that budget wasn't enough realistically to cover the time that an agency would want to put into that creative work. It was all that we could afford. But apart from anything else, as you said, it just felt respectful. I have been involved in tender processes before at other places, I'll say very clearly, where there hasn't been a respectful attitude to that work as far as even with just the intellectual property of it. It's like, "Ooh, we like that idea, and can we squeeze that into there?" It's never sat right with me.

Sophie Ballinger: I've also been involved in tender processes where I'm aware that agencies are being seen and they're not going to get the gig, again, for whatever reason. I mean we'll come onto budget. I've been involved in ones where the budget that an agency's quoted is far beyond the budget that we had available, so they were never going to get it but bosses at the time were kind of curious to see what more they'd get for the money. I'm sitting there looking at how much work they've done, and it just feels wrong.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. Again, I'll be really honest. It came back in a huge wave of people just going, "I really want to go for this brief, but I'm not comfortable with that element of it." So we changed it and I was relieved and actually really, it made me even more enthusiastic for the project that we were doing. I liked the fact that straightaway the people that we were working with weren't afraid to voice a potentially unpopular opinion.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah, it was fundamental for me. I'm really glad it happened and I'm really glad to say that it's something that Eureka!, we have adopted subsequently for any tender that we do that has a creative element. We did one recently for a digital marketing agency based in Liverpool where we're putting a second site next year. We asked for creative for that and we made that payment as part of that as well.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that's excellent.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. We have adopted that for policy now. I don't see it very often. I do see it every now and then. Would love to see it more.

Kelly Molson: I would love to see it more. But I just think, yeah, like you say, it's that level of... It's respecting the time that goes into it. I think that was really a bit of a game changer for us. Okay, let's talk about the brief. Let's talk about why it was so good. The first thing, we've talked about this, is that you let people talk to you. That was the best thing about this. You let people talk to you. You let people come to visit, and you met with them. Massively time consuming on your part, but awesome for everybody involved and really important from your perspective in terms of how that relationship's going to be, what those people are like.

Kelly Molson: It's really interesting that you said about interacting with the venue as well. I hadn't thought about that. That just was an actual thing that we did because it's awesome, but yeah, I hadn't thought about that you'd be looking for that, necessarily.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. I love taking people on tours of the place. I get quite a good read on them just from that. Yeah, it's interesting.

Kelly Molson: Okay. The second thing that really stood out for us about the brief was the tone of voice, the way that it was written. Let's face it, web briefs can be a little bit dry. You're talking about content management systems. You're talking about functionality and things it needs and payment processing and all that kind of stuff. However, you made this brief really fun. You wrote it in Eureka's tone of voice, and it was excellent.

Kelly Molson: I'm going to read out a bit here. I'll probably read it wrong, but in an ideal world, we'd love families to look at our website, let out an audible, "Wow!" And then think, "I've got to go there." And potential funders to gasp but be inspired to support our work, "There must be a way." For our part, we're absolutely, positively, definitely, completely unwavering in our determination to be a little less loquacious. I don't even know if I pronounced that right.

Sophie Ballinger: Loquacious.

Kelly Molson: Loquacious, sorry. I did not pronounce it right. Loquacious. We mean we won't be so wordy, promise. Just even that, I mean apart from the fact that I can't read properly, I mean that sums up the tone of the brief, right? It was just lovely to read. Yeah, we really got a feel for what it would potentially be like working with you and with your organisation just from the tone of voice of that. Did you get any help with this? I think you did, didn't you? Was there a workshop that you went on?

Sophie Ballinger: Not with the tone of voice element of it, although I felt really inspired by it. I went to Aalia Walker, who at the time, she was with the SMACK agency. She's with Milk & More now, I think. She had done a workshop at a Kids in Museums event that I went to, and it was about the briefing process, what the perfect brief would be. It fired me up. The timing was perfect because it was just before I started working on this brief.

Sophie Ballinger: She was just talking about why can't you tell us what the budget is? Why can't you be open about this? Why can't you just tell us what the challenges are? Tell us some things you don't know and the things that you don't know that you don't know. It's just, be really open and A, you're more likely to find an agency that's on your wavelength. And that inspired me to... I'd done quite a lot of work at Eureka! generally since I joined it, and I've been there 10 years last month.

Kelly Molson: Wowsers.

Sophie Ballinger: My Eureka! birthday. I mean, I'd been there a few years at that point and they hadn't had a digital person. They hadn't really got a tone of voice for their external communications. They very much did in the museum, very much did in the museum. You talked to the staff, they are chatty and confident and friendly and funny and human. And they'll admit if they don't know something, and then they'll go and find out for you. They're really a bit geeky about little... They have little snippets of information, and everyone has their own talents. We absolutely try and encourage those because it's what makes a visit to Eureka! memorable for me.

Sophie Ballinger: I couldn't quite understand why you get into it and it's very human and conversational as soon as you walk through the doors, but externally, it wasn't particularly human and it wasn't particularly conversational. Obviously, initially with social media channels, that made absolute sense. But that started to filter through to the other content and the other copy.

Sophie Ballinger: Actually, one of the big things that we knew about the website is we tied ourselves in knots trying to explain what a children's museum is. We're not a science and discovery center. We're not a museum where everything's in cabinets or there's a historical collection or a collection of some nature. We're not a collections-based museum. It's an interactive space designed with kids, for kids. On previous websites, we again were tying ourselves in knots trying to explain that and it's like, "Well, let's just show them."

Sophie Ballinger: I mean, that was one of the challenges that went into the brief was how can we show this, but a key part of that as well is that tone of voice filtering through. Again, it was a conscious decision to do it in that way because for me, if you don't get it, you don't respond to that tone of voice, we don't particularly want to work with you anyway. We know that people will have looked at that brief, cringed and never wanted to go back to it ever again. I mean, I can't think who and obviously they're philistines. But yeah, it was an important bit for us.

Sophie Ballinger: Again, I will say, because I sat down with it and I just started writing the brief I'd always wanted to write and expected it to go up to my director and them to go, "What?" But they loved it and encouraged it. Yeah, it was absolutely inspired, a fire was lit under me by Aalia. I did run it past her as well before we sent it out. I just said, "Look, you've inspired me to do this. Can you have a look at this and tell me what you think?" She had a look at it and was just...

Kelly Molson: Excellent.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: A big shout out to Aalia, and Lubna from SMACK agency. I know that agency very well and they are superb. Okay, next thing. You defined the feeling of the brand really, really well. The tone of voice, that set our tone of voice because we knew how we'd have to communicate with you. I can remember writing our brief. You know us, we're quite chill. We're quite laid-back about... Just the way that we speak is quite friendly and it allowed us to be a bit friendlier in our response. Do you know-

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: So you get us as well. That was really great, but I think that the way that you defined the feeling of the brand was really incredible. So we could really understand what it was all about without necessarily... Sometimes it's difficult to describe what Eureka! is, but describing that feeling of it, that really gave us a sense of, "Oh yeah, we really want to work with this organisation. This is for us."

Kelly Molson: The other thing was that there was a challenge in this brief. The website brief was the website that needed redesigning. It wasn't performing particularly well. There were some things that were challenging. There were things that people were potentially not understanding about the museum. But you also had this kind of challenge that, actually, it wasn't necessarily a digital challenge. It was a, look, we've got this issue with people having to queue, and if they want their annual pass, they're going to have to queue again when they get here. So then they've got this double queuing situation. They're just basically just getting really pissed off and what can we do about it?

Kelly Molson: That was great. To have an open ended, "Well, here's the brief for the thing that we really need, but actually, we've got this problem as well. What do you think you can do?" We were like, "Ooh. Well, this is good, isn't it?" It was really open like, "What do you think that we could do about this?" This was like, oh, great. This is a real challenge for us to think about. That was awesome.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. I was just trying to find a way to write, help!

Kelly Molson: Help, but constructively. Help me. Then you actually carried out some internal testing as well, which was really useful.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. And fascinating. I wish I had time to do it constantly. Yeah. Obviously, I dived face first into Google Analytics and had a look at where the traffic was and actually where we wanted it to be, so there's that element of it. But we also did some really intensive qualitative stuff with some user testing, and it was stuff I've done previously in the university sector. Tends to be on a much bigger scale, but with this, we spent a day.

Sophie Ballinger: We had six people who were our audience, including... we found some teachers. We tried to identify people, all but one of them, who weren't aware of Eureka!, hadn't visited us. Then we had someone that knew us really intimately as well. That sounds a bit rude. And spent a day. So we gave them a number of tests. I sat with them. I was just mostly observing. The agency we were working with at the time, Reading Room, they run the actual process for us. We just gave them a number of tasks and asked people to vocalise what they were doing and where are you looking for, what search terms are you using.

Sophie Ballinger: This is a website you want to find out about this and watch people trying to do it. Within I think the first two people, there were some huge things. We had, for example, really a low conversion rate on the book tickets page. I forget what the conversion rate was, but we knew it was low and we thought it was really weird. Really quickly, it's because that was the quickest way for people to find out how much it costs. So they're not actually necessarily going to go and book that way, but they're struggling to find prices elsewhere. That's what the vast majority of people wanted to know. It was how much, where are you, are you open now, when are you open? That was the bulk of it.

Sophie Ballinger: We also knew we had a lot of other audiences. One of the other ones that we did, I sat with a teacher and went through. The way we had the school information, there wasn't enough information for her. She needed really quiet details. She needed downloadable things that she could print off for her class. She needed lengthy information about what the curriculum links were. She's one of the rare web visitors who wants lots and lots and lots of information, lots of wordy information. Whereas, of course, the vast majority of people, how much, are you open?

Sophie Ballinger: It was really, really, really useful. Again, it was time consuming because we were coming up with, planning what the scripts were and what we wanted to do before, but absolutely worth it, invaluable, invaluable insights that we got from people.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. And really helpful for us as well. Because we do our own testing, but yeah, having that outside of you is always better than just our own internal kind of opinions about something. Going back to what you said at the beginning around Eddie and not being able to take the project on because he didn't work with an open-source CMS, that was really important as well, the fact that you defined what...

Kelly Molson: You didn't define the platform. I know you were familiar with WordPress, so there was maybe a bias toward it, but you just defined what you needed from the CMS. That was really great for us as well because we could understand if we worked in a platform that was actually going to fit what you needed. That was quite great, so there was a lot of specification around the things that you really needed to have as well.

Kelly Molson: You defined what you needed for the project and we'll talk about budget in a bit. But you defined exactly what you really needed and then some things that you might like to have, but you were realistic that some of those things that you might like to have might be outside of that budget as well, which was really good. There was a must have and then a like to have. Sometimes you don't get that. Sometimes in a brief you get, this is everything that we want and this is the budget for it. And you have to go, "Whoa, okay. Well, look, we might need to strip some of these things out and think about them as a phase two."

Kelly Molson: That's another thing as well is that when we talked to you, it was really clear that you could take a phased approach as well. I think that comes out of being able to speak to somebody about what's the real need here, what's the necessity. What do we need to launch with, and then what are things that maybe potentially come later and how does that affect what you're doing?

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. I'm always really aware of fake deadlines. We pluck a date out of thin air and we're going to work towards that. With a project as big as this with so many different elements, I knew, I mean we were coming up to our 25th birthday, so we couldn't move that. There were elements of it that had to be ready for that and then others that actually it's not the end of the world if we don't. If we can deliver more for then, great.

Sophie Ballinger: But yeah, it's something about being really clear because if people don't know the fixed parameters that you've got, then they're going to rule themselves out the minute they've done a submission for it. It's not fair asking someone to do all that work if they can't... It's like writing a good job description. You put the things in there that you absolutely need and the things that are absolutely necessary. Being vague just to see what's out there doesn't really benefit anyone. It was really important for me, so we knew there were some things here that are deal breakers. So let's be really upfront about that.

Sophie Ballinger: Then there are some other things that, like the example you gave with some of the features, we didn't know how much they cost. We thought we'd quite like that, but can you do that within the brief? Actually, we're not going to discount you if you say, "Well, that's not something that you could afford within that brief, but for the sake of a bit more money... " We were just really open about that and receptive to the answers that we got, which were pretty consistent on that particular element, to be honest.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. I've seen a few briefs recently where it's really vague. To me, that's just a waste of everyone's time. Because the submissions that you read, again, I'll go back to the previous tender process and I don't know how long I spent reading responses. You read them through and like, "This is really good." And then you get to an element and it's like, "Ugh. Well, they can't do it." Actually, it's wasted their time and it's wasted mine, not anywhere near as much as mine potentially. Yeah, it's the more open you can be, the more efficient you can be for everyone's sake.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Let's talk about timeframes and budget. Because again, with this brief it was a really realistic timeframe, and I think that's important. We see a lot of briefs that come in and you'll look at the timeframe and then you'll think, "Okay. Well, by the time we've submitted and they've reviewed and they've chosen, actually that leaves about eight weeks for this project. And that's nowhere near enough." Then when you push back, they're like, "No, no, no. That's the deadline. That's it. It's not moving."

Kelly Molson: I check sometimes. I have a tendency to keep either briefs that we haven't won or briefs that we've decided, for whatever reason, we're not a good fit for. We can't achieve that deadline. We've had the discussion and they're like, "No, it's not going to move." Then I check. I set a little diary reminder to go, "I'm going to go and check to see if that website went live then." And they never do. They never do.

Sophie Ballinger: They never do.

Kelly Molson: I always think, "Well, look. Yeah, be realistic about it." If most agencies are coming back to you going, "This isn't achievable. This is maybe achievable. Is there any wiggle room on this deadline?" It's not an achievable timeframe, so definitely have a little word with yourself about that.

Kelly Molson: But also, budget. There was a budget indicated in this brief. I cannot express how important it is to have a budget, and I think there's still that perception that it's because agencies are going to go to the top of it. It's not about that. Genuinely, really is not about that. It is about what can we deliver for you that is going to work for your budget and for your timeframe and all of the things that you need. It will have an effect on the CMS, for example, that we use, or it might have an effect on what level of testing we can do or how much time we can spend on wireframes or how many meetings we have. It has an effect on every single part of that project.

Kelly Molson: We might have just the most incredible idea and we can pitch it to you, but then we've got to work out how we make that idea happen with the budget that you've got. If we know upfront, we can do all that before we speak to you rather than actually going, "Oh my God, you could have this amazing thing," and then finding out that your budget is 5K and then we're going, "Oh, you can't have that now. There's no way we could do that for you now." It's so vital for us, but I want to stress how much it isn't about us going, "We're going to go to the top end of that."

Sophie Ballinger: Which I do get and I hear that a lot, the fear that if we say, "We've got 15 grand," then everyone's going to say, "Well, we can do this for 15 grand," whether it's going to cost them two or 30. Again, going back to a previous tender process I was involved in that didn't have a budget on it, obviously, everyone received the exact same brief and I think on this particular instance we got about 14 or 15 responses to it.

Sophie Ballinger: Hand on heart, the bottom one was 4K and the top one, I'm sure it went up to 160 or 180 responding to the same brief. So of course, they were just straight out because we have nowhere near that much money. That was one of the processes where they interviewed someone that had quoted for higher than the budget that we had just to see what the difference was, which just felt really unfair to me. There's something fundamentally wrong with that brief if you've got such a difference in it, but that's always really stayed with me. Because I do remember getting this eight-page 4K submission versus this, I think it was, 160, 180. Again, it just felt unfair and like a waste of their time.

Kelly Molson: That's crazy. Totally going to put my prices up now.

Sophie Ballinger: I did say, "What kind of website are we getting?"

Kelly Molson: Gold plated.

Sophie Ballinger: Gold plated, or we figured maybe there was some kind of reenactment that went to people's houses and started reading content for them. Yeah, it was nuts.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. But then that just shows you why it's really important to put something in there. And don't get me wrong, we will always push back. If we don't feel the budget is enough, we definitely push back. But we've also been like, "Yeah, this is a great budget. We could do everything that you need with this and probably have some left over as well." Okay, clear feedback.

Kelly Molson: Oh, this is another thing that happens loads and I don't know how to solve it. Whenever we get a brief and it isn't as perfect as this one, there's always loads of questions that we ask regardless of what brief comes over. And one of the questions is, if we don't win this, can we get feedback? Actually, if we do win, can we have feedback as well? Because even if you win it, there might still be stuff that you've not done as brilliantly as someone else that's proposed. It's just on the day you swung it or whatever, something made you win it. You got on well with that person, I don't know.

Kelly Molson: Either way, you really, really need feedback and partly because there's so much time that goes into putting a tender submission together, it would be really great to get some feedback. Because if that's all we're going to get, at least we can then... There's something constructive that's come out of it. We can improve for the next one. We can understand why we didn't win it or what we could've done to win it, what we could've done better. Even when I ask, I would say 60% of the time, maybe 70% of the time we don't get feedback.

Sophie Ballinger: That often?

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Sophie Ballinger: That really surprises me.

Kelly Molson: It's really frustrating and I really push as well. I don't let it go. I will send multiple emails. If there's a phone number, I will be ringing you. There is a few things. I think it is quite hard to give constructive feedback. And if you're not very good at it, you shy away from it. I think that people are uncomfortable about delivering bad news a lot of the time, but we're really thick skinned and we really need it. We really need to understand what we did wrong. Maybe it wasn't anything wrong. Maybe it was just someone just absolutely nailed it. And yeah, if in another circumstance, we would've won it with what we delivered, but actually these guys blew it out of the water.

Kelly Molson: But if we don't know, you just have this feeling of, "Oh, I just feel really sad." I'm kind of used to it now and I am really thick skinned, but it's a bit demoralising to the team. They need to know why we didn't win that. Because we're all excited about it, the whole team is invested in a brief when it comes in. And we're all invested in really wanting to work with that company or we wouldn't put the effort in to put in that tender submission together. It has sometimes a quite negative effect on the agency when they don't get the feedback. Not that they don't win. We all know we can't win everything, but it's about not understanding what is really hard.

Sophie Ballinger: I guess as well and for people that don't work in agencies and don't go through that process, it's trying to explain to them that you go for a job interview. You get called back for a second interview and you do a task as part of that. You work on a big presentation. Then you don't get the job and you never hear anything from them ever again. Yeah, of course, yeah get invested in it. If that keeps happening to you over and over again, of course, it's going to start to knock your confidence or start to, as you say, it can be really quite disheartening.

Sophie Ballinger: Again, I'm a big gobsmacked by it because it's something that we, and it's not just me, I'm not going to say I'm an angel on it, but the ethos at work and the people that I work with at Eureka!, it's really important to us. For example, with the tender process you were involved in, we did feedback. For all the people that were shortlisted, we do feedback in a spreadsheet on every single one so that we could offer feedback. Realistically, we couldn't necessarily have a conversation with everyone that had submitted, but what we did say is, "We will give you written feedback if you want it." Sometimes they don't. And for anyone that came to the actual doing creative stage, we would have a conversation with them.

Sophie Ballinger: I had a phone conversation, I think, with everyone that pitched. I should say sometimes it's not necessarily going to be that constructive. In fact, to me, I'd say it was a closer thing, but this was one of those, not to blow smoke up your behind, but this is one of those where we just said, "Actually, this agency just blew everyone out of the water." It was quite difficult because one of the agencies that had pitched for it was an agency that we'd been working with, so it wasn't an easy conversation. But I respect it enough to try and be honest about what was going on. It's fair. As I say, I know that that's just not me. I think I've been influenced by the people I work with and probably vice-versa, but we know how important it is.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Very important and really appreciated from our perspective as well.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. It can be really painful.

Kelly Molson: Actually, one of the questions that we often ask, I don't always want to know and I didn't in this circumstance, but sometimes it's nice to know what agencies we're up against. With this process, it's slightly different because I think we knew it was an open tender. I mean, we had no idea that you were going to get up to 40 submissions. That was mad. But when you get shortlisted to go through to the next stage, it's often quite nice to know who you're up against. You were open to telling us, but I actually said I didn't want to know for this one.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. We asked all the agencies because I think one or two of them had asked. We asked the agencies if they were happy for other people to know they were involved if they wanted to know. I think, did you say you were happy for other people to know but you didn't want to? I can't remember now.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I didn't want the pressure. I think we really wanted to win it so much that I didn't want the pressure of looking at who we were up against and going, "Oh, they're much bigger than us," or they've got much more experience in that sector, or this, that and that. Their work's awesome. I just thought, "Don't know. Just be yourself, go in and do your thing. Don't know about all those things."

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. And have a look afterwards.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I did. Yeah. Yeah, I definitely did afterwards. But what I would say, what's happened, so recently a few briefs have been sent to us and it's lovely. What's really nice is that we're chosen for people to send a brief to. More and more so we'll receive a brief and they'll say, "Look, we've chosen four agencies that we've sent this out to."

Kelly Molson: Some will say, "We've sent this out to 10 agencies," and I think that's too many, personally. But it's nice that you've been chosen as one of those four agencies, and in those circumstances, I do always ask who the other agencies are. I don't always get told, but I do always ask because I think for us, it's a way of gaging, do we think that we're actually in with a chance of winning this?

Kelly Molson: I think that's a really honest thing to say is that we will not go for every brief that lands on our desk because, honestly, some of them we just don't think that we're going to win. It might be because there's an existing relationship with an agency that's on that list that it's gone out to and we don't understand why you would want to change from that. There might be potentially some research that's been carried about by an agency and the research has been included in that brief. And you're like, "Why would you get them to do the research? You must have a good relationship with them to do that. If you're not going to give them this, why don't you just go to them like, is everyone just wasting their time?" Do you know what I mean?

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's really honest, but sometimes that happens. I think sometimes we go, "Okay. Well, what work have we got scheduled in?" And we have to be really realistic and say, "We are really busy right now. What time can we dedicate to this pitch? What time can we dedicate to putting this tender document together?" If we don't think that we've got enough time to do it justice, we'll also say, "We don't think that the timing's right for us to be able to do this." I think sometimes knowing who you're up against is important. In this circumstance, I felt it was going to be a distraction rather than something useful.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah, yeah.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Your brief essentially covered all of the points that we go through with what is a great brief. I've talked about this at the start and I will link to our blog post in the show notes for this episode, but essentially, we're looking for a really detailed company profile and doing that in a way that it really showcases what it's going to be like to work for that brand. So that tone of voice is so hugely important in that essence.

Kelly Molson: We need to know what the project goals and objectives are, and we really need to be able to ask you questions about that as well. If you're putting a brief together, think about how much time you've got to dedicate to this process because being able to speak to the person that's wrote this brief and ask them questions for an agency is absolutely vital. You are going to get a much better response if you allow that to happen.

Kelly Molson: We need to know about your audience. If there's been any persona work done, that's always helpful. Where the current website has failings that we can't see that we don't know about. What the new website needs to deliver and really be specific about if there's a content management system that you are totally wedded to, we need to know about that upfront because it might not be one that we use.

Kelly Molson: I put competitors on this list, but I think from an attractions perspective, I mean obviously you've got competitors, but it's more about what space do you sit in and what are you and where do you sit into that kind of ecosystem. A schedule of timelines and that's not just for the project, that's for the process of potentially winning this project might look like. Budget, big thumbs up for putting a budget in there.

Kelly Molson: Then actually, the feedback and selection process. I think some of the best briefs we've ever had, it's specified what that's going to look like as well and so we know if there's going to be an expectation of creative. And we're going to bring you and say, "Hey, we don't do that," or, "Do you really need to see a creative at this point? Because I don't think it's going to work, and maybe we should look at stuff that we've done previously. Will that work?"

Sophie Ballinger: Can I make a quick point about creative, actually?

Kelly Molson: Yeah.

Sophie Ballinger: I was thinking about this because different people respond to creative in different ways. Something that I thought was really interesting in this process, because I absolutely take the point in the process as well where it's like, well, you can not get a job because you've done something in green and they didn't like green. It's like, "I could've made it blue or purple or whatever," and you can lose it. There are people who could take creative too literally. I think that's a real issue and that's why I can see why people don't like creative, the amount of work that goes into it aside.

Sophie Ballinger: If you were doing the process from my side of it as the client, it's understanding that creative is changeable. Yeah, as you say, it's not going to be the final thing. But also, because what I would say with the creative is that when Rubber Cheese presented, actually the end website is very different, very different from the creative that was in the pitch. That didn't matter. The thing that particularly me and Michelle Emerson, my director, look out for is the process that took you there, the walk that you went on to get there and how you respond to us pointing out elements that wouldn't work for our brand.

Sophie Ballinger: It'd be wonderful if you came in and at your first attempt it was absolutely nailed it, but we also understand that it's an iterative process. Anyway. I think that is really important if you are asking for creative, it's understanding that you've given someone one bash at your brief. I have worked with people who take that creative very literally and don't understand that it's just an example. For me, it's really useful to see someone's design ethic, their approach to it, the creative process, the feedback process, how open they are to it.

Sophie Ballinger: The pitch that I was involved with yourself, I think it was the longest one that we had and there was a really long discussion between everyone that was involved in that pitch that was prompted by the creative. That's really telling for me.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. I can remember it felt quite brutal. I'm not going to lie.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: I mean, I like pitching and it was great. I felt like it went well, but we left going, "I don't know if they actually liked what we delivered because they really went in on us on it." There was a lot of picking it apart, and I was thinking, "Well, this was just supposed to be a creative. It was never going to be the final ka-bang." Yeah, it was interesting to see the discussions that it sparked, and I guess that's part of the process as well, isn't it?

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. But don't ditch something because you didn't like green.

Kelly Molson: I mean, that's a life lesson there, isn't it?

Sophie Ballinger: I like green very much.

Kelly Molson: Same. Can I ask, and it might be that this is just the way the organisation does things, but would you do it again in the same way? Would you have an open tender? Because I guess you then had to spend time reading 38 submissions. That's a hell of a lot of time to then get them down to five, so the timeframes would've been... Because if it's an open tender, you never know how many you're going to get, right? So you might have got five, but actually, you got nearly 40 and you've got to distil that down.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. Could've had 102.

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Sophie Ballinger: Short answer, no. Again, it's interesting. Because that process went so well, we adopted the same for a number of other briefs. We did a number of open tenders on, the next example that my team was directly involved was a PR agency brief. We would not do that again. That sounded really negative. It was still a really good experience, but it was too much, I think.

Kelly Molson: What would you do?

Sophie Ballinger: I think obviously I haven't done another web tender since then because we still have a relationship with Rubber Cheese and we're very happy where we are.

Kelly Molson: Why would you need to? Oh, the horror.

Sophie Ballinger: Why would we ever need to? It's really interesting. When we have done briefs for other stuff, so creative design agencies for, obviously, we're opening our second site, a science and discovery centre. We've been going through the process quite a lot there, and we have identified agencies and we've done quite a lot of our homework. We've gone out to a number of them to invite them to pitch for it or tender for it initially.

Sophie Ballinger: It's really weird because, of course, then you end up everyone knows each other. So with Mersey we aren't based in Liverpool so we don't know a lot of agencies there. So we went to partners that we're working with on that development and asked them who they'd work with, who they'd recommend. On the one hand, you lose the wildcard element of it, but then, on the other hand, it can be faster, a hell of a lot faster and a lot less time consuming. It's really weird because I'm also aware of the fact that had we not done an open tender, then we wouldn't be working with Rubber Cheese now.

Kelly Molson: I know. It's a really tricky one, isn't it?

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. But it hasn't worked for us. I mean, it may be one of those that case by case. There might be other briefs that come up and actually, we know that we should just go for it. We did do an open one. We worked with Playmaker Studios, who basically are over in Liverpool, to develop our brand for Eureka Science and Discovery. Was that an open one? Yeah, we did an open one for that. We promoted it on social, but we did also send it to people.

Kelly Molson: Oh, okay. So you did a bit of both.

Sophie Ballinger: Bit of both. Again, that worked out really well for us and who knows whether we would've ended up working with them if we did it differently. But yeah, it's a funny one. I really don't know. What's your take on it from the agency perspective?

Kelly Molson: It's really difficult. Actually, in the podcast I mentioned at the beginning of the interview, the Alex Holliman Choosing an Agency podcast, I did state in that podcast that I like it when the organisation has done their own homework and they ask you, so they know who that tender's going out to. Because honestly, I just think it saves a lot of time for everyone. I just can't imagine how long it would've taken to read through 38 submissions.

Sophie Ballinger: A long time.

Kelly Molson: So long, because I remember how long our submission was as well. From a time perspective, and I think fewer agencies, the better. Again, it's from a selfish perspective. When you're one of 10 agencies that it's gone out to, does it really need to go to 10? Do you really need 10 submissions? I think four, five max is about right. But then on the other hand, like you say, in this circumstance if Eddie hadn't sent this brief to us, we would never have been working with you. So there is something to be said for having it a little bit open. I like that mixed approach that you took. I still think I'd sway towards doing the research and sending it to a handful.

Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. I think generally, that's what we do for the most part now, but I wouldn't be closed to the idea depending on the brief and depending on the project as well. I mean in all honesty with the PR one, I mean we benefited greatly. You can imagine PR and reputation management agencies, we got so many things sent to us. Every day we were walking into the office and there was a new kind of mystery box with a crown in or one that had a knitted beard in it. I mean, it was just really random stuff. It was kind of fun, but it was so much time and so much effort that was being put into it and money.

Sophie Ballinger: When we've been looking beyond that, we haven't repeated that because, again, it didn't feel fair and it took a hell of a lot of time. Actually, out of web agencies that wanted it, I met with a lot of them. PR agencies, just so many of them wanted to come. It wasn't me that had to spend time with them. It was my colleague, Ruth Saxton. But it was so time consuming for her. It was insane. So many things around that. Yeah, I don't know.

Sophie Ballinger: There probably are briefs that I would say, go for it. And if you don't know really what you want, it's that being honest. If you're very specific about where you want to be with it and you have a vision in your head and you want it to be very comparable to this competitor or that competitor, but maybe you do try and look for source agencies or find examples that do that for you.

Sophie Ballinger: But actually, when it's a brief of that nature, when it's like, "Look, these are the problems we've got. We don't really know what we want. Otherwise, we could just go find someone and get them to do it for us. We want creativity. We want innovation. We want help, support. We want a relationship. We want this." We didn't know where to turn for it, so I think it was right for that one.

Kelly Molson: Thank you. I really appreciate you talking through this with us today. Two last questions for you. Actually, three questions. What happened to the fake knitted beard? I hope that you kept it. Second question-

Sophie Ballinger: It could-

Kelly Molson: Second question on that, is that better than the fake fringe that I once sent you? I think not.

Sophie Ballinger: No.

Kelly Molson: I think not.

Sophie Ballinger: Nothing. Do you know that I'm in the process of moving and that fringe has appeared again recently? But even better than that, I think my mum was babysitting and she found it and was just...

Kelly Molson: What is this? A fake fringe, everyone needs one.

Sophie Ballinger: Obviously.

Kelly Molson: To explain, listeners, I wasn't sure whether to have a fringe cut at what point, so I bought a fake fringe that I could wear to see... I didn't wear it out. I just wore it around the office to see if I looked okay with a fringe. There's nothing weird about that at all.

Sophie Ballinger: It doesn't look like a merkin at all to the untrained eye.

Kelly Molson: I'm so glad that you said that and not me. Okay. Final question.

Sophie Ballinger: You horrified my mother.

Kelly Molson: Wow. On that note, final-

Sophie Ballinger: What was the question?

Kelly Molson: Final question for you. No, final question, a book that you would like to recommend to us?

Sophie Ballinger: A book? Oh, The Beard, circling back, came home with me and I may or may not have put it on my baby daughter several times and taken a photograph. Book, I'm even prepared for this. I've got, look. I've got it here.

Kelly Molson: Ah, ooh.

Sophie Ballinger: I was going to be really geeky and do a workbook that's really good for people that work in content, and I decided not to do that. I love books, but I'll be really honest. Particularly since I've had a child, I've struggled. If you go downstairs, I've got a bit of a show-offy book collection. There's lots of Russian literature and when I had a brain that could process all this stuff. I can't do it anymore. Anyway, this guy is a chap called Craig Clevenger, and this is his first novel, The Contortionist's Handbook.

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Sophie Ballinger: The reason I've done this one is I reread it a couple of times. I don't tend to reread books very often. I love them, but I very rarely reread them. This one I inhaled. It's about a chap who fakes his own identity and goes in cycles, and he rebuilds his identity each time. It's him trying to get out of a very difficult situation, so it's kind of a thriller.

Sophie Ballinger: I just loved it and I love the fact it felt like, you know when you discover a new author? It was recommended to me by a member of staff in, I think it was, Waterstones in Derby. I just bought it on the off chance, and it's a debut novel. He's written a couple of others since. He works in a library in Texas. I might've spoken to him, and he might've sent me a copy of his second book. Yeah, so I wanted a bit of a pay it forward as well. I've also got, this is the paperback copy that I bought at the time. So if anyone wants it, if they tweet me, the first person to tweet me, I'll post a copy of it out to them.

Kelly Molson: Oh. Well, I was going to give it away as a prize. Totally ruined my prize giving, but whatever.

Sophie Ballinger: Oh, sorry. But this is the copy that I got given in Waterstones in Derby. Oh, I've obviously lent it to someone else as well because I've got a little, it says, "Enjoy." Enjoy, S.

Kelly Molson: Oh. Well, leave that in there. Okay. I'll tell you what, let's do it properly. If you want to win Sophie's book, head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the comment, "I want Sophie's book", you can win it. I will make sure that she sends it out to you.

Sophie Ballinger: I will do, with the, "Enjoy."

Kelly Molson: Thank you for coming on. It's been a delight to chat with you. I am going to see if I can get the word loquacious into a conversation today. Hey, I said it right. Woo-hoo! Yeah, thank you for coming on and sharing with us, Sophie.

Sophie Ballinger: 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. 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.

Download your FREE copy here

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 each episode.

Show references:

https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson
https://twitter.com/TheChiefCheese
https://www.skipthequeue.fm/
https://twitter.com/Skip_the_Queue

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Hey, everyone, it's just me today. And just a quick announcement to say that Skip the Queue is taking a well-earned break over the summer.

We have had an absolute blast these past 12 months. We're so grateful for everyone that's taken time to come on the show and share their experiences, and also for everyone that's tuned into the episodes. Thank you. I love this podcast and it really makes me feel so proud when we read all of the lovely feedback that we've received, but it's definitely time for a break to refresh. And let's face it, you lovely lot are going to be so busy with visitors over the summer months, you are not going to miss us at all.

Personally, I'm not sure how much of a rest I'm actually going to get this summer. Many of you follow me over on my personal Twitter account, @TheChiefCheese, and some of you will know that Lee and I's journey to become parents has been a very long and a very difficult one. But after 8.5 years, many rounds of IVF and sadly many heartbreaking losses, we are finally taking a little time out to welcome our baby girl to the world, and we could not be happier. Thank you all for your support. Have the best summer, and we will see you back here in October with more fantastic guests.

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.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.twitter.com/bernarddonoghue
www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-0aa9b97
www.twitter.com/alva_uk
www.alva.org.uk/index.cfm

Bernard Donoghue is the Chief Executive of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), the umbrella body for the UK’s most popular, important and iconic palaces, castles, museums, galleries, heritage sites, stately homes, cathedrals, churches, gardens, zoos and leisure attractions. ALVA is a powerful advocate for the sector to Government, the media and business; it organises events, benchmarking, training, commissions research and the sharing of best practice for members across marketing, visitor experience, fundraising, public engagement, security, education, retail and a variety of other areas.

In May 2017 he was appointed to be a member of the Mayor of London’s Cultural Leadership Board and is the Mayor’s Ambassador for Culture. He has been a member of the UK Government’s Tourism Industry Council since 2014. In January 2021 he became Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board, to plan and deliver the strategic recovery of London’s visitor economy and sits on the GLA’s COVID Business Forum and various London Mayoral cultural and business recovery taskforces.

Bernard has been Chair of the award-winning London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) since 2010, having been a Board member since 2005 and Deputy Chair between 2007 and 2010. In June 2021 he became Chair of the Board of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world. 

He is a Trustee of the People’s History Museum – the Museum of Democracy, in Manchester, and will take over as Chair of the Board in November 2021.

He is a member of the Cathedral Council of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and a member of the Exhibition Advisory Board for Two Temple Place and the Hoare Trust. He was Chairman of WWF-UK’s Council for 10 years, until 2020, and is a former trustee of WWF-UK. He has been a trustee of Centrepoint, Kids in Museums, the Museum of The Home and the Heritage Alliance. He has been a judge for the Museum and Heritage Awards since 2003.

In October 2020 Bernard was named by Blooloop, the world’s leading online resource for professionals working in visitor attractions, as one of the world’s 50 most influential people in the museum sector. 

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 Bernard Donoghue, CEO of ALVA. 

We discuss what the fast-approaching end of restrictions mean for attractions, how to balance digital engagement with an overseas audience and what these past 15 months have really been like for Bernard personally. 

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

Kelly Molson: Bernard, I am so happy to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us.

Bernard Donoghue: It is my absolute pleasure. It was a choice between you and a meeting with four MPs so here we are.

Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, I have to say, I'm clearly the better choice here. Thank you. Okay. As ever, we're going to start off with our ice breaker questions. If you had a time machine and you could travel backwards or forwards, what year would you go to and why?

Bernard Donoghue: Oh, good lord. Sorry, by the way, this reminds me of the brilliant line by Sandi Toksvig. She was in a café in York once and there was a sign saying we serve tea at all times so she asked for a tea in the Renaissance, and they didn't understand her.

Bernard Donoghue: I don't know. Wow. I don't know. I think possibly in the 1920s because you're just at the cusp of so many things. You're at the tail end of the Edwardian period so you've got all of that and then you're at the cusp of electricity and technology and radio and aeroplanes so probably then.

Kelly Molson: We're hearing a lot about it being like the Roaring Twenties as well, aren't we? Once we get through all of this too. It's probably quite current that you've chosen that as well. 

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: Obviously, flapper dresses because all of those were completely beautiful. I mean, I would be down with that.

Bernard Donoghue: No. Seriously, I do look good in beads. It's true.

Kelly Molson: I could see that about you. You've got that look. Great. Okay. If you were a WWF wrestler, which I can see actually, I feel like you've got the look of a wrestler about you as well, maybe not in beads, what would your entrance song be?

Bernard Donoghue: For years, by the way, I used to be a trustee of WWF UK and all of my friends just assumed that I had a sort of parallel existence in spandex somewhere and I had to remind them that actually, no, it was about conservation. What would it be? Something from RuPaul's Drag Race actually because they're always fantastic. Yeah. When they come back on the stage at the end, that's the music.

Kelly Molson: Okay. Something really flamboyant I feel like.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. You know, you can strut ... I mean, I know strutting is not necessarily a WWF thing but presence is all.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. We can make it a thing. It can be whatever we want.

Bernard Donoghue: Thank you.

Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?

Bernard Donoghue: If I was 20, I think my advice to my 20-year-old self would be to make the ... This sounds a bit professional. Just make loads and loads of connections, network, network madly, even though, and this will come as a bit of a surprise, even though, I'm an introvert, get out there and network because it suddenly dawned on me in the last few years, when I was in my twenties, I was a campaigner, I was a young lobbyist and I worked for disability charities and all the people who did the same kind of job as me then, are all chief executives like me now. 

Bernard Donoghue: Of course, that makes sense because you grow through the ranks so now I've got a peer group of lots of chief executives in lots of very varied, different spheres and realms. It's been brilliant because we've all come through the ranks together and in good times and bad and now we've got a ready-made oven-roasted peer group that we can all rely on. There's about six of us. I think that.

Bernard Donoghue: And B, take your job seriously but don't take yourself too seriously.

Kelly Molson: That's good advice. That's really good advice. The networking thing is really interesting, somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago what has been the thing that ... What's been the one thing that I've invested the most in over the last few years that has made the biggest difference to my business and I completely agree with you and I said it is about building your network and it's about getting out there and making those connections because such incredible things come from knowing such a variety of different people in all kinds of sectors. You just never know what kind of opportunities and doors are going to be open for you from doing that.

Kelly Molson: Also, you just can't grow a business on your own or do anything on your own. You need that peer support around you. 

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. You're absolutely right. The key to that is knowing people who are not like you and in businesses that are not like yours. In ALVA, for example, I hear it time and time again that museums and galleries don't actually learn much from other museums and galleries because they're all kind of in the same boats and cathedrals don't learn much from other cathedrals, but they will learn things from Zooms or Harry Potter or Warner Bros, so places that are very different to them and, therefore, come at an issue from a very different perspective. That's where you learn most.

Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I completely agree with you on that one as well. That might come up later actually in our chat. Okay. Last one but it's your one, what's your unpopular opinion?

Bernard Donoghue: I hate the phrases going forward, and very much, as in, "I am very much looking forward to it" or, "I am very much committed to this." I hate those phrases with a passion whereas it's clear other people don't. They would be capital punishments when I take over the rule. 

Bernard Donoghue: What's another unpopular opinion? I cannot see how people can watch Jeremy Clarkson. I don't get it. Absolutely don't get it at all. Oh, oh, here's one actually and it's only because it was his birthday last week, I have never understood Bob Dylan and his popularity.

Kelly Molson: Wow. Gosh, that's quite a strong one.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I don't get it. 

Kelly Molson: Okay. 

Bernard Donoghue: Glad he's around, glad he's there, not for me, thank you.

Kelly Molson: I like that. Bob Dylan and Jeremy Clarkson was not a mix I was expecting to get on the podcast today.

Bernard Donoghue: They're not a duo that has ever performed together as far as I'm aware, or likely to. It's probably just as well.

Kelly Molson: It wouldn't make either of them even more appealing to you, though, would it? Not really.

Bernard Donoghue: No. I think I would have to take out a restraining order if they decided that they wanted to come around.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Well, let's see what our listeners think, Jeremy Clarkson fans out there? I don't know. It's not my cup of tea. Tweet us and let us know what you think about that. 

Kelly Molson: Now, Bernard, I don't even know where to start with this list so Mayor of London's Cultural Ambassador, CEO of ALVA, Co-chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board, Chair of LIFT Festival and Trustee of People's History Museum. Quite an impressive list that you've got going on there. What I want to know is where did it actually begin, though? Where did your connection with cultural heritage and attractions organisations start?

Bernard Donoghue: I've always absolutely loved ... I'm kind of being paid for all the things that I would do at a weekend. 

Kelly Molson: Nice.

Bernard Donoghue: You know, when I was a kid, my parents would take us around National Trust properties and English Heritage properties and stately homes and places like that so the first place that I went to was Waddesdon Manor, which if people don't know it, it's the maddest, most beautiful Loire valley style chateau but in the vale of Aylesbury, just outside Aylesbury. Built by the Rothschilds as kind of an entertaining pad. Absolutely beautiful, absolutely stunning.

Bernard Donoghue: My first stately home ... Well, that's kind of a stately home. The first stately home is Blenheim Palace. I just got the bug. I just have loved history, heritage, visitor attractions since I was a kid. I went off to do political jobs and then back in '97 I joined Visit Britain as their first-ever head of government affairs, not quite a lobbyist because it's a government agency and so you're not allowed to be called a lobbyist, but it was all but a lobbyist. That just opened my eyes to tourism and then visitor attractions. 

Bernard Donoghue: On the culture side, the theatre side, the theatre has always been a complete passion so I stepped down this year as chair of LIFT London International Festival of Theatre after 11 years and I'm just about to go onto the board of the British [inaudible 00:09:15]. My theatre passion continues.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I love what you said, I get paid to do all the things that I would love to do on the weekend. What a fantastic role to be in. 

Bernard Donoghue: It's absolutely true. I should show you my wallet actually. My wallet is full of membership cards, as in 30 of them, so occasionally I'll look at my wallet and think, "This is money laundering essentially." I'm being paid and I'm paying them back in return. This is just a circular economy.

Kelly Molson: That's one of the things that you've done really well throughout the pandemic is you've been so supportive and you've been really proactive on Twitter about saying to people, "Look, if you want these places to still be around when we come out of this, buy the membership, buy something from their shop when their shops are open, or buy something from them online" and I think it's been such a positive message to send out the whole way through, so not money laundering, supportive. Being very supportive in your role.

Bernard Donoghue: You'd have to talk to my bank manager because some days it was like money laundering.

Kelly Molson: There are loads of things that I want to talk about going forward, even though you don't like that but what I want to go back to is a little bit in the past as well. I really want to talk about what it's been like for you personally. I think you have been a real kind of pillar of strength to the sector and huge support and I think that as wonderful as that's been, that can bring its own challenges on yourself as well. 

Kelly Molson: Ultimately, you're the person that's putting out this kind of positive message all the time and being really actively encouraging but I could imagine that's had a lot of pressures and challenges for you personally as well. What has it been like, the last 15 months? How have you motivated yourself to be upbeat and positive throughout all of this?

Bernard Donoghue: Well, that's very kind, first of all. Thank you. I think I divide it between last March until Christmas and then sort of Christmas onwards. Last March until Christmas, there was a sense of really being able to cope because the adrenaline was getting you through. It was all novel and new and I've always thrived in crisis management. In all the roles that I've had over the last 20 years, crisis management has been at the heart of that, whether that's about actively managing crises or the corporate PR response or being a spokesperson or whatever.

Bernard Donoghue: In some ways, I sort of thrived on all of that through adrenaline. It's been much, much more draining and exhausting since Christmas and I think that's probably the same for everybody actually. We've gone through it again and actually, it's no longer new and it's no longer novel and now it's just sapping.

Bernard Donoghue: I have often felt on an almost kind of daily basis, and this is just honest, I'm not exaggerating, there's quite a lot resting on my shoulders and it feels quite lonely because the advice from the government has been so inconsistent and so unclear and often contradictory. There's a small group of about three or four of us in the tourism sector who have had to daily unpick all of that and interpret it for our respective sectors.

Bernard Donoghue: I know that if I weren't doing that then it just wouldn't get done ... It would probably get done somewhere at somehow at some point but, as you know, I do a daily bulletin so it goes out every evening at six o'clock with the latest information. There's a real sense of I need to get this out and get it done every day. 

Bernard Donoghue: I've made a rod and back really because there was nothing that I would love more than stop doing these bulletins. That's not possible while we're still in a state of flux. It's been a bit lonely. It's been odd working from home when normally I would be a consummate traveller and visit loads of my members around the country. There's been a lot of pressure but the feedback from people about the vital nature of the information and the advocacy and all the rest of it, and the achievements actually, has been extraordinary.

Bernard Donoghue: I don't think myself, my work has ever been more exposed than it has in the course of the last 15 months. Sometimes that felt scary and sometimes that felt brilliant.

Kelly Molson: I think as well it's never been more celebrated as well because you have had so much support from the sector. There are a lot of people looking for you. Like you say, you're delivering daily bulletins, you've been doing incredible webinars with ALVA so regularly, you've opened those up to non-members as well so everybody can benefit from the knowledge on them. There's a lot of eyes on you as well. That's a lot of pressure. I think from a positive perspective, what I see being delivered back to you is nothing but encouragement. Everybody has been so incredibly supportive of what you're doing and so grateful for the things that you're doing for them. I think that's been really lovely to see.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. It absolutely has and, in particular, from those organisations and businesses who, as you say, are not members of ALVA, I mean, I took the decision on day one that although ALVA is a tiny organisation and people will probably be really surprised, there's me and one other member of staff.

Kelly Molson: Wow. I'm surprised.

Bernard Donoghue: We're just two people. Lucy is brilliant. She's our finance and business manager. She's living in Norwich and I'm here in London. It's just the two of us. It's a tiny organisation so we're spread very, very thin. But given the nature of our members and my role of years in getting high-level meetings with government and all of that, I just thought we're in a leadership role here, we should use that for the benefit of everybody, let's be generous, let's not be parochial.

Bernard Donoghue: We made the decision to commission all the research and give it out for free, and that visitor sentiment research has just been vital. It was one of the best things that we did. Open up our webinars to everybody. If anybody wants a bulletin, they could go on the mailing list. Whether they're members of ALVA or not because there was the analogy, it's been used a lot of times but I think it's true, we're not actually all in the same boat. We're all in the same storm but we're in very, very different boats and some are bigger and more stable than others. We happen to be in a relatively stable, well-structured boat so I think it's beholden on me and us to try and help everybody as much as possible.

Kelly Molson: I am absolutely gobsmacked that it's just the two of you. I did not know that myself and I think that's an incredible achievement, what you've been doing, just the two of you to organise all of that. Wow. Hats off to you both there.

Bernard Donoghue: It's exhausting. I mean, look at me. I'm actually 47 in real life.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Me too. That's what I tell to everyone, Bernard. Gosh, that really has surprised me. Just go back because you said about you're a big traveller, you would be out and about all over the place and up and down the country, I'm sure, what do you think that you'll take away as a positive from the time that you spent working at home? Are there any kinds of changes that you'll make to your working habits? 

Kelly Molson: For example, I would commute to my office on a daily basis, I would often be out in London or all over the place doing meetings. Now I start to think, well, some of them I'm really missing but some of them are actually probably a bit unnecessary, we can cut down on the fuels that we're burning, we can cut down on the time that we have, and I've actually quite enjoyed having a little bit more personal time to do things like eating better because you don't eat that well when you're travelling or doing a little bit more exercise. Have you found that there are some positive things that you can take from this that you'd continue?

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. There's a number. I mean, one was we made the decision, we used to have an office in Somerset House on the Strand, a beautiful, beautiful room in grade one listed former palace. Absolutely gorgeous. Looking down onto the piazza, currently covered in trees. I couldn't justify the cost because Lucy, my colleague, went over to Norwich to be near her parents. We very sadly lost one of our colleagues. There used to be three of us in the office and we lost one of our colleagues last year to cancer. 

Bernard Donoghue: There were just the two of us and I thought I can't justify an office just for me, lovely, though, it is so actually we haven't had an office. We've given it up, which means that I am, for the foreseeable future, working at home. There are plus things to that ... Well, this is a plus and a minus, this is no particular priority order, we've got a cat, Tom, he's a badsy cat. I think he's going to go into trauma whenever we leave the house.

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Yeah. 

Bernard Donoghue: We've been around 24/7. We are now more grateful ... When I say we, this isn't a royal we. This is me and my partner. We are now more grateful than we ever thought possible to have a garden in central London. That's just been fantastic. 

Bernard Donoghue: But I am looking forward to getting back to some degree of working normality because I have to say I've never worked longer or harder than I have over the course of the last 15 months. It's been exhausting.

Bernard Donoghue: On a normal day, I would probably have five or six, at least, one-hour Zoom meetings back to back. And then write the bulletin at six o'clock in the evening. Typically, I'm working from about 7:30 in the morning until about seven in the evening. I was doing a bit of that pre-COVID but it's pretty unsustainable so I'd like to get back to a degree of normality.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Definitely. I think that the difference between having multiple face to face meetings during the day is very different to the Zoom meetings. I don't know about you but my diary gets crazy and I look and I think, "I've got four back to back" and there's no time to process in-between. It's that cognitive overload whereas if you had back-to-back face-to-face meetings you don't get the same kind of drained feeling. Yeah. I really feel you on that. It's definitely been longer working hours for us here as well. I really sympathise.

Bernard Donoghue: Also, I mean, the meetings that I'm having, bluntly, you can't coast because either I'm the guest speaker so you can't wing it, or it's a meeting with ministers or SAGE or public health England and so it's serious grownup stuff. You can't step back, you can't just switch off, you can't think I'm going to coast this for half an hour, I hope that nobody asks me a question because they're not those kinds of meetings.

Kelly Molson: No. You can't switch off your Zoom and quickly grab a cup of tea and a biscuit while everyone else is talking, can you? It's not the done thing. 

Bernard Donoghue: It's not really, no. 

Kelly Molson: That was a good segue into something that's going to happen today. We are recording this and it is the seventh of June. There are reports that Matt Hancock is going to give us another COVID statement this afternoon and, potentially, that is about the dates that we are due to be opening up with no restrictions.

Kelly Molson: Now I want to ask you a little bit about what that means for attractions and what we could potentially now be looking at. We are hopefully coming through to the other side. The vaccine program is doing phenomenal things. What does this fast-approaching end to restrictions mean for attractions now? Do you think that we're going to see this extended?

Bernard Donoghue: It's a really good question. I've been talking to about five or six chief execs over the course of the weekend just about guidance and advice. I think there are two very significant things and at first glance, they're in contradiction with each other. The first is that the longer we have social distancing measures and face mask use and mitigation measures in place, the longer it will take for the sector to recover.

Bernard Donoghue: When we have businesses, whether it's a hotel or bar or restaurant, a theatre or an attraction when we have those businesses opening up one-third capacity, none of them is making a profit. Actually, they're opening for PR purposes and in order to achieve fuller visitor figures down the track so no one is operating profitably.

Bernard Donoghue: Getting those backup and running is really critical but we know from all of our visitor sentiment that still 80%, eight zero, 80% of the British public are uneasy or cautious about those very mitigation measures, like social distancing and face mask use, being eased too early. 

Bernard Donoghue: Visitor attractions are faced with a real dilemma I think, which is if it's announced that on the 21st of June all social distancing measures are lifted throughout England and, therefore, visitor attractions can up the numbers, don't have to do face mask use measures, abandon social distancing, still the vast majority of their visitors won't like that and will feel uncomfortable and a tiny minority will think they're in bliss and think that they're liberated and all the rest of it.

Bernard Donoghue: My advice has been to visitor attractions, you and your visitors have to be the ultimate arbiter of the visitor experience. It may well be that you have to keep social distancing and face mask use measures in a place way beyond the 21st of September because that's what the public wants so, even though, you are technically allowed to get rid of those things by government, actually, take your lead from the public because they're going to be the ultimate arbiters. 

Bernard Donoghue: Those things are potentially in contradiction with each other. One of the things I'm constructing literally this week is some ALVA national advice to visitor attractions so that front of house staff can basically say to an irate guest on the 22nd of June, "I know the government has just announced that but actually, we're adhering to ALVA national advice" in order that they don't get than that confrontational pushback from members of the public because I genuinely feel that the loudest voices are for liberation but the quietest voices are for care, safety, sensible precautions and we need to manage that really, really carefully.

Kelly Molson: That's a really difficult challenge, isn't it? For front of house staff that will be in that position of having to push back on people. I can see it in my head happening. There's an encounter where people are angry about the fact they're being told that they still have to wear their mask, yet the government has said that they don't need to do this anymore. I can't imagine how difficult that's going to be so I think what you're putting in place is a really valuable kind of asset for the organisations to have.

Bernard Donoghue: We saw some examples, relatively limited, but we saw some examples of poor behaviour on the parts of the public last year when attractions reopened for, frankly ... It's not an excuse but it is understandable. They, like us, we're tired, fraught, and quick to anger, end of their tether, and they just wanted to get out and be in nice places. We've seen some of that poor behaviour on the part of the public again this time round as indoor and outdoor attractions. 

Bernard Donoghue: Honestly, for every one person who pushes back saying, "Don't make me wear a mask. Don't manage my social distancing", there are nine others watching saying, "Well done, you. You're doing exactly the right thing." That, I think should be the barometer of safety.

Kelly Molson: How does this work with ... What we want to see is attractions open and open at full capacity. But we, obviously, have got this challenge around overseas visitors and many of them not being able to come here, many of them not feeling safe to come here at the moment, understandably. How do attractions manage that? If they can open at full capacity, is the reality that they're not going to be at full capacity because we just don't have that influx of people that we need?

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. That's right. I mean, bluntly, there are some visitor attractions in the UK and just off the top of my head, they're places like the British Museum, Edinburgh Castle, Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London that are so heavily dependent on overseas visitors, inbound visitors coming from the rest of the world, that even the best ever staycation this summer won't help them repair their balance sheets. 

Bernard Donoghue: We've made it really clear to ministers ... I took the minister for London and the minister for tourism round four visitor attractions in London a couple of weeks ago to Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, London Transport Museum and the Royal Opera House and, at each one, showed them what a COVID safe welcome and visitor experience looks so they were comfortable with that but also made it clear to them that some of those, particularly, the Royal Opera House, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey are so dependent on inbound visitors that they will require additional support way beyond the rest of the sector to really recover sustainably because their visitors, their market won't come back in any meaningful numbers until next year.

Bernard Donoghue: It was really to peg to ministers even if you lift all restrictions on the 21st of June, that's not the end of the story. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. You have to be prepared to give more support past that point as well. Those attractions, in particular, that do rely really heavily on overseas visitors, what can they start to think about putting in place at this point? I know there are many attractions that have put on lots of digital events or things that people can engage with online. Do you see that continuing hugely for the rest of the year and then into 2022 as well?

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Yeah. I do. I mean, we've talked about this actually. At the VAC conference, one of the great achievements of last year was the explosion in digital content and not just the amount of it but the diversity and the brilliance and the innovative use of digital. I think because the last year has been sort of chaotic and odd and no holds barred, it's just liberated a lot of organisations to take risks with their programming and their content and their decision making in a way that they would never have conceived of before and to speed up some of their decision makings and just to think actually let's just do it and see what happens.

Bernard Donoghue: I think the digital explosion has been absolutely phenomenal so downloadable jigsaws and recipe books and maps and behind the scenes tours and going up into the attic of buildings and into the archives, all of that, absolutely phenomenal. 

Bernard Donoghue: It hasn't particularly connected with audiences who weren't already interested in those buildings so it's had some public engagement successes but not massive but what it has made people do is get on the customer journey so if they're seeing the stuff online, they'll one day aspire to be there and stand there on the spot because it can't replace the actual physical experience of being there.

Bernard Donoghue: In terms of digital output, the Bristol Old Vic, and the London Symphony Orchestra, they've both made decisions recently that in addition to their live performances, they're going to broadcast their performances on digital as well. If you're in Tokyo or San Francisco, you can subscribe to watch these performances, a bit like a Netflix subscription, so you buy a book of 10 performances at reduced costs.

Bernard Donoghue: What this means, of course, is that those theatres, that orchestra is getting a whole new audience who are paying money that they never had before but they're also starting them on a customer journey so that person in Tokyo one day, hopefully, will want to stand in the Bristol Old Vic and see where David Garrick performed. You're getting them on that customer journey whilst also monetizing it as well.

Bernard Donoghue: I think that's probably the biggest evolution and change to businesses in the course of the last year. You may have got round to it in about three or four years time but all of that has just been sort of contracted and sped up in an extraordinary way.

Kelly Molson: It's what you said, it's about risk-taking. I can remember having this conversation with Laura Crossley from the National Football Museum. They came on the podcast to talk about their podcast and they said that actually, it was something they'd been talking about for ages, they were going to do it, and then things kept getting in the way. Ultimately, they just got to a point where they were like, "Let's just try it. Let's just throw something at it. Let's see if it sticks and let's just do it." 

Kelly Molson: I loved that attitude that has been taken by so many different organisations this year and it's propelled them forward in a digital sense because let's just try it, who knows what's going to happen? None of us had a clue what was going to happen last March. That whole attitude about risk-taking I think is really important and I'd really like to see that continue as well.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Me too. I mean, two years ago, people would have thought it would be utterly impossible to run a business with nearly all of their staff working from home and even if they thought it was possible, it didn't sound particularly attractive because it just sounded too complicated and messy. Look where we are now.

Bernard Donoghue: Things can be done. I think one of the things that we've done for years is collect all of the visitor numbers from all of our members and then publish them in the media in March. I've done some longitudinal research to look at are there common characteristics or behaviours on the part of those visitor attractions that sustainably and successfully grow their visitor numbers but also diversify their business numbers as well? 

Bernard Donoghue: I do a presentation and a workshop on this and, funnily enough, there are. There are common behaviours. You can absolutely see them. In that group of about six or seven behaviours, one of them is about the appetite for risk on the part of the board and senior management. The other one is about the confidence to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. Don't just work with the people who are your natural neighbours, either physically or theoretically, but actually, this is something we were talking about at the beginning, try and foster creative partnerships with people who are not like you and, therefore, they bring something completely different to the party.

Kelly Molson: That's going back to what we talked about, about museums not learning from other museums and theatres not learning from other theatres because you're just in the same challenges all the time. Looking at that kind of wider sector communication of sector cooperation even and seeing where the boundaries overlap and what you can do that like you said, the theme park or the zoo down the road might be doing but you're a theatre. How can you embrace some of the things that they're using?

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Yeah. One of my favourite examples recently is that I was down ... I've managed to get out of London a couple of times since September in the last three weeks and I was down at Bristol going to see the Bristol Old Vic. They're doing something really, really clever, which is they have just parted ways with their in-house catering company and they've just decided that they want to be a community showcase so they're getting in local Bristol restaurants and chefs to be their in-house caterer for a month and they have a different one every month.

Bernard Donoghue: It's just blindingly brilliant because, A, they're connecting with their communities, they're showcasing the diversity of food in the local area, it's all five-mile menu stuff so it's all locally sourced. But it also means there's a new reason to come back every month, even if you don't go to the theatre to see a show, you'll go there to eat. I just think that was genius.

Kelly Molson: It is genius.

Bernard Donoghue: I've been sharing that with a lot of museums and galleries and heritage attractions saying actually if you're in-between contracts and you're thinking about an interim period between catering contracts, why don't you think about this?

Kelly Molson: That is an absolutely brilliant idea because I love attractions but I'm a big foodie as well so, for me, I'd be looking and going, "Oh, well, I need to book a table at that place at least once a month now because I'm going to go back and I'm going to experience a different food" or, "I've really wanted to go to that person's restaurant, how amazing, I can combine eating that person's food with a show that's on at the same time." It's a genius idea.

Bernard Donoghue: It really anchors the theatre in its community. We've seen over the course of the last year that the wreaking of your community and understanding your community and reflecting back who your community are through your work and your HR programs and your staff recruitment measures and all those kind of things, that's been absolutely key because if you lose your connection with the community, you're lost and wondering.

Kelly Molson: Yeah. Completely agree. I think, for me, personally, that's one of the best things that have come out of this. As an individual, I've always been really keen on supporting local independents and shopping locally anyway but even more so since this happened because you can see the effect of what's happened so drastically on your own community. You want to be able to do as much to support that as possible. That is such a great idea. I hope everyone that's listening picks up on that because I just think that is awesome. Well done, them. 

Kelly Molson: We're coming to the end of the podcast interview but I can't not ask you what's next for ALVA? What have you got planned that's coming next? It's been a pretty full-on year. Are the webinars going to continue? Are your daily bulletins going to continue for the foreseeable future? Sounds like you might need a little bit of a break at some point.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Well, the daily bulletins will certainly continue because I don't think anything is going to change significantly until September or such. The webinars are coming back. We took a month off from the weekly webinars so we had a webinar every Wednesday from the beginning of January until last month with over 50 case studies from across the UK. I mean, they were all amazing. Absolutely amazing.

Bernard Donoghue: I think, by the way, that it's been through the webinars and also your work as well, that we've got to know what people are doing in a little bit more detail and from unusual suspects in a way that we didn't really before. We always used to rely on big annual conferences to get case studies and stuff. Now we're just full of case studies everywhere. I love that more generous, more open, more accessible, more sharing environment that we now inhabit.

Bernard Donoghue: The webinars are coming back at the end of June. They'll probably be fortnightly and our first webinars will be the latest wave of visitor sentiment research so what are people thinking about now? Are they confident about going back into attractions? Are they confident about social distancing measures and those kinds of things?

Bernard Donoghue: Also, we'll be doing case studies about post-21st of June, how visitor attractions are going to cope with that dilemma about being told, on the one hand, you can open with no restrictions, on the other hand, knowing well, that their visitors require and expect some degree of social distancing and protection of safety measures. How do you balance those two things? Those will be the first two webinars.

Bernard Donoghue: Then beyond that, I suspect global domination. 

Kelly Molson: Of course. It's the obvious next step, isn't it?

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get Napoleonic about it all but I think we could be replicated around the world.

Kelly Molson: Well, actually, on that note, what can people that are listening, what can our listeners do to support ALVA? Bearing in mind that I've had the bombshell that it's just the two of you that are doing all of these things. What can our listeners do to help you back?

Bernard Donoghue: Oh, well, the most useful thing and I've said this a lot, honestly, it's been my complete saviour, is that we wouldn't have been able to achieve things like the reduced rate of VAT for visitor attractions, the continuation of furlough, the construction and the creation of the Cultural Recovery Fund, I mean, all of those critical measures for the tourism sector ... I mean, the tourism sector, by a long country mile, has been the part of the economy that's received the most financial support from the government. 

Bernard Donoghue: I think it's partly because we were hit first, hit hardest, and we'll take the longest to recover but it's also because we've had amazing data. I know data is a bit un-sexy but, honestly, we couldn't have got through the meetings that we've had with treasury and number 10 and DCMS and public health England and the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Ireland governments without the depth of really, really useful data that visitor attractions have been able to provide us, what their percentage of furlough rates are, where they've had to make staff redundancies in what areas, where their visitor numbers have been affected, the difference between the dependence on domestic and inbound tourism, conversion rates in shops, average transaction values.

Bernard Donoghue: All of that kind of stuff has just been bliss to work with because it's really good, really solid, well-evidenced data and as a lobbyist, that's just gold. Keep giving us information, anecdotes, case studies, and experiences as well. Those case studies can often feed through to government ministers in a way that just a raft of figures can't. If you can bring it to life, particularly, in small kind of epithets like sanitise the site, not the visitor experience and you can't furlough a penguin. Really short, understandable, Sesame Street type lobbying, that works.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Keep sharing, keep cooperating, keep helping others, and we'll get through the other side in the best position that we possibly can.

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I'm confident of it. Absolutely confident of it.

Kelly Molson: Good. I'm really glad to hear that. Last question for you, we always end our podcast by asking our guests for a book that they love or a book that's helped shape their career in some way. Can you suggest one for us today?

Bernard Donoghue: Actually, if I'm going to be really, really honest I'm not sure that I'd be in my job today were it not for Lady Bird books, that I had when I was a kid. Everything from Marie Curie to the plant life of Africa through Joan of Arc through to Christopher Columbus. Honestly, those Lady Bird books ignited my curiosity and the more I got, the more I started just reading about heritage and history and sciences and those kinds of things. 

Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I mean, it's not quite Brideshead Revisited but if I was going to be completely honest, it would be the collection of Lady Bird books that my parents got for me from car boot sales and secondhand shops when I was a kid.

Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. I can remember them all lined up on the bookshelf as well with all the different coloured spines. Beautiful. All right. We'll choose one. Let's have a think, off-podcast, and we'll choose one. Then as ever, if you want to win that book when we decide what it is if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with, "I want Bernard's book" then you're going to be in with the chance of winning it.

Bernard Donoghue: Actually, I have got spare copies of the Lady Bird book of London from about 1960. I'm very, very happy to donate it.

Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh. Well, that would be fantastic. If you're happy to do that then all right, listeners, get tweeting and you could be in with the chance of winning. That's a really lovely gift. Thank you. Bernard, I've loved having you on today. Thank you so much. You are our season finale as well because we're going to have a little bit of a break over summer and we're going to come back again in October once all of you listeners will be so busy over summer with plenty to do. You'll have more interesting things to do than listen to this podcast every day. 

Kelly Molson: I'm really delighted that you could be our season finale. Thank you. I know how busy you are and, even more so, having had a chat today. We'll put all of your contact details and everything into the show notes so people can find where you are. If you're not following Bernard on Twitter, then, one, you're a fool and, two, where have you been for the last 15 months? Because, for me, personally, if there's been anything that I've needed to understand about what the sector is going through or go and find, it's either speaking to people on this podcast or it's go and follow ALVA and Bernard on Twitter and I'll always find out the answer to what I want. Thank you for being such constant support and thank you for all of the hard work that you've been putting out there through this pandemic. Really appreciate it.

Bernard Donoghue: Oh, no. It's my pleasure and for those of you who do follow me on Twitter, I can only apologise for my behaviour on Eurovision song contest night. I just got carried away and it was inappropriate.

Kelly Molson: What goes on on Eurovision, stays on Eurovision, Bernard. Don't worry about that.

Bernard Donoghue: 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. 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.

Download your FREE copy here

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.

Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor Numbers

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.

Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson
https://twitter.com/TheChiefCheese

https://www.skipthequeue.fm/
https://twitter.com/Skip_the_Queue

https://www.painshill.co.uk/
https://twitter.com/PGriffiths_PHP

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

In today's episode, everything has been turned on its head. Paul Griffiths, Director of Painshill Park, is interviewing me about what it really takes to launch a podcast, and why we started Skip The Queue in the first place. I think I should probably be worried about the ice breaker questions.

Paul Griffiths: Hello, and welcome to this latest edition of Skip The Queue. And I'm your guest presenter today, Paul Griffiths, and I'm delighted to have a very special guest for you today, Chief Cheese herself, Kelly Molson. Kelly, welcome to Skip The Queue.

Kelly Molson: Thank you for welcoming me to my podcast. 

Paul Griffiths: All right, it's an honour. I know we've been trying to get you on the show for a long time, so it's great to finally get there. Now, we're here today to talk about how you made a podcast, and how you turned Skip The Queue into the ultimate podcast for visitor attractions. But, before we do that, of course, regular listeners will know, we have to start with our ice breaker questions. Kelly, are you ready for some ice breaker questions?

Kelly Molson: No, I don't think I am, if I'm completely honest. I'm starting to feel like this is a big mistake.

Paul Griffiths: No, no. Well just think, all the people you've had on, and all the questions you've asked them...

Kelly Molson: I am.

Paul Griffiths: I think we're going very easy on you like you do for your guests. You hope you'll not get difficult questions. Now Kelly, through the series of podcasts, I think we've all learned little bits about you from various things you've said, or say. So, I've tried to theme these questions slightly on your interests. So, I know you're a big fan of all things '80s, so particularly music. So, I want to know, and our guests want to know, what is your favourite '80s dance floor filler of all time?

Kelly Molson: Oh, okay. Do you know what, so this is really weird because we were just talking about '80s music on our morning catch up with the team. Because one of my team members... So, we've got a password system that we built ourselves, and it's called Kenny Loggins.

Paul Griffiths: Nice.

Kelly Molson: And one of... Yeah, I know, great, right? But one of our team was like, "Who's Kenny Loggins?" I lost my mind. Okay, so I think a great '80s dance floor filler, it's got to be Wham, hasn't it? I feel like something like Club Tropicana.

Paul Griffiths: Nice.

Kelly Molson: Would be a good choice. But I do, on the theme of Kenny Loggins, I do love a bit of Footloose, and I also am a massive Top Gun fan. So, Highway To The Danger Zone. I mean, is there anything more '80s than that?

Paul Griffiths: It's the perfect song, isn't it? The Aviator sunglasses. Funny enough you should mention Club Tropicana, my son Barney, who I think I got mentioned before on Skip The Queue, his class got the '80s as an era for world music decade. Each class got a decade. And they had to vote on what song they wanted to sing and dance to. But Club Tropicana didn't make it. 

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Paul Griffiths: They had Club Tropicana, Madonna's Holiday, or Madness' Our House. And they went for Our House as a class vote.

Kelly Molson: Oh right. I'm disappointed. It's the spirit of the '80s for me.

Paul Griffiths: Absolutely. Okay, now we all know that you are a big Spurs fan, so we're going to give you an option here, you've got to pick one of these two strikers, who is going to play for Spurs forever. But the one you reject is off to play for the Arsenal forever. 

Kelly Molson: Oh.

Paul Griffiths: So, will you take Harry Kane upfront for Spurs forever, or will you an in his prime Gary Lineker to play for Spurs forever? The other's off to The Emirates Stadium. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, God.

Paul Griffiths: Now, I'll give you some help here, maybe. Lineker scored 80 goals in 138 games for the Spurs. Kane's, at the time of recording, 166 goals in 242 games. Obviously, a lot more games played now with European football. But, who are you going to take, and who's off to The Emirates?

Kelly Molson: Oh my God. This is awful. This is a dreadful question if you're a Tottenham fan, because Gary Lineker, Gary Lineker was just, I mean, he was just an absolute hero. Oh, and I can't imagine him. No, God, this is dreadful. I'm going to have to go Lineker. Yeah, no, I'd have to, because I just feel like I couldn't live with watching him on the telly, and him having played for Arsenal. No. I'd have to go for Lineker. I know that doesn't work out in terms of how many goals, and stuff, but...

Paul Griffiths: No, but that ratio [crosstalk 00:04:58].

Kelly Molson: It's from my childhood. Yeah, I couldn't bear that.

Paul Griffiths: Oh, you Gazza as well as a package. He comes with Gazza [inaudible 00:05:07].

Kelly Molson: I wanted to marry Gazza, genuinely, when I was a kid. Gazza was like my... Yeah, I thought I was going to marry Paul Gascoigne. Maybe I had a bit of a lucky escape there, though. 

Paul Griffiths: I was just going say, probably better you didn't [inaudible 00:05:15]. Right, and the other thing we know you love is visitor attractions, especially as you've spent so much time on podcast talking. So, there's some either ors for you here, would you go to, Disney Park, or Merlin Park?

Kelly Molson: Disney.

Paul Griffiths: Museum or stately home? 

Kelly Molson: Stately home because I really like the grounds as well that become part of a... Like that kind of outside space too. So, stately home I think.

Paul Griffiths: Good answer. National Park, or landscape garden.

Kelly Molson: Oh, that would be National Park.

Paul Griffiths: Fair enough.

Kelly Molson: I'm going to feel like I've upset... I'm going to upset someone along the line, aren't I? But how can I not say National Parks?

Paul Griffiths: And that's what ice breakers are all about, but moving on to upsetting people, of course, we have to ask you, what is your unpopular opinion?

Kelly Molson: Right, well I thought about this, and I've got many. I've got one about Lorraine Kelly, but I don't know if I'm prepared to take the backlash for that one yet, so, I might save that for another day. So, I'm going to go... Oh, I've got so many, I'm going to go with afternoon tea is rubbish, absolute rubbish. I don't understand why, when you get to a certain age as a woman, every... I don't know, all of your mates are like, "Hey, let's go out for afternoon tea." Like, "Really?" I'd rather go to the pub. 

Kelly Molson: And, I don't understand what meal afternoon tea actually is, because you always have it at about 3.00 o'clock. So, do you have lunch before you go, because I'd be hungry by 3.00. So do you have lunch, and then you have tea? And then dinner? So you're having an extra meal. And then you never get enough sandwiches. Too much sweet stuff, not enough sandwiches. And you have it with tea. I just don't get it. It's just not for me.

Paul Griffiths: That's a really well thought out answer, Kelly, there. And I have to say, I'm with you on a lot of those points, although, as someone who's selling afternoon teas from this afternoon on, I'm a great fan of course. But ours do come with Prosecco, so maybe that's an added bonus.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I mean... Yeah, if it is a Prosecco based one, it elevates it slightly for me, but I still just... I don't understand the big hoo-ha about an afternoon tea. And I just... The idea of it is actually better than the reality I think. 

Paul Griffiths: I think that's going to be an unpopular opinion that splits a few of our listeners, but I think it's a good answer, and well thought out.

Kelly Molson: Thank you.

Paul Griffiths: It's okay. Thanks for coming to the show.

Kelly Molson: You're very welcome.

Paul Griffiths: No, it's great to have you. You know that we're all great fans of Skip The Queue, and I think we'll talk about it later, you've got an amazing, almost family, of listeners who almost become a little group that talk regularly together, et cetera. And it has been a lifeline for many over the last year, with resource, and with so much great content that's helped so many of us through lockdown, re-opening, sharing... I mean, the amount of times I've been in the car chortling at peoples' experiences because of the laughter of recognition because I've been there myself. 

Paul Griffiths: Now I think we want to know a little about how you set up the podcast, and I thought it would be really useful to start with because, over the podcast, we've learned a lot about you as well. But I thought it would great if you told us a bit about how you became chief cheese, and how you set up Rubber Cheese, why you got the name. I know you did tell us on another podcast, but people might not have listened to our American friends. So, just chat a bit about the background before we go into podcasting.

Kelly Molson: Gosh. So, Rubber Cheese has been around for 18 years now, which is... It is the longest job that I've ever had in my entire life. I met my co-founder, Paul, when we were working at an internet company. So it was like... It was the first foray into people being able to build their own e-commerce stores. You know you've got Shopify now, where you can go on and load your own store. So, about 20 years ago, there was a version of that called iShop which is still around now. And Paul and I met working there. And I think there was just something. We just always wanted to do something for ourselves. So I think I worked there for a couple of years, got a bit of a taste for web stuff. I was a graphic designer previously to that. I used to design branding, and brochures, and marketing materials, all kinds of stuff, and packaging as well.

Kelly Molson: And so, yeah, we were 24, and 25, and we just thought, "Hey, let's leave our jobs, and go and set up an agency, right? What could be difficult about that?" 

Paul Griffiths: What could go wrong?

Kelly Molson: What could go wrong? And lots went wrong. But no, actually, it was great. It was... Look we didn't really have a huge amount of ties at that point, so it was like, "Let's just give this a go, and see what happens after a year." And about two months in, we won a really big contract with Tescos, via a friend of mine who I had recently reconnected with on Friends Reunited, which is really ageing me. 

Paul Griffiths: Yeah, we are ageing ourselves there, for both doing that one, yeah.

Kelly Molson: Massively. And just... It started there really, so we won this big contract with Tescos, it was a two-year contract, it put us in a really great position of then being able to go, "Okay, well great, our rent's paid." And we could then start to look at clients that we were working with, and just grew quite organically. It was just the two of us for five years. And then we took on our first full-time employee, who... She came in as a designer. So she took my design role, and then that was at the point where I became Chief Cheese. So I then had to stop learning about design, so to speak, and start learning a lot about spreadsheets, and pipelines, and sales forecasts, and all the stuff that was really hugely complicated to my creative brain. 

Kelly Molson: And it's just gone from strength to strength really. So we've been really, incredibly lucky. I mean, there's seven of us. We're not a huge, huge agency, but we work with global brands, and I just think we've been so incredibly fortunate over the years to work with some amazing clients. 

Kelly Molson: And the last six, seven years, a lot of them have been within the tourism attractions sector, which is where we end up today.

Paul Griffiths: What about the name, how did you come up with Rubber Cheese, because it is fabulous?

Kelly Molson: Thank you. I really want to tell you that there's an amazing story behind it, but it's so dull. So Paul and I were, again, this is nearly 20 years ago, we were teaching ourselves to use Flash animation, which was all the rage back then. And we needed a website where we could upload stuff, and test it out, and see if it was working. And Paul was like, "Oh, we'll buy a domain. Rubber Cheese, that'll do." So we just bought this domain, and then when we left the company, we said, "Well, we'll take that domain with us, we'll buy it, and take it with us." 

Kelly Molson: And that was it. There was no... It was just, "Okay, well great, we've got this ridiculous name, that will draw some attention, won't it?" So, I'd love to say from a branding perspective, you should really think about your name, and what that means. But we didn't do any of that whatsoever. It just became this odd name. But it was quite... It was quite funny because when we'd start to go networking events, or even just a bank to pay in a cheque, how retro is that? You'd get asked, "What is Rubber Cheese?" And you'd end up having these great conversations with people about what it was. Sometimes I'd go to a networking event and people would go, "We've been waiting for you to turn up, because we really wanted to know what Rubber Cheese is." And it was like, "Oh, this works in a way." Because people want to talk to you and find out a little bit more. I think we did... We might have thought about changing the name at one point, but it's there to stay.

Paul Griffiths: Perfect. And then now, she's been chief cheese, what more could you want?

Kelly Molson: Exactly.

Paul Griffiths: So, from Rubber Cheese, and obviously you've said, in the last six, seven years you've been focusing... Well, not focusing, but doing a lot of visitor attractions, talk a little bit about how you set up Skip The Queue, and what made you do that and why, if you're working in a number of sectors, you thought actually tourism, we'll focus on visitor attractions.

Kelly Molson: So we have worked in lots of different sectors over the years. We've been really lucky. But what happened is, we started working so... I mentioned a global client earlier, we've been working with Pernod Ricard for, probably about 10 years, in various forms. And probably, it must have been about five or six years ago, that we started talking to them about the Plymouth Gin Distillery Visitors' Center, a fabulous place. And we were contracted to build a platform for them, which was a ticket booking platform. And what was really great about that project is, it was our first foray into understanding the visitor experience, and the experience economy, and a tourist attraction, and a visitor attraction, and what challenges they had. And it was the best project. Everybody loved working on this project. And it was such a good learning experience for us, and so that worked really well for them. 

Kelly Molson: They then rolled it out to the Beefeater Distillery, and then we've been working it again with four of the Whiskey Distilleries up in Scotland as well. And so, over those three years, four years that we've worked with them, we've just built up this huge amount of knowledge about what they were doing, and their challenges, and how we could make things work better for them, which then led to winning other projects in that sector. So, it was fabulous that we worked with Eureka, The National Children's Museum, who are just wonderful. If you haven't been there, please go. Find a child to take so that you can go. It's definitely, it's worth it, you know.

Paul Griffiths: Brilliant. One of your podcasts with you a few episodes ago and listen to a chat about the new Eureka, that's really inspiring. I think everyone then was like, "I want to go, I want to go." 

Kelly Molson: Oh definitely. Yeah. And the new centre is going to be incredible, I cannot wait for next year when that opens.

Paul Griffiths: We'll go with our Crocs and socks on. 

Kelly Molson: Oh, Michelle. Michelle. No Crocs and socks. Please don't do that. So yeah. It came from there really, and I think what was interesting is that all of the team are very much... We're all people that spend our money on doing things, rather than buying stuff if that makes sense. 

Paul Griffiths: Yeah, it does.

Kelly Molson: We want to spend our money on things that make memories, so we love to travel, Lee and I, we travel a lot. We like to go to different places, we like to... Even like Christmas presents, we don't really buy each other stuff, we'll go, "Okay, well, why don't we go to the theatre, or why don't we go and..." That's what we would rather do with the money that we have. And we just spoke to the team, and said, "Look, we've never done this before, but we'd really like to focus all of our attention on one sector, what do you think?" And everyone was up for it. Everyone was behind it. And that's really where the idea came from because although we'd been working in that sector, we didn't know enough, it wasn't broad enough for us. So the podcast was a way for us to learn more from people. 

Paul Griffiths: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: And so that's how we came up with the idea of starting it.

Paul Griffiths: I should have said earlier actually, I must say thank you to a number of regular listeners who have emailed in or LinkedIn or Twitter with questions. And lots of these, I hope I'm covering in the next bit of the show. And a number of questions that people have sent in. And a lot of people are interested, Kelly, to know how you initially set this up from a brainwave of, "Let's do a podcast." To recording and turning Skip The Queue into what it is. But how did you start up in that sense?

Kelly Molson: So, I guess there are quite a few facets to it really because you have to think about why you're doing it in the first place. So that for me is the first starting point. It's like, "Why are you doing it?" So, what are your objectives with the podcast, and ours was really... It was initially about education. We wanted to understand about the sector, understand about people's individual challenges, what the sector was going through. Good things, bad things. 

Kelly Molson: We wanted to meet people in the sector, so again, we wanted to expand our network. We really wanted to create a platform where we celebrated the people that worked in attractions as well, because we thought that was really important. There's a lot of things that happen behind the scenes in attractions that you don't realise when you visit them. And even the people that you're talking to front of house, you don't realise the kind of pressures that they're under, or you're sometimes not aware of the service that they're delivering you. So it was like, "Well, why don't we celebrate that?" And then, ultimately, it was a way of raising our profile in the sector as well. 

Kelly Molson: So from a marketing perspective, a podcast is a really great thing to have, because it can position you right in the centre of that industry that you want to be part of. So that was a big part of it. And then, we had to look at how we were going to do this. And what skills did we have internally to be able to set up a podcast? And so, I think Paul and I were like, "Okay, well we can host." I do a lot of public speaking for the agency anyway, so I was quite comfortable talking, although a podcast is very different from standing up in front of hundreds of people at an event. It's... In some ways, it's more uncomfortable, but I'll tell you why it started off being a bit more uncomfortable. And then you have to think about what format your podcast is going to be. 

Kelly Molson: So, is it going to be you just delivering your knowledge, or are you going to try and get guests in? What are those topics going to be? What are you going to talk about? How are you going to find the guests that you want to come on? Are they going to say, "Yes?" Is anyone going to say, "Yes," they want to come on this podcast, I don't know. What kind of content is there going to be? And then you have to really think about where your audience is because anyone can set up a podcast but not everyone is going to find it, and listen to it. So you have to think about, "Is there an element of community building that you need to do around this podcast as well?" Where you promote it, and how you get that out to the right people. And then, once you've done all of that, you have to think about, "Okay, well, who's going to edit this podcast? How are we going to actually make it a thing?" I can sit and record something. 

Kelly Molson: None of us internally had any podcast editing skills, and we made the decision really early, that nobody was going to learn that. It was going to be too much of a time drain for us. So we were going to outsource that element, so we work with Steve Folland, who is super. We knew Steve, he works and is based locally to where our office is. But he works on some really awesome podcasts. And he actually has his own podcast, Doing It For The Kids. He's got a really great podcast for the freelance community as well. And then it's down to, where are you going to host the podcast, you need some kind of platform to host it on? What are you going to record it on? And how are you going to promote it? So, we talked about building a community. If you're going to promote a podcast, you need things like graphics created. Are you going to have our podcast transcribed? That was really important to us. 

Kelly Molson: We wanted to make the podcast as accessible as possible to everyone, so not everyone can listen to a podcast. So we make sure that it's transcribed, so you need to have that done so that people can read the podcast if they want to. So there is a huge amount of things to decide on before you go, "Right, let's do it."

Paul Griffiths: It's interesting. Lots of the points you've touched on, I'd like to delve into a bit more in detail, if we can, over the next few questions. A lot of people... One of the things that came up a lot when we put a plea out for questions, and what people want to know was costs. Because you just described things that people aren't doing free of charge. And I wondered if you could give an idea of what it costs to do an episode, or what it costs to set up, or whatever figures you're happy to give. It's just, I think a lot of people would be interested to know what sort of budgets they would need if they're looking to set up a podcast.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, totally. So, I've thought about this in quite great detail. So because we knew initially we were not going to edit, we didn't have to buy any editing equipment. So I'm really sorry I can't answer any questions about that because genuinely, the best thing that we ever did was hire Steve to do the editing. He's a specialist. He makes everything sound brilliant. He even makes me sound funny sometimes. But what we did purchase were things like a really good microphone. So this is my microphone. A blue yeti microphone. Which was about £120, £150, somewhere around that. But that's a really great investment. It was a bit of trial and error actually, we bought other microphones that weren't that great, and ended up going back, but this has been the best one that we've bought. You need good headphones. These are average headphones. My good headphones I actually left at the office, and I haven't been back there for a while. So a good pair of headphones, noise cancelling ones are normally quite good. I don't know, 30, 40 quid for a pair like that. You could go higher if you want, but something around that price bracket would be fine. Editing an episode is an interesting one. You can hear my little dog barking in the background. Steve will edit her out.

Paul Griffiths: Oh really?

Kelly Molson: He'll work his magic somehow. You probably won't be able to hear her. But that for us is worth the weight in gold. So...

Paul Griffiths: Desperate to be on the show, isn't she?

Kelly Molson: She's such a drama queen. She's just... She craves attention. I mean, I wonder where she gets that from?

Paul Griffiths: Ooh.

Kelly Molson: But then you need to think about your site hosting. So we host our podcast on a platform called Simple Cast. That's about £15 per month. We record through Zoom. And Steve curses me for recording through Zoom because the sound quality is not great. We used to record through a platform called Zencaster, which again, is a cloud-based platform. It's about £15 a month. Now, the reason we stopped recording through Zencaster is, it became a bit complex for the guests, and sometimes some of the guests didn't really understand what they need to do, even if I'd sent instructions. People are really busy. They don't always read the things that they need to before they come on, which is understandable. Zoom, everyone was really comfortable using, because they were using it every day for all of their meetings. So it just became easier for us to do Zoom. So we've got a pro Zoom account. But obviously, we use that for other things as well, so I don't really tie that into podcast costs. But then you need to think about who's going to create your promotion graphics for this. We're lucky, we've got in-house designers. 

Kelly Molson: We've got an amazing VA who supports me hugely with our podcasts. So we've got templates set up, she will then create all of the podcast graphics from the templates that we've already got in place, but that is potentially a cost that someone needs to think about.

Paul Griffiths: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: Then I said we get it transcribed, each episode. It's roughly about $40 to get it transcribed. So there are lots of little things that you don't think about, that you need to think about in advance. We also run a competition. So there is a cost to that in the fact that you have to purchase the books that people recommend, sometimes they recommend two or three when I ask for one. And then that puts my budget up. And then the postage for that, and things like that. So I think we worked it out that the podcast probably costs about five, to six grand a year.

Paul Griffiths: Oh. 

Kelly Molson: Which isn't a huge amount if you've got... It depends on what your marketing budget is, but it also then depends on what the returns, or what your expected returns are for that podcast, and for that amount.

Paul Griffiths: Yeah. 

Kelly Molson: So you have to work out... And that takes you back to why are you doing this in the first place? And is this a worthwhile investment for you?

Paul Griffiths: I think that that would be one of my later questions actually. Thank you for that Kelly, that's really honest, and I think that's really useful for people. Because I think that's one of the things that a lot of people, me included, probably felt that you go on Zoom, you record speaking to someone, bang, it's up live. But actually, there's so much more work behind it which is just quite frightening.

Paul Griffiths: You obviously manage to attract brilliant guests, and I think they get better and better all the time, but how did you go about... Well, firstly can you tell us about how you got the initial guest, because you had no podcast, you were starting up. You had to invite 10 people on, and you had some fabulous people in those early days, real industry leaders coming on the show. And then, how do you now go about getting guests and picking topics, and thinking about what people might want to hear about?

Kelly Molson: Yeah, so it was really difficult to get guests when we first started because you haven't got anything to show them. You've no proof of concept, you're just getting in touch with people and saying, "Hey, we've started this podcast, it's about this subject, we'd really love you to come on and talk to us, how do you feel about it?" And we would get emails back from people, and they'd be like, "Well, can you send us an episode? What is it? How many listeners have you got? How long..." We were like, "Well, zero listeners at this moment in time. Hey, we're listening." So, it was quite tricky. We lucked out a little bit, I'm not going to lie. So we had the CEO of Paradise Wildlife Park come on. Which, for us, was quite a big coup, because they're quite local to where we are, but the luck that we had is, one of our team members was actually related to her. So we had a little bit of an ins there already.

Kelly Molson: And then I think some of the others we, again, it was just... We maybe just got them at the right time. They had something that they wanted to talk about, that they were quite keen to get out in the world. And then, actually, it was a case of, I stalked people a little bit. So, I went to the visitor attractions conference at the end of 2018, or no, it was in 2019. So, I'd been stalking people that had spoken at the attractions conference previously, and saying, "Oh, I really loved your talk, it was really interesting, I wondered if you could come on and talk about the same thing on our podcast?" And that's how I got a few of the early, of the second series people, come on. 

Kelly Molson: So Jules Ozbek, who I think is fantastic, I heard her speak at the Visitor Attractions Conference at the end of 2019, and then I... I basically just stalked her a little bit on LinkedIn and asked her really kindly if she would come on the podcast, which she agreed to. And also Abigail Olive, as well, who was awesome, from Castle Howard. Her story about... She shared the love story.

Paul Griffiths: Yes.

Kelly Molson: You must go back and listen to this episode because it's a brilliant story. But it was about how they... There's a wonderful love story that had happened that then brought them all of these incredible Chinese tourists to the place. And she was fabulous. And I think once people hear the calibre of guests that you can get, it sort of spirals a little bit from then.

Kelly Molson: But those first ones were... It was really, really tough. And I just think you've just got to keep ploughing on, and asking people. People will say no, but don't be offended by that. Some of the people that have said no, would probably say yes now if I went back because I can showcase what we've done, and who's been on.

Paul Griffiths: And so, how about now Kelly, do you have a long waiting list of guests lined up, you plan your series, don't you? So, are you finding it easier to get guests now, how do you go about it now, now you're that you're already onto this podcast?

Kelly Molson: So, I still stalk people, if I'm honest. So, what I think, what's great is that the guests we've had on... There is something really lovely about the attractions sector, in that, there is a community there already.

Paul Griffiths: Mm-hmm (affirmative). Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And what is wonderful is that we've had guests on, that I've then been able to say, "Who do you think that we should have on? Who do you think has got a really interesting story?" And I can remember doing this with Carly Straughan, and Johnny Lyle as well, both of them. I had really good chats with them after their episodes. And said, "Could you recommend some people that you think that would be really great for us?" And they're so well connected, and they know everybody in the industry, and they were like, "Yeah." And they sent me lists of people. They were like, "You need to speak to this person, this person would be great." And so, that's how it spiralled. But because they knew them, obviously those guests come on, and then they knew more people and more people. So, that's one of the best ways, is like saying to your guests, "Who do you think should come on and talk about this? Because you know the industry better than we do right now." 

Kelly Molson: And then I do stalk people. I go on to Twitter, and like I said, there is quite an active attractions community on Twitter.

Kelly Molson: And I see who people are talking to, or I see Blooloop is a fantastic resource, Attractions Magazine is another great resource. I see stories that come up in there, and I think, "Wow, that would make a great podcast episode, let's talk to them." So I've got my eye on the Black County Living Museum at the moment. So, I'm doing a little bit of stalking at the moment, because I'd love them to come on and talk about their Tik Tok fame.

Kelly Molson: And so, stuff like that happens where you see what's going on, and you think, "Great, they would be awesome. And then you just reach out to them." But you do... I do get people to email us. Not very often actually, but occasionally people email us and say, "I think this person would make a great guest on the podcast, or we've got this thing that we'd love to talk about." I have to be really conscious that there are sometimes will contact that... I don't want the podcast ever to be salesy.

Paul Griffiths: Right yeah.

Kelly Molson: For me, it is an education piece, and it's really important that it stays an education piece, so I'll try to get that balance right between the kind of people that do come on, and what they're talking about and those topics. So, sometimes people will say, "I've got this thing that I've launched, and I want to come and talk about." And I don't know that that's a good fit for the audience at that point. So...

Paul Griffiths: Fab. And what about the promotion of a podcast, from the early days of getting it known, I guess was word of mouth. And now, how do you promote it? How do you keep gaining more listeners, and how have you got your success?

Kelly Molson: Well, it's lovely that you think it's successful. It is interesting because I think that success is really subjective. So, again, it goes back to your objectives, and what you are trying to achieve from it. Because our top one was always about education, we weren't that focused on what the numbers were. So, people are, "Oh, how many downloads do you get?" It's not really that relevant to us because that's not what we were... We weren't aiming to be number one in the podcast charts. So, the way that we've promoted it is by understanding where the community is. So, where do the people that would be our listeners hang out, and it's mostly Twitter. 

Kelly Molson: It's a very active community on Twitter, so that's really where we do most of our promotion. So we've got a Twitter account, specifically for Skip The Queue. We will post out on there when the new episodes are coming, and we'll make graphics and snippets, and we'll do as much as we can to promote the guest.

Kelly Molson: It's actually probably more about promoting the guest than it is about promoting the podcast if that makes sense? So we really try to highlight those people and raise them up. And what's great is that so many people then help us spread the word. So, the best people to share, and promote the podcasts, are the guests that come on. And we've been really lucky that we've had great guests that have wanted to do that. We've had other great guests that have come on, and that's it. They've come on, they've done the podcast, they've shared their knowledge, we don't hear from them again. They're not, they haven't shared any of the Tweets, or any of the posts. And that's fine. If that's not their bag. But then, you do get a huge proportion of people that really want to. They're really proud of the fact that they've been on. They want to share what they've done with other people. And that's really where you see the numbers start to grow, and the interaction happen. We've got some really incredible loyal fan base.

Kelly Molson: You are one of them Paul. You're always super generous with sharing what you think about the podcast, or what you've learned from it. And Mark Ellis does as well, from the National Arboretum. And that's how you spread the word. There are other things that you can do, which we haven't done as actively as we could. But things like going on other people's podcasts is a really good way of promoting your own podcast.

Paul Griffiths: Right.

Kelly Molson: And I was very kindly invited on the Attraction Pros podcast, which is our... It's the US equivalent. Josh and Matt who run that are fabulous. And honestly, all of our listeners should subscribe to that if you're not already because they get some really interesting guests on there, and they ask great questions as well. So that was a really lovely opportunity for us to cross-promote. And Matt and Josh have both been back on our podcast as well. So hopefully, that's helped and crossed the big pond. 

Kelly Molson: Sometimes it is also about getting a big name to come on the podcast too. And that drives up your listeners because they... So I reached out, oh God, I was so nervous about doing this. So I asked the ex VP of Disney if he would come on the podcast. And I was terrified. I sent this email on LinkedIn thinking, "He's never going to reply to me." And honestly, five minutes later he emailed back, and was like, "Yeah, I'll come on." "Oh God, now I've got to actually interview him." I was so nervous. But that was incredible, the value that that gave to the podcast, and how it was able to position it. After that, no one said no to coming on the podcast since that point so...

Paul Griffiths: Lee Cockerell and you really are hard-hitting, aren't you? And of course, I think from his perspective, I guess because he's got a brilliant weekly podcast. Dan's got a brilliant weekly podcast. So they are, as you said, going on other people's podcast as a guest is a great way. And you said, was a brilliant episode of you on Attractions Pro, as was then, Matt and Josh came on yours. You talk about not worrying about the stats. Is there a little bit of you Kelly, that thinks it's like Top of The Pops, back in the old days, and you're wanting to see where you are on that list, and seeing how many people are listening, I know I would?

Kelly Molson: I don't check it very frequently. I'll be completely honest.

Paul Griffiths: Really.

Kelly Molson: No, I don't check it very frequently. I started to do a top three on Twitter. Like the top three downloaded episodes, because I thought that would be interesting for listeners to know. But I did check it before we recorded this because I knew you were going to ask, so the most downloaded episode at the moment is The Making Of Harry Potter.

Paul Griffiths: Oh yeah. It was a-

Kelly Molson: With Geoff Spooner So, that was a great episode. And that, at the moment is on about 270 downloads. So, that's like 270 individual brand new downloads. And at the minute I think we're just about to hit 6,000 downloads in total. I don't really even know what that means though. So, again, I'm just not that bothered about it. It is a niche podcast. It's not for everybody.

Paul Griffiths: No.

Kelly Molson: And it was never made to be for everybody as well. So, I just think, for me, the numbers don't really matter that much.

Paul Griffiths: Good answer. Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? And I suppose for you it's a quality, not quantity because you're getting some people who are in that business, and going back to your original objectives, might well want to work with a digital agency, and you guys are therefore on the tips of everyone's tongues I guess, which is achieving your objective.

Kelly Molson: Hopefully, yes. If it's achieving one of the objectives, that would be wonderful.

Paul Griffiths: Yeah. Absolutely. The next question was all about the tech side, and I think you've already talked about a lot of things like the equipment you need, but also... So, when you're planning your episodes, so your guest has agreed to come on. You've contacted them, and stalked them through various social medias, they know they're being followed, and it's like, "Better say yes, otherwise Kelly is never going to leave me alone." Tell me a bit about what you do after that to prepare your guests, or to plan the episode. 

Kelly Molson: So, a lot of the time I will have invited that guest on for a specific reason. So, there will have been something that I've seen, that they've been talking about, that I'll think, "That would be really great to understand a bit more about that, and I think our listeners would like that as well." So, that's normally how it starts. Sometimes we have a pre podcast chat, so it might just be a five or 10-minute chat about what we're going to talk about. Sometimes it might just be, I'll email over and say, "Look, I heard you speak about this topic, I think it would be great to come on to the podcast, how do you fancy it?" If they say yes, then I work out a few pre questions. So, I don't like it to be super structured, I mean, obviously, there is a structure to the podcast. 

Kelly Molson: You all know that there's ice breaker questions coming. You know that I'm going to ask for an unpopular opinion. But the rest of the podcast is... I try to structure it in a way where there's three or four key questions that I really want to understand, but the rest of it is quite conversational, so it can go off on a bit of a tangent, and sometimes that's a bit more relaxed for the guest. But also, some guests, they like to know what we're going to be talking about, and what they're going to be asked. So, by giving them three or four questions that structure the topic of that conversation, it makes them feel a bit more at ease because they know what to expect. So that's what I do. I just... And then there'll be other times where I just think, "This person's really great, and they would make a really great guest. I think they'd be a great guest." But I might not have seen anything that I think they've been showcasing, or they've been talking about. 

Kelly Molson: So then we'll have a chat and say, "What could you share with the listeners?" What would you think would be relevant for them right now? Have you been through anything recently that's been a learning curve for you? Have you had any challenges that you're happy to come on and talk about?" Or, "Is something really exciting just about to happen that you think our listeners would be really interested in understanding more about why that's happened?" So it's a bit of a mixture.

Paul Griffiths: Brilliant. So, I'm sure some of our listeners today have been listening in because they are thinking about starting a podcast, or they've... And I think it's been really great, Kelly, you've been so honest. Because I think it isn't an easy process it seems. There's a lot of work involved in it. I think it's great that people know that. But if people were thinking of starting a podcast, what are your key tips, or advice you'd give them?

Kelly Molson: So I think that it's going back to what we talked about initially, so it's, "Why are you doing this in the first place? What are your objectives for starting a podcast?" And they're going to be very different, depending on what you do as an organisation, whether you're a supplier to the industry, whether you are the National Football Museum, for example, came on. And they talked a lot about why they started their podcast. 

Paul Griffiths: Yes of course.

Kelly Molson: And a lot of that was to facilitate the fact that they weren't open, they'd got all of these fantastic artefacts, shirts, all of those things that they could talk about, and have conversations about. And they've got a lot of content already that they knew that they could do something with. So the podcast seemed like a natural way of getting that out to the public when they couldn't visit the centre. So, go right back, and think about what it is that you want to achieve by setting up this podcast. 

Kelly Molson: And that might education, it might be getting something out to the world that you've got to share. It might be... It genuinely might just be, you're an agency and you want to position yourselves in a certain sector. There's other agencies that we know have podcasts who work in the tech sector, for instance. So they focus on having tech guests, and those kinds of conversations. And then you really need to think about where your audience is, because I don't think it's enough to just have a podcast. You really want to be building some kind of community around that podcast. Or it's just output all the time. There's no engagement. There's no... It doesn't go to a deeper level. We've had so many incredible guests on there now. And a lot of those guests have turned into people that I can just call on about stuff. Or I can email and say, "How about this?" Or, "Oh, I saw this thing that I think that you'd really love. Here you go"

Kelly Molson: And I like that. I think that there's a real positive energy to that. So, really think about what your objectives are? Who your audience is? Where they are? What do they want? What does your audience want to listen to? What is going to be relevant to them right now? We launched Skip The Queue in the middle of 2019, which was very different to the middle of 2020. And so, when we brought it back in 2020, for us, it was all about, "Okay, maybe COVID situation has given us a little bit of an opportunity here, because our audience is going to be, probably, far more engaged this year than they would last year. They've got a lot of time on their hands, sadly, with venues being closed and people on furlough. What would help them right now? What would be useful to them right now?"

Kelly Molson: And so, we pitched it as, "Let's get people on that can share their experiences of how this has impacted them, what they're doing to plan for re-opening. What things are they thinking about past COVID? How has this changed what their marketing plans might look like? How has this changed their digital strategy, and what that might look like?" 

Kelly Molson: So, really, really think about what's relevant to the audience that you're trying to get in front of, at that time. Yeah, I think they're my top tips.

Paul Griffiths: You've mentioned objectives quite a bit, Kelly, which is fascinating during this. And do you feel, when you sit back or look back at why you started it out, you've ticked those objectives? I mean, it sounds like you have, but do you feel that you have?

Kelly Molson: Yeah, I do. And I feel really proud of what we've achieved actually. I think that I've always been quite honest and said that I think that actually, the podcast was the thing that got me through last year, because although we work in the sector, we were very fortunate to be relatively busy last year as a digital agency, because of the situation, and people having to pivot, and make those changes. But it was still really, really tough, and for me, being able to speak to someone new and really interesting every week, or every couple of weeks, that could come on the podcast, was just a bit of lifesaver really. It really helped me. But yeah. In terms of the objectives, has it ticked all the boxes? I mean, absolutely. I mean, what we know now about the sector, and what we know about the people in it, and the network that we have in it, is phenomenal. I couldn't have asked for more from it. 

Kelly Molson: And it has really brought some really interesting things. So, for example, I talked about going on the Attractions Pro's podcast. Because of our podcast, we've been asked to go on to other people's podcast. And that's helped promote our services. And our services, and what we do isn't really what we talk about on the podcast that much. So, that's been really nice. We've been asked to speak at webinars. We were always going to exhibit at the Visitor Attractions conference last year, which we did. But I think the fact that we had the podcast helped me then get a speaker slot at that as well, because they could hear that I was, maybe not a bumbling idiot. 

Kelly Molson: I don't know? So, maybe that bolstered my chance of getting a speaker slot. And we've been asked to contribute to publications, we, like I said, we've got an amazing network, we've built up all of these fantastic connections and community. But actually, it has brought leads as well. It has brought us leads and things into the business, where people have said, "Well, I was looking for an agency and found you, but then I heard the podcast as well." And so it reinforces your understanding of the sector, which I think makes people feel more trustworthy towards you. And more confident that you know... You'll understand what's important to them in their challenges.

Paul Griffiths: Yeah. No, I think it's really done that. And moving forward, obviously, the last year has been successful, as we've said earlier, some amazing guests. What do you see... How do you take it forward? How do you take Skip The Queue forward, is it more of the same, or do you branch off into different things? Or what do you do next?

Kelly Molson: That's a really good question. So, there's lots of things that I've been thinking about doing. We are going to have a little bit of a Summer break.

Paul Griffiths: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And we're going to come back in October. So, just because we've been doing this continuously for a whole year now. And it wasn't what I expected. I always thought we'd do... I thought we'd make it very seasonal. So we'd do eight or 10 episodes, and then have a break, and then do more. But I loved it so much last year, and genuinely it was keeping my spirits up, I said to Paul, "I'm just going to carry on. I'm just going to keep going through." But it is definitely time for a little bit of a rest while all you guys open up this Summer, and go crazy with all the visitors that are going to come. I might just put my feet up for a little while.

Kelly Molson: I definitely want to do some panel events. There's some things that Hannah and I, Hannah Monteverde from BeWILDerwood, spoke about. About women in the sector, which I think would be really interesting. 

Paul Griffiths: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And I'd like to get more... I'd like to do more panel events in terms of hot topics in the sector as well. And so, have three or four panellists that come on and talk about things. I really would like to do an event. I would love to do some kind of Skip The Queue event. I don't know what that would be, whether it would be like a little mini-conference or a live podcast event. I think live podcast... Steve would probably go insane listening to this, and go, "No, don't do it." But I think I would really like to do something where we get everybody together because it has really felt like a bit of a community effort where people have got behind us.

Paul Griffiths: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: And it would be really nice to put something on when we've got everyone together when we're able to do. So, I've got something like that ticking around in my head. Definitely more of the same as well. If that's what everyone wants to hear. But I take this opportunity to ask, what would our listeners want? If you're happy with the way it's going, great. We'll do more of that. If there are extra things that you'd love us to do, or you think would be really interesting, then email me at [email protected]. Don't be shy.

Paul Griffiths: Brilliant. Kelly, thank you so much for sharing everything with us today, but more importantly, thank you for everything you've done in the last year. These podcasts have been a lifeline for so many of us. We've all loved listening, and you've built up this family of regular listeners who comment all the time. And I know people look forward to it, and can't wait to download and listen. And you see that now, how quickly are responding to your episodes, and we've commented on it. But I know, from what you've told us today, you've really got into just how much work it is. So, on behalf of everyone, all the listeners, thank you so much.

Paul Griffiths: But we can't finish, of course, without a book recommendation, and I hope you've got several. So you have to drive your marketing budget through the roof, so, Kelly, I want to know a book that you would recommend, and our listeners can get by re-Tweeting this episode, and saying, "I want Kelly's book." On Twitter. So, what is your book recommendation? 

Kelly Molson: So, this is the book that I have probably recommended the most throughout my career. And I read it about a year into having set up Rubber Cheese, well maybe about six to eight months into setting up Rubber Cheese, because somebody said to me, "Oh you need to get out, and you need to start networking." And I was like, "What the hell is that then? I don't know. What is networking? What do you do?" And they said, "Oh you go to meetings, and you meet loads of interesting people, and you just talk to them." And I was like, "All right." I was 25. I was like, "Okay, that sounds weird, but I'll do it." But somebody recommended Dale Carnegie's How To Win Friends And Influence People.

Paul Griffiths: Really?

Kelly Molson: And it is a really old book, but it is genuinely the book that I credit with changing my whole perspective about how to listen to people. About how to have really good conversations. And ultimately, it is the book that I've given out the most to people. So, I think a really lovely girl that I know, I was mentoring her for a little while a couple of years ago, and that was the first book that I sent her. And said, "Have a read of this, I think you'll really enjoy it." And it's just the one book that I've sent out religiously to people. I've made Lee read when he started his photography business. Because I just think there's something about it that just makes you really understand that it is about the other person, more than it is about you.

Paul Griffiths: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Kelly Molson: And I think when you're younger, you maybe... Well, me personally, when I was younger, maybe didn't really understand that fully, about how to listen to people, and understand what was important to them, and letting them speak. So, that would be my recommendation.

Paul Griffiths: Well, thank you. And as I said, if you want that book, re-Tweet this episode link, and put, "I want Kelly's book." And Kelly will send you a copy if you're the winner. 

Kelly Molson: I will.

Paul Griffiths: If you're the one lucky winner, I should say. She won't send them out to everyone, because Kelly's budget doesn't stretch that far. Well, Kelly, thank you so much for coming on Skip The Queue, it's been so insightful, so brilliant. And thank you for coming on.

Kelly Molson: Oh, you're welcome. I really enjoyed this Paul. So thank you for being a fabulous interviewer today.

Paul Griffiths: You're very kind. 

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 August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.

Show references:

www.thenma.org.uk

www.twitter.com/mj_ellis

www.linkedin.com/in/markjellis

https://thenma.org.uk/about-us/news/arboretum-app-launch

https://thenma.org.uk/visit-us/what's-here/the-memorials/memorial-woodland

Mark Ellis is the Head of Visitor Experience at the National Memorial Arboretum, in Staffordshire, the UK’s year-round centre of remembrance. He is responsible for the overall visitor experience, including commercial operations and overseeing the 150-acre site’s diverse events programme; frequently over 250 Remembrance Events each year. In the five years since he joined the Arboretum team, he has helped deliver a wide range of new events, activities and commercial opportunities including an immersive World War 1 Trench installation, Summer Proms, an Illuminated Arboretum light trail, and a range of activities to help visitors learn more about the stories behind the memorials.

In 2018, the Arboretum opened Aspects, a state-of-the-art events and conference facility. Mark was the client lead from initial concept through to completion and was proud to be part of the team that delivered the project on time and to budget. Aspects complements the award-winning Remembrance Centre at the entrance to the site and has provided a fitting venue for high-profile remembrance events as well as creating a new income stream through corporate hire.

Mark has operated across the charity, public and private sectors in several senior roles, consistently demonstrating his ability to deliver great visitor experiences and commercial success in a way that supports the core objectives of an organisation.

Outside of work Mark is an experienced Scout leader and enjoys the opportunities that this provides to take part in a range of outdoor activities and adventures. He has worked on international scout camps in the UK and overseas and believes that no food is finer than that cooked on a stick over the embers of a real fire.

Transcription:

Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. These chats are fun, informative, and, hopefully, always interesting.

In todays episode I speak with Mark Ellis, Head of Visitor Experience at The National Memorial Arboretum.

We discuss their brand new augmented reality experience, tips for other attractions thinking about investing in new technology, and the Memorial Woodland being created in partnership with The National Forest to commemorate all the lives lost during the pandemic.

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

Kelly Molson: Good morning, Mark. It is absolutely lovely to speak to you for the first time today. I feel like we've chatted a lot on Twitter, but this is our first...

Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it feels like your voice is very familiar, and likewise feels like we've chatted a lot. It's a delight to be here, thanks for asking.

Kelly Molson: You are very welcome. Before we start, I would like to say a very public thank you to you, Mark, because I think that you are one of our most engaged listeners, and that really means a lot to us. I think every episode that we've put out you always go to a lot of effort to tweet about it and say what you liked about it. And, you tag people in on our Twitter account who you think that might be really interested in listening to it, and I'm really, really grateful to that. So, thank you.

Mark Ellis: Thanks, Kelly. Maybe I'm just a frustrated marketeer at heart. 

Kelly Molson: Maybe. But, I'm going to take it that you're a Skip the Queue podcast supporter.

Mark Ellis: I am. It's a fabulous podcast. It's helped and inspired us a lot because it's over the last 12 months. I only retweet and tag because it's so brilliant, so thank you.

Kelly Molson: That is lovely to hear, thank you. But, that doesn't mean that you don't get away with answering some of my...

Mark Ellis: [crosstalk 00:01:53].

Kelly Molson: ... quite mean icebreaker questions, unfortunately. Let's go in. When you hit the dance floor, what is your signature move?

Mark Ellis: I'm the worlds best dad dancer. I move my hips left and right, left foot forward, right foot forward, a bit of funny stuff going on with your arms. And then, if you get some electro-funk going on, the arms are pumping up in the air as well. 

Kelly Molson: Electro-funk, I'm going to remember that.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, late night at a festival in a field with a few pints of cider, no one dances better.

Kelly Molson: I feel like we're going to need a demo of this when we're all allowed to meet properly in real life. We need to see this, Mark. 

Mark Ellis: We'll do it. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, if you were in a zombie apocalypse, which...

Kelly Molson:... Considering what's been thrown at us the last year and a half, that could happen, who would you want on your team?

Mark Ellis: I'd have The Doctor. Obviously. No problem too bad, no villain he can't defeat with a bit of wit, and panache, and charm. He, or her, whichever incarnation of The Doctor it happens to be. I started with Tom Baker, love David Tennant, love Matt Smith, Jodie Whittaker's taken it to new and brilliant places. So, I'd have The Doctor, every time.

Kelly Molson: It's a really good choice. Good. What is the strangest gift that you have ever received?

Mark Ellis: Bootlaces. 

Kelly Molson: Someone bought you bootlaces?

Mark Ellis: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: Was that a birthday present?

Mark Ellis: That was a Christmas present. That was the year when I bought my lovely, fantastic, gorgeous wife some diamond earrings, and she bought me some bootlaces. 

Kelly Molson: Wow.

Mark Ellis: This was probably 15 or 20 years ago. She did tell me that she was busy making me something, I have no idea what, and I'm still waiting. So, the bootlaces are a classic.

Kelly Molson: Okay. So, she bought you something to unwrap with the premise that there was something else coming.

Mark Ellis: To be very fair, just before Christmas I broke a pair of bootlaces and my boots were held on with a knotted bit of string. So, it was practical and thoughtful, and considerate, and practical so it was a very good gift.

Kelly Molson: This is what us women do, always thinking ahead, we knew that was going to happen. Mark, what is your unpopular opinion?

Mark Ellis: Before that, Kelly, I've got an icebreaker for you, because I like to turn the tables. Your podcast is brilliant, and you have that uncanny knack of making it feel like it's just a chat between you, your guest, and a listener, and that pulls everybody in. So, if you could have coffee and a chat with one broadcaster, dead or alive, who would it be?

Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh, I was not expecting to be tested this morning. Nobody's done this to me yet. 

Mark Ellis: I'm so sorry.

Kelly Molson: Who would be the broadcaster I would sit down and speak to? There's quite a few that I can think of, but I'm going to go current, because I really love this person. I'm going to say Greg James, from the BBC Breakfast show. I know that I have stolen his unpopular opinion segment, which hopefully he won't find out about at any point. Or, maybe he will and he'll appreciate that I'm inspired by him. I just think he's great. I just think he's really fun. What he's done with that Breakfast show, he's completely transformed it. He's also a local lad. He's from Bishop's Stortford originally. I'm from Waltham Abbey, which is not too far, but we live in Saffron Walden now, and the office is in Sawbridgeworth. I feel like we would be friends because we're from the same kind of area, do you know what I mean?

Mark Ellis: Excellent.

Kelly Molson: We could sit down, have a pint, we should definitely be buddies, Greg, if you're listening.

Mark Ellis: Brilliant, great choice. Well done, and sorry about that. I'll behave myself as a guest now.

Kelly Molson: Too right as well, Mark. So you should. 

Mark Ellis: So, unpopular opinion. I thought long and hard about this, and didn't know whether to go with the incredibly trite, or something a bit more meaningful. And actually, somebody said something to me over the weekend that just sparked me going with this one. Which is, when people go with the customer service advice of, "Treat other people like you like to be treated yourself." Which, really winds me up. Because, do you know what? Why don't we treat other people like they want to be treated? So, if I treat everybody like I treat myself, then I'm going to disappoint an awful lot of people. My case in point would be, if I was running a restaurant, which I do as part of my job, I don't eat fish, I don't like fish, I've never liked fish. So, if I treat everyone like I want to treat myself, there'd be no fish on the menu, our incredibly popular Fish Friday would be a bit of a disappointment. So, don't treat people like you want to be treated yourself. Find out how they want to be treated and go with that.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I've actually never thought of it that way, but you're absolutely right. Let's see what our listeners think. If you don't think that's an unpopular opinion, Tweet us.

Mark Ellis: We'll have a Tweet war about it.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, let's have a Tweet war about it. Thank you for sharing those, Mark, that's great.

Mark Ellis: No problem. 

Kelly Molson: I'm going to ask a little bit about your background because it's quite interesting. You've been at Twycross Zoo, and English Heritage, and now you're at the National Memorial Arboretum. Can you tell us how you got to there, how you ended up there?

Mark Ellis: There are two versions of this story. One, it was a bunch of random factors that ended up with where I am. Or, I can post-justify and describe a thought out plan all the way through. The truth is, when I was a little boy I wanted to drive one of those cranes with a ball and chain on that demolishes buildings. Never got that chance. So, ended up on a retail career path in high street retail, which was great. Worked for a company called Rohan for many years doing travel and outdoor clothing, absolutely loved it, really high service standards, really quality product, that was great, and really learnt some great customer service skills on that journey. 

Mark Ellis: Moved on from that. Tales of redundancy and all the rest of it that many people's careers involve. And, ended up moving to Twycross Zoo, as you say. Initially as Head of Retail, taking those [inaudible 00:08:07] high street retail experiences into the visitor attraction area. Twycross Zoo's not far from where I grew up, I've known it for many, many years. It's a place that's special in my heart. So, really, really enjoyed joining the team there. And, pretty quickly, realized that maybe the Guest Services Team could do with the benefit of some additional thinking. So, ended up running the Visitor Service department as well. That's really where I made the hop over from pure retail into visitor attractions. Had a great time there. Zoos are just fantastic places to work. You've got thousands of animals doing the hard job of keeping visitors happy, you're just making sure there's a great experience wrapped around that. 

Mark Ellis: Ended up moving on from there. Again, the financial crash of 2008, and restructuring, and all the rest of it. So, a bit of a hard hit on that one. And then, worked for PDSA, the pet vet charity, for a while. Which, really enabled me to put completer-finisher on my CV. Which, had been possibly missing up to that point. I'm sure some of my colleagues will smile at the thought that I needed to prove I was a completer-finisher, as I do tend to get slightly distracted by new and shiny things. 

Kelly Molson: Were you an ideas person?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, very much so. A broad overview is the way I like to think of it. Managed a couple of projects for PDSA, and EPOS roll-outs, and reporting things. So, it's really detailed and good work with some brilliant people there.

Mark Ellis: Then, got the chance... English Heritage had been through a period of not recruiting, they'd restructured what they were doing. And, I was in the first tranche of people they went out and recruited a new group in. Some really brilliant people at English Heritage, made some lifelong friends while I was working there. Met some of your previous guests, Paul Griffiths, for instance. We shared about three months together at English Heritage. I started just as he was going. And, really did enjoy that. Looked after an area from Peveril Castle, Castleton up in the Peak District, all the way across Norfolk, Suffolk, the East Midlands. So, a huge area, with everything from 5000-year-old flint mines, Grime's Graves in Thetford Forest, through to late-19th century windmills. So, really was the full breadth of English history. Thoroughly enjoyed that, and was settled to keep developing career there.

Mark Ellis: And then, the opportunity at National Memorial Arboretum came up, they were looking for a Head of Commercial Operations at the time. I have to say, it took me about half a second to decide whether it was a jump I wanted to make. Again, Arboretum, 20 years anniversary this year of our official opening, so a relatively young site. And so, going from needle flint mines to an arboretum that's only 20 years old was quite a change. But, joined the team here, and working with, again, brilliant people, hopefully making a real impact on the way people remember and enjoy outdoor spaces, and think about the past.

Kelly Molson: Great journey. I love that. I find it quite fascinating, listening to how people get to where they are, because it's always kind of a bit squiggly, and I quite like that. There's always a little bit of a twist and turn, it's never a straight line. 

Mark Ellis: I'm always slightly jealous, the people that say they thought about what they wanted to do when they were at school and they followed a progression and done it, in some ways, I think, "Well done you." But, I still don't know what I want to do when I grow up, other than drive that crane with a ball and chain on it. We'll see what the future brings.

Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer. 

Mark Ellis: Well, there you go.

Kelly Molson: I wanted to be a dancer on the West End stage. When I was younger I was really into tap dancing, and modern, and acrobatics and stuff like that. And, I thought, "That's what I'll do. I'll be on the West End stage and I'll be a tap dancer." But then, you start to get a bit older and you're like, "I'm a bit of an average tap dancer, and I'm 5'2, it's probably never going to happen." 

Mark Ellis: When we get together to do this big group dance, you're really going to show me up with my dad dancing, aren't you?

Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Do you know what? The last time I put on a pair of tap shoes I was about 21. I decided to go back and do it as a fitness thing and it was really fun. I could make a lot of noise with the Blakey's on the bottoms of my shoes right now, but I don't know if I could pull off any tap moves. Let's see when it happens. 

Kelly Molson: If our listeners have never been to the NMA, tell us a little bit about what it is and what we can expect to find there?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. It's something that never comes over that well in the telling. It's a site that people have to come and really experience to appreciate. So, that's a very open invitation to all your listeners from around the globe to head over to Staffordshire and come and find us. Entry is free, so we're here ready to welcome you. What you'd find is 150 acres of relatively young woodland. 150 acres, to put it into context, if you're doing your Couch to 5K, then the 5K is about around the perimeter of the site. So, it's a nice, large site. Young Arboretum, an arboretum being a scientific collection of trees. So, we've got around 25,000 trees on-site, every indigenous species in the UK is here. And, we've got examples of trees from around the world as well.

Mark Ellis: Dotted throughout the trees you'll find, it's now around 400 memorials to people that have served, and sacrificed, and have been lost on behalf of those of us that are still here. About 75% of the memorials are Armed Forces related, and around 25% are civilian organisations, that includes police, fire, ambulance. We've got things like the WI, Salvation Army, Scouting. So, we cover a very broad spectrum. The military ones cover specific campaigns, cover specific regiments and associations. And, we're also very proud to be the home of the Armed Forces Memorial, which is the national memorial to all of our Armed Forces who have served and sacrificed. And, that has carved onto the walls the names of the 16,000 members of Armed Forces that have lost their lives in active service or through acts of terrorism since the end of the Second World War. So, a very, very special place, and very poignant.

Mark Ellis: It's easy for that to sound like it's a slightly sombre place, and certainly, it is a place where people do come and reflect and remember because the final part of remembrance is generally happy memories. We think about those that we've lost, and always brings a smile to the face to remember the good times. And, that's very much what the arboretum is. It's a living memorial. It's a growing memorial. It's ever-developing. It's ever-changing. And, when people leave the site, they often use words like uplifting, and life-affirming, and joyous. 

Mark Ellis: We have around 250 volunteers, and they really do bring the arboretum to life, all about storytelling. Without the stories, it's just memorials in woodland, and it's the stories behind those memorials that really do tug at the heart, and make people smile, and make people laugh, and make people cry, and other things that are so important. Our volunteers do a great job of telling those stories, and it's always done with a smile and a twinkle in the eye, and remembering some great times in amongst some amazing stories of heroism, and service, and sacrifice. 

Mark Ellis: So, it's a very special place. We try to operate in the best possible way. We've got a couple of award-winning buildings on-site, our Remembrance Center, our Visitor Center with a large restaurant, a shop, our dedicated classrooms is very special. We've got our Chapel of Peace and Reconciliation, which was the first building on-site where we're the only place in the country that holds the Act of Remembrance on a daily basis. The building I'm talking to you from at the moment is our Events and Conference building, which opened in Autumn 2018. Which, is a state of the art, bespoke conference and events facility as well. Where we can host events for those that are carrying out remembrance activities, but also opens up corporate hire activities, and those important come streams as well.

Kelly Molson: I have to say, if we do a live Skip the Queue conference, that is where it will be held, Mark, isn't it? We've already had that mini discussion.

Mark Ellis: Brilliant, absolutely, the offer's there. And, the coffee's great.

Kelly Molson: I have to say, it comes across what you were talking about in terms of it being a place of remembrance, but also a place of celebration, that comes across really well on your website. I haven't actually had the opportunity to visit the centre yet. It is something that we've had this conversation about, about doing a little bit of a group visit, haven't we? With some of the other Skip the Queue podcast guests, which I'm sure we'll arrange for later on in the year. But, it really does come across. It's a beautiful, beautiful venue. And, it does come across as somewhere really, really special. And, I think that that's important to get that message across, that it is very much about remembrance, but also very much about celebration as well. For me, it doesn't have a sombre feel to it, the way that you present it and the way that you talk about it. And, I think that helps to draw more people to come to it, right?

Mark Ellis: Yeah. I think you're absolutely right, Kelly, and thanks for the feedback from an expert on the website. In the words of our Founder, back in the mid-90s, we were always designed to be a place that commemorates lives lost and celebrates lives lived. It's getting that balance right. And, of course, a lot of that is very personal and depends on each individual on where they are in their particular journey. The feedback we get suggests that we generally get that balance pretty much right, and we're really pleased to be able to provide that for people.

Kelly Molson: Let's go back to what you were talking about, about stories, because I think that ties in really well with something that I'd like to talk to you about today. You've recently launched a brand new app experience, and I love the name of this, very clever. It's called The ARboretum. Hello? Good use of pun there. It's an augmented reality experience, and it takes families on a journey to learn about everyday heroes. This sounds fabulous. Going back to our first season of the podcast, we had Alex Book on, from Arcade, who is an augmented reality, virtual reality specialist organisation. And, they talked a lot about how your guests... No, you don't call them guests, call them players, because you're getting them to interact with the building and the environment that they come to. It's such an interesting concept. I just love what you've done with this because it is a really fun interactive way of sharing those stories about the heroes that are part of that place that you're at. How did this come about? Where did the idea for this start?

Mark Ellis: "Need is the mother of invention", is the phrase I'm just trying to get my head around. We've always done Easter activities on-site, put some budget aside and do something to attract people in. Those are often built around a trail. A lot of our memorials have animals on them, so we'll do an opportunity for children to go around, find the animals, put together an anagram, and come back and grab their little chocolate treat from the welcome desk, always very popular. What works really well with that, is getting families to interact with the memorials as part of the activity. And, that's very much what drives a lot of what we do, is trying to make sure there's authenticity in there, and it gives people an opportunity to learn more about the site.

Mark Ellis: So, at the start of this year, of course, in January we'd just gone into that extra lockdown, and it was a pretty bleak time, wasn't it?

Kelly Molson: Mm-hmm (affirmative).

Mark Ellis: And, we were talking about what we were going to do at Easter, when we had no idea what sort of numbers we'd be able to attract on-site. But, we still wanted something that would enable people to engage. And, our Head of Participation and Learning, a chap called Chris Ansell, who is a genius, came up with a brilliant idea of actually taking that budget, and instead of spending it on a physical manifestation on-site, which perhaps we wouldn't be able to get people on-site to involve, said, "Let's go digital." And, went away and came up with the idea of augmented reality. I can't remember who first came up with the ARboretum idea.

Kelly Molson: Very clever.

Mark Ellis: As you say, it was an inspired piece of naming. And, it does very much the same thing. There are three characters in the app, Blu, Kit, and Sam. They are 13 to 15 probably, so they're pitched for slightly younger kids. It's that aspirational age of the 9, 10, 11-year-olds really want to be the 13, 14, 15-year-olds. We've given them a little bit of a backstory. So, Blu is probably connected to somebody that served in the Armed Forces, doesn't necessarily articulate that, but she's really interested in memorialization and the site from that aspect. We've got Kit, they are a very eco-centred person, they like to be out in the woods. They're probably more interested in the bugs, and the birds, and all the rest of it. And, you have to work quite hard to get their loyalty and their friendship. But, once you've got that they're going to be incredibly loyal and friendly towards you. And then, we've got Sam, and he's the get in there and do it, action-first, think later. He happens to have a prosthetic leg, but that doesn't stop him getting stuck in and doing things. Probably, if there's something going a bit wrong and a bit right, it's probably Sam that's in the middle of that.

Mark Ellis: So, we created these characters. And then, we've created eight locations around the site where there's a visual thing that you scan with your phone. And, one, or two, or three of the characters pop up and they get you to do an activity. Some of those are centred around the woodland. There's one where there's wellbeing, it encourages you to do some forest bathing and listening to the sounds around you. There's some that's very much based on reflections at memorials. So, in our poppy glade, you're read out a poem about loss and memorialisation. And, you think about and talk to the rest of your group about what that means to you. And then, some are very physical. On The Beat, which is an area dedicated to the police. You do a beep test, so you do shuttle runs, you've got a minute, in times, and you can see how many shuttles runs you can do. There's hide and seek, there's some puzzle solving. So, there's a real mixture, something for everybody. And, of course, something that ties into the things that each of the three characters likes. You can take photos through the app, and then tag those and upload them onto social media as well. So, it really is a good way of getting people to move around the site, take them to some areas where perhaps people don't normally find things and interact. You can come back and do them again.

Mark Ellis: And, the really good thing is, we launched this at Easter, so normally that budget that we spend on Easter Activities... We'll do peak activity of the Easter Weekend, and then a little bit more of the two weeks in school holidays. And, we have the added complication, we're right on the border of four counties here, and they all have different school holidays. So, the Easter holiday actually spans three weeks of time. I'm sure we're not the only people with that complication. With this, we took that money and we've run the app from Easter, and we'll finish it at the end of June, just after Armed Forces Day, which is a big weekend for us. So, it's covered a three month period. And, it's in the bag, we can always bring it back out and run it again in the future. And also, we have the three characters who, you never know, might feature in activities and on-site interpretation in the future. My aspiration is we'll have models of them that appear in the shop at some time.

Kelly Molson: I love that. I love that there's that longevity to this thing that you've created. I had no idea about how difficult that would be to plan your activities around all those different Easter holidays as well. But also, it feels like it's something that could just run, and run, and run. You've put a window on it that it's going to end in... Did you say June it's going to come to an end?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, end of June. 

Kelly Molson: But, that's something that, potentially, people would engage with all year round, depending on when they come to the site. It's lovely that you've been able to invest so well in something that you can bring back, and you can bring back year on year and maybe tweak and stuff.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. One of the really nice things as well, I think the characters are very authentic. As I said, they've all got that backstory, they've got very different personalities, I think they're all relatable in different ways. And, we actually got a young person to design them. We wrote a design brief, and a young person got hold of that and she produced some characters which we had a look at, and thought, "Do you know what? She's pretty much nailed that." So then, worked with the app developer and designers, and they came back to her on several occasions and used her designs going forward. That's a bit of a Skip the Queue exclusive.

Kelly Molson: Ooh.

Mark Ellis: I'm really proud because I know that young person particularly well. It was my daughter that actually did those initial designs. It's really great. And, something that really excites me, is each of the characters has some form of a particular characteristic within their story. And, it's such a non-issue for... My daughter's 13, 14 next week, and it's such a non-issue. You want people of a different ethnic background, or you want somebody that's got a disability, or you want someone that's non-binary, "Yeah, fine, this is what they're going to look like." And, that's the real hope for the future, isn't it? It is that, hopefully, as we pass onto future generations... And, part of what we do here is passing on the baton of remembrance to future generations, so we're very engaged with working with young people. Is hopefully, that acceptance of things that older generations have had to work hard to understand.

Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. I think what's really interesting is that you've actually engaged with someone of that age to say, "What would you want to see? How would you want these characters to be?" Because that's something that I think potentially a lot of organisations don't necessarily do. We're all guilty of it. We design a website and we're testing it, but we're not potentially the user who should be testing it. So, you need to think broadly about who your audience is and how you engage with them from the start of a project like this.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. I'm a proud dad, and it was purely chance. Working at home, I just said to her, "Look at this brief, what do you think?" But, it was the next stages that really were the eyeopener for me. When the initial designs came back we showed them to her, and it was just the little things. Particularly it was Blu, the girl character that was designed first, and Harriet, my daughter, was, "The eyes are just a little bit too big, and the lips are just a bit too full." And effectively, it wasn't childlike enough. It was a slightly more Disneyfied aspirational image that perhaps isn't healthiest for us to be pursuing. It was subtle. It was a great design, we just signed it off and it would have been fine. But, getting a younger person just to shape that final design, I think really has given it that added layer of authenticity, and we're very proud of what we've ended up with.

Kelly Molson: You should be. I think it's fantastic. 

Mark Ellis: But, the real see was Chris' idea to come up with it in the first place, and to make the app work so well, and tie it into the authenticity of the memorial. That's what makes it a really special thing. 

Kelly Molson: Completely. I've got a list of questions here that I wanted to ask you, why an app? Why augmented reality? But, you've answered them so perfectly, in the sense that you had these challenges, and actually, this digital application that you've developed solved those challenges. It solved the issue of the various different Easter holidays that you've got. You've now got something that's got longevity to it. You've got something that people are really engaging with. 

Kelly Molson: To ask you about what the objectives were to start with, my assumption is that it was about engaging people with the different aspects of what the arboretum means to people, those stories behind it. And, like you say, getting them to explore areas that they might not necessarily always go to. If they're coming back time after time they might have their favourite places. What do you think that the impact or the results of that have been so far? Is it a bit too early to tell? Or can you see?

Mark Ellis: We've had some really positive feedback. We've had some really good download numbers, so it's reached a large number of people. Not enough, because like everybody else, we've not got enough people on our sites at the moment, with static constraints in place. And it's strange, is judging things not necessarily on the straight metrics that you use in the old world, of actually, "What does good look like now?" We've had some really good feedback. We've seen people looking at some memorials in a bit more detail. We've had people. Dwell time is up on-site. People just saying, "It's been great, the kids have loved it. It's given us something to do." We don't charge for it, it's a free app and a free to enter the site. It's got that educational twist to it as well as being fun. I think it's ticked a lot of boxes. But, actually just seeing kids run up and down seeing how many shuttles runs they can do in a minute is great to see.

Kelly Molson: I'm definitely going to test that out when I come. Because it might be a little bit later on in the year, can we just reactivate it for that day when we come because I want to do the shuttle runs?

Mark Ellis: Yeah, of course, we can, for you, Kelly, absolutely. There is a rather sad picture kicking around somewhere that Chris took of me doing the shuttle runs in the rain when we were testing it. Dedication to the cause.

Kelly Molson: I think we need to see that on Twitter. We need to see that on Twitter, Mark. 

Mark Ellis: I'll see if I can drag it out.

Kelly Molson: If there's no photos then it didn't happen.

Mark Ellis: Fair point. 

Kelly Molson: What tips could you offer, if there is any organisations that are thinking about investing in this technology, for whatever challenges they have that they want to overcome? What would be a few tips that you could give them about how you would approach that process?

Mark Ellis: I think it's knowing what you want to get out of it first. We started with an idea that we could do, augmented reality, but then the next thing was sitting down and saying, "Who's it for? What are the characters? What are the backstories? What's authenticity? Which memorials?" So actually, we knew what we wanted to do with it before we went and engaged with something to deliver it. And, that meant that it was a very specific project scope when we went out to tender with it, we knew exactly what we wanted to get out of it. Which, probably stopped mission creep and somebody saying, "You could do this that and the other." And, it meant that when it came back the quality of the digital experience is really, really good, but we weren't chasing Pixar quality output from it. We knew it was delivering what we wanted. 

Mark Ellis: Probably not as expensive as perhaps people think. So, with that tight scope, it didn't cost much more than we'd normally spend on our Easter activities, with that added benefit of a bit of longevity in there. So yes, it does cost money, but it certainly wasn't a bank breaker. And, having a limited budget, when you go out to tender, gives people the opportunity to scope what they're going to give you against that. 

Mark Ellis: So, I think authentic, know what you want, and explore the financial possibilities. It might be more within reach than perhaps people think it is.

Kelly Molson: That's really interesting. 

Mark Ellis: All this technology is becoming more accessible all the time, isn't it? So, there are opportunities out there. 

Kelly Molson: Yeah, it absolutely is. I think you're right, it's about scoping what you want and giving people the opportunity to say, "We can do this much of it for that budget", or, "We can do this much for that budget." It's kind of like a starting point, isn't it?

Mark Ellis: Yeah.

Kelly Molson: It's good that you said about don't be scared by new technology, because I think that there is still an element of overwhelm about. People don't understand how much digital costs, and there's still a lot of education that we could do around that, definitely from a web perspective. AR isn't anything that we do ourselves, but I think that it sounds quite frightening, doesn't it? It sounds like it's going to be a very big, expensive project. Where actually, what you've just described, seems quite manageable. 

Mark Ellis: This is where I shamelessly introduce other products into the conversation. It supports what we move onto, which we've just launched this week which will now run to the Autumn, which is our escape challenge. And again, this is Chris' idea, he really is a genius. 

Kelly Molson: You want to hold onto this Chris, he sounds great.

Mark Ellis: Absolutely. He should come on and be a guest for you some time, Kelly. He's much better than me. But, Escape challenge. And again, this was necessity being the mother of invention, I said it right that time. Last year we wanted something to bring people onto site, experiences, escape rooms, massive growth. So, actually taking the escape room concept and delivering it as an outdoor environment. So again, a series of memorials that you walk around with your puzzle book, there are clues at memorials, there are clues in your puzzle book. This is a paid-for one, so we charge people to do this. Two levels, one pretty tricky, but a family will probably work their way through it. The other one, pretty challenging. It's probably people that enjoy the odd cryptic crossword clue and those types of things. Takes two to three hours, eight clues. This year's based around everyday heroes and people that have worked in the emergency service, so it's based around the work the police do. We're dedicating the new UK Police Memorial on-site this year, which is a spectacular memorial worth coming to see. So, it's based around that. There's a gang planning a bank heist, and you're going to try and head them off at the pass, and solve the clues, and solve the crime. 

Mark Ellis: So, again, a real opportunity to learn more about memorials. You're looking for some really fine details of the memorials there, and some of the symbolism, and some of the stories. Perhaps, again, you've walked past it a dozen times and never noticed that, so it just gets people to look. And, that covers the RNLI, the Police, Fire Service, the Ambulance Service. So, a lot of the civilian organisations come through on this year's escape challenge. 

Kelly Molson: I love that.

Mark Ellis: Available live now. It will be here when you come up, Kelly. 

Kelly Molson: Oh good. I'll do the easy one, obviously. I won't be doing that difficult one. 

Mark Ellis: We put a package together for corporate groups that want to come and do team building events here. There's a corporate package built around that escape challenge as well, which is a great way to get execs to come and scratch their heads as well.

Kelly Molson: That's a really lovely idea as well actually, because you've mentioned quite a few times that the arboretum is free to visit, and actually a lot of these things that you're offering, they're free to do as well. So, the challenge for you is you need to drive revenue. You can't be based solely on donations. Charitable donations, difficult at the best of times to get from people. So, I think it's lovely that you're now starting to look at this, what you can offer people, and bringing different groups of people in to build that revenue base. It's really great.

Mark Ellis: Yeah. generally works very well. Summer Proms is a good one as well in August. Tickets go on sale this week, so look out for that.

Kelly Molson: He's getting all the plugs in. There's something else that I want to talk to you about as well. Thank you for sharing all of that.

Mark Ellis: You're welcome.

Kelly Molson: I think that will be really useful for any organisation that is thinking about going through that process. 

Kelly Molson: You've just announced something which I think is super, super wonderful, and I'd love to hear a bit more about it. It's just been announced that in partnership with The National Forest, you're going to be creating a memorial woodland. Which, is a new woodland to commemorate all of the lives that have been lost during the pandemic. How amazing. 

Mark Ellis: It's a privilege to be involved in a project like this. The last 12 months or so, of course, have been tough on absolutely everybody, and it's a tragedy that's still unfolding. It is difficult. And, there is a time when people want to come together and remember and reflect. The memorial woodland is very much designed for everyone that's lost their lives as a result of COVID. That includes the people that have missed diagnosis, haven't had treatment, have had their mental health irreparably damaged by it. So, it's not just the people that tragically lost their lives because of Coronavirus. The number of civilians that lost their lives through Coronavirus is now twice the number of civilians that lost their lives in the UK in World War 2. It's massive.

Mark Ellis: We're very fortunate. We're in The National Forest, which is across this part of the midlands, a project that's been running for 30 or so years to reforest this area. In this area, we had a lot of clay pits, mining, those kinds of things. They're all being turned into country parks now. It's a lovely part of the midlands. We've got a long-lasting relationship with The National Forest Company. They'd been asked about what they might want to do for memorialisation. And, right back at the very start of Coronavirus, people were contacting us and saying, "What can you do? What will you do? What can be done?" 

Mark Ellis: Fortunately, at around the time, Tarmac, who are our neighbours, they're quarrying the land around us. And, the land we're on used to be their quarry and we had it off them in the mid-1990s on a 999-year lease on a peppercorn rent. There are 25 acres that sit right next to our site that they finished working with, it's been inert for a decade or so, it's scrubland, and silk washing lakes. So, they've now very kindly gifted that over to us as well, likewise, on a 980-year lease on a peppercorn rent, which has been fabulous of them. So, that's given us 25 acres where we can create the memorial woodland. And, our aspiration is very much to make it a living memorial, something that becomes very special. 

Mark Ellis: There will be memorial woodlands all over the country, and absolutely there should be. And, what we want to do is to create something here that is memorable, is special, is living, is developing. There are so many stories that have come out of the last 12 months, the experience of all the key workers, the experience of the NHS people, the experience of those in care homes, the experience of children who've missed going round to friend's houses and play and have missed the rites of passage of end of year school plays. So, so many different stories, and try and bring those together in a living memorial. Somewhere too, I've said it before, I'll say it again, commemorate lives lost and celebrate lives lived. And, create something that really works in a very special way. 

Mark Ellis: We want it to include reflection areas, multi-faith or people of no faith can come and reflect as well. And actually, Westminster Abbey are supporting us as well. We will be holding service there in the Autumn to dedicate trees that represent all the different faiths from around the commonwealth. So, there will be a service there that will dedicate those, and those will be some of the very first trees that will be planted in the new woodland. So, it's a wonderful opportunity. We're working very hard to make sure that it's suitable and fitting for everybody.

Kelly Molson: I think that you could not have picked a more perfect location for it as well. It's really interesting, the things that we've talked about today sum up exactly what the arboretum stands for. We've talked about these really fun engaging ways to look at the stories that you have there and celebrate the land and the people. And then, we have this wonderful memorial wood that's going to be developed to really commemorate everything that's happened in the past 15, 16 months. It's fabulous.

Mark Ellis: Yeah, absolutely. That woodland will be very poignant and very special, but we also want it to be a place of joy and hope as well. And, hope, and looking forward, and rebirth, and regrowth. President Biden said in his inaugural speech about healing and remembrance going together, and that's what we want to do. I'm very hopeful that in the future will be a woodland where, as well as the opportunity to reflect and remember, there'll be the opportunity to enjoy and have fun, and play, and celebrate as well.

Kelly Molson: Sounds perfect. When does the work start? What're the timeframes?

Mark Ellis: The work started a wee while ago. 

Kelly Molson: It's in progress already, great.

Mark Ellis: Absolutely. We signed the lease on the land within the last couple of weeks, so we're surveying the land at the moment, and seeing what's there and what we need to do. We're hoping to, with The National Forest Company, start a public engagement piece this Autumn to really get to understand what people want from it and what people's hopes and aspirations would be for space. And then, probably start the work at the backend of 2022, with a view to having visitor's feet on the ground sometime in 2023. So, in arboreal terms, quite a short timescale. Hopefully from this Autumn, we'll be able to talk about people. And, there is an area on our website dedicated to it, so if people want to know more or want the opportunity to get involved, pop to the National Memorial Arboretum website. There's a Contact Us form, specifically for the memorial woodland on there as well. We'll be absolutely delighted to have conversations with people. And, even just going out and public talking about it, that's already opened up some really great conversations with lots of different groups that perhaps we normally wouldn't get a chance to speak to. So, it's already beginning to develop its own opportunities and create interesting conversations for us.

Kelly Molson: I love that. Mark, you've done my work for me, because what I was going to say is what we do is put all of the links to all of these things that we've talked about today into the show notes. So, we'll have links to that specific page where you can get involved and find out a little bit more about what's happening there.

Mark Ellis: Fabulous. 

Kelly Molson: And, we'll put links to Mark himself, so you can find him on Twitter, and you find him on LinkedIn. And, everything, again, that we've talked about today, you'll be able to find in the show notes.

Kelly Molson: Mark, we always end the podcast by asking our guest to share a book. It can be a book that's helped shape your career in some way, or a book that you just love. So, what have you got for us today?

Mark Ellis: I know, Kelly, it upsets you when people go with more than one book, doesn't it? Because, it breaks your marketing budget. So, I've got 43 recommendations for you. The first 41 of which, are books that I love, it's the Terry Pratchett Discworld series. 

Kelly Molson: Okay, that's fine.

Mark Ellis: Don't put those on your list, that really would break the bank. But, I love the Discworld books. I love the slanted way he looks at the world. There are not many management meetings where I probably don't quote Granny Weatherwax, or Sam Vimes, or somebody at some point, so love those. The other 42 and 43, one is Tom Peters, The Brand You 50, which is a small book that Tom Peters has done. It's been out for quite a while now, might have been the late 90s. But effectively, it's saying think about yourself as a brand. It's got 50 tips in there for how you build your own personal brand. And, I found that very useful, having switched jobs a few times, of actually saying, "These are my core values. This is what I hold dear to me. That's what you get from Mark Ellis." It helps when you're looking at new opportunities of saying, "Is the cultural fit going to be right? I know what I want out of a role." And, making sure the interview is a two-way process, and it's going to tick the boxes for me. So, that's one.

Mark Ellis: The other one, which perhaps will be the one that you might want to put on your, "I want Mark's book". It's a book called Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill. Paco Underhill is an American. He's done a whole bunch of research on customer's behaviour, particularly in retail. I first came across this book in my retail years, but it absolutely carries through into visitor attractions. He talks an awful lot about signage placement and product placement. And, if a gondola in a shop is just six inches too far out, then when you bend over to pick things off the bottom people are going to brush past your backside as you're shopping. So, actually observing that and moving it six inches might increase sales of that gondola massively. He talks about signage and being shown a sign for an airport somewhere in a boardroom and saying, "That's no good", and taking it out and standing in the middle of busy concourse, and leaning it up against a wall and saying, "Now can we see if that sign works?" So, it's a great book for that. 

Mark Ellis: I have to say, the prose style irritates me greatly. So, Paco, if you're listening, sorry about that. It's done in a very narrative way, and it's probably slightly condescending in places, and it's a really quick read. I first read it probably 25 years ago, and I refer back to it on a pretty regular basis, in terms of those core messages. So, Why We Buy, by Paco Underhill would be my recommendation.

Kelly Molson: Let's give that one away then, Mark, because that sounds really relevant. So, as ever, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, "I want Mark's book", then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. Good choice with the Discworld as well, I have to say, good choice. My great-auntie Doris, who my extremely naughty Dachshund is named after, she was a huge Terry Pratchett fan. I grew up with those books and reading them with her, and they bring back some really lovely, lovely memories when you talk about them. So, thank you for putting that in my head today. 

Mark Ellis: No worries.

Kelly Molson: Also weirdly, my dad got... I don't know why I'm sharing this with you today, but my dad was mistaken for Terry Pratchett one night. We took him and my mum out for drinks, and the barmaid came over and said, "You're him, aren't you? You're Terry Pratchett." And, dad was like, "I think he's dead." 

Mark Ellis: That's awesomely cool though. 

Kelly Molson: "It's not me." He does look a little bit like him, I have to say. 

Mark Ellis: You see, that could be a plot from one of the stories, couldn't it?

Kelly Molson: Could be, yeah. My dad reincarnated as Terry Pratchett, that's quite odd. It's because he's a hat wearer and he's got a beard. 

Mark Ellis: There you go, that's all it takes.

Kelly Molson: Anyway, don't know why that came out, but thank you for putting that in my head as well. Mark, it's been so lovely to chat with you today, I've really enjoyed it. I think there are some wonderful things that are happening at your attraction, and I cannot wait to come and see it and meet you in real life. 

Mark Ellis: Thanks for having me, Kelly. As I've said before, you're welcome up here any time at all, look forward to seeing you.

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

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