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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 hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.
Competition ends on 19th June 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
Skipton Town Hall https://skiptontownhall.co.uk/accessibility/
Noor & Katu https://noorandkatu.com/
Survey mentioned by Paul: https://www.euansguide.com/media/0uyju30y/final-23-euansguide-results-pdf.pdf
Kids in Museums Open Letter: https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/2024/05/dear-change-makers-an-open-letter-from-the-kids-in-museums-youth-panel/
Rubber Cheese 2024 Visitor Attraction Website Survey - https://rubbercheese.com/survey/
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/
Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII’s personal man at arms. Outside of work he’s a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids.
Transcription:
Oz Austwick: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Oz Austwick. It's been a busy few weeks in the visitor attraction industry and the world at large. So in today's episode we're going to take some time to talk about what's happening, including the recent M+H Show, the upcoming election, the Family Friendly Museum Awards, and of course, the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey.
Oz Austwick: So, Paul, where have you been recently?
Paul Marden: So as we are recording, it is currently half term week, a little bit of a damp half term week, which is a bit of a shame when you're in mid May, but went to Longleat at the weekend and went specifically to go and see their Steve Backshall live event, which is happening at the moment. So for those of you that don't have kids watching CBBC at the moment, Steve Backshall does the deadly 60 telly programme, which is kind of animals and nature on CBBC. And Steve brought out some of the best animals on his event at Longleat. So it was really cool. We got to see some. We saw an armadillo, we saw massive, great python and a wolf. He brought a wolf out on stage, which was pretty awesome.
Oz Austwick: Oh, wow.
Paul Marden: Yeah, that was cool. So there was lots of oohing and ahring and everybody enjoyed it. Lots of fun, even though it was absolutely gushing down with rain whilst we were there on Monday. So we didn't. Typical english style. We did not let the weather get in the way of a good day. What about you? Where have you been recently, Oz?
Oz Austwick: We had our bank holiday day out on Sunday, not on Monday. So we had amazing weather. We threw all the kids in the car and drove down to Dorset to Swanage, where I used to spend my childhood holidays. And the place that went was Swanage Pier. I love it there. I spent my childhood, you know, fishing off the pier and swimming in the sea. Sadly, the hotel I used to go to doesn't exist anymore. They knocked it down and turned it into a sewage treatment plant.
Paul Marden: Attractive.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. But it was absolutely amazing. The sea was very cold indeed. I did get in, had a bit of a swim, as did my eleven year old. The others all chickened out and just sat and watched. But it was lovely, you know, two p machines in the arcades.
Paul Marden: Oh, I love it. Was it the pushers on the shelves? Coin drop ones? I love that. Yeah, gotta be the two p ones. Can't afford the ten p ones. That's too rich for me.
Oz Austwick: Who can? I mean, that's vast amounts of money to win anything in those.
Paul Marden: So Swanage for me just brings back memories of geography, field trips. I remember going there for about a week whilst I was at secondary school donkeys years ago, so.
Oz Austwick: Right, well, we used to drive down from Yorkshire, where I grew up, and it would take all day to drive down to go to Swanage. I mean, it was, yeah, when we were there. Absolutely amazing. And the hotel was lovely before they knocked it down, obviously. So I have very fond memories and, yeah, nothing has happened to spoil those memories, thankfully. A very popular place for us to go.
Paul Marden: Lovely day trip.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, it really was. It really was. So the M+H show, let's talk about that, because that happened and it was quite a thing, wasn't it?
Paul Marden: It really was. I had such a lovely time, so it was my first time at M+H show. It was. It was lovely event. They pitched it as the big meetup and it really was. I mean, it was absolutely jam packed with people. There were lots and lots of people there when I was there on Wednesday and so many people that I know that I was bumping into that were either running stands, presenting, or just being there and enjoying all the great content and meeting people. It was just such an awesome event. How was it for you as your first big attractions event?
Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah. It wasn't just my first M+H. It was my 1st event. And, yeah, I was gobsmacked, to be honest. It was big. More than anything. I'm just genuinely surprised at how many companies sell museum display cases.
Paul Marden: There was a lot of glass cabinets on show.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, there really were. And they were beautiful. But, yeah, I mean, how do you differentiate yourself in that market, I wonder?
Paul Marden: I would differentiate myself by going around and putting my greasy fingers over all the competition's glass and show how beautiful my cabinets could be.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, just take my children. They'd make a mess of the glass within seconds of arriving. So did you get to any of the talks, any of the presentations?
Paul Marden: I did, actually, yeah, I saw a few presentations. I thought they were really good this year. It was quite clever being given your headset that you could wear so that you could hear the presenters. Few people that have been in previous years telling me how great that was this time, because that was a new introduction this year.
Oz Austwick: Can I just throw a slightly different perspective on that? I turned up late to one presentation and I didn't have the little box and the person who was handing them out was on the other side and couldn't get. So I missed it completely. Yeah, I mean, it's a great way to make sure you can hear what's going on.
Paul Marden: It's tough. Isn't it? I felt it was a little bit. So when I had a similar experience where at one point I didn't have one, and it feels a little bit. It's hard, but it answers the problem they've had in previous years, where it was the same layout, where it's a big, noisy hall. And this did make it quite possible for people to be able to hear what was going on. But I would imagine as a speaker on stage, that's quite tough talking to people when you know they can't hear your voice. I don't know. I don't know how I'd feel about that. But there was one presentation that really stuck in my mind, and that was Spencer Clark from ATS and Steve Dering from Direct Access Consultancy. And they were talking about breaking down barriers and basically just giving a collection of essential accessibility tips for attractions.
Paul Marden: And it was just such a great presentation. I always think that if I'm presenting at an event, if one person walks away, having heard one thing from me, I feel like I've kind of done my job. And to be fair to Spencer and Steve, they absolutely nailed that. I walked out of the room at the end of that, fizzing with ideas and walked away. And straight away that evening, I was writing a pitch for a client and things that I'd learned from what they were talking about made it into my pitch presentation. It's directly changing the way I think about accessibility. So I thought that it was a great achievement.
Oz Austwick: And especially for that specific talk. It's not just a talk that says, “Oh, you can make some more money, do if you do this, or you can improve your response rate if you do this.” Actually saying, “This is a way you can help people.”
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Oz Austwick: And that's now changed the way that Rubber Cheese works and that. What an amazing result for them.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. There's a few things, few numbers that stuck in my mind and I kind of. I went and read about them afterwards and we'll put some links in the show notes to the survey that these stats are based on. But there was. There's two things that they said which really stuck in my mind. 59% of disabled people say, if a venue has not shared its disabled access information, I avoid going because I assume it's inaccessible. And 77% of disabled people say I'm more likely to visit somewhere new if I can find relevant access information about the venue. So these numbers, they caught me straight away and they got me thinking and made me realise that making a venue accessible is more than just meeting the website accessibility guidelines, which is kind of a key focus for us in the industry.
Paul Marden: Lots of organisations will want to make sure that they follow the WCAG guidelines, the accessibility guidelines. Anyone that has a large amount of public sector funding will have a statutory obligation to meet those targets. So that's a big focus of people's attention. But just making it so that a screen reader can read your website, or making it so that you've addressed colour accessibility for people that are colour blind isn't enough to make the attraction itself accessible. So if you don't share the content about how your venue is accessible, people will assume you are not accessible. It was an eye opener for me. They gave a really great example. They talked about Skipton Town Hall up in Yorkshire, and they've got a webpage on their site all about the accessibility features of the building. And it was rich with photography.
Paul Marden: So, you know, it's got pictures of all of the access points into the building, what the door looks like and which part of the building it gives level access into. They had pictures of all of the toilets that they've got and how they're accessible. They're fortunate. They've got a changing places toilet. So this is one of these accessible toilets with a large bed and usually with the equipment to be able to move somebody out of a chair and onto a bed to be able to change them. They've got photos of all of that on the website. So the accessibility information is right there. It's really clear and it gives loads of really good evidence that demonstrates this is somewhere that takes accessibility seriously.
Oz Austwick: Yeah.
Paul Marden: Interestingly, this didn't come out in the talk itself, but I found it interesting that the Craven Museum is based in Skipton Town Hall and they won the most accessible museum and the overall winner of the Family Friendly Museums award last year. And we interviewed them back a couple of weeks ago, back in March. So it kind of shows you that making places more accessible for disabled people makes them more accessible for all sorts of people as well. So, you know, it can make it more accessible for families with young children, it can make it more accessible for the elderly, it can make it more accessible for people with temporary access needs.
Paul Marden: If you've breaking your leg or something like that, you know, you're not permanently disabled, but you need access into a building and making places more accessible to you for disabled people widens the access into the entire venue itself. I've since had a quick look at some of our clients and they're all writing about this. People are putting lots of information onto their website about this sort of thing. I saw Eureka had a special microsite all about it and Mary Rose have got information on their website about it. So this is really important content. And for me, sitting and listening to them talking, going back and thinking about it is really. It's really caught my attention and made me think and do things differently, which, you know, I feel like that's what these sorts of events are all about. Really?
Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, what a fantastic result for the event. If it opens up the industry to people who were struggling to access it, then, yeah, job done, right?
Paul Marden: Yeah, completely. What about you?
Oz Austwick: There were a few highlights for me, but I think one of the things that stood out the most was getting to meet some of the kind of movers and shakers within the community meeting Gordon from ACE, what a lovely guy. Had a fantastic chat to him and it really struck me how there are so many people and organisations who exist within the sector purely to try and improve the whole sector for everybody. I like it anyway because I've got a real interest in the historical side of things, museums and stately homes and castles that really talks to me and I take the kids out to places, so it's nice to know, but to actually be part of an industry where everyone's trying to help each other, I think is really lovely.
Paul Marden: It really isn't it? Yeah. There were so many people like Gordon that you met at the event and they just make you feel good, they make you buzzy. There's a huge kind of collective recharge of batteries and fizzing of ideas that comes from these sorts of events, it was just brilliant.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. That's what networking should be, right?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I was going to do a shout out for one person that had a stand. I've got a card that I picked up. This is a lady called Sonya Varoujian and she runs an organisation called Noor and Katu. They import these handmade crocheted little animals, finger puppets and toys and things. I went straight over to those because my daughter is crocheting like mad. She got taught by grandma a couple of months ago. It blows my mind. I have absolutely no idea what's going on as she's doing this and all of a sudden, out the other side comes a squid. But this little organisation Sonya was living and working in Armenia got the idea when she returned back to the UK and now imports these toys and they're for sale in a bunch of different attractions.
Paul Marden: I just thought it was really lovely that these were fair trade, they were nice, creative things that I know my daughter would absolutely lap up at an organisation and it's completely sustainable and makes a big difference in communities that are not well served.
Oz Austwick: Absolutely. And I know that you, like me, almost certainly get dragged into gift shops at visitor attraction sites on a regular basis and there comes a point where you've seen the staff and to have a company out there that's not only doing good things, but providing something a little bit different, a little bit unique that you can buy in a gift shop and actually feel like you've done something worthwhile and bought something that isn't just going to fall apart in a couple of weeks.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Oz Austwick: I think that. Yeah, yeah, it would be really nice to see more things like that. So, yeah, go and check them out if you're listening or watching.
Paul Marden: Did you see any talks yourself that caught your attention?
Oz Austwick: Yeah, yeah, there were a couple that sprung to them. But firstly, I wanted to just briefly mention the talk that I didn't get to watch. I'm a YouTuber, not a massively successful one, but I'm part of a YouTube community. So when I saw that the Tank Museum was doing a talk about how they've used the YouTube creator community to boost their own social media and their own income, I thought, “Fantastic, I'll go along and see that.” Because my brother in law, who's a far more successful YouTuber than I am, was actually part of that. He got invited down to make a video about his favourite tank. So I turned up and obviously I thought I was on time. I was too late. It was hugely crowded, there was no seats, there was no space. So I was stood in the kind of the corridor.
Oz Austwick: It's not really. Is it a corridor? The path, the walkway, I don't know what you call it. And, yeah, got moved on by the venue staff because.
Paul Marden: Loitering in the corridors.
Oz Austwick: We were effectively blocking the way through. And rightly so, you know, they need to make sure access is maintained. But, yeah, I didn't get to see that talk, which I was a little bit sad about, but a couple of talks that I did get to see, which stood out, was the Bloomberg panel discussion hosted by Kripa Gurung. They're doing some amazing work. And the fact that it's a completely philanthropic organisation, I think is quite amazing if you haven't come across what Bloomberg are doing with Bloomberg Connects the app. But, yeah, that was really interesting. Talking about what they're doing, how they're getting organisations online, having the museum at the home and English Heritage there, talking about what they're doing with Bloomberg Connects was great.
Oz Austwick: But I think, if I'm being honest, my favourite talk was the Castle Howard Christmas events talk, partly because it was really interesting, talking about the marketing and how they've created this amazing Christmas event that has a real following and people come back year after year and they've done that on purpose and it's been hugely successful. But Abby from Castle Howard, she's just hilarious. She's been a guest a couple of times, talking about how she hospitalised an old man on his very last ever day at work and then how she sacked Santa. Just, yeah, if you get a chance to go and see their talks go along, because it's not only entertaining but informative, too. So, yeah, that's probably the highlight for me.
Paul Marden: Cool. I saw a lovely presentation. Longtime listeners will know that I'm a Kids in Museums trustee. So I went over and watched the Kids in Museums Youth Panel and it was really interesting because they had a summit focused around young people and their needs in museums back last year. They had a webinar where they talked about it a couple of months ago and I was blown away by these people who are part of the Kids in Museums Youth Panel. You know, young people at early stages of their careers, some of them are at uni still. Some of them are in the early stages of their first jobs and just talking so articulately about their experience of museums, what they think museums should change, what's going well, what could be done better?
Paul Marden: And so I wasn't disappointed when I saw them speaking in real life. They did a cracking job talking about the museum summit and what they think are the issues in the museum. So there was a couple of stats I pulled out of it. Over 90% of young people don't feel considered as an audience and represented in museums, which that blows my mind, because we talk a lot about audience with the people that we work with, and the needs of young people are central to many of the conversations that we have about audience. So there. That made me think, “Oh, is there a problem where the conversations that do get had are not being discussed in the right way? Is it a problem of perception?
Paul Marden: Is it that young people don't perceive that they're being considered when in actual fact they are, or is it a lack of involvement and so they feel like it's being done to them rather than being done with them?” Yeah. Food for thought. If most young people feel that museums don't consider them as part of their audience, that's problematic.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. Isn't it? I mean, I'd be amazed if the people that were running the museums had the same opinion. I suspect they clearly think they are doing things for young people and children, but maybe they're just not asking those young people what they want.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So there's a few things that the youth panel suggested could be done. So loads of kids go on school trips to museums. But have a guess what you think the minimum age is to go unaccompanied into a museum in some museums?
Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, I'd expect that it would probably be 16. That feels like a reasonable age.
Paul Marden: There are museums where you have to be 18 to go unaccompanied into the museum.
Oz Austwick: Why?
Paul Marden: You can go and get a job, you can go and pay your taxes, but you can't go into the museums on your own because you're not a responsible adult. That's interesting. And I use that word with a great deal of misuse.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. I just struggle to work out how you could justify that.
Paul Marden: I know.
Oz Austwick: Well, obviously there are one or two museums out there where you probably need to be 18 to go in and have a look. Yeah. I mean, in general, why 18?
Paul Marden: Yeah, I think standards of behaviour, you can expect people to behave in a certain way, but that doesn't. That's not dependent on age, that's dependent on your behaviour.
Oz Austwick: And the sort of teenager that genuinely wants to go into a museum is probably going to behave pretty well when they're in that museum.
Paul Marden: Yeah, you'd think. So the next thing I might play into this, but one of the things the youth panel want is to see more youth groups being represented in the decision making process in museums, so that they better represent communities and highlight career pathways for young people. Including more working class histories in museums would help people feel more represented. I thought that was quite interesting. We've been to a few recently where we did not necessarily see stories of our background being well presented at the museum.
Oz Austwick: Yes.
Paul Marden: Enough for both of us to have noticed it and commented it as we were wandering around.
Oz Austwick: It's interesting because some do it really well.
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Oz Austwick: And coming from a historical background with a focus on arms and armour, there's a real issue that the sort of arms and armour that have survived from the mediaeval period are the unusual ones and they're the ones in the museum. So that's what people see. And you kind of assume that this fancy, ornate, decorated, enamelled armour is pretty standard, but the bog standard stuff didn't survive and maybe that's the issue when you're looking at furniture in a room, in a house, the fancy furniture is the one that survived because people cared about it. It wasn't being used on a day to day basis.
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. I don't know, but you're absolutely right, it does give you a slightly skewed view of what’s actually out there.
Paul Marden: Yeah. Look, if you're interested listeners, in finding out more about what the Kids in Museums Youth Panel are looking to achieve, they've just published an open letter to changemakers within the sector where they talk passionately about what they think the sector needs to do to change. There's a lovely video that goes alongside the open letter where these young people are using their voice to be able to advocate for change. It's great, it's really interesting and I highly recommend everybody goes and watches the video and reads the letter and then does something about it.
Oz Austwick: So, anything else from M+H that we need to talk about?
Paul Marden: The lovely meal and drinks afterwards. The very lovely Bala McAlin and Stephen Spencer, both once of these parts, were hosting an event Wednesday evening, I think it was, which was absolutely lovely. Well attended. Drinks flowed, food came out. It was delightful. Very much appreciated.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. And I have very mixed feelings about the fact that I decided to leave a little bit early.
Paul Marden: But you got home at a reasonable time and I didn't manage to drag my backside in the front door until about half midnight. And it wasn't because I had a wonderful night, it was because I spent most of it in Waterloo station trying to get home.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. A bit of an issue with the train.
Paul Marden: Yes. I would much preferred if I'd actually stayed at the drinks event and then dragged myself into Waterloo later once they'd actually sorted themselves out.
Oz Austwick: So I think at this point we probably need to talk about how the government have ruined our plans for the next few months of podcast content.
Paul Marden: Yes.
Oz Austwick: Because we've been thinking for a little while that it would be a really nice thing to do to talk to the main political parties about their idea for the visitor attraction industry in the future. And obviously our hands been forced a little bit.
Paul Marden: It hasn't it? We're not the only ones. I think quite a few people were caught on the hop a little bit when Rishi announced the general election on the 4th of July. So, yeah, events, dear boy, have somewhat overtaken us, haven't they?
Oz Austwick: Yeah, just a little. So, yeah, we're probably not going to do that if for no other reason that the Labour Party shadow minister isn't standing again, for all the right reasons. But it does mean that there's a bit of an imbalance there and if we can't talk to all the parties equally and get their ideas, we probably shouldn't talk to any of them.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Oz Austwick: That being said, we can still talk about it, right?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. The lovely people at ALVA Bernard, who presented at M+H and talked about this very subject, amongst other things, they've done a lot of policy work and have prepared some thoughts around what they think is important to the sector, around strengthening the visitor economy, protecting arts and culture and heritage and supporting the natural environment, whilst at the same time looking after all of those people that either work or give up their time to support the sector. So, yeah, there's a few things in there that I thought it was worth us just touching on, because I think it's really important that we think about what the future of the sector could look like in just a very few weeks time as the country changes. They've got some interesting thoughts.
Paul Marden: Unsurprisingly, the sector would probably benefit from some reduced taxation and there's quite a number of different areas within which ALVA think that the taxation burden on the sector could be lessened. And similarly, they've also got ideas around how funding for the various arts councils and support organisations around the different home nations would make a substantial difference, especially around capital funding would make a big difference to the sector. But there was a few very specific arts which jumped out as me, as being kind of. They really meant something to me. So there's one. ALVA says, “They ask all the political parties to ensure culture, life, performance, arts, heritage and nature are experienced by every child and young person and are within the national curriculum.” Yeah, I think this is so important. Yeah, I think I've talked on the podcast before.
Paul Marden: This was one of the big COVID victims. So many schools during COVID had to stop taking kids out and experiencing the outside world and going to day trips and the like. And I just. I think it is so important. It's really hard for many schools. They've got such a burden around meeting the curriculum, budget cuts, all of the calls on the staff time is so hard for them to prioritise day trips. But I've seen him in my own daughter's school. Just the powerful impact it has on the kids. They're a school where the kids barely spend a whole week in class. They're usually out doing something outside of school, which I just think is brilliant. And I got to tag along with them. A few months ago. We went to London.
Paul Marden: We did the trip to the Science Museum, took the kids up on the train and on the tube, which was, let me tell you, quite scary.
Oz Austwick: Did you manage to bring them all back?
Paul Marden: Counted them in and counted them out and it was all good. It was all good. But then went into parliament and that was just brilliant. Taking a bunch of ten and eleven year olds into parliament and bless them, it was the tail end of the day. So they were all shattered. But they were so completely engaged by it. They saw Priti Patel walking through the central lobby. They saw all of these different ministers, their advisors, and they got to sit in the chamber of the House of Commons and seeing debate going on. It was all about Horizon scandal. It was just. It was such a brilliant day trip for the kids and how much does it enrich them.
Paul Marden: Yeah, okay, me and Millie go to these places all the time, but, you know, there might be one or two kids in that school for whom this is the only time that they get to experience a day trip into London and see one of the big national museums and go in and enjoy parliament. I never got to go into parliament when I was Millie's age.
Oz Austwick: No. And I think it's really important to say that. I mean, both you and I live in the southeast of the country in a relatively rural and affluent area and that even here with the schools that we've got, they're struggling to do this. And then when you look at what the inner city schools are having to deal with and some of the northern cities and northern towns where they're really struggling with population poverty up there, how are those kids getting similar opportunities?
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Oz Austwick: And the fact is they're not.
Paul Marden: No, no.
Oz Austwick: And that's something that I can't agree with ALVA more on this, that this needs to be prioritised because this is the future.
Paul Marden: Yeah. Another area where we've had direct experience, from conversations we've been having recently is around supporting local authorities in their care of civic collections and culture. I mean, you've spoken to so many places recently, haven't you, where cultural budgets are just being eviscerated.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, I mean, I've always had a kind of a love of finding those little obscure rural town museums because you find some amazing things in them. My local museum, it's a tiny little market town and they've got like a special area of Egyptian relics. They've got a mummy in a sarcophagus in this little museum that's what, four rooms? But they've got no funding. And there's so many times we're talking to museums like this. They know what they need and they know what they want, but they just don't have the money to be able to do it.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Oz Austwick: They come to us looking for a website and they're just struggling for budget to do anything.
Paul Marden: Yeah, which is where things like that Bloomberg Connect app comes in, because when you look on the Bloomberg Connect site, you've got big national museums like National Portrait Gallery in there using the Connect app. But there were some little ones in there as well that I saw, you know, small local town museums just like the ones that you're describing in there using that app.
Oz Austwick: I was looking through the app last night and my eye was caught by, I think it was Beverly Town Hall. I was born in Beverley, up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, and I sort of thought, “Oh, I'll have a look at that.” And I just got drawn in and it was just this amazing experience. I didn't even know Beverley had a town hall that was open to the public, nevermind that had a collection that you could view through the Bloomberg Connect app. So, yeah, I guess maybe a little bit more in the way of awareness, but it shouldn't be down to a philanthropic organisation like Bloomberg to keep these museums and collections going.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So look, the ALVA kios of the political parties is up there on their main website. Really worth going and looking at. As the manifestos are published, you'll be able to see what the political parties are doing. There's already some information on the various different party websites around what they want to do within the culture and tourism sectors. But I think we've got a few weeks yet to wait until we see the actual cast iron commitments come out in manifestos. So that'll be interesting to see the direction that takes.
Oz Austwick: And I suspect we're going to talk about this a little bit more over the next few episodes, perhaps.
Paul Marden: Yeah, maybe. The other thing I will mention, this is a shameless plug because I work as a trustee at Kids in Museums. We're working on this flagship awards ceremony and it is absolutely delightful event lots of people enjoying themselves doing amazing work and there is a sponsorship opportunity. So if you're like us, one of those kind of sector supporting organisations that serve the attraction sector, and you'd like to support the good work of Kids in Museums and be associated with that amazing event, give me a shout, because I can point you in the direction of the right people to talk to get that sponsorship in place and I know it will make a massive difference to them. Have you been busy recently? What have you been up to?
Oz Austwick: Do you know what? Weirdly, it's been a little bit busy. Yeah. I mean it feels like it's always a little bit busy, but it's been specifically a little bit busy because as of yesterday we've launched the third annual Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction Website Survey.
Paul Marden: Excellent.
Oz Austwick: That's quite a mouthful, isn't it? It'd be really nice to find a catchier name for it than that.
Paul Marden: I always talk about naming is the hardest problem in computing, but naming is the hardest problem in marketing, I think.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, let's be honest, what it's actually known is pretty much new survey brackets two. So it's the third one. The first one was a bit of an eye opener, the fact that there wasn't anything already out there and we did this and it was amazing. The second one, we tried to refine it and we got some really nice, interesting data. This is probably the first time we've been able to sit and look at it and go, “Right, okay, now we've got a couple of years worth of results. We can look at what we actually need to be asking and what's just out there because we want to ask, because it's interesting and what information we're not actually getting.”
Oz Austwick: So we've really cut back on the number of questions and I think it's probably safe to say that isn't going to have a massive impact on the quality of the information that we get, but it's also allowed us to add in a few extra little bits as well. So yeah, we're talking about sustainability and the use of AI and yeah, I'm really excited.
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Oz Austwick: I haven't actually looked to see if people have started filling it.
Paul Marden: I can't look, I can't look. I just kind of want to look through my fingers.
Oz Austwick: I'm not sure I want to know, but yeah. So if you are listening to this, if you've got this far into the podcast and you work at a visitor attraction, please go and fill this in. There's a link in the show notes. There's links on LinkedIn, on X. Everywhere we go. There will be a link for this. And if you can't find it, go to rubbercheese.com. And it's right there at the top of the homepage. There's a link.
Paul Marden: Yeah. rubbercheese.com/survey, slip that right in there.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. I think one of the things we've done differently is the advisory board. We talked about this a little bit in the last episode. We did what an amazing thing to have these guys on board. I think they've saved us months of work by just being clever.
Paul Marden: They've improved the quality of what we've done. Asking us, what on earth are you asking that question for? Those answers are exactly the same answer. Can't you make it easier for me to know what I need to gather before I type my data in?
Oz Austwick: Exactly, saying, “Oh, well, I wouldn't fill it in because you don't tell me what I need to do.” Okay, well, we'll do that. It's not a problem. Yeah. How amazing. So thank you to them and to Expian for sponsoring the advisory board.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And we're working through now focusing on the kind of engagement plan to increase more people. And then, you know, whilst we have a lull as people are going to be filling in their survey, we'll start planning, looking at the data, seeing where the stories lie. We'll talk about that in some future episodes, but starting to gather together what the final report looks like and the stories that will be told. And, you know, we're really grateful to Convious for sponsoring us on the digital survey and the digital report that will follow and then a bunch of webinars that will run afterwards. So, you know, the call to action for us is get in there, find your data, read the guidance notes, go and fill in the survey.
Paul Marden: But then once you've done that, come and talk to us because, you know, we'd love to know what you would like us to dig in to. It is amazing how this rich resource of data that we've got and people ask us questions that we've never even thought of, and we look at the data differently and we find a different story in there. So without your input, without you telling us what's interesting you, with what's bothering you, what's challenging you, we don't look at the data properly and we don't find those stories for you. So come and talk to us.
Oz Austwick: Is this how it feels to kind of run a museum, to be the custodian of this amazing thing and just want people to come and engage with it. Yes, because that's kind of it. You know, we've got this amazing data and it's got all of these wonderful stories within it that are relevant to anyone in the industry and we just want to talk about it. So, yeah, please fill in the survey, talk to us about it and, yeah, with any luck, this one will be bigger and better than the last two.
Paul Marden: There we go. Couldn't ask for more than that, could we?
Oz Austwick: No. Before we go, because we're going to wrap up relatively soon, there's one thing that I noticed that we failed to do last time and we talk a lot about giving away a book and I think we even said we were giving away a book in the last episode and then never mentioned a book. So, Paul, do you have a book that you'd like to recommend?
Paul Marden: Do you know what, Oz? It's funny you should say that. I absolutely do. I have this book Delivering the Visitor Experience by also previously of these parts, Rachel Mackay, who is, I believe, at Hampton Court Palace, and she's written an amazing book about what it is to create, manage and develop unforgettable vista experiences at museums. I don't want a museum, but it was really interesting for me to be able to read this book all about the process that people that do run museums go through to develop, craft and tell that story and give that amazing experience. It's a brilliant book. Heartily recommend it. And if you retweet the show note saying, “I want Paul's book”, then you too could get an amazing copy of Delivering the Visitor Experience by our friend Rachel Mackay.
Oz Austwick: Amazing. Thanks very much.
Paul Marden: Slightly out of breath because it will be edited out, I'm sure, but I had to run up the corridor and go find the book and take it off the shelf and bring it down because although I was completely organised with all my stuff from M+H show, did not have my book recommendation. Well, there you go. I think that just about wraps us up, doesn't it? It's been a busy few weeks for us with M+H show and all that's going on and that doesn't look to abate over the next few months as we get the survey into shape and find out what's happening in the sector.
Oz Austwick: So I think it's only going to get busier.
Paul Marden: It is. How is this your first time actually hosting?
Oz Austwick: I think I prefer this one. Maybe that's because it's not my first one. Or maybe it's just because I.
Paul Marden: Because you're power hungry and you took the captain's chair.
Oz Austwick: Make it so. Yeah, definitely Picard rather than Kirk. But that's because he's a West Yorkshire man.
Paul Marden: Is he really? You've got too much hair to be Picard. I'm sorry.
Oz Austwick: I'm not wearing my Star Trek uniform.
Paul Marden: On that bombshell. Thank you very much, mate.
Oz Austwick: Thank you.
Oz Austwick: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on X for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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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 hosts are Paul Marden and Oz Austwick.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.Show references:
https://rubbercheese.com/survey/
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/thatmarketingbloke/
Oz Austwick is the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, he has a somewhat varied job history having worked as a Blacksmith, a Nurse, a Videographer, and Henry VIII’s personal man at arms. Outside of work he’s a YouTuber, a martial artist, and a musician, and is usually found wandering round a ruined castle with his kids.
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in and working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Paul Martin. In today's episode, I'm joined by my new co host, Oz Austwick, the Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese. Following the success of the Rubber Cheese Visitor attraction website survey in 2022 and ‘23, we're going to look back at how the previous data has stories still to be told and look forward to what the 2024 survey has to offer.
Paul Marden: Welcome, Oz. Welcome to Skip the Queue. This is one of our regular Skip the Queue episodes where the Rubber Cheese team take a little bit of time to talk about some of the work that we do.
Paul Marden: And I think this episode we want to talk about the Rubber Cheese Visitor Attraction survey of websites that we've done for the last couple of years and what we're planning to do in 2024. So that's going to be a nice conversation for us to have. But we always start these episodes with a little conversation about places that we've been recently. So we spare each other the indignity of the icebreaker questions and talk about an attraction that we've been to recently. So why don't you tell me, Oz, where have you been recently?
Oz Austwick: The most recent one was that my wife and I took the kids to Farleigh Hungerford Castle in Somerset. It's English Heritage castle. Absolutely lovely. Nice and rural. I mean, it's just beautiful, lovely ruined castle. There's a fantastic chapel with mediaeval wall paintings. But, you know, I mean, if you like historic sites, if you like castles, it's just a great one.
Paul Marden: Wow, that sounds good.
Oz Austwick: How about you, Paul? Where have you been recently?
Paul Marden: I have been to Portsmouth Historic Dockyard with my daughter. We've been a few times to Mary Rose and really enjoyed that. But this time went. We had an explorer pass, which meant we could go all over the dockyard. So went and saw lots of things. We saw the victory being refurbished and went on board. They've got a lovely old submarine on the other side of the harbour, which is a great place to see. But the bit that really captivated my attention whilst were there that made me think, “Oh, I've got to remember this one to talk about on the podcast” was they had some students there doing exhibition from the university and they were marine biologists and it was just such a lovely opportunity.
Paul Marden: They had microscopes, they were talking all about plankton and different types of microorganisms that you find in the water. But my daughter's ten years old and she loves going to museums because I drag them to them all the time. She loves learning about this sort of thing. What I liked about it was you had some 18, 19, 20 year olds who were exposing themselves to kind of a work experience type model, but talking to the kids and showing them. And the kids were learning as they were going. They got lots of opportunities to look through microscopes. They were doing some lovely drawing and art of the microscopic organisms that exist in the water.
Paul Marden: And I just thought, I can talk about amazing jobs and what you can go and do in science and what you could do in different of roles in real life, but there's something about somebody that's only maybe ten years older than you telling you what they're learning at the moment and what learning in a university context looks like and the cool stuff that you get to do. And as amazing as I am, I'm not quite as impressive as a 20 year old.
Oz Austwick: And modest too.
Paul Marden: Amazing, dad. I say it all the time, but it's not as compelling when I do it. So going to the museum and meeting these young people that are only a little bit older than Millie is and seeing what they do was just. It was such a lovely opportunity. And I know that work experience at museums is quite a controversial subject because I know a lot of people, it can be exclusionary for some people. The only way that you can get into a role is to work unpaid as a volunteer in a museum to get into a role later on. But I just loved the idea that we had these students that were local telling the story of what the University of Portsmouth does in marine biology and how these two major institutions came together.
Paul Marden: And you could just see Millie's eyes light up as she learned about this amazing stuff. It was brilliant. I loved it.
Oz Austwick: Awesome. Do you know what? I've not been down since. God, it can't have been that long after the Mary Rose landed there. It's a long time ago. Yeah. I was a much younger Oz at that point.
Paul Marden: I think you might notice that the Mary Rose looks substantially different maybe than the last time you went.
Oz Austwick: Do you know what? It was effectively an aircraft hanger full of water when I was there. So, yeah, definitely go down. And while we're here, I just want to say. And I might check out their lovely new website, too.
Paul Marden: Why? Do you know somebody that might have worked on that?
Oz Austwick: Yeah. Funnily enough, I do. Yeah. Yeah. Fantastic agency, but let's leave it there.
Paul Marden: Yes. So you've just turned up on the podcast and I'm talking to you and.
Oz Austwick: Yeah, nobody knows who I am, do they?
Paul Marden: Yeah, exactly. So why don't you, Oz, just take a few minutes to tell the audience who you are, what you do and why you're here.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. Okay, so obviously I'm Oz. I am Head of Commercial at Rubber Cheese, also at Carbon Six, the sister agency. I originally came on board as kind of Head of Marketing and then when Kelly decided to move on, I've taken on some of her role. Obviously you've taken on some of her role as well. So my background is in social media, video first as a content writer in SEO. I've worked in technology, I've worked in healthcare. I've done all sorts of things over the years and I've always kind of found myself back in the world of digital wherever I try and go. So for me, as somebody with a real passion for history and historical sites, there's a story there, maybe for another episode.
Oz Austwick: But I love the idea that I can work in an agency doing what I do well for venues and organisations that I really love. And I think that's quite a special thing, to be honest.
Paul Marden: It's a bit of a privilege, isn't it, to be telling the stories of some of the places that we're working with.
Oz Austwick: To be able to go for a meeting and sit and have coffee with somebody in the middle of one of the most glorious, historically significant buildings in the country. It's just. Yeah.
Paul Marden: For a history buff like you, that. That's pretty good.
Oz Austwick: It is, yeah. I'm all about the history.
Paul Marden: So we are today going to talk a little bit about the Rubber Cheese visitor attraction websites survey and we run that now for a couple of years and we just want to talk a little bit about some of the plans that we've got for the year ahead. But maybe let's recap, what have we done in the last two years and a little bit about the survey in the last year?
Oz Austwick: Well, I mean, I guess there'll be people listening who may not have come across the survey before. So I think from a broad context point of view, a few years ago, Kelly, who was the original founder of Rubber Cheese, was looking for industry standard data and it turned out that there wasn't any. And at that point she was faced with two options to either just go, “Never mind, and walk away” or go, “Oh, well, I better do something about it”. And she thankfully took the latter route. So for the last two years, this is year three, Rubber Cheese has put together a survey and sent it out to as many visitor attractions as possible and asked them for their views and their objective figures as well, related to their digital presence.
Oz Austwick: So whether that's the marketing side of the website, whether it's e commerce, whether it's ticketing, we want to know it all and then we combine it all together, do our best to analyse the data and publish a report. Obviously, the world of digital changes very rapidly, and obviously when you do something like this for the first time, you're not going to get it quite right. So it's evolved year on year and. Yeah, here we are. And it's evolving again. Right?
Paul Marden: Yeah, exactly. So we had, you know, more than double the number of respondents last year compared to the first year. We had some amazing people that came together in London for a launch event in the first year, and then we had a great webinar last year launch.
Oz Austwick: I just want to interrupt briefly at this point. If you were at that launch event, then we have already met. I'll leave it there.
Paul Marden: Yes, part of the Rubber Cheese family before you were even part of the family. Yeah. So we've had success in the first two years and we've used that report ourselves and we know lots of other people have used it as well. So we've had some lovely conversations with attractions who have used it as part of their pitch process to try to identify what good looks like and how to select other people to work with across their different digital presence. So be at the marketing site, the ticketing engine or whatever. But I think one of the things that you and I both said is that it's a challenge, isn't it? Because we can go looking for stories and then we can tell stories that exist in the data that we find.
Paul Marden: But it's not quite the same as when people ask us questions, because they tend to ask us questions we haven't really thought of. And then we go looking at the data in a different light, don't we, and find just amazing things that exist in the data.
Oz Austwick: It's a constant surprise to me, both how different every attraction is and yet how they all have certain similarities. You can group them together and you can see these similarities in the data, but most sites, this is something we came across recently. We were going to a meeting with a fairly well known venue that's got two or three different strands to what they do. So we spent a bit of time looking at which of those different strands they actually fit into, because it can be really hard to know how to improve your digital presence, how to make your marketing more effective, if you don't even really know where you're starting from and what the data in the survey allows anyone that wants to access it to do is to see where they fit.
Oz Austwick: And you may think that the country park is what you are and the house is second, or you may feel that, I don't know, maybe the adventure playground or the science centre, whatever it is, whichever of those. You may think that you're one, but the data says you're the other and at that point it's not a problem. But at least you need to understand, if you don't have the information, you can't make any decisions that are going to be helpful in the long term. And I think. Sorry, I know I'm talking a lot here, feel free to shut me up.
Paul Marden: That's what we're here for.
Oz Austwick: I think it's a huge surprise to me that more people aren't coming to us and asking us about this.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Oz Austwick: This survey isn't really a cynical way for us to make money. The survey pretty much loses us money year on year, but it's really valuable and I think every time we've done it, the conversation has been, “Do we need to do this again?” And the answer is, well, “Yeah, we do.” Because not only is it a valuable thing to do year on year, but to show how things have progressed and to show those evolving patterns. I think it's really important and it's a phrase I use all the time, but the rising tide floats all the boats together and if we can put this information out there and it helps everyone improve, then great.
Oz Austwick: You know, as an industry, those that are part of the industry, those like us that sell into the industry, we all get better at the same time and I think that's a really important point.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. And there's loads of things that we're doing this year as we launch the survey to try to improve it so that, you know, you've just been talking about those attractions that are many different things and definitely in previous years we've made it really hard for those attractions that are many different things to be able to identify what they actually are. And that ended up being lots of people saying, I'm an other attraction and our biggest category was other, wasn't it? So we want to try and make it much easier for people to identify themselves.
Oz Austwick: I hate Other as a category. I realise it's entirely our fault, you know, if we don't give the right categories and we give you the option to say Other, that's what you're going to tick, but it's the least helpful thing we could possibly do because what does Other actually mean? So we've tried really hard to be more accurate in the choices that we offer in the survey this year.
Paul Marden: Yeah. So should we talk a little bit about what we're going to do this year?
Oz Austwick: Yeah. Yeah, let's do that.
Paul Marden: First of all, we're really fortunate this year that we've got two amazing sponsors that are supporting the survey and the work that we do. So we've been really lucky that our friends at Convious have come back again for the third year running to sponsor and support what we do. And they're sponsoring the digital report and the launch webinar that we'll have towards the end of the season and show everybody what the results are that we found. So we're really appreciative of the work that the team at Convious have done. It's not just a financial sponsorship, it is a real collaboration that they bring to the party and they really do help us a lot.
Paul Marden: And then this year that we've also been joined by the team at Expian who are a ticketing platform and they are sponsoring our new Advisory Board, which we'll talk a little bit more about later on. But we asked for people in the sector to come and join us, to advise us and in order to be able to make that a reality, Expian have sponsored that advisory board throughout the entire year. So that's. It's brilliant. It's great that other people are seeing a real value in the thing that we've been doing for the last couple of years and want to sponsor us going ahead and making it better year on year. So thank you to both Convious and Expian for supporting us this year.
Oz Austwick: I think just at this point, again, I'd like to interject and maybe a little shamelessly say that there are still a couple of aspects of what we're doing with the survey and the report that it would be really nice if we could maybe get some help from another sponsor. So if you'd like to maybe get involved, we're thinking about an in person launch event like we did in year one. That's a big deal to organise, to run, to fund. So if maybe that's something you'd like to help with, get in touch, that'd be great.
Paul Marden: We are always happy for new people to join the party with us and help to support the good work that we will trying to do here. So, yeah, there's more information about that on the website at rubbercheese.com/survey.
Oz Austwick: Survey yeah, I think it's maybe worth mentioning the advisory board in a little bit more detail. I know that it's something that you've been really keen on for quite a while now that we try and make it clear that this isn't a digital agency that builds websites for the visitor attraction agency telling you how to have your website and that you should come to us. It's actually an objective report of the digital landscape and that if we can make that more objective and more transparent by getting together a group of experts then we absolutely should.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. We've got an amazing group of people that have agreed to join us. We have more people asking to join than we have the capacity to be able to include in the board, which is humbling in and of itself. And those people who offered, who aren't part of the board this year. That doesn't mean to say we don't appreciate you and we'll be really keen to find other ways in which those people can help us going forwards.
Paul Marden: But yeah, we're looking for the board to kind of provide advice and guidance help us. You know, going back to what you were saying a minute ago about people helping us to identify what's important to the sector so that we then go and follow the data, we ask the right questions, we look deeply into the data, we understand where the interesting stories are and then reflect that back to the sector as a whole in the final report. That's so much easier when we've got a board of people that are advising us what matters to the heads of digital of the attractions around the country. So yeah, we've also got some really helpful advisors from different sector support organisations. So suppliers like ourselves who know what the larger sector are talking about in different areas.
Paul Marden: And those people as well will be helping us to understand what are the right questions to ask. How should we ask them? They'll also be helping us with testing the survey before it goes out into the wild and supporting us with understanding what the answers are at the end of it and what they think are interesting. So I'm really excited about the Advisory Board and totally appreciative of everybody volunteering their time to join that board and giving us that advice. So that's a really exciting thing for us to be doing this year and totally appreciate the work of Expian to sponsor that.
Oz Austwick: Absolutely, yeah. Couldn't agree more.
Paul Marden: So there's some other things that we're going to do, aren't there, in terms of trying to improve things?
Oz Austwick: We've got some goals. Are they ambitious? I don't think they're that ambitious, to be honest. But, yeah, I mean, obviously the most important thing when doing something like this and repeating it on annual basis is that we want to make it more useful. We want to make the data more valuable to the people that need it. So we've spent a lot of time going through the previous survey and looking at what we asked and what we got in response to those questions, whether we got the information we thought we would and whether that information is even of any help to any. I think we've cut it down fairly significantly this year, I think.
Paul Marden: Yeah, we've taken a red pen and scored through quite a lot of the questions, haven't we?
Oz Austwick: Yeah. I wonder if perhaps maybe people were getting a little bit tired of the survey by the time they got towards the end, because it was really long and it's still quite long, but I think there's very little in it that isn't really, or at least to me, feels really valuable to be able to say, “This is where I am. And if I can compare where I am to the wider industry around me, that would be a helpful thing to be able to do.” And I think pretty much every question does that. We're hopefully going to grow the sample size because year one to year two was a really significant step up. If we get the same size step up or even the same percentage step up, I mean, that would be absolutely incredible. I'm not sure we will, but I think.
Oz Austwick: I think we need to keep growing it. We need to get it to more people and make the data in itself more relevant. Because obviously, if you've got a tiny sample size, it's really difficult to draw any conclusions from that data. But if you've got a huge sample size, then you can say that the averages across this are probably relevant. And that's information that I should know.
Paul Marden: I talk about that a lot, don't I, when I'm slicing and dicing the data that, you know, sometimes it can be hard to draw conclusions because there's insufficient data there and it could easily be chance that gives the answers that you get.
Oz Austwick: Well, absolutely. And it's so hard to look at it and think, is that cause or effect? You know, we can say that there's a pattern or is it just fluke?
Paul Marden: Exactly. I think some of the questions, some of the data is illustrative of what the wider sector looks like. So when people answer questions about the content management system that they use by far the most popular one was WordPress. I'm willing to bet good money that is fairly illustrative of the outside world.
Oz Austwick: Yes.
Paul Marden: Yeah. You know, WordPress is the hands down most popular content management system on the web, so it's not. It's hardly surprising that it is then the most commonly used one in attractions. But some of our numbers around ticketing systems, e commerce systems and some of the conversion rate information as well, I would not be surprised if that is being skewed because the sample size isn't necessarily big enough. So the more people that join, every person that is submitting their data is making a substantial difference to the quality of the answers that we give afterwards. And I also think that kind of the intersectionality of stuff. So when you're talking about historic houses that have got animal based attraction at the same place. Yeah.
Paul Marden: When you start to zero in on those smaller sample size or smaller groups, they get so small that it's very hard to draw any conclusions. If we can make the sample size bigger, then those intersectional groups will still be fairly small. If there's a Venn diagram, there's not a lot of overlap in some of these groups and they will be pretty small groups, but you'll still get some interesting answers rather than a sample size of one, which some of the smaller groups do drill down to that at the moment. So the more people, the better. And the more diverse types of attractions that fill in, the better.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. I think it's probably worth recognising that some of the groups that people fall into are going to be really small.
Paul Marden: Yes.
Oz Austwick: I mean, how many safari parks are there in the UK, for example? It's not a lot. And if only one safari park fills in the survey. So if there's a call to action from this bit, it's like, please fill it in.
Paul Marden: What else are we going to do? So we talked about simplifying the survey. We want to increase the sample size. We wanted to introduce some new themes as well this year.
Oz Austwick: Yes. The survey is designed to represent the digital landscape of the visitor attraction industry in the UK, but obviously there are things happening in the digital world that we've not spoken about in the survey. For example, AI, there's a big. A big amount of development. There's a lot of AI stories hitting the news. People are using it for all sorts of things. We've never asked any questions about it at all. Does anybody use it? Is it relevant? What's going on out there? We don't know. So we're going to be asking a little bit about that. And the other main theme that we've not really looked into before that we're going to be asking a little bit more about is sustainability. It's become really clear over the last sort of six months or so, looking at the conversations we've had with venues.
Oz Austwick: Everybody's doing stuff, not everybody's doing the same stuff, not everybody's doing the right stuff, but everybody's doing something. And it would be really nice to know what's standard. And obviously there's stuff on site that you can do at the attraction itself, but there's things you can do around the website and the hosting and the way that your digital presence works. So we're going to be asking a little bit about that as well.
Paul Marden: I think in every conversation I've ever had about digital sustainability, I learn a little bit more about the subject. And I can remember there was an amazing speaker at the Umbraco conference a couple of years ago that spoke, who's now a friend of mine, and he just told some amazing stories about the impact of digital on CO2 emissions. And it was, you know, I used to work in an airline. It was fairly clear to see that airlines are fairly polluting. You can see it coming out the back of the plane. But I don't think I'd ever really seriously thought about digital technology being a major contributor to climate change in the way that I now understand it to be. So, finding out what other people are doing, we're willing to bet that quite a lot of attractions will have a sustainability plan.
Paul Marden: Fewer will have done any sort of benchmarking of their digital platform, and fewer, again, still will have done anything to actually reduce their CO2 emissions. But that's just instinct. I'm really interested to understand what the actual numbers are at the end of this, because once we start measuring it, we can start improving things as an industry.
Oz Austwick: I think it's fascinating, and that goes back to exactly what Polly was talking about when you interviewed her two episodes ago I think.
Paul Marden: Something like that.
Oz Austwick: About the fact that, you know, we all start from somewhere and you can look at this and think, oh, I'm actually not doing a great job, but you've got to be honest about it because you've got to know where you are. You know, everything that comes to us is completely anonymised. We don't give out anybody's data. We give out, you know, the raw data in a way that means that nobody can track anybody else. So you nothing that you say is going to put, you know, anything that you're maybe a little bit unhappy out there. But if doing this survey forces you to think about what you're doing and look at it and think, actually, maybe I do need to do this, then brilliant. You know what an amazing achievement that will be.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So we want to enable people to give better answers. So we're going to reduce the number of category type questions that we've got and drill down to real numbers. We'll get better understanding of conversion rates. And there was some other standardisation that we wanted to do, wasn't there?
Oz Austwick: Yeah, absolutely. One of the things that we noticed that. And again, it's going back to this, trying to reduce the fact that you can just tick other when we're trying to look at what sort of attraction are you when you're filling in the survey. In fairness, we've got a pretty good idea of the different attractions there are out there and we created a fairly good list, but we still got quite a lot of Others. So were kind of looking at how we can improve that list and we thought, well, why not standardise it with a list that's already out there? And it turns out that VisitBritain has a perfectly good list, which is really quite comprehensive.
Oz Austwick: So we're using their list for attraction type rather than ours because it allows us to standardise the data a little bit more and hopefully people will already know where they fit. But I think we've also allowed people to tick more than one option this time, which previously we didn't. If you were a historic home that also had a safari park or an adventure playground or something, you'd have to pick which of those am I? And obviously, you know, for the big attractions around the country and for an awful lot of the smaller ones, we would look at them and go, “Oh, they've ticked that. That's odd. I wonder why they've done that.” Whereas now you're able to say, “Actually, I'm three different things.” And that's great, because again, it allows us to be a little bit more granular.
Oz Austwick: And if it turns out that maybe there are other attractions that have the same breakdown of what they do as you, that will become clear, hopefully.
Paul Marden: So one of the big areas that we want to, we're excited to grow into is that we'll be having a US focused survey for the first time, supported by our friends at Convious.
Oz Austwick: Lots of Zs instead of Ss in that one.
Paul Marden: Yes, we've had to do some localisation and that will be published alongside the UK version of the survey. And we'll have a US report and a UK report that we'll be launching at the end, thanks to our friends at Convious. But we'll also have versions of the survey localised for attractions in the EU, because there was actually, last year, we got quite a number of european attractions submitting and we think that can improve when the survey tool itself is focused on the EU and is, you know, the numbers that we've got in the survey are denominated in euros rather than in pounds. So, yeah, that's increasing. The number of international responses, especially in North America, is super important for us this year.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. And I think it's worth saying that it's quite a potentially valuable thing to do as well, because if we can look at the surveys and say that, weirdly, the UK sites tend to rate here, but us sites rate here for something, why is that? What do they do differently in the US that allows them to be more successful in this instance than we in the UK are here? You know, with any luck, either, we'll be able to say no. Globally, this is all pretty much on a par. So you can see where you set in the world, rather than just in, say, Shropshire. But you could also say, right, well, these guys are doing better. Let's look at what they're doing and try and emulate that and improve what we're doing to bring it in line with what we know is possible.
Paul Marden: So lots to change, lots of improvements that we're making. Pretty big ambitions to grow the survey in a number of different ways, but not in the number of questions that are there. So hopefully, it will take less effort for people to submit their responses this time and the survey will be launched around the time that this episode comes out. So you'll be able to go onto rubbercheese.com/survey and follow the links and submit your data, which is pretty exciting for us. We'll be sat there watching the responses rolling in. I got very excited last year, watching people respond.
Oz Austwick: I can't wait, genuinely. I know that sounded sarcastic, didn't it? It wasn't supposed to. I genuinely. I'm quite excited about this. Yeah.
Paul Marden: You might need to work on your sincerity. There's an area of improvement there are.
Oz Austwick: Recording this at the end of the afternoon on a Friday, so, you know, this is as good as you're gonna get, I'm afraid.
Paul Marden: So. We're really keen for people to go onto the website and fill in the survey, but there's other things that you want as well, isn't there, Oz?
Oz Austwick: Well, for me, I want people to talk to us. I want people to talk about the survey. I want them to talk about last year's survey and the rapport. I want people to come along and say, “Look, it'd be really interesting to know where I sit it in this. This is our attraction. This is what we think. Is it true?” Get in touch, give us a shout, let's have a chat. You know, let's have an excuse to get together with a coffee and a laptop and look at some spreadsheets. But, you know, if there's something that you want to see from the survey moving forwards, because I think it's probably safe to say this isn't going to be the last one we do.
Oz Austwick: Then again, let us know if there's things that we aren't talking about and you've got a better viewpoint and you can see that there's a gap in what we're asking. Please let us know because we can't do this by ourselves and we're not really doing it for ourselves. So the more people talk to us, the better, really.
Paul Marden: So if you want to talk to us, all the usual social channels that we normally talk about, but also send us email at [email protected]. Both Oz and I will get that. And really keen to spark the conversations and see where it goes from there.
Oz Austwick: Yeah. And if we bump into each other at an event or you see me, give me a shout, I'll buy you a coffee. I mean on him, obviously.
Paul Marden: Of course. So your episode number one on skip the queue, how was it for you?
Oz Austwick: That was all right, actually, wasn't it? Yeah. Okay. I mean, hello. Let's, let's see. Well, I enjoyed it.
Paul Marden: I've enjoyed it. Not quite the same as talking to Kelly, but not the same. Not better or worse, just different.
Oz Austwick: I'll take that as a compliment.
Paul Marden: You take it however you like, mate.
Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, SkiptheQueue.fm.
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 22nd May 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.rigb.org/
www.linkedin.com/in/shjfranklin
Steven Franklin is a self-confessed social media addict, with 4 years’ experience of work in social media, drawn from a mixture of heritage, cultural, government, and the charity sectors.
To date, he has worked at Egham Museum, Bradford Museums and Art Galleries, The National Archives, and now The Royal Institution.
When he’s not making TikToks or trying to write witty posts on X, you’ll find him thinking about how the latest evolutions in social media could translate and be used within the cultural and charity sectors. His passion for innovation has seen him deliver huge social media at every organisation that he has worked, bringing his distinctive mixture of creativity and storytelling to every account, which has resulted in an attention-grabbing tone of voice that has greatly increased brand exposure and recognition.
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden.
In this episode, I'm joined by Steven Franklin, the Social Media Manager at the Royal Institution. Steven has seen some phenomenal increases in subscribers and engagement whilst managing the organisation's social media, which, as we'll find out, is pivotal to the role the RI has in science communication.
Paul Marden: Welcome, Steven, to the Skip the Queue podcast. It's lovely to have you.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, thank you very much for inviting me on, Paul. Really looking forward to this chat.
Paul Marden: Yeah, me too. Me too. So, before we get started, where are you sat at the moment? Because it's looking like a pretty impressive location.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, no, I thought I'd make an effort for the listeners and viewers. So I'm currently in the very salubrious surroundings of Mayfair. To be more specific, the Royal Institution on Albemarle street, in the historic writing room, which dates all the way back to the sort of mid 1800s. Interestingly, a little anecdote. This is the room where our discourse speakers are locked in and have been locked in for quite a while, for a couple of, well, approaching a couple of centuries, following one specific instance where one of our speakers got so overwhelmed by anxiety and nerves that he basically left before his talk. So, in order to prevent that from happening, we now locked speakers up half an hour before their discourse is supposed to start, so they don't have the chance to run away and leave the audience wanting more to speak.
Paul Marden: And for the Skip the Queue audience, I would like emphasise that is not my plan going forward with the podcast. I am not going to lock people up half an hour before that.
Steven Franklin: No.
Paul Marden: So, Steven, we always start with some icebreaker questions. So I've got a couple for you. First one, what's your earliest memory of travelling outside of your hometown?
Steven Franklin: Oh, I think it would have to be travelling up to see one of my aunties who lives in Northamptonshire, and I always remember sort of going up the M1, which is an interesting thing to remember, seeing sort of the lights. But I think, more importantly than the sort of mundaneity and boredom of travelling up a motorway, it was just sort of the excitement and good times of getting treated by different relatives who also had a golden retriever called Barney, who I was very fond of. And, yeah, that was probably my earliest memory.
Paul Marden: Yeah, family trips like that are lovely, aren't they? I remember lots of trips up into South Wales. So mine would be that my memory would probably be the M4, travelling from Somerset up to the South Wales Valleys to visit Auger Farrell. Okay, so the next one. How would you describe your job to a two year old?
Steven Franklin: I'm in the business of entertaining people. And the way I entertain people is by either doing it through the form of video, or by doing it through the form of written word, or by doing it in nice visuals, whether they are still photos or animated graphics. And as a byproduct of my entertainment, I hope to also educate. There you go.
Paul Marden: Lovely. So another thing that we always ask our visitors onto the show is, what's your unpopular opinion?
Steven Franklin: So I've been. Obviously, you gave me the heads up for this, and I've been thinking long and hard about what's the most unpopular opinion that I came up with that I truly believe in, and mine is that audiobooks are a more pleasurable and enjoyable experience than reading a proper book.
Paul Marden: Oh, wow. Okay, so what's wrong with reading a proper book? There are librarians among us that might actually care about a physical book.
Steven Franklin: Yeah. Yeah. See this where it becomes a poor reflection on my own self, basically, because the reason that I don't really enjoy reading proper books is that I find it quite difficult to sort of sit still for long periods of time. I also find it quite difficult to shut my brain off for long enough to only be really focused on the one, the book that's in front of me. So, yeah, whilst I do appreciate the romanticism of sort of reading a book in the sun or reading a book over a cup of tea or, you know, reading a classic novel on holiday and the sort of the tactile nature of the book experience, it's never really sat with me.
Steven Franklin: So I think in some ways, that sort of unpopular opinion isn't really surprising, given what I work in and sort of age I am and sort of the media that I create, so I don't know whether it's a sense of the tail wagging the dog or the dog wagging the tail, but either way it's, you know, there's a nice sort of closed loop there.
Paul Marden: I've got my subscription and I've got a few credits that I need to spend at the bank, but I like an audiobook, but they send me to sleep, so if I can't do factual books on audiobook that sends me straight to sleep. But even listening to fiction on audible, within five minutes, I'll be out. Whereas I can sit and read a book and that can hold my attention for a couple of chapters before nodding off. Audiobook, I just need. I was listening to a Stephen Fry narrated one the other day, the lulling tones of Stephen Fry, but off I went to sleep.
Steven Franklin: I think Stephen Fry is, you know, he's sort of a silent assassin of the audiobook world insofar as he has such a, you know, his dulcet tones just naturally send you off and give me the Harry Potter audiobooks read by Stephen Fry, and I'm golden, so to speak. But, yeah, now, I also got into a bit of a nerdy sort of. And this is a very typical conversation at the RI, but a nerdy chat about whether you retain more information having actually read the book than listening to the book. Because I was of the opinion that you probably didn't take as much in if you were listening to it than if you were reading it.
Steven Franklin: I can't exactly remember what the figures were, but I think the long and short of it was that actually, the science suggests that sort of retention is slightly less, but not as drastic as you might have thought. So that gave me some sort of, you know, made me feel a little bit better about myself and my inability to sit quiet for long periods of time and read.
Paul Marden: So, anecdotally, I'm reading to my daughter as we read every night before she goes to bed. She's ten years old. She can be doing something else. She could even be reading a different book that I'll be reading to her. And I'm like, “You're not listening to me. What did I just say?” And she could just recite exactly what I just said. So she is listening, somehow, doing two things at once. I do not understand how she does it.
Steven Franklin: I don't know whether this is actually correct, but somewhere somebody might have said something or have read it, but there's something about doing two things at once that, you know, sort of gets your brain in a state of flow and maybe ups your performance again, I actually don't know whether this is true, but if it's not, this is a lie that I tell myself.
Paul Marden: So it's a pinchot that we're not actually scientists of the RI, so why don't we. You've told us what the two year old view of your job might look like, but why don't you tell us a little bit about the RI? Lots of listeners will be aware of the RI from the Christmas lectures, but it's got really long history. So tell us a little bit about that, about each role today and what you do.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, so the RI founded in 1799, basically from its very inception, a science engagement institution. I think that's something that has always and will continue to always set the RI apart from other sort of science organisations, insofar as we haven't been an organisation that's got a traditional focus on research and research outputs. Our sort of modus operandi, for want of a better phrase, has always been the core principle of connecting the public with science. Back in 1799 and through the early 1800s, you know, that would have been done traditionally by. Well, it still is to this day, but obviously that's back. Back in the day of ye oldy, victorian times, it would have been done by sort of, you know, lectures and demonstrations.
Steven Franklin: So the likes of, you know, Humphrey Davy, Michael Faraday, you know, these are some of the big figures that are associated with our long 225 year history. And in fact, pretty much every, you know, sort of famous scientist of the Victorian age is likely to have been a member here at some stage. Yeah. So, you know, we're very difficult. We're very different from the likes of the Royal Society in the sense that we've always welcomed women. We've always sort of had an ethos of connecting children. The Christmas lecture has been the most obvious example, but we're connecting children to science. And I think also, you know, we've also been quite historically wedded to the idea of being slightly different, less snobbish for, you know, I think, and more. More sort of open, more playful. We don't take ourselves too seriously.
Steven Franklin: And in fact, during sort of the Victorian period, we were sort of lambasted by famous caricatures of the day for that very fact. For the fact that sort of. We were obsessed with teaching the public. We allowed women in. We sort of broke the traditional rules of the day. So that got us into a bit of not trouble, but people laughed at us and pointed at us and sort of said that weren't doing it the right way because we weren’t an academic members only organisation. So that was. That was sort of our founding. And I think, you know, pretty much from that point onwards today, we've not really changed in that regard. The thing that's changed is sort of society around us. So we still have a lecture theatre.
Steven Franklin: I've mentioned earlier that we have our discourses. They used to happen every Friday, and they now happen once, the last Friday of every month. Christmas lectures continue to this day, and next year it will be the 200th anniversary of them.
Paul Marden: Wow.
Steven Franklin: And the Christmas lectures have pretty much been a constant. They were stopped or paused during World War II but, you know, by and large, a tradition that's sort of a line that links us from the present all the way back to the past. And, in fact, even the desk that sits, that's in the lecture theatre today, whilst it's not Faraday's original, part of it, is, so every time they rebuild it, they keep a part of the old desk and use that. So it's a bit like that, you know, that famous Titanic sort of riddle like, if you were to change all the parts of the Titanic, would it still be the Titanic? And, you know, or bicycle, whatever. But, yeah, so there's that. And I think, to the present day, our scope's much larger now.
Steven Franklin: So we have a sort of traditional stem learning framework in place where school kids, pretty much of all curricular curriculum ages, can come to on site and be taught. So we've got a very buzzing, very healthy science programme. We also do a lot off site science engagement for the schools that aren't based in London. We also have a very thriving public programme that, you know, sees some of the foremost, greatest scientific thinkers of today come and provide lectures in the Faraday lecture theatre. We're also home to a wonderful collection of scientific history. So there's been ten elements of the periodic table that were isolated here at the RI. So, yeah, we've got a history of that, and we have, well, basically, we've far too much for even us to talk about. And then I guess.
Steven Franklin: I guess for me, working in sort of digital social media, I guess part of my remit, well, my remit is to engage people with science to get them interested in science. We believe, and we're quite unashamed in our belief that, you know, science is for everyone and science is important. It is quite fundamental and crucial to everyday life, regardless of how old you are. So a knowledge of science is important. And, you know, another key sort of part of my work is to sort of show off what the RI has in our heritage collection, our public programme, to get people onto site, to encourage people to become members and support our mission, and just to, I guess, entertain people through science. There you go.
Paul Marden: That's interesting, isn't it? The entertainment element of it. I guess there's an element of trying to get people on board and engage in their RI's mission, but at the same time entertaining them. And everyone likes a good explosion video, don't they?
Steven Franklin: So, yeah, I mean, yeah, I've sort of. Not a day goes past where I don't feel incredibly fortunate, really, because, you know, in some ways, I get a lot of the credit for success that we see on social media when videos go viral. But I'm not the one exploding hydrogen balloons or making, you know, really impressive looking sort of demos, chemical reactions, so to speak. So, you know, it's very much an all sort of team sort of mission. But, yeah, I do have it very good, actually, because I've got so much. I'm like Aladdin in the cave, got so much to play with.
Paul Marden: Lots of material. So that's interesting. So let's talk a little bit about social media at the RI. It's really important to the organisation, because when I was doing my bone round research to all of this, and I open up the annual report, then on the trustees report, on, like, page one or page two of the annual report, they are talking about the impact of social media on the organisation. So it's obviously crucial to what you do. How do you think that it's become that important for the organisation?
Steven Franklin: I think, genuinely, it does link back to that core fundamental purpose. All social media is the 21st century way of connecting people with an idea. In the Victorian times, you would have had to sit in a lecture theatre and listen to the lecture given. If you were lucky, you might have been able to read it, if you were in the right sort of circles. But, in many ways, the way in which technology has evolved and where we sit here today, it's never been easier to sort of publish ideas and communicate thinking. That isn't to downplay the craft that goes into it, because I think that's two separate conversations. It is very easy to publish.
Steven Franklin: It's a little bit more of a science to publish in the right way with the right sort of thinking that goes into it. So, yeah, I think, it's fundamental about connecting people with science, and that is what the charity and the institution is built on. I think we're quite fortunate, the RI, in the sense that we have a leadership team that truly believes in the importance of connection and doesn't devalue digital connection against physical connection. So, whether you're supporting our social media channels, whether you're a subscriber on YouTube, or whether you're sitting in the lecture theatre, that is a valuable engagement that is fulfilling a function and part of our purpose. So, yeah, I think that's why. And actually, it's really nice to be working at an organisation that does play such onus and importance.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So what is it like having responsibility for over a million followers across social? That must be a little bit bolting.
Steven Franklin: Yes, it is. And I've thought about this a lot, and indeed, I've had quite a short career in social media, but I think even I've begun to mature in the way I think about this, too. I think, first and foremost, if you're working in social media, you probably aren't somebody that's overawed by that fact that you can hit huge numbers of people pretty much instantaneously. And I think if you are somebody that would get anxious about that, you probably wouldn't be working in social or indeed comms. So I think there's that. But I think it's a great honour, to be honest, to be trusted pretty much within reason, to sort of spearhead a strategy and have a bit of fun.
Steven Franklin: And translate sort of, scientific ideas into a medium that makes sense for the 21st century, or indeed the trend, or indeed the platform. I think that's in a very entrusted position. Yeah, so there's that. And then, I think, for me personally, there's been a bit of maturity in sort of realising that, actually, whilst you still get that rush, when you see a viral post really take off and you get that lovely dopamine hit and you're on cloud nine, actually realising that this is not your account, you're doing the work of the organisation. This isn't Steven Franklin out there and sort of going viral.
Paul Marden: This is some of the jokes. There's a little bit of you in there, I think.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, no, there is, there is. But I think the thing that I've realised is that when things. When things go well, then you've got nothing to worry about. But in the odd moments where you get into a bit of a sticky patch, something didn't go quite anticipated. That's when having too close a personal connection with it does become health sage. Correct. Yeah. And actually, I think, by and large, for the most part, that sort of talking to a million people is 99% not a problem. It's that small 1% of moments where something goes awry that you didn't quite anticipate, we didn't expect. I try my best to think 360 degrees about what possibly people could think in response to it.
Steven Franklin: A post that I think is harmless, but in reality we're posting to the Internet and everybody on the Internet is able to hold of you. And so I was having this conversation with my line manager a couple of weeks ago, 20 years ago, you would have published something in the press and somebody would have had the same thought. The only difference was they were having it in their living room and they were just uttering it to their other half. Today they can literally give you instantaneous feedback. So that's how the dynamic shifted. So yeah, I think hopefully that's answered your question. Paul.
Paul Marden: Yeah, you touched on this a minute ago, you touched on kind of the broader strategy. So what are the goals for social, for the organisation going forwards?
Steven Franklin: I mean more, more, more. How do you like it? How do you like it? I mean there is an element of that. So obviously we want to continue growing all of our channels as much as possible. We want to be talking to as many new people, raising the awareness of the institution, raising the awareness of our work, but then also sort of subsidiary to that, just sort of communicating good science and providing that sort of educational offer. So I think, there is that sort of vanity metric in terms of raw number of followers, but we're also really interested in engagement and you know, there's no point to us in having 5 million followers if only 5000 people engage with your content each month. That to us feels a little incongruous.
Steven Franklin: So, putting out quality content on channels that our communities on those channels respond to and enjoy and engage with is sort of a big motivation factor for us. And then secondly, or maybe thirdly, we've been quite agile in adapting to technology in the 21st century. So some of our channels we have monetised and sort of use digital content to help drive revenue and bring in revenue. So that's a sort of secondary or tertiary sort of thing on social.
Paul Marden: Yeah, it's a nice bit of feedback, isn't it, in batching to the organisation. So who are the audiences, those communities that you touched on a moment ago, who is it that you're trying to speak to?
Steven Franklin: So I think by and large, like any organisation, we have an audience sort of strategy that sort of segments all of our audiences into various catchment terms that represent people and we have about six to eight of those. And we made a conscious effort to focus on to two groups that we internally refer to as the science connected and the science curious. So science connected being people that might work in science, might have done a degree in science, might have a connection through science, they might be studying it. So, that traditional science call, they work in a career that is adjacent to science and then the science curious, probably, are those people that don't fit into that group, but are probably more arts and culturally orientated.
Steven Franklin: They are interested in learning new things, they are open to ideas and exchanging ideas and. Yeah. So those are the sort of two audiences that we predominantly focus on. That isn't to say that we are deliberately excluding the rest.
Paul Marden: If you're not focusing on some bit, you're focused on no deal.
Steven Franklin: Exactly. Yeah.
Paul Marden: So I guess the reason how the way that we got connected, the way that our conversation started together, was more interested in data and pulling data out of the sector and understanding how the sector works. And in a conversation I had with Rachel at the Association of Science and Discovery Centre, she said you'd be a really good person to talk to because you're really motivated by the data behind social and you use that a lot to be able to influence what you do. So tell us a little bit about that. How are you using data to make decisions about what you do next?
Steven Franklin: Well, that's a big question. I think one of the great things about working in digital social being a part of digital, is that there's no shortage of data that is at your disposal. I think one of the things that makes me sort of sad working within the charity cultural sector is that actually, by and large, the level of resource isn't there to truly sort of get to the bottom of what that data tells you.
Paul Marden: Yes.
Steven Franklin: So I'll get off my soapbox now. Yeah. So, as you say, I'm very interested in using that data to inform my content choices. And I think by far and away, the clearest example I have to show you today is the way that we've sort of looked at data in terms of our Instagram growth.
Steven Franklin: To put that into context, in the last six months we've grown organically by 110,000 followers in about 130 posts. So absolutely staggering numbers. And then within the last four or five months, we've done approaching 10 million impressions on just Instagram alone. So, huge numbers. And the thing that I noticed was that whenever I posted a static image or graphic to the grid, so just a post, the only people that saw it were your followers, and there was a tiny fraction of people that weren't your followers. So I posted a reel and then I realised that percentage and was completely skied the other way. So, depending on how successful the reel was, you could have anything up to 75% non followers versus 25% followers on a truly viral reel, that was over a million views.
Steven Franklin: So what that told me was that if I wanted to grow, the easiest way to grow is to obviously get your content to new people. And the way the platform and the algorithm was telling me the easiest way to do that was to just publish Instagram reels. So. And, there have been other stories. I think the Washington Post sort of in 21, 22, grew their Instagram channel to over a couple of million by publishing three Instagram reels a day. And they had exponential growth of which hadn't been seen before. So I didn't do three times a day. I just did three a week one on Monday, one on Wednesday, one on Friday. All videos about 60 seconds, some 40 seconds and some, up to a minute and a half. But yeah, just got into that pattern.
Steven Franklin: Posted, posted posters, and then I would supplement those reels with, a couple of grid posts. And the way that I sort of was seeing or the way that the strategy has sort of evolved is that the reels are the things that grow the channel and the grid posts are the things that cultivate the community. So, our Instagram reels are our calling card.
Paul Marden: Yep.
Steven Franklin: For a traditional analogy, they're the billboard that you put on the motorway that lots of people see. And the content you post to your followers or to those followers are the sort of entertaining, sort of, membership pack that they can read and that equivalent, the analogy sort of fell down. But hopefully you get my gist.
Paul Marden: Yeah, I get what you mean. So when you flip it on its head and you go with the reels, you get this massive increase in people that aren't following you, seeing what you're talking about. And what sort of conversion rate are you seeing how many people are actually following you as a result of that? Is that the great point there?
Steven Franklin: Yeah, so we've like, within a month, we've been growing on average, 20,000 followers a month. In some days, we've been doing one and a half thousand followers a day. You can link that. So, you know, Instagram, if you go into our most popular reel that has over 5 million views, it will tell you how many new followers that specific video has generated. That video, I think, for us, has in itself generated like 30,000 new followers.
Paul Marden: Many thoughts. Now there's just play by mind. That's amazing. What is it about the content? Have you changed the content over that time? So you'd say that you're presenting different things.
Steven Franklin: Yeah. So it's been really interesting. And the reason it's been interesting is because by and large, it sort of has gone against the industry received wisdom. So, for context, I am the sole person in charge of social media. I work in a digital and marketing team. We have two full time video producers who help me create visual content and assets and video. But by and large, you know, I am sort of a one man band. So I sort of decided that I couldn't create brand new content all the time. But what I could do is use the 40 minutes to an hour lecture that we have take place in our lectures sometimes three times a week that are by and large filmed.
Steven Franklin: I know that we've got some of the greatest scientists in the world coming to speak about really cool things. Okay, cool. Why don't I take that 1 hour talk and skim through it at two times speed and isolate 1 minute moments that peak interest. Okay. So that's all very well and good. What are the things that we internally think peak people's interest? Well, there's the obvious one. It's the demonstrations or the impressive science experiments, the bangs, the smoke and all of that. So there's that. Then there's the talking about something that's, you know, vaguely topical trending. So I think that, the probably most obvious example of that is the, is Chris Van Dulligan and his ultra processed foods or ultra processed people book.
Steven Franklin: So, yep, we released quite a lot of content around that. And that did very well. And then thirdly, I guess it's the content that is likely to somewhat divide opinion. I won't say it's controversial content, but I would say that it's content that is most likely to get people talking. Because another thing that I noticed was that if your video gets more comments, it seems that helps with performance than likes. So you could get loads of likes. But if nobody comments, then algorithm isn't interested. But if people start talking and commenting, then the algorithm says, “Oh, people really like this. And, you know, it doesn't matter what they're saying.”
Paul Marden: And that's what you're seeing with the reels. Is it that you push a reel out there? And if it's, if it is thought provoking, not controversial. Yeah. Then you're seeing people commenting on that and that drawings up more impressions, which itself drives more engagement and all the outcomes.
Steven Franklin: Yeah. So like to take that 5 million reel example, you know, it's got like 45,000 likes, so it's still a lot of likes. But if you did the maths, that compared to 5 million views, it's quite a small rate. The amount of comments, it's got huge. It's like the comment section alone is bordering on 5000. Conversely, we have another video that's done sort of approaching 4 million, the likes are at 100,000, but the comment section is far smaller and it hasn't received as or hasn't been pumped out. Now, am I reading too much into this? Probably, because at the end of the day we're all slightly at the mercy of the algorithm and there is a bit of luck. There is a bit of luck.
Steven Franklin: But I guess for me, having sort of worked on it and sort of adopted this strategy for six months, it does seem to be the case that the more people start talking and commenting and sharing, the more the algorithm sort of takes that as a sign or marker of good content.
Paul Marden: Yeah, yeah, absolutely. So around the kind of content planning and production piece, there's a team of people around you. You're in a fortunate position because you've got all of these amazing scientists from around the world that want to talk about what they do in your lecture theatre where you can go and record their content and back, all of a sudden you've got a content plan in front of you of the year, haven't you? So that's a really fortunate position to be in. But how do you go from that plan of all of the activity over the year into figuring out what you're going to do on a daily basis on your Monday, Wednesday, Friday posts that you do.
Steven Franklin: So there's two ways. There's the official answer and then there's the unofficial answer. The official answer is in some ways the reels that we post are somewhat predetermined by the schedule of our public programme. Now that isn't to say, and this somewhat circles back to your previous question, but I think it still makes sense. Not all of our content that we published on Instagram or TikTok is, a clip of a talk. You know, we do supplement the content calendar with our own sort of original content, whether that be green screen or our own internal science demonstrations, you know, and interestingly, actually there's another anecdote. The green screen on Instagram just dives. People aren't interested in it.
Steven Franklin: The green screen on TikTok, people love it, whereas on TikTok you post a clip of a talk, people less don't like it. They probably don't feel it's very authentic to the platform. The green screen, you know, goes bonkers, you know, work that out, whatever. Yeah, but, yeah, so going back there is. There is obviously there's somewhat predetermined by the talks, but then also it's coming down to, okay, we have had, you know, how many physics, how many biology, how many chemistry, how many hard science, soft science. We are an organisation that is inclusive reflex all. So we don't want to just publish white men.
Steven Franklin: We need a gender balance there, we need an ethnicity balance as well to reflect the vibrancy of everyone that comes to talk here, but also the vibrancy of the scientific community and large because at the end of the day, our content has the ability to inspire and allows people to feel seen, I guess so. So that also sort of informs our planning process.
Paul Marden: I think you said something about when we were talking before, actually, if you were being really mercenary about this and just going for the engagement, then you would focus on certain demographics of who it is that's presenting all the subject matter as well. Those can skew as well. But you have this obligation to be more diverse than it used.
Steven Franklin: Yeah. And that is an internal challenge. And I think it is a challenge that you could let yourself get carried away by following, chasing big numbers and fall into a trap of sort of undermining your own institution nor mission. Just at the sake of to get to a million followers or whatever. But yeah, no, there are some challenges, you know, there are. And this is me not trying to overstate things, but we do publish content that we know sadly won't perform as well as say something else that we know probably would. But I think that is also one of the great joys and great beauties of working here is we're not yet. We will never be at a stage where we just do things for the pure KPI's.
Steven Franklin: We are also all about engagement and inspiring and being inclusive.
Paul Marden: There's a big mission that plays. It's quite interesting, isn't it? Because it makes you wonder whether just if you focus on one demographic or you focus one segment at the expense of the others. Is that because the algorithm favours that or is that because the audience. You would think that even if it was the algorithm favouring it's because that's because the audience that the algorithm serves is optimised around the algorithm is optimised around the audience. So you would expect it to be the audience listening. But yeah, it's a. Which came first is a chicken and egg problem, isn't it?
Steven Franklin: It is. It is a chicken and egg problem. And I think, you know, sort of this comes back to you. What's it like to manage a channel of a million sort of people? You just got to accept that not everything you post is going to be to everyone's taste. There'll be things that fly and there'll be things that don't. But the things that don't, it doesn't mean that it was bad content, doesn't mean that it's not fulfilled an important or valuable function or done something that has meaning, even if it only gets, you know, 50 engagements. Those 50 engagements are very valuable and in some cases could be potentially more valuable if it's chimed with the right sort of people and got in front of the audience we wanted.
Paul Marden: Yeah, my daughter absolutely adores Mark Rober videos and the crunchlight boxes that he has. And he talks about, you hide the vegetables. Yeah. You give people the big exploding test tubes or whatever, but hidden behind that is the chemistry. Or you give them a toy that enables them to do amazing things with ping pong balls, but actually along the way they're learning some physics. You can hide the veg in amongst all of your exploding videos.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, correct. And funny you should mention Mark Rober. I was literally just watching a YouTube video about him earlier today on the way in. Yeah, I wouldn't say an idol of mine, but a really interesting sort of case study in somebody that sort of, you know, the way in which the creator economy is sort of pivoted to a way where you can become your own sort of advertiser as well as product. And you have the perfect closed loop. You create a product, you make a video for 30 million people that advertises your product, that then generates income so you can create more product, so you can just go round around.
Steven Franklin: Yeah, I mean, I guess for me, I'm a YouTube nut and I'm a sort of social media addicts and I think there's really big potential in sort of unlocking some of the secrets of how creators work and how they think and how they approach content and product and collaboration, taking some of those principles and concepts into the world of brands and organisations and institutions, because, let's be honest, that's kind of the future. And those people, regardless of whether they've got a marketing background or qualifications in marketing, they are cutting edge marketers who.
Paul Marden: Absolutely, yeah.
Steven Franklin: Who know exactly what they're doing, who are obsessed by the detail, who study and analyse retention graphs until it sort of makes them blue in the face. And that's the type of thing that I would love to do, to be able to do A and B tests on Facebook, to be able to do something as simple as publish the same video, publish one without a sort of timeline that shows how long you are through the video, publish the same video with that. See how that affects retention. Because if you believe that, as we're told, that retention is one of the keys sort of metrics of success or good content, then if you can find ways in which you can create longer retention metric, then that would be a key.
Steven Franklin: And even something as simple as that could possibly lead to some really big impacts. Another thing, you could post your video on reels and you could look at the or TikTok, look at a retention graph. Okay, we'll publish the same video, but we'll take that spike and we'll move that there and we'll cut the video short.
Paul Marden: That's amazing, isn’t it?
Steven Franklin: Yeah, but that is the sort of thinking that's happening with some of the biggest creators, and sort of I guess they're in a very privileged position because they have now huge teams behind them. But I guess for me the core point is that they didn't always have these people there.
Paul Marden: And did the data just add to that, isn't it?
Steven Franklin: Yeah, yeah. You know, and my suspicion is I've never spoken to the likes of Mr. Beast or Mark Rober or anybody with huge social following. But my suspicion is basically if you just take one piece of data and you optimise your workflow around that, then once you've got that sorted, you then turn your attention to another piece and then another piece, and then if you've optimised five pieces of data, then maybe you are in a place where you can get another person and then, so to speak.
Paul Marden: It's a positive reinforcing cycle, isn't it? So let's take that. How do you demonstrate back to the organisation the return on their investment for all the work that you're doing?
Steven Franklin: Well, as sort of referenced earlier, there is the sort of monetisation aspect to that. So I have a KPI of sort of quarterly and monthly budgets that I am against, that I'm accountable to. So there's that. So that's a very obvious straight line trajectory between a very opaque money and then digital content. But then I guess outside of that, there's other KPI's, obviously, growth on channels, engagement rates, numbers of engagements, link clicks through to our posts that promoting our membership offers, whether that be family membership or adult membership or our public programme events. So those are all the ways in which I can demonstrate value, I guess. And that's just numeric data.
Steven Franklin: But then there's also the actual stuff that I much more enjoy, which is the anecdotal, the sort of the written word where somebody says, give the social media manager a raise. I cheaply screenshot and send it over to my line manager to say, you know, just leaving this here.
Paul Marden: Sure. Absolutely. Absolutely. This has been brilliant to talk to you, find out a little bit more about what you do and what the RI is doing with social media. It's been awesome. We always ask our guests to tell us about their favourite books that we could share with the audience. So have you selected a book for us?
Steven Franklin: I have selected a book that I listened to on audible. Yeah. So Steven Bartlett's the Diary of a CEO, 33 laws, business and life, something that I've just finished listening to. Yeah, I'm a big sort of fan of, or, you know, have great admiration for, you know, Steven Bartlett and sort of the way that he's sort of, you know, that a rags to riches kind of story. But yeah, I think there's lots of. It's a very consumable, accessible book with some really nice little ideas in there that you can take away, probably implement to yourself. One of the greatest is the idea of absurdity, and the role that can be and how that can be exploited not just in social but just within marketing.
Steven Franklin: And those sort of tidbits, stick with me, I guess. It's in that ever sort of growing pursuit of mind of trying to just make myself, you know, 1% better each day. And if I can learn from some of the world's best and sort of get any part of wisdom or insight from them and sort of implement that, then that's not going to do me, I hope, any bad. So yeah, that would be my recommendation.
Paul Marden: There you go, lovely listeners. So if you would like a copy of Diary of a CEO, then jump onto X, retweet the show announcement and say, I want Steven's book. The first person that does that will get a copy of the book. Steven, it's been utterly delightful. Thank you ever so much. I really enjoyed we said to each other when we finished the prep call, I hope the main call goes as well as the prep call did. It really did. I've enjoyed this one just as much as the prep call. So thank you.
Steven Franklin: No, thank you very much. And yeah, it's been really enjoyable. I just wish it could have been longer, to be honest.
Paul Marden: Well, maybe we'll bring you back for part two again sometime soon. Thank you, Steven.
Steven Franklin: Thank you.
Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 8th May 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://thetypefacegroup.co.uk/
www.linkedin.com/in/polly-buckland-69146a12
Download the latest Impact Report
Polly sat on the client side in a marketing manager role at BMW (UK) Ltd before co-founding The Typeface Group in 2010. She’s an ideas person, blending creativity and commercial awareness to get the best outcomes for our clients.
The Typeface Group is a B Corp Communications Agency + Design Studio based in North Hampshire. Their mission is to counteract digital chatter by championing authentic and strategic communication. Team TFG work with brilliant minds in business to extract, optimise and amplify their expertise, cutting through content clutter and stimulating sales
while reducing digital waste at all costs.
The Typeface Group have been B Corp certified since October 2021 and is currently going through recertification.Nancy Hyne: True Horizon: https://truehorizon.co.uk/
Seismic Change: https://www.seismic-change.com/
Transcription:
Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with Vista attractions. I'm your host, Paul Marden.
On today’s episode I’m joined by Polly Buckland the Owner Founder of The Typeface Group a B Corp Communications Agency and Design studio based in Hampshire.
The climate emergency is a subject that is gaining traction. The changes to our climate are palpable, and finding ways to reduce our carbon footprint and impact on the planet is front and centre for many people that visit attractions.
People are making mindful decisions about where to spend their time and money, to have as little impact as possible – but at the same time people still want to enjoy experiences.
There are many attractions that understand this and are working to reduce their impact, and communicate this clearly to potential guests. So today I’m going to be talking to Polly about how you can measure, and communicate the sustainability of your attraction.
Paul Marden: Polly, welcome to the show.
Polly Buckland: Thank you for having me, Paul.
Paul Marden: Absolute pleasure. My first in the driver's seat all by myself. So it was important to me that this was going to be an interview with a friend so that I could ease myself into the hot seat of being the main host of Skip the Queue.
Polly Buckland: Happy to help.
Paul Marden: Thank you. Thank you for joining me. So regular listeners will know that we always start the podcast with a icebreaker question or two, which is always a surprise. So I picked out some lovely ones for you. Okay. These were ones that came from one of the podcast alumni last week, Ross Ballinger from Drayton Manor. So these were ones that he prepared. So he said, “If you could master one new skill instantly, what would it be and why?”
Polly Buckland: Being able to focus one thing at a time, because I don't know what that feels like.
Paul Marden: Does any agency owner know that? I mean, I think that is kind of a skill for agency owners to be able to focus on 16 things concurrently.
Polly Buckland: No, I’m not sure. Yeah. I feel like it would be a superpower to just really focus in on just that one thing.
Paul Marden: It's interesting, isn't it, because different people behave in different ways. So some people just hyper focus, don't they? Right down into the cornflakes. I can't do that at all. I'm like, just give me the headlines and I'll focus on the six things concurrently, rather than write down deep.
Polly Buckland: Indeed. Lots of tabs open.
Paul Marden: Oh, yeah, completely. All right, so my next one then. If you could live in any period of history, what would it be?
Polly Buckland: Well, my mum told me recently that we descend from Vikings in our family. So maybe I'd go Viking. Maybe I'll go that era.
Paul Marden: That's taking it right back, isn't it? That's good.
Polly Buckland: Or all the 60’s, 70’s, because my mum also went to the Isle of Wight festival when Hendrix was there, and that sounds like it was fun.
Paul Marden: I think if I had to choose between those two, I'd probably go for 60’s or 70’s.
Polly Buckland: Life might have been harder as a Viking.
Paul Marden: I think it could have been quite a lot harder as a Viking. We went to Wealden Downland Museum a couple of weeks ago, and you could see the history of all of the different buildings and places that people lived. Yeah, no, I'll take central heating, please. Central heating and somewhere to cook your dinner. Don't really want to go back to just everybody sitting around a fire trying to. Trying to cook off a fire and live in the same space. That doesn't sound too fun for me.
Polly Buckland: No. Maybe I was hasty. Yeah. Let's go to the Isle of Wight festival and watch the doors.
Paul Marden: Sounds pretty cool to me. All right then, Polly. So the other thing that we always ask people is, what is their unpopular opinion? So tell me, what's yours?
Polly Buckland: I don't like ABBA.
Paul Marden: Really?
Polly Buckland: Quiet, full stop. Well, just so overplayed. It makes me sulk a little bit if I'm dancing and someone puts an ABBA track on.
Paul Marden: Which is quite often, isn't it, really?
Polly Buckland: It's too often.
Paul Marden: So you're not too interested in watching some musicals with some ABBA soundtrack in it? That's. That's not going to light your fire?
Polly Buckland: My kids like watching the Mamma Mia films. They're okay. I like Meryl Streep, but.
Paul Marden: Not so much the music.
Polly Buckland: No. And I love musicals, but, yeah, not ABBA.
Paul Marden: So next wedding you go to, better make sure that they don't have ABBA on the soundtrack and ruin the end of the evening for you.
Polly Buckland: Yeah.
Paul Marden: Okay. So, Polly, thank you. We are going to talk about sustainability reporting because this is something that you do in your business. Yeah. But it's also something that you do helping other organisations with their sustainability reporting, isn't it? So really, I just wanted to start right back at the beginning. For people that have never done this before that heard the term bandied around, what does it actually mean to be doing sustainability reporting within an organisation?
Polly Buckland: Well, it depends what framework you choose to report by and what's most suitable for your business. And there are many excellent sustainability consultancies out there that can help you kind of decide which road to go down. But for me, regardless of what framework you choose to work by, sustainability reporting is important because you can't improve what you don't measure.
Polly Buckland: And in order to move forward as a more sustainable business, you also need to bring your team on board, your customers on board, and you're kind of missing the most important communication tool if you haven't galvanised your mission and your targets into a report. So, yeah, it's really important, regardless of where you are in your journey, regardless of whether it's a legal requirement for your business or not, to actually get your goals down in black and white and start communicating them.
Paul Marden: So there's something you touched on there about it being a legal requirement for some people. So is it's mandatory for some sorts of organisations, is it? And then is it an optional for others?
Polly Buckland: Yeah. So quoted companies, LLPs, large businesses, there's kind of thresholds of energy usage and turnover that will define whether you are legally required to report or not. All B Corps have an obligation to produce annual impact report. And that's kind of how we started putting our annual reports together since our accreditation three and a bit years ago.
Paul Marden: Wow. Okay. So if you don't have to do it, if it's not a legal requirement for you to do it, why would you do it? It sounds like, not having done this before myself, it feels like it could be quite a lot of work. So is there a business benefit to producing this?
Polly Buckland: It is quite a lot of work. It's definitely not a tick box exercise. There's buckets of research out there as to the relationship between consumer behaviour and sustainability. So McKinsey did a study. 60% of customers actively prioritise purchasing from sustainable businesses. Capgemini, 77% of customers buy from and remain loyal to brands that show their social responsibility.
Polly Buckland: That I could literally keep quoting stats as to why businesses should take their sustainability goals very seriously and the communication of their sustainability initiatives very seriously, because it's becoming clearer. There was another stat about primarily women making the decisions based on sustainability of a business, and millennials and Gen Z being sort of high up the list of people that are taking sustainability creds into consideration when they're making a purchase.
Polly Buckland: So, I mean, it's a barrel load of stats that suggest if you don't have your eye on sustainability reporting and communicating your sustainability goals, you perhaps should have.
Paul Marden: Yeah. So thinking about our listeners and sorts of people that listen to the podcast, we've got attractions. And, you know, when we as an agency going and talking to people, we're talking about the audience. Who is it that's actually going to be buying from an attraction? Those are key demographics that you're talking about and making buying decisions off the basis of sustainability reporting and sustainability an overlap of what they want and what the organisation is offering. That's a key buying decision for people that are making decisions about where do they go at the weekend with their family. Could be off the back of those sustainability goals themselves, couldn't they?
Polly Buckland: 100%. And actually, if you think of the little people that are going to these attractions, I know my daughter is in junior school at the moment, and they've done, it's part of the curriculum now. So she's coming home and talking to me about plastics in the ocean and looking at signage and looking at labels on fair trade, that there are little people out there that are looking for these messages now. Yeah, it's important to them. I even noticed the other day a new Sainsbury's opened near where we are, and there is an abundance of sustainability messaging throughout the shop.
Paul Marden: Oh, really?
Polly Buckland: Yeah. So I think people are switching on to the fact that consumers want to see this stuff.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So the other group of people that listening to us are people that working with attractions. And I guess if you're doing sustainability reporting, does that also look at the supply chain? So the people that you buy from, you need to be buying from people that are also thinking about sustainability. So for agencies like us or other people that are servicing the attraction sector, for those attractions that are interested in sustainability reporting, they're going to look to that, to their suppliers to also care about those sorts of things.
Polly Buckland: Yeah, 100%. So doing your due diligence with your supply chain is a big part of what you claim to be as a business. We've just supported one of our clients with the design of their GRI reporting. And as part of that, as one of their suppliers, we had to write a statement to go into that GRI report. So, yeah, supplier due diligence is massive, and I think it would only help you as an agency or as a supplier into these big attractions to not only do the sustainability reporting get the accreditation with whatever framework that works for you, but communicate it to your prospects and customers as well.
Paul Marden: Yeah. So you're talking a little bit about frameworks, and you've talked about different types of sustainability report. Is there some kind of standardisation to this? You know, accountants have standards by which they do their financial reporting. Is that the same sort of thing happening in sustainability space?
Polly Buckland: There are just a number of frameworks you can report by. So if you are one of those larger businesses that we spoke about previously, there are SECR regulations that you need to be compliant for. There are reporting frameworks, as I mentioned, like GRI. There's the ISO accreditation, there's B Corp and our sustainability consultant that we use, Nancy Hine from True Horizon, based down in the New Forest. She very often says it's a case of choosing the framework that's right for you and what you're hoping to achieve as a business. So went down the B Corp route because that's suitable for us. One of our clients, as I said, has just gone down the GRI route. So there isn't one size fits all.
Polly Buckland: And there are a lot of consultancies out there, like Seismic Change, for example, that can support using whichever framework is most kind of commercially viable for you and where you're looking to go as a business, but keeping that credibility through the reporting.
Paul Marden: So getting some advice and guidance from some of the experts to help you pick makes a lot of sense then, I guess.
Polly Buckland: 100%.
Paul Marden: We've talked a little bit about the frameworks. Now you might need somebody to help you with those frameworks, but let's just take it right back to basics. We need to talk a little bit about the sustainability report itself. How do you go about actually gathering all the data and being able to report on the numbers themselves?
Polly Buckland: Yeah, so like us, when we started, weren't really affiliated with any framework. And actually we started by just getting an environmental audit of our business because were interested in how we fared. And that's really how were then introduced into the world of B Corp. But at a basic level, I would split impact reporting into the story and what makes you different as a business and where you've been, where you are, where you want to go, what your commitments are and the data which would be your scope one, two and three emissions.
Polly Buckland: So your scope one emissions, they include all direct emissions from the activities of your business. So that might include any company owned facilities or vehicles. Scope two emissions cover indirect emissions from electricity, heat, cooling that are used by the organisation. And then scope three is pretty much where everything else sits. So for us, a fully remote business, the majority of our emissions sit in scope three, and we are granular to the point where we know the majority of our emissions come from our coffee habit.
Polly Buckland: And that is. That is fact. So once you get a basic understanding of what your scope one, two and three emissions are, there's so much training you can do as a business, whether it's through carbon literacy or you can find consultants to come in and do one one training. What I found was really important is getting the whole team involved in that training.
Polly Buckland: So everyone has a basic understanding of what we're measuring when we're saying scope one, scope two, or scope three, what we mean and what's included within those scopes so people can start to be mindful about waste. So understanding the emissions is important, but tracking your emissions as a business is really important. And we use a business called Compare Your Footprint. And it's basically an engine that you put your data into and it tells you what your carbon footprint is.
Paul Marden: And it's doing that across all of those three different scopes of emissions that you're able to put your data in. Because obviously that's going to really vary by types of organisation, isn't it? Because if you're running a big attraction, then you're going to be, you know, that's a big physical space, isn't it? So you're going to be consuming lots of electricity to be able to power that thing, and probably gas as well to be able to heat it. But, you know, there's ways of mitigating that. But your focus might be different than you are if you're a virtual organisation like us where you know you, a lot of it is very indirect, that kind of scope three type stuff.
Polly Buckland: Exactly. And I guess it's important to differentiate at this point the difference between carbon neutrality and net zero. So there are lots of businesses that will claim carbon neutrality and what that means is they've calculated their scope one and two emissions and have offset those emissions. You don't have to have any reduction plan in place for those emissions and you can offset them and claim carbon neutrality. So on one hand, at least, scope one and two emissions are being measured. However, we could, I could easily do that as a business and pay 30 quid in offsets and claim carbon neutrality knowing that I have tons of emissions sat in my scope 3, whereas net zero, you have to get your baseline of emissions, then you have to reduce them by 90%, I believe it is, and then offset the rest.
Polly Buckland: So there's a world of difference between claiming carbon neutrality and net zero and there's most people, if not everyone really is in between and doing the work. I digress going back to that very first impact report, getting a handle on your emissions. In our first impact reports, we said we've done scope one and two, we haven't done scope three yet, so being really transparent because you've got to start somewhere. And actually, we included in our Impact Report because weren't governed, it didn't have to be compliant in the way that a GRI report might be.
Polly Buckland: So we're slightly more free with what we include. We really told a story through ours on what we set out to do, what we did towards that, what worked, what didn't work. Then our data and data visualisation around our scope one, two and three emissions. And then actually the biggest part of our first ever impact report was the to do list for the coming year.
Paul Marden: Oh, really?
Polly Buckland: What we wanted to focus on. Yeah. And actually the beauty of an impact report like that for us is, A, we get really good feedback because people love the storytelling aspect of it. But B, I'm just doing my third impact report now for us, and I go back to last year and say what we said were going to do, and I have a double page spread with what we said were going to do, what we actually did. So it's a really great accountability tool, as well as a way to tell the story of your sustainability progress.
Paul Marden: Yeah. It holds you accountable for setting a plan and then measuring how well you completed against that plan. And I'm guessing that varies. Some things you will have done really well on some things you didn't progress on, and there'll be some things that you do that you hadn't necessarily thought about as well.
Polly Buckland: Yeah, yeah. And there are some targets in there, like revenue from purpose driven businesses. I think year one were at 30% and we said we wanted to get to 40%, and then we said we wanted to get to 50%. And I think we're at about 54% at the moment. So putting those targets in place really helps give you that focus throughout the year in some of the decisions you make as a business.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Polly Buckland: It helps you grow internally as well as provides a vehicle for communicating something that's actually very important to a lot of people that are choosing your product or service.
Paul Marden: You touched on the storytelling element of this. When I think about sustainability reporting myself, I guess I started from a point of view of, and this might because I'm a data geek, but I started from thinking there's a huge amount of data involved in this, you're going to have to gather lots, but equally important to you is the storytelling around it. So are you thinking about that in advance, about the narrative of where you want to take the business over the year ahead. And how are you thinking about that? Is that something that you get the whole team involved in?
Polly Buckland: So throughout the year, we have a slide deck open and it's called our Sustainability scrapbook. And any decisions we make or anything that we do mindfully around the sustainability of the business, anyone can chuck into that deck. It doesn't look pretty, but it's just a repository. Show us putting our money where our mouth is and making decisions that might not directly impact our scope, but could have a real social impact, for example. So we use that Sustainability scrapbook to help build up the story in our impact report for the following year. I think businesses are going through a lot of change at the moment, and there might quite naturally be a theme that pops up when you're starting your impact report journey for the year. So last year, for us, it was educating ourselves and other people.
Polly Buckland: So we'd done a lot of training internally, but we'd also created our digital cleanup challenge to help people understand their digital footprint. So that became the thread that worked its way through our impact report last year. This year, we have defined down our services. So our impact report is about kind of slaying in your own lane and being really clear on what it is that you do to reduce waste. Yet naturally, if the people that are writing and communicating your impact report are close to the decision making, you'll probably quite naturally know where your report is going to go in that any one year. If you outsource it, so we support businesses to help them tell their story through their impact report. We interview the key decision makers in the business and we will really draw from them that narrative.
Polly Buckland: And I think it's really easy to get bogged down in the data. It's incredibly important, but it can be quite stressful gathering that all together. So actually having someone interview you about, but what were the things that you loved? What were the things that you saw people coming into your attraction really engage with? What was the thing that surprised you about signage that you put up to do with sustainability? Or, I don't know, when you get the little activity sheets for the kids, what did the younger visitors engage with the most? Asking them that sort of question will really draw out the story to help bring the impact report to life.
Paul Marden: Yeah, and I love the scrapbook idea. I love the scrapbook idea just more broadly as just a place for the whole team to dump their thoughts about doing different things. So having one all about sustainability. It must capture so much that the more senior people, the people that lead the organisation, they may not see some of the smaller stuff going on, and they're. They could be really powerful stories. So it kind of makes it much more democratic across the team, doesn't it? To have a place where everyone can put their thoughts about sustainability and record the little things that they're doing. And then you can draw those stories out later on.
Polly Buckland: 100%. But you can use those stories to engage your customers as well. I've been on a couple of panels, the B Corp type events, and I've sat alongside a lady called Faye, who owns Beevive, which are the little vials that revive bees. I think they're in the Natural History Museum shop, and they're not B Corp yet, but they are a manufacturer. So their raw materials, their packaging, the mileage, their distribution, everything has to be considered. And what Faye and her team are excellent at is documenting all of that. And it's like we said one of the panels, just because you don't wear your Fitbit doesn't mean you haven't done the steps. And I think it is the same with sustainability accreditations. You might not be ready to be B Corp. You might not be ready to go through an ISO accreditation or GRI reporting.
Polly Buckland: You might not be ready to be B Corp. You might not be ready to go through an ISO accreditation or GRI reporting. You might not be legally required to do any of that. But let's start documenting it because people care. And you could run one initiative at your attraction, and that's you off the mark. You've started your sustainability story, and I think that should be documented and that should be shared with your audiences.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So that story that you can tell, I guess, is kind of reusable, isn't it? Because it's not just about, you know, you start off thinking about sustainability reporting. I'm going to have annual report and I'm going to publish it. But this is a story that can thread through everything, I guess.
Polly Buckland: Yeah, 100%. I think this is the same with all content produced across most businesses, to be honest. Lots and lots of hours go into creating something, and then it gets shared once on LinkedIn or there's a paid Facebook campaign, and then it dies a death. I saw someone on LinkedIn the other day, say, for every hour you take to produce a piece of content, you should spend the same amount of time distributing it. And I think that sustainability reports, impact reports, can take weeks, if not months. So as part of your reporting, I would have a distribution strategy as well. So where are all the places that you can get people to engage with that report? Is there a QR code in the cafe at your attraction where it's like, do you want to have a look at what we're doing for sustainability?
Polly Buckland: Is it an email that goes through to all your members? I would imagine that investors want to see this type of information. I would imagine that it would be really important to go onto the bottom of job descriptions when you're recruiting because there is a huge influx of people out there in the market that want to work for purposeful businesses. So this impact or sustainability report should go everywhere, really, in the footer of your emails. You just want to get eyeballs on it. And of course you can break it down. Kew Gardens have got a really great video on YouTube about their sustainability mission. What I would say is, don't hide it. And I think previously, sustainability reporting sits with other financial reports and policies in the footer of a website.
Polly Buckland: I looked earlier at an attraction that me and my family love going to, and they have some really nice bits of sustainability messaging when you're there. I couldn't find their sustainability report on their website. It was kind of the group website and then it was hidden away in a sub sustainability page. And I think transparency is really important. And bringing your sustainability report to the conversation, not hiding it away once you spent all those hours creating it.
Paul Marden: Yeah, there was a. There's an attraction that we visited just recently that were talking to, and they've got biomass boiler on their site, and they coppice wood from the site and they use that coppiced wood then to power the biomass boiler, which then powers the hot water that people are sitting in hot tubs and enjoying. You know, there's a really powerful story to tell there about the sustainability of going to that place. And that's something that they recognise is not something that they're not telling that story very effectively. And I think for a lot of people in the UK, now they're making decisions about what they do for their long weekends or their holidays, even on the basis of trying to have a minimal impact.
Paul Marden: And if you've lost that story, even, you know, even the people that are doing lots of amazing work may not be spotting the opportunities to tell the story of what they're doing to be heard by those people that make the decisions.
Polly Buckland: Yeah. And I think that they're photo opportunities as well. Right. So if you're in a hot tub and there's a little sign saying this is powered by wood from the estate, that's a little Instagram opportunity for those people to be righteous about the choices they've made, about what attraction they've chosen to go to. So I think more and more there's an opportunity for user generated content with sustainability messaging on site. So, yeah, everything's really an opportunity to share that message and it shouldn't be just contained to the impact report.
Paul Marden: I was at the Natural History Museum last week with my daughter's class. I took the class, I was one of the responsible adults going along with them. And I had 15 10 year olds in the gift shop at the end. And of course I'm just stood there like a numpty in the middle, just watching them all, trying to make sure they would make a decision as quickly as they possibly could. And I did find myself looking at the signage that was in the shop and they were talking about their sustainability journey and how they reduced single use plastics from what they were doing and they tried to improve the sustainability of the gifts that were available in the shop. So those messages are there, but are they consistent? Are they shared everywhere?
Paul Marden: So that wherever people are touching that brand, is it available for them to understand that it's a sustainable brand? It's important, isn't it?
Polly Buckland: Yeah.
Paul Marden: So I think you've touched on this, but let's just. Is this something you would do on your own or is this something where you would get in help from experts to get you started?
Polly Buckland: I would get help because you've got to factor in the hours in your day as having a value. So the length of time it would take you to figure out how to do an audit on your business and to work out your starting point and to get your initial scope one, two and three emissions measured is probably going to take you three or four times as long as it would a consultant. So if you can, I would do that. If you can't, there are some great tools out there I mentioned Compare Your Footprint and their customer service is really excellent. So if you want to start simple, you can. But if you have the budget, I would go with a consultant because you'll get to where you want to go, which is ultimately to find your baseline quicker.
Paul Marden: Yeah. Is this something where you start small and get a consultant in maybe to help you with a small part of the organisation? Or is this something where you really want to be throwing your all into this to try to do everything that is kind of best practice all at once?
Polly Buckland: Oh, no. No one's perfect. So don't hold yourself to that standard because it's just going to stop you doing anything out of fear. I think you just need to get started. That said, hitting publish on my first ever impact report was one of the most stressful things I've ever done because I just felt like I was going to be judged.
Paul Marden: I think that worries me as well, is that thought that unless I do a perfect job, there's a risk that when I put this out there, that I'm going to be accused of greenwashing, and that my intent may not be well understood if I don't do it perfectly first time.
Polly Buckland: Yeah. Which is why, again, that storytelling part of the impact reporting is really important for me, because I will say we are not perfect. These are the things that we know we need to work on, but these are the things we've done better. And that's what I really like. The B Corp BIA assessment and their framework is because it takes you across five categories of measurement, and no one's perfect in any of them, but what it does do is it provides a framework for you to better and measure yourself against. Yeah, I think the messaging behind your sustainability is really important. If you're professing to be perfect and you're not, you will get stung, because I think people can see through that.
Polly Buckland: But if you are showing that you're trying to better, I don't think many people could argue with that. So it's not just environmental reporting from a B Corp standpoint, it takes you across governance, workers, community, the environment, and your customers. There is a real breadth to that framework. So, actually, on our first go at certification, I guess our strongest category was governance.
Paul Marden: Oh, really? Okay.
Polly Buckland: Yeah. And then you have three years to make changes, make improvements. It's a continuous improvement journey, for want of a better word. And we're just about to re accredit. We're going through re accreditation now after three years, and you can see significant improvement across those categories.
Paul Marden: So that B Corp framework, that's going to be relevant to quite a lot of attractions that are profit making organisations. But of course, people like our charity based museums and some of the cultural organisations that could be non profit making. The B Corp route might not work for them, but it's something that quite a lot of consumers recognise now, isn't it?
Polly Buckland: It is. And the B impact assessment tool is still a useful framework, regardless if you want to become accredited or not, because it takes you through the five categories to focus on. And actually, I think if you're starting your impact reporting and you're not sure where to begin, it's a really nice framework to use.
Paul Marden: Lovely. Polly, really interesting talking to you about sustainability reporting and then going off and talking a little bit about B Corp and places like that as well. It's been lovely. We always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation, something they love, or it can be anything, a personal book recommendation, a business book. So what have you brought with you today?
Polly Buckland: I absolutely love Manifest by Roxy Nafousi, 7 steps to living your best life. It's not a book about visualise it and it will happen. It's a book that takes you through the steps to improve your chances of achieving what you want to in life. It takes you through your vision, removing fear and doubt, how you can align your behaviour to get what you want, how you can overcome tests from the universe, how you can embrace gratitude, turn envy into inspiration and trust the universe. So it sounds a bit woo, but everyone that I know that's read it absolutely loves it.
Paul Marden: What a lovely recommendation, Polly. Thank you. So that will go onto our list of the books recommended by our guests, which are blog posts that we've got. And as ever, if you want to win the book, if you head over to X and you retweet the episode announcement with the words I want Polly's book, the first person that does that will get the book sent to them. Once again, thank you ever so much for coming on the podcast and talking to me about sustainability reporting. It's been lovely. Thank you.
Polly Buckland: You're welcome. Thank you.
Paul Marden: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 17th April 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Our guests:
Paul Wright from Made by Wag
Andy Povey from Convious
Looking forward to 2023: Key digital trends attractions shouldn’t miss out onBernard Donoghue from ALVA
Season finale, with Bernard Donoghue!David Hingley from BOP Consulting
Visitor Experience restructure at Tate, with David HingleyPaul Griffiths from Painshill Park
The transformation of Painshill Park, with Paul Griffiths, Director of PainshillRoss Ballinger from Drayton Manor
The importance of building a great social community and process behind rebranding a 70 year old attractionDanielle Nicholls from Alton Towers
The importance of building a great social community and process behind rebranding a 70 year old attractionRachel Mackay from Hampton Court Palace
The importance of Sector Cooperation with Carlton Gajadhar and Rachel MackaySophie from Eureka! The National Children's Museum
How to write a website brief that agencies will thank you for, with Sophie BallingerElizabeth McKay, CEO of the London Transport Museum
Developing a culture of innovation, with Elizabeth McKaySimon Addison from The Roman Baths
How introducing variable pricing increased revenue by 2.3 million, with Simon AddisonDominic Jones from The Mary Rose and Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Attraction partnerships and rivalries, with Dominic JonesTranscription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions.
Paul Marden: On today's episode, I'm joined by my co host, Kelly Molson, founder of Rubber Cheese, as well as a group of returning guests to the podcast. This is Kelly's last episode as the host of Skip the Queue as she's leaving rubber cheese after 21 fantastic years of the agency. Today we'll be turning the tables on Kelly as the guests ask her the icebreaker questions. We'll also be looking back at the impact the podcast has had as some of our guests share their experiences of appearing on the podcast with Kelly.
Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Paul Marden: So, how you doing?
Kelly Molson: I feel slightly. I feel slightly apprehensive. You just said, like, are you ready? Have you got your tissues ready? Like I have. I'm prepared.
Paul Marden: Good. So, listeners, today is a big episode, as well as being on 99th episode is also Kelly's last episode as the Skip the Queue host. Yeah. So many of you will know that after 21 years heading up Rubber Cheese, Kelly has decided to spread her wings and move on to pastures new.
Paul Marden: And while this is news from many of the listeners, I've had a few months to prepare for this. So I've been thinking long and hard about this episode of what can I do? And I thought it'd be nice to look back at some of your best bits, but I didn't feel like I should do that on my own. I actually thought the best way of looking back at your best bits are to bring your best bits back to us. So I'm just gonna admit a load of people that want to join the edge.
Kelly Molson: Oh, no.
Paul Marden: So we have got a host of po face and audience members that are going to join us today.
Kelly Molson: I'm going to cry already.
Paul Marden: Excellent. I've done my job to start with straight away, so everyone's joined us for a virtual leaving party. So I hope you've got your whatsits in a bowl and your cheese and pineapple ready for you as we look back over some of your best bits and enjoy a Skip the Queue episode at its best. And so, for those of you that are listening and not watching, first of all, where have you been? These aren't facestrail radio. You should be subscribing on YouTube and watch these lovely people. But if you're listening, let me introduce you to the host of people that are joining us. We've got Andy Povey from Convious. We've got Bernard Donoghue from ALVA. We've got David Hingley from BOP Consulting. We've got Rachel Mackay from Hampton Court Palace. Sophie Ballinger from Eureka!
Kelly Molson: You're supposed to be on holiday.
Paul Marden: Sophie from Eureka! The National Children's Museum. We've got Ross Ballinger from Drayton Manor. We've got Dominic Jones from the Mary Rose. And we've also been joined by some of your lovely Rubber Cheese colleagues that wanted to say hi and goodbye.
Kelly Molson: Look at everyone's beautiful faces. Oh, God.
Paul Marden: And the tissues are going already.
Kelly Molson: Do you know what? Just before I came on, I was like, I'm not going to cry. I am completely in control of today. If it was yesterday, I would have cried, but I'm completely in control today. I am not in control at all.
Paul Marden: So, long time listeners will know that we always start off with an icebreaker question. And Kelly never tells the guests what the icebreaker question is in advance. So I'm afraid, Kelly, it's your turn. Bernard, you're going to kick off for us today. Would you like to ask Kelly your icebreaker question?
Bernard Donoghue: Thank you. Claudia Winkleman. I'm delighted to join this episode of The Traitors.
Paul Marden: Have you got the fringe to be Claudia? I'm sorry.
Kelly Molson: No, we have not.
Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, it's World Book day tomorrow. You've received short notice. What book do you go as to work, please?
Kelly Molson: Oh, I would. I'd have to take one of my daughter's books. So she has got this book called Oh, no, George. And it's about an incredibly naughty dog with. He's a ginger dog with a very long nose. I would have to dress up as George because he doesn't do himself any favours. He hopes that he's going to be good, but he's just. He can't cope with being good and he eats all the cake and he knocks over all the tulips in the house and he's incredibly lovable, but incredibly naughty. So definitely George. That's me. Right.
Bernard Donoghue: It's a lovely insight into your personality.
Paul Marden: Perfect.
Kelly Molson: Great question.
Paul Marden: It is a great question. I hope you're ready for a few more because we've got some of these lined up for you. So the next. The next person that's going to join us, unfortunately couldn't be here today, so they sent me a little message that we'll play now.
Paul Wright: Hi, Kelly. Remember me? It's Wag here.
Kelly Molson: This is my old co founder.
Paul Wright: My question to you. If every time someone clicked on a website and it made a sound. What noise would you want it to make?
Kelly Molson: Oh, it has to be a big old fart noise, right? A real big wet one, like a whoopee cushion. Fart noise, please. Thank you.
Paul Marden: So, Mrs. Marden, over breakfast this morning, as were talking through what I was going to talk about, said, oh, she's just going to say wet fart, surely.
Kelly Molson: Absolutely.
Paul Marden: She knows you so well.
Kelly Molson: She’s my level
Paul Marden: Completely. Next up, we've got Mr. Andy Povey.
Andy Povey: Hi, Kelly. It's been a while. So I'm very pleased to be here, but not for the reason that we are all there for. We spend a lot of time on the road, travelling around for our jobs. So my question is, what's your favourite motorway service station and why?
Kelly Molson: I tell you what, Peterborough motorway service station. Because I know that I'm probably an hour from home then, so I'm nearly home. I've had a good few coffees in Peterborough service station.
Andy Povey: I've not tried that one, I must admit.
Kelly Molson: I mean, I don't know if it's up there with, like, the best, but, you know, I just. I know that I'm going to be home soon.
Paul Marden: Bit depressing that the favourite motorway service is the one that's closest to home for you. Thank you, Andy. Next up, so here's a surprise. Danielle Nicholls from Alton Towers, you've managed to join us.
Danielle Nicholls: So my question to you, Kelly, is you've worked with a lot of attractions and theme parks over the years, but which is your favourite theme park attraction or ride that you've ever been on?
Kelly Molson: This is not a good question to ask, is it? Because I'm going to upset people.
Danielle Nicholls: You can be diplomatic about it.
Kelly Molson: My favourite ride, definitely not those ones that swing and literally make you one of them. My favourite ride. It's really hard. Yeah, it's really hard. Well, I was just trying to think of, like, where do I go with this? But I'm going to go with the one. It was mine and my dad's favourite when I was a kid and it doesn't exist anymore, which is really sad, but it's the Back to the Future ride at Universal.
Kelly Molson: Which was absolutely epic and I can remember years ago queuing up like four times on the trot to go on it with my dad and he just. It was just brilliant. Absolutely absolute. I mean, I love that. I love eighties music movies. Yeah. My genre, anyway, but, yeah, that ride was absolutely incredible. Oh, that's amazing.
Danielle Nicholls: I never got to do that one so very jealous.
Kelly Molson: Good memories.
Paul Marden: Paul Griffiths, can you take the floor and give Kelly a grilling?
Paul Griffiths: Of course. Hi, Kelly. Good to see you. And good to see everyone else. We know that you love picking up souvenirs and knickknacks on your travels, particularly attractions. So what is your favourite souvenir you've taken away from one of your best tourist attractions?
Kelly Molson: I've got them all here. Look at them. I've got my bounty on my desk.
Paul Griffiths: The show and tell answer then, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Look, I've got. Yeah. Okay. What's my favourite one, though?
Paul Marden: For listeners, hey can't see you picking up a dodgy eighties ice cream box.
Kelly Molson: This is my ‘80s. It's a Bijam economy vanilla ice cream tub, which my parents were obviously really keen on feeding us well as a child. But in it are, I mean, hundreds and hundreds of rubbers that I've collected from different places and attractions over the years. And they smell. I wish this was smellyvision because they absolutely smell divine. There's so many in here. But I think, again, this is. And this is for memories. I'm going to go with this one and it's really old. This is my Thorpe Park rubber.
Paul Griffiths: Very classic.
Kelly Molson: Isn't it great? So it's got the Thorpe park rabbit on it. Rangers.
Danielle Nicholls: Is it the Thorpe Park Rangers?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. Thorpe Park Ranger. Yeah. Thorpe Park. So that was, again, that was probably the closest attraction to the closest theme park to me as a kid, and we used to go there a lot and, like, my uncle used to take me there in the summer holidays. The whole family used to go. So that one has got really good memories. That's a great question, Paul. There's so many in here, though, that I could have chosen.
Paul Griffiths: I didn't age to have them all to hand, though.
Kelly Molson: That sat on my desk.
Paul Marden: So I promised you that we would try and faithfully stick to the format once you hand the Batman to me. So I'm going to give you a breather from being grilled by everybody. What was your unpopular opinion that you wanted to share with everybody?
Kelly Molson: Peas. Peas. Peas are the food of the devil. Peas taint everything that they touch. Sometimes. Nobody tells you that there's peas in stuff on the menu as well. Like, I love a fish pie. Fish pie is delicious. When you open up a fish pie and someone's gone. No, we'll just throw a few handful of peas in there just for a laugh. That's not fun. You can pick them out of stuff, but you can taste them in absolutely everything that they are in.
Paul Marden: That's not an unpopular opinion, that's just. That's just a fact. I don't know how everybody else feels about peas, but I'm a pea hater as well.
Sophie Ballinger: Oh, what about cheesy peas?
Kelly Molson: No, cheesy peas. Even cheese would not make peas taste appealing to me.
Dominic Jones: Wasabi peas?
Kelly Molson: No.
Danielle Nicholls: Minty peas?
Kelly Molson: No peas. I like beans. Beans are okay. And like edamame beans, which I like peas. But not peas. It's just a very distinct difference.
Bernard Donoghue: Nurse. Nurse. She's out of bed again.
Sophie Ballinger: Where do you stand on mushy peas?
Kelly Molson: Oh, so far from mushy peas. I did have to cook them once for Lee's old granddad. Oh, God. No.
Paul Marden: Guacamole as. Who was it? It was one of the politicians and labour politics.
Andy Povey: Peter Mandelson.
Paul Marden: There we go. Peter Mandelson went into a fish and chip shop and asked to have guacamole with his fish and chips and it turned out was mushy peas.
Kelly Molson: I'd eat guacamole with my chips. That's fine.
Paul Marden: So should we go back to grilling you on some.
Kelly Molson: This whole episode is just awkward questions for me. Is it great?
Paul Marden: You've done this to everybody for 99 episodes. It's your turn to take one. Rachel Mackay from Hampton Court Palace, welcome.
Rachel Mackay: Oh, hello. I've decided to go against the grade. I'm not going to ask your revision question because I know you'll just stare blankly at me anyway, so I'm going to go more general. What is your preference, running shoes or dancing shoes?
Kelly Molson: Oh, dancing shoes. Dancing shoes all the way. I really miss dancing. You don't get to dance enough when you get older. Dancing is the one thing that I used to really love doing with my friends.
Rachel Mackay: I thought you would say dancing shoes because also it gives you a bit of a heel.
Kelly Molson: Which I need. No, you're absolutely right.
Paul Marden: So the dancing. You'll be able to get them back out again soon because, what, Eddie's two now? Two and a bit. It will soon be birthday party season, where you'll be doing the hokey cokey and you'll be doing the conga.
Kelly Molson: And she's already got all my moves. She's already got all my moves. Yeah, she's in the dancing zone.
Paul Marden: Excellent. Next up, we've got somebody else that couldn't join us today, so they've sent us another little video to share with you. So this is Simon Addison from the Roman Baths and number two in the hour, top ten paid attractions outside London. And I say, sorry, Dominic.
Dominic Jones: He deserves it. He's a great guy. And so is the Roman Baths.
Paul Marden: Exactly. You haven't heard what he says yet.
Simon Addison: Hey, Kelly, it's Simon Addison here from the Roman Baths. I'm really sorry that I couldn't be with you for the recording today. Before I ask you my ice breaker question, I just wanted to tell you about the impact that skip the queue is having, not just on those people who work in visitor attractions, but those who visit them too. Last month, I was walking around the National Portrait Gallery with Dominic Jones and a visitor genuinely pulled him over and asked him if he was the Dominic Jones from Skip the Queue. Kelly, you have created an absolute monster there.
Kelly Molson: I love this.
Dominic Jones: That is actually true. It actually happened. We were a bit bemused by it and were worried that someone had set this visitor up, but they genuinely wanted a Korean visitor attractions and had listened to it and I'd obviously said my name a bit too loud to Simon and they came up and asked for a picture. It was completely random, but brilliant.
Paul Marden: I'm a little bit heartbroken because I actually genuinely thought they spotted the face and knew you from the YouTube.
Dominic Jones: I think it was the voice, but, yeah, no, it was brilliant. It's all because of Skip the Queue, which is Simon's rise had a massive impact on everyone in our industry and actually people who want to join our industry. So you should be really proud. And hopefully that's the last random stranger that stopped me. But it was fantastic.
Kelly Molson: Do you know what? I do feel really proud of that.
Paul Marden: So, Simon's question.
Simon Addison: Kelly, my icebreaker question for you is what is the weirdest piece of advice that you've ever received? And did you follow it? Thanks very much, Kelly, and thanks for everything. Thanks for all the episodes over the years and I wish you the very best of luck with everything.
Kelly Molson: I'm trying to think what has been. Do you know, I have been given some advice about public speaking before, which I thought was quite strange. I used to really. I used to get really anxious about public speaking. It wasn't something that was massively comfortable for me. And I had loads of coaching from a really good friend of mine, Andy Loparta. And I don't know if it was Andy. I don't think this was Andy that gave me this advice. I'm pretty sure it wouldn't have been. But someone told me that if you go on stage and you clench your butt cheeks, you can't actually clench anything else. At the same time. And I'm like. I am, though. I'm clenching my butt cheeks now and I'm clenching my teeth so you can. But that's always stuck in my head.
Kelly Molson: So I definitely tried it, but I don't know that it helped with my speaking whatsoever. I'm doing it now. Is everyone. Is everyone doing it now? Is everyone trying it? Everyone's doing it.
Paul Marden: Standing desk practicing it right now.
Sophie Ballinger: Yeah. Start bobbing up and down in my seat. You'll know why.
Kelly Molson: There you go.
Paul Marden: Lovely segue. Sophie Ballinger from Eureka. Why don't you ask Kelly your icebreaker?
Kelly Molson: Hello, duck.
Sophie Ballinger: Hello, duck. Hey, I've got a bit of a random one. I think I might have. It might have been asked you this in the agency interview many years ago, but I'm not sure because it's one of my favourites. Who would win in a fight between a badger and a baboon?
Kelly Molson: I don't remember you asking me this.
Sophie Ballinger: Should have done.
Kelly Molson: Badger. I think Badger. Badgers are quite vicious, aren't they? You think the boots. Everyone's shaking their head. Oh, I think badger. I've never seen a live badger either, but I know that they're quite vicious.
Paul Marden: We went into South Africa a few years ago and we stopped because we saw a troop of baboons on the side of the road and there were other people watching. So everybody got out their cars and they all stood around. All of a sudden, this alpha male baboon just crosses the road to the car behind us, opens the back door, gets into the woman's handbag when he's rifling through trying to find chocolate and she's sat in the front seat going absolutely crazy. So I promise you it'll be the baboon. So next up, we've got another video. Joining us this time it is Elizabeth McKay, CEO of the London Transport Museum.
Elizabeth Mckay: Hi, Kelly. You were the nicest interviewer I ever had. So my question for you is equally nice, I hope. So, when you're getting around London, what's your favourite mode of travel? Is it tube, bus or cycle?
Kelly Molson: Oh, I actually prefer to walk, so neither of the above. I know. Sorry. I'm sorry. I like. So I have to get the train in. So my train is the Liverpool street line. So I tend to get off. You know, I go. I'll go to Liverpool street and then I quite like to walk places. I do like the tube. Not gonna dis the tube, especially not to Elizabeth. But I quite like the opportunity to go and see stuff. And I think walking around London, everything feels everything so close together.
Kelly Molson: So it's nice to be able to just walk and see things that you wouldn't normally see.
Bernard Donoghue: Can I just point out that I've seen Kelly getting out of a disco rickshaw at least three times in the last week.
Kelly Molson: Fake news. Fake news.
Paul Marden: Now, Kelly, you did say to me that you had a few thank you messages that you wanted to share with people. So do you want to just have a couple of minutes to thank some people?
Kelly Molson: Yes, I would. I would like to thank everybody because people have always been so incredibly generous with their time for me, and I'm always so grateful of that. You're generous to come on and talk to me. You're generous to come on and answer my ridiculous questions, but generous to share all your insight and knowledge. And I think especially through the pandemic, that meant an incredible amount to me and hopefully to our listeners as well. It really felt like people were coming on and sharing kind of a real time. This is where we're at. This is what's happening, and this is what we're doing about it. Experience. And it was amazing.
Kelly Molson: The pandemic was incredibly difficult for everybody, but for me, the highlight was knowing that I was getting to speak to so many different people and being able to share that with other people as well. And it made it a really special time for me. So thank you for everybody that has ever come on the podcast and answered my stupid questions and shared all of their stuff with me. Thank you. Thank you to all of the listeners. I genuinely could not have imagined. I could not have imagined how well this podcast would go. I honestly can remember the day that I came in, I was like, “We should definitely do this podcast. I've been looking. I don't think there's anything like it. We should do it.” And my team going, “Yeah, how do we do it? I don't know. Let's just do it, though.”
Kelly Molson: And this is what happens. I come up with these crazy ideas, and I'm the driver of them, but it's all the people around me that actually make the magic happen. And that is. That's for the podcast, that's for the survey, the report, the agency itself. All I've done is just kind of drag it along and share it with people. It's all the other people behind the scenes that do it. Steve works his magic every single episode. He really does. He cuts out a lot of swearing. The very professional introductions that I record separately to the interviews. Jesus. The amount of swearing that he has to cut out on those is ridiculous. So well done, Steve, mate, you deserve that award winning podcast editor title just for this. And Wenalyn. So Wenalyn down here waving. She.
Kelly Molson: I mean, she really is the powerhouse behind the podcast because I'll get you to come on. We'll have a lovely chat. It goes over to Steve for the editor, and it comes back to, well, and she does everything. She does everything. She creates all the graphics. She uploads everything to the, you know, the website, she does the transcriptions, she creates, does all the podcasts, all the scheduling, all of the. All of it. So, you know, she really does do all the hard grunt work behind it. So thank you, Wenalyn. It's been such a lovely. It's been lovely to work with you over the years. Thank you.
Paul Marden: Wenalyn wins the award for the longest distance journey into the meeting today because Wenalyn is over in the Philippines. Wenalyn wins this award in every single meeting that we have. So she does.
Kelly Molson: She does. There is one more. Thank you. I wanna make, which is to the unsung hero of Skip the Queue. So it's for an old team member of mine, Ashley Mays, because if it wasn't for her, actually, there probably wouldn't be a Skip the Queue. She made this happen, really. Not only did she come up with the name, but she actually got one of our first guests to agree to come onto the podcast. Because I can't tell you how difficult that first season was. If you've ever gone back, it actually launched in July 2019. This podcast, myself and my co founder, Wag, who asked the ridiculous question I answered with a fart earlier. We both used to interview guests, but if you've ever tried to get someone to come onto a podcast and they go, great. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: How many listeners and downloads have you got? You're like, none. Absolutely none. No listeners. You are our first guest. Please help us make something magic. That was quite a hard sell. Ashley had a family member who agreed to come onto the podcast, and it was actually Lynne Whitnall, who is the director of Paradise Wildlife Park, which is now Hertfordshire Zoo. She was the biggest name that we could have possibly hoped for in that first series. So really, that was the kind of catalyst for all of the other amazing guests that have come on since. 2019 was a really tough year for Rubber Cheese, and I had to let Ashley go at the end of 2019, and I'll tell you now, that was the single worst thing that I've ever had to do in my whole career as an agency owner, because she was brilliant.
Kelly Molson: And I felt like I'd failed her at that time. So I really wanted to make sure that she got a big thank you. She's gone on and done brilliant things. Don't get me wrong, brilliant people always do. But that was genuinely the toughest thing that I've ever had to do. And it's probably my biggest regret of running the agency all of these years as well. So, yeah, big shout out to Ashley. She made a big difference.
Paul Marden: Every agency owner enjoys the fun bits, the launches, the winning new business. Nobody enjoys that bit. But it is this life, isn't it? So, yeah, it was a tough time for everybody, wasn't it? And you said that Ashley came up with the name as well, didn't she?
Kelly Molson: She did, yeah. Skip the Queue was all Ashley. I take no credit for that whatsoever.
Paul Marden: Amazing.
Danielle Nicholls: What a moment that was. That was really touching.
Kelly Molson: Thank you.
Paul Marden: Keep it together, mate. You've still got a few minutes to go.
Kelly Molson: Okay?
Paul Marden: So let's segue for some light relief to Ross Ballinger from Drayton Manor.
Kelly Molson: Now, I'm not gonna lie, I'm really apprehensive about this. Ross.
Ross Ballinger: Hello, lovely.
Kelly Molson: Hi, Ross.
Ross Ballinger: It's so nice to see and hear you. I feel like.
Kelly Molson: Likewise, mate.
Ross Ballinger: I've only known you, like, a short space of time but you were such a champion for me and Danielle when you spotted us at theme park award a few years ago.
Danielle Nicholls: Really.
Ross Ballinger: And we're just so grateful for that. You spotted our passion and our energy for the industry and obviously we just gravitated toward each other. Anything you've done for all the other professionals in the industry as well. So true testament to everything that you've done it just. It's all paid off and everyone loves you and thank you so much for everything on Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Oh, mate.
Ross Ballinger: No, honestly, I think that was probably one of the best years I ever had in the industry, really, because it, like, it did stem up a couple of things did, like, fall out at the back of it because it got. It got me a little bit of 15 minutes of fame that I really enjoyed. And then I managed to do some presentations with different things and owe credit to you, really, for just, like, putting us in the limelight for a little bit.
Kelly Molson: I'm so pleased. I'm so pleased. I just want to tell the story because I met the two of you at the UK theme park awards. It was at Drayton Manor, wasn't it? And these guys are on the table behind me and I've never had such enthusiasm. You two were the light, I mean, that. It was a bit of a. It was a bit of a. It was a. It was a tough crowd, wasn't it? Everyone was quite subdued in there, but used to, like, “Yes,” shouting and just.
Danielle Nicholls: Basically every time anyone won, even if it was like, Pleasure Beach or being anyone. We were like, “Yeah, go guys.”
Ross Ballinger: We were wooing everybody.
Kelly Molson: What awards do should be like. Like, you two were like the Persona of an awards day. It was. It was so good to meet you that day. I had the best day meeting you two, and I just knew that I had to get you both on the podcast, and you were such a little dream team at Drayton Manor. And now, you know, you've set off on your different paths, but it's lovely to see. For me, it's really. I think it's brilliant to see where you're all going and what your good things are.
Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Thank you.
Danielle Nicholls: That's really kind. Thank you.
Ross Ballinger: Yeah, it was just one of those cases of, like, sat in the right place at the right time and the rest is history. Like, yeah, loved it. Loved the meeting on that day. Instant connection, you know? And you just get an instant connection with someone who shares the same energy and passion and insight, and they understand what you're doing and what you stand for. So, yeah, it was a really good day. Loved it. My icebreaker question, I did have four. Actually, so I don't even know if Paul knows what. I'm going to be honest.
Paul Marden: Well, I'm taking the other two that you did send me because they were awesome.
Ross Ballinger: I'm going to go with, if you could switch live with any fictional character, who would it be?
Kelly Molson: It's a really good question. You need to. You have. You've wrote all these down, right? This is a good one.
Ross Ballinger: Yeah. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: With any fictional character. I'm trying to think of all the books that I've just thinking about. Well, okay. I've got this thing about reading. Like, if you go on holiday, I like to take, like, a really familiar book with me on holiday that you've read, like, a million times. And I don't know why. I've read The Beach, like, a billion times, which is far better than the film. Like, far better than the film. And I can't actually remember a guy's name in it now. It's gone off my head. But the Leonardo DiCaprio character in the book, I will swap lives with him because I feel like that whole travelling culture, I never got to do that. I wasn't brave enough to do that when I was younger, and I'd really like to go and do it now, but it's really difficult for toddler.
Paul Marden: Not brave enough to do that. But you were brave enough to jack it all in and set up an agency 20 years ago.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Should I have done the travelling? Who knows? But, yeah, I think, yeah, I would swap places with him, although he goes a little bit crazy towards the end. I'd take that.
Ross Ballinger: Thanks for your long lasting impact on a door. Thank you very much. Love you.
Paul Marden: Well said, Ross. Crack and jog. So I'm going to take that and segue off quite nicely now to a video from your greatest fan, my daughter, Miss Amelia Marden. She wanted to be part of this, but she's busy at school today, so she sent you in a question and she said,
Amelia Marden: Hello, Kelly. I've seen the video of the roller coaster you and dad went on at Drayton Manor. My question is, what is your favourite sort of roller coaster? Vertical drop or a loop de loop? Love you from Amelia.
Paul Marden: For listeners. I kept it together on that roller coaster. There was no noise. I was completely composed. Everything was fine until it started moving at the beginning.
Kelly Molson: So was this. No, hang on a minute. Was this the, this was the in the Viking. This is the Viking one, wasn't it? Because we've been on two roller coasters together. And the second one, it was in the rain and there was a lot of screaming in my ear as well. The first one was. Yeah, the first one was relatively screamy as well. What is my favourite? I like the shock of a drop. I do like a loop a loop. I'm cool with those. But there's something about like that. There's a, there's a motion sickness thing with me that is a bit. So the drop one I quite like. And again, this has got another good memory of my dad is that is Terra Towers. He loves the Terror Towers drop so much.
Kelly Molson: My dad's got this thing in his head about taking Edie to Disney. Like my dad. My dad best in, he'll be when she's five, he'll be like 76. So, you know, he's getting on and he's like, that's my cutoff point. We're going to go to Disney when she's five, whether we all like it or not, because I can't do it any older than that. And he's like, we're going to go on Terror Towers, aren't we, Dad? I don't know if you should, dad. It's almost, I feel like maybe it was trigger of a heart attack. I don't know. A bit worried. But he's adamant that he's, you know.
Paul Marden: He's going to Edie's five and we're taking them on to Terror Towers.
Kelly Molson: Maybe it's going to work, Dad.
Paul Marden: I think we don't need to set dad's expectations, teacups. And it's a small world and that's about it.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I'll have that chat with him.
Paul Marden: And we have got a message in from Mister David Hingley.
David Hingley: So I sit in a lot of meetings with Kelly, either in person or online, in her role as a trustee at Museum of the Broads. And it's usually not as dramatic as it might be. We talk about steamboats, coal, and our upcoming Pete exhibition, which is fascinating but can lack a bit of drama. So my question is, if every time you enter a room for the rest of your life a piece of entrance music plays, what piece of music are you choosing and why?
Kelly Molson: Oh, my God. I've never thought about this question. This is a great question. Why has everyone given me really good questions now that I'm leaving? You idiots.
Paul Marden: David is promising to play this at every future trustees meeting. As you arrive, he'll have Spotify on the phone ready to play.
Kelly Molson: What would be my entrance music? I feel like it's got to be something. It's got to be something dancy where I can get my groove on. So I feel like. Like this someone's. Loads of people have probably said this, but I feel like. Like here comes the hot stepper. Would be a good one for me because I can, you know, I can drive in. Here come the odd stepper, you know?
David Hingley: I'll record the next trustee meeting museums of the broad and circulates to this group.
Kelly Molson: Oh, please do.
Paul Marden: Thank you, David.
Kelly Molson: I'll tell you what. I'll do it at the AGM. I'll dance in at the AGM.
Paul Marden: So last up, we have Mr. Dominic Jones from the Mary Rose, who, along with Portsmouth Historic Dockyard, the third most popular paid attraction outside of London in the hour list released yesterday.
Dominic Jones: Yeah, very happy about that. Very happy.
Paul Marden: I can take you one better because still the undisputed most listened to podcast guest on Skip the Queue as of yesterday. Wow.
Dominic Jones: I honestly can't believe that.
Paul Marden: I know, I know. It's not as if you haven't dined out on that fact several times before.
Andy Povey: He doesn't like to talk about it, Paul.
Kelly Molson: He's so shy, doesn't he?
Dominic Jones: I am shy. I don't talk about myself. That's incredible. What did you say number one?
Paul Marden: Number one by country mile, I might say.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, by nearly a hundred downloads, actually.
Dominic Jones: Oh, well, that's fantastic. I'm absolutely honored about that. I have to say, I am so sad that Skip the Queue with Kelly is coming to an end because it's kept me company on many a motorway journey, on many a day when I've had a really tough day at work and thought, you know, what's going to cheer me up is Skip the Queue. Because not only do you motivate and inspire the next generation, like the person that sort of bumped into me and Simon, but you also motivate, inspire all of us. And actually, without Skip the Queue, and to be fair, ALVA as well, I don't think I'd have this amazing network of friends and colleagues that really keep me sane in some of the tough times.
Dominic Jones: So I know we often talk and Bernard talks about how visitor attractions are like sort of the fourth emergency service, I would say, when it comes to working in a visitor attraction, you and ALVA. So Skip the Queue and ALVA are the emergency services, because without you, I don't think we'd be sane. Absolutely. You've made such a difference to my personal life and I can't thank you enough. But for an icebreaker question, one of the things that irritates me on Skip the Queue is you can tell who Kellys favourites are. So if she has someone from the zoo and she likes them, whats your favourite animal? Or someone from a theme park, whats your favorite ride? And then she gets people that she just asks really difficult icebreakers. So I was thinking, how can I get the most random, hardest icebreaker?
Dominic Jones: And I was trying to remember, but when I was a child in the eighties and nineties growing up, a lot of my friends had Sky TV. We couldn't afford Sky TV. We had BBC One and BBC two. Well, on Sky TV there was this thing called WWF. Now, this was before the Internet. So I went to the library and worked out that it was about looking after animals. Turns out it wasn't. It was actually wrestling. And so I used to sort of been in the playground, talk to my friends, but never ever watching it, never really understanding it. So I'd be in my bedroom. I was very young at the time, pretending to be a WWF wrestler. I was the praying mantis, because I did watch BBC 2 a lot. Mantis, one of the very strongest animal in the animal kingdom.
Dominic Jones: But if you were a wrestler in the WWF, what would be your wrestling name?
Kelly Molson: I used to love the wrestling.
Dominic Jones: I bet you did. I bet you did.
Kelly Molson: I did. We went. So they did the one in the UK. They did the royal rumble and I had the finger and everything. Yeah. I used to like the bushwhackers and rowdy Roddy Piper and Jake the Snake. I was well into it. I was really into it. Yeah. I was not cool at school until I was well into the wrestling. So what would be my wrestling name?
Dominic Jones: Yeah. And why?
Kelly Molson: The trouble is, I'm a bit of a lover, not a fighter, so don't think I'd actually make a very good wrestler. I'm not actually that aggressive. Looking at me as if I've said something crazy, then I'm not a fight. I might have a fiery temper, but I'm not a fighter. Oh, God. It's. I don't know what rhymes. Like, Kelly's a really rubbish name to rhyme stuff, but Kick ass Kelly, it's rubbish, isn't it?
Dominic Jones: Good, that'll do.
Kelly Molson: Okay. Kick ass Kelly. Yeah. I don't know what would be my costume. There'd definitely be some neon in there. I feel like I'd be like the eighties girl. Like neon leggings and leg warmers and stuff. Yeah.
Dominic Jones: And maybe some fire in the background as well, just to spice it up. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, maybe.
Paul Marden: I reckon there's got to be some cheese in there as well. You need some. You need some cheese in that wrestler name, ain't it?
Kelly Molson: There's not many cheeses that begin that, like, rhyme with Kelly either.
Dominic Jones: The worst ever icebreaker. I've ruined it.
Kelly Molson: Good question. No, I like it.
Dominic Jones: Oh, I should have done. What's your favourite boat? That's what I should have done.
Paul Marden: Oh, come on then.
Kelly Molson: What's my favourite boat? Well, it would have to be the falcon or the. Can't remember the name of the other one.
David Hingley: Well, the other one.
Kelly Molson: Is it the Marsh Harrier?
David Hingley: That's the one.
Kelly Molson: There you go. At the Museum of the Broads is a wonderful museum. You can also take your family out on a little boat trip. It's also dog friendly as well, you know, bring all your friends.
Dominic Jones: Great. Plug in one of your recent episodes. I was listening and thought about booking a holiday. It was a great plug in the last episode. You did?
Kelly Molson: Well, if you do fancy a little holiday trip to Norfolk, you know, there's a little holiday cottage that you could. You could hit me up for, Dominic. So just, you know, let me know.
Dominic Jones: Absolutely.
Paul Marden: I reckon I should have got 20 quid in my pocket every time you mention that guest house.
Kelly Molson: I really hope that someone books someday and they're like, “We heard it on Skip the Queue.” “Yes! It worked.”
Paul Marden: They'll insist on a discount. Thank you, Don. That was amazing. If any of our listeners would like to support any of the other guests and boost their listener figures to compete with Don, I'm going to put the details of everybody's episodes in the show notes, because frankly,
Dominic Jones: Why would you do that?
Kelly Molson: That's mean.
Dominic Jones: Why would you do that? Surely this is the end now. Number one, the end.
Paul Marden: We're talking load of nonsense and I need to put something in the show notes. So I thought I'd put the episodes that everybody was in on the show notes. Can you exclude one, Paul? Oh, I'm sure I can, yes.
Dominic Jones: I think yours is okay, Andy. I wouldn't exclude you. Yours was a great one.
Paul Marden: So they'll all be in the show notes. And lastly, all of our guests asked to pick a book that they love. So Kelly, what's your book?
Kelly Molson: I read this book right at the very start of my agency journey. A very good friend of mine, he's been a coach of mine for a number of years, said that you should read this book, and it is How to win friends and influence people by Dale Carnegie. It's a very old book, but it is a classic. And this book opened my eyes and ears. So it really taught me how to understand and listen to people. And I think for me, building an agency like we have over the years, so much of that comes down to listening to people, understanding what their challenges are. You know, we have to network. You know, a lot of what we do is based on reputation and how likable you can be and all of those kind of things.
Kelly Molson: And this book really gives you an understanding of that, about what it is to be likable. And you shouldn't have to teach this to people. Like, really, it's pretty common sense, but, you know, it can be difficult for people to understand, like, why you should listen to people and why you should just let people talk. And I think a lot of the things that I learned from this book, I have applied to the podcast, so I just want to read out a little synopsis. Well, some of the things that I think are really important about how you listen to people, and it's. It's about becoming genuinely interested in other people.
Kelly Molson: And I hope that has come across in this podcast, because every single person that has come on and shared with me has just given me so much to think about, and I've learned so much from you all. It teaches you to smile, like smiling is just so important. I've always been amazed at how many people that don't smile back when I smile at them when I'm out walking the dog in the morning. Just smiling is the simplest thing that you can do to connect with somebody. Remembering people's names. Remember that a person's name to that person is the most important sound in any language. Make sure that you can just remember people's names. Be a good listener. Encourage others to talk about themselves. And I hope that I've done that. I've always hoped this podcast, you know, it's not about me.
Kelly Molson: It won't be about Paul. It will be about all the guests that come on and still continue to come on and talk to us about their stories and their challenges and their initiatives and all the brilliant things that they do. And I hope that I have gone above and beyond in making other people feel important. And I hope I've been sincere in doing that as well because it is all about you. You all make this podcast amazing and I genuinely am so grateful that you've allowed me into your ears and allowed me to share everybody else's stories in a really fun way. So thank you.
Paul Marden: Kelly, that was really. Yeah, awesome. Listeners. If you'd like to win in Kelly's book, then head over to the show announcement on X and retweet as saying, I want Kelly's book. That just leaves me to say that we are busy planning season six now. Wanlyn and I met yesterday with Oz to start brainstorming ideas for what we can do in season six. If you've got ideas, then send them in. Let us know on Twitter. We'd love to hear those X, I should say. If you would like to appear in an episode, let us know, because I love to interview people. So let us know if you'd like to come onto the podcast, that would be amazing. That's about it from all of us here today. So I want to thank my lovely co hosts, the Skip the Queue alumni.
Paul Marden: I want to thank the rest of the Rubber Cheese team that came along as well. I want to thank you, Kelly, for everything that you've done for us and thank the lovely listeners. I look forward to seeing you all in the next episode of Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Thank you so much. This is amazing. Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
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Show references:
https://skiptontownhall.co.uk/craven-museum/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenny-hill-54503a189/
Jenny Hill is Lead Museums Curator at North Yorkshire Council, including at Craven Museum in Skipton. She has a degree in History from Lancaster University and a Contemporary History MA from the University of Sussex. She has worked in the sector for almost 7 years and is passionate about community engagement and making museum collections accessible for all. Between 2018-21 she worked on a National Lottery Heritage Funded capital redevelopment project at Craven Museum. In 2023 her team won the Kids in Museums Best Family Friendly and Most Accessible Museum awards.https://kidsinmuseums.org.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/alison-bowyer-0608a417/
Alison Bowyer has worked in the cultural sector for over 20 years with previous roles at LAMDA, the National Youth Orchestra of Great Britain, Southbank Centre and the Academy of Ancient Music. The longer her career has continued, the more convinced she is that we still need to work harder to make culture and heritage accessible to all.
She has a longstanding interest in museums and how people engage with heritage, having been a volunteer at Handel House Museum (now Handel and Hendrix) in London and completing degrees in Cultural Memory and History. Alison has been Executive Director of Kids in Museums for seven years. During which time, the organisation has become an Arts Council England IPSO, won a Museum + Heritage Award, developed a new national training programme, established a Youth Panel and delivered a range of new programmes.
Outside of work, Alison is a listening volunteer for Samaritans, a Director of the Family Arts Campaign and likes to crochet.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
On today’s episode I’m joined by my co-host, Paul Marden, CEO of Rubber Cheese.
We’re speaking with Alison Bowyer, Executive Director of Kids in Museums and Jenny Hill, Lead Museums Curator at Craven Museum.
It’s almost a Kids in Museums takeover as Paul is one of their amazing trustees.
Today we’re finding out what it takes to be a truly family friendly museum, why it’s important for you to engage with the Kids in Museums manifesto, and how you can enter the awards this year.
If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hello, Alison, Jenny, and Paul, welcome. Welcome to Skip the Queue today. This is a treat. I am joined by Alison and Jenny today and we're going to talk about kids and museums. And I've also got Paul. Hello, Paul, who has joined me as co host today, and he is going to start the icebreakers. This is new.
Paul Marden: It is, isn't it?? It's a brave new world for us, isn't it? So I've got a lovely one for you, Alison. So should we get started? What are you most likely to buy when you exit through the museum gift shop?
Alison Bowyer: Oh, gosh, that's a really tough one. Definitely postcards. I'm also a sucker for a nice sort of pencil case or I do like museum jewellery. I have quite a lot of tattoo divine, especially museum themed jewellery. And I do also have a pushant for like, cute, fluffy things, even though I'm not a child. I'm 44 years old, but still.
Kelly Molson: I'm loving this. Hello. At museums, Alison is your best gift when she comes because she's filling up her bag.
Paul Marden: Think of all of those museum gift shops that you can go through with all the jewellery in because there are some amazing ones, aren't there, that have the jewellery stands in them.
Alison Bowyer: That completely are. And I like to buy all my gifts for other people from museums if I can. So I am a big museum shopper.
Kelly Molson: It's really lovely to do that. So just before Christmas, actually, I think it was. No, yeah, it was November time. I went over to the Ashmolean museum and their gift shop is really lovely, actually, and had a really good nosy around it in between meetings. And oh, my God, I bought so many of my Christmas gifts in there. It was brilliant. My best friends, I bought Edie a book called Bear at the Museum, which she adores. It's the most read book in our house at the moment, which is lovely, but I bought my mother in law jewellery. I bought her earrings from the Ashmolean, which were absolutely lovely. So I'd never really thought about jewellery from a museum as well. There you go.
Kelly Molson: Good tip for you from Alison today. Thank you. Right, Jenny, have you ever been pulled off by security for touching a museum exhibit?
Jenny Hill: I haven't personally, no. But I did visit Manchester Museums with a friend and she was told off whilst were in the gallery because it was a really pretty furniture display and she just kind of automatically reached out a hand because she was like, “Oh, it's so pretty”, and instantly clocked by the security guard in the room and we very sheepishly left quite quickly.
Kelly Molson: I love that. It's really hard, isn't it, if you're quite a tactile person as well, and you're like, “Oh”, because you would do that if you were in a shop, right?
Jenny Hill: Exactly, yes. And she was just really excited by it was kind of just like an instant response. We were like, “Oh, no, shouldn't have done that.”
Kelly Molson: I love that. One day you will get told off. I know this, and you need to come back on and share that with us. Okay? Right, I've got one for both of you now. So, Alison, I'm going to start with you. If you had to wear a t shirt with one word on it for the rest of your life, what word would you choose and why?
Alison Bowyer: Oh, gosh, one word makes it really difficult because it can't be like a command.
Kelly Molson: Well, it could stop.
Alison Bowyer: Yeah, that's true.
Kelly Molson: It is a command.
Alison Bowyer: Because I have one at the moment that I'm quite fond of that just says “Be kind on it.”
Kelly Molson: That's nice. All right, well, maybe I'll let you have two words.
Alison Bowyer: You can't just say kind because that sounds really weird. And od, if I'm allowed to, it would “Be kind.”
Kelly Molson: Okay, we'll allow to, for the purpose of this podcast, we'll allow to. That's nice. I like that one. Jenny, what about you?
Jenny Hill: “Be curious” as well. I think that's something that always happy for our visitors to do when they're visiting, is to be curious. And I think it's just a good motto for life, isn't it, to always be thinking, always be inquisitive. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: They're very good one, Paul, I'm going to ask you as well. Sorry, dropping you right in it. What about yours?
Paul Marden: Learn. It has got to be if it's got to be one word, because one's a toughie. Learn.
Kelly Molson: I like that. Somebody actually went with the brief. Thank you for obeying me.
Paul Marden: Always. I know my place.
Kelly Molson: Doesn't happen often. All right. Thank you, everyone, for sharing that. I appreciate it. Right, unpopular opinions. What have you prepared for us? Alison? Over to you first, I think.
Alison Bowyer: Oh, gosh, this question made me so stressed.
Kelly Molson: I'm so sorry.
Alison Bowyer: No, no, it's fine. Not in a bad way, because I was like, oh, my goodness, I'm not sure what I have that's unpopular. And then I started googling unpopular opinions and I found all these weird lists of things that I never even considered were opinions, like people saying that C is the most redundant letter in the English language and you could replace all C's with S's and K's. Apparently, this is a commonly held unpopular opinion. So, yeah, then I started thinking, oh, goodness, I'm not really sure I'm up to this. I think what I came up with in the end was, which is going to make me unpopular, probably. I think pizza is the worst takeaway because it always survives cold and hard and the topping off, it falls off in transit, so you end up with a really dowsy meal.
Kelly Molson: I love a pizza takeaway, though. I can't be down with you on this one because I love a pizza. It's because we never get to eat pizza. Oh, no. Actually, we've had pizza quite frequently recently because Edie loves it. But Lee has always been a bit like anti pizza takeaways. Okay.
Paul Marden: I don't understand people that have the delivery of burgers and chips, because surely that is going to be cold by the time it gets to you and they're going to be rubbish chips.
Kelly Molson: Yes. That's weird. Yeah, that is weird. I've never ordered a burger to be delivered to my house. That sounds strange to me. Ok, let's see what Twitter feels about your pizza. Unpopular opinion. Jenny, what about you?
Jenny Hill: Oh, mine's similar on a food topic, which I feel is going to make me really unpopular. But something I always say that really annoys people is I really hate brunch, which I feel is very unpopular. But I'm a person that gets regularly hungry, so for me, waiting to go out for food in the morning is just not possible. So I will always have to have something to eat before I leave the house. So I'll always basically have breakfast and then before you know it, I'm eating again. So at that point, it's essentially lunch. So for me, brunch doesn't really exist.
Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. Let me argue this point back to you, though. So if your girlfriends or whoever had asked you out for brunch, you'd have breakfast first, right? So you'd have like 08:00 breakfast and then you'd go for brunch. But if you're always hungry, doesn't that just mean you just eat lunch a little bit earlier? So brunch is like.
Jenny Hill: I mean, I don't mind eating again, but it's just the concept, I guess, of calling it brunch just doesn't feel accurate for me by that point because I've already had a full breakfast.
Kelly Molson: Okay. So I have a similar challenge with afternoon tea. I can't stand afternoon tea. Sorry if this upsets people. I don't understand why you get to a certain age and all of your every thing has to be, “Oh, should we go for afternoon tea?” No, why don't we just go to the pub like we used to? Go to the pub. Just go to the pub. What is it about afternoon tea? It's really annoying. And it's one of those. It's always at like 03:00 so what is it?
Jenny Hill: It's not a meal. It's the same situation, but in the middle of the afternoon. I agree.
Kelly Molson: Exactly. Okay, I can get on board with your brunch thing then. If you're on board with my afternoon tea thing. Good.
Paul Marden: I'll take you afternoon tea and I'll raise you a kids party at 2:30 in the afternoon. It's neither lunch nor is it dinner. So I have to feed the child before. I have to feed the child afterwards. And then they're going to eat more food in the middle of the day.
Kelly Molson: They are. They are. But I mean, Edie eats constantly so that it doesn't really matter. But kid's parties are amazing because buffet food is the best kind of food. I'm all down for a kid's party. You get what's it, what's not to love? You get party rings. There's always sausage rolls, which is like my number one top snack of all time. I'm here for the kid's parties. I'll just take the food. You can have all the kids. Okay. Should we talk about some serious stuff now?
Paul Marden: Yeah. Shall we do that?
Kelly Molson: I mean, it's still equally fun, but let's get on, shall we? We're talking about Kids in Museums today.
Paul Marden: Which is really good, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: It is a great topic.
Paul Marden: I feel like I'm going to learn loads about Kids in Museums that I probably should already know as I'm a trustee of Kids in Museums. But I get to ask Alison all the questions that perhaps I've been a little bit too scared to ask for the last year because I might look a little bit silly if I don't know the answer.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, and she has to answer you because that is what the podcast rules are.
Paul Marden: Exactly. All right then, Alison, why don't we kick off, tell us a little bit about Kids in Museums and how the organisation was developed.
Alison Bowyer: Kids in Museums has existed in one form or another for about 20 years now, which always astonishes me a little bit. So we started life when our founder, who at the time wrote to the Guardian, her name was Dea Birkett and she took her young child, I think she was about two years old, to the. I'm going to name and shame, I'm afraid, the Aztec’s exhibition at the Royal Academy. And her son screamed at one of the massive Aztec statues, which, if I remember the exhibition correctly, was totally fair enough, because the statues were pretty. I mean, they were designed to be scary. That's one of the reasons why they built some of them. So they were thrown out of the Royal Academy because apparently he was disturbing the other visitors.
Alison Bowyer: And then Dea wrote about this in her Guardian column, and what happened after that was the Guardian got a lot of letters coming from families telling Dee about similar experiences they'd had when they were out and about in museums with their children. And so a campaign was born to make museums better places for families, children and young people to visit. And to an extent, what happened on that day at the Royal Academy, that kind of remains our guiding principle. We are led by what visitors tell us about their experiences and we really strongly feel that museums, galleries, heritage sites, as kind of public space, should be for everyone, and everyone should be free to have that access, to feel comfortable when they're visiting and to have a really great time during your visit. So since then, the charity has evolved in various ways.
Alison Bowyer: Today, we work across the whole of the UK and we will work with any kind of museum, gallery, heritage site, historic house, castle, any kind of outdoor heritage site to support them and lead them and encourage them to take action, to better places for families, children, young people. We're quite a small organisation. There's only five of us in total, but we feel like we achieve a lot. And last year we won the Museum and Heritage Award for being the Best Sector Support Organisation in the UK, which was a really amazing validation of our work. That definitely doesn't mean we're sitting on our laurels, though. We're always trying to spend time talking to families, talking to young people, talking to museums about how we can create new programmes, refine our existing programs to do better.
Alison Bowyer: And we really want to be approachable, supportive, trusted experts. So we are doing the best by both the audiences we represent and the museums we try to support.
Paul Marden: I think the size of the organisation. I know Vanessa, our chair, often says how much you, as a team, punch above your weight, because I don't think anyone would imagine that it was such a small team that was having such a loud voice. Is that a positive thing? That should be a positive thing. How much impact you have with such a small team? It's amazing.
Kelly Molson: It was lovely at the MandH Show. I was at those awards, and I saw that win happen, and it was fantastic because the cheer from the crowd was pretty phenomenal. So congratulations on that.
Alison Bowyer: Thank you. I was so sure weren't going to win. I wasn't there, and I'd gone to bed and gone to sleep.
Kelly Molson: Woke up to some spectacular news.
Alison Bowyer: Yeah, no, it really did. But, yeah, no, it was brilliant to get that recognition. It helps more people find out about us as well, which is always valuable.
Paul Marden: So what is it that you offer museums, and how can they get involved more with what you're doing?
Alison Bowyer: So we like to think that we've got something for pretty much any kind of museum, whatever your level of expertise in working with families, children and young people is whatever resources you have, how many staff you have. So we have a large, free offer, which is kind of the building blocks of what we encourage museums to do, and it's all centring on our manifesto. So our manifesto is something that we compile with children, families and young people. So every two years, which actually is something we're going to be doing this year, we will be out talking to museum visitors, doing a national survey, and finding out about what their good and bad experiences of museums are. And then we will take all that information and distil it down into six easy points that make up our manifesto.
Alison Bowyer: And then that's a document that we think pretty much every museum should be able to commit to in their work. None of it is particularly complicated, or a lot of it doesn't need to be resource intensive. They're all pretty simple things that everybody should be able to do. So that's a really good starting point. And over a thousand museums have signed up to the manifesto and hopefully are using it in their work. I know we'll hear later from Jenny about how Craven Museum did that. Once you've signed the manifesto, there are lots of other things that you can get involved in.
Alison Bowyer: We've got over 100 free resources on our website, which cover everything from ways to implement the manifesto at low cost, how to create self guided resources for families, right up to things like how you can engage children and young people with the climate emergency in your museum. So they cover a really wide range of things that we think are helpful to the teams in museums who are doing that work on the ground. We have a programme of UK training, so we run about trend training sessions a year for museum staff and we also work with museum development organisations on training and that's available to attend in person for a small ticket price or to buy us recordings.
Alison Bowyer: Then every year we run a program called Takeover Day, which is a really brilliant, fun, exciting initiative where children and young people age between 0 and 25 go into museums and they do adults jobs for the day. When I say 0 to 25, I really mean that. We have toddlers doing museum Takeover Days, being given tasks like polishing glass museum cases with soft dusters, doing some cleaning and doing some object packing with, like, wooden blocks. They don't let them use loose on the actual collection.
Paul Marden: With white gloves on.
Kelly Molson: I'm laughing because Edie would be like up there licking the glass, not trying to clean it, thinking about my daughter. And Paul is smiling because he did one of these Takeover Days.
Alison Bowyer: He did. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: He's got a massive grin on his face.
Paul Marden: We loved it. We got to be curators for the day. The kids got to run around the museum and then they went back into the learning suite of the Mary Rose Trust and they got told to design an immersive exhibition and they took ideas from all around the museum and designed out what they would do and such brilliant ideas that they had. It was such a great experience for them to get that kind of behind the scenes experience of what the museum is actually like.
Alison Bowyer: So we see from Takeover Day that impact Paul has described. More than 70% of the young people who take part say that they would like to go back to a museum again as a result of being part of Takeover Day. And more than two thirds of the museums say that they now know more about what young people want from their museums and will make a change. So it's a really brilliant initiative. Then we obviously have the Family Friendly Museum Award, which is what we're going to be talking about with Jenny and I'll talk more about it later. And we've got some new programs coming online this year. So for the first time, we're working with a group of museums to help them appoint their first young trustees. So they're going to have people on their boards by the end of the programme age between 18 and 25.
Alison Bowyer: And we also are running some programs with our own youth panel that they've designed. So we are working with them on a project which will hopefully show that museums can help address social isolation that young people experience when they move for education or new jobs.
Kelly Molson: I think it's just take a pause there and just reiterate that there are five of you in the Kids in Museum’s team. That is a pretty phenomenal menu of things that you offer to museums with just five people.
Paul Marden: It's amazing, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Let's just keep that up there as we're talking today. Thanks, Alison. Jenny, I want to come over and chat to you about Kids in Museums. How did you first kind of find out about them and get involved with what they're doing?
Jenny Hill: So, I've been aware of Kids in Museums probably since I first started working in the sector around six, seven years ago now. I've been on their website, sort of seen their name come up and use some of their guidance when I was doing some of my initial sort of museum work. But I think they sort of really stood out to me. From about 2021, I got involved with some training with part of Museum Development Yorkshire, whose sector support as well, funded by Arts Council England, and they were running front of house cohort that I got involved with at the time. And we had a really great training session as part of that cohort with Laura Bedford from Kids inMuseums. She gave a really inspiring talk and session on creating family friendly interactions in museums, and that was really inspiring.
Jenny Hill: I learned a lot during that session and really made me think, oh, we definitely need to be involved with this more. And then later on in the same year, I actually did an in person event. It was at the auction museum, and actually got to have a chat with Laura there about Kids in Museum's work. So that was really helpful. So, yeah, we kind of taken it from there. We signed up to the kids and museum manifesto following on from that, started to use those sort of principles in a lot of our front of house work and then behind the scenes as well. So, yes, Kim, have been on my radar for quite a while.
Jenny Hill: But, yeah, it's sort of the past three years, really, that we've really sort of been taking on board a lot of their, using a lot of their resources and their ideas.
Kelly Molson: It's lovely to see that it was indirectly as well. So obviously, Kids in Museums and what they do, it's good that they work in partnership with other organizations as well. So there was like a crossover there. Why did you enter the Family Friendly Museum award last year?
Jenny Hill: So Craven Museum went through a National Lottery Funded redevelopment project between 2018 and 2021. So we completely redesigned our museum space. It used to be really inaccessible. It used to be at the top of Skipton town hall. There was no lifts up there. It was a really steep, horrible flight of stairs to get up there, and a lot of the interpretation was really outdated. A lot of it was not very accessible. So after our redevelopment project, which really put access at the centre of all of our work, and particularly looking at family audiences, this is a group that we really wanted to feel welcome to our museum. It's a group that we'd been working with a lot pre redevelopment and we really wanted to expand our work with this audience after we reopened.
Jenny Hill: So after all this work was completed, we spent 2022 in sort of that post Covid year, finding our feet when maybe our visitors weren't quite as confident coming onto site and people were still getting to know that were reopened as well. So we had got a lot of people coming in going, “Oh, I didn't realise the work had finished.”
Jenny Hill: That was sort of our sort of pilot year. Whereas last year in 2023, we really felt that we hit our stride and we've been piloting lots of new ideas in 2022 and embedding our family friendly ethos in our work. So it kind of was the year that work really felt like it came to fruition after having spent quite a few years developing it. So we thought, as a team, that we'd really like to sort of get this work hopefully recognised. And a family friendly museum award really felt like a way to do that and we really wanted it to sort of give a boost to our team as well, who'd been working hard on that. So, yeah, we just thought it would be a great year to get involved and we entered it with very low expectations.
Jenny Hill: We thought, we're a small museum in the north of England. We weren't sure if we'd be, I don't know, sort of recognised for what we've been doing. So it was absolutely amazing to get recognition through the award in that way. It's fantastic.
Kelly Molson: It feels like the recognition was for the team and for the people that were kind of working in it. Is that what was important to you about entering?
Jenny Hill: I think so, yes. It was to prove to the team that the work that they'd been doing was really valid and really important. And I think in the museum sector, sometimes there's quite a lot of pressure on quite small teams. Like Alison was saying, there's only five people in Kids in Museums, and we're a small team, too. So I think having that recognition for the team just really helps them to know that, yes, they're doing a good job alongside the fact that it's obviously important to us to sort of share with the families that do come and use the museum, that it's going well.
Kelly Molson: How difficult was it to write the entry? Because I think that there's often a barrier. I mean, certainly for us, there's been things that I've thought this would be great to enter, but I look at it and think, “Oh, my goodness, this is going to take me, like, four or five days to actually pull all of these things together and write it. And write it in a way that's appealing.” Did you find it was an easy process to go through?
Jenny Hill: Actually, yes, we did find it, because I've done some applications that, yes, like you say, it can be quite as difficult, quite time consuming. I actually found the process for Kim really easy. So when the applications opened, members of the public were asked to nominate their favourite museum through a form on the Kim website. And we're really excited that we got some lovely nominations from families. And then kids and museum got in touch to let us know that we could make full application because we'd been nominated. So after that point, there was an online form that we could fill out that asked questions like, how have you made visiting your museum accessible to families, children and young people with additional needs? So that was one of the sort of longer questions on the form because we applied for the best accessible museum.
Jenny Hill: And that was. Yeah, I think because of all the work that we've been doing and because that kind of ethos is embedded in our team, weren't talking maybe about a specific project that we'd been working on. As some applications, I feel like they're very sort of project focused, but having such a wide question like that meant that we could just talk about what we do every day at the museum, which is what's really important to us.
Jenny Hill: So, yeah, there were nice questions to answer because they kind of felt like they gave us the space to talk about all of our work. So that was brilliant. And we also had the opportunity to upload some supporting materials so we could get some photos in there, send through some of our more visual. Yeah, I think we might have sent a video as well. So that was great, too, because it meant we could share lots of different aspects of our work.
Kelly Molson: I love that. And spoiler alert even. You won. You're not only be the overall winner, you were the Best Accessible Museum winner as well.
Jenny Hill: Yes. And I was still absolutely blown away by that.
Kelly Molson: It's phenomenal. Congratulations.
Jenny Hill: Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Huge for that.
Paul Marden: I wonder if the reason why you found it not too painful to do the application is because this is folded into you. This is running through your core. You're just telling people what you do every day, and so you're just telling the story of what you do all the time.
Jenny Hill: I think that's how it feel. Yeah.
Paul Marden: Alison, let's talk about. I remember sitting in the audience listening to you talking about all the different museums and what the judges said and what stood out, and I loved hearing those stories. So what was it, do you think, that stood out about the Craven Museum, about their entry for you?
Alison Bowyer: So there were a few things about the Craven entry that really grabbed us. The first that I remember reading was that they had built our manifesto into their visitor charter, which is amazing because they are taking what we know, families, children, young people need and want, and they're building it into that work that they do every day. Like Jenny was saying, this is them living that way of working, which is incredible. And I think throughout the application, you got a real sense that all of their staff really cared about this. There was a page in the supporting document with the whole team on it saying just, like, one little thing about everyone in the team. And it was really amazing to see that because you felt that where in some museums, this is kind of just what the people in the learning team do.
Alison Bowyer: That wasn't true at Craven. Everyone at Craven really cared about the families he visited, and I think that was really borne out in the family nominations we received. There were so many families who were telling us how much they loved going to the museum that their children saw it as, like, the highlight of their half term holiday. And they talked for weeks in advance about wanting to go, and the make and take craft seemed to be a particular hit. There were lots of families telling us that their children couldn't wait to go back and do that again. And the families who nominated the museum also, they sounded really proud that their town had the museum, which was really lovely. And also, I think, something that came through, which is a kind of sad reflection of the way the world is at the moment.
Alison Bowyer: They really appreciated that all of that was available for free. When they're struggling to find things for their family to do that don't cost much, it felt like it was a really important thing to have that amazing resource in their town. And there were other little things, too. The museum is a safe space. The staff have amazing access training and training in inclusive language, and those things really help with kind of broadening out who can come into the museum and something that we spend quite a lot of time talking about. That isn't always something museums pick up on. And the Craven Museum website is just amazing, incredibly informative. I think it came in like the top five or something in the state.
Alison Bowyer: The museum access website report in the whole of the UK for its access information, which a museum of its size is absolutely incredible. We spent so much time telling people that families like to plan, they like to look at a website in advance and find out about all the facilities, and Craven had actually done that and it really makes a difference. So were really pleased to see that. And then I think the final thing was the community case and how they had a space in the museum where local people, local organisations, could show things that were important to them. So they were really giving the local community the opportunity to see themselves in the museum and feel a sense of kind of belonging and ownership.
Alison Bowyer: So I think all of those things came together and it was really clear that Craven Museum was going to be a really strong contender, which was why they shortlisted them. And then it was over to the families to judge them during the second stage of the award.
Paul Marden: I'd say the fact that you gather together these real families to kind of go and look at the museums that have applied and pass on their feedback to the judges, I think is hugely powerful. Are there any little snippets that the families came back that you liked because there were so many lovely little comments that the families had given to us throughout the awards?
Alison Bowyer: Yeah. So I think this quote is one that I think sort of sums it all up, really. The family judge said, “This is one of the most accessible, family friendly and welcoming museums I have ever visited across Britain. Although small compared to city museums, this has a lot to offer and is well laid out. It is very inclusive and their website is a particular strong point in terms of helping people to feel able and welcome to visit. People can visit the museum or attend an event knowing what to expect and what options are available. We especially love the fact that the spot, the mouse activity involved actual exhibits. Often this type of activity utilizes soft toys or pictures that have been placed around the site and end up being a distraction from the collection, meaning families don't get to actually experience the museum and look at the artifacts on display. But this activity in Craving Museum involved looking for things that were part of the carvings and objects. A great way for visitors to get more close to the collection. We all really enjoyed our visit.”
Kelly Molson: That's so nice.
Paul Marden: That's just brilliant feedback, isn't it?
Alison Bowyer: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: So nice.
Paul Marden: And who would have thought having a website that told you information about the museum that was accessible could actually be of value to people?
Alison Bowyer: I know. It's amazing, isn't it?
Paul Marden: I know. I wonder who could help you with that.
Kelly Molson: Yes, although, full credit, this is not one of our websites, but we definitely could help you with that. This is incredible. What lovely words. We've all got smiles on our faces for people that are listening to the audio of this and can't see us. Jenny, I'd really love to know. We go back to the reason that you entered and, you know, part of that is for the team, it's for the people that have worked really hard to make all of these amazing things happen. What has the impact been for your team since you won this award?
Jenny Hill: I think it's just been the real boost that it's given the whole team. Like Alison was saying, everyone on the team really cared about this, know every single member of our team, not just maybe our learning team or our forward facing team, everyone cared about it. And I think it's just really inspired us to carry on with our work. We're all very conscious of the fact that working with families, working with accessibility, is never a finished process. You've not achieved it. So it's kind of really just. Yeah, it's given us that extra push to think, oh, actually, we're doing well in this and we really want to continue. We don't want to sit on our laurels, we don't want to take this for granted. We want to keep working on this. So I think that was really great.
Jenny Hill: It was also particularly lovely just to know that it was real families who'd nominated us and that, like were just saying with the undercover judges, it was real families who came to visit us during that judging period and had these positive experiences. So that was just fantastic to know that it was visitors who wanted to sort of recognise the work we've been doing. So, yeah, I think that's been the main thing, really. It's just been amazing being recognised by the sector and our colleagues and given us all that kind of. That boost.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Like a validation of all of the work that gone into it.
Jenny Hill: Definitely.
Kelly Molson: And what about the impact from kind of general public? Has it had an impact on the visitors that are coming and what they're saying about it and then also the sector itself, you said it's been a good thing to be recognised within the sector.
Jenny Hill: So it's definitely had a real impact with our visitors. So we've had some visitors coming to site who've said that they've specifically come because they heard about the Kids in Museum award, which has been amazing. Some people coming from a distance to visit family in the area and saying, “Oh, when I was looking for things to do, I saw that you'd won the award. So I thought while I was visiting I'd pop in.” So that's been incredible, that impact with visitors and our sort of more regular local visitors who've come in, we've got the award up on a shelf behind the front desk. Our front of house team are so proud to have it there behind them while they're working.
Jenny Hill: And we've had local visitors saying, “Oh, it's so amazing that our town's got a museum that's won this award and it's really lovely for local people that we've got this here.” So, yeah, that's been really nice for both bringing in new visitors and also for our local audience and then within the sector, it's just been so good for us, publicity wise, to sort of kind of get our name out there, really. So since the awards I've done, I was just counting up the other day, I've had seven different institutions in touch, asking for site visits to come and look at our work, have a chat with us about best practice. I've delivered another seven presentations either already or got them booked in for the rest of the year. And then obviously doing podcasts like this.
Jenny Hill: And then we did a blog post as well for Send in Museums with Sam Bowen. I think that's the pipeline, hopefully. So, yeah, it's really kind of boosted us and we even noticed on social media, new institutions following us that maybe weren't aware of us before, after the award, people taking interest. So that's been really nice as a small local museum to have that kind of more bigger awareness from the sector.
Kelly Molson: I love this so much. And this goes back to something that comes up time and time again on these podcast interviews is just how collaborative and how supportive the sector is and how much they want to work with each other. It's so lovely that you can now showcase the processes that you've been through and how you approach accessibility and be able to share that with others so that they can go on and do the same and make theirs better and better.
Kelly Molson: I think it's so important to be able to do that, and it makes me love this sector so much. It really does. What top tips Jenny, would you give to any museums that are out there thinking, “We really want to enter the awards this year.” What would you say were your best top tips for them?
Jenny Hill: This kind of links to something Paul was saying earlier, and it maybe sounds a bit cliched, but just be yourself. I think there's so much amazing work going on in the sector to do with making venues family friendly. And if you're passionate about what you do and you're working hard to make your venue inclusive, then that will shine through. So maybe sometimes not to overcomplicate it. So if you're doing the work and you really care, then that will make itself apparent. But I guess on a more practical level as well. Give yourself time with the application, don't try and rush it. We work very collaboratively at Craven Museum, so we really wanted the opportunity for all of our staff to be able to feed back into the application process and for lots of different people to read the draft, make comments, have their say.
Jenny Hill: So by giving ourselves enough time to do that, it really made the process a lot smoother. And also, have a look at the Kids in Museum manifesto. It's a great place to just, if you haven't signed up already, sign up and if you have, just refresh yourself on it, because it can really help that framework for how to answer questions and things.
Kelly Molson: Great tips. Thanks, Jenny.
Paul Marden: So with that in mind, should we talk about this year's family friendly awards. Nominations Open on 19th March, I think. Is that right, Alison?
Alison Bowyer: Yeah, that's right.
Paul Marden: So what is it that museums can do to enter?
Alison Bowyer: This year we have five categories, so there are three size categories, so best, small, medium and large museums, which will be organised by number of visits in the previous twelve months. That's all explained on our website. I won't go into that now. Then we have a category for the Best Successful Museum, which is the category that Craven won last year. And then our new category for this year is Best Youth Project, and that is a prize for museums who are doing long term, so work longer than six months with young people from the ages of 14 to 25. And what we're really looking for is work, that young people are given a sort of equal share in decision making, that they're really involved in shaping work.
Alison Bowyer: And the guidelines for that category, along with all of the others, are in the guidance notes, which you can download from our website. So that would be the first thing to do. Sounds very obvious, read the guidance notes carefully because that should explain most of what you need to know about how to enter. So then there are two routes to entry, really. So what Jenny described, what happened to Craven, that's what happens to most museums. Families will nominate them. So for a family to nominate, they can just go on our website. It's really simple. They just have to tell us the name with the museum they're nominating and in a few sentences why they're nominating them. That's it. And then we will contact the museum and tell them they've been nominated and ask them to fill in the museum side of the application process.
Alison Bowyer: We've got lots of tools to help museums promote nominations to families. So we've got social media assets for all channels and we've got some paper forms you can print out and put in your museum if you want to. Then the other alternative is if you want to enter but you for some reason don't have the time or the capacity to collect lots of family nominations, you can just enter as a museum on our website. That's totally fine. You just go on our website and you look at the museum application form. It's not essential to have a family nomination for the small museum and large category, but for the Best Successful Museum, we do ask that at least one family has supported your museum's nomination. Just because we feel for that category, it's super important that the museums are sort of supported by families for the provision that they offer in terms of accessibility.
Alison Bowyer: What happens then is once we've got all the nominations together, we put together a shortlist. So the shortlisting panel is made up of. We normally have primary schools, young people from our youth panel, our staff and trustees, and sometimes representatives from museums who've won in the past. We all come together, we pick a shortlist and then we announce that in June. And then if you've been shortlisted over the summer, we will send out families like mystery shopper judges to your museum. So you won't know they're coming, they will just go on a visit and they will report back to us afterwards. And as Jenny says, it's their scores that choose the winners.
Alison Bowyer: We don't intervene in any way. We go with whatever the families tell us, so they really are in control. And I think that's one of the lovely things about this award. It is genuinely an award that is given by people who visit museums and then we will announce all the results in October at our award ceremony.
Paul Marden: We've talked a little bit about the mystery shoppers, the family judges, the undercover judges going in and actually looking at the museums. And that's how I first found out about Kids in Museums because I saw a sign when I was in the London Transport Museum suggesting that people could go on to nominate and also apply to be an undercover judge, which was how I found out about you first. This is a few years ago now. What can families do, though, if they want to be an undercover judge? Can they get involved?
Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah.
Alison Bowyer: Absolutely. So the best thing to do is to sign up on our website to our family mailing list. And then when we recruit the judges, which will be from June onwards, we will get in touch with you and let you know whereabouts in the UK. We need judges. It changes every year because we need the judges to be the museums on the shortlist. So it's a bit of a chicken and egg thing that we can't really start until we know where those museums are. But, yeah, the best thing to do is to sign up for our family mailing list.
Paul Marden: Yeah. It's such a great opportunity, isn't it, for people to go and have a mission, for the kids to go in and have a mission to go and check these places out and be the ones that decide who gets the award. What a great opportunity for a family to go and find that out.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Don't tell them until they get home, though, because they'll just be shouting that out in the museum.
Paul Marden: Do you know who I am?
Alison Bowyer: We get lots of families tell us that their kids really enjoy it because they tell them they're, like, having to play detective or something and not be seen. And apparently it makes the day out really fun. So, yeah, it comes recommended.
Paul Marden: So there's a call to action for all the families that might be listening to us to join the mailing list and get in there early to become an undercover judge.
Alison Bowyer: Yeah. And I should say that we will cover travel expenses for the family judges, up to 30 pounds a visit. So we try to make it as accessible as possible to be a judge.
Paul Marden: Completely brilliant opportunity.
Kelly Molson: Thank you both for coming on and sharing this with us today. It's been so lovely to hear about it. We are going to put all of the details on how you can enter and how you can sign up to be a family judge as well on the show notes, but essentially go to Kids in Museum's website because they have everything that you need on there. We always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation. Something they love or know can be anything, a personal recommendation, a business book. Whatever you like. Jenny, what have you prepared for us today?
Jenny Hill: Well, it's probably not one that people haven't heard of before, but I'm a massive Jane Austen fan, so I would always recommend Emma. Emma is probably my favourite by. Yeah, it's one of those ones that I always go back to. So, yeah, if you're thinking about you've never read Jane Austen before, you want to read some classics? I would always recommend that. Yeah, it's a lovely book.
Kelly Molson: Oh, it's nice. We get so many people come on and recommend their favourite. Mean something magic about rereading the book over and over again is that you always find out something different every time you read it, regardless of how many times you've read it before. Thank you. Alison, what about you?
Alison Bowyer: Gosh, I found it so hard to pick a favourite book. People who aren't watching won't be able to see the bookcase behind me.
Kelly Molson: Very full.
Paul Marden: Alison looks like a reader for the people that are listening.
Alison Bowyer: It's not probably necessarily my favourite book, but a book that I really love by an author who I think deserves to best known in the UK is Standard Deviation by Katherine Heiney. She is absolutely hilarious and it's just a really beautiful portrait of a family living in New York who are all slightly eccentric and unusual in different ways. And I guess I'm really curious and lazy about people's lives. So I love books that kind of open the window onto different kinds of families. And yeah, she's just a wonderful author. All her books are wonderful, but that's my absolute favourite.
Kelly Molson: Good recommendation. Thank you. And both of those books have never been recommended before as well, so they will go top of the list on our blog post that we have where we save off all of our guests recommendations. As ever, if you want to win these books, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Alison and Jenny's books, then you'll be in with a chance of winning a copy yourselves. Once again, thank you both for coming on. It's been so lovely to hear about the awards and the impact of winning the awards. Congratulations again on all of your hard work. It's just been wonderful to talk to you. So thank you.
Jenny Hill: Thank you very much. It's been lovely speaking to you today.
Alison Bowyer: Thank you so much. It's been a real pleasure to share the award and some of the other work we do.
Paul Marden: And it's got us smiling all the way through, hasn't it, Kelly? It's been a lovely story to tell.
Kelly Molson: I hope people can hear that in our voices, that we're smiling. They can hear that we're smiling if they don't watch them, nobody watches our videos. Hey, go and watch our videos.
Paul Marden: There you go. See us grinning all the way through smiling.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're answering your questions from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report, asking what more you'd like to see in this year's survey and sharing more on how you can get involved next time. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hello.
Paul Marden: Well, hello.
Kelly Molson: This is nice. So the two of us haven't been together for a podcast episode for a while.
Paul Marden: It does feel like, well, happy new year to start with.
Kelly Molson: Way too late for that malarkey. We've just been busy, haven't we've got lots of exciting projects that are coming to. Well, I don't like to say the end, but they're coming to point of launch.
Paul Marden: The launch, yeah. The exciting bit.
Kelly Molson: The very exciting bit. So we've all been pulled here, there and everywhere. So I've had lovely guests to speak to and you've had a little bit of a break from this. But we're back. We're back.
Paul Marden: Absolutely.
Kelly Molson: And we're going to start like we always do with these ones. With what attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it?
Paul Marden: I have been to Mary Rose Museum and I went with a bunch of nine and ten year olds. We basically went down there for the Kids in Museums Takeover Day. It's one of the kind of showpiece Kids in Museums events that they run every year all around, putting the ownership of the museum into the hands of kids. I managed to wangle my way to Mary Rose, which is relatively close to me. And I took my daughter's class, who I run a coding club for. So interestingly, theme around our coding club this year is all around the arts and how you put art into StEm and make it steam just like an amazingly.
Kelly Molson: I can't believe how well that's worked out.
Paul Marden: It gets better. The very first session of our club was all about what is the job of a museum curator. And so we took that theme and went and took over the Mary Rose and became curators for a day. So the kids got to go around the museum and have fun and see all the cool stuff that's going on there. They did the 3D Dive, the Mary Rose experience, and it was amazing watching a bunch of nine and ten year olds reaching out and popping these bubbles that were on the 3D screen in front of them. And then they went off and they designed their own interactive display around whatever was the thing that excited them about the museum.
Paul Marden: So there was lots of dog themed ones because there's a dog that is the kind of subject of a lot of the kids stuff focused around Mary Rose. But there was all different sorts of interactive displays, augmented reality within the glass lift that looks onto the Mary Rose and how you could gamify it. The kids just had a whale of a time and I just strolled around the museum and watched them having fun and say, that wasn't a tough day at all.
Kelly Molson: I'm actually really jealous as well because were due to go and then you got the opportunity to go because of that thing happening and I still haven't been.
Paul Marden: I know. And it's an amazing place. We had so much fun. They welcomed us. We had all the education department looking after us and making us feel special. It was just such a brilliant day. Apart from trying to park a minibus with 15 kids somewhere near the Mary Rose, which scared me whitlets.
Kelly Molson: Oh, you actually drove a bus?
Paul Marden: I did not drive the bus, no, I was a navigator. I had to find the parking spot. It's a level of responsive.
Kelly Molson: You were bus driver dad as well that day.
Paul Marden: There's a character in Peppa Pig, isn't there? I can't remember who she is, but she works in the supermarket. She drives the minibus.
Kelly Molson: This rabbit is the hardest working rabbit you'll ever meet in your whole.
Paul Marden: Exactly.
Kelly Molson: No, I'm going to put her on par. Sorry, I'm actually going to put her on par with Mrs. Rabbit, who has got hundreds of kids who doesn't work, but she has to look after those. So she is probably the hardest working rabbit that you'll ever find. So there you go. Digress into Peppa Pig. You can see where my world is right now, can't you? That just gave you an insight into where I'm spending my time.
Paul Marden: So tell me about where have you been recently?
Kelly Molson: I have been recently to the Museum of the Broads. I don’t ever really spoken about this on the podcast that much. But I am a trustee of the Museum of the Broads and it is a lovely museum. It does not get as much love and attention as it should. So I felt that today was a good opportunity to highlight it. It's wonderful. It's on the broads, obviously, it's in Stallham. And it is such incredible value for money because you can buy a ticket to the museum and a boat trip. And the boat trips are phenomenal. Last year these were really popular, so they introduced some afternoon evening boat trips where you could go and spot kingfishers because that stretch of the broads is absolutely like prime Kingfisher viewing area.
Kelly Molson: I have only ever seen one Kingfisher out in real life, and they're so quick, like it was a flash of blue and I didn't have my glasses on it. She wasn't going to see anything in great detail. That is incredible. On one of the trips last year, on the boat trip, they saw ten kingfishers. It might have been the same kingfisher, just like, who knows? I'm going to say ten. I'm going to take the ten. But the museum itself is wonderful. Some of the artefacts they have there are just really fun and really engaging. And obviously they've got lots of information about the boats and the broads themselves and what the broads were traditionally used for and how they've developed over the years. It's a lovely little museum. It's volunteer led. They have, I think, two or three members of paid team there.
Kelly Molson: So much work goes into the management and the development of those museums when it's volunteer led as well. So it's lovely. It is really lovely.
Paul Marden: We both started doing trusteeship type stuff at the same time. So I started at Kids in Museums because I wanted to see a broad view of things. You started at Museum of the Broads because you wanted to see the inside running of the museum itself. What has the experience been like for you?
Kelly Molson: It’s so different. It's such a different environment to what I'm used to. So, I mean, it won't surprise you to know that museums are not quite as dynamic as an agency, or they're just not as fast paced as an agency. So I think the speed at which some things happen is I find it a bit of a challenge, if I'm honest, because we're used to kind of going, should we try this? Okay, let's talk it. Okay, great. Let's not someone run with it. And it's sort of just, I don't know, there's a speed at which stuff happens in an agency that it's incomparable to any other organisation. So it's nice in some ways that kind of take a bit of time to kind of think things through. I've really enjoyed understanding about all of the different facets that are required within an agency, within a museum. Sorry.
Kelly Molson: And the things that you have to understand about. Even when we had an office, there's a level of HR and a level of safety management that you have to do, but it's a whole other level when it's a museum and you've got members of the public coming along. So that's been really interesting to understand and learn about. I've really enjoyed kind of looking at how they're developing certain areas of the museum as well. So when there's a new exhibition that's on. So last year, the Pippa Miller exhibition launched. Pippa Miller was a really famous artist that was connected to the broads, and the museum was entrusted with some of her artwork when she passed, and it's the only place you can come and see it. It's a wonderful exhibition.
Kelly Molson: So understanding about how those exhibitions are developed and put on and watching those happen as well. And there's another one this year that will happen, which is an exhibition on peat, which I know that probably doesn't sound that interesting, but it really is my mate Pete. No, not your mate Pete. No, actual Peat. Peat soil Pete. So, yeah, that's been really nice to see and kind of understand how those things progress and are developed and the ideas that go into them. It's fascinating.
Paul Marden: Cannot imagine the effort that goes into curating a whole exhibition like that.
Kelly Molson: It's vast. And I will give a huge shout out to Nicola, the curator at the Museum of the Broads, because she works tirelessly there to just bring these stories to life. That's essentially what they do. They bring the stories of the broads to life. This is a little plea from me, actually. A little shout out to everyone that's listening. If everybody listening to this podcast, I mean, we get hundreds of people listen to these episodes. If everyone went and bought a ticket from the Museum of Broada that's listening to this episode today, it would make such a massive difference to that little museum. So if you are thinking about booking a little staycation this year, head to Norfolk, get a ticket to the Museum of the Broads, go and check out the broads themselves.
Kelly Molson: It is just a wonderful experience to go and see that museum and take a boat trip down the broads.
Paul Marden: There's a very nice place nearby to stay as well, isn't?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I mean, a certain podcast host does have a lovely little place in Norfolk that you could rent out, which is literally 25 minutes from this museum as well. Just heads up.
Paul Marden: Incidental.
Kelly Molson: If you want to give me a shout, I can put you in the direction of 28 Millgate. Or you could just search that on Google. No, honestly, genuinely, if you are thinking about having a staycation and you're heading that way, put it top of your list because it's a lovely afternoon out. Thank you. Thanks for listening to my podcast.
Paul Marden: So what are we actually talking about today then?
Kelly Molson: In this episode, we are going to be answering some of the questions that we've received from the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report. So, as you can imagine, we launch the report, we do the survey. All you lovely people fill in our survey for us and we launch the report, which gives you an analysis of what that survey data has meant. And it's a huge undertaking. It really is a huge undertaking. And I don't say that lightly. It's massive. It takes over our whole lives. And there is so much data in the report that we send out, but there's always questions, there's always more, and there's always more that we can do as well. And I think it just is an awful lot of work. Right.
Kelly Molson: So what happens is we launch it goes out, people digest it, and then they send us emails and they say, “This is really great. Thank you for this bit. Is there any insight into this thing?” And there's quite a lot of those emails that come in and most of them we probably can answer. It just, again, takes a bit of work to go back and look at the data and crunch the data and see if there is any answers to those questions. So we have had some of these questions in and we thought, well, let's do it as a podcast. And then everybody can hear the answers to these questions because it might be something that other people are thinking about as well.
Kelly Molson: So we're going to talk through some of the ones that have been sent in, and then we are going to give you a bit of a heads up about what's happening with this year's report and survey and talk a little bit about that. Sound good?
Paul Marden: Does sound good. I need to get my geek hat on my numbers. Geek hat.
Kelly Molson: It's time for Paul to nerd out. I will be asking the questions. Paul will be nerding out on the answers. Right. Okay. One of the questions we had in was how many respondents were return respondents from 2022 to 2023?
Paul Marden: Yeah. This was a question that somebody asked in relation to. They saw some changes, I think it was in terms of ticketing systems that were being used and they wanted to know, “Oh, if there's been a change in the ticketing systems that were used, could that because we've got different group of people, or is it the same people changing systems?” So, yeah, I dug into that. It was actually relatively hard to figure this out because what people type in as the name of their attraction is not always exactly the same. It's sometimes different people, sometimes they'll write the same name in a slightly different way. So actually, comparing apples with apples turned out to be quite challenging and I had to change some of the data to normalise it between the two groups.
Paul Marden: I could see they were the same attraction, although their names were subtly different. What I worked out was two different views of the same thing. But essentially, in the 2023 data set, 20% of the respondents were return respondents from the previous year. But of course, the 2023 data set was much bigger than the 2022 data set. So if you look at it from the other direction, how many people that filled in a survey in 22? Filled in a survey in 23? It's 50% of the 2022 respondents replied in 2023. So we had a good return rate? Yeah, for sure. But there was 50% of people didn't reply. So that made me think, there's a job of work to do this year.
Kelly Molson: Where did you go 50% of you. Cheeky little monkeys.
Paul Marden: And they vary. Some of them are smaller institutions, some of them are much bigger institutions. There's the reasonable amount of movement of people in the sector, isn't there? So you can easily imagine. Actually, there was an interesting one there, isn't it? What if I were to match the names of the respondents? Did we actually get a reasonable number of returners, but they were in a different job with a different institution?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's really a good point, actually, because I do know that people, I know people personally, that I know that they've moved on and gone to different places, and actually, some moved out of the sector and moved into completely different roles altogether.
Paul Marden: There is a decent cohort of people that returned and responded in 23, but the 23 data set was much bigger. So when you do see swings between 22 and 23, some of that is just a sample size thing with the best will in the world. We talk to lots of people and lots of people respond with data to us, but we have not captured the whole entire set of all attractions in the UK, and so we will get sampling errors out. If one year we sample a different group of people than we did the previous year, the comparisons can be a little bit harder.
Paul Marden: If we could just get more people responding and we had more data, then you'll get that the role of chance and the role of sampling errors will have less impact on the data and you'll be able to compare more year on year outcomes.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay, well, there's your call out to get involved this year we'll let you know how.
Paul Marden: There's going to be lots of those.
Kelly Molson: Okay, second question. Can we break down the responses in the other type category? This is an interesting one, isn't it? Because we detailed out as many different visitor attraction types as we possibly could think of or find on internet and gave everybody the opportunity to be able to select what they specifically were, but we still had a huge amount of people put other. What's the reasoning behind that?
Paul Marden: Can I give you facts and then tell you what I think the reasoning is? Yeah. So there's some things that I know. Okay. 37% of all respondents mark themselves as the other. It skews when you drill into that 37%. It's a big group of people. It was like the second or third largest group of people in the report itself. They tended to be attractions that had lower visitor numbers. So they were under 100,000 visitor numbers in that other group. So it was about 45% of people were under 100. About 37% were between 100 and a million visitors. Those are the things we know. Then I started having a play with the data.
Paul Marden: So what if I were to group those people that were in other because they had the opportunity to type some stuff in for free text box, and could I make a grouping out of that? One thing that I did notice, and this is observation as opposed to fact. Okay. So I could see many of the places that chose other because we didn't allow them to choose multiple types and they were an attraction that had multiple things. So one of them was one of our clients. And they have a historic house. They have a guest house, they have a beach, they have outdoors activities. They've got.
Kelly Molson: So how do you categorise yourself based on all of those? Actually, with that client, I probably would have said historic house because that was what I would have put my hat on for that one.
Paul Marden: But then I met somebody yesterday. Not too dissimilar. Yeah. Primarily a historic house, but it's a historic house that has a hotel, bar, golf on the site. And if you ask them, it would totally depend on who you spoke to as to what they primarily were. There were people that ran the historic house who would have you believe that they were primarily a historic house, but there were other people that would say, “Well, actually the revenue is generated elsewhere in the organisation and primarily we are a hotel and golf destination and alongside we have a historic house.” So I think there was a nuance in the way that we asked the question, please choose what type of attraction you are. And the only option for the people that had lots of these things was to say other.
Paul Marden: And actually, I think going forwards we probably need to say, what are you primarily, and do you have other things and give people the option to choose multiples?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I was going to say, because even if you put multi, it causes the same challenge, doesn't it? Without being.
Paul Marden: But when I had to play around with that group and I tried to assign them to things partly based on what they replied on their questionnaires and partly by looking at their websites and having a guess, a lot of them had some element of outdoor activity. A lot of them had food and drink. There was a large group that weren't multi activity. I don't know what a better way to describe those historic houses with other things going on, but there was a decent size of people or decent sized number of attractions that were tv themed and they were primarily a behind the scenes tour or something themed around a tele program. And we didn't have that. There was nothing like that in any of our categorisations.
Paul Marden: So again, it just comes down to refining the questionnaire every year to try to improve what we've got. Give people the option to choose multiples and include some other groups. But avoid getting to a point when you look at all the categories we gave, because you mentioned, we gave lots of categories, there was a very long tail. There was a large number of the actual categories where it had one or two attractions within that grouping. And then it's like, is that a meaningful way of slicing and dicing the data? So we have to be really careful not to throw too many categories at it, but at the same time give people some choices.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. You also have to feel that the people have to feel that they are included within this as well. So if those one or two people came along and they couldn't choose what they were, would they feel excluded from it?
Paul Marden: Yeah. Would they drop out? Because this clearly isn't for me.
Kelly Molson: Exactly. I'm all for having more choice in that. It's a tick box. That's fine. There's other stuff that we can take out, don't worry.
Paul Marden: And that's because you're not looking at the data. Add more numbers.
Kelly Molson: I'm all for cutting stuff out if it makes life easier for people and more people will be able to fill it in and that. But I think that one particular thing is not one that we need to cut back on.
Paul Marden: No, I agree with you. Totally agree.
Kelly Molson: Were all attractions who responded to the survey paid for, or how do those ecommerce results break down between those that have an entry fee and those that are free? This was a good question.
Paul Marden: Yeah, it really was. In many of the questions that we've got, some people chose not to answer us. Within this group, there's a group of people in the whole set of data that chose not to answer this, either because they didn't know or they felt they didn't want to answer the question. But if we take everybody that reported an entry fee, 15% of those people were free of charge. So they ticked the box that said they had no entry fee. That's already a fairly small group amongst the whole data set. So we're asking questions here that zero in on a smaller and smaller group. This sounds like I'm giving excuses before I give you my homework. Yeah. But as the groups get smaller, then the role of chance and sample error means that the data becomes less and less reliable.
Paul Marden: And I got to be honest, within that 15%, there was a large number of people that didn't tell us a conversion rate. So you're down into a very small number of people now. 85% of the free to enter attractions didn't tell us what their conversion rate was or said they didn't know or couldn't measure it.
Kelly Molson: So that's interesting in itself, because this is some of the things that we've been talking about in terms of the conversion rate and how we measure that effectively, because some of those free museums obviously will have probably smaller teams, less budget, less ability, maybe just less understanding of what we're asking in the first place. My assumption is that they will use off the shelf ticketing platforms that they might not be able to get the conversion rate from. So you've got that limitation in the data that they can actually then supply us because they genuinely just don't have it, they don't know it.
Paul Marden: Or because they're free. They don't think about the concept of conversion. But in that instance, how much does it matter the number of people that come to your website and then the number of people that actually buy? If there is no ticketing, if you're free to enter and you don't even need a ticket to pre book to enter, does it even matter? And I would argue absolutely, it definitely does. Because instinctively, I would believe that there is definitely a relationship between the number of people that visit your website and the number of people that visit your attraction. And if you can improve the ratio between those two, you'll get more bookfalls through the attraction.
Paul Marden: And even if you're free to enter a considerable portion of the money that you make out of the attraction is going to be from donations, from people walking through the door. It will be food and beverage sales, it will be gift shops, it will be memberships that they join to get other things. All of those things need bums on seats, don't they? If you don't get bums on seats, you don't generate that revenue. But it can be hard, I think, to join the dots between that big number of people that visit your website, hopefully, and the number of people that are actually walking through the door and creating a correlation between, or creating a relationship between the two.
Kelly Molson: It's when there's no purchase made from that thing to that thing, there's almost nothing to tie them together.
Paul Marden: Yeah, but it makes it harder to think about which, when you're a small attraction in those sorts of circumstances, if it's harder to think about, then it's not going to be a priority for you. But I would argue it would be a super important thing to do because you tweak those. We're all about tweaking the dials, aren't we? We're all about trying to increase.
Kelly Molson: Marginal gains.
Paul Marden: Exactly. And in that instance, it can be hard to see the point. But I definitely believe there really is a point to it. If I go one more thing, I would say, and this is where the data.
Paul Marden: I don't think the data is reliable, but were into this small group of people that we had, 15% of people say that they were free, and in that group we had a small number of people tell us what their conversion rate was, and it varied. There were some attractions that had a 1% conversion rate. There were some attractions that chose the 5% conversion rate, which was the higher end of the bracket, which was the average over the whole group. I bet you there's more data that would help us to understand what the difference between the 1% and the 5% was. Is it chance or is there something materially different between those two types of institution? I don't know, but there's a debate there.
Paul Marden: And is it valuable for us to investigate that there's only so much time to be able to put to these things?
Kelly Molson: Well, I think this is why it's important. Well, this is why we value people asking the questions about the report. This is why we encourage people to give us feedback and to send us these questions in, because it all adds to the conversation and it all helps us make this better and better every year because we can understand what you send us a question and then that gives us an understanding of what's really important for you right now. So we can start to incorporate some of the ways to get the answer to that question into the survey and the report for this year.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Kelly Molson: So send us more questions. As a midway to this podcast, definitely send us some more questions. You can send them to me, [email protected], or you can send them to [email protected] but whatever you do, just send them in. And then we can again start to look at how we incorporate some of those questions into this year's.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Kelly Molson: Okay, next question. It's around ticketing platforms. One question came in and they noted the apparent percentage drop in use of access gamma in the past year. So what we saw was Digitickets and Merack both seemed to kind of hold their share, and they're UK based. With over 70% of the 188 respondents UK based and about a quarter of European. We found it a little odd that there was such a drop here in such a short space of time and wondered if you had any further insight. Interesting one, isn't it, because we all noted that access had dropped off a little bit.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I'm going to caveat this again. I can go into more depth and understand the differences between the two, but I would caveat it that if we had more responsive, we could be more confident in the reliability of the difference across years. But we've gone from a large, but a sample in 22, a bigger sample in 23. The 23 sample included some of the 22 people. But really, I think what the question I was getting at is how many of those people actually switch ticketing platforms between that group? And I think that is unlikely to be the reason why we saw these changes. Yeah, of course people change ticketing platform, but it's the beating heart of the business. They don't change it on a whim and they don't change them dramatically very quickly. Yeah.
Paul Marden: By the way, there's no evidence to this in that respect. There could be changes, but my instinct is it's unlikely to be a wild change on the basis of the number of people because it's just not that easy to.
Kelly Molson: No. And we speak to agencies, our own clients have been through these processes, and we know how long they take and we know how embedded those systems are within an organisation and how difficult it actually is to switch from one to another and the time frame that it takes. So I would agree with you.
Paul Marden: On the basis of that. I think the differences are more easily explained by we got more different people included. And we're seeing more of what the sector buys. Now, whether, when we get into 24, whether we see another swing again. Well, that's entirely plausible, because the sample sizes, they're not big enough to be statistically valid. They give an indication, but they will suffer from chance in some areas. And it could just be the group of people that we've got, we know within the year demonstrates the usage of the ticketing platforms within the group of people that responded within that year, but unlikely to be comparable across the years. Only 20% of this year's data were responses that had been given in 22 as well.
Paul Marden: So we've only got a small group. Within that group the data has changed dramatically in that year, mainly with people telling us they chose an other not listed system. So it was not one of the big ones that were familiar with, and no one reported anything in that group last year. So this is where you know as well as I do, we get people asking us for copies of their data that they've submitted, because there's a big period of timing between when they submit stuff and the report being published, and then they want to see what they did, what they gave to us, don't they? So people remembering what they wrote last year and putting it in again this year, it's no wonder we see differences between the two year groups. Apart from other not listed, which was by far like a country mile than largest number of responses.
Paul Marden: The biggest absolute change in the number of responses within the repeating group was digitickets. Digitickets had more people within that returning group saying that they were using their ticketing platform.
Kelly Molson: And I can't remember this off the top of my head, but where people are selecting other not listed, are we giving them the opportunity to write who they are using? So did we give them an open.
Paul Marden: Such an unfair question? I can't remember the answer.
Kelly Molson: I genuinely can't remember. But if we didn't, well, then we need to, because that space, I mean, there's a lot of ticketing platforms already, but there are new ones popping up all over and there are ones that are specifically focused on accessibility for an example. There are ones that are relatively similar in terms of what they're doing to everyone else, just packaged up in a different way. So it would just be interesting to see some of the names that people were putting forward and where people are swinging to.
Kelly Molson: We know that there's Tessitura, for example, and Spektrix that are used quite predominantly in theatre world now. People have always talked really positively about those two platforms and it would be interesting to see if they are looking to make that transition over into the attractions world.And maybe some of these people are starting to kind of move over to those. Who knows?
Paul Marden: There's a few systems lots of people know about because they're not just pure ticketing, are they? They're ticketing. So they manage the ticket inventory, they do online sales, they do walk ups, they do EPOS, they manage a shop, they manage a catering, they do everything to operate the entire attraction. And then there were other systems that focus purely on ecommerce and the sale of the tickets themselves online. There are other people that focus purely on the EPOS offering. And actually, there's a lot of complexity within these systems that go to running the attraction itself. And maybe again, we need to give people more choice about what they choose and give them the opportunity to choose multiple things. Because we might say, do you use gamma or do you use Merac or do you use Digitickets?
Paul Marden: And there may well be people that use digitickets for their e commerce sales, and they might use Merac for their membership, or they're running the epochs in the shops and their food and beverage. I don't think we give people the opportunity to have the nuance of selecting multiple things that they use.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, for like, I literally just had a conversation with someone who uses Digitickets for their ticket in, but Merac for their K-Three, for their till. So, yeah, I totally see where we need to do that. Okay, good. Two more questions. Is there future scope to develop comparisons against other science centres?
Paul Marden: Yes is the short answer, and yes, we have done that. It's quite interesting because you and I both have been talking about this year's survey at different places and the science centres one is a good example. It’s good because I was the one talking. Well, it's good because I was the one, but. So I went to the Association of Science and Discovery Centres conference in Belfast. I talked about that one of the pods just recently, and I had a table talk where I was talking about essentially observations that I found about the data about science centres. But you've done talks in numerous different locations.
Kelly Molson: All over the place. I was all over the place last year. Here, there and everywhere.
Paul Marden: Slicing and dicing the data to talk to the group of people that you were talking to. So you were in Ireland and you talked about comparisons of the attractions that we've got in both the Republic and Northern Ireland. And then you talked to know that's a different slice of larger attractions. And in both cases, were slicing and dicing the data and trying to find what made that group of people special or what were the observations that we had, weren't they?
Kelly Molson: That was one of the nice things about the report this year, because the data set was so much larger, we could make the things that were talking about so much more specific for people. So the ALVA talk was really great, actually. So I was very kindly invited along to speak at one of the ALVA council meetings. And it was at Bletchley Park, oh my goodness. In their new auditorium that were the first group to speak in there. It was wonderful, such a good experience.
Kelly Molson: But that was lovely because I was able to talk about how ALVA members are performing and give them a specific breakdown of the things that they're doing well, some of the things that they potentially not doing so well, and give them some real insight into how they can improve on the things when they're not doing so well. So that was lovely. And then the same at AVEA. It was great to be able to give, again, a breakdown of how irish attractions are performing in terms of the rest of the country, but also showcase attractions that are doing really brilliantly from those areas. So actually in the talks I could highlight a specific Irish attraction that was doing an absolutely phenomenal job in terms of great website, great conversion rate, all of those things.
Kelly Molson: And it was really nice to be able to shine spotlight on people this year as well.
Paul Marden: So pick out some examples of that. Yeah, so let's just pick out some of the examples from the science centre. So the ASDC members, it was interesting because ASDC members tended to have higher football than when you compared it to the whole group of respondents that we had. That surprised me. ASDC members tended to have higher entry fees than all respondents. ASDC members tended to have substantially higher mobile usage than all respondents. So you're up into 90% of traffic for ASDC members or ASDC members tended to have upwards of 89%, 90% mobile traffic, whereas when you look at the whole group of everybody, it was down into 60%. So still the majority, but not as big a majority.
Kelly Molson: That's interesting.
Paul Marden: So again, is this chance or is there something interesting about the audience that buy tickets to go to a science centre. Are they genuinely different than people that go to the all set?
Kelly Molson: Well, yeah. Is this stereotypically because someone is really interested in science and technology, therefore they are more digitally advanced potentially as an audience. And that's why that's higher. That's interesting.
Paul Marden: ASDC members tend to spend less of their gross profit on marketing. 18% of ASDC members spent more than 5% of their turnover on marketing, whereas when you look at the whole group, 24% of all respondents spent more than 5%. So it's interesting, isn't it, this difference in the outcomes and the difference for the inputs. ASDC members were much more likely to track their conversion rate, but most of them didn't track their cart abandonment rate. So they don't know how many people were giving up partway through. ASDC members were more likely to have a top level conversion rate. And of the ones that did tell us what their cart abandonment rate, it was more likely to be lower than the average. They updated their websites more frequently and they tend to spend more on their websites each year than the average.
Paul Marden: So there was markedly different things that happened across the different groups when you looked at ALVA, much larger organisations. So footfall is higher because that's a minimum entry criteria. They spend more on marketing and they have better outcomes. They had better conversion rates than average.
Kelly Molson: Unsurprising.
Paul Marden: Unsurprising completely. But what was interesting was within that group, the averages marked quite relative poor performance. So there were some examples where there were attractions spending a large amount on their site, but achieving poorer conversion rates than the average.
Kelly Molson: Hopefully those aren’t clients. Fingers crossed.
Paul Marden: So yeah, there's group averages and you can see differences by the different groups. I think in future, wouldn't it be interesting if potentially we did this sort of analysis based on the type of organisation? If you're a museum, are you more likely to have a higher conversion rate than you are if you're all respondents?
Kelly Molson: Well, this is the thing.
Paul Marden: What's of interest?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly. We can say, oh, this is interesting. Wouldn't this be useful to know? But actually is it useful to know for you? One of the things that we did talk about doing was doing a regional breakdown of how attraction is performing. And I think that's probably on the cards for the next month or so to get that out. We raised that and got some quite good feedback on having that. So that's definitely top of the list.
Kelly Molson: But yeah, again, are these things going to be useful for you? We've always had the ethos that any kind of information or support documentation or essentially our marketing has to be useful for you. Right? What's the point otherwise? We need to know what you need. So more questions, please more. Do you have this? Can we have this? If we can't do it, we'll tell you, but if we can do it, we'll damn well work hard to get you it.
Paul Marden: You can just imagine that some people find the full written port to be report to be really useful. It gives a fixed set of slices and dices and it gives interesting insights and it gives recommendation. But people might be interested more in more group comparisons or geographical comparisons with less of a large report and more of a. Well, I want to see a white paper about my sector or my location or what is special about me compared to everybody else, as opposed to telling me everything that is good in the sector. Where do we focus our attention to have the best value for people at the end of this?
Kelly Molson: Good. Last question. Is there a correlation between conversion rate and visitor numbers?
Paul Marden: It's really interesting because this got me playing with the data. I'm all over a pivot table in excel. All right, so I did loads of analysis.
Kelly Molson: I am not.
Paul Marden: No. We've got our strengths and weaknesses and complement each other very well, I think when I did this first time round and I was working with a team of people that were analysing data, but I was slicing and dicing in different ways and I looked at these things and I thought there was no great relationship. But when this question came in, I had another stab at reorganising the data. And actually I did a heat map version of what is your average sales conversion rate? And we've got like zero to one to two, three to four to five and more than five. And then what is your annual visitor numbers in groups?
Paul Marden: And actually, the larger the annual footfall on site, the more likely you were to have a high conversion rate.
Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners, this data is quite difficult to visualise. We've got a graph, we've got some pre pictures that will explain this better, which we will put out on social media. If you follow our Twitter account, or if you're connected with us on LinkedIn, or follow our LinkedIn Rubber Cheese, or Skip the Queue LinkedIn pages, we'll put all of that on there. What we'll also do as well is when we edit this podcast, we always do a video. The videos don't get a lot of love, but there's loads of videos up on our YouTube. So head over to the Rubber Cheese YouTube channel and within this episode we will insert what we're talking about as well. So it's just a bit easier to digest.
Paul Marden: So yeah, there is definitely a relationship between these two factors. The more footfall there is, the more likely you are to have a high conversion rate. Just intuitively, they must be related variables. This is not just a relationship between the two. There is somehow one is feeding into the other the more footfall you have, the more budget you're going to have, the more you'll be able to invest in marketing, the more you invest in marketing, you'll have more people focusing on different elements of your marketing and you'll have more budget to spend on digital people that can focus on conversion rates and marginal gains. I don't know whether that's true. The data doesn't prove that. That's just my instinct that spending money on people like me is probably a worthwhile investment. But that's just instinct. There's no proof for that.
Paul Marden: The heat map shows there's a relationship, but there's loads of factors involved in what goes on. As I said to you before, spending more money does not guarantee you great outputs. And you have to measure these things, make regular changes, because just because you've got a large number of people coming through the door does not guarantee you a high conversion rate. And you need to graft to get to the point where your website is converting as best it possibly can. One major redesign does not an increased conversion rate may you need to do lots of little things regularly to nudge it in the right direction.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's just the start. Yeah. That comes back to what I said at the beginning about. I was just about to say we're at the end of the project. I'm like, no, we're not star of the project because the project is launching. That's the starting point for the rest of the process.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely.
Kelly Molson: Oh, this has been really good. Well, look, listeners, hopefully you found that useful. Hopefully some of the listeners that are listening, we've answered your questions as well. We'll send this out to all the people that did ask the questions specifically as well. But yeah, coming back to what we've said, is there something that is a burning question from you, from the data that we've already released? Is there something that would be so incredibly useful for you that we haven't released that we might potentially have? We just don't know. Or we don't know that you need it. And what does this year's survey hold and what would be useful for the survey and the report to hold for you this year? So we are at the point now where we're gearing up for the 2024 survey.
Kelly Molson: Last year we launched it in May at the fabulous Museum and Heritage show. Plans are afoot at the moment for when we launch it, but nothing is diarised yet. So it's a really good opportunity to get involved and have your say about what you'd love to see in it this year.
Paul Marden: Yeah. There's some key themes that have come out of our kind of retrospective. We've been belly button gazing and questioning what do we do next year? And there's obvious things that come out of it. One of our big things was we want to simplify 2024. We asked too many too complex questions last year and it took too long for people to submit their responses. And that's not fair.
Kelly Molson: It's a big ask that we're asking of you to trust us with your data as it is. We don't want you sitting around for like half an hour having to fill it all out.
Paul Marden: So we want to simplify, we want less questions, and we're going to look at potentially a different questionnaire platform. We've done different platforms each year in the last two years and I don't think we found the right answer yet. So that might be an area that we try and simplify things. My instinct of, and this is just based on my own struggles with life. Okay. I am struggling with Google Analytics 4 for everybody. All of my data has moved and I don't know how to answer my questions. And that data that's in GA4, it's the core of the questions that we ask in the questionnaire. And I'm thinking, if I do this every day, what must it be like for all of you guys listening? So what can we do to help you understand how to gather the data and how to submit it?
Paul Marden: Because there's obviously going to be a disparity, isn't there, between people that do this every day and people that do this as part of a bigger job and they don't do it all the time and they need advice and guidance.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. So one of the ideas that's been floating around is that we actually put on little workshop or little webinars, which it shows you how to go and get the data that actually is needed to fill in the survey. And then that's with you. It's a reference point. You can keep hold of that for the following years and the following, the subsequent years. And we might look at, we've got a brilliant circle of fabulous suppliers that we work with that are all attractions focused, and so we could potentially partner up with them and run the workshops and do something like that.
Paul Marden: The questions that we're asking, the data that we're gathering is likely to be marketers' dream dashboards anyway. So it's not just of use to the survey itself, it's of use to your day to day month to month reporting and demonstrating the efficacy of what you're doing. We want to increase the number of people that are responding from large multi site organisations. So the plea call to action here for digital markets is in large multi sites. We were interested in talking to you about. If you've got 50 odd sites that you manage ticketing for and multiple attractions all over the country, filling in the questionnaire based form approach that we've given may not be the right way for you to share data with us. No, we're really flexible. We want data. We want to ingest more data because it improves the quality of the responses.
Paul Marden: So we'll be completely flexible around what different large multi site organisations can provide and the method with which it makes most sense for them to provide it.
Kelly Molson: So what are we doing? We're doing a vocal shout out here to National Trust, English Heritage, et cetera, to say if you want to be part of the survey and the subsequent report and the process that we're offering you, it doesn't work. You're not going to sit there 50 times, however many sites you've got and fill in this data. That's ridiculous. We can give you a better process of doing that and we can work with you one on one to work out how that works best for you as well.
Paul Marden: Completely.
Kelly Molson: If you do want to be involved, don't let the process of how we collect the data put you off. We can solve that challenge for you.
Paul Marden: Shout out, call to action. Really for everybody that submitted last year and would be thinking about this year's survey is tell us what key themes are of interest to you. We have what we think is interesting and we'll follow our noses and ask questions and ruble around the data to try and find the answers. But we don't know what you want as well as you know what you want. So tell us, as you said, Kelly, ask questions about what you'd like to see, but tell us what you'd like us to do. We might be able to do something really easily based on the data that we've already got. We might need to ask another question. There was a question that somebody asked that weren't able to answer.
Paul Marden: They wanted to know whether you were primarily educationally focused as an institution or primarily focused on selling tickets, whether that had an impact on your conversion rate. And actually, without us guessing, it's impossible for us to answer that question. And what's the point in us guessing because we're going to give you meaningless data if we ask the right questions. What's the primary focus of your website? What are the secondary focuses of your website? If we do that, then we might be able to slice and dice the data. So ask us the questions now because we can use that to influence what questions we include in the survey.
Kelly Molson: I would add to also as well, if you are well, to say thank you. We had a phenomenal amount of support with the survey last year and the report. But for us, being able to move from 70 respondents in year one to nearly 200 in year two, the difference in that was all of the membership organisations that supported. It's a mammoth task. There's no way I could have done that on my own just by sending it lots of people and hitting people up on LinkedIn and posting across social media. The biggest difference there is the support we've had. I mean, ALVA, ASVA have been huge supporters of us from the start, which we're super grateful for this year. We had AVEA come on board and help us. We've had AIM help us. We had ACE help us.
Paul Marden: We had ASDC.
Kelly Molson: ASDC. I mean there were just so many. I've got a huge list of all of the attractions and all of the kind of Hampshire's best attractions and these smaller regional attraction organisations that have supported Devon's top attractions. Without their support, we could not have done that, made that happen. So I guess what I'm asking for is continued support, please, would be great. And are there any other organisations out there that we should be talking to? And if there's any listening that haven't been involved in helping us distribute the survey this year, if you're up for it, give us a shout. I mean, the benefit to your members is phenomenal, right? What we produce for them and it's all free. It's all for free. Come and get it.
Paul Marden: That is a nice segue because yes, it's all for free, but it doesn't cost nothing. And actually what we would also like help with is sponsorship for 2024. So if there are organisations around the listening public, as it were, that would be interested in supporting the work that we do on this and would like to influence and help guide what we do, then we would be really keen on talking to people that would like to sponsor and that sponsorship could be gifting kind. So some people might be able to help us by doing things with us. Some people might be able to help us by financially supporting the data analysis or the production of reports or production of specific analyses of a slice of the sector that is of interest to them.
Paul Marden: There's lots of ways in which people could support the work that we do. And obviously the more support that we get, the bigger we can make this thing, because it is. I mean, it's a herculean task that you dreamt up two and a half, three years ago, isn't it? And you did the first one and it was amazing and you got a decent number of respondents and I think you were both amazed at the number of people that gave us data and downloaded the report and interacted with us. And then were blown away in 23. But we need to do more. There's a market for this. There's a value in what we're doing. It's not just chance. It wasn't a crackpot idea you had three years ago to do this.
Kelly Molson: It was not a crackpot idea about it at all. No, it wasn't a crackpot idea. It's really nice, actually. You've just given me a really good flashback, actually. The Museum and Heritage Show has played like a part in this for years, actually, because the survey itself launched last year at the MandH. But the previous year I sat down at the MandH and had a chat with Bernard Donoghue about. I've got this idea, Bernard, and I think this is good. I think this would deliver some real good value to the sector. Would ALVA be happy to help get the word out and stuff? And that was where it started. So isn't that funny that's a connection? I'd forgotten all about that. It's not crackpot. It is amazing and I'm so happy that we've been able to produce this.
Kelly Molson: The value that it delivers to the sector, I get. People tell me about the value. So this is not me going, it's definitely delivering value. The feedback that we've had has been so incredibly positive on it and it's just been wonderful to be part of that. So let's make next year's bigger and even better. But maybe some less questions so it doesn't take you as long.
Paul Marden: Yes, more rows in my spreadsheet, less columns in my spreadsheet.
Kelly Molson: Less time taken up. If you can do it over a cup of tea and a biscuit, then that's perfect, right?
Paul Marden: I reckon so.
Kelly Molson: Hopefully that's going to produce some good value today and we'll see you next time.
Paul Marden: Cheers. Take care.
Kelly Molson: Bye.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.theplotthickens.co.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherinewarrilow/
Arival link - https://arival.travel/speakers/catherine-warrilow/
TikTok link - https://www.tiktok.com/@the5minutementor
Catherine Warrilow has 16 years industry experience and runs The Plot. She creates brand proposition roadmaps for attraction and experience businesses who want to take a slightly rebellious approach to their marketing strategy.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
On today’s episode I speak with Catherine Warrilow, founder of The Plot, a brand marketing agency.
Today we’re immersing ourselves in brand. I’m asking Catherine what the heck is a brand proposition, why is it important and who in the tourism and attraction industry is absolutely nailing it?
Kelly Molson: You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Catherine, welcome to Skip the Queue.
Catherine Warrilow: Thank you very much, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: I'm really excited that you have come on to chat today. Catherine and I met in a toilet at a conference, which is where you meet all of the best people at conferences, I have to say. But I'm really chuffed that you've been able to come on and join us today. So thank you for your time. Right, we are going to start with our icebreakers, as usual. And I want to know, what would people remember you for that you went to school with?
Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh. Probably the thing I remember the most, I don't know if anyone else would, is when body shop was at its height of popularity and all of their perfumes and stuff and their perfume oils. And I bought the vanilla one, which I was obsessed with, but I covered myself in the kind of the neat essence. So I spent a whole day at school smelling of ice creams with every teacher walking past going, "Why can I smell ice cream?". And everyone, "It's her.". So that is one of my standout memories. I think I was always quite creative and quirky, and I would braid my own hair like I'd been on holiday and put beads in it and come to school like that. Or smelling of ice creams.
Kelly Molson: I love that. I feel like we're of the same era. And my lasting memory of the body shop is the Dewberry. The dewberry smell. You never smelt this any other time like that school time. And I had a friend who used to buy the oil and the shampoo and all, and she just smelt of that continuously. But that was my grandparents name as well, so it was really weird. Their name was Dewberry. Anyway, very od. Good memories. And I quite like that you smell like ice cream. I would love that about you.
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, it's worse things to smell of.
Kelly Molson: Okay, second one, if you had to pick a fictional character to best describe yourself, who would you choose?
Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh. My instant one that I would like to say, but I'm not smart enough, would be Matilda. I would love to be Matilda, but I'm not. So who would it be? A fictional character? Gosh, that's so difficult. Maybe like Thelma from Scooby Doo. Problem solver.
Kelly Molson: Yep. Quick on her. Yeah, I can see that about you. Good one. You've got Matilda vibes as well. Don't dumb that down. You've definitely got Matilda vibes going on.
Catherine Warrilow: Well, I'll keep trying to move things with my mind and I'll let you know if I have any success.
Kelly Molson: Good. Come back on the podcast, let us know. Okay. What is your unpopular opinion? What have you prepared for us?
Catherine Warrilow: So I think this is one that's going to resonate with a lot of people and it's unpopular but common that travel tech is shit. So I don't get it. I don't get why we are so far behind other sectors, especially with ticketing tech. We sell billions of tickets to some of the most interesting and amazing attractions in the world. Not just in the country, in the world. Yet we still have major attractions who are having to reconcile paper tickets either because they're stuck with their tech, because they've had it so long they can't get away from it, or they're just not sure how to, or it's so difficult or slow or expensive. There must be someone or an organisation who can fix this, right?
Catherine Warrilow: And I know people are trying, like Okto are trying, which is great, but surely there must be an easier way to get the right people around the table and say, "Right. In every instance when you sell a ticket to a customer, it should kind of look like this.". But at the moment, everyone's got different systems. None of them talk to each other. Everyone's slightly different when they break. It could take months to fix. And ultimately it's the customer who loses out because we can't deliver a really effective service. Whether in OTA or an attraction yourself, it's the customer that's left with a bad experience, by and large, because the ticket you booked has vanished from your basket, or it was available 1 minute and now it's not. Or the price has changed, or something weird, you don't even get your email. Or it's confusing.
Catherine Warrilow: Which is why there's so little brand loyalty in our sector, I think. Because people will hop about and just book with whoever's quickest, easiest, cheapest at the time. And I think we've got a real challenge on our hands to up our game when it comes to tech. I don't know what you think.
Kelly Molson: Well, I'm nodding along for people that aren't watching and are listening to this, I'm nodding along probably from a different perspective because we deal directly with the ticketing that the attraction would use. So their ticketing platform for something. I think you're probably a bit more focused on the OTAs and that kind of ticketing kind of stuff. I am in total agreement with you. I am completely nodding along going that there's nothing amazing and there should be something amazing.
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, I think it's unifying it. I think there's some good tech out there, and I'm not going to names, but there's some good tech. There's some average tech and there's some awful tech. But for the OTA and for the connectivity partner at that level, and ultimately for the customer. How do you bring together what's good and make it accessible across the board? I think that's the challenge, isn't it? How do we unify things so it's straightforward and you know what that process for B2B process should look like. And I think we're making progress, but I think it's slow.
Catherine Warrilow: And I think there has been so much change in the sector from a kind of customer perspective, from a trend perspective, from the impacts of COVID from the impacts of the cost of living crisis, that it always seems to get pushed back in the queue a little bit. Whereas it needs to be at the top of the list all of the time. But that takes a lot of time and resource and dev and investment. But I've heard whisperings of a few people who are doing quite interesting things. So I'll be interested to see what happens over the next kind of 6,9,12 months.
Kelly Molson: I think that's a challenge, isn't it? There's quite a lot of choice and it seems like every day there's a new ticketing platform or another OTA that's kind of that started and for good reasons, because obviously there's things out there that aren't working for people. But a bit more collaboration might stop giving people so much choice and actually start working together to refine the ones that are already out there and just make them better.
Catherine Warrilow: Potentially, yeah. Or give them one aggregated channel that they can all slot into in the same way. Because even when you aggregate systems, the way you integrate them is still different. I'm still trying to figure out where that ownership needs to start. Is it the attractions and experiences saying, "Okay, we have to be able to deliver this for the customer," because ultimately, starting with the customer need is the right place to start? But how do you layer that back through the process to figure out where to start fixing the right problems?
Kelly Molson: And you're right in what you said about that brand perception, then it's on the attraction, it's not on the OTA really, it's on the brand. And they need to kind of own that relationship with their client, which is what we're going to talk about today. So tell us a little bit about your background and where you've got today.
Catherine Warrilow: Yes. Which makes me feel old. Some days I feel like a spring chicken and other days I'm like, "How have I been doing this for like 15 years?".
Kelly Molson: I feel that.
Catherine Warrilow: So I got married in 2007 and shortly after we had our first son, which is all very exciting and challenging at the same time. And alongside that, I decided that it would be a great idea to start my own business with a newborn baby and that if I could do that, then everything from there on in would be a breeze, which was kind of ridiculous looking back. But I set up as a kind of freelance PR and marketing support and fell into travel totally by accident. I knew someone who was running the team at owners direct at the time, the holiday rentals company, and they wanted someone to come in and basically secure them pr coverage as being a great choice for booking holiday rental, mainly UK and Europe, but some further afield. And it just kind of spiralled from there.
Catherine Warrilow: I realised that there was a massive opportunity to up people's game when it came to pr and content, and that was before everything was about content creation and social. It was on the cusp of, "Okay, we can use Facebook to reach people organically and people just weren't really doing that.". It was pre having to pay to play. And I started making a bit of a name for myself within travel and started working for home away, which is now Vrbo. People like hard rock hotels, great little breaks. And it just grew from there. And I grew the business to a very small agency in rural Oxfordshire of about six people. And that's how I kind of accidentally fell into travel.
Kelly Molson: I love that. I had no idea that it was an accidental as well. For some reason I thought that was it. That was always going to be your focus. It's amazing how these kind of things happen that guide our career, isn't it?
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, it just happened. And then we pitched actually for the pr for Days Out With The Kids many years ago. And were up against some really big agencies and I was like, "This is it. This is our kind of big moment.". And we really held our own against kind of top Manchester, Birmingham, London agencies. And in the end, the CEO at the time asked if I would go in house to set up their marketing strategy, their brand strategy, hire a team. They'd not long bought the business and it was covered in display ads and it was a mess, but it was driving millions of organic visits every year.
Catherine Warrilow: And it was a cliche sliding doors moment where I was like, look, I've spent nine years building up this incredible business and it's my baby and I love it and I feel proud to have built it up, but this is an incredible opportunity to do something amazing. So I ended up kind of selling the business and going into Days Out With The Kids, which was just such a great decision because it gave me probably what I was craving in terms of building effective teams and working for household name brands. And that was the start of me going into employed roles for about, gosh, another eight or so years.
Kelly Molson: Great. And now you've set off on another new adventure.
Catherine Warrilow: Yes, because we reinvent ourselves, don't we? And go where the opportunities feel most exciting. Yeah. So I lost my job with Days Out last September, which was gutting, because again, that passion for building the most incredible teams was real. I hired some of the best people that I have ever hired and we're still great friends now, but when I left there, I was like, "Okay, I will apply for roles and I will ask my network if they would like to work with me.". It was as simple as that. I will figure this out as I go along. You know me, I'm quite an honest, heart on sleeve type person. I'm a bit of an oversharer. So I went onto LinkedIn and said I was gutted to say that I wasn't with days out anymore, but that the world was my oyster.
Catherine Warrilow: And then people just started popping up from connections I've had for years. Connections through things like Arival, through other podcasts that I've done in the past, through content I've created, through past clients, all sorts, right back to my very early career. And I was like, "Actually, I think there is a big opportunity here for me to go back out on my own.". And I knew from the start I didn't want to build an agency. I didn't want to hire people. I just wanted to use all of that experience I've built up over travel over the last 15, 16 years and help people solve brand proposition problems that they can't see themselves with a slight rebellious streak in the middle of working with people who don't want to just follow the crowd. They want to do things a bit differently.
Catherine Warrilow: They want to stand up and be heard and it's just gone from there. So I took on my first paying client at the beginning of November and it's incredible and I bloody love it. And I'm so glad that I fell back into this way of working and I just feel very lucky that I've been able to stay in the sector that I absolutely love.
Kelly Molson: I'm so touched for you. I've got a big smile on my face as you're saying. I've watched your journey and I've watched how it's kind of played out. It's really interesting. Someone said to me a little while ago, you never know who's watching you never know who's taking interest. And I kind of like that. And I think you are someone that I've always, we have genuinely only met once in real life, in a toilet at a conference. But I've followed you for a long time on LinkedIn, and I've seen how helpful and supportive you are to the sector, and I've seen a lot of your posts that go out and talking about other issues and things like that as well, very openly and publicly.
Kelly Molson: I've always really admired that about you and I think you are someone who's super helpful and stuff like that comes back tenfold. So when you put that post out, I know how tough that was. Like, I felt the emotion in that post for you, but was just like, I'd read that post, I was like, "She's got nothing to worry about here at all.". And I could see people comment in and I'm going to connect you to the, "Oh, we should talk, we should do this.". And I was like, "There you go. Good people. Good things come back to in tenfold.". So it's lovely to see you in this position.
Catherine Warrilow: And it was amazing. And that gave me, I think, the foundation I needed to get back out there and carry on attending events and carry on creating content and sharing my thoughts and ideas and all of that kind of thing. And it was funny because a while before that, I'd asked a handful of people from my network kind of, what am I known for? And would you recommend me? And what would you recommend me for? And someone came back and said, "You care more about the result than you do about people's opinions.". And I think that sums me up quite well because I want the best outcome, whether that's for me and my business or for a partner that I'm working for. And I'm happy to say things people might not want to hear because I know it will get them a better outcome.
Catherine Warrilow: And I think that's so important. And I think hopefully that comes across when I either talk to people or I post online that I am authentically who I say I am and you will genuinely get the best of me regardless of how big the challenge is. And that's really important to me. I'd say that's kind of a big part of my values is to share authentic truth rather than either kind of saying what everyone else is saying or saying what someone wants to hear, which will put people off as well. And that's kind of a good screening process in a way.
Kelly Molson: Yes. It's a good way to cherry pick who's the right client, definitely wants to work for me and they're going to get me as well. I love this. Right, okay, we're going to talk about brand today. We're going to talk about brand proposition. What the heck is a brand proposition for our lovely listeners?
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, and it's a big question. It's basically everything a brand stands for. Absolutely everything a brand stands for. And that sounds quite overwhelming, but really it's not. It's a combination of kind of vision, mission, values. So where are you trying to get to and what are you doing to get there and how are you being when you do that? So what are the kind of the morals and values that underpin the business and that foundation takes you through everything to the point which you sell a product or service to a customer. And that will be everything from your tone of voice and your brand personality, how your brand looks and feels aesthetically, the channels you use to communicate with people and sell through.
Catherine Warrilow: So it really is everything that kind of makes up what matters about a brand and what makes it different and why ultimately a customer would buy from you versus someone else. Which is why I touched on the kind of the challenges with ticketing in our sector because that is a huge obstacle for lots of OTAs in managing their brand proposition effectively because it will have a real knock on effect on the perception their customer has of that brand.
Kelly Molson: And that element of it is slightly out of their control as well, isn't it? Which is unfortunate. What I like about this is that we are, I think as a whole, we're kind of coming away from that thing where people used to go, "Oh, I've got my brand sorted, because I've got my logo.". No, that's a brand element. This is not what we're talking about here. Why is brand proposition so important to get right.
Catherine Warrilow: I think brand proposition comes down to what you sell, who to and for what gain. And the gain is the customer problem. So what problem do you solve for that customer? So days out, as an example, were going after the younger end of the audience who just want to find something with bragging rights and book it quick with the trust and ease of use of real person customer service on Whatsapp and pay with Klana. So book it Whatsapp to make sure you've got your tickets right backs and forwards with a real human being in real time and then pay for it later. So we knew exactly who were, who for and for what gain for that customer. That's why you have to get it right.
Catherine Warrilow: And I speak to a lot of people who, a lot of clients who say they fall at the first hurdle with the first question, which is, "Who are you targeting?" And they're like, "Well, everyone who wants to travel.". And you're like, "No, you're not." 100% not. You might want to be on the radar of lots and lots of people, and lots of people might buy from you, but most people won't because there is so much choice. You've got to know exactly who you are talking to and why you fit the needs and the values of that person. And those values need to be reciprocal because you will never create brand ambassadors otherwise. You will create transient customers who will buy from you once and then move on. And that's an expensive customer to have.
Catherine Warrilow: Whereas if your brand proposition is spot on and everything in the way you do business and the way you communicate, the way your customer service team communicate is consistent, people will buy into that feeling as well as what they're paying money for. And the booking process is part of what they're paying for. And that is part of the reason they will pay more, because they know it's quick and easy and if anything goes wrong, you'll sort it and they will pay 5% more for the privilege of that. Which means your pricing strategy is healthier as well. So all of these different things make up the brand proposition, not just the way your website looks or your logo. If it's lairy and orange and pink and green, that is not going to stand you apart from everyone else. It might get you noticed once.
Catherine Warrilow: But all of that substance of your brand proposition below, that is what will engage, retain a customer, create an ambassador out of them, i.e. They will leave a positive review, they will engage with your content, they will share your content, all of those things.
Kelly Molson: That word substance is really important in this conversation, isn't it? Because a lot of people still, I think, view brand as very much the kind of aesthetic layer that sits on top of that. But it is about substance. This brand proposition has to run through the core of everything that you do. And it's not just about the visuals, it's about how you speak to people, your tone of voice, all of that kind of stuff as well. How do you start to shape that proposition? Where does an organisation start with that?
Catherine Warrilow: Like I said before, it starts with that vision mission values piece. Because if you are not clear on where you are trying to get to, then how do you even start building things like content pillars, for example? And quite often there's a vision stuck up on the wall, in the office, in the meeting room, which no one could recite back to you and it actually doesn't mean anything. So having substance within the vision is the first point of call. The mission is how you get there and what you're doing to get there. And if you don't know that, you can't create goals, if you haven't got measurable goals, how do you define what success looks like?
Catherine Warrilow: And that takes you into things like understanding your products and your revenue streams, because you might have really popular products and you're like, "Oh yeah, we're selling loads of these tools. They're so popular, everyone loves them. But why is that?". Is it because you're the cheapest on the market? And actually, if you look at your numbers, are you making any profit on that product? Because there's a massive difference between popular and profitable. So it matters because at the heart of the business is a need to be profitable. You want a product and service that people love and is profitable and that people rave about. And it drives you loads of repeat business and loads of new business through word of mouth.
Catherine Warrilow: But to get to the point where you can set those goals that are measurable, you have to know where you're trying to get to. And what often happens, and what I find with a lot of partners is their vision is either ten years old and they're still kind of running around in circles trying to figure out how they get there. And it's not that anymore, because the market's changed, the customers changed, pricing has changed, they've got goals, but they're not measurable, or they've got customers and they never talk to them, they never ask them what they can do better or where else they buy from. So they've got no data, they've got a website that performs pretty well, but they never look at the analytics, so they don't know how they're acquiring customers or how much is costing them to acquire a customer.
Catherine Warrilow: And that all of a sudden feels very messy and complicated, doesn't it? It feels overwhelming to start picking things off to make sure those things are happening in a sensible, logical order that takes you from A to B to make a profit. So I kind of break all those different things down into sections, create a roadmap specifically for the business, and bring to the table all of my expertise to start aligning those things. And what will happen is we'll find some massive gaps. The vision is totally wrong, or they're going after the whole market and they don't really know who their customer is, or so they're trying to talk to everybody, so their tone of voice is just beige, or their goals aren't the right goals, or they're not measurable, or they're measuring the wrong things.
Catherine Warrilow: And you start to see where those opportunities are and you start to see the holes that need to be plugged. And suddenly brand proposition feels like a much simpler, tangible route forward, rather than this kind of crazy maze of stuff that you just don't know where to navigate first.
Kelly Molson: Something you said at the start of that was really interesting, actually, as an aside question is somebody's mission or their vision, and the mission might be completely misaligned now it's been in place for ten years or so, and they're visiting it and the market has changed. How frequently should you look at those things? Like, I get my organisation together tomorrow, we set our new vision and mission. You would hope that we would be kind of checking in on that. Are we all aligned? Are we scenario? How often do you think that changes for people? And how frequently should you kind of refer back to it and go, "Is this still relevant?".
Catherine Warrilow: That's such a good question and I think it should be in mind daily. And if a business is asked what their vision is and they can't recite it off like that, then it's not right or it's too complicated. And I did a big exercise with a client a couple of weeks ago, which was actually around their why and their purpose, because it was really important to them that they were running an ethical, sustainable business, that they gave something back to the community. But their why was about an, a four page long. And I challenged them on it and they said, "Oh yeah, well, actually the community part is really important to us and it wasn't in there anyway anywhere.". So what I did is an exercise where we distilled it down bit by bit.
Catherine Warrilow: So we took out all of the filler words and had a look what was left and that came out as kind of care, community, making a difference and a handful of other things. So we stripped it right back and ended up with one sentence, which was about ten or twelve words long. I was like, that actually means something. And that is something you can look at every day and say, "Does launching this new product or service may give something back to the community?". Well, actually, no, it doesn't, because it's going to take us 20 years to fulfil that element. So do we scale it back? Do we make it simpler? Do we make it shorter? What do we do? Do we make it more accessible?
Catherine Warrilow: I think if you can't look at least your vision on a daily basis and say the things on my to do list absolutely fit with that, then you need to challenge yourself on the tactics that you're implementing to reach that vision and the goals you've set for the business. So I think most people would hope, I would say quarterly in the team meeting.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's exactly what people hope. Once a year we revisit that.
Catherine Warrilow: I don't think you want to change it more than annually. You might tweak it if you have to keep throwing it out every year and redoing it. There's something wrong with your business model. But if you can look at it, mine's up on my wall. Mine's really simple. It's rebel plans for travel brands, which basically means a bit kind of rogue compared to your typical marketing strategy. And my why is because you don't want to be the same as everyone else and I don't want to do boring work. That's it. Simple as that. So if I look at my to do list today and say, "Is that boring or is that going to make a difference, and it's not, then I need to challenge myself on what I am delivering for that client or for my own business.".
Catherine Warrilow: Am I saying I haven't written a blog for ages, I should write one? If it's crap to fill a space, then I shouldn't be doing it. I need to challenge myself to put the effort in, to think about what I want to say on that topic, how my opinion is different, how I back that opinion up, what other people are saying, bring in other voices and your vision and mission should make you do things properly, they should make you do them to a much higher standard and they should raise the game of your business, your team and the industry, because that's ultimately where you need to be to succeed, isn't it? You need to be pushing for better.
Kelly Molson: I think we're all getting a very clear picture of what it would be like to work with you, Catherine, from this interview. Love it.
Catherine Warrilow: It's a great screening process, isn't it? Some people will go, oh, my God, that sounds horrendous. That sounds like an awful lot of work. No, thank you. Other people will say, "I think she could see where we're going wrong, where we can't see it because we're so entrenched in what we're doing.".
Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm sitting here going, "She needs to come in and work on our brand. This is what we need.". Okay. How does the brand proposition translate into what the consumer or the visitor engages with? I guess. How do you get your brand proposition across to them in the right way?
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah, I think it gets really overcomplicated in a lot of businesses, and that's usually because bits have been tacked on at different times to try different things and see how they work. It should translate to everything. It should translate to the hero strap line across the homepage of your website. It should translate to the bios on your social channels. If you still have business cards, it should translate there. It should translate to how you conduct yourself in front of people, at events, in meetings, in pitches with customers. And one of the things that often gets forgotten and is why it gets all confused from a consumer facing perspective, is it should translate internally as well. Behind the scenes, how your team meetings run, how your one to ones run, the culture and the atmosphere in the office. It should translate through everything.
Catherine Warrilow: Because if it doesn't, how do you expect your marketing team, your sales team, your customer service team to get that across to the customer if your staff don't feel it themselves? And that's probably the only thing that I miss about working in house, is creating that momentum and energy within a team. And it is absolutely astronomical. What a difference it makes to productivity, to engagement, to buy in, to smoothing out bumps when you go through difficult periods of change or reorganisation or someone leaves the business, or whatever it is. You can weather those kind of things so much more easily if you start with the people within your business and making that vision and mission exciting to them.
Catherine Warrilow: And that might be down to the fact that the quarterly team meeting is just so incredibly painful and dull that people just switch off so they don't absorb any of the information about where the business is going next, because it's delivered in such a static, boring way that you need totally transform that and it needs to be led by the teams or it needs to be designed as a quiz or something like just make it different, make it more fun. And I guarantee then it becomes very easy to translate that through to everything from the customer's perspective because it will come through in tone of voice and how you handle a difficult customer service query. It will come through in creating content on TikTok or whatever channels you use. It will just be ingrained in everything.
Kelly Molson: Because your team are owning that and they've got such an input into the kind of division and the mission and the brand proposition, they then can sell that on to the consumers. So they're your internal ambassadors. We talked about ambassadors earlier.
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: And obviously that's going to help with recruitment as well. If you've got a really strong kind of brand proposition, more people want to come and be involved in that too.
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah. And it brings confidence to everything. I mean, our job descriptions at Days Out attracted people who weren't even looking for a job because they saw the ad. They were like, "Oh, my gosh, I didn't even think I wanted to move and now I do.". And I had to apply because they were written by real people, designed for real people who just want to be in jobs which they love and they feel invested in and appreciated and rewarded and recognised.
Catherine Warrilow: So it was less about, you must have five years of this, you must be able to do that and more about, do you want to come to work and actually feel like you want to be there and that you want to work really hard because you care about making a difference to that business because they are as invested as you are in the brand. And, yeah, recruitment is a difficult business and retention is a difficult business. So if you can bring together all of those things in such an incredible way across everything you do, then recruiting all of a sudden becomes a joy. And seeing people who want to work for you is incredible.
Catherine Warrilow: So, yeah, it affects everything and you can see I get really excited about that because I think we so often forget that it's our people that will drive the success and we just go over that shiny thing over there. But actually, if you don't tell anyone else in the business what that shiny thing is and why it matters, then how on earth are you going to move mountains to get to that point?
Kelly Molson: Totally agree with every single word that you're saying, Catherine. Totally agree with it. Right. We've talked about what it is, who's doing it well, tourism and attraction industry and why.
Catherine Warrilow: Gosh. So I mentioned my time at doubt with the kids, and it was a very different beast when I was there, because were really trying to make fundamental changes in how we monetise the site, whereas now they've come so far, and I think I have to call out their content strategy and their content team, because in an incredibly crowded market, where you are competing for the attention of parents, the most time poor people on the planet, they have totally understood what type of content resonates with people, and they've understood how to keep people engaged in a community. And that might be anything from behind the scenes, an attraction, quite literal content. But that whole kind of.
Catherine Warrilow: Oh, my gosh, you won't believe what's round this corner at this tiny farm park and bringing to life the lesser known attractions that have huge amounts to offer customers through to stuff that's trending, whether that's pop culture or music, tv, film, just tapping into the mood of the nation. My definition of that is situational relevance. So how do you bring together a situation or trend that's important to people now with the relevance of your brand? And it goes back to what we're saying about tone of voice before. What's your perspective on that topic? Why would a customer engage with your brand about that topic if it's not literally trying to sell them a ticket to an attraction?
Catherine Warrilow: And I think what they've done with channels like TikTok, for example, is they've absolutely understood, A, what problem they solve for the customer, but B, what's important to them now and what they're talking about right this minute, because that will be different today to it is tomorrow. And they are quick and they are agile and they are reactive to trends and topics, and they've understood how to have that conversation with someone within their audience demographic. And that's not easy. That is a huge undertaking of time and effort and research, and it doesn't take two minutes to create a decent TikTok that's going to engage people. People think it's like an instantaneous throwaway channel, but it's not. And you've got to hook people in about a second and a. So I think they're doing great things.
Catherine Warrilow: When it comes to attractions, Cannon Hall Farm in Barnsley in Yorkshire, I think are epic. I think, again, they captured situational relevance by streaming things like lambing season on Facebook. Years and years ago, they started doing that and they were like, "Oh, we're on something.". People want to watch the lambs being born and how we care for them and how we bring new life into the world and how good that feels. And that led to them doing a whole series with Channel five. And I just think they had their vision and mission and products spot on. They had the foundations. They knew what they were delivering, who to for what gain. They were bringing people up close and personal with farming life in a way that just captured families. And I think they've sustained that, and I think that's quite difficult to do.
Catherine Warrilow: I think they've evolved with the times, and they've carried on improving their products, and they've carried on communicating that to people who want that type of experience. So I think that they're brilliant. And then the other one would be Marsh Farm in Essex. Their understanding of events and how to capture people through events is out of this world. And what they do is they look, I don't think they intentionally do it, but what they've managed to do is create a triangle between celebrity. So someone like Daisy Solomon and how she celebrates Halloween, for example, and an experience that they can deliver that captures that to people in a way they can afford.
Catherine Warrilow: So their pumpkin patches and photo moments around Halloween are mind blowing, because what they've done, they've looked at what people want to achieve at the celebrity level, but potentially can't cover their front doorstep in a million pumpkins and have ghosts coming out of every part of the.
Kelly Molson: Catherine, honestly.
Catherine Warrilow: But they can go and have that experience at Marsh Farm with their kids, take photos of their kids in a wheelbarrow surrounded by pumpkins, and feel like they've had a slice of that lifestyle. And they up their game with every single event they do. And it's remarkable. And the effort that goes into delivering that wrapped up with incredible customer service is second to none. And I think a lot of attractions can learn from how they deliver that experience.
Kelly Molson: I totally agree. Marsh Farm is James Sinclair, isn't it? That's him, yes.
Catherine Warrilow: And Aaron Oathman. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: James actually came on the podcast.He was a really early guest on the first season of the podcast when me and my old co founder used to do it together. Actually, I think my co founder interviewed James on his own, actually. I don't think I was on that one. But we had seen James, he'd been on our radar for a long time. And he is a smart cookie. He really is a smart. I think he's probably a bit marmite for people, in all honesty. But that's a good thing, right? That's filthy. But I absolutely love his content. I love it. I can sit and watch it all day long and he's got so much to talk about and there's so much value that he delivers as well. So from a personal brand perspective, I think he's kind of nailing that as well.
Catherine Warrilow: Oh, 100%. And that's something we haven't even touched on, is personal brand. That's a conversation for another day. But it fits in neatly with getting your people invested in the business vision, because they are your brand ambassadors. They are the people going out to events and selling the dream. And some people don't see the value of that, but the way they conduct themselves, especially if you're in B2B and you're in trade events and you're negotiating relationships with suppliers or trying to get people to come to your stand and talk to you about a product or service, they're not going to do that unless your personal brand has that magnetism. And you're absolutely right, James has that magnetism.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Which, again, is going to help with his recruitment and then building those brands and then vision. So it's all part and parcel of the same thing. Exactly. I love it. Great examples as well. Thank you for sharing those. What are your top tips that you'd like to share with our listeners today?
Catherine Warrilow: So, the first one I won't labour over, because it's getting your people aligned with your vision, and we've talked about that a lot. It all starts there. If you can't get people to adore the plans of the business, then it's going to be hard work to get to that point. I think the second one is something we touched on early on. It's about authenticity. Whether you're customer facing and you're an attraction or an experience, whether you're an OTA, whether you're a res tech company. Authenticity, I think, is everything. If you can't do something, don't say you can. If you can't fix something, don't say you can. Be honest. Just be honest about everything, with your customers, with your teams, with your partners, and do your absolute best to find the right solution.
Catherine Warrilow: So if you let a customer down, don't gloss over and say, "Oh, well, we couldn't have controlled that.". Say, "We're gutted that this has happened, we can't fix it, but this is what we're going to do to avoid it happening again. This is the problem we've uncovered.". Just bring it all to the surface. I don't understand why brands don't let people see in. Because we know as customers that the brands we resonate with and have an affinity with are the ones we trust. It's as simple as that. So why not let people into that world a bit more? And the way we use social these days allows us to do that, allows us to have a window into our world. So use that to your advantage. Show you're listening.
Catherine Warrilow: Show that you take on board feedback, whether that's internally, externally or otherwise, and just be the best, genuine version of yourself and your business that you can be. And then the third thing I would say is, try new stuff now. So if you're not on TikTok and you're like, "We need to be on TikTok, but we don't understand it, we don't get it, we don't have the resource.". Don't put it off. You will never have enough resource for everything you want to do. You will never be a master at all things. But try them now. Don't have them on that forever to do list. Whether that's approaching a new partner or researching a new sector within tours, experiences and attractions, do it now.
Catherine Warrilow: And if you're listening to this or watching this and you've had one of those things on your list, please do something about it this week and come back and tell us both what you've done, because I think you just need that push in the right direction. People wait for the perfect moment to try something new or do something new or launch something new. There is never a perfect moment. You will miss the boat. And then you have that constant frustration of, "Oh, those guys are doing it brilliantly. Why didn't we just dot.". Because if you had have done, you probably would be creating great content on that channel now. You probably would be in a partnership with that new wine tour. Just don't wait. Trends come and go. Just get on with it. Stop waiting.
Kelly Molson: I feel like you've also just made us about 400 people's accountability partners there as well. So thanks for that.
Catherine Warrilow: Okay, I'm going to rescind that last bit. Tell me what you've done this week.
Kelly Molson: Take it, send and email us. All Catherine's details will be in the show notes. It's fine. You can email us both. Let us know what you've taken off your list and what you've gone ahead with. We want to know. I'm joking. All 400 of you and more. It's great tips. Thank you for sharing today. I've really thoroughly enjoyed this. Where can we get more from you? You're actually going to be talking soon. At quite a large event, aren't you?
Catherine Warrilow: Yeah. So you can see me in person at Arival first weekend of March. So I'll be talking about everything we've talked about today, actually taking your mission and vision and values right through to monetisation and figuring out where those gaps are in the middle. So that'd be a really practical, hands on workshop. I'm a real kind of sharpie marker and paper type person, so you will actually get a physical roadmap to take away and fill in yourself, which I think is going to be really fun. I'm a massive oversharer, like I said, so you can find me on LinkedIn a lot, on TikTok a lot. I can't profess to be a TikTok expert by any stretch, but I am persevering because I think it's a brilliant channel to share quick pieces of advice and tips and hacks.
Catherine Warrilow: So little things that you can do right now that will improve the brand strategy within your business. So, yeah, you can find me quite easily, I'm afraid.
Kelly Molson: We will put all of Catherine's details in the show notes as well, so you just can refer back to there and you'll be able to find her. One thing I would say about Catherine's website, you have to go and cheque it out, because there's a little line on Catherine's website that I absolutely love. It says, "You need help, we're ready to fix your shit.". And I was like, "Yeah, she absolutely is. This woman is going to fix your shit.". Okay. I always end the episodes with a book that our guests love. So, what have you brought to recommend to our listeners today?
Catherine Warrilow: So, it's ironic, actually, because my two book recommendations, the first one's called The Power of Doing Less, by an author called Fergus O'Connell. And this is about getting rid of all the distractions and noise. And it's a really simple, short book that you'll want to keep on your desk with post it notes in pages, because it's just a good reminder of things like, "Am I the best person to do this? Is there someone else in the business that is better at this and should be doing this? Do I need to do it now? Is it important right now? Or am I just doing it because it's the top of the list? Should I be doing it in the way I think I should be doing it? Should I be doing part of it and not all of it?".
Catherine Warrilow: And it's just a great sanity cheque deck for not being a busy fool. And I love that. And it just keeps you sharp in terms of prioritising because nothing's ever urgent. It's either important or it's not. And then the second one, again, a bit ironic, based on my kind of love of bringing lots and lots of different things together, is called The One Thing by Gary Keller. Actually, it's not ironic really, because really, that's about the vision. Like, what is the one thing we are trying to do here and does everything else we're doing align to that one purpose? That is just such a brilliant book and it really helps you get focused and clarity on what you're doing and why. So, yeah, those are my two recommendations.
Kelly Molson: Brilliant books, and they haven't come up previously as well. I love this. I always like it when a guest brings a book. I'm like, "Oh, that's gone on to my list as well.". Listeners, if you want to win a copy of Catherine's books, so as ever, go over to our twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Catherine's books and you'll be in with the chance of winning them. We also have a I'll put it in the show notes, but we have a brilliant blog on our website, on the Rubber Cheese website that lists all of these books that our guests come on and share. So it's become kind of a virtual library for people to go and refer to back to over the years. So thank you for adding to our library today.
Kelly Molson: Thank you for coming on and sharing. It's been a great chat. I've thoroughly enjoyed it. I love talking about brand. It is a little bit of my background as well, so I completely understand and embrace everything that you've talked about today. Good luck at Arival. I hope that goes brilliantly and I look forward to all of those emails that we're about to receive about people taking things off their list, doing them.
Catherine Warrilow: And I'll see you in a toilet somewhere soon, hopefully.
Kelly Molson: Probably. Like I said, all the best people meet in toilets.
Catherine Warrilow: Thanks, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/emily-rose-yates/
https://mimagroup.com/
https://mimagroup.com/the-redesign-podcast
Download: VisitEngland Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses
Emily Yates is a wheelchair user with cerebral palsy living in Glasgow, Scotland. She loves to write, travel and is a real pink hair enthusiast. Emily has over a decade of experience as an accessibility consultant. Now the Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design at Mima, Emily has worked with large transport, culture and heritage and global events organisations such as Heathrow Airport, COP28, the Science Museum Group and the Rio 2016 Olympic and Paralympic Games to further their physical, social and digital accessibility measures.
She has also worked with the Council of Europe, international travel networks, and sat on equality boards advising various sporting, transport and travel organisations on their access and inclusion agendas.
Emily frequently presents and writes on disability issues, having fronted several documentaries for BBC Three and written for the Guardian, the Independent and Telegraph Travel. She also authored the Lonely Planet Guide to Accessible Rio de Janeiro.Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In today’s podcast I speak with Emily Yates, Head of Accessibility and Inclusive Design, at Mima.
Mima worked alongside Visit Britain to co create the Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses, which aims to act as the resource for travel, tourism and hospitality organisations.
Emily and I discuss how it was created, why it is such a vital resource, and how it will evolve over time.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hi, Emily. It's lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thanks for coming on and joining me and at very short notice, too. Appreciate it.
Emily Yates: Not at all. Thank you so much for having me. It's a real pleasure to be here.
Kelly Molson: Well, we're going to have a good chat today. I'm looking forward to this. Right, I am going to start my icebreakers with this question for you. Have you ever been told off by a security guard for touching anything in a museum that you should not have been touching?
Emily Yates: What a great question. I don't think I have, but something that immediately comes to mind. It was a very embarrassing moment that I had at the Museum of the Future in Dubai a few months ago, where I touched something that I shouldn't have done. And what it was there was an interactive kind of tabletop interactive going on, and there were groups of people from all over the world who were visiting this museum and there was this one couple who were trying to sort their wristband to make this interactive work and I just figured that they couldn't do it. So I put my wristband on to help them and I changed all the information to me and they were so annoyed to me, in a massive grump.
Emily Yates: Yeah, they just thought that I'd, like, nicked all of their information and their opportunity to do this activity and I was just trying to be helpful.
Kelly Molson: That's the actual digital version of skipping the queue, basically. You wristbanded them out of the way.
Emily Yates: I totally did. And the worst thing was that were on this group tour, so I had to stay with them for the rest of the tour.
Kelly Molson: They were with you. That’s a little bit awkward, those group tours, aren't they? Because you never know if you're going to like anyone or if ones are going to get on your nerves. So you just made it even more awkward than it needed to be.
Emily Yates: There you go.
Kelly Molson: Right. I love it. Okay, there's a three parter to this question, but it's a good one. And actually, thank you, whoever sent this one in, because I genuinely can't remember who sent me this one, but I really like. It's the first time that I'm using it, too. Okay. So they say the formula for visitor attractions is one, a great view, two, a great brew, and three, a great loo. So I want to know where you've encountered your best three of these. They can be different. So best view?
Emily Yates: Best view, I would have to say. Can it be international? I would have to say Sugarloff Mountain, Rio de Janeiro.
Kelly Molson: Wow.
Emily Yates: Absolutely incredible view. Yeah. Like nothing else. Best brew. Oh, I'm trying to think of somewhere that has a great cafe, the V&A Museum in Dundee has a brilliant cafe that also has a great view, I have to say. That would be my best brew.
Kelly Molson: We like that one. And then three best loo.
Emily Yates: Best loo. It would have to be somewhere that has a changing places toilet. And of course, I need to say that being an access consultant, I'm trying to think where does. But I know for certain that a client I'm working with, the National Science and Media Museum in Bradford, has one about to be kind of refurbished and all sorted. So I would say there.
Kelly Molson: Excellent. Good choices as well. I love that you've got a Dundee one in there that was like two out of the three. I mean, there you go. There's a challenge for them. If they can up their game, they can get that third one from you as well.
Emily Yates: Yeah, absolutely.
Kelly Molson: Nice. All right, what's your unpopular opinion?
Emily Yates: Oh, my unpopular opinion? Both heels and handbags are overrated. As a wheelchair user, I have never, ever worn a pair of high heels in my life. I'm 32 years old, so I think that's quite an accomplishment. And also pushing all the time. Unless it's a cross body one, I can never hold a handbag, so, yeah, I'm a Converse and rook sack girl all the way.
Kelly Molson: Right. Because, yeah, it would get in the way, wouldn't it? You need to kind of have it across and then, I guess, tucked in a little bit and then what's the point of having something fancy if you're going to just.
Emily Yates: Exactly.
Kelly Molson: I mean, I'm kind of with you. I'm not a wheelchair user. However, my feet were not designed for high heels at all. I'm a flat scale all the way.
Emily Yates: Maybe not. Unpopular opinion. Maybe there's just two camps, two very distinct camps, isn't there?
Kelly Molson: I think probably two camps, but I don't think this is an unpopular opinion. Even in a camp of people that could actively wear those heels and might want to. I still think that there’s a.
Emily Yates: There's a secret loo. Wish we didn't have to. Maybe I'm in a lovely position, that I've got a lovely excuse.
Kelly Molson: Never had to think about this. Never had to squeeze your tiny feet into those awkwardly pointy, evil contraptions. Right, let's see. Well, let's see what everyone on Twitter has got to share with us on that. Thank you, Emily. I want to find out a little bit about. Well, I want to find out a little bit about your role and your background and then tell us a little bit about Mima as well.
Emily Yates: Yes, sure. So, I am a wheelchair user. I was born with cerebral palsy. I'm, as you can probably tell from my accident, from a little town called Skipton in North Yorkshire. And I'm also a twin, and my twin lives in Spain now, so she's got the sunshiny life. There's definitely a tan difference between the two of us now, for sure. And I've always worked in the world of accessibility and inclusive design, from leaving a university, really. And it's led me to amazing opportunities to be able to travel a lot, to be able to see, I guess, the importance of my capabilities as a disabled person, rather than just my limitations as a disabled person. And I've brought that into my professional work as well as my personal life as well. So I now work for an amazing human centred design agency called Mima.
Emily Yates: It stands for Micro and Macro, so details and then zooming out into the big picture, looking at that end to end journey. And I head up the accessibility and inclusive design team there. So whether you're talking about airports or train stations or of course, museums and galleries or even global events and sporting events, we look at auditing, facilitating lived experience, user groups, standards, policies, disability awareness training, all of that good stuff, and bring our design expertise into wider projects with us as well. And it's brilliant.
Kelly Molson: That's how we got chatting, isn't it? Because you've worked with a really broad. We work with a hugely broad range of clients, as you've just said. But I think David and I started talking somebody I can't remember, it was a good friend of mine, it was Jo Geraghty. She introduced us because we had visitor attractions and kind of heritage and culture organisations in common. So we had a brilliant chat about this and then we had a chat and then this project happened that you've all been involved in, which is amazing. So this is what we're going to talk about today. Now, you'll probably agree with this, but I think when it comes to accessibility and inclusivity, I think it's fair to say that kind of travel tourism organisations, they want to do the right thing.
Kelly Molson: There's a real desire to be able to do the right thing, but they often don't really know what that is and where to go and find the support to be able to do those things, like where do they start looking to kind of understand the checklist of things that they need to go through to make sure that their venue is accessible. The Visit Britain Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses aims to change that.
Kelly Molson: I saw Ross Calladine, who's the Accessibility and Inclusion Lead at VisitEngland, speak about this a while ago, before it had launched. He was speaking at a Visit Hearts networking event that I went to. It is an incredible resource for the sector. Like, absolutely incredible. I've had a really deep dive into it and it is so useful and so full of incredible information. But you and Mima have been involved in putting this together with them? This has been a joint project.
Emily Yates: Yes, absolutely. So we were the toolkit authors and I feel very honoured to have worked with Ross and Hannah at VisitEngland for the last year know. They're just a wonderful client and we've got on really well. And Ross, as you will probably know from hearing him speak, absolutely has his heart in the right place when it comes to accessibility and inclusive design. But I think really importantly as well, has his finger on the pulse of the business benefit of this, which of course is really important. And you very rightly said there that a lot of especially small to medium sized businesses want to do the right thing, but often don't know where to start. And quite a lot of the time that's to do with budget, it's to do with time, it's to do with resourcing constraints, all of that stuff.
Emily Yates: And what we really wanted this toolkit to do was to provide some holistic tips and advice for those businesses that actually says, “We understand the limitations that exist.” We understand that it's not possible to just click your fingers and magic up a changing places, for example, that were talking about earlier. But it is possible to think about your staff training, your recruitment, your policies and your processes. Things like making sure that your access routes are clear of seating and clutter. Simple things that make a huge difference. But of course, I said seating clear of access routes, but of course there needs to be seating somewhere as well. That's really important. But these quick wins that you can make, that will make a huge difference to people. It's not always about just installing a really expensive piece of equipment.
Emily Yates: It's understanding those holistic changes that you can make that will make a huge difference. And the toolkit covers so many different sections. It provides some information about the purple pound. So the spending power of disabled people in their households, which is worth, I think, 274,000,000,000 pounds per year to UK businesses alone. So that's what you're missing out on if you're not physically or digitally accessible. And then the toolkit also covers the different impairments and medical conditions that you might need to know about how to best provide that inclusive welcome that can often not cost anything at all. It's just about changing your mindset.
Emily Yates: And then we talk about the importance of inclusive marketing, changes in the built environment, employing more inclusively, and then the next steps to kind of continue the all encompassing journey that can never really be finished, but will hopefully provide people with stand them in good stead for a future that's a bit more accessible.
Kelly Molson: I guess that goes for the toolkit as well. This is going to be something that is never finished too, because it's always going to change and evolve depending on what the needs and requirements are. How was it created in the first place? What was the process that you had to go through? Because this is, know what you've just described. I mean, the resource is phenomenal, it's vast, the things that you can understand and go through with this documentation. So that in itself will have been a mammoth task to have pulled together. How did you work with VisitBritain to do that?
Emily Yates: So the first thing that was quite important was thinking about what each of the resources were going to look like. So what I've just gone through there is the more holistic toolkit, the main piece, if you like. But in addition to that, we've also got documents that have 20 top tips for businesses. We've got action checklists where people can almost say, “Right, I'm going to make sure I've provided something in particular for an assistance dog, for example”, and put a timeline of when they're going to do that, give ownership to a certain member of staff, of appeasing that checklist, and then carry on that way. So there's also some action checklists and there's also some technical guidance as an appendix as well.
Emily Yates: So the first thing was really thinking about what information do we want to provide and how are we going to segregate that information, so it isn't awfully overwhelming and is actually actionable. And then the second thing was making sure, and probably the most important thing was making sure that we'd co-produced this information and consulted with the correct people. So we've consulted with over 30 disability charities and disabled people's organisations, also trade associations as well as independent reviewers. So everybody from the Business Disability Forum who gave us some great advice in terms of inclusive employment, to self catering trade associations, to museum trade associations, theme parks and things like that, there's so many people that got involved with this and gave us some advice.
Emily Yates: And also we wanted to make sure that the information wasn't just actionable, but it was really relevant as well. So we've also created lots of different case studies within the toolkit. So whether that's more independent small farms who've done something amazing in terms of their volunteering and how that can be more inclusive to a local pier, for example, that's made something that, let's face it, in the built environment, isn't all that accessible sometimes. They've made changes to help that out.
Emily Yates: We've added those case studies. So as you're reading through the information and learning lots, you're hopefully able to also read something that's quite relevant, that almost sparks that interest and that aspiration and gives you an opportunity to think, “Okay, I can do that. This might be who I might get in touch with and this might be the action I take.”
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I love that. The case studies make it so relatable to different scales of organisation. And I think what I found was it was quite inspiring, actually, that, okay, it's a pier. There's always going to be some challenges with accessibility. However, we have gone to these efforts to do these things. So you might have a checklist of 30 things you might be able to cover off, 20 of them, ten of them you're never going to be able to do. But to be able to read and go, “There's still so much that I can do. Even though I don't have something that's all 30, I can still do these things and make it significantly better for a much wider range of people that will be able to come and use these facilities now.”
Emily Yates: Absolutely, 100%. And we wanted to make sure that people really got that feeling and they were encouraged by the information rather than overwhelmed by it. And I think one thing that's also really important is that, let's be honest, when it comes to accessibility, we all think about wheelchair users and we all think about step free access, which is great for me as a wheelchair user. But actually it's not always about providing step free access or installing that really expensive lift. How can you think about the colour palettes that you're using to make sure that there's enough tonal contrast for somebody who's visually impaired, but it also provides an appropriate sensory environment for somebody who's neurodivergent? These are things that are so often forgotten or put down the priority list.
Emily Yates: And these are the things that we wanted to say, "Okay, you can do these in a way that doesn't break the bank, that doesn't take all the time, but makes all the difference to a certain group of people."
Kelly Molson: Do you think that they are harder to associate with because you can't see them? I mean, with the wheelchair it's a very obvious. You can see that person has a disability, you can see that they will need something very specific from you to be able to use your platform. But with some of these other things, you just can't see that trigger. So you don't think to think about it?
Emily Yates: Absolutely. Yeah. I think one of the really pivotal points that we have in the inclusive design industry now is thinking about things that are less visible. So somebody who has dementia, for example, that might find really dark flooring looking like a black hole and might really struggle to go into that museum environment that's particularly dark. Thinking about that is just as important as how wide your doorways are. But as you've very rightly said, are so often not thought about or not correctly understood is probably the more correct way of saying it.
Kelly Molson: You mentioned earlier about some monetary value for organisations to do this, but why is this such a vital resource from someone like you who has lived experience of this as well? Why is this so vital?
Emily Yates: I think it's really vital because it's specific. First of all, so we've created something specific to people within that tourism travel attractions industry. In fact, we've focused specifically on accommodations, attractions, food and beverage and events. There are four main areas that we focused on. So what I really like about it is you read through as somebody who works in one of those businesses and everything is relevant to what you do, and I think that's really important. So often you look at accessibility resources and they've tried to cater to a huge audience and actually made a bit less relevance by doing so. I think that makes it really vital and a really innovative resource actually. By doing so, I think another thing is it allows you to focus on that end to end journey in its entirety.
Emily Yates: So if you feel like you're doing really well in the accessibility that you offer your customers, for example. But you want to focus now more internally on, "Okay, what's my culture look like? How inclusive can I be as an employer? What about my marketing? What about my website? I focused on the built environment, but what about what the information I'm putting out there?" All of that information is in there as well. So regardless of where you are on that accessibility journey, I'd like to think that there's something for you within that toolkit.
Kelly Molson: There absolutely is as well. You definitely need to go and download it. So we're going to put a link directly to it in the show notes for the show as well. So don't worry about rent searching for it, just go to the show notes. You will find it very easily. How is it going to evolve? Because we said this is not a static thing. It's out there now. Needs requirements are going to change, policies are going to change. What does the roadmap for it look like for the next kind of couple of years, five years down the line?
Emily Yates: So I'm doing quite a lot of work with Ross at the moment to think about how we're making sure that people are aware of it and they know exactly how to use it as a tool. Because, of course, with anything like this, it's all well and good writing it, but really it's only as successful as its uses. So we've gone already to the AA and the VisitEngland assessors who go into different hotels and restaurants and review these, and we've made sure that they're aware of the toolkit. We've given them a bit of a presentation and a few exercises on how to use it. We're going to do similar with visitor attractions as well. And then Mima. We've got a bit of a contract with VisitEngland for the next couple of years that focuses on providing updates to this toolkit.
Emily Yates: So we will be going out and training different people, but also we really want people to write into us and give us feedback and tell us where they think certain improvements could be made or if they've got a great case study of something that's only happened a couple of months ago. All these things, we want to hear about them so we can make sure that it continues to be an updated, best in class resource.
Kelly Molson: Oh, that's good. I love that little shout out. Right, if anyone's listening and something good has happened, you've got something to shout about. You know how to contact Emily. We'll put a link to Emily's LinkedIn profile on here so you can give her a shout out and about. And what do you hope that it's going to achieve? What do you hope that this will bring?
Emily Yates: Oh, that's a great question. I think the number one thing I hope, and this is probably quite a personal, selfish plea, is that I hope it encourages businesses to be honest about where they are in their journey. By that, I mean it is no good somebody calling you up and saying, "Hi there. Do you provide step free access and accessible parking?" And you going, "Oh, yes, we do. That's absolutely fine." And somebody like me getting there, and there's five steps up to the front door. There's nothing heroic about not being honest about where you are in your journey. It just complicates matters.
Emily Yates: So what I would really love businesses to have the confidence to do is have a statement on their website that details exactly where they are on that journey, is really honest about the things that they've done well, the things that they're still improving, and therefore gives disabled people, older people with access requirements in general, that autonomy to be able to make the decision for themselves, whether this place is suitable for their needs or not. And I think if we can master that and if businesses can do that would be an incredible thing for the industry in general.
Emily Yates: And it puts, as I say, that autonomy back on disabled people, back on the audience to say, "Right, this is great, I'm going to go here, I'm going to tell all my friends about it, and this could be a great case study for this business to learn a little bit more from, et cetera."
Kelly Molson: That is such an important message, isn't it? The message of honesty? Because that seems like a really simple thing to do. Okay, look, none of us are perfect. None of us are perfect. We all have a long way to go to make things as accessible as they need to be. However, this is where we're at. We've got this. We're back to our checklist again, aren't we? This is our 30 step checklist. We've got ten of those knocked off already. And these are the things that we're doing. This is what we are hoping to achieve, and this is the time frame we're looking to achieve them. And I've just been through this process with the fire safety regulations that were brought out last October. So making sure that I've got. Yep, okay. I've got 90% of those. There's 10% that need to be looked at.
Kelly Molson: This is what we're going to do. And this is when we're going to do it by. It's exactly the same message, isn't it?
Emily Yates: Exactly.
Kelly Molson: Do you not see that from many kind of tourism and attraction organisations then? Do you find that is quite a challenge for them, to be quite honest about where they're at?
Emily Yates: I still see being very honest with you, I still see quite a lot of fear surrounding disability and accessibility and this real desire to do the right thing. All of this is coming from a good place. There's a real desire to do the right thing, but as you said right at the very beginning, no idea of where to start. And I think sometimes it's very easy to over promise and under deliver, and that is the worst thing that you can do. Equally what I want to say to caveat all of this is if you offer something that's amazing, please shout about it, please tell people about it. Because equally outside of the coin, I see actually museums in particular that for all of these amazing things, be as a sell tours, touch tours, tack tile objects, nobody has clue that they even exist. So I’m asking really for both things.
Kelly Molson: Balance.
Emily Yates: Absolutely. Be honest about what you don't have. Celebrate what you do.
Kelly Molson: Another great message, Emily. Okay, what are your top tips? Like I said, this is lived experience for you. What are your top tips around disability awareness? What would you shout out and say these are the things that you need to be looking at.
Emily Yates: Okay, first thing, it's quite a philosophical point, but it's quite an important one. I think we need to change our mindset when it comes to accessibility and inclusive designs, especially in the disability space, because each and every one of us at some point in our lives will have experience of disability. Hopefully it's just through old age, but it may be through injury, through something else. And it's important to think about not disabled people and nondisabled people, but disabled people and not yet disabled people. And I think if we changed our mindset around that, suddenly there'd be a lot more movement when it comes to accessibility and inclusive design. So I think that would be my one top tip, my one plea, if you like. I think the second one is to think bigger than wheelchair users. Start thinking about how to design for neurodiversity.
Emily Yates: Start reading documents such as the new PaAS 6463, design for the mind. If you are, for example, a contractor or a designer working in these kind of spaces, that's really important too. And I think wherever possible, bring lived experience into your work. If you are working in a gallery and you've got this amazing new exhibition coming out in the next couple of years. Think about how you can represent deaf, disabled and neurodivergent people within that exhibition. Can you have a space where you have an access hub that has BSL, tactile maps, portable stools that people can take round with them? And even more so, can you have part of the exhibition where some of your interpretations, some of your objects are to do with deaf, disabled, neurodivergent creators? That would be incredible too.
Kelly Molson: So making sure it's woven through every part of that experience and not seen as an add on at the end.
Emily Yates: Absolutely that. Absolutely that.
Kelly Molson: Great tips. Thank you. Let's talk quickly about the podcast. So at Mima there's a podcast called Re:Design. Actually episode five does feature Ross. Again, he's the Accessibility and Inclusion Lead at VisitEngland, and he comes on and talks about how do you create a seamless customer experience. So again, this comes back to a lot of the points that we've covered today. I mean, great topic. Congratulations on starting the podcast. In the first place there, what are the hopes and aspirations for Mima? What are they looking to achieve by putting this podcast out there?
Emily Yates: I think what we're hoping for is that multidisciplinary design, human centred design, inclusive design, really gets its place on the map a little bit more because it's something that, especially inclusive design, it's spoken about a know you will read articles a lot, I'm sure, Kelly, that mention it and the importance of it. But there's a difference between mentioning it and knowing what to do with it and actually speaking to people that have done it. And I think that's what we're trying to do, really pull out some pearls of wisdom from different individuals that have gone through different scenarios, whether they've travelled a lot for their work, whether they've focused on inclusive internal culture change as one of our episodes focuses on, whether they focus specifically on the importance of inclusion within aviation, whether they're looking at a seamless visitor experience.
Emily Yates: We want to hear from people that have experienced that and been through it, and are able to then give a bit of advice to people that want to learn more about a subject that everybody should at least have a bit of a basic understanding of.
Kelly Molson: Amazing. Right. We will link to that podcast as well. So that is definitely one for you to go over and subscribe to. Emily, it's been so good to have you on today, and I know that we've had to keep this one short because everyone's got appointments that they need to get to. But this is such a key topic.
Kelly Molson: My aspiration is that everybody that listens to this episode goes and downloads that accessibility toolkit and shares it with their network as well. Please. So that's a personal plea from me to you listeners. Go and download it and please give it a little share because it needs to get out to as many different people as possible, as many organisations that it is relevant for as possible. What about a book that you love, that you'd like to share with us today? Emily, I'm intrigued if you've gone on topic or not.
Emily Yates: I think I have gone on topic about this. Sorry if I've been a bit one dimensional.
Kelly Molson: Not at all.
Emily Yates: My book of choice is one that I read recently and one, funnily enough, that I'm running a bit of an internal workshop on at Mima in a couple of weeks. We've started a bit of an inclusive book club and it's called the View From Down Here by Lucy Webster. Lucy is an amazing journalist. She's disabled. She used to work for the BBC before going freelance, and she writes this incredible memoir about what it's like growing up disabled, but really importantly as a disabled woman.
Emily Yates: And she talks about so many different scenarios from trying to get into a nightclub on a Saturday night when the difficulty of doing so in terms of the gaze that you so often experience as a woman, but as a disabled woman as well, her thoughts on motherhood and how complex and nuanced that is as somebody who's disabled, friendships, professional lives, all of these different things. And I think it's just such an incredibly powerful, confident, but also very vulnerable account of the realism of what it's really like. And the thing that it made me realise, or the thing that it made me remember, should I say, is that we're not going to solve accessibility by just making sure that all of our train stations are step free. It's much more holistic and nuanced and complex than that.
Emily Yates: And it's about human nature and human design and all those holistic things that we so rarely think about. And I would just urge everybody to read it. It's angry, it's sad, it's beautiful. It's just a wonderful book.
Kelly Molson: Wow. What a book. I feel quite moved by just hearing your account of it, let alone reading it. Right, that's going top of the list. Listeners, if you would like to win a copy of that book, which, I mean, let's face it sounds like everybody needs to read that anyway, so do throw your hat into the ring for this one. If you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Emily's book, then you will be in a chance to win it. But aside from that, go and buy it and absolutely head over to the show notes download the VisitBritain Accessible and Inclusive Tourism Toolkit for Businesses. You will not be disappointed, I can assure you of that. Emily, it's been brilliant to have you on today. Thank you. I'm sorry it's short and sweet.
Kelly Molson: I'm sorry that you've got to dash off to an appointment and you're leaving me, but it's been so amazing to chat. I would love for you to come on and talk about some of the case studies, maybe with some of your clients at some point, because I think that would be a really interesting discussion to talk through some of the processes and the steps that they went through and just showcase that this is for everybody. This really is for everybody.
Emily Yates: I would absolutely love that. Thank you. We're working with the National Railway Museum at the moment on their Vision 2025 master plan. So maybe when that's starting to wrap up next year, maybe that would be an amazing opportunity to talk about that.
Kelly Molson: I think that would be brilliant. I'd love that. All right. Thank you ever so much.
Emily Yates: Emily thank you, Kelly, thank you so much.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast
Competition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.kew.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/julia-willison-22347a10/
Julia Willison is Head of Learning and Participation for the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. She is passionate about engaging people – young and old and from all walks of life - in learning about the importance of plants and fungi and the need for sustainable development. Julia is responsible for schools, communities and access, families and early years, outreach, youth and volunteers at Kew Gardens. She previously worked with botanic gardens internationally to advocate for and establish education programmes for the benefit of local communities and the environment.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
On today’s episode I speak with Julia Willison, Head of Learning and Participation at Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.
We discuss Kew’s inspiring manifesto - their 10 year strategy to end extinction crisis and protect nature. Julia shares with us the 5 key priorities, and we focus on Kew’s desire to improve inclusivity and what initiatives have been formed to support the organisation in doing this.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Julia, it's really lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me.
Julia Willison: My pleasure, Kelly. Thank you for inviting me.
Kelly Molson: So we're recording this right at the beginning of January. It's the 9 January that we're recording it. So icebreakers have got a new year's resolution theme because I thought we should talk about this. I want to know, do you set them? If so, what have you set yourself for this year?
Julia Willison: I do tend to set them in my own mind. I don't often share them, but I do set them. And this year I've set the resolution. I want to start learning to play the piano and I've actually had my first lesson. I'm really pleased with that.
Kelly Molson: I love this. So we just had a little chat about this off air, because that was one of the other icebreaker questions I was going to ask you is, what's the one thing that you've always wanted to learn? And then we had this conversation and you're doing it already, and I was like, "Oh, this is great." So you've had your first lesson and how did it go?
Julia Willison: Well, I found myself apologising to the teacher profusely because of my lack of ability to play the piano, but it went really well and he was absolutely delightful, very supportive, and I learned quite a lot in the first lesson, so I'm looking forward to the second lesson now. I've got a lot start playing and practising every day, which I'm enjoying doing.
Kelly Molson: That's the thing about learning something new is that you've got to make it a habit, haven't you? So you need to kind of. This is the thing that I did about the gym, is that I had to diarize it, so I had to make sure that it was like in red in my diary, immovable. At the same time, on those days, that I could go so that you could do it. Are you going to do that with your lessons and your training?
Julia Willison: Well, the lessons obviously will have to be in my calendar, but I have almost crossed the threshold where I made a decision to play the piano. I've got a long term goal that in maybe ten years time, I'll be able to play in a group or something like this. So I'm really committed to wanting to learn. So we'll see. You have to revisit this space. Maybe in five years time. See if I'm still doing it.
Kelly Molson: Right. I'm popping you on the list for five years to make sure that I check in with you, that you've achieved your goals. Okay. What is the worst thing that you've ever eaten or drunk?
Julia Willison: Well, eaten for me is mussels, because I'm allergic to them.
Kelly Molson: Oh, wow.
Julia Willison: I only learned that through, obviously, eating mussels and even just a small piece just made me incredibly sick. Drinking advocaat. How do you say it. Advocaat?
Kelly Molson: Is that what goes into snowballs?
Julia Willison: Yes. I can't think of anything worse actually.
Kelly Molson: I love snowballs. I had one over Christmas.
Julia Willison: You can have mine.
Kelly Molson: I'll have your mussels. And your advocaat. What a mixture. And probably not at the same time either.
Julia Willison: No.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. My friends did a Christmas party and we had a snowball and it was, "This is so retro." I can remember my grandparents drinking these when I was a child. I remember if you ever come to my house for a Christmas party that you are not to have snowballs.
Julia Willison: I'll bring my own, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Okay. Right. What's your unpopular opinion, Julia?
Julia Willison: What I do feel, I suppose, strongly about is that, and I arrived at this opinion after talking to my children, after I had done this. And it says, I don't think that people should post pictures of their children and friends on social media without their consent.
Kelly Molson: Yes. Yeah. This is an interesting one, isn't? Oh, ok. And actually, at what point do you ask their consent? Because I post pictures of my daughter. She might not be comfortable with me, she might not be happy with me, her face being over my Twitter account or my Instagram account. So, yeah, I guess at some point we'll have that conversation. If she says no, that's it. No more pictures go up.
Julia Willison: Oh, sad. And the thing is, you can't take down the ones that you've already put up, can you?
Kelly Molson: No. Well, I guess you can go back and delete them from an Instagram account or delete them from your Twitter account. So you could go back and delete, but then they're out there, so that doesn't mean that they're not elsewhere in the ether.
Julia Willison: Interesting.
Kelly Molson: It is interesting, yeah. But I think you're right, I think. Absolutely, for other people. I've definitely had this conversation with a friend of mine about. We've been out together with our children and we've both taken pictures and she's actually asked my permission if she can post the pictures on her social media, but her platforms are quite. Her Instagram is a private Instagram account, for example, so she's happy to post pictures of her daughter on that, but she's not happy for other people to post those pictures if they're not private account. It is a huge debate, isn't it? Well, it'll be interesting to see what people think. How do you feel about this?
Kelly Molson: People on Twitter, which is where we do a lot of our talking about this podcast, how do you feel about posting pictures of your children or your friends and your family on social media without having their consent? Let us know. Could start a little Twitter debate there.
Julia Willison: I'd be interested to read it.
Kelly Molson: Right, Julia, tell us about your role at Kew and what a typical day looks like for you.
Julia Willison: So, I'm Head of Learning and Participation at Kew Gardens and what I'm responsible for is providing leadership in this particular area at Kew and wanting to position Kew as a centre for excellence in plant and fungal science education. And under my remit comes formal learning. That's all the schools programmes and teacher training. So we've got about 90,000 school pupils that come on site each year and we engage with about 200,000 online. We have a youth programme which is growing. There's a lot of demand there for young people to get involved environmentally as well. Families, in early years, we run programmes for families, but up to seven year olds, specific sessions.
Julia Willison: We run community engagement, and that includes community horticulture. I'm responsible for the access programmes across the site as well. That's for people who may have sensory needs or different access needs. We have a national outreach learning programme and then slight anomaly is that the volunteers also sit with me. So we've got 800 volunteers across Kew Gardens and Wakehurst, and the central function of that sits with my remit. So looking at some of the strategies around what we're doing with volunteers and diversifying our volunteers, et cetera, that's my remit.
Kelly Molson: They’re quite a bit.
Julia Willison: Yeah. No, it's fantastic. I'm very lucky. And there's no one typical day, but you can imagine. Well, I get going with a cup of coffee every day and sometimes I'll spend one day a week working from home.
Julia Willison: But the rest of the time, I like to be on site. Kew has got to be one of the most beautiful locations to work. Kew has got to be one of the most beautiful locations to work. I am so lucky. I know that.
Julia Willison: And I've probably got the best office in Kew. If you come and visit Kelly, you'll see that the office I have looks out over the Palm House of Kew, which is the most iconic glass house. It was a glass house that was built between 1844 and 48 and it houses the tropical plants, so it is just the most amazing place to work. I attend a lot of meetings, as you can imagine, with my teams and staff across the organisation about operations sometimes, and strategy and new and exciting projects that we're looking at what we can do. I sit on cross organisational steering groups and committees that focus on public programmes.
Julia Willison: We have a strong focus on equality, diversity and inclusion across the organisation. And safeguarding. Well, I still am the designated safeguarding lead for Kew, so I'm involved in that still. And I also lead the steering group for Kew on the outreach strategy and the schools learning strategy. And then, as well, I often work on preparing project proposals, because funding is a major issue for our organisation, and so funding and reporting and then talking to potential donors. So that's my sort of typical day, really.
Kelly Molson: I feel quite privileged that I get to speak to so many incredible women that have these hugely varied roles and do so much in a day. Very capable people that I get to speak to. It's quite humbling. We're going to talk quite a lot today about a manifesto that Kew implemented. I'm just going to take you back. So I think it was in March 2021, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew launched a ten year strategy to end extinction crisis and protect nature. And it's a really bold and incredibly inspiring manifesto. I'm just going to read out the ethos of it.
Kelly Molson: So, the mission of Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew is to understand and protect plants and fungi for the well being of people and the future of all life on earth. Our aspiration is to end the extinction crisis and to help create a world where nature is protected, valued by all and managed sustainably. So this was back in 2021. How has the manifesto been implemented within the organisation? How did it get created in the first place, and how does that kind of get explained and put into practise?
Julia Willison: Good question. We started in the pandemic, looking at the need to build a new strategy, because our older strategy was coming to the end, and over the years has been a building of staff in Kew, talking about wanting to see more urgency in the work that we do, or to describe it in a more urgent terms, what we're trying to do at Kew. And so the pandemic, while it was a terrible time, it was a time that Kew took to step back and look at the bigger picture and then come together around this urgency of climate change and biodiversity loss. And there was a lot of consultation, a lot of iterations of the strategy that went out to staff to feed into this.
Julia Willison: It was a significant job, and there was a team, a small team of people that were working on it, taking the consultation back in centrally. And then what emerged through the consultation were five key priorities that we then agreed, or was agreed then for the next ten years. And that was agreed then by the executive board and signed off by the board of trustees. I'll mention the five priorities, and I can give a few bits of examples of some of the work we do around those. The first priority is deliver science based knowledge and solutions to protect biodiversity and use natural resources sustainably. Kew is primarily a scientific and horticultural organisation, and we struggle sometimes that many people see Kew Gardens as the gardens and don't see the science behind the gardens.
Julia Willison: The gardens are essential and they contain precious plant collections. There is also science and research behind that. We've got over 400 scientists and about 150 horticulturalists. And so it's the bedrock accused contribution to ending biodiversity and maintaining sort of healthy ecosystems. So there are lots of examples that I could give. People probably don't know this. We have a resource centre in Madagascar, scientific resource centre, and scientists there are working with the rural Malagasy people on food security and particularly on conserving yams that are native to Madagascar. We work in over 120 countries, working with partners in Ethiopia to reduce biodiversity loss. The Ethiopian economy depends very much on coffee, and something like 25% of the population rely directly or indirectly on coffee for their livelihood. And so Kew is working with partners to maintain traditional forest based areas where coffee grows natively.
Julia Willison: And that is proving vital for sustainability, for livelihoods and also for biodiversity. Close to home. We have scientists here at Kew working on the chemistry of nectar and pollen, because many bee species in the UK, there are around 240 different species of bees in the UK. So honey bees are just one species. There's lots of different bumblebees, lots of different native bee species, and they're under threat because of climate change from disease and parasites. So what scientists here are identifying plants that have compounds in the nectar and pollen that could help bees themselves manage their own diseases more sustainably. So that's an important area of research. Kew is also, as part of manifesto, we're digitising our collections. We’ve got a wrap quarter a way through digitising 8.25 million preserved plants and fungal specimens. So it's an enormous task. And 200,000 botanical illustrations. What else we're doing?
Julia Willison: We have a sister site. I don't know if you know this, Kelly. We have a sister site at Wakehurst. It's our wild botanic garden in West Sussex and it's a site of excellence, really, in conservation and science. It's home to the Millennium Seed Bank, where we've banked something like 2.4 billion seeds from more than 40,000 plant species. And so there's the project being run at Wakehurst called Nature Unlocked, and that's using the landscape of Wakehurst, which is about two kilometres squared, as a living laboratory. And the idea is to collect high quality scientific evidence of the value of biodiversity in the soil as well as in the landscape. This evidence to inform land management policies and practises, so that can then key develop. Decision makers can then use this evidence to make informed decisions about what they do around the land.
Kelly Molson: That's just one point.
Julia Willison: I'll be quicker with the other.
Kelly Molson: Please feel free to share. Don't hold back. But it's quite mind blowing, isn't it, how much that you do that people just aren't aware of?
Julia Willison: Yeah, this is just a very small snapshot. I mean, I could have taken any one of hundreds of examples of what scientists here at Kew are doing. The second priority is inspire people to protect the natural world, and that really is threaded through all our public engagement work. And that's going from our festivals, our exhibitions, all the interpretive panels we do, the website, our social media, all the learning and participation programmes we do. So we use this as a lens to look through and to make sure that the work we're doing is all checking ourselves, that we are inspiring people to protect the natural world. I mentioned earlier we have a national outreach programme and this programme is inspiring communities to take action for biodiversity, specifically through transforming their local spaces with UK native plants.
Julia Willison: So community groups we know will grow other plants, but we also encourage them to focus also on UK native plants as well. Another plan in the manifesto is to create a carbon garden, and that's to communicate stories around how carbon is captured in plants and soil, and how we use this to mitigate climate change, for example, through planting trees and also looking at different carbon related services, such as biofuels. And we have the plans for the garden. It's in planning permission. It's gone for planning permission at the moment and we're waiting to hear. And as soon as we hear, it'll probably take us about a year or so to build the garden, but we'll use it then very much for learning and communicating about the importance of carbon, so people know. So that's priority two.
Julia Willison: Priority three is train the next generation of experts, new scientists and horticultural is critical to the future of life on earth. And so Kew has accelerated its work in this. And we offer three month PhD placements for anybody across the UK who's doing a PhD. Part of their PhD often includes a placement. So we offer those placements at Kew and we're very keen to attract PhD students. We also are working in partnership with a couple of universities, Queen Mary, University of London and the Royal Holloway, University of London, to run in partnership master's courses. MSc courses. And we've got three courses that we run. MSc in biodiversity and conservation, an MSc in plant and fungal taxonomy, diversity and conservation. And then the newest MSc is on global health, food security, sustainability and biodiversity.
Kelly Molson: I can imagine that the world that we're in now, there's actually a lot more demand for those courses as well. I imagine that they're oversubscribed multiple times.
Julia Willison: Yes. And they're open to international students, so we get quite a lot of international students coming. So that's really good. We had 60 students starting this year on the courses, but on a master's course, taking 20 students, it's quite an intense course. And I know that Kew has, like you say, there's a demand to study further in this area, and so there are still developing the possibility of new courses with universities. That's good.
Julia Willison: But one of the things for my remit that I'm very keen about is that there's a pathway and that Kew considers its pathway from very early years, attracting kids to become very interested in nature, and then going through and providing school programmes that then encourage children to then take science as a possible career choice, or be informed about science, which is one of the reasons why we launched the Endeavour Online programme to make our resources that focus on educational resources that focus on Kew, science and horticulture, but make them available to schools across the UK.
Kelly Molson: That's phenomenal. And that's a lot of the things that we're going to talk about today. What point are we at? We've done point 3.
Julia Willison: Okay. So extend our reach.
Kelly Molson: Extend reach. That's right. Point 4.
Julia Willison: That's about cubing a go to place for anyone and everyone to explore the importance of plants and fungi and how they add value to our lives. And we're working hard to expand our digital resources to make sure that we can engage with as many people as possible. But we also recognise that there are large numbers of the population that would love to visit Kew or either have never heard about us or don't see Kew as a place for them. So we've set down a target to increase tenfold the number of visitors from underrepresented communities to the gardens. And one of the ways that we've done this straight away is to introduce a one pound ticket for people who were on universal credit or pension credit, and that's to remove the economic barrier to visiting.
Julia Willison: To date, around 50 - 60,000 people have taken advantage of the initiative in 18 months. However, we have a very ambitious director and he feels that we should be able to dial this up to about 100,000 per year. So that requires us then to go out specifically targeting people who are on universal credit and pension credit and say, "Look, we want you to come to Kew." But on top of this, we also run a range of programmes specifically for people who face barriers to Kew. And that's not only economic, that could be social barriers, psychological or physical barriers. That's priority four, which I think we're going to go into more about some of that.
Kelly Molson: Three and four we're going to focus on.
Julia Willison: Yeah. So the fifth one is influencing national and international opinion and policy. So in order to do that, we need to encourage debate and shape decision making. And Kew works with a lot of policymakers. Kew is a large institution.
Julia Willison: We've got about 1400 staff that work at Kew and 800 volunteers. We have lots of different teams and departments. We do have a department that focuses specifically on working with government and policy makers. And the idea is to support them, to provide the evidence that Kew brings to the table so that people can make well informed decisions. One example is about Tropical Important Plant Areas, those TIPA for short. Kew is working with six countries across the globe and the idea is to work with partners in the countries to help them identify important plant areas so that these areas will then be conserved. That involves an enormous amount of negotiation, discussion, and to date there's three TIPAs that have already been established, so that's really important for conservation of those areas.
Julia Willison: And, of course, we work closely with Defra, that's our sponsoring department in the UK government, and they've recently asked you to take the leading role as a strategic science lead for a new institution, I suppose, that has been set up. It’s not a physical institution. It’s a consortium. It’s been called the Global Centre on Biodiversity for Climate. So what Kew will do is write the research strategy that will define the key themes for funding calls that will be given money, and then the projects that will then provide the evidence to feed into policies that will then help make decisions about the impact of biodiversity on climate and people's livelihoods. So that's a really significant thing that Kew's done.
Kelly Molson: This is such an eye opener for myself, having been a visitor to Kew, appreciated the beautiful gardens and the plants that you have there, but actually really having no idea about all of the things that happen in the background. So this is just like you say, the attraction is just one very small part of this huge organisation. There's so much that you do. I hope this is eye opening for people that are listening to this as well, because there's a lot going on here. The points from the manifesto, the key priorities for manifesto are, I mean, each one of them you could take and break down into a different podcast episode. What we're going to talk about is points three and four. We're going to focus on those today.
Kelly Molson: So point 3 was to train the next generation of experts, and point 4 was to extend our reach. We're going to focus on them because there's a huge desire at Kew to improve inclusivity, and so we're going to kind of break down what is happening within those points to actually help support do that. So you said that one of the key changes that Kew has committed to achieving by 2030, I think this is to increase tenfold the number of visitors from the presently underrepresented communities to the gardens. And obviously the gardens facilitate the start of that learning journey. Right. That it's exposing people to, I guess, a world that they might not be familiar with, plants that they definitely won't be familiar with, or even just certain job roles that they might not have thought was for them.
Kelly Molson: How do you begin to change the kind of views and attitudes from the general public who don't think that Kew is for them, a place for them in the first place?
Julia Willison: Well, our aim is to break down that perception. So I think one of the things that has happened to be able to start on this journey is an organisational commitment to include everyone and bringing everybody on board, that we are really intent, we really want to do this. So that's involved training our visitor facing staff and our volunteers so that they provide a warm welcome to anyone, regardless of their background. We've trained our staff in accessibility and safeguarding and then diversity and inclusion. And this year we will roll out more diversity and inclusion training to staff across all areas of the organisation. So when people come here, it's making sure that they feel safe and they feel represented in the gardens. But just providing a welcome is not going to be sufficient.
Julia Willison: We do need to reach out and connect with different communities to tell them that Kew exists. We have people visiting Kew from our local boroughs that have never heard of us, which is extraordinary, really. So we really try and encourage them to visit. So we have teams of staff who, in different teams, will visit the different groups and they'll run workshops with the groups at their venues so that groups can find out about Kew before they visit. They realise that the people that come to visit them are really quite friendly and really excited about them coming to Kew. And also, people have said that Kew is a very large place when you come here. I mean, people come and visit Kew, they come for a day, but you never see everything at Kew for a day.
Julia Willison: So people feel that it can be a bit intimidating, especially if they've not visited before. So when we bring people on site for the first time, when we've made connections with community groups or other teams, what we do is we'll offer a programme or a tour, so that when they come to visit us, that they make them feel comfortable about returning on their own.
Kelly Molson: Sure. So it gives them that level of familiarity by doing the tour that they can then come back and explore. They can do that again, or they could go and explore the different areas that were particularly appealing to them.
Julia Willison: Yeah. So we have all sorts of different programmes and we have a community access scheme as well as the one pound ticket. We have community access scheme. So any groups that provide services to people who face barriers from visiting Kew, which I said earlier, sensory, psychological, social barriers, they can join our community access scheme and they can get 60 tickets for 36 pounds. So that works out about 60 pence a ticket and they can always top up as they go along. And then as part of the scheme, they all receive a newsletter and that informs them about the community activities that we run. So that's another way of connecting groups to feel that Kew is a place for them to come and visit.
Kelly Molson: That's lovely. I was going to ask about the community access scheme and what initiatives have been formed to kind of support the organisations to do that, because I guess it's one thing the welcome is great, right. But that means that people have to come and get the welcome. So there's so much outreach that has to be done to bring the people to you in the first place. So the community access scheme, what kind of organisations would that be relevant for?
Julia Willison: All sorts. We have about 350 members on our access scheme. When I first started at Kew, most of those groups, there were fewer number of groups, but most of those groups were, I would say, for third age people, different groups, but mainly servicing older people. Now we've got all sorts of groups, so we've got LGBT+ groups, we have deaf groups, asian women's groups. We have a whole different range of groups that see Kew as a place that they could join and come and bring with their members. And one of the things that we do run is continuing professional development training for group leaders, specifically for those leaders, so that they then feel confident to come to Kew with their groups on their own and will provide resources for them to use in the landscapes and enjoy with Kew.
Kelly Molson: And that adds to that, I guess, like what you were saying earlier about, you want this to be the start of the journey. You need it to be the start of the journey for those groups as well, don't. You don't want to encourage them to come along once and that's like a box that they've ticked. They've done Kew. You want them to come back and keep reengaging with the environment there. So that's brilliant to then be able to train those leaders to take that bit on themselves.
Julia Willison: I was just to say, a few years ago, we started a community open week, which is a free week for community groups, any community groups across London. In fact, some groups come from further afield, but we put on a range of workshops and tours during that week for groups to come and just experience Kew and the idea is, if we can, is to try and encourage them to sign up to the access scheme and continue, as you say, the journey and come back and find out more.
Kelly Molson: I guess that's the community access scheme. And obviously you've got kind of partnerships going ongoing with kind of local community. What about national community groups? So how do you kind of expand your remit into the wider audience of people that aren't located near Kew?
Julia Willison: Yeah. That's a good question because that costs money, doesn't it, for them to come to Kew. So we have had people come from Birmingham and people can join. We've initially contained it within the M25, so a lot of people coming within the M25, but we've just removed that barrier now, I mean, it didn't need to be there. And we have seen some people, some groups coming from outside. We don't have bursaries to be able to provide, sadly, to groups to come to Kew. They are, of course, very welcome. I think one of the things is that we've just brought somebody on board this year who is doing some more community outreach to going out and trying to connect with new groups to visit Kew and part of that will involve producing some marketing materials that can then travel further than just our confines.
Julia Willison: So we'll see. We may then receive other groups in from much further afield, which would be great. And also Wakehurst, our sister site, has set up a community access scheme as well, so they will hopefully then encourage those organisations and groups in further south of London.
Kelly Molson: Amazing. How is Kew helping to remove barriers and improve access to nature for children and families, both kind of on site and off site?
Julia Willison: We've been running an early years programme since about 2018. Before that, we had a family programme and we've made connections with children's centres in our local boroughs. Every borough, every county in the UK will have a children's centre or multiple children's centres. And the aim of the children's centres is to try and help those families that may slip through the net to be able to ensure that they don't. And so what we have done is we have a recent project which is to work with children's centres in London and we're working in five boroughs with different about ten children's centres. And the team is going to the children's centres running nature based play sessions in the children's centres. And then over the summer, we invite the families to come to Kew. We give them funding to do that.
Julia Willison: We refund their travel, we run activities on site and then later in the year, we've been running training sessions specifically for the children's centre leaders so that they can then take this work forward when Kew has to step back from going to the children's centres. And we've got this project running for about three or four years now, which is great. But on top of this, we also run on site sessions for early years and half of them are paid for sessions for those families that can afford to pay for earlier sessions. And then the money that we use from that, we then subsidise those families from children's centres, community groups that can't afford to pay. So we try and get a balance, because we don't ourselves have an endless pot of money and we're constantly looking for funding to try and support this work.
Kelly Molson: It's really hard, isn't it, to get that balance right. There is a commercial aspect here, right. You have to make money to be able to do all of these incredible projects and initiatives that you have, but you also need the funding to be able to support the incredible initiatives that you're running, to be able to allow everybody access to it. So it's like a vicious circle. What about schools outreach? How are you kind of broadening your reach to engage all schools? And how does that become more inclusive against the manifesto?
Julia Willison: So we've been very intent on saying that we want to extend our reach to embrace all schools, sort of all schools in different areas, but also, at the moment, we have about 60, 70. Well, it's now changed to 60% of pupils that come on site are from primary schools. We want to increase the number of secondary school pupils that we engage with. Children make career decisions around their GCSEs and their A levels, and many children from certain schools from more deprived areas will go for general science rather than triple science. And all the research shows that if children choose triple science, they're more likely to do science at a levels. So looking to try and influence those children in their career choices is important for us. And that means that we want to increase the number of secondary schools that we engage with.
Julia Willison: And we also have an intent on increasing the number of schools that have higher pupil premium, because in London, pupil premium is, you probably know, is that those children who are generally on those children, on free school meals, the school will receive a bursary from the government to try and reduce the attainment gap between those children on free school meals and those children on not.
Julia Willison: So we have had bursaries, we don't have any at the moment, but we have had bursaries then to attract specifically those schools on much higher pupil premium, and we've shifted the dial on this and we have higher numbers of schools with higher pupil premium students and those schools, then we try to influence and think about science as a possible aspect that they can consider further in their careers. So, in planning permission at the moment, we're looking at building a new learning centre at Kew, which would be really exciting. And we're going through ecology reports at the moment before we can get the planning permission through.
Julia Willison: But part of the learning centre will include four science laboratories, and so pupils can come on site to Kew will be able to come on site to queue and do science experiments in the heart of a scientific organisation. And all pupils doing GCSE and A levels have to do practical science experiments. We know from all the research that teachers don't necessarily feel confident in teaching about plants. So this is something that Kew really can uniquely offer schools to come to Kew and bring their pupils and get hands on with plant and fungal science experiments.
Kelly Molson: Oh my goodness. That would be incredible.
Julia Willison: Yes. And also it will provide us with the facilities to be able to do CPD online as well. So that's something that we're really keen to do.
Kelly Molson: That's a really interesting side of this, is because I know that one of your goals is to engage with all schools. Now, all schools aren't local to Kew. My school definitely wasn't local to Kew. So how do you do that? How do you make that jump from engaging with local schools that can actually access the site? What can you do digitally that can engage with more schools and more people, regardless of location?
Julia Willison: And one of the reasons that we are committed to engaging with all schools is because Kew is a national institution and we are funded partly. About 28% of our funding comes from the government, so it's paid for by taxes by people all over the country. So our commitment is to make our resources as available as widely as possible. And so we have an online programme called Endeavour, and that's a bank of resources specifically for teachers on all sorts of different. It's strongly linked to the national curriculum, but all sorts of different activities that teachers can use then to teach about plant science and fungi. But it straddles the natural curriculum not only in science, but for the primary ages.
Julia Willison: It will also look at history, it will look at geography, et cetera, so that we can try and make our resources as relevant as possible to teachers.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, that is a phenomenal resource that maybe more teachers need to hear about that. I think I would have been really excited. I did do Science at school. I can remember. I'd have been really excited about doing something that was connected to Kew Gardens. There's quite a big buzz about that, you know what I mean? I don't know why there's a connection to that organisation that I think would have been really exciting to know that you were working on something that had been created by Kew.
Julia Willison: That's nice to hear that. We have a youth programme, which I'm very proud of. I think that the youth team is phenomenal, as are all the teams, but we run a youth explainer programme and that's on site, and young people come for a training programme every Saturday for six months and they go behind the scenes. They meet the horticulturist scientists and they learn communication skills. And what they do is we bring a game designer on site and they learn how to design their own game to play with the public about endangered plants or habitats. And the young people have to work together in groups and they produce this game. And then six months after, once they've finished their training, they then become explainers in the glass houses.
Julia Willison: And the public, actually, they love interacting with young people and they bring a real buzz about it. So that's been a very successful programme. And on the back of this, we've developed a young environmental leader award. And the idea is that young people will develop their project and they will evidence different dimensions of leadership through their project. So they'll keep a portfolio and they have to evidence how they've developed their leadership skills during this journey. And then we award them with a young environmental leader award, and that's something that we do in house. But then the possibility is then to scale that, to make that available to young people outside Kew as well.
Kelly Molson: That would be incredible, wouldn't it? Yeah, that would be a really special thing to be involved in. Okay, so we said earlier we're recording this. It's January 2024. Wow. How is Kew delivering against the manifesto after its first full two years?
Julia Willison: Well, Kew is nothing if not ambitious. There is a real strong commitment to ending the extinction crisis. I mean, we can't do this alone and we have to do it in partnership. But I would say that we're firmly on the way to achieving many of the deliverables in the manifesto. And there's a real. People have really bought into. The staff have really bought into the manifesto, and you see that through. We run a staff survey every year and ask for feedback about whether what people think about the manifesto, do they feel their work is contributing to delivering it? And we get very high scores on that consistently we have since the manifesto was published. One of the deliverables in there is to revision the Palm House that I sit opposite in my office.
Julia Willison: And we want that to become net zero and engage new generations with science and conservation work and make our data available to everyone. So we are moving towards that. And we've got some seed funding to be able to do this. I'd say that the bricks are in place and the foundations have been laid, and much of the work requires external funding and partnerships. But we have a vision, and I think people and organisations recognise what Kew's work is as vital. And I don't think that's overstating it, but that helps to open doors for support. So I think we're moving forwards, and I think there's a very positive feel about the work that we're doing. We're very fortunate.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it sounds very positive. And like we said earlier, there's so much to cover in this, Julia, and thank you for coming on and just talking about a very small element of all of the incredible things that are actually happening at Kew. So we always end our podcast by asking our guests to recommend a book that you love, something that you love personally or something that's helped shaped your career in some way. What have you chosen for us today?
Julia Willison: Well, I chose a book that is a phenomenal book and by a woman who is phenomenal, and it is related to my work. But I chose the book because I think it is so inspirational. It's a book called Finding the Mother Tree: Discovering the Wisdom of the Forest by Suzanne Simard. And we awarded her the 16th Kew International Medal for her work and her devotion to championing biodiversity in forests. She's worked in British Columbia all her life in Canada, and she was the pioneer of the theory that plants communicate with each other through a huge subterranean fungal network. And the book reveals how trees connect and cooperate with each other, and that each forest contains hub trees. So mother trees. And that these trees in the forest play a critical role in the flow of information and resources.
Julia Willison: So I feel that the book will change the way people look at forests. They're not simply a source for timber or pulp, but they are really part of a complex, interdependent circle of life. And I think it's a magnificent book. Well, if one reader reads it and enjoys it, I think that will be brilliant.
Kelly Molson: Do you know what? I have to read this book. So this is the second podcast, interestingly, where. Oh, not the book. The book has never been recommended before. No, this is a completely new one. So David Green, Head of Innovation at Blenheim, was on the podcast a couple of episodes ago, and he talked about how trees communicate with each other, and that was a new thing for me. I had no idea that trees talk to each other, and the way that he described it was really interesting. And now this has come up in this as well. And I feel like someone is sending me a message that I need to read this book. So that's going to go top of my list, right.
Kelly Molson: Erveryboday, listeners, you know what to do if you want to win a copy of Julia's book, then head over to our Twitter account and retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Julia's book and you could potentially be learning about how trees communicate with each other and are a vital part of an ecosystem. Thank you. That's fascinating. Everything that you've talked about today is so exciting, and I know that there's so much work still to be done. Thank you for coming on and sharing about all of the things that you do there and all of the things that you're hoping to achieve. I have no doubt that you will do them. It's been an absolute pleasure.
Julia Willison: Yeah, it's a real privilege. Thank you very much, Kelly. Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
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Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we'll talk about how you can make your site more interactive and the tasks and costs associated with that.
You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hello. Back for a fourth time.
Paul Marden: Hello.
Kelly Molson: What attraction have you visited most recently, and what did you love about it?
Paul Marden: Do I go first? I always go first.
Kelly Molson: We've got a format now. Don't break the format. I'm comfortable.
Paul Marden: I went to the Titanic Museum just recently. We were exhibiting, actually, at the Association of Science and Discovery Centres at their annual conference in Belfast, which was actually at W5 in the Titanic quarter of Belfast. And I could talk loads about W5, which I will do in another session. But the place that I went to that I was most kind of emotionally moved by which I'm a bit of a geek and I'm fairly concrete in terms of my emotional stuff, for me to feel moved.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's normally me that's got the blubbing.
Paul Marden: Yeah. So I was blown away by the experience at the Titanic Museum. I've never been to a museum with so few artefacts, which, of course, is because everything was lost at sea. And so the whole museum is about telling the story through reproductions and immersive experiences, which was all amazing. But then you stumble upon one of the original artefacts as you're wandering around, and there's only a handful of them, but it hit me like a brick wall when I actually came across them. So there's a life jacket. There's only twelve of those left in existence, and they've got one of them at the museum. And you walk into this room, where all of the names of the victims of this tragedy are on this massive wall. And it's a darkened room, but lit in the centre of the room was this one life jacket.
Paul Marden: Amazing. And then you walk around and there's a section talking about the root cause of the accident. And there are the keys to the binocular store from the crow's nest, which happened to be in the second officer's pocket. And he had to get off the ship in Southampton and he didn't get back on, and so there were no keys. And so the people that were in the crow's nest couldn't open the box with the binoculars that would have led them to see the iceberg.
Kelly Molson: Wow. What a story. That wasn't in the film.
Paul Marden: No, it wasn't in the film. So it's really impactful. And then the storytelling was amazing, but completely lost on me. So I was chatting to. I made a new friend, Lucinda Lewis, the CEO of Catalyst Science and Discovery Centre, and we would, like, both say how amazing it was, how impactful it was. And she was like, "Yeah, and the dominoes." And I'm like, "Dominoes? What dominoes?"
Paul Marden: And she was like, "Did you not see when you were looking at all of the root causes, they wrote them on these big pillars that were toppling, showing you the domino effect." I was like, "Okay, yeah, that was completely lost on me."
Kelly Molson: So lesson for you is you need to pay more attention to the interpretation next time.
Paul Marden: Completely clueless to the subtext of what was going on around me. But the story was amazing.
Kelly Molson: Story is really cool. Yeah. I have never heard that before. That's really impressive. I think that picture that you painted of all the names with the one kind of life jacket in the middle of it is so powerful. I can see it in my head, but I've never seen it.
Paul Marden: That was only one of a dozen kind of really powerful memories that I've got of being just blown away by their storytelling and how they communicated what happened. It was just an amazing place.
Kelly Molson: Nice. I've got it. I missed that I couldn't make it to the conference this year because I was elsewhere.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. What have you been doing recently? Where have you been?
Kelly Molson: So this is a very recent one, literally last week, last Thursday, I was very kindly invited to go and visit the Ashmolean Museum, which is a free to enter museum. But what I really liked is they have a very large donations area as you first walk in and you've got card donations. Beep. So easy. I never have cash, so that was a big thumbs up for me. The museum is brilliant. I mean, it has some brilliant exhibitions in it that are there. They're always there. But I was really keen to go and see their colour revolution exhibition, which is all around Victorian art, fashion and design. Some of you might not know this about me, but I was a graphic designer in the past, actually. Probably. Actually, loads of you people know about that. Loads.
Kelly Molson: I was a graphic designer once upon a time and I was a packaging designer and just design and colour. And also I've got a real passion for kind of interior design as well. So all of these things just, I have a big love of. So this exhibition for me was like, "This is the one. This is a big tick." What I found really fascinating is that Victorian Britain has this kind of connotation of being really dull and dreary, and the exhibition was kind of exploring that. It's absolutely incorrect, but they start with Queen Victoria's morning dress, which is a really powerful image. So after Prince Albert's sudden death, she plunged into a very deep grief. And she actually wore. I didn't know this. She wore black for the remaining 40 years of her life. I had no idea that she.
Kelly Molson: I mean, I knew she mourned for a really long time. I had no idea she never wore another colour again. So she's obviously such an iconic image, an iconic person of that era, that image probably sticks with you, which is why it adds to that illusion of Victorian’s love in the dark completely. But they didn't they really love colour. And they love to experiment with it. And they have a big thing about insects and animals and bringing that into the colours that they wore. And the jewellery, like, some of the jewellery, like this beetle necklace, was just incredible. And there is a lot of. I know that they have a lot of that in their kind of fabrics and their kind of artwork from that time as well. But what I really loved is really small artefact in the museum that I totally loved. So it was a very early colour chart, like a paint sample colour chart. So this is quite current for me at the minute.
Kelly Molson: My office is full of furnishings because we're renovating a cottage in Norfolk and it's not ready, but I've had to order all the things for it or find them off Facebook Marketplace and eBay and charity shops and vintage places and my office. So colour chart and all of that kind of stuff is, like, right up here at the moment. But anyway, there was an 1814 Scottish artist called Patrick Syme, and he tried to solve the problem of how to describe colour by giving each one of them a name. But he draw nature to do this. So you have, like, mole's breath now from Barrow and ball and lighting green and those kind of stuff. Well, this is where this started in the Victorian age, so it's absolutely beautiful. I posted it on my LinkedIn.
Kelly Molson: But this colour chart is just gorgeous and it gives a number for each colour. So number 54. Its name was Duck green. The animal that it was named after is the neck of Mallard. I actually thought the colour was neck of Mallard, which I was like, that's absolutely brilliant. The vegetable that it was similar to is the upper disc of yew leaves, and the mineral is. I don't know if I'm going to pronounce this Ceylanite and I Googled it isn't green. I had no idea what ceylanite is, but it's not green.
Paul Marden: Yeah, I'd struggle to identify a yew tree, let alone the upper disc green of a yew tree's leaf.
Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. Honestly, I loved it. I loved every minute of it. It was really interesting. And that for me was like, I know it's a really small artefact, but it was the standout one for me because it just connected with some of it is so current for me at the moment. It was £15 pounds to go and see this exhibition and that is money well spent. It's open now until the 18th of Feb 2024. So totally get yourselves along to visit that. And also their restaurant and food is top notch.
Paul Marden: Was it good? Was it really okay?
Kelly Molson: We'll talk about that another time.
Paul Marden: We've done a few of the Oxford Uni museums, but we've not done the Ashmolean yet, so that needs to be on my list of places to go.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely worth a little visit. Okay. Right. We're going to talk about interactivity today. Making your website more interactive can improve engagement which is more likely to improve your conversion rate. But very few attractions have interactive elements, which is quite surprising, actually. So we're going to talk about how you can make your site a bit more interactive and immersive. So one, the stat from the survey is that, 53% of visitor attractions survey don't have any interactive elements on their websites.
Kelly Molson: So that's like. I'm quite surprised about that because during the pandemic, went all in on interactivity. We had to. It was the only way that you could kind of get people to your site and get people engaged in what you were doing. And we're talking about things like virtual tours, interactive maps, or even just integrating video and audio on your site is a way of making it interactive as well. So, yeah, I was quite surprised that it was so low, actually.
Paul Marden: Yeah, it surprised me as well, because a lot of the people that we talk to want that kind of interactive content added into their sites.
Kelly Molson: Do you think. And I'm not trying to make us idiots here again, because we did enough of that on the last episode, but do you think that people understand that video and audio is an interactive element?
Paul Marden: That's a good point.
Kelly Molson: Or is our expectation of it to be more. Because audio and video, do we see that as a standard thing now? We don't see that as a special element.
Paul Marden: That could be absolutely true. And we talked a lot about things that we could do to improve the survey for next time. There's a real risk, isn't there? Because you could ask a lot more very detailed questions. Do you have a virtual tour? Do you have an interactive map? Do you have video and audio on your site? And now, all of a sudden, we've gone from one question to three questions, and we're asking too much of everybody when they fill stuff in, so you end up having to have broader questions, but those broader questions themselves become a little ambiguous. So maybe there's an element of. It could be that there's a bunch of people in that 53% of people that don't have interactivity, that may have stuff that is video or audio that we would consider to be interactive, but they don't.
Kelly Molson: Do you think as well, that because life has gone back to relative normality for the majority of us, that we just are not engaging with those things as much, or they just not seem to be as relevant anymore?
Paul Marden: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it? We talk about audience personas and trying to personalise the site to give people exactly the content that's relevant to them. Who is the target audience for the virtual tour? Is the target audience for a virtual tour the people that are going to come visit? Is it a way of enticing people to come and physically come on site? Is it a way of extending the reach of the attraction, or let's say it's a cultural or museum kind of setting? Is it a way for them to extend the reach of their collection to people that can't come. Understanding what the interactivity is there for and how it enables the audience to achieve the goal that they're trying to achieve. And for the clients, the attraction themselves, to be able to achieve what their goal is for that audience group is interesting.
Paul Marden: Interactivity for its own sake doesn't help anyone if you're not really thought about why you're putting it there.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I was just trying to think. I've got a really good case study of this and I've forgotten the name of the place. I want to talk about it, but I've forgotten the name of it, so I'll give you an explanation of it instead. Years ago, so. Oh, God, I think this is. In 2015, Lee and I went to Australia on holiday. Lee actually asked me to marry him in Australia at Ayers Rock. It was very romantic.
Paul Marden: Oh, wow.
Kelly Molson: But one of the best, I should say that was the best trip, obviously, that was the best trip, but one of the other best trips that went on while were there. When were in Melbourne, I've gone to the island and I've forgotten the name of the island. It's come off totally out of my head. But went to see the little penguins, so the penguin parade that comes in. These penguins come in to shore every night and you can go and watch them come in. It's like an army of miniature penguins. And it genuinely is the most magical thing I've ever seen in my whole life. And you can't take photos because it hurts their eyes. So you're immersing yourself into this experience and it's all up here in my head.
Kelly Molson: Well, during the pandemic, they started live broadcasting it on Facebook and I was like, "Shut up. This is amazing." Because it's an expensive trip back to Australia, but I'd love to do that again. I would absolutely 100% go back and do that again. But this was like a magical opportunity to see it in my home office and watch it as well. So those kind of opportunities, I think, are pretty magical.
Paul Marden: You reminded me of in the middle of lockdown, I was obsessed by watching the webcam at Monterey Bay Aquarium.
Kelly Molson: I just got something else that got obsessed about a few weeks ago, which is I watched the webcam Sandringham have got. No, is it Sandringham or Balmoral? One of them have got a webcam with the Red Squirrels. I think it's Balmoral. And I got absolutely, totally obsessed with it. Had it on in the corner of the screen just while I was working, just going, "Is it there yet? Is it back yet? Red squirrel. Red squirrel."
Paul Marden: I think it might be. The two of us were looking at penguins and sea otters during the height of the pandemic when were desperate to travel. Now, watching Red squirrels on a webcam might be, might not have the same justification for the rest of your day's life.
Kelly Molson: It's really cool. It's really cool. You don't get to see red squirrels very often.
Paul Marden: No, you don't.
Kelly Molson: Anyway, apologies went off on a total tangent, but you can see, look, we've got really animated about this, so you can totally see the value of having those kind of experiences on your website and being to engage with different audiences.
Paul Marden: Should we do a stat? Should we talk about some numbers?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, what's the benefits?
Paul Marden: Yeah. So HubSpot again. We talk about HubSpot data all the time. But HubSpot found that interactive content like quizzes, assessments and polls can increase time spent on a website by 80%. That one's lifted straight out of the survey that we put into there. But there's some more. The Content Marketing Institute shows that 81% of marketers agreed that interactive content grabbed more attention than static content. But that chimes with the data that we gathered from people, doesn't it? Because a lot of people do think that this is important stuff. Maybe not quite to the same level that the Content Marketing Institute found, but obviously people in the results set from our survey thought that this was important.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think it depends on what that interactive content is. So, interestingly, when we did the live webinar for the report, we had someone on the webinar mention that they were a bit worried about distraction. So we talk a lot about focusing people's attention on the job in hand, which is ultimately showcase what your attraction does, get them to buy a ticket. And this person said, are we distracting them from those journeys by doing that? But I don't know if it's part of the purchase journey. I think it might be post purchase. It feels for me like post purchase, getting them to come back and engage in your site, repeat visit stuff, just those things around quizzes and assessment and polls and stuff like that. And also this example that I just gave about the little penguins.
Kelly Molson: I absolutely will go back to that place one day and being able to engage with it keeps it front and centre of my mind to go. When we go back to Australia, I'm going to take my kid to see that because she will love it. I'll make sure she loves it. And I don't know if it's part of the first point of engagement. I think it's post purchase engagement.
Paul Marden: That's interesting. Yeah. What the problems say?
Kelly Molson: Anyway, problems? Sustainability.
Paul Marden: Yeah. Shall I share a bugbear of mine that I share regularly in meetings all the time. But a lot of interactive content, especially the stuff that uses video, can be inherently unsustainable. Video uses bandwidth. And a lot of people don't think of the impact that websites can have on CO2 emissions. Yeah, it's a link that I don't think many people make. I certainly didn't until there's been a lot of talk around in our industry about this in the last couple of years and it's really opened my eyes up. It's easy to understand if you work for an airline, you can see the CO2 emissions coming out the back of the plane, but if you build websites, you don't see it necessarily, but video consumes bandwidth and bandwidth takes all of these things, the compute power to produce the video and publish it out onto the Internet.
Paul Marden: And then to shift all of that data across the Internet ultimately uses energy, and that energy comes at the cost of producing CO2. So one of the obvious ways, if we're just talking about video itself, because video is one kind of more interactive element, avoiding autoplaying videos, which is my absolute bugbear when you land on a home page of a website. And the video autoplays that for me, now that my eyes have been opened to the impact of it, I only used to see the conversion rate benefit, but now the cost associated with that is clear in my mind. And I think if we can avoid doing that and find other ways to increase conversion, I think that's really important. But also doing things to make sure that we understand what the sustainability impact of the web pages that we produce.
Paul Marden: So as we make our web pages more complex, they will produce more CO2 as a result of doing that. And I think as people become more aware of this, the world is going to change. At the moment, the people that buy from us, this is not something that is front and centre of their minds in the buying process, I think, at the moment. And there's a lot of power in the hands of the marketers and the procurement people to make it so that technical people like us that build things are required to take that sustainability perspective into account when we're building things and making sure that we build things sustainably.
Kelly Molson: And then there's accessibility. So interactive elements can be really great for people that can't visit your site, for one example. However, the digital aspect of that means that you could intentionally put something on your site which actually is less accessible for people who have visual impairments or hearing impairments, for example.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. If you've got video with audio, have you got subtitles? If you've got video, do you have audio descriptions that describe what the video is showing? If you've got an interactive map, how would you provide a more accessible way of being able to see the interactive map? If you've got a 3D, interactive, immersive virtual tour, how will you interact with that? If you can't see it, to interact with it, those are all things that people need to be thinking about. And many of the institutions that we work with will have a statutory obligation to think about it as well. It's not just a nice to have, it's a statutory obligation to do it as well.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, for sure. Okay, so who's doing it well? I think we should just caveat this one by saying that our report and a survey and subsequent report are all anonymous.
Kelly Molson: If we ever share anyone's information, that is, in relation to the report data. We have asked for their express permission. Prior to this. Prior to sharing. In this instant, we've just gone out and found some stuff on people's websites and gone, “We really like this. This is really cool.” So we're not talking about these institutions in relation to survey data?
Paul Marden: No, absolutely. Should we talk about. The first one in our list was Mary Rose Trust. And the Mary Rose Museum has got an amazing array of interactive artefacts that they've listed off the bottom of the seabed and made it available on the website so you can come.
Kelly Molson: With your mouse, you can turn it around. Not with your hand.
Paul Marden: Not yet. The technology isn't quite there yet, but, yeah, you can interact with those artefacts and I think that's pretty amazing for an organisation like them, to be able to share those, because they've got an amazing collection of Tudor artefacts and to be able to share those with the outside world is really impressive. Yeah.
Kelly Molson: So that's like a simple technology where you can kind of 3D model the artefact and you can spin it around and you can click on elements of it that will tell you a little bit about this part of it or where it was found or the condition of it, et cetera. So that is super cool. What was the other one on this list that you were like, “This is great.”
Paul Marden: I really loved the Museum of London's Victorian Walk. It's a 3D tour affair and obviously they've scanned, taken photos and composed this together into this really cool 3D tour system that you can just move around and experience what life is like on a Victorian walk. I was blown away by, you were talking about the colour of Victorian England. Yeah, it was a really colourful experience. So in my mind, it was a bit like going into diagonally in Hogwarts in the Harry Potter world. It felt that kind of side street of London kind of thing. But you really got into it. It was very cool.
Kelly Molson: Oh, that's one for me. So I should go and do that and do a little comparison of how colourful it was based on my Ashmolean experience.
Paul Marden: Absolutely.
Kelly Molson: Okay, next steps that someone can take if they're thinking about stuff like this. So assess what you can do really quickly and easily. So what do we already have?
Paul Marden: Yeah, a lot of people are already going to have stuff, aren't they? So what video have they got? What audio have they got? Were they like Mary Rose and had a bunch of 3D scans of their artefacts that then you can stick into a tool and put onto your website. Obviously, if you've got a large collection and you want to 3D scan everything and put it onto your website, that's not a trivial undertaking, is it? But if you've already got the 3D scans of stuff and you need to then make it available on the website, then the step might be relatively much simpler than scanning your whole collection.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. So have a look through your video, your audio, your 3D elements. What do you already have, what can you make more of? And then what can you easily add to your current site?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. A lot of websites can add video and audio just straight out of the box. I'm going to get a bit geeky and talk about iframes, but essentially an iframe is a little cut out area of your website that you can post a little bit of content into that a lot of different interactive tools on the web will enable you to do so. The 3D models. There's a tool that you can create 3D models of the world in that we've used on a number of different projects. And then you just embed it as an iframe, which is essentially take a URL of your 3D scan and you pop it into your website and it comes out and works on the page as is. It's pretty awesome. And takes so little effort for your developers to be able to add it to the site.
Kelly Molson: Cool. And then think about what you could commission or think about some of the things that you could potentially look at as a larger piece of project work.
Paul Marden: Yeah, I mean, there's a brainstorming exercise, there, isn't there, of trying to get lots of people together and come up with creative ideas and think about what you can do. Some of the other stuff that we've talked about. Easy. Doesn't take a lot of effort. You've got the assets already or it's relatively easy to add them to your site. But what else could you do? That takes a lot of effort and planning.
Kelly Molson: Ask your visitors. Ask people what more they'd like to see.
Paul Marden: Yeah. Figuring out what your audience wants and how do you get them to that is step number one, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Okay, and then what kind of budget are we looking at for some of these things?
Paul Marden: How long is a piece of string kind of question? This one isn't. It's really hard adding interactive maps onto your site that are fully accessible and easy to use. I guess you're looking at a few thousand pounds to be able to do that, potentially less depends on what you want to put into your interactive map, video and audio. If your website already supports it and you got a whole library of this stuff that you want to share with the outside world, it could cost you nothing but the time it takes you to add it to the site. And then you get into some of the more complex elements like the you can imagine that creating a 3D kind of immersive virtual walkthrough, that's not a trivial job.
Paul Marden: If you want to go and photograph an entire exhibit, walk around the whole floor plan of your museum and create an amazing virtual tour. That's going to take some effort, both in terms of getting the right people to turn up with the right kit to be able to do that photography, and then in terms of the technology that's needed to turn that into a virtual tour, and then the effort to embed that into the website itself could be amazing. Probably not a cheap exercise.
Kelly Molson: No, substantial investment, and just need to make sure that you're doing it for the right reasons and for the right audience as well. Also podcast if you are thinking about doing a podcast for your museum or your attraction, which I think is a genius idea, give us a shout and we'd be happy to share some of our kind of top tips.
Kelly Molson: I think we did an episode on it back in the day with Paul Griffith from Painshill Park, who actually, he interviewed me on this podcast and we talked about some of the reasons that we did it, how we set it up, and some of the kind of costumes around that as well. So it's worth having a little bit through, dig through the archive, but if you got any questions on that then yeah, give us a shout. Good chat again today. I enjoyed this.
Paul Marden: Been good, hasn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'll see you next time.
Paul Marden: Thank you. Cheers, mate. Bye.
Kelly Molson: Bye bye.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 29th March 2024. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
David Green | LinkedIn
https://www.blenheimpalace.com/
Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace
David Green is responsible for driving innovation at Blenheim to deliver value from the implementation of novel business methods and new concepts. His role involves building a culture of continual improvement and innovation, bringing together and contextualising novel datasets through a data and IoT network infrastructure, and identifying opportunities to enhance customer experiences.
David leads the research and development at Blenheim, cultivating university partnerships, that helps fuse specialised knowledge with Blenheim's diverse landscape and practical challenges. Moreover, he initiated the Innovation and Continual Improvement network, fostering collaboration among sector leads to share expertise and address common challenges.
Joseph Paul | LinkedIn
https://vennersys.co.uk/
Associate Director – Key Account Manager
With 10 years of experience in SaaS Account Management and 6 years at Vennersys, Joe works closely with visitor attractions to optimise system performance and internal processes. He acts as a conduit between attraction managers and Vennersys, helping facilitate constructive communication to further develop and improve Vennersys’ own services based on customer needs or industry trends.
In his personal life, Joe can either be found playing hockey for his local club or taking long, refreshing walks in the hills and fields near his home.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
On today’s episode I speak with David Green, Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace and Joseph Paul, Associate Director - Key Account Manager at Vennersys.
We’re talking about data - but not just the importance of it (we all know that right?). David and Joe share the exciting data and AI reporting systems that Blenheim have created, allowing them to predict, and not just report on past performance.
This is a really interesting episode and if you’re been a little bit put off or a little bit scared about AI up until this point, this might be the episode that changes your mind.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue.
Kelly Molson: David, Joe, it is lovely to have you both on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me on Skip the Queue.
David Green: It's great to be here.
Joseph Paul: Thanks for having us.
Kelly Molson: That sounded very positive, guys. Thanks. Feel the enthusiasm.
David Green: Let's see how the first question goes, shall we?
Kelly Molson: Listen, everyone worries about these icebreaker questions. It's just we're just in a pub, in a coffee shop having a little chat. That's all it is. Right, I want to know. We'll start with you, Joe. What was the last thing you binge watched on your streaming service of choice?
Joseph Paul: Gosh, that's a very good question. The last series we binge watch was a series called Bodies on Netflix, which is about a murder that happens in four different time periods and four detectives are trying to solve the murder. Very good if you haven't watched it.
Kelly Molson: I have seen this and Joe, it hurt my head a little bit.
Joseph Paul: Yeah. It is hard to keep track of some of the plots through the different times, but there's a very good ending worth watching if you haven't, David?
David Green: I don’t think I have. I didn't get a chance to watch TV.
Kelly Molson: So same question to you, David. That's a really good series as well, Joe. I thoroughly enjoyed that, although it did hurt the backwards forwards bit a little bit, was a bit mind blowing. Same question to you, David. What was the last thing that you binge watched?
David Green: Well, the last thing I probably binge watched was probably Breaking Bad. That just sort of shows you how long ago it was. I binge watched anything, but I'm desperate to watch it again. It was so good. I was just hooked on the first episode. I just loved every single minute of that.
Kelly Molson: Have you seen that, Joe?
Joseph Paul: Yes. Very good series. Probably one of the best of all time. And the question back would be, have you watched Better Call Saul?
David Green: Yeah, but I didn't find it as good. I say I didn't find as good. It was still great. I'm very fussy in the Greenhouse song.
Kelly Molson: I feel like I'm the only person in the whole world who's not watched Breaking Bad, which is this is quite controversial, isn't it? Everybody says that I would love it and I should watch it, but I feel overwhelmed that there's so many series to it and it would take up all of my TV viewing time for months and months. It would be the only thing that I could probably watch for the entire year and that feels too much.
Joseph Paul: It's well worth it. Absolutely. You should do it.
Kelly Molson: Dedicate 2024 as the year for Breaking Bad.
David Green: I'm going to own up. I've not watched a single episode of The Crown either and some of it was filmed at Blenheim. So I'm really embarrassed to admit that on this podcast.
Kelly Molson: That is a statement in a half, David. See, this is why I do the icebreakers. You never know what dirt you're going to get out. David, we're going to start with you with this one. What is the one food or drink that you cannot eat and you can't even think about without feeling a little bit queasy?
David Green: That's cheese pastry straight away. I remember when I was at school, we had a home economics club. I remember making these cheese straws and I took them home and I was so environmentally ill after these cheese straws ever since, I just can't even look at cheese pastry. All these nibbles that people without for drinks can't bear it. Cheese and pastry together is wrong.
Kelly Molson: This is really sad. I love a little cheese straw. I feel sad for you that you can't eat a cheese straw, David. I feel sad for you. Joe, what about you?
Joseph Paul: I can pretty much eat anything and I'm not overly put off by much. I think the one thing that turns me away from food is horseradish and any sauce. That's probably my only sort of food that I won't go to and puts me off eating anything that has.
Kelly Molson: Just horseradish or sauce in general. Are we talking like, sweet chilli dip? No?
Joseph Paul: Just horseradish. So anything that has that in it, I will stay away from. But apart from that, I'll pretty much eat anything anyone puts on my plate.
David Green: I think you're missing out, Joe.
Kelly Molson: Do you know what's probably really nice as well? Is a cheese straw with horseradish.
Joseph Paul: But cheese straws are the best.
David Green: I'm going to have to leave the room in a minute. We could talk about cheese straw.
Kelly Molson: Sorry. All right, let's move on from that. Right, I want to know I was quite kind to those ones. I want to know what your unpopular opinions are. Joe, let's start with you.
Joseph Paul: Not sure this is going to go down too well, but my unpopular opinion is Harry Potter is an overrated film series.
Kelly Molson: Books or films or both?
Joseph Paul: Films, predominantly.
Kelly Molson: Wow. I mean, my husband would absolutely agree with you. So I got him to watch the first one and then we got halfway through the second one and he paused it and looked at me and said, "Kelly, I just can't do this. Sorry." And left the room. That was it. Done.
Joseph Paul: I can understand. So in our household, we alternate between Harry Potter and Lord of the Rings. So we compromise. We have a Harry Potter, then a Lord of the Rings, then go through.
Kelly Molson: Is your partner Harry Potter, then?
Joseph Paul: My wife is very much a Harry Potter fan.
Kelly Molson: Interesting. That is quite controversial. How do you feel about that, David?
David Green: Very disappointing. Joe, actually.
Joseph Paul: Sorry to let you down.
David Green: We might have to end this now, Joe.
Kelly Molson: This beautiful relationship that we're going to talk about. End over Harry Potter.
David Green: Harry Potter and cheese straws.
Kelly Molson: David, same question to you. What is your unpopular opinion?
David Green: Didn't think I had any unpopular opinions until I started really thinking about it, but I have to say, my original this is really good either, really was dancing, non professional dancing. I mean, I'm not a dancer, I've got a body of a dad. I am a dad and my wife and my daughter are very good dancers and I think it's just years of standing by a bar at a wedding with that person, go, "Come on, get on the dance floor, come on." And they drag you up and then busting moves is probably the wrong description, but it's just looking around the room on the floor with other people sort of bobbing around awkwardly looking, and all the blokes tipped you looking at each other going, "Oh, get me home." It's that awkwardness, I find really difficult and I'm going to be cheeky. And another one, because I just remembered that concerts is another one, so you spend a fortune going to a concert.
David Green: I took my daughter once to Ariana Grande and I'd just been dragged to Arctic Monkeys and we drove hours and hours to this place and my wife had got Rose lead, I think, which was I needed binoculars to even see the stage. I was absolutely freezing, completely freezing. I didn't dress appropriately, I was dressed in a shirt and tied, typically, because that was Arctic Monkeys.
Kelly Molson: You went through a shirt and tied Arctic Monkeys? God said, "Well".
David Green: I remember walking down to the bottom of the stadium, I'm freezing, I have to go and get some clothes, and they let me out and I had to buy Arctic Monkeys merchandise and I came up the steps wearing an Arctic Monkeys hoodie. Number one fan to my wife and daughter, absolutely laughing hilariously.
David Green: And I had to listen to the music for 2 hours and then I got home about three in the morning and my wife had promised me dinner out, went to Wild Bean Cafe at 01:00 A.M. on the way home.
Kelly Molson: What a treat.
David Green: Dancing and concert. Laura just sneaking next to one in.
Kelly Molson: Well, no, I love this. I mean, it's like an elongation of it, isn't it? They go hand in hand. I would be that person at a wedding, they're trying to get you on the dancefloor. Which made me start laughing and then I lost it. Shirt and tie at an Arctic Monkeys gig. What were you thinking?
David Green: I don't know.
Kelly Molson: I think that's my favourite unpopular opinion yet. Amazing. Thank you both for sharing. Shall we talk about some serious stuff?
David Green: Have you cried on a podcast before?
Kelly Molson: Before I've had a cry, I've definitely had a cry on the podcast, but a cry of laughter, I'm not sure that's really got me today. Right, serious stuff. We're going to talk about data today, which is very serious stuff. We all know the importance of data. We've talked about data hundreds and hundreds of times in various different guyses. On this podcast, however, we're going to talk about reporting today, but with a twist. So reporting is often usually about things that have already happened. We're looking at past visitor numbers, we're looking at how many visitors came and how much they spent in the cafe on a particular day, what the weather was like on a past particular day. So we can predict whether it might be like that this year.
Kelly Molson: But Blenheim are doing something completely different with reporting, which, when we had a chat about it prior to this episode, it blew my mind a little bit. And it's such a brilliant case study. You need to share this with the world. Firstly, though, I want you to just, both of us, tell us a little bit about your role and your background. So, Joe, can you start first? Tell us a little bit about your role and how you came into it.
Joseph Paul: Yeah, of course. So I've been in the industry for six years now within the visitor attraction industry, working at Vennersys, and my role is a Key Account Manager. So I work closely with our clients throughout the lifetime of their contracts, so making sure they are getting the most out of the system and that sort of return on investment they've put into the software they've purchased. So I've worked closely with David and the Blenheim team for about six years now, and prior to that, I was also in account management as well, within a software business.
Kelly Molson: Great. David, over to you.
David Green: Variable history with Blenheim. I think next year will be the 30th year when I first walked through the doors. So when I was studying at college, it was my first sort of part time weekend Christmas job, and I was a bubble up for the 11th Duke and Duchess, and that was great. If I got I know stuff.
Kelly Molson: I feel like there's a podcast episode on its own about that part of your career.
David Green: I'm not sure I could speak too much about that, but I remember when I finished college, my mother said, "What are you going to get a proper job?" And the phone rang and I ended up working at Blenheim. Moved into the clock tower at Blenheim. That was my first flat. It was quite incredible, I have to say. But after leaving when I was 21, I just changed direction. So I became a developer, so I learned to programme and I worked for a little agency in Abingdon for two doctors who were both very bright guys. Yeah, I just put the hours in and learned to programme and really, that probably led to where I am today. I learned very quickly to problem solve and learned very quickly how to develop things.
David Green: So when I finally joined Blenheim again, full time enabled me to sort of trial new things very quickly, fail fast. And that kind of led to our first real time reporting platform, which I developed myself.
Kelly Molson: Amazing.
David Green: This was really a combination of seeing that the business had lots of data and seeing that a lot of the data was inputted in manually. So being able to develop something that could contextualise data in a better way, but get people looking at the data in a much faster way, I think that's where it started from.
Kelly Molson: And that is what we're going to talk about today. You've got a really interesting job title. So you're Head of Innovation at Blenheim Palace. Are there many other heads of innovation in the sector? Because there's lots of kind of I mean, ALVA, for instance, brilliant organisation, they do lots of kind of individual meetups. So heads of marketing meetups, CEO meetups, head of visitor service meetups. I haven't seen them do a Head of Innovation meetup yet, so I question how many of you are there?
David Green: I don't think there's very many at all, but the title is becoming more and more known, I think, across multiple sectors. And it was really the sort of creation I was Head of Digital at Lent for eight or nine years, and it was really the creation of Dominic Hare, our CEO, who saw the need for research development. The role is really about hunting for problems, and as much as we're well known for our visitor business, we have a thriving land business and a thriving real estate business. And I get to work across those three tiers, which is really exciting, hunting for problems. I get to work with universities, so we have a really strong university partnership, both at Oxford Brookes and the Oxford University.
David Green: And this really allows us to bring in the latest research academics into a real world environment to solve problems together. So that's really exciting. But then the sort of second thing I work on as Head of Innovation is live data, so I have a data background, so it meant that very quickly I could bring all of our data into one place to drive greater insight. And then the third tier is looking at sort of customer experience changes. So if anyone sees my post on LinkedIn, you'll see we've brought in a new returnable cup scheme of all of our cups are RFID enabled. So looking at eradicating single use cups right the way through to a transformation project around implementing digital wallets and pulses.
David Green: So there's lots of different things right the way through to encouraging our visas to come by green transport, which is very much tied into our 2027 pledge to become carbon neutral.
Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Yeah. That's really interesting that you sit across so many different facets and it's not just about data and reporting and digital, really. So what we're going to talk about today is a particular project that you've both been involved in, and I'm going to kind of split this into two, because there's two areas that I kind of want to focus on. I want to hear about what the project is and all of the things and benefits that it's brought to Blenheim, which David's going to talk about.
Kelly Molson: And then, Joe, I want to then come over to you and talk about how you kind of made this happen from a supplier perspective and the things that you need to work through together with your client and maybe some of the things that you've had to change and implement to be able to support your client, to do the things that they want to do with your system. So, David, I'm going to start with you. Can you give us kind of an overview of what this project is like, the background to it and then what led to that project happening?
David Green: Background is like many organisations in this sector, we have lots and lots of data. Often we report out of proprietary systems, we then contextualise our data very well and I wanted to bring all the information to one area so we could really apply context but also look at in that data. So this sort of built off our first real time reporting platform that were able to get data into the hands of the operations teams, other teams, really quickly. But it wasn't really supportable just by me here at Blenheim. So were looking at one, finding a platform that we could utilise to allow us to get data out to feedball in a much more secure way. I was handling all the visualisations and things and there's better tools for that. So that's one of the reasons.
David Green: The second thing is looking at data, I wanted to try out using AI to identify patterns. So what's the correlation between certain data sources? There's one, a group of visitors wearing wet coats. Does that have an impact on the environmental conditions? What's the optimal number of people that retail space to maximise their understand all those sorts of things were unanswered questions. So I engaged one of our Oxford Brookes relationships that we already had and we applied for what's called a Knowledge Transfer Partnership. So a KTP, which is match funded, that's Innovate UK match funded, and I highly recommend them as a starting point. And what that does, it brings in an associate who works full time.
David Green: This project was, I think, 32 months, but also you get access to different parts of the university and in our case, we had access to the technical faculty as well as the business faculty. So you've got real experts in the field working with an associate that's embedded here, Lennon, that can help us solve that problem. And we're fortunate enough to win the application and the grant money and then we cloud on. So we called it a Smart Visitor Management System. That's the headline and really the two key subsystems of that was the customer insight and prediction. So we wanted to look at how we could predict business numbers. We know all of the knock on impacts of that in terms of better planning, reducing food waste, all those sorts of things. But then we also want to look at the visitor flow.
David Green: So that's almost saying, "Well, where are visitors right now and where are they going to go next?" But they're the two sort of component parts.
Kelly Molson: Such a brilliant introduction to AI as well, because I think it is such a current topic right now. And I was at a recent ALVA meeting where there was a phenomenal speaker talking about the implications of AI and the opportunities that it could bring. And I think there was a 50 - 50 split of the audience of 50% of them were terrified about this new technology and what it might potentially mean. And then 50% were really inspired by it and see these huge opportunities from it. But I think this is such a brilliant case study to show how it can be used to your advantage in a very non-scary way.
David Green: I think with AI can be scary, but actually it's all about governance at the end of the day. And actually what we're doing is using machine learning to identify the patterns in large data sets to help us be better informed.
Kelly Molson: What have been the benefits of implementing this kind of level of data reporting? So what have you been able to do that you couldn't previously do?
David Green: Well, predictions is one. So ultimately we all budget. The first thing to probably say is that when we do contextual reporting, normally we access our data from a proprietary system and then bring it into some sort of spreadsheet and then try and tie it into a budget. That's sort of the first thing. It's really getting all of your data sets in a early. So we had budget, we had weather, we had advanced bookings, we had ticketing from different sort of platforms. And the starting point, before we talk too much about end benefits, were developing a data strategy in this centralised concept of a DataHub. So all of our data is in one place, and we're using APIs and direct connections and data signature Vennersys to bring data into one place.
David Green: We also looked at platforms, environments, so were looking at Azure, we’re a Microsoft business. So actually we decided Azure was the right sort of plan for us and we came up with a very broad strategy that said anything else we procure in the future has to best in class or it talks to the DataHub and often if it's best in class as an API. So you can get that information into one place. So that's the first thing. The joy of using something like Microsoft and other platforms are available, I would say, is to access the power platform. And the Power platform sort of answered the problem around how do we visualise our data, how do we automate some of our data and what data is missing and how can we collect it?
David Green: So using things like Power BI and PowerApps, I think was really crucial. Once we had all of our sort of data organised, we had the pandemic and of course, one of the sort of big issues around predicting, certainly when you've got lots of data sets, you're trying to look at patterns in data and your data is finely structured, then you get hit by something like this and where are the patterns? What's changed? The business model completely changed. We were a 10% advanced booking business. Suddenly were either zero or 80 or 100 and then sort of now about 65. So that was a bit of a challenge as well. In terms of then looking at the missing data. And we'll talk a little bit maybe about sort of the centre network and how do we measure things in remote places.
David Green: But ultimately the core of this project was the DataHub, the ability to bring everything into one place, ability to push that data out. So answering your question in a long winded way is really about getting the data into hands of people, to allow them to plan better, to be prepared for the day, what is likely to happen today, what are the patterns in that day? And this is where we develop things like a concept of similar day. So a similar day might be one that has similar number of pre bookings, has similar weather. We look at weather in terms of temperature, wind and rain. It might have a similarity in terms of an event day or a weekend or similar budget. And that concept allows us to look forward, which is great. The predictions tend to look at other things.
David Green: So we have one naive prediction that looks at previous performance in terms of pre booking to predict forward. And then another one, we have what we call an adaptive prediction, which allows us to look at advanced bookings and then see the change in advanced bookings over time against budget, to then alert us to the fact that we might experience more visitors than expected on that particular day.
Kelly Molson: Gosh, that's really powerful, isn't it? Does that mean that your team have access to kind of a dashboard that they can look at any given time and be like, “Okay, we can model next week based on these predictions?”
David Green: Data is pretty much everywhere, so we have one really nice thing and we have this. When I built search platform was TV screens across all of our staff areas. We have a ten OD voltwim across Blenheim. Everyone has access to that data. And that could be how traffic is flowing on the driveway. We use ADPR to look at how busy traffic is outside of our park walls. We look at car park capacity. We look at how happy our staff are using what we call a mood metric. So we put those smiley buttons in staff areas to determine how well they think the day is going. So we have access to all of this sort of information, but also then sort of more business reporting through Power BI.
David Green: So we have a series of what I've called sort of visual representations of activity, but also sort of data that we can export into Excel. So we do a lot of finance reporting as well through Power BI. Again, all reporting from that single source of the truth, which is the DataHub. And if anyone's going down this route, I always describe it, I call it the product hierarchy. I always describe it as the giant coin sorting machine, which means that we're comparing apples with apples. So if you've got a particular product type, let's say annual park or House park and gardens, or park and gardens, you budget against that item, against adult, child, concession, family, young adult, whatever, you create a product hierarchy that matches that to your actual ticketing sales.
David Green: And it doesn't matter then who sells your ticket, you're matching to that same product hierarchy. So think of it as a giant column sourcing machine that then every five minutes builds that single source of the truth in a database, then can be report out either through digital screens locations or Power BI. So, lots of tunes.
Kelly Molson: It's incredible that level of access that you can give people now that must have improved how the team feel about their working day. It must have really helped with kind of like team culture and team morale.
David Green: Absolutely. One, it's about engaging. Our teams are really important. People are the most important commodity we have at Blenheim. So having a series of management accounts, they never see their impact of engaging our businesses and giving our business a really good time, focusing on that Net Promoter Score, giving them access to that information. So, well done, look at the impact is really important. So, yeah, it's been fairly transformational here at Blenheim.
Kelly Molson: Wow. What do you think has been the biggest impact?
David Green: I think access to the data, better planning, there's more to do. We're embedding these tools, people that trust these tools. It's no mean feat. So getting good. What's nice to see when things aren't coming through quite right or car park speeds and we say it is, it might be data pipeline that's got awry. People very quickly come to us and say, "It's missing." So, seven days a week our team is sort of monitoring and seeing people use it. Moodmetric is great. Our cleaners now, they clean our facilities based on usage because they can see how many people have used the loo’s by using our sensor data. So that's again, it all impacts that Net Promoter Score. And I will say on Net Promoter, love it or hate it, Net Promoter Score is all about looking backwards.
David Green: Typically what we try to do is to create the equivalent to on the day. What can we do about it right now? How busy is traffic flowing on a drive? Do we need to open another kiosk? How busy will the cafe get? Will we run out sandwiches? So we've got alerting looking at that comparison to similar day and are we trading above or below that? So again, we can send an alert to say, “Make some more sandwiches or do something else. The loos need a clean.” All of these sorts of things are built into the visitor management system to allow us to really optimise not just the visitor experience, but our staff engagement and experience as well.
Kelly Molson: So you've got this really proactive approach to it, which actually makes you reactive on the day because you can move quicker, because you can make easier decisions about things. That's phenomenal. I love that the team have taken real ownership of that as well. I think embedding something like this, it can be quite challenging, right. People don't like change and these things feel a bit scary, but it feels like your team have really engaged with them and taken ownership of the system.
David Green: Absolutely. It's no mean feat. Two challenges embedding something new like this. Absolutely. That's change management. The second thing is data pipelines, ensuring all of your sensors and everything is online and working. And when you're dealing with such high volume of data sets coming in, you really need to be absolutely on it. Second to the sort of broader and maybe more granular reporting, one other thing we've devised is a series of KPIs, which pretty much any attraction.
David Green: Most might already have a series of KPIs, but KPIs to look forward. So actually in this moment in time, are we trading ahead or behind versus this time last year? So if you start comparing apples with apples at this moment in time, what was RMR's booking? We share these KPIs across the whole site and that could be relation to bookings or even spend per head versus budget spend per head for the next 30 days.
David Green: Visually, we put these on all of our digital screens very quickly can identify when we need to do something, be driving that by marketing activity or celebrating success. We've got a very clear picture and that means everyone's along for the ride. Everyone gets access to this information.
Kelly Molson: That's absolutely phenomenal. Joe, I'm going to come over to you now because I can only imagine what you were thinking when David came to you and said, "Right, we've got this idea, this is what we want to do." And you're one of the platforms. Vennersys is one of the platforms that has been working with him. I think it's quite a long relationship. Is it? It's about 16 years.
Joseph Paul: 16, 17 years now, I think. Long relationship.
David Green: Yeah. I was five. How old were you?
Joseph Paul: Wasn't conceived yet.
Kelly Molson: Wowzers. That is a long relationship. Okay, so I kind of want to know from you, Joe, to make this happen, what have you had to do differently as a supplier? So how have you had to interact with your clients’ needs and what steps did you have to go to kind of understand what the outcome was going to be?
Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think firstly that the system has an enormous amount of data in it and I think the first step for us was to understand exactly what Blenheim were looking to get out of the system and plug into the sort of the DataHub that David was talking about. So that kind of comprised of some initial conversations of what they were trying to achieve. And then following that it was all about workshopping and making sure were going to present the data in the format that David and the team at Blenheim Palace required.
Joseph Paul: Yeah, I think fundamentally it was just working closely with the team there and getting those requirements in detail and making sure weren't missing anything and really understanding everything they were trying to achieve and pushing that in a simple and easy format for the team to then push into their views and into their KPIs that they required. Really the main focus for us was pushing that data out to David and the team into that DataHub in that format that was easily accessible and sort of manipulated for them.
Kelly Molson: I guess there's so much it's understanding what are the key know, what are the variables here, what are the key points that we need to do this and how do we go about doing this for you?
Joseph Paul: Absolutely. Because there's a number of options and a number of different ways that data can be pushed to clients. So it's understanding what the best is for that client and their resource because that's also important. Not every attraction has unlimited resource or the expertise in house to sort of obtain that data, but also, even if they can obtain that data, they might not have that sort of resource to then create their own dashboards and create their own reporting tools from a repository. So it's really understanding every kind of asset and every level to that sort of client and then working closely with them to achieve their goal. So it might be more resource from our side or working closely with the expertise that they might have in house.
Kelly Molson: Or suggesting that they might need to get extra expertise. So this is something that we talk about in terms of API integration all the time, is that it absolutely can be done with any of the systems that you have. If they have an API, yes, you can integrate it into whatever other system that you want. But who takes ownership of that internally? And do they have the capability and do they have the resource and do they have the capacity to do that? And if that's a no, who can be trained to do those things? And how do we facilitate that as well?
Joseph Paul: Yeah, absolutely. And in this case, as David highlighted, he's clearly got the expertise himself and others around him to produce all these fantastic sort of views and dashboards that are displayed all around Blenheim Palace. So in this sort of example with Blenheim Palace, it was all about getting the data to them and making sure it was in a format that they could work with easily.
Kelly Molson: And you've worked together, Joe, you said about six years. You've been at Vennersys now, but the organisation has worked with Blenheim for over 16 years, which is testament to the relationship and the product that you have. Has this process that you've been through together, has this changed or strengthened the kind of relationship between supplier and client?
Joseph Paul: Yes, I think from our point of view, we like to see it as a partnership. I think David would agree, and we want to be a part of their journey, but also Blenheim and want to be a part of our journey. So we're helping one another to achieve our individual goals as a partnership. So that relationship goes from strength to strength and we continue to have those conversations, whether that's myself or others within the business, to Blenheim and pass around things that we're coming up against in the industry, but also vice versa. So if David's got his ear to the ground and has a suggestion around how our platform could be improved, that's fed back to us.
Joseph Paul: And we have that back and forth between client and supplier, but we like to see it as a partnership and work closely with them to achieve their goals and also our goals together.
David Green: I don't want to make Joe cry, because I've already made you cry, Kelly, but seriously, over that course of 17 years, and I'm sure lots of people listening to this podcast will realise that it's always challenging working with other suppliers. You have your ups and you have your downs, but we've had way more ups than we've had downs and our business has changed massively. We went through a process of becoming a charity, so suddenly gifted all the admissions was really important and Joe and the team really helped us achieve that.
David Green: Vanbrugh was not a very good forward planner in terms of he was a great architect, but actually, we have a single point of entry and to try and gift aid so many visitors, we have a million visitors a year coming to them to try and gift aid such a large number on a driveway is really difficult. So actually, working through that gift aid at the gate process, we're looking at that gift aid opportunity was one of the key projects, really, that we work with Vennersys on.
Kelly Molson: But that's where the good things come out of client supplier relationships, is that you're both challenging each other on what the objectives are and what the outcomes potentially could be. So you work in partnership together and then everybody gets the better outcome. When we first spoke about this topic, what I thought was brilliant is that you have such a great case study, you have such a great showcase piece here, both of you, for how you've worked together and what you've been able to develop. I've absolutely said that you need to pitch this as a talk at the Museum and Heritage Show because I think it's an absolutely brilliant topic for it. It's so current and something that other organisations can go away and kind of model on.
Kelly Molson: I don't know if you saw, we had Nik Wyness on from the Tank Museum last season who came on and basically just he gives away his kind of process as to how they've developed their YouTube following and how they've developed kind of a sales strategy from it. And it's brilliant. He's great at kind of coming on and going, "Yeah, this is what I did, and this is what we did, and this is the process and here you go. Go and do it." And I think you have an opportunity to do that together, which I think is lovely.
David Green: Isn't it nice though, that we don't feel in competition and we can work together? We created what we call The Continually Improvement and Innovation Group which we have lots of members who have joined from all different places, from Chatsworth to Be Lee to Hatfield Outs and so on and all that is a slack channel. It's a six monthly meeting where we all come together and we discuss our challenges. You talked about are there many head of innovations? Well, may not be, but actually sharing our insights and sharing our lessons learned is incredibly important and that's not just Blenheim, lots of other attractions are doing lots of brilliant things as well and we can learn from them. So really exciting, I think, to do that.
David Green: And again, very open, I will say, and I'm not going to plug a gift aid company, but there's something called Swift Aid that we're just looking at and wow, can we do retrospective gift aiding? Is it worth lots of money for lots of attractions that have gift aid on their admissions? Yes, it is well worth looking that up. Ultimately they have a database of 8 million centralised gift aid declarations that you can utilise there's commission but it's well worth looking at. If anyone wants information, please just LinkedIn with me and we'll discuss them.
Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. Again, this comes back to what we've always said about how collaborative and open to sharing information this sector is. What we'll do is in the show notes listeners, we will link to both David and Joe's LinkedIn profiles. If you want to connect with them, feel free and then actually David, Joe, if there's anything you want to share that we can add into those as well that would be useful for listeners. Then we'll pop them in there as.
Kelly Molson: Actually, David, I've got one more question for you on that Slack channel, which I think is really interesting. It's great that you've set that up. I think those kind of platforms are really good at just facilitating conversation and it's really good to understand what people are doing from a supplier perspective. Do you have suppliers as part of that conversation as well, or is it purely attractions?
David Green: I've kept it, I'd say non commercial, but we have invited speakers into the group to come and talk about it. But at the moment it's a closed environment. I think most people are more comfortable having sort of open conversations, but what it's really good at doing is it could be a question about compliance or sustainability or returnable cuts is a good one. It could be varying topics and we can just provide access to the right people here at Blenheim and vice versa, and other organisations if we've got questions. So, yeah, it works, it's growing, it's open, it's not ours, it's everyone's. So if anyone wants to join it, then we'll stick a link at LinkedIn maybe on the plot cups at the end of this.
Kelly Molson: Oh, Fab, that's brilliant. Yeah, great. I think that's a really nice way of doing it with suppliers as well. It's difficult, I think Joe and I would probably say all of these conversations are really interesting for us because it helps us understand the challenges that the sector has and it helps us understand how we can make the things that we do so much better. So it's hard sometimes when there's closed environments like that, but the sector does so brilliantly at putting on conferences and organisations that we can all be part of as well. And again, platforms like this where we can come on and share the things that we're doing.
Kelly Molson: That brings me back to the last question for you, Joe, is about has this process between the two of you and what you've been able to build together, has that helped Vennersys as a supplier build out other services that you can then offer to kind of the wider sector?
Joseph Paul: Yeah, so I think through this journey we've realised that data is really critical, but we also realised, as we kind of mentioned before, that not everyone has the resource to build their own visualisations of data and linking those to their sort of key performance indicators. So we work with Power BI as well on behalf of our clients, so we can also visualise that data that's within our systems. And that's really to help them get the most out of the data that is in our system, but also in that sort of more real time scenario, rather than having to extract a report, put it that into an Excel and get that information out.
Joseph Paul: So that's one service that's kind of come out of that relationship, but also expanding on our sort of open API as well. So additional endpoints so that clients can also extract that data in real time and that continues to grow with other clients as well as we sort of go down that journey with some other clients. So, absolutely. It's helped us sort of open up another avenue which has benefited other clients in the past couple of years, but also moving forward as we sort of expand on it.
Kelly Molson: Brilliant. And that's the sign of true partnership, isn't it? There's been some incredible wins for both of you involved and it's brought new opportunities to both of the organisations. Thank you both for coming on and sharing this today. So we always end the podcast with book recommendations from our guests. So I wondered if you've both been able to pick a book that you'd like to share with our listeners today. What have you got for us? Joe, we'll start with you.
Joseph Paul: Mine's a little bit out there.
David Green: We know it's not Harry Potter, Joe.
Kelly Molson: Absolutely not.
Joseph Paul: Well, that would be a curveball if I started to plug the Harry Potter series. Hey. So recently, I was in Albania in Tirana and I was on a guided tour. And they were talking about the Ottoman period. And I realised I know nothing about the Ottoman history and I was interested about it more.
Joseph Paul: So my in laws purchased a book called Lord Of The Horizons, which is all about the history of the Ottoman empire. So that's my current read at the moment. And if you're into your history and into your sort of empires, it's definitely worth a read. So that's my recommendation. The Lord of Horizons.
Kelly Molson: Nice. Joe, we just got a little insight into some of your hobbies there and your likes that we didn't know about. Good. Okay. Thank you. David, what about you?
David Green: Mine is The Hidden Life of Trees by Peter Wallaban. It's an incredible book. Now, I read lots of strategy books, data books. My wife thinks I'm really sad. This book is not any of that. This is about how trees communicate and I was absolutely enthralled with it. So this talks about them like arousal networks, how trees communicate through their roots, the noises and the sounds that trees make when they're struggling, when they're thirsty. It led to a lot of laughter on holiday with my daughter drawing pictures of trees with ears, but trees can actually hear. And from that, I was able to come back and look at one of our land projects where we're building a small solar farm at the moment, actually looking at the sort of benefits to soil health while we're putting solar on sort of fed degraded farmland.
David Green: So we're using something called soil ecoacoustics that will allow us to listen to the sound of soil. So listen to soil for ultimately to index how healthy that soil is. So this one book has led to me reading a number of different research papers, cooking up with the universities to then test and trial something completely brilliant around identifying health through acoustics. So book is absolutely brilliant. There's a follow on book, but if you look at Peter Wallabin, he's written a number of books. Absolutely fascinating.
Kelly Molson: Okay, wow. One, what an incredible book. I had no idea that trees could hear or talk. That's blown my mind a little bit, especially as someone who's a bit of a tree hugger. I'm not going to lie, I made a statement. I was with a client yesterday and were talking about AI. And I said, sometimes the conversations around AI just make me want to go outside and hug the tree in my back garden, take my shoes and socks off and just put my feet on the grass because I just want to connect with nature again and just get out of a tech world. So there's that. So I'm definitely going to buy that book. But two, how your mind works as well, how that book has taken you on a journey of innovation again into something connected but completely different.
David Green: Again, it's really data. So you're welcome. We'll happily show you that site and put some headphones on you and we'll make this public as well, so hopefully we can share the secret sound of soil and other things as well. But really fascinating.
Kelly Molson: That to me sounds like a David Attenborough show. Maybe we'll make it another podcast episode at some point. I'd love that. Thank you both for coming on and sharing today. As ever, if you want to win a copy of Joe and David's books, go over to our Twitter account, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Joe and David's books and you'll be in with a chance of winning them. Wow. Thank you for sharing. It's been an absolutely insightful podcast. There's lots of things that we're going to put in the show notes for you all. And as Joe and David said, please do. If you've got questions around what they've talked about today, feel free to connect and we'll pop a link to that Slack group in the show notes too, so you can join in with these conversations. Thank you both.
David Green: Thank you.
Joseph Paul: Thanks, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.
Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics. In this episode, we're discussing personalisation and what attractions can do to make their websites feel more tailored to their audience.
You can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hello, hello. Welcome back to the podcast.
Paul Marden: Hello again. Good, isn't it? Back here for a third time.
Kelly Molson: It is good. You're lucky. Right, let's start the podcast as we do with this one. What attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it?
Paul Marden: Yeah, I was pretty lucky the other day because I went to the National Maritime Museum, because I'm a Trustee of Kids in Museums and we had our Family Friendly Museum Awards and we held it in their lecture theatre at the Maritime Museum up in Greenwich. And I'd been to the Greenwich Museums before. I'd been to the top of the hill where the observatory is, but I've never been to the bottom of the hill, which is where Maritime Museum is. And so I'm just there with all the great and good of all of the museums around the country that have been shortlisted for the awards, which was brilliant.
Paul Marden: But the bit that I really loved was that I was there in the daytime during the midweek, so peak school trip season, and it was just amazing to be in this place with all these school kids there doing their school trips, which is something I'm really passionate about, the value of those school trips. It was something that really got the kids lost out on when COVID hit and everybody was working online and then they went back to schools, but the schools had to be really careful about what they did and there were no school trips. That's such a magical part of being in primary school that they were just robbed of. So seeing all those kids in that amazing place was just wonderful. I got to rub shoulders with the great and the good.
Paul Marden: I met some Skip the Queue alumni at the event as well, and I had a lovely cup of tea and a piece of cake in the cafe with our Project Manager, Becs. Did you imagine a better day?
Kelly Molson: No, it's a perfect day. I was just thinking as you were talking about the school trips, it's like a rite of passage at school, isn't it, to be walking around a museum with a clipboard to draw a picture of it? Go and find X and draw a picture of it. I just got really vivid memories of doing that .
Paul Marden: They were all just herring around, doing exactly that and loving life and buying their little rubbers in the shop and things like that.
Kelly Molson: You should collect rubbers, kids. All the cool people do. Okay, I need to give a big shout out to National Trust. We are really lucky where we live. So we've got like a triangle of National Trust venues near us. So we've got Wimpole, Ickworth and Anglesey Abbey, all within like 25 minutes, half an hour, a little bit longer for Ickworth. Each one of them is incredible. They all have a different adventure. They've got great play areas, beautiful historic houses and beautiful walks. And we have spent a lot of time in the last two years at National Trust venues, walking, pushing the pram. But now Edie's toddling around, we're into the activity areas and all of them are phenomenal. Wimpole has just redone their outdoor play area, which we're yet to visit.
Kelly Molson: We're just waiting for a dry day to get back over to that one. But it's just the membership. So I think the membership is such superb value for money.
Paul Marden: It really is.
Kelly Molson: I cannot speak more highly of it. It is such good value for money and we get 45678 times the amount of value from it every single year we have this membership, so much so that we gift it to people as well.
Kelly Molson: We were really lucky. We got given some money for a wedding gift and we said, rather than think when people give you money, it's lovely, but you can put it in the bank and you forget about it. Or it just gets spent on stuff. And were like, “Right, if we get given money, we'll spend it on a thing and we can say we bought this thing with it.” And so that we bought the National Trust membership with it.
Paul Marden: That's a cracking idea.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it was really good. Really good idea. But then it's such good value that we've then bought membership for my parents.
Paul Marden: Really?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. So I think it was like a joint. I think Father's Day and my mum's birthday are quite close together, so it might have been a joint one for that. They go and they go on their own and then they go and then they take Edie as well. And it's absolutely brilliant. So, yeah, well done, National Trust. Well done, Wimpole. Especially because pigs. Someone, the tiny person in my house, is very happy about pigs there. I don't mean myself, I mean Edie. And also, I just want to give a big shout out to one of the volunteers. I'm really sorry I didn't get the volunteer's name at Wimpole. He is one of the volunteers in the farm.
Kelly Molson: I am a little bit frightened of horses. I think they're beautiful but really big. I saw an old next to the neighbour get kicked by a horse once.
Paul Marden: You've literally been scarred for life.
Kelly Molson: There's a block up there, but I'm a little bit frightened of horses. And there's a huge Shire horse at Wimpole who's a big old gentle giant. I think he's called Jack. But I am a bit frightened and I don't want that fear to rub off on Edie. And so I very bravely took Edie over to meet the Shire horse. But the volunteer was wonderful. This guy know told us loads of stuff about the horse and he was really great with Edie and she managed to stroke his nose and even I managed to stroke Jack's nose. So, yeah, thank you man whose name I didn't get. It was a really lovely experience and you helped put me at ease and my daughter at ease. So there you go. National Trust and the value of volunteers.
Paul Marden: And National Trust volunteers, we've talked about this before. I've been to a couple that are local to me and they just tell the most amazing stories and they engage people in a way that to be so passionate about the thing that you care about and that you want to do that for free to help people to enjoy their experience is just amazing. And there are some, I mean, there are diamonds all over the place in all the museums and places that we visit, but there's plenty of them. When you work that Natural Trust membership, you get to meet a lot of volunteers, don't you? And they are amazing.
Kelly Molson: Working it hard. Okay, let's get on to what we're going to discuss today. So we are talking about personalisation and what attractions can do to make their websites feel more personal. So this is an interesting one and I think that we've probably got to put our hands up and make a bit of an apology here. Very few people who took part in the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Survey actually implement personalisation, but there's a lot of evidence that personalisation improves conversion rates. So there's some stats that I want to read out from the report. Only 6% of respondents personalised their website experience for customers, yet 85% of respondents thought personalisation was highly important. So, question for you, why do you think so many people think it's important, but so few are actually implementing it?
Paul Marden: This is where we hold our hands up, isn't it? And we say, I think the answer to that is because we didn't ask the question properly. I've touched base with it. There was a very small set of people, as you say, 6% of people said that they were personalising their websites. But the language that we used in the question was a little bit confusing. And when I reached out to a handful of that 6%, they were like, "Oh, no, that's not what we thought you meant. What we thought you meant was that". So one person said to me, "You could personalise your experience at the venue by buying different things, not personalise the website experience." Yeah. And when you read the language of the question again with that answer in your head, it's obvious why they answered it in the way that they did.
Paul Marden: So there's a lesson to be learned there about trialing the questionnaire, making sure that people understand what it is that we're saying and that we agree with the language of what we've used. The fact is, I think a lot of people didn't understand us. So the answers that we got back, the disparity, is clearly confusion based. But even if weren't confused, even if we had the data, my instinct is that there would be a big difference between the two. And that boils down to the fact that I think that personalisation is hard to do and that actually the reason why a lot of people aren't doing it is because it's hard and costly in some cases. But we need to get into the guts of that and understand why.
Kelly Molson: Okay, so lesson learned for next year. We need to give more clarity over the questions that we ask. So thanks for the feedback, everybody. We will do that. What do we actually mean by personalisation then?
Paul Marden: Yeah, that's a good question. I think that what we mean by personalisation is developing the website in a way that means that you show different contents to different audience members depending on different things. There's lots of different ways in which you can do that. There's a very simple perspective which is around not automatically showing different content to different people, but writing content for your different audiences and making that easily discoverable. It doesn't have to be technically complex.
Paul Marden: Yeah. It's really about writing the right content for the right people and making it so that they can get from where they are to where they want to get to and get that right answer. Most of us do that intuitively. Most of us, when we're writing content as marketers, we do personalise the content to the end audience, even if we're not doing that in an automated way.
Kelly Molson: I think with this, though, my interpretation of it is the next level onto that, which is, that's true personalisation, because I think those things, yes, that's a very simple way of looking at it, but that for me is not enough when it comes to how we answer this question. So it's the tracking behaviour and showing personal content that to me truly personalises an experience. I can think of things that we've done in the past in terms of tracking where someone tracking the IP of the person that's looking at the website and offering them up content that is in English, UK English or in American English for example.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. So it could be about time of day, it’s trite. I'm not going to convert somebody but saying good morning, good afternoon, good evening, based on where they are. We did another site a few years ago which showed videos of an experience in the daytime or an experience at nighttime, depending on when you were looking at the website, and then you could switch in between them, which was pretty cool.
Kelly Molson: I like that.
Paul Marden: Yeah. So you could do time of day, you could do location, like you say, interesting is understanding, building an understanding of somebody fitting an audience profile based on what they've looked at across the site, which gets a little bit creepy, doesn't it? If you're tracking and you use that tracking information without lots of care, you could look really creepy. But if you use it really carefully, then you can adapt the content of the site based on the more that somebody looks at the Schools section of your website and they look at news articles that are related to schools, maybe they're a teacher or maybe they're interested in running a school trip to your venue and you can adapt the recommendations that you make to them based on that understanding, that they show more interest in the educational aspects of what you're doing.
Kelly Molson: So this leads us to really to what some of the benefits are. And ultimately, I think the more personalised the site is, the easier it gets for users to meet their needs. You're kind of getting them from the start to their goal quicker and hopefully makes their lives easier as well.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So I found some data. No, as you know, this came out of the report. Actually 80% of consumers. This was a stat that we pulled out in the report.
Kelly Molson: It's from Hubspot.
Paul Marden: Yeah. 80% of consumers are more likely to make a purchase from brands that offer a personalised experience. So from that perspective, personalised sites are more likely to convert. There was other stats that we didn't put into the report itself, Boston Consulting Group, found that brands that create personalised experiences, combining digital with customer data, so that the true personalisation you were talking about, increased revenue by 6% to 10%. That's pretty impressive.
Kelly Molson: It is pretty impressive. But then that brings us to risk, doesn't it? And that kind of creepy aspect of this and whether it's. Is it okay, hon?
Paul Marden: Yeah, I mean, the obvious one is privacy isn't know. We live in an age where people value their privacy and there's laws around that as well. So in the UK we've got GDPR, there are laws all over the world in relation to personal information and tracking somebody's behaviour around your site, what they do and what they look at and being able to associate that back to an individual themselves is definitely data that would be in the scope of the Data Protection Act in the UK and GDPR across Europe. So you have to be really careful about what data you're collecting, how you attribute it back to a natural human, and then what do you do to protect that data?
Kelly Molson: And then you've got complexity of managing multiple sites, managing large volumes and multiple sources of data on top of that as well.
Paul Marden: I alluded to that earlier on as my kind of. The reason why I think a lot of people don't do this is when you get into the true personalisation, when you're managing a website, there's a lot of content on there, you've got to think about what everybody needs. You got lots of people in the organisation wanting their content put onto the website. You're the editor and you're responsible for that thing. And then somebody says to you, "I think it's a bright idea. We've got twelve audiences and we want to have personalised content for all of those audiences.". And now you don't have one website to manage, you've got twelve websites to manage.
Paul Marden: And when it goes wrong for one particular person, when the CEO is looking at the website and it shows them something really weird and they report it to the editor and the editor is like, “Yeah, how do I know what it was that went wrong? Because I don't have one website. I've got twelve websites that I've got to manage.” The level of complexity and the effort that you go into this, if you're not careful, if you're not doing this in a sensible way, it can become quite hard to manage and get your head around.
Kelly Molson: I'm just thinking of the horror of trying to support that from an agency perspective as well. When you've got support tickets coming in and the support ticket from the client is. So this person is not happy because they've seen content that isn't okay for them or oh God.
Paul Marden: Yeah, if not managed properly, you got this potential explosion of content. You've also got the potential for all of that personal data about the people that are going around the website to be trapped. So now you've got to manage a load of data in volumes that you'd never really thought of before. Where does the customer data come from? If you've got, do we want to show personalised information for people that are members? Where do we hold our membership information? Do we hold that in a CRM system? Okay, so now we need to plumb the CRM system into the website so the website knows if the visitor is a member or not. Do we show different information to somebody that is not a member but they have visited before or how do we know that?
Paul Marden: Oh, we need to plumb in data from the ticketing system now. And this can be amazing. And that's how you arrive at that high conversion rate, is that you've enriched the experience with loads of knowledge about the person. It's not like somebody's walking into the gates of the place and you know nothing about them. All of a sudden they're walking into your website, they're interacting with your website and they're not just the same as everyone else, they're special and everybody wants to be special, but to get them to that special place you have to know a lot about them. It can be amazing when it's done well, but it's not trivial.
Kelly Molson: So we always at this point, talk about who is doing it well. And this is a really difficult one. Tricky one, because ultimately we haven't asked the question properly in the survey. And because of the nature of personalisation, we don't know who's doing it. We don't know really. So what would be great is if you are an attraction, listening to this episode and you're out there and you are doing it well, we'd really love to talk to you. So we have these little slots that we have between Paul and I. We've got a load of things that we can talk about, but if there's an attraction out there that is doing personalisation really well, we can open up one of these slots for you to come on and have a chat with us and just talk about some of the things that you're doing.
Kelly Molson: We'd love to hear some really good success stories for this and some case studies. So yeah, feel free to drop me an email and [email protected] and let me know. So skipping over the fact that we've got no one to talk about who does it well. Hopefully we will soon. What are the steps that people can take? So what's the starting point? If you are thinking about personalisation, what does that journey look like?
Paul Marden: Yeah, first of all, you need to understand the audience, don't you? Or the audience is. And just talking from our own perspective and our process that we follow, that's an early part of the kind of research that we do when we're building a new site is to dig into who the audience is and trying to understand them in as many ways as you possibly can. There's loads of stuff written about this online. There's some brilliant examples that I've looked at before far TfL, who share their audience personas and how much detail they've gone into understanding who the different people are that interact with the TfL website and what their goals are and what makes them special from the perspective of an attraction. You could think of families with young kids that are coming.
Paul Marden: You could be thinking of maybe if you were a museum, the people that are running school trips, the teachers and so forth, that could be running it. Maybe the volunteers for your organisation or another audience member that you need to think about and understand who they are, what they look like in terms of their demographic information, the way they think and what they do and how they interact with the world, markers that you could use to be able to help target that. So figuring out that audience persona for each of the people that you want to target, I think, is a crucial job.
Kelly Molson: Definitely the starting point. And sometimes that's done internally and sometimes we support with that externally. I think then you have to kind of think about the tools that you've got, what is available to you and how you can use them. And we focus on three main ones at Rubber Cheese, don't we?
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. So we focus on WordPress, Umbraco and HubSpot. And it's interesting because each of them have different functionalities in terms of personalisation. And it's been weird, isn't it, to try and think about the tool before you think about what you want to do, but really it's about not trying to put the cart before the horse. If you know what the tool can do, then you can figure out how you can use it.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, and I think from a cost perspective as well, it's thinking about what you already have in place that you can manipulate rather than starting from scratch.
Paul Marden: HubSpot is a good one to talk about because straight out of the box it's the most capable in terms of personalisation. And it's a bit obscure because a lot of people think of HubSpot as being a CRM package. They don't think of it as being a content management system website tool, but it has that functionality and that's kind of evolved over the last five years into a fully formed content management system.
Paul Marden: But because you've got this bolted together CRM and content management system, they've obviously spotted that an opportunity for them and they've put those two things together. And so straight out of the box you can build out personalisation, you can create these what they call smart rules. To say in this section, I want to show this content dependent on this particular factor. So that's pretty awesome to get that straight out of the box I think.
Kelly Molson: I struggle to get my head around that just because I do view HubSpot as our CRM. I'm in it constantly. It's my source of truth for all of my clients and networking contacts and suppliers. It's where my sales pipeline is. I can't get my head around it. It's a content management system as well.
Paul Marden: Completely. But you can think of, when you're building out a website and it doesn't have to be built out in HubSpot itself. Sorry. In HubSpot's own content management system you can still do a lot of this using their CRM system bolted onto other content management systems. But you can create contacts as somebody becomes a real person. Then you could create that contact inside HubSpot and use the knowledge about that person on the website. You can use the deal functionality inside HubSpot to track when somebody has bought tickets for a place and when they've actually completed the deal. You end up with lots and lots of data going through HubSpot when you do all of that order information going through there.
Paul Marden: But that's how you enrich it with the ability to target your existing customers with different content to prospective customers that have never bought from you before.
Kelly Molson: What about Umbraco and WordPress? Because this is not something that they do like out of the box. Is it off the shelf?
Paul Marden: No, absolutely. So Umbraco doesn't have it straight out of the box. There is a really capable personalisation system called uMarketingSuite which you can buy. It's like annual subscription product that bolts into Umbraco itself. It's been built so that when you're in there and managing all of your audience personas and the content that you want to adapt, it's all in that one package. So once you've got it in there, it does feel like it's all Umbraco because it's been designed in a really neat way. The challenge is you've got to buy it. It's a paid for add on, but the benefit that you get is well worth the investment. But it's not a cheap investment to make in that tooling. And also there's elements of the site needs to be built with that in mind.
Kelly Molson: You can't just plug it on at the end and hope for the best. You've got to think about that long.
Paul Marden: No, it's not a plug it on. You can retrospectively add it into a site. Yeah, but it will probably cost you more to add it afterwards than if you'd have thought about it at the beginning and done it. So it definitely can be added on later on. But if you think about it in advance and you do it all at the same time, the total cost of the project will probably be lower.
Kelly Molson: Okay, so that's a good one to think about. If you are planning new website projects for the new year, you are really happy with the Umbraco platform. There's something to have a conversation around that. And then WordPress plugins.
Paul Marden: Exactly. So as with everything WordPress related, hundreds of people have solved this problem. So there are lots and lots of plugins out there. There's a couple that I would mention that came up when I was doing some research around this. There's one called if so dynamic content. There's one called Logic Hop, both of which enable you to adapt your content based on certain rules that you define. So, pretty much like the smart rule functionality that's in HubSpot, you can achieve that natively inside WordPress once you add these plugins. And the cost of those plugins was negligible. Yeah, you're talking under 100 quid for a year worth of setting that up.
Kelly Molson: Well, that's good to know. So what are we talking about in terms of budgets for stuff then? So there's effort involved in understanding your audiences first. So that's going to be something that you talk to your agency or you bring in an external or you do internally. You carry out your persona work, you really understand who your audience is. That cost is really variable. It could be workshop based. You might have all of this information internally anyway that you just kind of need the time to pull it all together.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And you can imagine that could be a day's effort to just pull together a few things that already exist. It could be several weeks worth of effort spread over a longer period of time. I was having a chat with Matt, our Creative Director, about this the other day and literally just scribbled on a piece of paper. But he was like, “Paul, you need to understand this.” At the one end of the spectrum you could spend a little time researching this stuff. At the other end of the spectrum you could spend a lot of time. And what do you get when you go in between the two? You make less assumptions the further down the road you go. So if you can deal with kind of a minimal research and making some broad assumptions, then that's a sensible thing to do.
Paul Marden: But if you want the confidence of knowing that you're not making too many assumptions and there's lots of data underlying the things that you're saying, then obviously you need to invest more effort into that research to be able to find that out. Yeah, kind of obvious, but it helped when you drew me that kind of framer.
Kelly Molson: So let's look at the tools then. So let's do HubSpot. We talked about HubSpot first. What's the cost involved in that? Because my assumption, I mean, I've used the free version of HubSpot for years. There's a paid version of HubSpot. My assumption was the paid version of HubSpot was really expensive.
Paul Marden: So costing HubSpot is a complex thing because there's lots of different variables involved. There's lots of features. The more features you add, the more it costs. But in order to do this personalisation you need a pro version of their content management system and you're looking at about 350 quid a month to be able to do that. So what's that, about four and a half, 5000 pounds a year to buy that in? That is not just for that feature, that is for the whole of that HubSpot content management system and all of its hosting included as well. And it is top grade, highly secure or highly available infrastructure that you get bolted in that. So the cost of personalisation is not just the 350 quid a month, that is, the all in to get that pro package is 350 quid a month.
Kelly Molson: And then there'll be dev costs on top of that to implement it.
Paul Marden: Yeah, to a certain extent, actually a lot of the personalisation, because it's core to HubSpot, you can achieve a lot in a normally designed and built HubSpot site and then just manage the content in that. So let's say, you've got a panel where you want to show a particular piece of content that says, "Hey, you're back again." Because you're a returning user, you wouldn't necessarily need a developer to be able to make that available to you. Those smart rules would be built in by the content management system. So there's obviously going to be things that you want to do that. You will need to have a developer to be able to do that.
Kelly Molson: You need someone that understands logic. This is not a job for me.
Paul Marden: Well, in the right hands, you don't need a developer to be able to do a lot of the personalisation in HubSpot.
Kelly Molson: All right, what about Umbraco?
Paul Marden: Yeah, there are some free tools. There's something called personalisation groups. But if you want to go for uMarketingSuite, which I think is where you're getting into, really see it would be a proper personalisation territory with lots of great functionality, you're looking at about 400 quid a month for the package to be added into your Umbraco instance. So that's not comparing apples with apples when we look at the HubSpot cost, because that was an all in cost for the whole of the platform for HubSpot. Whereas for Umbraco uMarketingSuite is 400 quid a month to add it to your instance. And that depends on the amount of traffic on your site that does vary.
Kelly Molson: And then WordPress is cheapest chips in comparison. So plugins, you're looking at costs of around about 150 pounds per year depending on what one you go to. Obviously you've either got somebody internally that can integrate that for you or you've got your dev costs on top of that. But if you've already got an existing website in WordPress, then actually could be something relatively inexpensive that you could start to try out.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. And then on top of that you've got other personalisation systems that you could plug into any of these systems with your kind of Lamborghini style sets of functionality. These are starting costs for the packages we're talking about. Yeah, we're talking 150 quid a year for WordPress, but that would be basic personalisation.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Okay, good chat. So just to reiterate what we said earlier, sorry, we were idiots about the question and of course some confusion. Apologies, we'll do much better next time. But now you've listened to this episode, if you do have a story to share and you are doing some really interesting things, we would love to give you the platform to share that. So do drop me a line, [email protected] and we will make that happen. All right, great. Same time next month.
Paul Marden: Awesome.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://vectis.ventures/
https://robin-hill.com/
https://blackgangchine.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominic-wray-a1b52766/
Dominic Wray is the Parks Director of Vectis Ventures, the parent company of the Isle of Wights two leading attractions; Robin Hill, and the UK’s oldest theme park, Blackgang Chine.
After 7 years of running Blackgang Chine as the Park Manager, he stepped into his role as Parks Director to play a vital position in the planning and execution of the longer term business strategy. Having been in this role for around 15 months, he has led on some big changes and transformations within the business, as well as navigating what has been a challenging year for the leisure industry as a whole.
Dominic attributes much of his success, and enjoyment of his career to the people in it. Sitting on the Management Committee for BALPPA, he is a huge advocate for industry networking and enabling peer to peer learning opportunities. He then uses this platform as a way to the develop the team that he is so passionate about, allowing them to flourish into the industry known experts of their fields.Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world.
On today's episode, I speak with Dominic Wray, Parks Director at Vectis Ventures. We talk about Blackgang Chine, the 180 year old attraction, and Dominic shares his three top tips on transforming processes and developing superstar people.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Welcome to the podcast, Dominic. It's great to have you on today.
Dominic Wray: Thanks for having me. Looking forward to it.
Kelly Molson: Everyone says that at the start, and then I give them icebreaker questions, and they hate me. But this is how the podcast always starts, so you have to do them. Right. If you could enter the Olympics for anything, what would you be Olympic level at? And we're not talking it doesn't have to be sports here. It could be like baking or Olympic level complainer. Anything goes. What's your Olympic level at?
Dominic Wray: I think I would actually answer the sports based question answered that. I always, when I was growing up, wanted to play in the NBA. Basketball was a big passion of mine. So I'd say I'd want to enter the Olympics as a basketball player.
Kelly Molson: Okay. And do you play now? Is this something that you are actually good at?
Dominic Wray: Not so much now, no. I don't want to use the old adage if I got injured, but I did.
Kelly Molson: Oh, no.
Dominic Wray: We'll never know if I could have made it or not.
Kelly Molson: Good one. Have you ever been mistaken for someone famous?
Dominic Wray: Yeah, actually, yes, twice. Someone once said to me I look like Joel Dormot. I think he's a comedian. And some of the team seemed to think I look like Mark Wright.
Kelly Molson: I know this one. So I saw the picture that Laura Baxter posted of your LinkedIn. I have to say, I did a second look, Mark.
Dominic Wray: Yeah. I mean, I'll take it. I think Mark Wright’s the right looking chap, so could be worse, I suppose.
Kelly Molson: Okay. All right. A final one. What one thing would you make a law that isn't already? I've got a good one for this. So if I could be in charge of laws, I would make it a law that nobody could just stop in the middle of the pavement and look at their mobile phone, or walk upstairs with their mobile staring at their mobile phone, not actually looking where they're going, because it just makes me want to swipe people's legs away. Because they just stop in front of you or they walk really slowly up the stairs. That would be one of mine.
Dominic Wray: I'd go with, everyone needs to learn how to go through security at an airport. There's nothing more frustrating when you get there and the person in front of you isn't aware of how to go through and then there's a bit that delays the queues.
Kelly Molson: Good one. That's a really good one. They get quite shouty, the security people now, don't they? When you're queuing up like, they're shouting at you about your liquids and your jackets and you take your belts off, and I'm like, "If I take my belt off, my trousers are going to fall down. I'm not even halfway there yet." I like that one. Okay, what's your unpopular opinion?
Dominic Wray: My unpopular opinion is that motorists ruined the road for cyclists. Which I'm sure will be incredibly controversial. Yeah, that's my unpopular opinion.
Kelly Molson: This is going to be a controversial one and I really want to know what you think about this one, listeners. Yeah, I don't agree with you, but you are a hardcore cyclist. I’m going op guess.
Dominic Wray: I do pay my road tax, drive a car myself, but yeah, someone that very much enjoys road cycling. Yeah, that is definitely my viewpoint on other motorists.
Kelly Molson: I think there needs to be made room for both on the roads. There's not sufficient cycle lanes in areas where there should be sufficient cycle lanes. Although I live just outside Cambridge and Cambridge is pretty good for cyclists. If this was me, I would ban cyclists from cycling through the city centre of Cambridge, because the amount of times I've nearly been run over by cyclists in the city centre is quite a lot.
Dominic Wray: I will say. Not every cyclist is respectful of most receivers. It is a two way street, quite literally. Do you understand that?
Kelly Molson: I like this. Right, okay, listeners, what do you think about the unpopular opinion? I feel like I've just got myself in hot water with all my Cambridge cycling friends as well.
Dominic Wray: They're all going to be kicking off.
Kelly Molson: We're all in trouble. We're in trouble together, Dom. It's fine. Right, tell us a little bit about your background, because you have come into attractions not from an attractions background, and I always find this quite fascinating, how people end up within the sector. You've come from banking, right?
Dominic Wray: Yes, yes. I started off my career when I left school selling houses, and then I moved into banking after that. I used to work for Lloyds Bank and one of my clients was our current HR director here, lady called Paula, and I used to see her every year. She'd come in, talk about this great place that she worked and all these fun projects she was working on and how magical it was. And I remember sort of sat there thinking, "Gosh, your job sounds really interesting and you're working on these varied projects and you're getting to experience loads of cool things." She was talking to me about fireworks events and dinosaurs and cowboys and pirates. I was thinking, "I'm saya, talking about savings accounts and loans and boring stuff that comes to banking."
Dominic Wray: And then one day I saw an advert in our local paper on the island for a Park Manager role for Blackgang Chine. Which is the park that Paula worked at, and I read through it and I thought, “Okay, yeah, I can do this. It sounds like I've got the skill set to do this.” Not really knowing anything about running a visitor attraction at all. So off I went to the interview, got my job and I thought, “Oh, great, yeah, if I can sell houses and I can run a bank, the only I could run a visitor attraction.” It's just taking those skills and applying them across into a different sector.
Dominic Wray: Eight or nine years later, still here now and lot of a big learning curve along the way, but yeah, not a traditional route into it, but Blackgang on the island is a very iconic visitor attraction. All the children on the island have been there, had very fond memories of coming here as a child and I just thought, “Wow, what an opportunity to wake up every day and go to work in a fun”, magical place that's the complete opposite from the confines of a bank. So I thought, “Yeah, I'm going to back myself and go for it and do it.”
Kelly Molson: How weird is that? Knowing that you went there as a child as well and now you actually run the place. That's massive, isn't it?
Dominic Wray: Yeah, when I'm walking around, there's lots of areas of the park that are still the same and happened for many years and they carry great sentiments or walking through certain areas and they hear certain sounds or certain smells in the park and it takes you back to being a kid every day. So it's quite a magical place to work.
Kelly Molson: That's really sweet. And so what was that transition like? Because I've just got this vision of you kind of like rocking up on the first day and going, "Where do I start?".
Dominic Wray: Yeah. So on day one when I arrived, the gentleman who was doing the role beforehand had left. So I had a laptop set of keys and they sort, "Off you go.. And I was like, "OK, I've got to have to work this out", which I did. I was lucky enough to go to IAAPA in Orlando and I went on a week long training course, management course there around Park Management of Visitor Attractions, which I think was really interesting, really useful, gave me a great insight into the attraction space. And then I've worked through that by learning about the various different departments and functionalities of the business along the way. But it was a big change for me to go from working for a large corporate company to moving to a family owned company.
Dominic Wray: Blackgang Chine has been owned by the same family for 180 years, which is the Dabell family. So it was a big shift for me from having multiple layers of people and it taking weeks to get a decision to just having to go and speak to one person as long as they say, "Yes", you're on your way. So it's enjoyable working for a much more dynamic organization where you can pivot more quickly. And that was sort of one of the surprising things, having come from a bigger company, how quickly things can move and change. But I think that's a real positive fallout.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, definitely. I love that you did like a crash course, you did like your crash course, your driver's course, you didn't do those week intensive course, you did your weeks intensive course of being a park manager and that was it into the job. So what does your role cover then? Because I know you operate across two parks at the moment, so you've got Blackgang Chine, you've got Robin Hill. What does that look like for you in terms of your role?
Dominic Wray: So my role sees me overseeing the parks and the strategic position. So I look after the business of the group as a whole. I was previously the park manager of Blackgang and then over the last twelve months transitioned to a new role, Parks Director, which sees me overseeing the group from more of a strategic position. So everything from opening calendars, pricing strategy, events that we're running, health and safety, you name it, all falls under my room within the business.
Kelly Molson: I love that. I guess all of those things must have been the steep learning curve from banking where you clearly are very senior role, but probably not juggling quite so much in a day.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, I liken it to running lots of micro businesses. We've got a retail business, food and beverage business and events business, health and safety compliance element of the business. So yeah, lots of micro businesses within the big business as a whole really. But yeah, the regulation from banking around strict processes and procedures does translate quite nicely into business and also into health for safety as well.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. And there's some of the things we're going to talk about today. So we've got three topics to cover which I'm really interested in. We've got processes and systems, we've got peer learning that we're going to talk about and then we're going to talk about people and team development. So what you just said there about what you've brought, that's one of the things that I'm really interested in terms of the processes and systems because you've been through quite a transformative process in your organisation with kind of people and process actually. What have you been able to bring from banking into the attractions world that's kind of helped you with those processes and systems?
Dominic Wray: I would say I learned a lot from working in a bank. One of the things was how not to do things, I'd say. In terms of life in a bank is very black and white. It's almost sort of a computer says no culture. And that really taught me that actually in real business you've got to operate a bit more in the gray. And it's much more around how can we actually make things happen and how can we do things rather than actually that's not possible. So I always say to feeling, great, well, how are we going to work around that? How are we going to make that possible? So, since I've joined the business, we've gone through quite a large transformation.
Dominic Wray: It was fair to say that when I joined, the business was very much running in a sort of historic, family orientated way of we've always done it that way. That was a phrase I heard quite a lot when I first started this. I know we've done it like that because we've always done it that way. There's sort of a lot of, "Okay, explain to me why we've done it that way and what's the approach to that?". And then over the years, we've moved into using far more digital systems. So I'm big on making sure the team can see at the various levels of the organisation, the bigger picture. And I think that then helps them understand exactly what's going on in the business as a whole. And I think that through digital optimisation of systems and processes, that really helps them do that.
Dominic Wray: So, for example, on the ride side of the fence, we bought in Mobaro, which is quite a well known safety system for our daily inspections. And that just gives far better visibility right the way from the ride operator, the person checking the rides, to the duty manager, all the way up to our owner if he wants to go in on a day and see what's gone on at 10:00 before the site opens. So it's really been around pivoting the organisation into becoming early adopters of technology and systems and processes.
Dominic Wray: We've also recently joined the LEAP scheme, which was quite a big jump for our industry to move away from a historical scheme that had been in place for a number of years. And were some of the first, well, one of the first parks to join that scheme.
Kelly Molson: For our listeners, what is the LEAP scheme? What does that mean?
Dominic Wray: So we have our rides basically inspected by an independent inspection body. And LEAP is the scheme that then oversees and checks off the regulation of that inspection body in a sort of basic format. But it had historically been done by a different organisation and LEAP have come into the marketplace. And taken a different approach to how that is done, which gives far more transparency to the operators and also the customers that are coming into sites to visit as well. But it was quite a big thing for us to say, "Okay, we're going to move away from that historic way of doing it into a newer way of doing things.". But I think as a company, because we can make decisions quite quickly, we don't have a big gain of sign off to go through as a team.
Dominic Wray: We can move quite quickly on things such as that as well.
Kelly Molson: I really like that kind of transparent approach that you talked about because it feels like that would help with kind of unifying the kind of organisational culture as well because people have a bit more visibility about what's going on behind the scenes, so to speak.
Dominic Wray: Yeah. And I think giving people the most amount of information you can give them within their job role and position within the organisation, that level of transparency just allows them to do their job better. Because if they understand what the key metrics that they're working towards and how they're performing and actually how decisions they make on a day to day basis impact the bigger picture of how the attraction performs over a 12, 24 month ongoing period, that makes them feel much more empowered. Because then they can see, actually, I've made this change over here, and that made an impact onto the bottom line over here.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. It gives people that sense of ownership about what they're doing as well, doesn't it?
Dominic Wray: Definitely.
Kelly Molson: So what do you think have been the biggest transformations that you've been able to make over that period?
Dominic Wray: I would say collaborative working. The organisation used to very much be I look after food and beverage, I look after retail, I look after operations and we don't talk to each other. That's my lane.
Kelly Molson: So those little micro companies just kind of like they worked in their little silos and didn't really talk.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. Whereas what we've done across a number of years is change the structure of the way the parks run on a day to day basis. So each of the heads of those departments do take turns of doing duty management shifts. So that gives them the opportunity to experience the park as a complete 360, interact with different departments, understand how other departments work and function. Most importantly, that gets them in front of customers in different areas of the business as well, then that helps them understand, okay, in retail or operations, we're allowing people into the park in this way. If we do this is a domino effect that then actually knocks onto something that could happen in food and beverage later on.
Dominic Wray: So I think again, that goes back to giving them that bigger picture of what's going on in the company and for them to think that actually we are all one team and what someone does in one department does have a knock on effect and impact onto other departments as well. And I think that's really taken place by opening the business up a lot more. Historically, were quite closed off as an organisation, and I've been very big on getting the staff out, seeing other attractions, going, speaking to other people in other attractions, finding out how things work in other parks, other businesses.
Dominic Wray: And I think that's really then enabled us to open up a lot more and we've done that also through being members of BALPPA as well, which has been quite a key point of being able us to open up the business a lot more and experience the team, to experience things outside the company as well.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. So peer learning is one of the things that I'd love to explore a bit more, because I think just going back to what you said about those organisational visits, you've got a few team members that are really active on LinkedIn, so I see a lot of the things that you do as an organisation, and it's really impressive. So you do strategic team visits to other attractions to look at how they're operating, how their attractions are running, what events. You even go to some of their events and see how they've been put on. And that comes back to this whole thing about the sector being really supportive and collaborative with each other, because that never used to happen in my world. In agency world, we are far more open now than we ever were.
Kelly Molson: But I couldn't imagine ten years ago me rocking up to someone else's agency and going, "Could I just sit in on your team while you work through this project and see how your project management process works?". Piss off. I would be able to do that to a number of agencies that I know there. They'd be really happy to share, but it feels like it's kind of always been that way in the sector for attractions. Is that the case?
Dominic Wray: Yeah, 100%. I mean, that was one of the biggest things that shocked me coming into a new career, was actually you can go and ask people for help and ask them how they do things and they're more than willing to share the challenges and issues that they have, but also sharing the solutions to those problems as well. I mean, when I worked at Lloyds, I can't imagine ever walking over the road to Natwest and going, "Hi, can you explain to me how you do this?". They’d say, “Bugger of.”
Kelly Molson: You all will have exactly the same problem. So working together to solve that problem surely helps the greater good, rather than.
Dominic Wray: Everyone has the same problems. They just have it on varying scales of economy, so we might have it on this scale. You go to a bigger park, they've got the same problem, just magnified by ten.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. But you mentioned BALPPA, which I know is an incredible organisation that you're members of. How has being kind of a member of that organisation what's it brought to the attraction and to yourself?
Dominic Wray: I think it's really been transformational for the attraction, myself and the team. I think having an organisation that these business and individuals completely immerse themselves in from a learning standpoint is so valuable to me. I think it's almost like a black book. It is a black book of other attractions that you can gain access to for their knowledge, experience, processes and procedures. And as someone that came into the industry having not worked in it previous to that, I found the organisation so valuable in terms of my own personal learning and the learning of the site as well. So as an attraction, we've massively benefited from being members of BALPPA. We hosted the summer conference this year, which was a big deal for us.
Dominic Wray: So everyone BALPPA came to the island and they spent a day at Blackgang Chine and Robin Hill, and we hosted a gala evening dinner at Robin Hill, which was fantastic. And that was great to show it off to peers and people within the industry and for them to kind of understand about what we do. Because obviously I go along to a lot of events with a lot of the other team and we're all sort of banging the drum about the company. But it's great for people to come and experience that firsthand as well. So I think it's helped broaden the profile of the business and also the individuals within the team as well. I think that's been brilliant for the team's personal development, but also really for their learning.
Dominic Wray: The fact that there's people in the organisation that you can go and talk to about everything from ticketing strategies through to mechanical issues you've got on rides, or the fact that people are so open that you can ring them up and say, "Hey, I've got this issue with this, how do I fix it?" I'll bring this chap, he's the person you need to go and call about this. Or, I'm a bit stuck for this spare part. Yeah, phone this person, they'll be able to get it to you quicker." And everyone's so supportive and willing to help each other. It's quite amazing to see, as I said, coming from a space where that is the complete opposite of that. It's brilliant to be involved in an organisation where if all the attractions are winning, the space is winning and the industry is winning.
Dominic Wray: And I think everyone's mature enough to realise that we've all got our own individual niches and we're not all competing against each other. So actually, by helping each other and people having amazing experiences across all attractions, it just benefits the industry as a whole.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, completely. It just comes back to that whole working in partnerships and not in silos again, doesn't it? You mentioned about people, this is the other thing that I really want to talk about, because you've got brilliant people that work at your organisation and you call them superstar people, which I really love. I guess BALPPA is one of the things that you've put in place to kind of help them because like you said, other team members, not just yourself, can go along to these meetings and they can benefit from the peer to peer learning that you get at those events. And actually just the networking, not even just I've been to a BALPPA event. And what struck me about it was the knowledge that was shared at that meeting.
Kelly Molson: And what struck me about it was the knowledge that was shared at that meeting, it was so authentic and so transparent, actually, that you got a lot from just the talks, but actually you get even more from just networking from people that are in the same position as you, at a different attraction again, have those same kind of challenges and same kind of things that they need to talk about. And being able to just have them on speed dial is so beneficial. What else have you kind of put in place to help develop some of your superstar people there, though?
Dominic Wray: So, as you mentioned, I think the team going along to BALPPA events has been a big thing for them. I think when you're doing your day to day job, you're running at 100 miles an hour, it's quite hard to sort of benchmark yourself against other people in the industry. And I've noticed that when team members have gone along to BALPPA events, they sort of come back with a sense of,” I could hold a conversation with someone from a bigger park. I'm competent at knowing what I'm doing”, which I know that they know that, but I think that helps reinforce confidence within them as well. And I just think they're fantastic spaces for developing the team's personal confidence and, as you said, their wider personal network as well, and knowledge and understanding.
Dominic Wray: I mean, we've seen some of our team members, Laura, who's one of our superstars in our marketing team, she did a keynote speech on Christmas, at the BALPPA marketing conference. And it was so good. I was so proud to see her go there, deliver that, she'd been in the office working hard on it, and then just to stand up and absolutely smash it and see people's reactions to her explaining about that piece was just brilliant. And James, who oversees our site and services, he's due to do a talk on the install of our new rides at the latest BALPPA for Health and Safety Conference that's coming up as well. So I think it's brilliant for the team to be able to be on that platform and develop themselves as well.
Dominic Wray: Other things that we do in an organisation as well. I think I'm really big on giving the team space to be able to do their job safely. I think it's good to allow them to give them the space to they're the experts in that area. I very much see my role is overseeing that and making sure all the pieces are coming together. But quite often I will say to them, "Guys, what do you think about this particular thing? Or how should we approach that?". Because ultimately, they're the experts within the business, within their chosen fields, and I'm big on giving them the opportunity to be the experts in those areas. I also think it's great to take some time out to learn more about them as individuals and their roles and their interests within those roles as well.
Dominic Wray: So, for example, when Laura joined the business, went on a two day marketing course together. It was a conference that she wanted to attend, but I said, "I'll go with you. I'm keen to learn more about the in depth elements of marketing and I think it'd be a good shared experience for us.". And I think that then just enables the team to feel, actually I'm interested in their department and how they work and operate. And I think there's always something that you can learn from everyone that you meet and interact with. So I'm big on doing that. And then the final thing I'll say is really let them be a star in their area and promote that.
Dominic Wray: I mean, the example of Laura with the marketing conference talk was brilliant. It was great to see her on stage representing the business, but also the spotlight was on her and it was about her in that moment, which was fantastic. And I think that's really good when the team feel like they can be superstars in their own arenas of their chosen fields.
Kelly Molson: I love that. I remember that talk really vividly. It was really heartwarming, actually. And there was a really personal element to it as well. And you could see how much she was connected to the subject matter that she was speaking to as well. This is something that we talked about prior to coming on today, about how you've kind of supported your team as well as they kind of move through their careers and they move through what they're doing at the attractions. And one of the things that you've really helped them start to develop is their personal brands. Such a hot topic. It's one I love talking about.
Kelly Molson: It's something that I've really tried to do as best as I can over the last kind of I think just prior to the pandemic, actually, I kind of started to think about what is it that I want people to remember me about, what's important to me? And if I've got a platform, how am I going to use it to talk about the things that I think are important and that other people should hopefully find as important as me.
Kelly Molson: And I think what you've done there is kind of facilitate that for your team, which is really lovely to see because everybody, like you said, is working for the whole of the organisation, but they all have their own kind of individual specialisms. How have you kind of helped people or encouraged people to develop their personal brands? What are the kind of things that you've done there?
Dominic Wray: I've encouraged them to get out there, engage with other people, engage within different networks. I think LinkedIn is a great tool for that as well. I think the team all do lots of amazing things every day that we all see and know that they do. But I'm big on encouraging them about, shouting about that. I think as general British people, we're quite sort of we don't like self promotion too much, don't like talking about ourselves too much. And I think having Laura, to be fair, join the team earlier in the year, who's big on her LinkedIn content and big on talking about what's going on out there, has really helped the team and pushed everyone forwards with doing that. And I've really encouraged them.
Dominic Wray: You might not think anyone's going to take value from the content you're putting out or discussing that, but actually they will because there's probably someone somewhere looking at that thinking, "How do I overcome that problem?” Or “I've got a similar ride to that we're just in the process of refurbishing, maybe I can reach out to them and find out how they're doing that." So really believing in themselves and that they really are superstars in their area and they should be promoting that and talking about how great they are in the businesses that they work for.
Kelly Molson: Have you seen that encouragement kind of help with some of the team's own self confidence as well? They're kind of braver about putting themselves forward for certain things.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, yeah, massively. James, who oversees both of our sites from the site and services viewpoint, started off within the maintenance team one of those sites and he's worked his way up through the business. Now he's responsible for health and safety across both of them. He oversaw the install of our new ride which went in at the beginning of the year as well and it's been fantastic to see him grow and his confidence grow and develop within that. And now he's been asked to go forward, as I said, to do a talk next month about that ride install going ahead, which will be his first sort of public speaking gig, and I'll be very much there to support him along with that as well. So it's been great to watch the team develop and grow along with that and their confidence as well.
Kelly Molson: That's really lovely to see. Well, I think in the past, people probably haven't wanted to highlight certain people, do you know what I mean? If we put these people out in the world, other people might steal them from us. But I think you have to develop your people and you have to let them shine in the roles that they're in because they'll just get better and better and better. So it's really lovely to see that you're encouraging that. I think it's such an important part of running a successful organisation now.
Dominic Wray: Yeah. And I think the team are happier from that. I think if you give them the freedom to go out and experience other attractions and speak to other people at various different levels of organisations, they feel happier where they are. I think if you kind of constrain them and say, "Oh no, we can't allow you to go and speak to these people. We can't allow you to go and visit them because they might poach you or they might offer you a different job." Then they're going to be thinking, "Actually, maybe the grass is greener on the other side.".
Kelly Molson: This is not the company for me after all.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. And I think there's nothing wrong with them being having their own personal brand within the wider brand of the business. I think that's good for them.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think so too. It's really brilliant to see what you've been developing there. Right. I would love it if you could share some top tips for our listeners. We always get our guests to share top tips. Three top tips on processes and people development that you'd encourage other attractions to adopt.
Dominic Wray: My first one would definitely be, and I've already mentioned it, but get your team out visiting other attractions. Can't express enough how much they'll learn from those experiences. I think if you set it out in the right position to say, "Okay, guys, we're going to go and visit this event, this is what we're going to be looking for. This is what I want us to take back from that. When we come back, we're going to have a clear debrief to go through key learnings of that and how we're going to implement that into our business. You can still obviously have a great enjoyable experience."
Dominic Wray: That's one of the best things about working in this industry is going on an R & D trip, but getting to go on a couple of roller coasters and get scared, go to the scare mazes or whatever else you're going to be doing. I think it's great team building as well. It's great for the team to go and see that. And what I find amazing is it can be anything from the way a site manages its waste or the layout of a queue line or actually I liked on the way in how this person upselled this ticket for me. There's so many things you can gain from that.
Dominic Wray: I think when you're going into an attraction, looking at that from that perspective, I just think it's brilliant and there's no kind of training course that you can send anyone on that will deliver that value that they get from going and experiencing it firsthand.
Kelly Molson: I'm just laughing at the excitement about waste as well like, "Yeah, we could see how they process their waste." That is exciting.
Dominic Wray: That would be something that James would probably come back to say to me. But that's what I mean. Everyone of the team's interested in different things, so it's good.
Kelly Molson: On this topic of the visits, do you always go to places that are quite similar to yours as well? Or do you do visits that are in complete contrast to what you do as well? To see the difference.
Dominic Wray: We'll do a bit of both. Probably a good example is when we set up our Halloween event over October, when we very first did that, went to visit Tully's Farm, which was sort of, in our eyes, as the gold standard of scare attractions. The first time went there, we just went to see what is it as an attraction? How does that concept work? The overview sort of headline of that. And then over the years, as we've developed Terror Island, which is our Halloween event, which we run here, over October, we've been back to Tully's on numerous occasions. We've had Stuart, who runs that, come down to the site as well, and we're then looking at that from a different perspective.
Dominic Wray: So then we moved on to, "Okay, how do we look at improving through, how do we look at improving guest experience? How do we look at upselling F&B? Where are the entrance and exit points of the mazes in relation to the broader site? How's the actual site laid out?". So we're then going back and looking at it in a sort of more detailed layer of that. But no, as a team, we'll go to much larger parks, much smaller parks, because I think there's things you can learn from all different sizes of attractions. We went to Hobbledown last year, which was an interesting experience, and we saw their water pillow there, and we actually put one of those into Robin Hill this year, which was one of our most successful attractions.
Dominic Wray: So the guys there were fantastic at explaining about the pros and cons of that attraction, which then enabled us to make an informed decision as to whether to purchase one of those or not. But, yeah, I think there's things to be learned from all different types of attractions. If people are going to them with the right mindset of thinking, “What am I going to learn?”
Kelly Molson: What's the objective here? What's the takeaway? Okay, great. So that's top tip one.
Dominic Wray: Top tip two would be celebrate personal wins for the team and then let them be stars in that moment. I think when someone in the team does something really well and they've achieved something, it's really important to broadcast that to everyone, let everyone know about that and let them shine in that moment. And for it to be about them as an individual, not so much about the company as a whole. It's them in that moment, and you want to make them feel valued and positive about whatever the experiences that they've achieved.
Kelly Molson: Nice. Good tip.
Dominic Wray: And then my third one would be let people make mistakes in a safe manner and learn from it. I think in a working environment, people are quite often aware when they've made a mistake or something's gone wrong. They don't leave someone jumping up and down. Yeah, exactly. You know, when you're like, "That didn't work. I know it's not worked well," but I think allowing them to make mistakes in a safe, controlled manner that they can then learn from, because I think quality people understand when something's gone wrong, and they equally understand how to fix it and put their hands up and say, yeah, that's happened. But we're quite quick to acknowledge that and move on to how we're going to resolve it and not allow that to occur again.
Kelly Molson: Excellent tips. Okay, as an organisation, what's your biggest opportunity and also your biggest challenge as we head into the winter months? Because I think you're coming to do you close over the season? Do you close down?
Dominic Wray: Yes. So Saturday is our last operating day, and we close from November and we open in March.
Kelly Molson: Wow. Gosh, you really are coming up to the end of the season. Okay, so what's your biggest opportunity and your biggest challenge as we head into that time?
Dominic Wray: It was quite a big challenge, and opportunity for the company is that we made a difficult decision to put one of our sites on the market and we're looking to sell Robin Hill. So that will be the biggest challenge and opportunity for the business in recent years, to be fair. I think it presents a great opportunity for the business to double down and invest further into Blackgang, which is 180 years old this year. So it's a big birthday year for us.
Kelly Molson: Incredible.
Dominic Wray: And I think that will enable us to be here for another 180 years. Not that I might still be around at that point in time.
Kelly Molson: You certainly won't look like Mark Wright at that point.
Dominic Wray: No, look like a very aged Mark Wright. But I think it's the biggest challenge for the team and myself personally as we reshape the business and pivot into a new direction, but I equally think it's an exciting one to see what will come out on the other side of that as well.
Kelly Molson: It is exciting, isn't it? I can imagine that having two parks to oversee can be a stretch at sometimes in terms of resource and also in terms of strategy and how things work, because I guess that they work similar but different. So, yeah, I can see that as a huge opportunity and something to I guess it's kind of a nice thing to focus on for the start of the new season as well, that's kind of progressing. And then you've got this really big opportunity to focus on this one thing and make it as the very best it could possibly be.
Dominic Wray: Yeah. And the team have really taken to it. They're really passionate about driving Blackgang forwards and are very excited about the changes and the plans we've got for the next year and coming years as well. So it's been well embraced by them.
Kelly Molson: Good. And I guess you're ending the season on a high as well, because we talked a little bit about your Halloween event, but it has been a really successful Halloween event this year, hasn't it?
Dominic Wray: Yes, it's gone down really well. We made the sun top ten events for Halloween attractions. So yeah, it's been really well received. It's a personal favourite of mine. Absolutely love it. It's been a complete passion project for the team, and the team are always up for every event we do, but this is one that they really get behind and are in every possible conceivable bit of detail. And as someone that never used to like horror films and hated being scared, I now absolutely love going through scare attractions and love scaring other people even more than that. Complete 360 for me as well. So you don't know what you like until you try it.
Kelly Molson: Exactly. You just never know where you never knew where this role was going to take you, did you? When you started this, Dominic, you never knew you were going to end up as a horror fan.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, exactly. Now I'm like, "Oh no, we need to make that person over there look more dead. Or how loud we need the chainsaw louder, or that guy doesn't look scary enough." Way more interesting than ices and loans.
Kelly Molson: I love it. A massive learning curve and 180 years old. I mean, that is a phenomenal achievement. There can't be many other attractions that are coming up for that age. So this is really incredible. I think you've had a really brilliant year. Can't do this podcast without talking about Radio One as well because I've been aware of Blackgang Chine for quite a while, but I think it maybe isn't on the radar of many people because it's Isle of Wight, it's not on the mainland. But I was driving back from the gym one morning and I listened to Radio One.
Kelly Molson: I listened to the Greg James breakfast show on Radio One in the mornings and they were doing this thing where they had to find one of the presenters and all the presenters were hidden up and down all over the country, and they were talking about the Isle of Wight and they kept saying, Blackgang Chine. And I was like, they're talking about Blackgang Chine. Let Laura know. I need to pull over and let Laura know. Obviously she already knew that you were being talked about, but I think how many times did he say Blackgang Chine? It was a lot.
Dominic Wray: It was a lot. I think it was over 50 times. I mean, my phone was going mental, mate. If you've got the presenters because it's because we have an area called Area Five with large animatronic dinosaurs, and they thought we'd hidden them down there and they were like, "God, you're really good at keeping a secret. I can't believe you haven't told us this.". And I'm like, "No, honestly, they're not here.". I don't want to actually believe me. Well, clearly no one did. Kept ringing up Radio One to talk about it, but that was a great bit of brand profile for the business and I guess sort of showed that people were associating the element of dinosaurs to the park as well. So that's obviously positive for us.
Kelly Molson: It was really good press, even if we didn't have the presenter there. It was absolutely brilliant.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, it was fantastic. And then everyone was almost like, they should have been here.
Kelly Molson: They should have been here. We should, we need to get Greg James back over, don't you? I mean, he said it enough, so you should get him there for a visit soon.
Dominic Wray: Greg, if you're listening, come down.
Kelly Molson: I mean, I'd love it if Greg listened to this podcast, but it's highly unlikely. But if you are, Greg, would you like to come on? I'd love a chat with you. I’m just around the corner of Bishop Stortford. That's where you were born, right? We could be friends. Dom, thank you for coming on the podcast. It's been brilliant to chat today. We always end the interview by asking our guests to share a book that they'd like to share with their listeners. So something that you love can be work related or it can be personal, whatever you fancy.
Dominic Wray: Well, I was going to think about saying the Highway Code so people can understand how to overtake cyclists, really, but I won't. My favourite podcast at the moment is a podcast called the Big Fish that's presented by Spencer Matthews.
Kelly Molson: What? Hang on.
Dominic Wray: Oh, sorry, my second favourite. My second well, obviously ones that I listen to after yours.
Kelly Molson: Thank you. Well recovered.
Dominic Wray: Once I've listened to the latest episode, I move on to Big Fish after that.
Kelly Molson: Sorry, say it again. Big Fish. Who's it by?
Dominic Wray: Big Fish by Spencer Matthews, who used to be on Made in Chelsea, I think, and now owns a company called CleanCo, which is a non alcoholic brand, which is quite interesting. But I like it because he interviews lots of CEOs and business owners. It's got a bit of a sports mindset focus to it, but it's also very much around the culture in those businesses, how they've built the businesses and the challenges they face within them as well. So it's quite an interesting one.
Kelly Molson: I like the sounds of that. I listen to quite a lot of podcasts like that. All right, I'm going to put Big Fish on my list. Well, there you go, listeners. You can't win a copy of this podcast because I can't give it away, but I encourage you to go and have a little listen. Maybe it'll be your number two podcast as well, who knows? Dom, thanks for coming on today. It's been lovely to have you. Congratulations on 180 years and best of luck with everything that comes next. I think you've got a really exciting new chapter that's about to start and maybe you'll come back on in a year or so and tell us how it's all gone.
Dominic Wray: Yeah, sounds good. Thank you very much for having me enjoyed it.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.
Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics.
In this episode, we're talking about mobile optimisation, why it's important and what you can do to improve it.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Hello, we're back. Everyone will be sick of us by this episode.
Paul Marden: I give it a couple more. We've got some interesting stuff to talk about hopefully, hopefully.
Kelly Molson: We have. Okay, so let's start as we usually do then, with what attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it?
Paul Marden: Well, there's one that you and I both visited recently, and there was something I really didn't love about it. We went on what was it called? Was it Mandrake Mayhem? It's the new Jumanji ride. Chessington World of Adventures.
Kelly Molson: Mandrill.
Paul Marden: There we go. If you are a roller coaster nut, would be amazing. But yeah, within 2 seconds of the ride starting, I realised it was not the ride for me.
Kelly Molson: I like roller coasters. Yeah. So we sponsored one of the awards at the UK Theme Park Awards. And it was brilliant. It's fantastic.
Paul Marden: It was such a great event.
Kelly Molson: Really good event, brilliantly organised. It was absolutely brilliant to see so many attraction friends there. And it was at Chessington World of Adventures, which was super cool. I also want to talk about Chessington because I had forgotten how good it is. So I haven't been to Chessington since I was really small, and I think I'm pretty sure I only visited once or twice because we actually lived closer to Thorpe Park and were like in the Thorpe Park Rangers camp. But what I'd forgotten about Chessington was the animals. Yeah, I was really lucky. I drove down the night before of the awards and got to stay at the hotel that night. I didn't get to stay in any of themed rooms because budget did not allow for that.
Kelly Molson: However, what I'd forgotten was that when you're having breakfast, the animals are literally right outside where you're eating. And I'd forgotten about it to the extent that I went up to the buffet to go and get my lovely, delicious English breakfast, which I was really looking forward to. And I could see people looking out the window and I was like, "Oh, what are you looking at?" And they went, "Giraffes? Yeah. Wow." Actually took my breath away a little bit. It was a really great experience. It's not often that you get to eat your breakfast whilst looking at giraffes and zebras as well that were out there. So, yeah, that was really great. And I really enjoyed the roller coaster. Despite someone's screams in my ear.
Paul Marden: I heard this screaming noise all the way around and about three quarters of the way around I realised it was me.
Kelly Molson: There was quite a bit of a screaming, to be fair.
Paul Marden: I watched it back. I found a video on YouTube to show Millie, my daughter, and I was like, "Oh, my God, it's horrific. You get to the end and you're just dangling on the side for about a minute and then it changes direction.” And we watched it on YouTube, it barely stops at the top of the ride. It gets up to the top, gets to a hole and then drops back down again. Now, to me, in my memory, that was a solid minute. We were hanging over the side of the hole.
Kelly Molson: It was just a minute.
Paul Marden: Anyway, I did enjoy it.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, big thumbs up to Chessington. It was a really great experience. So, thank you. A big thumbs up to the UK Theme Park Awards organisers as well. It was a great event. We'll be back next year.
Paul Marden: For sure.
Kelly Molson: Right, we're going to talk about mobile optimisation in this episode. We're going to talk about why it's important and what you can do to improve it. And we've got some really interesting stats to share from the Visitor Attraction Website Report about this. But did you know optimisation is no longer a nice to have? It's a necessity, because Statista forecasts that retail sales from mobile commerce are expected to surpass that 100 billion mark by 2000 and 2400.
Paul Marden: Crazy, isn't that?
Kelly Molson: I started my career in digital, in ecommerce as well, which is crazy. So it just feels really I know, back in the day, so I always say it was my last proper job before I founded Rubber Cheese, which then has been like, what, nearly 21 years. So it was the last proper job that I had before I set that up was for a really early startup, almost like Shopify, but back then. So this is like 23 years ago.
Paul Marden: We've got employees younger than that.
Kelly Molson: Let's look at it. But it enabled sellers to go and build their own shop. It was called iShop. It was an absolutely incredible platform of its time. And back then, I just about had an email address, let alone did everything, could pretty much run my entire organisation on my mobile phone now. It just blows my mind how much things have moved on.
Paul Marden: It's crazy, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Anyway, I digress. So our Visitor Attraction Website Report shows that attractions understand the importance of mobile optimisation for their websites, but there's really huge areas that could be improved. This, for me is the most shocking stat from the entire report. It's blown my mind slightly. 96% of the respondents stated that they had never conducted any user testing for their mobile sites. So that's nearly all of the 188 attractions that took part said that they've never done any user testing on their mobile, which I just don't understand. I've been banging on about testing on your mobile, testing your mobile site for every talk that I've given for the past two years.
Paul Marden: Well, that's having a big effect, isn't it, mate?
Kelly Molson: Isn't it? Maybe I should talk louder. Yeah, I'm really gobsmacked at it. What was really interesting, though, about it, I mean, it's a shocking stat in itself, but what we did this year with the report is that we asked attractions to kind of self-score their website. So we asked them what they felt their design scored in terms of design, so they could give it a one to ten score. So we asked them to do the same about different areas of their site, and one was mobile optimisation. So 31% gave their site a score of nine out of ten for it, and 24% gave their site an eight out of ten.
Paul Marden: They think it's pretty good.
Kelly Molson: Yes, and this is the problem. So they think it's good. That indicates that those scores are based on internal assumptions, not potentially not tangible user centred data, because they haven't asked the people to test that their mobile sites are a nine out of ten or an eight out of ten. So I just thought that was really interesting, that a lot of your judgement can be based on your assumptions rather than actually asking the people that are using it. So yeah, I think that's really important that people do that.
Paul Marden: I was looking at some stuff that was related to this, but not the same area of the stats that you were looking at there. So I looked at how many of the group actually did any user testing on their site. Okay. And obviously that's a really in comparison to other stats where there's a big wide disparity between different sorts of people. The vast bulk of people reported that they weren't doing any user testing, but the ones that did, all sat in the top range of conversion rate. I'm not saying that one causes the other, but there is a strong relationship between the group of people that are user testing their sites. And all of that group of people also had a conversion rate right in the top of our data set, and that ranged in size as well.
Paul Marden: So we're not just talking about the big brands that are doing this. And when you looked at that set of data, there was a big brand in there. Everybody would know it. There was quite a few big brands that weren't in there. So for me, they were conspicuous by their absence because I'd seen them elsewhere in the data set that had been reported. But there was a small brand in there as well, a small organisation. I'd not heard of them before. They had between 5 to 10,000 transactions a year, which in comparison to the people at the top end of the scale, that's at least an order of magnitude smaller organisation. But they were reporting that they were doing user testing and they had a conversion rate right up there in the top end of our data set.
Paul Marden: Even more surprisingly, of those that have done user testing specifically on mobile was a very small percent. And this bit you will be pleased about because some people are listening to you, that consisted of a very high proportion of Rubber Cheese clients were in that set of people who were doing user testing specifically on their mobile experience.
Kelly Molson: Yay. Yay, Rubber Cheese clients!
Paul Marden: Somebody is listening to you.
Kelly Molson: High five to all of you lovely people. Yes. So it's interesting, isn't it? Because user testing for me, so we talk a lot about marginal gains at Rubber Cheese, about trying to make something that 1% better, 1% better, 1% better. And the only way you can actually do that is by doing user testing because you just don't know what to make better. You don't know where people are finding those barriers, you don't know where people are maybe confused about something or being blocked by something as well. For me, it's the number one thing to do if you want to start making those tiny adjustments that will start to then have those incremental and larger effects later on down the line.
Paul Marden: I think it's so difficult to put yourself into the head of that person that knows nothing. We all come to the party if we run the testing, whether it's us at the attraction or us as the agency. We come to the party with lots and lots of knowledge that the average person that comes to the site and just doesn't have. And it's really hard to put yourself into that position and the solution to that is getting them to do the testing for you.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. And when it comes to testing, I think I kind of split it into two. Because for mean I've said this before, but most of my browsing or purchasing is done in a very short window of time in front of the telly when I'm supposed to be watching something that Lee and I have decided that is the one thing that we can watch with the hour of telly time that we get together each day. But actually I'll be trying to watch that whilst also doing ten other things on my phone and I'll split it into browsing and purchasing and most of that happens between about 9:00 and 10:00 for me at night and it will always be on my phone. Do not make me go, I'm not going to go back into my office and crack open my laptop at that time.
Kelly Molson: So everything has to be on my phone. I'm really time poor, clearly. So page load speed for me is really important. If I'm trying to find something, I need to find it quickly. I want to read something that's engaging, but not at the expense of not being able to load that page that I want to read. So things like compressing your images is really important. This is a difficult one when it comes to video is that I love video. I think there is nothing more engaging than video on your website, especially if you're a visit attraction to sell that experience. But lose the video on mobile or reduce it, reduce it, reduce it down because that's going to wipe out a load of bandwidth speed and it's going to make your page loads really small.
Paul Marden: I've got beef about it in terms of it's autoplay video. It's not an environmentally sustainable thing to do. We don't often think about the environmental impact of websites but it's right up there in terms of industry generating CO2 emissions and it's not the main cause of it, but it's one area where this is prevalent is in the use of autoplay video on homepage. The website. People go to the site, the video plays whether they want to watch the video or not and that is just burning through bandwidth which is ultimately generating CO2. So I'm not anti video. I think video is an amazing thing and as you say, it can really engage you. I sat this morning talking about engaging video to try and get people to want to love the attraction to a client. So I'm totally for it.
Paul Marden: But it should be something that user opt into, not something that autoplays for them.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I agree. And content as well. So we know that people read content online differently than they do in a book or a magazine or a newspaper for example, but actually they read it differently than they do on desktop to mobile too. So you actually need to think about if a certain article you have or a blog or event or whatever it may be, is going to sit in the demographic of people like me who is a 45 year old woman with toddler has 1 hour in front of the telly a day to do all of her purchashing and scrolling and anything else she needs to do on her phone.
Paul Marden: Superheroes you make.
Kelly Molson: Where is my cape? That content really needs to appeal to them and it needs to be in the shortest form possible because I don't have the time to read all of the engaging content. I just don't. So you need to kind of think about, is your content formatted differently when it's from desktop to mobile as well? And then when it comes to purchasing this one's, a little bit trickier for attractions, I think, and there's lots of different reasons for it. We're probably going to talk a little bit longer about this one, but the number one thing that we're always asked to review on attraction websites is that booking journey. And the thing is, we can only do the review of it if that booking journey is owned by the attraction.
Kelly Molson: What I mean is if it's been designed and you are integrating with your booking system via API, so your agency or your internal team have designed that journey up to the point of you know, the tickets in the basket and gone. If you're using a third party system, an off the shelf ticketing platform that isn't integrated via API, there's not a lot that we can do about of once a guest is into the purchasing journey, they're with that system. The things that you can think about if you are going to go down the design and at your own route, you need to think about big buttons, you need to think about less clutter. I want arrows, don't make me type stuff into small form, free form boxes on mobile. You just need to be able to select things really quickly and clearly.
Kelly Molson: So you want to kind of just strip out all of the noise and just get people to focus on the one thing that you want them to do, which is go through that journey and buy that ticket. What was interesting in the stats that came out of the report is that 75% of the respondents to it still expect customers to complete more than five steps to purchase, which hasn't changed from last year, that's similar to last year. And again, the reasons you might not be able to control that, you might be unable to control that because of the system that you use. So this is a really challenging one, but if you can reduce it, you can actually make some quite significant financial gains. So you looked at the impact of bookings on conversion rate, which is quite significant.
Paul Marden: I got really excited working this number out. I reckon these numbers are conservative as well because these are on the basis of ticket prices and lost ticket sales. For me, I think this number could be higher for most attractions because the value of somebody coming to an attraction is bigger than just their ticket price. We talked about this the other day when were chatting. When you go there's, the meal that you eat, there's the gifts that you buy when you leave. So the total cost of somebody arriving at the attraction is probably higher than I'm estimating here. But using some stats on what the fall off rate is in ecommerce transactions, we've worked out that each step that you add to your checkout flow, it costs.
Paul Marden: For our average attraction in our data set that we reckon it costs about 8000 pounds a year in lost sales. And for our top performing attractions it could be worth in the range of a quarter of a million pound a year in lost sales for each step that is included in their checkout flow. You think if you're in one of those top performing attractions with five steps, a quarter of a million pound in lost sales just in year one, that's a lot of developer time that you could buy to simplify your checkout workflow, isn't it? The return on investment for that, for a big organisation of simplifying your checkout workflow I think could be huge.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it could. There's so many other factors to think about. We have clients that have API integrations, we have clients that use off the shelf booking systems. In one way, I've always been really in the corner of designing and owning your own booking journey, but you have to be realistic about what that puts on the organisation as well, and what size your organisation is, whether you have the internal team to be able to manage that, the infrastructure to be able to manage that as well.
Paul Marden: There's a total cost of ownership issue, isn't there, that is beyond just the buying price of the website in the first place. You've got to be able to maintain the thing going forward, haven't you, and that's pricy.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. But I think if you are thinking about your booking systems at the moment, then having the conversations with the providers about what their mobile journeys look like, ask to get them to demo it on mobile so you can see it for yourself. And ask them what the roadmap is in terms of mobile optimisation for the booking journeys as well. So just go into these conversations with those thoughts in mind so that you can get an understanding of what that looks like. And if their purchasing journey is six steps at the minute, ask them what are your plans to reduce that to five steps and how could we work with you to make that happen? That could start to take those conversations in some really positive ways.
Paul Marden: Honestly, this stat, I'm going to sound like such a nerd, but this stat has stuck in my head ever since we worked this one out. And I can't get out of my head what the impact is of the lost opportunity, the lost sales that are happening because of these steps. And I've been thinking, what is the absolute barest minimum? Because lots of attractions, when they're going through their buying journey, I'm thinking, what on earth do you need to ask me? This is a rhetorical question, by the way. I know the complexity that is going into a lot of these things, I do understand it, but why is it that you actually need to ask me to take these five steps to get through, to get me to actually part with my money?
Paul Marden: And I've been thinking about, for me, what is the absolute barest minimum you could get away with asking? Well, there's no way that you can affect a payment card transaction without knowing the card details. So you've got to ask the card number, the postcode, the CDC number and the surname of the person holding the card. So you have to have those. And if we can't give the ticket to somebody, we've got to have a mechanism getting the ticket to them, so we need their email address. Those five things are the absolute barest things I could get away with. But of course, that would only sell you, could only sell an undated, untimed ticket with that.
Paul Marden: And I've been thinking about this back in COVID, so COVID and lockdown, and then the gradual release of lockdown was what introduced for many attractions, timed and dated tickets, wasn't it? And that was a complete transformation because we had limited capacity, we needed to make sure that we didn't oversell that capacity and create a problem at the gate. But is it necessary now? I completely understand that there's lots of benefit to the attraction, to guest services and people like that, of knowing exactly how many people are coming into the attraction and being able to metre that. But I wonder what impact having timed tickets and dated tickets is having on the number of people that give up buying because there's just too many steps in the process. "I can't be bothered with this. I'm going to not do it."
Kelly Molson: This is quite controversial.
Paul Marden: Isn’t it? Completely. And I'm thinking back to that podcast episode that you did with Roman Baths where you were talking about variable pricing and dynamic pricing and of course you can only do those things if you have dated and timed tickets. So if nothing else, there is a creative tension there, isn't there, between if I ask the absolute barest minimum, I will sell more tickets, versus if I date and time my tickets and I could be really flexible about my pricing. Everybody wants lots and lots of information because who wouldn't want all the information you could possibly get about your customers versus the more I ask, the less people will buy. Harsh, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. I'm in the camp of pre booking as well, so this is uncomfortable for me. I'm in the camp of pre booking and I don't mind time ticketing either. I think there is absolutely a place for it and I think for organisations, for attractions, it just makes their life so much simpler.
Paul Marden: Completely agreed with you. But I guess there's this at one end of the scale, you've got the absolute barest minimum that you could ask that will get more people, take their money, take money off of people and get them through the checkout flow as fast as you possibly can. Versus if there's two ends to this spectrum and both make us both feel uncomfortable, Where's the middle ground? Do you need to know where my address is? You don't need my address to be able to sell me a ticket. You need to know my postcode so you can do the credit card transaction, but you don't need my whole address to do that. So maybe that's where the compromise sits. That doesn't make either of us feel uncomfortable.
Kelly Molson: Maybe. I always think there's a way to get more data out of people at a later stage as well, if you really want it. And maybe that's something that we need to look at in a different episode, is that you don't have to ask for all of these things at the point of purchase, but you can ask for more stuff afterwards as well if you're really engaging with that audience.
Paul Marden: There's also one more thing just on that point, there were tools that could simplify this as well. Because if you have a clever use of Apple Pay or Google Pay, both of those checkout flows, people have all of their personal information plugged into Apple Pay, so you don't need to ask me anything about me. If you have a clever checkout flow with Apple Pay, then you could take my money and then get my personal information from Apple rather than make me having to type it all in. How much easier does that make the process?
Kelly Molson: When I posted about this on LinkedIn, it must have been a couple of months ago now, and I asked people what their biggest frustrations was with booking journeys. They said lack of Apple Pay. They said it's a necessity for people. They don't want to think about their details. They don't know their card details. They haven't gotten again, they're sitting on the sofa like I am, their cards are upstairs. They're not going to get off their bums and go and get their cards. That was the number one thing that kept coming up over and over again. And then the second one was around clear and consistent pricing so that they don't feel like they're being ripped off as the deeper they get into that journey. So that's two really interesting things to think about there.
Kelly Molson: On these episodes, we often highlight people that are doing it. Well, we've decided not to do it in this episode. And there's a couple of reasons for that, is that it's really hard to compare between people that have an API integrated designed booking journey and people that are using off the shelf systems. And there will be very specific reasons for why they have chosen to go down either of those routes. And you can't compare them because the reasons are uncomparable, I feel. So we've decided just to take that step out for today, but we are going to talk about what next steps that you can take. So I think the first one is going back to what you've just referenced is thinking about what information you actually really need from the customer.
Paul Marden: Yeah, if you ask less, you'll need less steps. The less steps, the more people will make it through the checkout site.
Kelly Molson: So what can you remove and maybe what could you add in later in addition to that.
Paul Marden: Completely.
Kelly Molson: And then test on mobile. Test again. Didn't I end last episode with saying just test, test on mobile regularly, but go through the entire process from start to finish.
Paul Marden: And then the fix the stuff that doesn't work. So I had an interesting conversation when were at Theme Park Awards with another podcast alumni. We were chatting about prepping for the report and where were going and what were doing and all that kind of thing. And he told me a story about a site, fairly large attraction, where when you try and check out the only way if you're doing it on mobile, you can't select the number of tickets when you hold your mobile up. Now, the attraction has tested, they know it because they've written a message at the top of the page and it says to be able to book your tickets, rotate your phone to the side and then you get the ability to be able to choose your numbers.
Paul Marden: So great, they're doing some testing, but how many people don't bother reading that message, how many people are stymied by the idea that, "Oh, well, I can't choose the number of tickets?" Not only have you got to test it, you got to fix the stuff that doesn't work as well.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, gosh, how frustrating is that? And is that the system that they're using? So they've got no control over it. And if that is the system that they're using, then they didn't get them to demo it on mobile, did they, when they purchased it?
Paul Marden: I think it's a combination of the two. I think there was something very special about the ticket descriptions of that attraction. That meant that they wrote quite a lot in the descriptions and when you wrote quite a lot in the ticket description, it just overflows off the side of your mobile, unless you've got a massive tablet. Or you rotate it on the side.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's not great. Asking them to do something that they're not expecting to have to do is challenging, isn't it, asking all your users to think, well, they don't want to think either. They don't want to think at that point. They just want to do the doing. Okay, what kind of budget are we looking at for some of these things? It's really difficult to say.
Paul Marden: Yeah, as you've just said, or to remove steps out of the checkout flow. It could be impossible for many people, because if they have an off the shelf ticketing system that they call out to that they don't have control over, then they might not be able to do anything about that. I mean, don't get me wrong, there's lots of things with those off the shelf ticketing solutions. Many of them are very flexible about the steps that you take through the checkout flow. So it can be very highly configurable and it could be in their control to just take it out without any need for developers doing things. It could just be a case of how do they use their third party ticketing system and changing that slightly.
Paul Marden: So it could be possible, or it could be something very practical that they could do themselves.
Kelly Molson: It's worth saying that we as an organisation have lots of conversations with lots of the ticketing providers and they are very aware of improvements that can be made or would like to be made to this.
Kelly Molson: So I think that there's definitely a movement in the ticketing world of acknowledging that this is challenge and knowing that they can do something about it. And I know that there are a few that have got kind of plans to make change in this area as well. So that's great to see.
Paul Marden: It's a really competitive space, isn't it? So it's interesting to see how that's going to play out.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, very much so. Okay, well, look, listeners, this is us for another month. What we'd really like, though, is to understand what you'd like to hear from us. So we've got loads more topics that we can talk about from the report. We have got loads of things that come up on day to day basis, things that we work on that we can talk about. But if there's anything that you would like us to discuss, any questions that you'd like to ask us, we can happily make those into a podcast episode. So send me an email. It's [email protected]. Just let me know what you're having challenges with. Yeah, any questions that you just would like us to cover as a topic and we can make that happen.
Paul Marden: Awesome. I'd love to. I'm enjoying it.
Kelly Molson: Me too. It's lovely to have a fellow guest. Fellow host.
Paul Marden: I just got downgraded then.
Kelly Molson: Who's the real host? Me, of course. It's lovely to be joined by a second host. Thank you, Paul. See you next month.
Paul Marden: Bye. Bye.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip The Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip the queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://www.beamish.org.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/rhiannon-hiles-4469784/
Rhiannon Hiles is Chief Executive of Beamish, The Living Museum of the North.
Rhiannon leads the talented team of staff and volunteers, and is responsible for strategic development and operations at the award-winning County Durham open air museum, which brings the region’s history to life.
With over 30 years’ experience in the culture sector, Rhiannon has extensive curatorial, commercial, operational and development expertise, combined with a great passion for museums, heritage and the North East.
Working with national and international museum colleagues, Rhiannon is at the forefront of leading open air and independent museum practice, focused on sharing ideas, knowledge and supporting talent and progression across the sector.
Rhiannon has a background in architectural and design history and an MA in Museum Studies specialising in social, rural and folk life studies and was an antique dealer and museum volunteer early on in her career. Her professional experience includes the prestigious Oxford Cultural Leaders Programme, SPARK Association Independent Museums (AIM) senior leaders programme, appointment to the board of the Association of European Open Air Museums, North East Chamber of Commerce Council member, National Museum Directors’ Council, Museums Association, Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, and the Association of Independent Museums. She has been a school governor and is currently a Museums Association mentor and Director of the Melrose Learning Trust.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. On today's episode, I speak with Rhiannon Hiles, CEO of Beamish Museum.
We talk about wiggly careers and finding opportunities that use all of your skills. We also discuss philanthropic thinking and how to use this approach to support the funding of new projects.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Rhiannon, it's lovely to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on. I'm very excited that we've got Beamish back on, if I'm honest. So I know that we've had lovely Matthew Henderson, one of your past colleagues, came on not too long ago and talked about creative ideas for driving commercial income.
Kelly Molson: But I've recently experienced Beamish, which I'm sure we'll talk about later on in the podcast. So I'm really tough to it's lovely.
Rhiannon Hiles: It's a pleasure to be here. I've been dying to talk to you as well. So this is great. We had that initial conversation, didn't we? And so to be talking to you again today, it's brilliant.
Kelly Molson: Well, hopefully you still feel like that after I've asked you these icebreaker questions. Let's start. Okay, I want to know what's the worst gift that you've ever received but you had to try really hard to kind of be grateful for.
Rhiannon Hiles: Well, I used to have a black and white collie when I was growing up. We had a small holding and we always had collies. And I had my favourite collie was called Woody. I loved Woody. Woody came everywhere with me, black and white. And I was out somewhere once and I said, "Oh, she looks a bit like a badger." When they asked me what she looked like. And then people kept giving me badger stuff all the time. And my house was getting full and full. I was a student at the time and had a student house that's full of badger things. And I was always very polite because I was brought up to always say, "Thank you. Thank you very much for the present." Inside I was going, "Not more badger things."
Rhiannon Hiles: And when I eventually thought I was moving and I thought, I'm going to put all those badger things in a box and take it to a charity shop, and I did that.
Kelly Molson: And somebody would have loved that big box of badger rubbish, wouldn't they?
Rhiannon Hiles: Somebody.
Kelly Molson: You get this if you've got a sausage dog as well. So we used to have a sausage dog. The minute you have one of them, everyone thinks that you are a dachshund mad and you're not. You've just got a dachshund. But they buy you everything that I've got so much stuff with dachshund. I don't know if the person that bought me is listening to this. I've got like makeup bags with dachshunds on I've been bought, like, shopping bags and things like that. And I'm like, "Yeah, she's cool and all that, but I don't need to dress myself in dachshunds and paraphernalia". For now, anytime that anyone buys me anything rubbish, I'm going to put it in the badger box. Right. I love that.
Kelly Molson: Okay, well, this is definitely not going to be badgers, but if you had to pick one item to win a lifetime supply of, what would you pick?
Rhiannon Hiles: It's not really very sustainable and everyone who knows me will be like, "You are." It sounds so vain, mascara.
Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah. No, I'm with you.
Rhiannon Hiles: Sorry.
Kelly Molson: No, don't apologise. Mascara would absolutely be on, like, my desert island diffs. If I was put if I was sent away somewhere, I would need not Desert Island Discs. What am I talking about? If I was on a desert island and I could take one thing, I want my mascara.
Rhiannon Hiles: When I was pregnant and packing, you packed the bag, ready to go to hospital, and I was like, "Have I got everything in?” And I was like, “Have I got mascara in?" And everyone's like, "You will not want that or need it." And I was like, "I will." And to be fair, I'm not actually certain that I did care, but I was safe because it was in there. Should I need it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, at the time. Things like that are really important. Are they? Have you ever had the fake eyelashes put on so you don't have to bother with it?
Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, not to that degree. When I was a teenager, I was a goth and I thought I was Susie Sue. So this is 1983. And I really thought I was Susie Sue. And I'd spent ages studying the way she had her ticks and her eyeliner and her eyebrows. So I spent ages perfecting that and I couldn't get the eyelashes to work in the corners to what I wanted. So probably from Superdrug or the Equivalent in 1983, because I can't remember where it was in Durham. I'd snuck in with my pocket money and I bought these stick ones to go along the top. They didn't stay on for very long.
Rhiannon Hiles: I've never had the ones that people actually have physically put in, but then when I see people and maybe one of them's come out, I'm like, it looks a bit odd. Stick with your own eyelashes.
Kelly Molson: I can't do the put them on yourself. I'm not very good with stuff like this at all. I'm not very good with makeup, but mascara is my go to because..
Rhiannon Hiles: That's easy, isn't it? Opens up your eyes, away you go.
Kelly Molson: All you have to play like a new woman. But I have had the ones that someone puts in professionally before, which were amazing, but the only downside is when you decide that you don't want them any, have them taken off. Your own eyelashes look so rubbish. That you look a bit like an alien because you’ve got not enough lashes, because you had loads before with the extra on. So, yeah, little tip for you, everyone. You'll look like an alien.
Rhiannon Hiles: I'll remember that.
Kelly Molson: Right. What is your unpopular opinion for us?
Rhiannon Hiles: I listen to your podcasts and I love hearing what people's unpopular opinions are. And I listened to the one with Bernard Donoghue and the other two brilliant chaps, and one of them had nicked my unpopular opinion and now I don't want to share it because they didn't nick it, because they didn't know that I was going to do it. But I used to live in the museum, I used to live in Beamish, and it was brilliant. At the end of the day, when visitors weren't there, it was amazing.
Kelly Molson: Oh, this is what Paul said.
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: Kelly said that the best thing about the attractions is when people aren't there.
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. Now, like, during the day, I would never think that or say that, because I love being amongst all the people, but when I lived in the museum, when everyone went, when the trams went, when it was deadly quiet, it was like yet another place, and it was like, "Wow, this is amazing now." And it was so different when the people weren't there. But I have to say that, for me, is an unpopular opinion, because, obviously, visitor attractions work when they're full of people. And although I used to think, I think, “Oh, it's so lovely at nighttime, or when everyone's gone”, but then when it went into lockdown into COVID, it made me sad when the people weren't there. So then my unpopular opinion kind of shifted. A very simple unpopular opinion is that I really don't like mushy peas.
Kelly Molson: I'm with you. I don't like peas of any form at all. No, I'm absolutely this might not be so unpopular because I've got, like, a group of friends that are pea haters like me, and I have passed it on to my little girl as well, which I'm trying to yeah, I know she's not great. She's really good with fruit, not good with veg, and I'm trying to kind of retract that a little bit, but she's heard me say peas and make the face and now she's like, “Peas, yucky mummy.” Yeah. I'm trying to get her to go back, but I draw the line. There's no way I'm having mushy peas in my mouth.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I think it's like the husky bit. Sometimes they're not really mushed and there's still a bit of husky pea shell in and I'm like, I don't like it.
Kelly Molson: It's actually turning my stomach, thinking, well, let's see, whose side of the coin are you on? Are you on the pea lovers side or the pea haters? Come and join us on the haters side.
Rhiannon Hiles: Vote now.
Kelly Molson: Right, I want to know a little bit about your background, because I know that you've been at Beamish for quite a while. But what did you do prior to that?
Rhiannon Hiles: When I was at school, I was really into horse riding, I had ponies and I set my sights from about the age of ten, probably to be a riding instructor. And so I was determined that's what I was going to do. But I was always a very good artist and I used to love drawing buildings and animals, not always in the same picture, but I loved the shape of buildings and I was just very interested in them. And I used to travel quite a lot with my grandparents and we used to always visit museums on the continent in particular. We used to go to open air museums loads and I just loved them. We always went in the summer, really loved them. But I still thought, I want to be a riding instructor, just want to visit those museums and have fun.
Rhiannon Hiles: And then as I went through school, you flick around, don't you, a bit, when you're in school? Because I love drawing, I love sketching clothes. And I was a bit of a gothy punk when I was a teenager, and I used to make my own clothes. But I also was really into how the interiors of buildings looked. But I continued to ride horses and I did train to be a riding instructor, but I soon discovered there's no money in that unless you've got really wealthy parents with your own riding school and everything. So I continued to ride, still love horses, but knew I just went on a bit of a quest and I did quite a lot of commissions of drawings whilst I was studying, while I was doing art at college, and then I went on to do architecture and design at university.
Rhiannon Hiles: And while I was at university, I met some people who said, "Have you ever thought about studying this and have you ever thought about doing some work in museums? And what about open air museums?". And I thought, "Well, I've always visited them, and I love them." So I started doing some voluntary work in museums and at the same time supplementing my living by buying and selling antiques. So I was antiques dealer for a while, which is good fun, actually. I quite enjoyed doing that, but I wasn't the greatest antiques dealer because I was more interested in the history of the things than the money that I was making from them. Sometimes I'd be like, "Do you know where this is from? And I just want to buy it". I was like, "But it's really interesting."
Rhiannon Hiles: So I love doing that and I think it did give me a really good grounding. So I would really like scrabble around and things. I would go into skips and get stuff out and I'd sometimes knock on people's doors and I'd say, "You've got this really interesting table in the skip, can I have it?". Sometimes I would just pass a skip and go ask paper, put it in my car, and then I'd do them up. And one of my mum's friends used to buy and sell student housing in Durham, and she used to get me to help her to get the houses ready. And she'd say to me, "I'm going to leave you.". This is in, like 1987, 88. She'd leave me with a hammer and she'd say, can you knock out that set pot in the corner?
Rhiannon Hiles: And when I come back, I'll just take you home, no PPE or anything. I'll stand there with the hammer thinking I was like, I was 18, I was like, I'll just hit it everywhere. But funnily enough, I think that gave me quite a good understanding of the ins and outs of older buildings. And I just really knew that I wanted to be involved with telling the stories of people who might have lived in those older buildings. So when I started doing that voluntary work, I did it in a museum in Durham first, which is brilliant, great grounding. It was the Oriental Museum in Durham. There's loads of work in their stores. And then my uncle's friend was a curator at Beamish, and my uncle said, "Give Jim a ring, see if you can get some voluntary work at that Beamish."
Rhiannon Hiles: So I rang that Beamish up and I said, "Could I get some voluntary work?" And it kind of started from there, and I thought when I went, I was like, I've always visited here. Didn't really cross my mind you could work here. And I just kind of loved it right from the start. I became immersed. I found a picture of me recently when I'm a bit older. I'm 21 by then, and it's just before I started working at the museum, because it's when I was doing my undergraduate degree, and I'm like, I'm in one of the cottages and I've got all my glass stuff on and I think I'm dead cool. I've got my camera, but I can tell in my face that I was like I'm like, "Wow, I'm in the opening.”
Kelly Molson: This is amazing.
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So I think I had a bit of a, like, I don't know, was I going to be a horse rider, was I antique stay there, was I an artist? But then when I went into open air museums, I just knew I just had this fire in my belly, whatever you want to call it. I was like, this is where I need to be and this is what my quest is. This is where I want to lead one of these I want to be responsible for one of these fantastic places.
Kelly Molson: Oh, my God, what an incredibly wiggle. I love that. So I really like hearing about where people I think the skills that people have and how they then apply them into the roles that they've ended up in. I was so shocked when you said about antiques, because I love that. I love nothing better than a Sunday morning mooch around a vintage shop or just like, scouring charity shops for any kind of bargain that I can find. And I was like, "She's literally living my life. That's amazing. I’d love to do that job.”
Rhiannon Hiles: I think, briefly, because I used to go so a friend of mine who was at university with, he said, "Well, if you're dealing in antiques, why don't we set up together? Why don't we get a van together? Have you got any money?". And I loaned 500 pounds off my mum and I said, "I'll give you it back." I don't think I ever did. And we bought this really tatty van, bearing in mind this is, like, in the late 1980s, and we used to do, like, Newark. We used to go up to Isntonton in Edinburgh near the airport. We used to go around the country doing all the really big antique spares and camp and sell our goods really early in the morning to the dealers and then all the public would come in.
Rhiannon Hiles: And then I started to be like, semi all right at it. And a friend of mine had a pub with a little what had been a shop attached to the pub in York, and she asked me if I wanted to sell some of my antiques in that little shop attached to the pub. So I did that for a little bit and then I thought, I think it's not quite working for me, there's something not quite right. And it was because I wanted to tell the stories of the things. So I enjoyed doing it and I learned lots doing it, but I wanted to be a curator, basically, and I hadn't clicked at that point. And then when it did click, I was, "It's clicked. That's what I'm going to do."
Kelly Molson: And then you stayed at Beamish and you've just progressively worked your way through all of these different roles, up to CEO now.
Rhiannon Hiles: I know. That's amazing.
Kelly Molson: It is amazing. But you hear that quite a lot, don't you, where people, they find the place and then they stay there because it's got them basically, it's just got them hooked. And I totally understand this about Beamish. Were talking about this just before we hit record, but I visited Beamish a couple of months ago and had such an emotive reaction to the place. It's an incredible experience. It's the first living museum that I've ever been to. I knew what to expect, but I didn't know what to expect, if that makes sense. I knew what was there and I knew what was going to happen and how were going to experience the day, but I was not prepared for how completely immersive it is and how emotional I got, actually, at some of the areas.
Kelly Molson: So can you just give us an overview of Beamish for our listeners that haven't been there. What is Beamish?
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, I think you've described it really well there about it being immersive and emotional. So those elements will perhaps occur for the visitor. They might not. It depends what people want to get out of their visit. But you and I were talking about how increasingly, as we have more living memory that we represent in the museum, that people will have emotive responses. And I think that goes back to one of the founding principles of why Beamish was originated. So our first director, Frank Atkinson, in the 1950s and 60s had traveled around Europe looking at different types of social history museums. He was a social history curator and he'd come across open air museums in Scanson, in Stockholm, in Malhagen, in Lilyhammer.
Rhiannon Hiles: And he was just mesmerised by how they told the stories of the people of the locality in a meaningful way that represented the normality, the ordinary, the typical, rather than being the high end stories of lords and ladies in aristocracy. And he wanted to recreate something similar back in the north of England because he had seen disappearing stories and communities and lives. And he foresaw that there would be more of that disappearing as he foresaw that coal mines would begin to change or close. And people laughed at him sometimes when he said things like, "I want to recreate a slag heap of coal.". They went, "Why would you do that? There's lots." And he said, "Because there won't be any soon." And he was right.
Rhiannon Hiles: So the reasoning behind the creation of Beamish was to tell the stories of the rural, the industrial, the social history of the people of the north of England in a similar way to those that are told about the fork life, which is the lives of the people that you see in museums on the continent. So that's what inspired Frank. And Frank's founding principles have stayed strong throughout the museum's ups and downs. And I've seen ups and downs across the years. The 27, 28 years that I've been at Beamish, I've seen lots of ups and downs. But if ever I'm thinking, what should I do next? I always think, what does the visitor want and what would Frank think? And I don't always agree with what Frank would think. Sometimes I think," Would I agree with Frank?". But I always have those two things.
Rhiannon Hiles: I think, what would Frank think and what does the visitor need to see now? And I was watching there's a YouTube film called The Man Who Was Given the Gasworks, which is about Frank and his ideas. It was filmed in the late 1960s and it's really funny to watch, very BBC when you watch it, but it tells you a lot about where the ideas came from. But some of the things that he's talking about and the people that he's meeting in Scanson in the continent and he's interviewed by Magnus Matheson as a very young man, which is quite interesting. They still ring true and they still have this philosophy that all school children would visit from the locality to their open air museum.
Rhiannon Hiles: And that's still a strength that's still very important to myself, but also to our museum, but also to other open air museums that I know. So Beamish kind of evolved as a concept, and then Frank found a site to build this big open air site which would tell the story of the people of the north of England. He was shown lots of different sites around County Durham. And the story goes, and I've talked to his son about this, and his son says, "I think that's what dad did." His son's about the same age as me. So he wasn't born when Frank had this idea, but apparently he got to where you come in at the car park underneath the Tiny Tim theme hammer.
Rhiannon Hiles: The story is that when Frank arrived there and the trees hadn't grown up at that point, that he looked down across the valley and turned to the county officer who was saying, "Do you want this site?". And said, "This is it. This is where I'm going to have a museum of the people of the north." He said it was the bowl and the perimeter with the trees, so it could be an oasis where he could create these undulations in the landscape and tell the stories through farming, through towns, through different landscapes, through industry, through transport. He did at one time have a bizarre idea. Maybe it wasn't bizarre to flood the valley and tell the history of shipbuilding. I'm kind of pleased that didn't happen.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, me too. It's really spectacular when you do that drive in as well, isn't it? I got this really vivid memory of kind of parking my car, walking across to the visitor centre and you kind of look down across the valley and the vastness of the site, the expanse of it is kind of out in front of you and it is just like, "Oh." You didn't quite grasp how big that site is until you see it for the first time. It is really impressive.
Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And actually, I'm taking trustees, our new board of trustees. I'm taking them on a walkabout. And that's one of the key things. You just explained it perfectly. I'm going to use your quote tomorrow morning. I'm going to say, this is the Kelly Molson view, because I'm taking them to that point and I'm going to say, "Look across the vastness of the museum and the woodland. We look after all the woodland, all the footpaths through the woodland.". So it's the immediacy of where the visitor comes into the museum is more than that. And so I think we are a visitor attraction and we are self sustaining, but we're sustaining environmentally as well, in terms of what we do, looking after all that woodland and farmland as well. And I think that there's a lot more still that the museum has left to do.
Rhiannon Hiles: I think it's almost like it will continue to evolve and change. There'll be ever changing. Someone who I know, who runs a museum on the continent, I was saying to them, "What are you going to develop next?". And they've done a lot of development very quickly and they get some very good funding, which is brilliant for them, but they have to stop developing because their site is so small, they can't develop any further. They're in the middle of a city and they represent an old town and their site is constrained by its size. And they said, "We're very jealous of Europe Beamish, because you've got so much space.".
Kelly Molson: Just carry on. Well, the self sustaining thing is actually it's part of what we're going to talk a little bit about today. So think it was last season we had Matthew Henderson, come on, who was the former head of commercial operations there, and he talked quite a lot about creative ideas for driving commercial income. So all of the amazing things that Beamish have done to really kind of expand on the Beamish brand. I mean, I'm sitting here today and in front of me I've got Beamish sweets, I've got a tin of lovely Beamish jubilee sweets sitting in front of me. And Matthew talked a lot about the things that you did during lockdown and how to kind of connect with the audience when you couldn't be open, but just expand on that whole kind of product base that you have.
Kelly Molson: And that was something that I was super interested in when I came to visit Beamish as well. Because your gift shop is phenomenal, absolutely phenomenal. But all the way around the sites as well, the things that you can buy we talked about that immersive experience, but you can buy products where the packaging of those products, it hasn't just been created. It's been created from things that were in use and used as kind of branding back in the 50s and back in the18 hundreds. And that is just amazing. I guess I want to kind of just talk about Christmas. So we're on the run up to Christmas now, aren't we?
Rhiannon Hiles: We are.
Kelly Molson: I want to talk a little bit about how you drive revenue at what is often considered quite a quieter time of year for attractions because you've got quite a good process of doing that. Is that part and parcel of the hard work that you did during the pandemic to get these products developed?
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah. So just prior to the pandemic, Matthew and I, and Matthew talked to you about this. We had started to think about how we would turn the museum into a really good profit centre without us looking like were selling the collections, because obviously you've got to be really careful, we're a designated museum and all the rest of it. There are really easy ways to do that without it being a barrier. And we came up with all these sort of ideas and then went into pandemic, into the pandemic, and it sped it all up for us. The things which we've been thinking about, would we do it or would we not? We just said, "Look, we're going to do it because what else have we got to lose?". And Matthew did talk to you about that.
Rhiannon Hiles: So we entered into this, what are we going to be doing? What are we going to replicate? Who are we going to work with? What are the things we've already got? And Matthew had been working on, for example, the monopoly, he'd been working on that just prior to the pandemic. We just sold out of that during the pandemic because everyone was at home and wanted to buy board games. So we had thought, everything will sit on the shelves, but it didn't, it flew out. We didn't have an online shop, but then we suddenly did, like, overnight and so we talked about having an online shop and were sort of getting there and then went into pandemic and like a lot of folks, it just sped everything up. It really did.
Rhiannon Hiles: So some of the work which we've been doing, which was taking us quite a lot of time, I think the pandemic silver lining and people talk about the negatives and the positives of the pandemic. The silver lining for our retail and our product ranges was that it really allowed us to move swiftly through ways of helping the museum to be self sustaining through our immersive sales. When you were in the museum, you'd have been on the town street and we have stalls in there. It's a market town, you would expect to see stalls outside. And all of the products on there are all Beamish products and they've been made either in the museum or they've been made by local suppliers who then are only selling through us.
Rhiannon Hiles: Our ice cream is produced by a local ice cream maker, but the method and the flavours are only sold at Beamish. You can't get them anywhere else. So it's bespoke to us, but I'm thinking about how we move us into the next phase, which is all those things which we only sell. For me, there's a lot more that we can do in terms of we've talked about brand licensing, things like that, but in terms of the Beamish reach. So during lockdown, the Harrods of the North, Fenix contacted us and said, "Can we sell Beamish products?". And were like, "Yeah, Fenix have rung us up.". We were like, "Fenix are on the phone, we're so excited.". And we thought, "We're going to sell through Fenix.".
Rhiannon Hiles: But for me, that's the start of what we can do with our brand name becoming a high street name, but a high street name that has got some gravitas behind it. So I would want to make sure that we didn't sell ourselves out, we'd want to place ourselves in appropriate places, if that makes sense. So what I wouldn't want to see is that our brand became lessened because we'd maybe chosen the wrong partner or whatever that happened to be. But I think that the Beamish Museum brand is strong and I think it could stand on its own, two feet as a brand, not just at Fenix, and it does at Fenix, so that's brilliant. But elsewhere as well.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I've got some conversations lined up with folks to do with High Streets and how we can link up and partner with High Streets locally and perhaps that grows and develops as well, but also in terms of what we can do through our online sales, because we've lessened our impact there, I think. But that's probably because the items which people were buying at home during the lockdown, they can now go out and get, they can come into the museum and buy and they want that in the museum experience. But I think there's other things that we could do, like we have a lot of enamel signs and posters. We wouldn't need to hold all that stock in the museum.
Rhiannon Hiles: We can work with companies who can then just download that and then sell that, rather than us having to say we have this massive space where we just hold loads of stock. And for any museum, that's a challenge. Where do you store things, let alone where do you store shop stock as well? So I think at this stage we're on the cusp of something quite exciting, but we don't know what it is yet. But we've got showed Jamiejohn Anderson round, he's a good friend of ours, he's the director of commercial at National Museums Liverpool and he's brilliant. I use him as a bit of a mentor. He's great and I was walking around with him and he's done work at Warner in the past with the Butterbeer and all the can. What can we do?
Rhiannon Hiles: There's just so much lists and lists of things that you could brand license and you could sell and that would bring that in.
Kelly Molson: Does that make it harder, though, to make those decisions about what you do? Because there's so much it's so much that you could do. There's not an obvious kind of standout one, there's just vast reams of things that you could do.
Rhiannon Hiles: It is. And we've got a commercial manager who took over after Matthew left and she's brilliant and she's still in touch with Matthew. They talk a lot about how we would move this forward and which product comes first. And our collections team are really excited. I mentioned just now about the post, the railway posters and the enamel signs that we have. People would love those. And the collections team are like, "We need to do those first because they're brilliant and they're easy and we could do them.". So it does make it hard. And everybody has their own version across the museum about what they think we should do first. So, yeah, it is tricky. And we've just dipped our toe in. And there's other sides of things.
Rhiannon Hiles: When we enter into our accommodation, which will be the first time we've done this at the museum, we've done overnight camping at the museum for a while, and that's really successful. But to have our own self catering accommodation is coming on next year. And I would like to feel that if you're staying in one of those cottages that the soap, the welcome pack, the cushion, whatever that is, that you would be able to get that, but that it's bespoke to us. But you will be able and it's not at a ridiculous price either, that it's accessible to people, but that people will be able to get those items should they wish to.
Kelly Molson: This was something that was really exciting to me when I came to visit. Well, there's two facets to this. One that was were taken round a I want to say it was a 1940s. It might have been the 19 hundreds, actually. So forgive me if I've got this completely wrong, but there's an artist's house, 1950s house. Sorry, I've got it completely wrong. I said 40. So were taking around the artist house, and what struck me is how the design and the interior design of that house, how similar it is to things that I see now. So interior design is a bit of a passion of mine. It's something that I spend hours scrolling at, looking at, on Instagram. But there were things that were in that house that are now back in fashion.
Kelly Molson: So things, they just come full circle, don't they, with design? And so that was really interesting to me. And I remember at the time having a conversation and saying, "I'd buy that wallpaper that was on the wall. I would buy that wallpaper. I would buy that rug that they've got, that throw that was across the bed.". And it was just like, "Yeah, I absolutely would do that.". I know so many other people that would do that as well, who really want that authentic look in their house. I mean, this is a 1930s house that I live in, but I would love to have more kind of authentically 1930s elements to it. Art deco, mirrors, et cetera.
Kelly Molson: And you can kind of imagine that not only being popular with the people that come and visit, but actually extending that into, well, interior designers that are styling other people's homes. They haven't necessarily been to Beamish, but they know that they can get this incredible thing from Beamish because they know how authentic that's going to be. And then that translated into Julian telling me about the overnight stays. And I was like, "But I want to stay here now, I could stay potentially in this room.". How amazing would that be? That would really fulfill my interior design passions completely. So that's the next step for you?
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it is. It was the number one thing that came out of the market research that we did with people when were looking, just before we launched Remaking Beamish over ten years ago now. When went out and asked people what they would like to do, what's the most important thing to you? They all went, we want to stay in the museum. We want an Immersive, we want to be in it. So we thought, well, okay, we can do that. We thought about where that might be and it went through lots of different sort of ideas as to what it would be. It was going to be a hotel. And then we thought, "Is that going to work? Is it a hotel?". And then we had some buildings which had been unused and weren't part of any future development plan.
Rhiannon Hiles: A beautiful row of workers cottages and some stabling and courtyard up Apocalypse, which were outside of the main visitor area with already a courtyard, stabling and cart shed. So I thought, "Well, let's do it there.". Talked to the lottery. They were over the moon with that idea, because it's more environmentally sustainable, because they're existing buildings, brings more of the existing museum into the public realm and it gives us an opportunity to use areas which, to be honest, how would we do something with them going forward, but also enables people to stay in the museum. So a night at the museum, literally be it's going to be phenomenal. There's so many people saying, "I want to be the first tester of the first one that's open.". There's like a massive queue of people who want to come and be the first to stay.
Kelly Molson: I want to add my name to the list. I don't need to be the first. Put me on the list. What an amazing experience. I mean, you've lived in the museum, so you've actually done this yourself. But yeah, I just think to be able to extend your visit to do that would be phenomenal, because I know that you're building a cinema at the moment as well. So come in. Come for some dinner to the cinema.
Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly.
Kelly Molson: Stay overnight.
Rhiannon Hiles: Exactly. And we had some European museum friends across. We run a leadership program across the continent and ourselves, myself, Andrew and some others in Europe, and some of them were over last week and we did a lovely dinner for them up at Popley. And I didn't know if you got time to go up to Popley when you visited. It's beautiful up there. It is magical up there. And we have this young lad, he's been a trainee chef and he's brilliant. He loves historical recipes, he loves preparing in the old style. But to make it edible, to make it something which can then be eaten in a venue. And he spent ages thinking about what we would eat and how we would describe it. And it was beautiful.
Rhiannon Hiles: And as the light was going down, I thought, "This is what's going to be like for those folks who were going to be staying just across there, just right near Popley.". So I started thinking about all the ways we could make additional revenue. People will want to pay for this. They'll want to pay to have Connor come in and do them a period dinner while they're staying. There's so many other additional add ons that we can attribute to the overnight stay, should people wish to. I think that the list is endless. You've mentioned the cinemas, cinema nights, there's music, there's dance, different experience of different cuisine as well. I think there's so much that people will get from the overnight stay. Not least that you're going to be inside an exhibit staying overnight, which is really exciting in itself, isn't it?
Kelly Molson: It is magic when you think about it. And I think what's nice is the way that you talk about that. There's so much opportunity, but it's the opportunities that people want. You do a lot of work about, we're not just selling things for the sake of it. What does our audience really want? And you ask them and you get their feedback from them, which is absolutely vital. Something that you mentioned as well was the lottery. So you spoke to the National Lottery about funding for what you were doing, which is brilliant, because one of the things that we said we'd talk about today was, I always struggle to pronounce this philanthropic thinking.
Rhiannon Hiles: Philanthropic thinking?
Kelly Molson: Philanthropic thinking. I had to say that slowly, so I got it out right. So we know what philanthropy is, we talk about it. It's charitable works that help others as a society or as a whole. What does philanthropic thinking mean to you? And how do you use this approach to support the funding of new projects? Because that's vital for you, isn't it?
Rhiannon Hiles: It is, absolutely is. It's vital and we can and need and should do much more of it. And it's something which I'm exploring further. We have got a new Chief Operating Officer, we've got a new board, and I've talked to them about this and how this will help the museum to prosper for the future for our people. It'll allow us to invest in some of the what I would see as perhaps enough of us might say as core activity. So our learning program, our health and wellbeing program, our environmental sustainability. But to me, those are the things which make Beamish. They're the things which are about our communities and about our people.
Rhiannon Hiles: So if we can have partners who will invest in us to work on those strong elements of what makes Beamish then that will help us substantially because that will enable those programs to grow, to develop, to add value to people's lives. While we can then use our surplus that we make through our secondary spend, through our admissions to put into those things which people don't find as interesting. And I don't like the word when people say, "Oh, it's not sexy.". But people don't find toilets that interesting. But if you don't have good toilets in a visitor attraction, if your entrance is clunky, if the admissions and if you're walking around and everything looks a little bit like it looks a bit tired.
Rhiannon Hiles: So I think that all those things which are so fundamental to enhance the visitor operation but need to have that money spent on them, will be able to be spent on because we will have developed those other relationships. And I've seen really good examples just recently that have made me feel that there's a lot of opportunity out there. The Starling Bank has been sponsoring the whole summer of fun activity for National Trust. There's the wonderful philanthropic giving from a foundation to English Heritage to fund their trainees and apprentices. That's amazing.
Kelly Molson: That is amazing, isn't it? I've read about this numerous times now and I just think, one, it's a fantastic opportunity for people that are going to be involved, but what an incredibly generous thing to do. So those traditions don't die out?
Rhiannon Hiles: No, not at all. And I just feel that when there's more and more competition for less and less grants and foundations, which I get, and I understand that there's no point just sitting around feeling sorry for yourself on your laurels because all that will end up in is blah. And I've been in the museum where the museum sat on its laurels and expected things to happen and expected people to come and it didn't. And it had a downturn and you've got to be proactive. You've got to be the one who goes out there and talks to people and expresses what you can do, that you're a leading light.
Rhiannon Hiles: We're seen as a leading light in the north of England and that's because of the work that we do with our communities and the fact that we are a little bit we'll take risks, we're entrepreneurial and we're always thinking about how we can improve the museum, improve the offer and also be there for our people. Because fundamentally that's what we're about. Right at the beginning of this conversation, were talking about unpopular opinions and how when nobody was there, I was like, "Oh, it's quite nice." But then during COVID when nobody was there, it was awful because that's not what the museum is about. The museum is fundamentally there for people. People are what brings it to life. The hug, the buzz. It's about all of that dialogue that happens on a day to day basis and that's so important.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I think we already have folks who get really excited by what we offer. The Reese Foundation who are from an engineering firm, which is in Team Valley, already fund our STEM working program, because they get that. They get the work that we do. So that is an element of already successful pocket giving that we've had in the museum and I want to do more of that. We've got opportunity over the next period to really turn that around. And I think when you talk to Funders now, they expect a proportion of that to be happening. The Arts Council are talking to us about how you can be more philanthropic or work with philanthropic partners. And so even before were thinking or aware that they thought like that, we'd already had that in our mind, that's how we would work going forward.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I think that it isn't just about taking money, it's about having that relationship with the partner and showing how what they've invested in. And generally it'll be something that means something to them and that's why they've made that decision to do that. So if you can show back to them we've been working with a brilliant social enterprise locally called the Woodshed at Sacrosant, which is about getting young lads and lasses who aren't in mainstream education as they come out of skill, or maybe for them, it's not working. And they have done great work together and we have been doing work with them back in the museum.
Rhiannon Hiles: So those 1950s houses that you went into, they've done some of the woodwork inside there and they did the pitch and put golf and then they came along to the opening of the 1950s and two of the lads came up, they were like, "I like, you yelling. ". And I said, "I am. How are you doing?". They said, "I feel like this might be what you would call it, a graduation.". And I was like, "It's my last weekend.". And I thought, "Oh, it's exciting.". For him, it's also sad. But he said he was moving on to get another placement with a joiner. And I was like, "That's brilliant.". Another lad's gone on to do Stonemason up at Raby Castle. So it opens up pathways, it opens up journeys, it has so much benefit.
Kelly Molson: Oh, goodness, do you know what? That's so weird because that kind of goes full circle to what were talking about at the beginning, doesn't it? And you had all these different skills and then you brought them together and actually they all fitted really well into the museum sector. You've just done the same with these kids who have now got these skills and they're going to take them back into the heritage space. That's amazing.
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it's dead exciting. And sometimes people say to me, you're opening up opportunities, people are coming along and learning, and then they move on. And I'm like, "That's okay, that's absolutely fine.". If they come and learn here, and if there is something for them here, that's brilliant. If there's not, or for whatever reason they choose to go elsewhere, they're taking that skill set and they're still contributing to the economy, to their community, and that is brilliant. So I never look at it as kind of like, "Oh, why is that?". I look at it as like, "That is a real opportunity for them", for the museum and for the economy, for the region as well, for the visitor attraction.
Kelly Molson: Ultimately, with that in mind, that you want to get more people on board is a big part of your role actually going out and talking to organisations about what Beamish is? And if they don't know about you already, I'm sure that you are incredibly well known around Durham, but you have to go out and engage with those organisations to kind of see where those connections can be made. Have you got like, a targets list of..
Rhiannon Hiles: I want to go and talk to.
Kelly Molson: In front of these people and have these conversations, but I guess that's a creative element of what you do, isn't it, is making those connections and kind of looking and seeing how you fit with them?
Rhiannon Hiles: Yeah, it absolutely is. And I think there's other elements which are really critical for museums, for charities, for the sector, with regards to how those conversations can better enabled and how businesses can feel more comfortable in then donating or becoming part of. So some friends of mine who are in Denmark, it's very usual for big money making businesses, when they get to a certain threshold, they've got no choice. It's a government responsibility that you then have to choose a charity or a museum or a culture sector organisation that you give money to. So my friend Thomas, who runs a brilliant museum, has had a lot of his developments funded directly through a very big shipping company, who I probably won't be able to say now, but a huge shipping company fund their development, basically.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I was like he's like, "Oh, does this happen for you?". And I was, "No."
Kelly Molson: We have to go and hunt these people down.
Rhiannon Hiles: I was, like, brilliant. Could you imagine? Look, but for me, Bernard's brilliant because he can get in there into cabinet and he's a lobbyer and I think there's some additional work that we as individuals in the sector can do. So I've talked to Andrew at Blackcountry about this and what our responsibility is to help to change policy. And if nothing else, if you're part of that change and if you are able to voice how that will then impact on people's lives, then that is so important and so critical. It just depends on different parties approaches to what that impact on lives means, I suppose.
Rhiannon Hiles: But at the moment, with all the parties conferences going on at the moment, we've got the ideal opportunity to go along and listen, but also to have a little pointer in there and say, “Don't forget, and this is how important we are.”
Kelly Molson: That's a skill, isn't it, in itself? I can remember a conversation with Gordon Morrison from ASVA. Sorry, formerly from ASVA. He's now ACE, when we talked during the pandemic and he talked a lot about how he'd kind of taken some learnings from Bernard in the sense that Bernard, he's quite strong politically and he's a really good campaigner. And Gordon said that they were skills that he'd had to learn. He wasn't a lobbyer, it wasn't his natural kind of skill set. And I think it's really interesting that you said that, because that might not necessarily be your natural skill set either, but it's something that you've now got to kind of develop to be able to shape policy, because if there's an opportunity, take it.
Rhiannon Hiles: That's right. And it's not my skill set. But when you have a strong desire to see something work through change, and you can spot how that change can come about through having the right conversations, it's who you go to for the right conversations that can also be the skill set. So that can be quite tricky. And when were looking for our new board of trustees and when were looking for a new chair, one of the key things were looking for was somebody who would have that kind of skill set. And we have got that in our new chair. He really does know how to do that. So I constantly feel like, "Where's he going to now and who's he going to talk to next and who's he going to get me linked up with?".
Rhiannon Hiles: And that's brilliant and he knows how important that is. But we also know that we have to take it at the right gentle time. Yeah. So he can open doors. And I think that's so important. And our trustees, we've got a really strong set of trustees who can open doors for us. And again, that was deliberate in our approach that we took, to have a very diverse and representative board, to also have board members who can open other doors that we wouldn't normally be opening, because we have a strong set of doors. We open regularly and close regularly. But also the pace of it is so important that all of this is really needed. Because we're an independent museum, we got to make sure that we are self sustaining.
Rhiannon Hiles: Our main money comes from what we make on the door, but if we want to develop, we've got to make sure that we continue to get brilliant secondary, spend brilliant revenue. But on the other hand, we've got to make sure that we bring our people with us, whether they're the staff, the volunteers, our visitors. We don't want to be garping so fast that they're not behind us when we worry about Crown. So it's very exciting times.
Kelly Molson: Isn't it? Lots of exciting changes happening. Well, look, we can't have this podcast without talking about MasterChef either.
Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, yeah, that was brilliant.
Kelly Molson: So that's an incredible opportunity. So you're recently on MasterChef, where they came to Beamish. What an opportunity.
Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, it was amazing. But the thing was, they said, "You cannot talk about it, you cannot say anything.". So, literally, for months, were like, were dying to say that we've been a MasterChef. And they were like, you can't tell anybody. But I don't know how this managed to keep under wraps, because there was literally over 200 staff and volunteers were eating all the stuff that had been prepared. How they managed to keep that under wraps is beyond me, but at the minute seemed to work.
Kelly Molson: How long was it from recording to that going out as well?
Rhiannon Hiles: It was from February up until just the recent airing. So that's quite a long time to keep it to yourself.
Kelly Molson: Well done that team.
Rhiannon Hiles: It was really hard. Like I said, "Julie, when are they showing it because I can't keep it in any longer ", because it's Julie, who you met, who was nope. They've said, "It's tight lit, but it was brilliant.". And it's great for us, for the museum. It was great fun taking part, don't get me wrong. And I was in the local court recently and the lady behind the counter kept looking over and she went, "Are you a MasterChef?".
Kelly Molson: I wasn't cooking, but yes.
Rhiannon Hiles: Yes. So I think my new quest now, I'd like to be a presenter on Master Chef. I don't want to cook, but I'd quite like to be a presenter.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I could do that. I could do the tasting, not the cooking. The cooking under pressure. It's another level of stress, isn't it? I like to take my time, read the instructions.
Rhiannon Hiles: Don't need the pressure. It looked lovely, though. They'd used the school, they'd taken out all the benches that are in the school, in the pit village, and it turned into it looked beautiful. They'd use really lovely. I suppose they wouldn't call them props because they brought them in, but they were in keeping with the school. It looks so lovely. I mean, you probably watched it and that scene of all the staff of volunteers coming in to sit down to their meal, the lovely tables, the bunting they put up. It looked right. It was brilliant. Yeah. They had some interesting takes on some local cuisine as well. Peas Pudding ice cream was one strange one, but got peas in it, Kelly. You don't want it.
Kelly Molson: Giving that one a swerve in that one. Right. What book have you got that you'd like to share with our listeners?
Rhiannon Hiles: Oh, well, one of our trustees called Rachel Lennon, has written a really brilliant book called Wedded Wife, which is a great book, and I've just started reading it's about the history of marriage, and it's really interesting, so I would certainly advocate that one. I have a favourite book, which I go back to quite regularly, which is a childhood book and perhaps nobody ever would read it, but I love it and it kind of sums up for me what I was like as a child and what I continue to be like as I've gone through my career. It's called Wish For A Pony, and I really wanted a pony when I was between the ages of six and seven, and then I wished my wish came true. And from then on in, I believed that anything I wished for would happen.
Rhiannon Hiles: And I still have that kind of strange, I often think I'm just going to wish that to happen, but I think it's not just that, it's holistic. I think if you really want something and you set everything towards it, yes, of course some people might say, but then you potentially set yourself up for great disappointment and failure. But I kind of think that you can't do something without taking that risk. So I just tend to think if you want it and you wish for it that much and that's what you're really aiming for, just go for it and do it. And perhaps the environment in which I've been brought up has enabled me to do that. And I completely understand that for some people that is probably difficult and challenging. I do get that.
Rhiannon Hiles: So I feel that if I can help others who maybe haven't got that kind of environment to help them like those lads and lasses from the Woodshed at Sacrosanct and folks like that if we can provide spaces where they really want to try something but they're not sure how to do it then I think then we've achieved something.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's lovely. Do you know what? So I'm reading the book at the minute I've read the book Manifest, and it is about visualisation and the power of our thoughts and how we talk to ourselves and the things that we kind of want to bring into our lives. And there was a little bit of it that I was kind of going, "Is it the power of the universe?". It felt a little bit way woo to me, but then I kind of reflected on it a bit and went, but this is about taking action, really. It's about going, "I want this to happen in my life.". And it's not about sitting back and hoping that it might happen just because you've put a picture of it on your wall. It's actually about going out and doing the bloody hard work to make it happen.
Kelly Molson: So have those conversations with the right people who are the people that can open the doors for you. Go and meet them, ask out to them. And I think that's a really important element of the whole. Yes, you can wish for something to happen, absolutely. But you've got to put the legwork in to make it happen. What a great book. All right, Wish for a Pony.
Rhiannon Hiles: Wish for a Pony.
Kelly Molson: Listeners, as ever. If you want to win a copy of Rhiannon's book, if you go over to this podcast announcement on Twitter and you retweet it with the words, I want Rhiannon's book, then you'll be in with a chance of winning it. I'm maybe not going to show it to my daughter because I'm actually terrified of horses.
Rhiannon Hiles: You don't want a horse to appear in your garden.
Kelly Molson: Her cousins have got a pony. She can do it with them and not at home here. Rhiannon, it's been so lovely to have you on. Thank you. I feel like this is one of those chats that could go on and on for hours. So I want you to come back when the accommodation is open. Yeah, because I want to know all about that. I'm going to visit that cinema. But, yeah, I'd love you to come back on and tell us how it's gone once you've had your kind of first guest and stuff. I think that'd be a really great chat.
Rhiannon Hiles: I'd love that. All right.
Kelly Molson: All right. Wonderful. Thank you.
Rhiannon Hiles: Super. Thank you, Kelly. Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us.Show references:
https://carbonsix.digital/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/pmarden/
Paul Marden is the Founder and Managing Director of Carbon Six Digital and the CEO of Rubber Cheese. He is an Umbraco Certified Master who likes to think outside the box, often coming up with creative technical solutions that clients didn’t know were possible. Paul oversees business development and technical delivery, specialising in Microsoft technologies including Umbraco CMS, ASP.NET, C#, WebApi, and SQL Server. He's worked in the industry since 1999 and has vast experience of managing and delivering the technical architecture for both agencies and client side projects of all shapes and sizes. Paul is an advocate for solid project delivery and has a BCS Foundation Certificate in Agile.
https://www.rubbercheese.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellymolson/
Kelly Molson is the Founder of Rubber Cheese, a user focused web design and development agency for the attraction sector. Digital partners to Eureka! The National Children’s Museum, Pensthorpe, National Parks UK, Holkham, Visit Cambridge and The National Marine Aquarium.Kelly regularly delivers workshops and presentations on sector focused topics at national conferences and attraction sector organisations including ASVA, ALVA, The Ticketing Professionals Conference and the Museum + Heritage Show.
As host of the popular Skip the Queue Podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions, she speaks with inspiring industry experts who share their knowledge of what really makes an attraction successful.Recent trustee of The Museum of the Broads.
Transcription:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In this new monthly slot, Rubber Cheese CEO Paul Marden joins me to discuss different digital related topics.
In this episode, we're talking about the impact of design, navigation and content on selling tickets and how to go about testing if your design is working or not.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue.
Kelly Molson: We're doing something a little bit different on the podcast this season. So alongside the usual guest interviews, which we'll have each month, me and the Rubber Cheese CEO, Paul Marden are also going to be recording an episode on a different digital related topic. So we're going to do this once a month.
Kelly Molson: Each of the episodes, we're going to share insight around design, user experience, content, accessibility, SEO and loads, loads more. We're going to talk a little bit about what's possible, give you some ideas about how easy or how hard that topic is to implement.
Kelly Molson: Maybe what kind of budget that you might need to look at and what some of the next steps are to take if you want to implement some of these things. We're even going to call out some of the best in breed websites, people that are doing things really well within the sector.
Kelly Molson: So I've been hosting the Skip the Queue podcast since July 2019. Goodness, that's been a long time. Five seasons in now. This is season five. You all know me already. So I am the founder of Rubber Cheese and my background is in design.
Kelly Molson: I co founded Rubber Cheese back in 2003 after learning about ecommerce when I worked at a very early kind of Shopify type startup agency. The person that you don't know quite as well as me is my fellow host on this podcast. That's funny to say, that my fellow host is Paul Marden. So. Paul. Hello. Welcome.
Paul Marden: Hello.
Kelly Molson: This is strange. I'm going to have to share the spotlight for a while, that's very uncomfortable for me. No, it will be fine."It will be fine", she says. Paul, I would love it if you could give us a little intro to yourself.
Kelly Molson: I know your background and I know you very well. We've known each other for about, I think it's about 14 years now. It's been a long time, hasn't it?
Paul Marden: Yeah. Not long after I started doing this as a proper job.
Kelly Molson: Well, there you go. Tell us about what your proper job is.
Paul Marden: Yeah, so I'm the CEO of Rubber Cheese now, alongside another agency that I run called Carbon Six, which we merged Carbon Six and Rubber Cheese just over a year ago. My background is as a geek. I'm a developer by training. I started out ten years at British Airways, all over the airline, doing all different sorts of IT related jobs. So I saw lots of operational side of things, commercial sides of the airline, say, selling tickets, that kind of thing. I don't know if I've told you, but my first visitor attraction job was a long time ago, because when I was at Uni, I did a placement at the National Botanic Garden of Wales when it first opened. So I was there when it was a hole in the ground and I helped them write their IT strategy.
Paul Marden: So my visitor attraction experience predates my involvement in Rubber Cheese.
Kelly Molson: I did not know that. So you've done geek stuff for attractions.
Paul Marden: For a long time. Yeah, it was amazing. I can still remember I was in an office in a farmhouse as they were building the giant glass house. It was just the most amazing place and I've not been back for a long time. It would be amazing to go and see the place, how it's transformed in the, what is it, 24 years since I was there? God, I really sound old now, don't I?
Kelly Molson: You do sound old. I'm just wondering if they still use the IT plan that you put in place for them.
Paul Marden: Probably not. I was only a student at the time. It can't have been amazing.
Kelly Molson: So what we normally do on the podcast, listeners, as you well know, is I ask my guests a series of uncomfortable questions, icebreaker questions, which they very graciously answer beautifully for me. We're not going to do that on this episode. Ha. So we thought, yeah, Paul has wiped his brow in a state of relief there. But what we thought we would do is Paul and I both visit a lot of visitor attractions, both professionally and in our personal life as well. We've both got daughters at very different ages, so Millie is coming up for I think, 9.
Paul Marden: 10 in two weeks' time.
Kelly Molson: Okay. And my little one is 2. So we're going to very different visitor attractions right now. But we thought we would talk about the attraction that we visited most recently and what we loved about it, and we thought we'd ask each other that question. So I am going to ask you that question first, Paul. What attraction have you visited most recently and what did you love about it?
Paul Marden: So we just finished the summer holidays, so went away for just over a week to the Netherlands. We did visit a few different attractions whilst were there, but went to an amazing place. We went back to it, actually, it was one that we've been to before called Burger’s Zoo. So I loved the whole experience of going there the first time around and we wanted to go back there. It's an amazing place. But the reason why I was going to call it out today was a conversation that we've been having and something that we've done with Kitten Museums in terms of the food offering. Because when you go to Burger’s Zoo, the restaurant is amazing. We've talked recently about the sorts of food that you get at visitor attractions and your frustration around this. Lots of fried food.
Paul Marden: There's never any healthy food. So went to Burger Zoo, we had lunch and of course, there'd be obligatory portion of chips there if you want to have it. Lots of kids food there, but I was able to have a massive great salad. It was in enormous and it was lovely and healthy and really enjoyable and it didn't cost the earth when you were there. And it's so unusual to talk about going to an attraction and getting that kind of quality of food without spending the earth in doing it. So, yeah, that was pretty cool.
Kelly Molson: That is cool. This is probably a whole another podcast episode to talk about that. I think actually, in your intro, you forgot to mention that you are a Trustee for the Kids in Museums, which is quite a new role for you, isn't it? But it's one that kind of immersed you into the world of attraction. I think that's been a good one for you. They have set up a brilliant scheme, which is kind of an accreditation scheme for attractions to go through, just to check into how healthy and how great their food offering actually is, which I think is brilliant. It's really weird.
Kelly Molson: The day that they launched it, I was having a like, literally the day before, I was having a conversation on LinkedIn about how atrocious the food offering had been at an attraction that I went to, which is one of the top ten most visited attractions in the UK. It's a great place. It really is a brilliant place, especially if you've got toddler. However, the food was pretty horrendous and I've got an unusual toddler in that. Well, she will eat chips now, she will eat chippies, but she won't eat fried stuff or battered things or anything like that. She's just not interested.
Paul Marden: Nothing beige.
Kelly Molson: Not really, even pasta has to be, she should have been an Italian, she should have seen the amount of pasta that she wolf down when were over there. But it's got to be good.
Kelly Molson: It's got to be good. Yeah, she is particularly fussy toddler. But just for myself, I mean, just the range of food that was available that day was just dreadful. I mean, the healthiest thing that was on the menu that Lee and I both had was jacket potatoes and I think I took a picture of it somewhere and it was too awful to put on social media. So, yes, that is well needed and I'm glad that attraction stood out on the food front for you.
Paul Marden: What about you? Where have you been recently?
Kelly Molson: I've been to lots of different places recently, but this one I can't stop thinking about and so I want to talk about it today and it's not one that I visited with Edie. It's one that I visited with a fellow attractions professional a little while ago, but it's the Beamish Living Museum. I honestly can't stop thinking about it. It's the first living museum that I've been to, so it's the first experience of that for me. And I had such an emotional reaction to it. I'm a bit embarrassed, actually. So I went to meet a couple of people. I met one person that I'd met briefly at a conference before, and then I met one of their colleagues who I'd never met before in my life. And I actually had a bit of a cry to this colleague because it was so emotive.
Kelly Molson: If anyone who hasn't been to Beamish Living Museum, there's lots of different areas that you can visit, and one of them is a 1950s area and they essentially recreate what it was like in the 1950s, where the museum is located. And it brought back so many memories of my grandparents, both sets of grandparents, for different reasons. The house was very similar to my grandparents on my father's side and just down to some of the things that they had in that space. And I just got overwhelmed by it. It was so wonderful to go back and see that. And in my head all the time I was thinking, well, both my sets of grandparents are no longer with us. They passed away when I was in my early twenties. And so Edie will never get to meet her great grandparents on that side.
And I thought, God, how amazing would it be for me to bring here and say, show her some of the things that great granny used to have in her house and yeah, just lost it.
Paul Marden: It's interesting, isn't it, that you can become so immersed that even now the emotional attachment that you've built when you were there takes you straight back there. Because there's a risk, isn't there, with those sorts of places of it feeling a little bit plastic and fake, isn't it? But this clearly had an emotional impact on you.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think for me, I was worried that it would be people in costumes. It would feel like that. And it did not feel like that at all. It just felt so authentic. Anyway, you've got to go. I don't want to cry for the rest of this podcast, but yeah, it's definitely a must visit for me, it was something really special.
Paul Marden: Excellent.
Kelly Molson: Should we move on to what we're going to talk about? And I'll compose myself, shall we?
Paul Marden: Okay, moving swiftly on.
Kelly Molson: Let's. So in this episode, we're going to talk about the impact of design, navigation and content on selling tickets and how we go about testing if it's working or not. So this episode actually launches on the 4th of October, which is one day after we release the 2023 Visitor Attraction website report. There's data that has come out of this year's report that is so insightful and I cannot wait for everybody to get this year's report. It dives deeper into a lot of the topics that we talked about in the first report last year, but there's just so much more to it and I'm very excited about it.
Kelly Molson: Anyway, looking at the data from the report, a 100% of the attractions that took part think that having consistent design and clear navigation is important, which is brilliant. Big tick there. However, many of them don't think that their site meets the need and some of them think it does, but they don't test that it does. There's some really interesting stats about testing that we're going to talk about in a minute that have actually blew my mind a little bit. But one good stat around the design is that 76% of respondents believe that their websites were consistently designed despite using multiple platforms in their customer journey.
Kelly Molson: And this is something that we talked about quite frequently in that sometimes there's a big disconnect if you are using if you've got your website that's built and designed in WordPress for example, and then you've got your ticketing platform and the two don't look like each other, they're not consistent, they're incongruent. That can be a bit of a challenge for people in terms of trust and how they feel about your brand.
Paul Marden: It can be a jarring experience, can't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Responses this year once again saw that websites that look good and are easy to use are doing far better than those that don't prioritise consistency. So I'm just going to read out this snippet from the report. We saw that websites that were high scoring for their design and navigation made more sales over the past twelve months. So those successful websites had around 200,000 to 500,000 completed transactions. Whereas on the other hand, websites with lower design and navigation scores didn't do as well, stating that they had below 50,000 completed transactions in the last month. That's quite fascinating, isn't it?
Paul Marden: It is. This is not just a handful of people that are answering, is it? Because there's a large number of people that are answering that this is important to them and that they think they're doing quite well. And then you see how their perception of doing well correlates really strongly with the actual outcomes of the site itself.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I think that the way that we asked the questions this year is interesting as well. So when I talked then about we said that websites that were high scoring for design and navigation, we gave respondents the options to score their website. So we gave them how well designed do you think your site is? Between 1 and 10, 10 being the highest. So we allowed them to kind of self score. But it's interesting because some of those self scores don't correlate to the data that we then took. So those scores, they're based mostly on assumption, which is always a difficult, challenging place to be. But I think, Paul, you had some insight here around the conversion rate and design and how they tally up.
Paul Marden: So the stats you just talked about were about the volume of transactions. You could say that having good design leads you to have more transactions flowing through your website, but you could also say that the organisations that have more transactions flowing through their website can afford to spend more money on design. But what I found interesting was that when you ignore the absolute number of sales that they make on the website, if you actually look at what their conversion rate is on the website, the attractions who think they have good design tend to have a higher conversion rate by about 1% or 2%. Now, that could be on a low base.
Paul Marden: There could be a fairly small attraction that has fewer people coming to it, but they still perform relatively better than those attractions that didn't think they had good design but could be massive organisations with large numbers of transactions flowing through. And what I found interesting is we started to work out what is the value of 1 or 2% extra conversion rate, because it doesn't sound like much. Really. There's somebody in the business that doesn't necessarily understand the technology side of it that doesn't sound like a lot. So we started playing with converting that into money. What could that actually be worth? So we played around with we tried to model what is our average attraction and what is the absolute top performing attraction.
Paul Marden: And even for our average, an increase of 1% in conversion rate could mean tens of thousands of pounds of extra sales that they make. But for the top performing attraction, it could make the difference of hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra sales just by squeezing 1 or 2% of extra conversion rate out. I think that's absolute gold dust in terms of insight that we've drawn out of this data. The organisations that think they have good design tend to have a conversion rate of 1 or 2% more, which could equate to tens of hundreds of thousands of pounds of extra sales that they make. It makes you begin to think that investment in the design of the site could actually be really worthwhile.
Kelly Molson: Absolutely. And information like that helps the marketing managers build the case for good design and investing in good design.
Paul Marden: Yeah. And before you say, "Oh, the large organisations with the big budgets, they can afford to do this, what about the small ones?" The smaller organisations with small budgets who had good navigation tended to be the ones that would have the better conversion rate amongst their peers. So you don't need to be a nationally recognised attraction brand to be able to invest an appropriate amount of money in design and get a return on that investment that you make.
Kelly Molson: I always think that the best use of budget is on the pre planning side, which is unusual coming from a designer, I think. Yeah. But Paul, you're really data driven, aren't you? You're super data driven.
Paul Marden: Such a geek.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, you are a massive geek. Massive nerd. We're very complimentary, but I never used to be very data driven. I was always far more visual driven. But actually well, I'm not going to share it on this podcast, actually, because I'm going to share it at a talk that I'm given. But I've got a really good story around why user testing is very important. We'll come a bit more onto that later. And why you should be driven by the data and the stats and not just by what something looks like. Okay, let's talk about navigation quickly as part of this design section. So it's really interesting. So we've actually got some findings from the Journal of Market Research.
Kelly Molson: So they state that, when websites are easy to understand and navigate, individuals have a lower cognitive load, so fewer things to work out, and therefore are more likely to have a positive experience to go on to purchase. So having a consistent and well designed website can really help people make complete purchases with your visitor attraction. What I've always said, it's about trying to stop making people think, give them something that is really easy. So I think when we worked with Eureka!, and this is back in 2016, when we first worked with them, we did some research around what people wanted to find out about attractions, what were the first things they needed to know about. And it was literally, when you open, how much do you cost? How can I get there?
Kelly Molson: So, if they're the three things that people desperately need to know, they're the three things that really need to be highlighted front and centre when you arrive at the site, wherever you arrive at it, whether that's the homepage or what. And it's the same with navigation. People need to understand where they're being taken and why they're being taken to certain places. So we're working with an attraction at the moment, we've just about to start work with them. They have got some really key, really strong elements to their Nav, but then they've got an area that says more, and there's a load of stuff that's been added onto the more section, and things like this happen over time.
Kelly Molson: When you've got a website, people will say, “I need this to be featured on the site, I need this page to put up there”, and it gets added to, and ultimately you end up with all these things that haven't been thought about from the start, about where they're supposed to go. So they get kind of bundled somewhere, and a more section kind of feels an obvious place to put them. But what is it? Users don't understand what's in there. And they're not going to go searching for hours to find something that they want. They need to find it quickly. And so that for me, is a huge no about bundling stuff into these kind of sections. That just so ambiguous, you don't know what they are.
Paul Marden: I think that figuring out what people are trying to do, what are they trying to get out of the website? I think that bundling exercise, putting lots of things onto the site that happened over time or putting it in a bucket of more is often there's so many people in an organisation that want their content heard and seen, don't they? Everybody wants their content on the site. It all goes on there. And sometimes you have to step back and think, what's the point? Who is it that's coming to the site and what are we trying to get them to do? We want the customer at the end of it to think, now that you've read this, what are you going to do next? But we don't always think about that journey.
Paul Marden: We think about the snippets of information that we put onto the site, but we don't think about what the journey is they're going through. Attractions are really lucky. I think a lot of the people that go to their sites are really motivated to buy, a lot more motivated to buy than the average ecommerce site. So how do you get out of the way of those people so they can just buy stuff? And then for the people that are less motivated, they don't necessarily want to know how, when and how much they still want to be sold on the idea of going to the attraction, then maybe you need to give them more information.
Paul Marden: But identifying who those people are and giving them a journey to go through and coming up with a navigation that makes it really easy for those people to navigate along that journey, there's a lot of psychology that's hard. That's your prep work, isn't it, before you do the design?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, and it's the hardest part of it. And I think that's where the most amount of time needs to be spent there and the wireframes really, the design. If you've got good brand guidelines in place, the design ultimately becomes a simplified process at that point. But the pre design work is really where the time and effort needs to be spent. And I think it is a challenge for attractions. So there are attractions that are, if you compare a Chessington World of Adventures, for example, a theme park orientated to a historic museum that you're coming to visit, that not only is an attraction, but obviously has a lot of historical information to share and learning and education plays a big part in them as well. You have different audiences for those.
Kelly Molson: So I think one part of that process is you need to think about all the different audiences you have and what are their motivations for visiting the site and what do you want them to do, what actions do you want them to take? But I think when you are working, this has gone off a bit of a tangent, but when you're working with an agency, I think what's really core for the attraction is to make sure that you've got key stakeholders from each of those areas of your attraction that play a part in those early conversations. So you don't want the site redesign to be driven solely by the marketing team for the attraction side. You need someone from the education side to be part of those conversations as well.
Kelly Molson: You need visitor experience to be part of those conversations because if you're planning content, each of those individuals will have a different need for what content they need to showcase on the site. So they all need to be talking to each other about how that's going to look. I'm talking from experience because this has not happened in the past. Paul's nodding his head at me because he knows that we've had this challenge previously.
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: So yeah, and I think that kind of leads us nicely onto content, really, and about the need to frequently update your site and keep it refreshed. So once you've done all of that hard work of working out what content is going to be on it doesn't stay static. So in the report we have a stat that says 31% of respondents said that they updated their online content multiple times a week. That's good. Another 31% said that they did so at least once a month. Good. However, 22% of respondents said they had infrequent content updates or didn't update their content at all. Not updating your content at all.
Paul Marden: That surprised me, that one. Yeah, I was surprised that there were 31% of respondents updated it multiple times a week. I was really impressed by that. Yeah. That takes some work, doesn't it? To be able to produce that level of content change, but to do it infrequently or not at all, that surprised me.
Kelly Molson: I guess it depends on the attraction and what their offering is as well. Thinking about one of our clients, Holkham actually, so we know that Holkham update their website frequently. They have a lot of different events, they write a lot of really incredible content about what happens across Holkham Estate. So they're engaging with the audience from the perspective of someone coming to visit and what they can do on the day and what they can come and see. But they're also talking about their wider sustainability efforts across the state and what they do and how they focus on that, which again, might be for that same audience. Might be for a slightly different audience as well.
Kelly Molson: So the volume of content that they produce is a lot higher than potentially Thorpe Park as a visitor, they will talk about what's on that day and maybe an events that they're running, but they might not talk about the same things that are going on across the Estate that Holkham would, for example. So I think, yeah, it's what your attraction offers.
Paul Marden: Holkham's a really good example because they can take inspiration from the place. They're very diverse, they've got lots of different things that they do at that location. It's quite a large location, but there's lots of different things going on and those things are inside and outside. They can take inspiration from the season. So there's a lot of inspiration that you can take there and produce. Just off the top of my head, I could think of lots of different stories that you could tell and changes to the site that can be inspired by the season. But then I think about a theme park where there's lots that goes on. I think I've done lots of trips to Legoland. There's Legoland at Halloween. There's Legoland in Spring time. It changes through the seasons and there's a lot of story around that.
Paul Marden: I wonder if you're an indoor attraction, if you're Heritage Museum based, there's going to be lots of stories that you can tell about the items that you've got in your collection. But it might be harder to tell those stories influenced by the seasons, which can be a real driver for telling varying stories throughout a year, can't they? Yeah, but I don't write a lot of stories for those sorts of organisations, so maybe I don't have the right view of the world, but I would imagine it would be a lot harder to write lots of content varying through the year for that sort of organisation.
Kelly Molson: Yes, probably so I'm just thinking about it would just be a change in topic, wouldn't it? So I know Blackpool Pleasure Beach, who Andy Hygate, the Operations Director, came on the podcast a couple of seasons ago, actually, and he talked about the experiences they've developed around walking up the big one and the rise that they have there. And actually, I think for people that are interested in theme parks, there's probably a lot of content around how things are built and how they're developed and that kind of side of stuff that people would be really interested in. So it's not talking about seasonal stuff, it's about the things and how they're constructed and how they're designed and kind of stuff like that.
Kelly Molson: So, yeah, again, it comes back to just knowing your audience and what are they interested in and how you can engage them and what are your potential new audiences as well, and how can you develop content that attracts them. There is a correlation between content and purchases, though, which is quite interesting. So our report shows that those who were deliberate in ensuring their content was kept fresh and engaging saw an average of 25 to 50,000 completed website purchases a year, whereas those who didn't, on average, had around 10,000 completed purchases. In the same time frame. That's interesting. In addition, of the respondents who recognised the need for regular content updates but weren't action in them, 23% stated that their average sales conversion rate sat between one and 4%, which is below the benchmark for the sector.
Kelly Molson: So the sector benchmark is 5% now, so that 1% is significantly low.
Paul Marden: Absolutely. Shall we move on and talk about some testing? Because I know you think this one really is.
Kelly Molson: Oh, yeah, I really do. So there is a statistic in the report that I had to reread a few times, actually, to believe. So last year's survey and report, we had about 70 attractions take part. This year has been significantly more than that. We got 188 attractions from up and down the UK and Europe take part, which was incredible.
Paul Marden: And one in North America as well. I was really excited when I saw that one.
Kelly Molson: Yes, we went international. That was exciting. Okay, so think about this: 188 attractions took part in this. 70% of the respondents have never conducted user testing of any kind on their website. 70%! That's actually not the worst stat though. I'm going to save the worst stat for another episode, but that's not the one that shocked me the most. But this one is really surprising. We've talked a bit about making assumptions about how well your website is perceived by people.
Kelly Molson: Hard data from actual users is the key to designing a website that has an improved user experience because it can clarify problem areas and identify where most effort is needed to create a really great online experience. So if you're not asking your users how they're interacting with the site and do they like it? Can they buy things well? Can they find what they want? How do you know if it's good or not? It's blown my mind.
Paul Marden: It's really hard, isn't it? Really hard.
Kelly Molson: And I think it's really you wrote this down, actually. It's really important to be aware of a familiarity bias. So just because you think your website is easy to navigate doesn't mean other people think is it's because you're familiar with it so you understand where things are. Which is really interesting. Actually, I've just been reminded of a conversation that I had with somebody when I was at an attraction. Now I can't name this attraction, we're working with them and we're under NDA, but they asked me about a website that we'd redesigned. They said, "Oh, you did this website, didn't you?" I said, "Yes", "I can't find this thing anymore that I couldn't find. It took me ages to find it before" and I was like, "All right, what is the thing?" And he talked about what it was.
Kelly Molson: I said, "Oh, well, it would be in this area". And he said, "Yeah, which makes sense. But before it was over here and I knew where it was and it just feels a bit weird now." I said, "Do you think it was in the right place before?". "Oh, no, shouldn't have been." Okay. So it's just because you know where it is doesn't mean it's actually in the right place. It's just what you get used to over the years.
Paul Marden: It is incredibly hard to put yourself into the position of the person that knows nothing about your organisation. Trying to imagine what the customer is going through takes a lot of effort and I think that you can get data to be able to do that. But a lot of there's kind of levels of kind of understanding of that, putting yourself into that customer's position, the empathy that is required. Lots of people that we meet and work with will talk about how they want their site to be structured and what makes sense to them. Some people then will go the next stage and think about what they think their customer wants. And then there's a stage beyond that which is not even trying to put themselves into the customer position, but actually test what the customer thinks.
Paul Marden: It's really hard to have the empathy to understand. If you know nothing, what would you do? And there's loads of stuff that you can do. I'm sure we'll come on to that later on to try to understand and test. But just sitting somebody down and watching them go from zero to hero and buying your tickets is a valuable thing that you could do, couldn't it?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, absolutely. Now the report on the survey is anonymous. All the data that we get from it, we don't talk about the people that have submitted it and we don't talk about them. There was a number of websites within the data set that were doing really well in terms of both design and navigation and the impact that they were having on their conversion rate. So we reached out to these organisations to ask if we could talk about them today. And all of them were very happy for us to talk about it. So we have had their permission. I think I'll hand over to you, Paul, because you've been doing the analysis over on these sites. It's really lovely to see that Roman Baths are on this list.
Paul Marden: They’re on the list.
Kelly Molson: Because they have been on the podcast and they're our podcast alumni. So that was good.
Paul Marden: Yeah, more than once, I think, as well.
Kelly Molson: Yes, they have been.
Paul Marden: What I went looking for were who were the organisations that thought that they had good design and navigation in their site? But I didn't think that was really enough because of course you could think that it was good and it isn't very good. So what could I dig into the data to try to pull apart the people that thought they had good design and following through from that good design actually had good outcomes. And Roman Baths was up there in that top set of organisations that had they thought they had a good, consistent high quality design, but they also had a conversion rate up there in the top ratings that we had inside the data set. Obviously, Roman Baths really well known organisation, lots of international visitors will be going there.
Paul Marden: There was another that I pulled out in the data set, which was also a really high profile brand. London Zoo came out in that top set.
Kelly Molson: Also past podcast guests. Thank you. Yes, lovely people.
Paul Marden: So they also thought they had good, consistent design, but coincidentally also had good quality conversion rates up there in the top performance in the data set. But to avoid you saying to me, "Oh, but all these are all big, internationally recognised brands. What's design got to do with it?" Up there we've got Roman Baths, London Zoo. Big, well known brands. But there's also some organisations that I wasn't familiar with in that data set. So there were organisations that are probably more regional, less internationally well recognised brands. And one of those that considered that they had good quality design and they also had high levels of conversion rates. Alongside that were Smithwick's experience in Kilkenny in Ireland. It's an attraction that is a brewery tour. I thought that one was really interesting when I went and looked at it.
Paul Marden: It was really easy to navigate around the site, ridiculously easy to go and buy tickets. You go onto the site, it's right there to be able to buy those tickets, to go to that experience. So I think that told me that you didn't need to be a big, well recognised brand to be able to devote the time and attention and budget that's needed to get a good design, which then has the impact on your conversion rates. Yeah, this is not just for the big brands. This is also for other brands, smaller, regional brands that can maybe not devote the same levels of investment to it that a large organisation can, but they can still have good outcomes and good design.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. And I think it's fair to say we do ask questions in the report about budget, but we don't ask them specifically. So we haven't asked. We don't, for example, know the investment that Roman Barths, London Zoo or Smithwicks have made in their website to get it to where it is now. We literally have no idea. So their budgets could be phenomenally big, they could be phenomenally small. We have no idea whatsoever. But we know that they have invested in good design and they've done it to a really great standard, which means it's easy for people to make purchases. Therefore their sales are sitting at a really great level.
Kelly Molson: The Roman Baths I just a little shout out to Simon Addison, actually, because Simon did come on to the podcast a couple of times now, and actually he came onto a recent episode where we talked about the value of this report and the survey that we carry out. And this is its second year now and we can see the value in terms of the data that we've been able to glean from it is so much more insightful this year. The key insights themselves are much more in depth than they were last year. But one thing that Simon mentioned is that we don't work with Roman Baths. I've made that clear on the last podcast. We didn't design their website. We've not worked with them.
Kelly Molson: They did use the report to inform some of the decisions that they made about designing their website and making changes to it, which I think is so great. Right. The report is actually actively doing what we set out for it to do. Regardless of whether anyone comes to work with us or not. Someone can take this report and use the insights from it to inform their current agency to make changes to their site that are going to make a significant difference to their bottom line. Well done, us.
Paul Marden: Well done, us. But well done, everyone that's responded as well.
Kelly Molson: Whatever. Well done, us. Well done, everyone. Thank you.
Paul Marden: So I just think it's really impressive, isn't it, that we've got what was it you said? 180 something respondents from across the sector.
Kelly Molson: 188.
Paul Marden: It's so hard in a tough industry. There's lots of industries where people would not work together. And this is a collaborative exercise in sharing your data that takes a certain confidence within the sector to be able to be willing to share that information so that then somebody like us can then do the graph that aggregating that and seeing the interesting stories that people can then use to make things better. There's so many places where you would not see that happen.
Kelly Molson: It's a wonderful part of the sector, that collaboration and that willingness to share and be open about things. Right, let's talk about next steps then, because we've talked about some of the items within design, navigation, testing. We've talked about who's doing it well. Let's wrap this up with next steps that you can take.
Kelly Molson: If you think some of these things are relevant to you and you want to do something about them. Do some testing. Do some testing and you can do that in a variety of ways.
Paul Marden: Do you want me to test some stuff?
Kelly Molson: Let's do some testing. Let's test. Look, there's loads of ways that you can do user testing if you're going through the process of a redesign at the moment. Go back to your wireframes, make them interactive. Do some internal testing, do some external testing. You can do this in multiple ways so you can do focus groups, get bums on seats in front of computers and give them some things that you want them to do on your site. Don't tell them how to do it, but just give them some things that you want them to achieve. I want you to buy a ticket. I want you to tell me how easy it is to go and find the interactive map. I want you to find a blog post and can you get from the blog post to buying a ticket, some of those things.
Kelly Molson: This doesn't need to cost you a huge amount of money, right? You all have an asset in that. "Hey, would you like a free ticket to our venue if you come and do some testing for us?" Put on a little bit of lunch, put on people are really happy to help and give you feedback in that way. So that doesn't need to be a huge cost at all. You can use online tools, so we use tools like UserTesting.com. You can select a certain demographic that you want to test out and you upload what you want them to test. And then they go off and they do it, and they record videos, and you can see how they interact and they talk through what they're doing and how easy it was for them to do those things as well.
Kelly Molson: They are not a huge, costly I actually don't know off the top of my head. There will be a fee to use the system, which will be a monthly fee and then there'll be a fee probably for that will cover X amount of tests within that monthly fee. So it will probably be from what, 150, maybe a month, something like that, maybe a bit more.
Paul Marden: The cost depends as well on factors, how many factors you place on the do you only want people to do user testing that are of a particular demographic and age? If your attraction has mainly parents with young kids coming, do you want your user testing to be done only by parents with young kids? When you add more constraints to it, the cost of doing it becomes higher. But arguably the quality of the data that you get back from the testing is more relevant to you.
Kelly Molson: You can do this with I've talked about going back to the wireframe stage. You can do this at any point. So great, do a load of testing before you go ahead and release something to the world. But if you've got something that's up and running now, do some testing. So you can do user testing on what you already have. You can do exit surveys so you can ask people once they've bought a ticket, you can ask them how easy that was. What did you find difficult? What were your challenges at the end of your purchasing journey? So there's small little things you can do there.
Paul Marden: The world has changed a lot, hasn't it? In the last few years we've moved to almost exclusively online sales beforehand. So we've got this massive pool of data, of contact information of the people that have bought your tickets. That's such a great resource that you could use, which in previous years pre pandemic it would have been a struggle because a large chunk of your people would have been walk ins who you didn't necessarily it wasn't easy to capture those sorts of contact details and follow up with them.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, exactly. And then I think there are things that you can do in terms of looking at your user experience and the design side of things. We do things like UX reviews for people. We actually offered one as a prize for all of the people that entered the survey this year and the lovely people at Cheddar Gorge won that. We're going to be looking at that in a couple of months for them.
Paul Marden: Back near my home proper, that's Cheddar Gorge is where I went as a kid, like, so that's exciting to be.
Kelly Molson: In that we'll be carrying that out later on in the year for them. So, yeah, there's things that you can do in terms of working with an agency to look at what your user journeys look like. Are they correct for the audience that you have? Does your design flow? Where are the barriers that you're seeing? And again, if you're looking at some of the data of where you're seeing people drop off, is that a design issue, is that a function issue? How do we work those things out?
Paul Marden: There's loads of tools, isn't there, as well, like Hotjar that you can stick on, which doesn't cost a lot of money. And it's not just Hotjar, there are lots of other tools just like it which would give you insight into the behaviour of the users on the site. It's just a snapshot that you get for free, but that snapshot could really help inform decision making about maybe I need to make it easier for them to find the button because they're finding it hard to book tickets or whatever.
Kelly Molson: Because they can't see where they need to book their tickets.
Paul Marden: Yeah.
Kelly Molson: So, yeah, I think in summary, do some testing is what I'm going to end this podcast episode with. Do some testing, come back and tell us what you find.
Paul Marden: Exciting. I'd love to have those conversations.
Kelly Molson: As ever, if you want to get in touch with either of us, all of our contact details are in the Show Notes. If anything has sparked your interest that we've talked about today, we're really happy to answer any questions and things like that. So if you do want to ask any questions about any of the kind of stats that we've talked about, again, just our email addresses will be in the Show Notes. And also, if you haven't downloaded the report yet, why not? Because it's out. It launched yesterday. We did a webinar. Did you come to it? Why not? If not, but if you do want to go and download the report, we'll put the link to that in the Show Notes as well. But just head over to the rubbercheese.com website and you'll be able to find it. We'll see you next time.
Paul Marden: Awesome. Thank you.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
Dive into groundbreaking benchmarks for the industryGain a better understanding of how to achieve the highest conversion ratesExplore the "why" behind visitor attraction site performanceLearn the impact of website optimisation and visitor engagement on conversion ratesUncover key steps to enhance user experience for greater conversionsDownload the report now for invaluable insights and actionable recommendations!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the annual benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://vacevents.com/
THURSDAY 5TH OCTOBER – QEII CONFERENCE CENTRE, WESTMINSTER
https://vacevents.com/committee/
Bernard Donoghue OBE
CEO & Director, ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Mayor of London’s Culture Ambassador. Co-Chair, London Tourism Recovery Board.
https://www.alva.org.uk/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-obe-0aa9b97/
Bernard has been the Director of ALVA, the UK’s Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, since 2011 following a career in advocacy, communications, and lobbying, latterly at a senior level in the tourism and heritage sector. In 2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appointed Bernard to be the Mayor’s Ambassador for Cultural Tourism and a member of the Mayor’s Cultural Leadership Board.
Bernard is Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. He is also Chairman of LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre; Chairman of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world, and also of the People’s History Museum, the Museum of Democracy. He has been a member of the UK Government’s Tourism Industry Council since 2016. Bernard was named by Blooloop in 2020 as one of the world’s 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic.
Ken Robinson CBE FTS - Founder of VAC
https://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-robinson-cbe-fts-bb811312/
Ken is an independent adviser who speaks and writes on tourism topics. As a "tourism enthusiast" he aims to be a pragmatic pioneer of new initiatives, strategies and solutions to optimise the economic, cultural and social benefits of tourism. Ken’s Consultancy companies completed over 1500 assignments, mostly in the UK but also several hundred international projects, beginning over 50 years ago, before the days of mass tourism. He was a founding member of the Tourism Society and supported the formation of the Tourism Alliance, both of which organisations he has served as a board member and Chair, as he has on several other Tourism bodies.
Specialising initially in visitor attractions, Ken initiated and subsequently chaired the National Visitor Attractions Conference, VAC, and has been on its Committee ever since. In addition to many clients in the public, private and third sectors, he has advised the UN’s International Trade Centre, on national and regional Tourism strategy development. His current focus is to move the industry’s thinking from marketing to the critical need to manage future tourism for the benefit of host communities, and to optimise tourist’s experiences. Ken was appointed CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014.
Paul Kelly
Chief Executive, BALPPA, Chair of VAC
https://www.balppa.org/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kelly-2714a922/
Having been with BALPPA for 11 years and working with VAC for that amount of time as well, Paul started his career in the attractions sector at Thorpe Park in the 80's and then moved on to the London Eye for its opening around the millennium. He has always been involved with visitor attractions. Several more years working within Merlin followed both in the UK and abroad, mainly on business development. Being a BALPPA member for 30 years means, being Chair of the organising committee at VAC keeps Paul in touch with all aspects of the attractions industry.
Liz Terry MBE
Managing Director, Leisure Media Group
https://www.linkedin.com/in/elizterry/
Janet Uttley
Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland
https://www.linkedin.com/in/janetuttley/
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Season 5 kicks off today with not one, not two, but three excellent guests.
On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Bernard Donoghue, Paul Kelly and Ken Robinson, founders of the Visitor Attractions Conference. You also know Bernard as, Director of ALVA and Paul as CEO of BALPPA.
VAC celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and I'm finding out where the idea for the event spanned from, how it's changed and developed over the years. And we take a look ahead to what 2024 has in store for the attraction sector.
Unfortunately, fellow Founder; Liz Terry, the Managing Director of Leisure Media Group, and also Janet Uttley, Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland, were unable to join us on this episode. But stay tuned for lots of insight and to find out how you can get your ticket for the VAC conference this year.
Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: Bernard, Ken, Paul, it is a treat to have you all on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. I think this is the first time I've had three guests as well, so this could be interesting.
Bernard Donoghue: And three men as well. I mean, it's like a really bad testosterone banana rama, isn't it? Really.
Kelly Molson: I’m just a little flower in the middle of you thorns today. Yes, it's a real shame. So, unfortunately, Janet Uttley and Liz Terry couldn't make it along to join us today, which is a shame. But I'm sure that they will get lots of mentions as we talk through some of the things that we're going to chat about today. But first, as ever, I want to start with a little icebreaker. I'm going to ask you all the same thing because I'm intrigued as to whether you ended up doing what you thought you might. So, Ken, I'm going to start with you first. When you were at school, what did you think that you'd grow up and be when you were older?
Ken Robinson: I didn't know.
Kelly Molson: Had no clue at all?
Ken Robinson: No, I didn't have a clue. I was lucky to have a good education. I didn't work at school. And then I got into a job, which was I was very successful at it and it was very boring. So I left. And when I discovered tourism and visitor attractions, it took me over. I didn't decide to do it. It told me that was it.
Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. It's like a calling.
Ken Robinson: At the time it was, I was actually sitting in a turret room which had been vacated by Lord Montague. His desk used to face in and I liked that because I didn't have to look at the faces of the visitors going past who might complain, because in those days, buli was very expensive. And then one day I thought to myself, these people are investing their hard earned money and leisure time in making a decision to come here and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. And I turned my desk round and I looked at them all day long and the moment I turned my desk round, everything changed.
Kelly Molson: I love that, because you could see the whites of their eyes and how they were engaging with the venue as they turned up.
Ken Robinson: Well, it's just such a failure, isn't it? If you've got somebody who makes a choice and spends their time and money, a family decision for many people, and it should be a highlight. And if it isn't, whose fault is it? It's probably the fault of the visitor attraction, given that the person has chosen to go there in not communicating well enough with them about what they've got and what they would find interesting.
Kelly Molson: This is such a brilliant story and that wasn't where I was expecting this to go either, Ken. I love it. Paul, what about you, Paul?
Paul Kelly: Yeah, I mean, when I was at school, I was interested in sports and that was it, really, and luckily, that dragged me through the various places I went to. But what I was going to end up doing sports. I think once you get into sports quite seriously, you realise fairly quickly that actually you're not going to make it, so you have to find something else. So, laterally, I decided that business was a good idea. So I started doing business studies up in North Wales and for some reason were doing a sandwich course in those days, I think it was called that. One of those, I got placed at Thorpe Park. I don't know why particularly, so there's a group of six of us went down to Thorpe Park to work there and I actually started working on the rides.
Paul Kelly: I'm not sure what it had to do with business at the time, but I'm glad somebody thought it did. And I couldn't believe that was a job that you could do, you could be paid for, because I came from the north at that point and there wasn't an awful lot going on in the 80s and actually be paid. Everyone enjoyed themselves, fantastic atmosphere, parties every night. I'm sure it's still like that. And it was just amazing. And from that moment on, regardless of what happened after that, including other colleges, other bits and pieces, effectively, I never left.
Kelly Molson: It's always going to be in that sector.
Paul Kelly: Yes.
Kelly Molson: Excellent. Great. Bernard, same to you.
Bernard Donoghue: Well, this may come as a surprise, but my grandfather was in the Irish Guards, my father was in the Grenadier Guards, my brother was in the Royal Marines, and I had a very large collection of action men. I genuinely thought I would probably end up in the army. And actually, I got an offer after university to go into the Household Cavalry. I don't think I've ever told anyone this before. Anyway, it just clearly I didn't pursue the application. It wasn't for me at all. Got really into politics. So I started working in the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and then I've just been in sort of lobbying, campaigning, political world ever since. But I still miss the uniforms. Can't deny it.
Kelly Molson: I think we'd like to see you in that uniform, Bernard, if I'm not going to lie. So from the lobbying aspect, which is obviously a really big part of the role that you currently have, how did the attractions bit kind of slot into those? Where did the two join up?
Bernard Donoghue: It's a really odd coincidence. I was trustee of a charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, was a patron of, and I was working full time for a charity that she was a patron of. So when she divorced Prince of Wales, now the King, she reduced her patronages down from 187 to six. And I happened to be involved with six of them. I went to work for her as a deputy private secretary, press secretary. But of course, the moment she died, which was August 31st, I had no job. Suddenly I was unemployed. And I got contacted by a woman who Ken will certainly know, probably Paul will, too, by Sue Garland, who used to be Deputy Chief Executive of VisitBritain, who'd heard me speak at something and said, "Well, we're just about to create this post of government affairs liaison. Would you be interested to working on the role while working on what you do next?”
Bernard Donoghue: And that was in August 1997. And here I am still.
Ken Robinson: But also, can I add something to that? Because I was lucky enough to be sitting in the room on many occasions when Bernard would give his briefing at meetings that were held by VisitBritain. And it was always a highlight of the day because Bernard, in those days, never pulled his punches. I'm not saying he does now, but he would just explain to everybody in the room what was going on with all of the political parties, which we never understood, and explain what we ought to be doing in order to best put our case. So it was really no shock when he turned up at ALVA, because I would say this if he wasn't here, he was the star of the show there, and that expertise that he showed has blossomed in the job that he's doing now.
Kelly Molson: This is lovely, isn't it? Aren't you all nice?
Bernard Donoghue: This is love in..
Kelly Molson: Probably why you all work together, right? You will get on so well. Right, back to you, Ken. Unpopular opinion, please.
Ken Robinson: Most visitor attractions do not deliver full value for money to most of their visitors.
Kelly Molson: Okay, Paul and Bernard, do you agree with this? Will our listeners agree with this? Is this an unpopular opinion?
Paul Kelly: Did you use the word most, Ken?
Ken Robinson: I did.
Paul Kelly: I'll go for some, not most.
Bernard Donoghue: Yeah, I'll go for some as well. One of my favourite programmes is Yes, Minister. And whenever you'd hear something off the wall, bonkers, they would say, that's a very brave opinion, Minister. That's a very brave opinion, Ken.
Ken Robinson: Now's not the time to justify it. I'll do that on another occasion.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, we will invite you back and we can do that one on one, Ken. Paul, what about you? Unpopular opinion?
Paul Kelly: Well, I'm guessing that anybody that's worked in a theme park will probably have the same opinion I have. So I worked at Thorpe Park, which was 450 acres, two thirds of which was water. And at the end of the day, when you were walking out, and in those days, that could be 9, 10 o'clock at night, it was beautiful. On a late summer's evening, calm waters, walking through a park which had just been cleaned and tidied and ready for the next day. It was fantastic. And we all had the same opinion once were down the pub discussing the day. It's just a shame we have to let people into theme parks because it's the absolutely beautiful place without them there. So sometimes people let the parks down.
Kelly Molson: That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And you don't want to let them in to see the beautiful bit either, do you? Because then there'd be people there. It wouldn't be serene.
Paul Kelly: No, I mean, those evenings, if there was still time, we'd go windsurfing on the lakes, cable water ski around the back. And it was just a shame that all these people came in every day and messed it all up.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that most people who've worked in theme parks aren't going to disagree with you on that one, Paul. Good one. Bernard, what about yours?
Bernard Donoghue: Even though I chair a theatre and I know how important the revenue is, I'm not a fan of selling drinks and food to people in theatres because they just make a noise. I can't bear it. I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends if it's a panto or something like that. Completely fine.
Ken Robinson: Oh, no, it's not.
Bernard Donoghue: It kind of allies to what Paul was saying as well, which was I don't know whether it's an unpopular opinion. I think it's probably a popular opinion. But visitor behaviour, whether it's in a theatre, a museum, an art gallery or wherever, has completely deteriorated post lockdown. Some people's behaviour is getting worse and it's very difficult to know what to do about it.
Kelly Molson: Yes, agree. I don't think that's going to be very unpopular at all, actually, considering some of the things that we've seen recently. Thank you all for sharing. Okay, let's get back to the serious bit. The Visitor Attractions Conference. It's 20 years old this year. If you are listening and you're not familiar with it, one, why the hell not? And two, you need to grab a ticket today. It's the leading networking and learning event for visitor attractions across the UK. And I first visited in October 2019 and it was the first sector specific conference that I had been to. We'd been working in the sector for probably about three or four years, had never really at that point kind of gone all out on our like, "This is what we're going to niche and this is what we're going to specialise in."
Kelly Molson: So I was kind of doing a bit of a fact finding mission really, and I came along and it absolutely blew me away. I think it was one of the friendliest conferences I've ever been to. I think you'd created an environment where everybody was really welcome, no stupid questions. Everyone from speakers to guests where kind of felt like they were all on the same level, really happy to answer questions that you had, really happy to talk to you. And I think that was for me. I came away from that event, I went back to my team and said, "This is where we should be. This is the event for us, this is where we should be attending, these are the people that we should be speaking to." And I've absolutely loved every minute of that.
Kelly Molson: I mean, the next one I went to was a virtual one. So it was very different to the 2019 event, but still excellently organised. So firstly, thank you for making that happen. But where did the idea for the VAC come from in the first place? How did this come about?
Ken Robinson: So we have to remember that the world was very different over 20 years ago. Really, really very different. Not just a question of internet or pre COVID and all those things and pre Olympics, but just very different. And attractions in those days thought and acted and communicated in their sectoral associations. Historic houses talked to historic houses, curators of museums talked to curators, bishops talked to priests, zoologists talked to botanists, but they didn't talk across the sectors. There were two exceptions to that. One was that in Visit England or English Tourist Board, there'd always been a committee there which was across the sectors, but the other one was ALVA. Now, when ALVA was formed, it was a 1 million visitors plus club for attractions, with 1 million plus visitors a year.
Ken Robinson: Subsequently, groups of attractions, particularly English Heritage, National Trust, were involved originally associates, but it was a 1 million plus club and that's only 1% of the attractions in the United Kingdom had over 1 million. And it was very London centric. And ALVA had a five objectives, four of which were about government. And the interesting thing was that I was very good friends all through this time with Lord Lee, who know a very big part of the early success, pre Bernard of ALVA. I said to John Lee, “Look John, could you not change your name to ALVA and be involved with all the visitor attractions because they badly need something which glues everybody together and we need to get across this away from this sectoral stuff.”
Ken Robinson: And everybody was talking about historic houses, talk about the house museums, talking about the continents of the museum but they weren't talking about visitors. They weren't talking about how you communicated with the visitors or what they were motivated by or how you could better manage things for visitors, give them better they weren't doing that. So John agreed with this and I've got the original papers here. I looked them out that I was asked first of all by ALVA in December of 2001 to write a paper on the future of ALVA which is headed: ALVA in the Future Representing All Visitor Attractions. Then after that the conversation went on and we realised that if were going to have some kind of overall event we couldn't do it without the National Tourist Board, we couldn't do it without Visit Britain, Visit England. We needed their input.
Ken Robinson: We needed them to talk to DCMS and make sure it would happen. And also we wanted to do this not on a commercial basis but being by the industry, for the industry, run by the industry, not for profit. And that was a problem because we wanted to do it in the QE II Centre because we wanted to be in the centre of everything and that was going to cost an extraordinary sum of money and there wasn't that much money that could in that first year come originally from VisitEngland. So the partners in this, the partners being ALVA, BALPPA, Paul's organisation, Leisure Media the wonderful Liz Terry and her magazine which has forever been behind this event for no recompense whatever and myself put up 5000 pounds each security in order that the thing would happen.
Ken Robinson: You said, "We'll stand the risk, let's do it.". So in 2004 I wrote the briefing of the first conference and I found from a 2003 the government asked for a list of topics that would be discussed in order they could work out whether or not they might like it and it's still here. What I like about it is it would do quite well for this year's conference. All those topics are still relevant. So that's where it came from. That's where it came from. We wanted it to have at the time the lowest possible attendance fee to get the highest number of people there. We wanted to involve everybody.
Ken Robinson: And the cast list for that 2004 event, my goodness me, absolutely fantastic cast list in terms of the people we had for an initial event and you can imagine when it was announced and everybody was behind it ALVA was behind it. BALPPA, I should have mentioned that Colin Dawson, Paul's predecessor was an absolute stalwart of the conference in the early years he stood by know, when times were tough and that's where it came from.
Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. It was really putting your money where your mouth is, isn't it? By all of you actually personally investing in this thing to bring it to life. You don't hear many things happening in that way anymore, do you? It's all about getting investment and asking other people to make the commitment to it and take the risk.
Ken Robinson: Well, we have a company now, I should say. We have a company called VAC Events, and we are all equal. The four of us are equal shareholders, that's to say, Bernard and ALVA, BALPPA and Paul, Liz and myself, for no benefit. Martin does it for us, but we are the people that carry the can, if you like, and I don't think we've ever had anything out of it apart from a nice lunch at Christmas, but apart from that, it's a great feeling of doing something. When you say everybody is very friendly and talks to one another. That's why they're all in the same business. Bishop, curator, zoologist person running a heritage railway, they're all in the same business.
Kelly Molson: Obviously, the first event was a success. You've been on and you've done many, what, 20, 20 events since that first one. How have you seen it kind of change and develop over the years? So what did that first conference look like compared to what this year's will look like? And how have you kind of evolved it over that time to keep it relevant to your audience?
Paul Kelly: Well, I think so. My involvement directly has been the last ten years, so I'm halfway through chairing for this one, but I was actually there at the early ones because I worked at that time. I was working at the London Eye, just across the river, and I was good friends with Colin Dawson at the time. I'd worked with him at Thorpe Park and he for some people, may well remember Colin as entertaining Princess Diana on a log flume in 92, 3 and 4.
Paul Kelly: And I was there. It's hard to tell, but I was actually there. I'm not in any of the photos in Paris Match and all of those places. I have a couple of myself here. I didn't get anything signed by Princess Diana and sent over to you know, bitterness takes a while to and I've joked with Colin over this many years. Colin was there, but if you look closely behind the scenes, you'll find I was there too, but so I was great friends with Colin over many years and still am. He was obviously contacting everyone he knew about this conference. He was working for BALPPA at the time. I was working for the Two Swords Group, had the operational contract for the London Eye.
Paul Kelly: So I went to the first one and I suppose my impressions of the first one was for somebody who hasn't been there before, the QE II is extremely impressive as a conference center. I don't go to many that look like that around the UK. Most of them normally the ones I go to are in attractions, they're slightly different so it was hugely impressive both on its location and what was across the road and how things went and I was a little bit starstruck I suppose, for the first one. Now I get the opportunity to sit on the stage and look out at everybody and have a slightly different view on it all, but still think it's an extremely impressive environment to do that.
Paul Kelly: And I think the biggest change for me, and I think we may cover a little bit later, is how we've broken up the afternoons into separate segments and sections where people can go along to a smaller, informal group discussing a topic that they particularly want. And I think the thing I also like about that is the amount of people who want to go to more than one of them that are on at the same time and are almost complaining there's too many things to go to, which I think is hilarious, which means it's really good. And hopefully that means that next time they'll really think about which one do I want to go to, obviously I want to go to more than one, but I'm going to pick my best one.
Paul Kelly: So I think for me, that's probably the biggest change over time. But what doesn't change for me is the team that we have putting these things together, which we're actually relatively slick at. Everyone gets the chance to put their opinions and I'm glad we don't record those meetings and it works out really well. And I think as a team, it's amazing how long we've stuck at it and stuck together.
Kelly Molson: I'd love to be on a little fly on the wall for those meetings. Have you ever had a fallout about something?
Bernard Donoghue: Yes, we're frequently violent. It's a visitor experience in its own right, I think.
Kelly Molson: I’ll pay for it.
Bernard Donoghue: We reflect the madness that some of our visitors demonstrate on site so in that case I think we're rooted in the industry. The first one that I went to was in 2011, so I just joined ALVA at that point. And the first one I spoke, it was in 2012 and I've been doing the same kind of slot ever since. I do a kind of State of the Nation in the morning because ALVA obviously gets loads of data and information and we publish all of our visitor figures and all the rest of it, and actually we collect and commission much more data now than we ever used to. So I share all of that in the kind of Donoghue half hour copyright.
Bernard Donoghue: What's lovely I mean, Paul's absolutely right is that over the last twelve years I think we've seen a real move from people desperately wanting to speak about their successes to being really open about what hasn't worked, which of course is far more interesting and useful. So there's been a really lovely shift from people saying, "No, I don't have to do the propaganda stuff.” Actually, I'm going to tell you what it was like, why it was a disaster and what we learned from it. And that's so useful. So you do get this real honesty coming from the speakers who know that's what they find useful too. So why not share it? I think the other one is I do a presentation about, is there core behaviours of successful visitor attractions regardless of type?
Bernard Donoghue: And there are there's about ten of them, but one of them is the ability to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. So the presentations that are most fascinating for me is where a visitor attraction, it doesn't matter whether it's a cathedral or whether it's a museum or gallery or theme park, have teamed up with someone that you wouldn't expect them to team up with to tell the story of their people and places and collections in a new, innovating, exciting way. And those are fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I love those. There's much more of that.
Kelly Molson: Fantastic. Well, on that note, I want to know from each of you who has been the most inspiring speaker that you've had at the conference over the past 20 years. Ken, let us start with you. Who do you think would be on your list for that?
Ken Robinson: I had a look through the programs going back to 2004 and came up with the following names which surprised me, actually. I think originally our first most inspiring speaker was Simon Jenkins, the columnist of the Times, who had very strong views, which didn't necessarily agree with what government and others were doing. He did give a very inspiring presentation and then there are some people who perhaps we would expect less. The most single most surprising speaker was somebody called Tristram Mayhew, who titles himself as the Chief Gorilla of Go Ape and in a room full of suits and quite smart dresses and trouser suits, Go Ape shambled onto the stage in a car key shirt and proceeded to explain how he'd done things differently. And frankly, it was riveting. We had a chap called Tony Berry from the National Trust who gave presentations.
Ken Robinson: His first one was just stunnning, you know, in the days when HR was less popular, Tony Berry would tell you why you should be interested and he was absolutely amazing. And Sue Wilkinson, incidentally, of the National Trust, who was the person responsible really for dragging the Trust from its sort of old form to its new marketing orientated thinking about its supporters future success? She was terrific. And the other person I would mention another Tony, I don't know whether or Tony's there's Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life, who again, when Bernard was talking about people talking about doing things differently and it inspires you. Some of those examples are very interesting, but not easy to copy.
Ken Robinson: In other attractions, we always look for things that do go across the piece, so anybody can learn from the lessons within the example that we're talking about. And incidentally, we do have arguments in meetings, it's about whether particular speakers and particular topics are the way of doing things. And generally speaking, when we all have a good go at it comes out better than it did when anybody said, “Well, I know what the right answer is. No, you don't. Let's all talk about it. So that works.” So you get these people that actually inspire and they light up the room, not because of clever graphics and not because of a forceful way, but they light up the room because of the originality of their ideas. Now, I'll come to my number one.
Ken Robinson: I'm sorry about this, because he's sitting on my screen down there, and that's young Bernard, who since he joined our there you go. That's the top half that works. You should see the bottom half doesn't work. He's just had pins put in it.
Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners here, Bernard is given a little muscle strong arm salute on screen here.
Ken Robinson: Bernard combines the latest immediate knowledge of talking to people across the industry with an absolutely amazing gift of the gab, with a power of communication. And he's unstoppable. And we wouldn't have stood him for all these years if he wasn't. So of all the years and all the speakers, the consistent best is Bernard. But we have had other people, often surprising, who take know, you don't expect it, you think you're going to listen to ordinary session, all of a sudden it takes fire.
Kelly Molson: Bernard, what have you got to say to that?
Bernard Donoghue: What I say to Ken is there are packets of cash going from London to the south coast with immediate effect. Delighted. Thank you very much. It's really lovely, actually. I've tried to change things every year to do partly political, but also partly about good practice and who's doing what and who's interesting. I'll tell you what, one of my favourite speakers, and it was in a conversation, one of the things that we've introduced is a sort of conversation with slot, which works really well, actually, because a bit like this, you're off script, you respond to people. Liz chaired a conversation last year, so were in Birmingham last year and it was all about HR issues and of course, it know, coming out of COVID and cost of living crisis and recruitment challenges and all of those kind of stuff.
Bernard Donoghue: And Tina Lewis is the director of people at the National Trust. National Trust, getting great repertoire here. She came out with an idea that they're doing at the National Trust and I've implemented it in the three organisations that I chair and it's made the biggest difference. So the National Trust, they will pay the rent deposit for your flat if you need them to. So if you're going through a cost of living crisis and you can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. You can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. That was such a transformational thing to hear. You could almost hear the gasp in the room of people going, "Oh, my God. Yeah, if we can, let's do that."
Bernard Donoghue: And I've now introduced it. As I say in the organisations that I chair, not many people have taken it up, but the fact that we've said it has made such a difference to people. I mean, as it is at the Trust, actually, there's been a relatively small number of people at the Trust who've taken it up, but the very policy decision, the very communication of it, just spoke volumes about an organisation that cares about its staff, and particularly those staff who are on really limited budgets. So there's been loads and loads of speakers over the course of the last few years, but that for me was a nugget which has changed people's lives and has been implementable.
Kelly Molson: I think that's the key to that part, isn't it, is that it's an incredible thing that they've done, but the fact that it can be implemented someone has listened to that talk. They can take that away, take it to their board, take it to whoever needs to okay that, and they can put that into action like that straight away. That's the power of a really good initiative and a good speaker to be able to deliver that as well. Paul, what about you? Please don't say Bernard. I think he's had enough praise today.
Bernard Donoghue: No, keep going.
Kelly Molson: No.
Paul Kelly: You're OK, Bernard? We'll leave that one where it is, shall we? If we can squeeze Bernard into the room next. Right, so one special mention I wanted to give, actually, which is one of the years not too long ago, we invited Simon Calder to speak, the travel journalist, and I have to say I wasn't convinced, because clearly he's not working in one of our attractions and doesn't necessarily know the industry pretty well. But I have to say, he was hugely entertaining, had done his homework, was hugely knowledgeable, and so he was absolutely excellent. But I think the most important thing for me is that he left us and he said to me, “Enjoyed it so much, I'll come back later.” And I said, “Yes, of course you will.”
Paul Kelly: So he went away and he came back at the end of the day to talk to all the people that he'd seen early in the day, because he loved the atmosphere and he wasn't required to do that. And he came along. And for that I have to put a special mention in one for myself to actually listen to the others when they say, “This will be good”, and secondly for him, for actually doing a bit and actually coming back later. And he was a fabulous addition and outside of our industry. So my inside the industry one is somebody I ended up working with because I was with the Two Swords group and then they were bought by Merlin with Nick Varney and his Merry Men.
Paul Kelly: So Nick and his team had obviously been in the industry a very long time at this point, dipped in and out of theme parks and attractions. But Nick didn't actually do many talks. You wouldn't actually hear him speak about too much. I'd heard him speak over in the IAAPA trade show held in Orlando every November, and he was absolutely brilliant. And then Ken managed to get him to speak at VAC one year. And again, he was absolutely excellent. And this fits in nicely because now that he's retired from Merlin, he's speaking again this year. So I think that will be really interesting because he's absolutely excellent.
Ken Robinson: And by the way, guys, just to show you that we know what we're doing here, this is 2004, okay? And it says here the recipe for success. Nick Varney chief executive, will talk about the components for commercial success. And that's before. So we've got him first and look what happened.
Kelly Molson: I'm really looking forward to that interview, actually, and I think it would be really interesting to see how he differs now. He's kind of outside of the sector, and I think that the format that you've got him in. So that's the interview with Liz, isn't it? On stage? I think that's going to be a really great format as well. I've seen that work really well in the past where she's interviewed people and it just feels really comfortable and really conversational. I think that brings out the best of people.
Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, do you want to know who's been of most variable quality?
Kelly Molson: Oh, yes.
Bernard Donoghue: Tourism Minister. I mean, without doubt. I mean, we've been going 20 years now, therefore we've had 20 tourism ministers, had one a year, like Christmas cards. And some of them have completely got the industry completely understood. It delivered a barnstorming speech, and then the next year you'll get the annual Tourism Minister pop up and they'll read something flat, banal, uninteresting. And we're so torched by the experience that we don't invite the one next on the year. So we're always banging on about this. Tourism is very good at job creation. In fact, we've created 20 Tourism Minister jobs in years, but they are of variable quality.
Ken Robinson: The best we ever had, Bernard, I think, by far, was John Penrose, when he had completed his review of the industry and got very clear views, which he put to government. Unfortunately, government didn't do it, as they usually don't, but he was good and people liked him and gave him a high rating. I think the next best was probably Margaret Hodge, who was very good and spoke from the heart. But as you say, when we look at every year, we look at a rating of every speaker and the meeting after the event, we go through those ratings and decide, those that got good ratings, why did they get it? Was it intrinsic to their character, their nature, their topic? Was there something special? And those who didn't, why was that? Was it our fault?
Ken Robinson: Did we not brief them properly? Or was it never going to be any better?
Ken Robinson: And that way we managed to manage the conference. So know the attraction sector. We sometimes forget that over half of all visits to visitor attractions in the UK are free of charge. We forget that the majority of visitor attractions are medium and small businesses. We forget that there are charitable and commercial attractions. We must be able to bring this whole sector together and move our thinking forward in the way that Bernard has just explained in terms of what he does with ALVA. And the other thing that Bernard mentioned was ALVA's research now.
Ken Robinson: 20 years ago, you had to wait until the annual book came out from Thames Tower and then eventually from the centre of luck look to page 16 and there would be numbers, but very little interpretation of what those numbers meant. Now, Bernard is behind much of the work that is done now with ALVA. But the key to it is it's not just numbers, it's interpretation. And because of the communication skills, when ALVA put out a message, it is interpreted. It says why it was a successful year or what was mitigating against that. And that's so important in trying to move our case forward.
Kelly Molson: But it's important in improving the content that you give your audience at the conferences as well, right? If something isn't working and you've got a process of evaluating why that hasn't worked and how you improve on it for the next one. Let's just focus on why should people attend VAC this year? What is in it for them? What's on the agenda? What have they got to look forward to and how can we get them to book a ticket?
Bernard Donoghue: I'll happily go first and go quite niche, actually. One of the things that I do now outside of ALVA, or because of ALVA is that I co chair the advisory board for VisitLondon. So essentially chair the London tourist board. And I do that with Kate Nichols of UK hospitality. And we created the London Tourism Recovery Group during COVID So my suggestion would be Sadiq Khan. So we've managed to get the Mayor of London to come along and speak at this anniversary conference. And it's not just because he's the Mayor of London and it's the 20th anniversary, but it's because he's the first ever Mayor of London that hazard one of his four political priorities, culture and tourism. That's number one.
Bernard Donoghue: Number two is that he put his money where his mouth was and he funded the Let's Do London Recovery campaign, which was both domestic and international with the industry. We delivered it with London and partners, but he put up the lump sum behind it. And third, he completely gets that tourism and heritage and culture is both where you grow jobs and we're very good at it, but it's also where you grow people. It's where you grow people in terms of their cultural literacy or their sense of community or their independence or their sense of history. And therefore knowing where you come from enables you to be a better future citizen, if you like.
Bernard Donoghue: So my quick blast would be we've got him doing a welcome, but also saying why visitor attractions and tourism are so important to him and to the economy and the politics of London. So that's not to be missed.
Kelly Molson: That is a big draw. Absolutely a big draw. Paul, you mentioned earlier about the variety in splitting up that second session, that second part of the day with the seminars and the smaller talks that you do as well. That for me, as an attendee, is really valuable because you can kind of pick and choose what's relevant to you and go along and see lots of different talks. What do you think is the draw for people to come to the conference this year for you?
Paul Kelly: Well, I was just jotting down, thinking about it's a little bit. An extension of what Ken was talking about is that it's the variety of what we do in one place is greater than anywhere else. And all the conferences I do because of the nature of what we do each end of the spectrum. So we've got talks about people who run charities to people who run hugely commercial operations. We've got people doing talks on which are free to get into those who are quite expensive, but focus on value for money. And you've got those that are indoor, those that are outdoor. When I spent my time business development at Merlin, they were always focused on a balanced portfolio. And a balanced portfolio meant making sure that right across your business, you have every aspect covered.
Paul Kelly: So everything balances indoor, outdoor, UK, Europe, USA, whatever it is. And I think with our conference, that's what we try and do, we try and balance all of those types of different types of operations so that everything is covered, not to the point where it's too thin and you don't learn anything. And that's the key to it, is that we go into the depth. And the depth, I think, is greater now because we do those breakout sessions and we've got time to do in fact, we double up for those three different areas just for that afternoon. So I think those are the things, if anyone asks me why they should come, it's about the variety.
Kelly Molson: Regardless of size of your attraction as well. And actually, from my perspective as a supplier to the industry, it's just as valuable to come along and learn and understand what's going on in the sector. You don't have to be an attraction to come along and take part and be educated about what's happening in the sector. What about you, Ken?
Ken Robinson: Well, I think that those of us who have stood on the stage at the QE II Centre and looked at the people who have come can see that there aren't any slumbering faces out there. There are people making notes, people nudging the person next to them, people looking round when we ask a question. We now have a sort of red and green card system for, do you agree? Don't you agree? Which we sometimes use, which is very interesting, engaging the mood of the room. And I think that the thing about VAC is don't be lazy if we're going to come to VAC. Don't be lazy. If you're coming to VAC, l And jot down what questions you might like to ask those people or what you'd like to learn from that session. Write it down, don't think you can remember it at the time.
Ken Robinson: Bring it on a note with you when you come and then you will find, and we all know this, that the networking that happens at the end of the day and in the breaks at VAC it's like a family wedding in a way. I mean, everybody wants to talk to everybody else and it's so valuable. I think everybody who goes away from VAC should have a good few things that day, which they say, “I wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't been there”, or even, “I disagree with that”, but it's made me realise what my true opinion about that is equally valuable. But don't be a lazy attendee. Come and participate, come and enjoy, come and learn, come and take back benefit to everybody that works with you.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that thing about not being scared to ask questions is really valid as well, Ken, because this happened to me, actually. I went to one of the seminar sessions, and this is back in 2019 and was really inspired by one of the speakers about it was Julez Osbek, who was at Continuum Attractions at the time, and she talked about marketing segmentation, but had a completely different perspective on it in terms of not doing it demographically, just talking about age brackets and things like that. And it was really interesting. I didn't get a chance to ask a question during the seminar, but I found her afterwards and she was very approachable, very happy to answer my question. And then I stalked her on Twitter and got her to come on to the podcast afterwards to talk about it.
Kelly Molson: But that's for me, what VAC is about. It's the openness that people are really willing to share. So don't be afraid to go and find the speaker that you've been inspired by and go and ask them the question afterwards, because everyone's really happy to talk about their topic and they're really happy to help people. That's my little key takeaway from it anyway. Right, so it's going to be on Thursday, the 5th October. This podcast episode is launching on the 20th September, so you haven't got long to go and get your tickets, so make sure you do. It is the 5th October, the QE II Conference Centre in Westminster. The website address is vacevents.com. That's Vacevents.com and you can get your ticket there. All of this information will be in the show notes, so don't worry if you didn't get time to scribble that down.
Kelly Molson: While I've got you all, though, because you all are in the sector and you've got lots of insights to share. I want to know from each of you what you think that attractions should be focusing on and what 2024 might look like for the sector. Paul, what about you? Start with you.
Paul Kelly: So I've been chatting to some of our operators. We have some very large operators around the UK asking them how it's going? And unsurprisingly, you could have said the same question 20 years ago, what's our biggest challenge? It's the weather. It's not actually the cost of living crisis, it's not COVID you can put plans together for those things and you can work on it, but the weather always is a little bit of a challenge. So this summer inverted commerce has been quite hard to focus on what we can deliver when the days have been half decent. Actually, we've done quite well, we always do relatively well, certainly in our sector, I'm sure the others will agree, in a recession.
Paul Kelly: So the key seems to be, and I'm going to put it out, I haven't quite found the right words for it, but I'll develop this once I've spoken to a few more. What every attraction for me has to have is an opportunity for people to downgrade what they did slightly. What they're doing is they're ringing it up and saying, "Can't afford to do this, have you got something that's almost like that?" But whether it's a slightly different experience, less time, one day less so whatever the packages are that people are offering, there has to be one rung lower than it was before to still encourage people to come along because they're not able to reach the same heights at the moment that they did previously. But they still want to have that family experience that day out, create those memories.
Paul Kelly: All of those things are still relevant. And if you don't have that opportunity, then they'll either go elsewhere or they won't go. So, again, it's managing. So I'm not talking about huge discounts, I'm talking about being relatively clever in what you package and what you put together to make sure they still attend and they still get what they perceive to be value for money. But unless you have that option then I think they won't come.
Kelly Molson: Really great advice, Paul. Thank you. Bernard, what about you?
Bernard Donoghue: Like Paul, actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. Actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. So it comes back to Paul's point about kind of ensuring yourself against the excesses of the weather and making sure that you're still particularly a family attractive visitor attractions that'd be one. Second is cost of living crisis, certainly for the average customer, but also the energy costs for visitor attractions too.
Bernard Donoghue: Just crazy amounts of money that visitor attractions are now paying i If you're a zoo or an aquarium you can't turn down the temperature of your botanics you're a living reef. So we're going to have to find some way out of that. And that means that actually for many organisations it's going to be as financially challenging over the next twelve months as it has been over the last two. And then I think the third, and this is a continual for me and Kelly, you and I have talked about it before, but it forms the last session of the day at the VAC conference which is diversity and inclusivity. And my feeling is that every visitor attraction should be critically honest about who comes, who doesn't, why they don't come and what are you going to do about it?
Bernard Donoghue: And in particular those organisations who in receipt are government money or public money or who had COVID loans from the UK taxpayer. If their visitors don't look like the community in which they're housed, they have a moral question at the heart of their business. That's it. If you want to take public money you need to have an audience that looks like the diversity of the public. And that's a challenge. I get that, I completely get that. But I think that making sure that we are as accessible in every conceivable way, economically, physically. Accessible to people and that they see their stories and themselves reflected in their collections and people and staff and volunteers and board members, I think that's the biggest challenge of the sector as it is indeed to many other sectors.
Bernard Donoghue: But I think we're doing some amazing things and we need to shout about it and we need to share and we need to learn from each other.
Kelly Molson: Absolutely agree. And that session is going to be a really great session. That's one not to miss. Ken?
Ken Robinson: Well, I would say two things. First of all, as far as our visitors are concerned, I think there is a bigger polarisation now than there ever has been between those who have money and can still afford to do things and are not much impacted by the current circumstances, despite everything. And those who haven't and those who haven't have got to find ways of saving money, getting more for their money. There are so many things they can do that are free and alternatives that charged attractions find it difficult. I think we have to remember that the biggest number of attractions in the United Kingdom are heritage based attractions and they weren't purpose built like many of Paul's members, the attractions are purpose built for entertainment. But heritage attractions have got a bigger responsibility or museums housed in historic buildings.
Ken Robinson: And all the time they're having to cut their costs and finding life difficult. Money isn't going into maintaining that National Heritage. And that's a real big long term challenge, one that government can't ignore. So government has a vested interest in the health of our businesses because the more healthy they are, the less will fall back on the state eventually. One last thing, I would like to mention Martin Evans and the tourism business.
Ken Robinson: For the last I don't know how many years, Martin has been the person who has put together this event for us. He has to do the heavy lifting. He is backed up by our conference organisers, who are also very efficient. And the other person that I wouldn't like to miss from this, because if she could have been here today, you would have got a different flavour, is the wonderful Liz Terry and the support that her organisation. That's Liz's Organisation, her hard work in Leisure Media Group. She publishes Attractions Management magazine.
Ken Robinson: She has never asked for anything from this conference and she gives it great support, without which we wouldn't have made 20 years, as I said earlier. And also a big shout and a screen for Liz.
Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Thank you. I'm sure Liz will very much appreciate that. We won't forget her. Don't worry, she'll be on the credits for this podcast. I always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation for our listeners. So a book that you've loved, a book that you've enjoyed as part of your career growth can be absolutely anything. So, Paul, what would you like to share with us today?
Paul Kelly: Oh, I tell you what, books are a bit highbrow for me. Yes, Bernard agrees with that. So I'm from the north, so I used to travel a lot when I was working North America. Commuting a little bit. So I did read a little bit then, but I very quickly swapped over to podcasts things that I download. I watch Silent Witness from the 90's, early 2000s repeatedly. I like Meet Marry Murder, which is one of the cable channels, so I'm quite simple. So I don't really have a book recommendation. I think when I have time to read, I will look forward to reading what somebody else recommends.
Kelly Molson: Well, I will take Silent Witness as a recommendation because I love Silent Witness, Paul. Oh, so good. Never miss an episode, ever. So, OK, they go I mean, I can't give it away as a prize, but go and check out Silent Witness if you haven't. Bernard, what's yours?
Bernard Donoghue: Well, I've been on this before and I remember my recommendation and it sounds really facile, but it was absolutely true, was Ladybird Books when I was a kid, and then that's how I got into history and heritage and storytelling and absolutely loved them. And I've still got loads of them, which is a bit sad, actually. I'm currently confined to home with a broken ankle. So I've been going through my big Bernard book of books, of all the ones that I haven't got around to reading, and the one that I've enjoyed most and has really surprised me is Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie. Absolutely fascinating. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew all about her. I know all of her characters, I've watched every conceivable film and TV program, but what a fascinating woman.
Bernard Donoghue: So that's the one that I've loved this summer.
Kelly Molson: Great recommendation. Yeah. I wondered what were going to get from you, actually, because you've had a lot of time on your hands to go through that book pile.
Bernard Donoghue: It was either going to be Agatha Christie or the Argos catalogue. Honestly, it could have gone.
Kelly Molson: It's not Christmas yet. You only do the Argos catalogue at Christmas. Ken, over to you for our last recommendation.
Ken Robinson: Well, the best book quite hard to get hold of now, but I can supply copies is Action For Attractions, the National Policy Document, written in 2000. But if you want something other than that, then I have just finished reading a book which everyone else read years ago called Sapiens, which is about this thick, that's to say two and a half inches thick. For those of you listening. It's by somebody, I've just had to look him up because I couldn't have remembered it, by Yuval Noah Harari. And it's entitled A Brief History of Humankind. And what's so interesting about it is it goes through segments explaining the great moves that have happened to us humans since we appeared on this Earth.
Ken Robinson: And I found the whole thing fascinating to read in one go what took me a long time, particularly the last bit, which talks about how commerce has changed the world and what we're all doing, and that's, after all, what we're doing at VAC. We are engaged in the kind of commerce that is to entertain, amuse and give enjoyment to our visitors, and at the same time keep the heritage of the country going and keep an awful lot of people employed, so I recommend Sapiens.
Kelly Molson: Ken, that's a great book. It took me a really long time to read as well, but it is an absolutely fascinating book. I would totally back up your recommendation there. Have you read the next one as well, Homodeus?
Ken Robinson: No one a year is enough for me.
Kelly Molson: Well, I've got a toddler, so reading doesn't come easy for me right now. But Homodus is next on my list to read because that's the next one on from Sapiens and it's supposed to be a really good read as well. Right, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of Ken and Bernard's book, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want the Vax books and you will be put into a prize drawer to win them. And also, do go and watch Silent Witness, Paul's recommendation, because it is blooming brilliant. I love it. Thank you all so much for coming on to join me today. I've really appreciated it. It's been a fascinating kind of deep dive into the Visitor Attractions Conference. I genuinely love this conference. It is one absolutely not to be missed.
Kelly Molson: I mean, there might be a speaker called Kelly at this one. This is so I'll be there. Come and see me too. But no, thank you. It's been wonderful. As I said, we will put all of the info in the show notes. We'll put all of the connections to Paul, Ken and Bernard too. So if you've got any follow up questions that you want to ask them, I'm sure they'd be really happy to help. But it's vapevents.com. Go and grab your ticket now. Thank you, guys.
Ken Robinson: And I have to tell you, Kelly, we are going to spend our time at our next committee meeting thinking of impossible questions for you for when you're speaking at VAC.
Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Do it. I love impossible questions. Put me on the spot, Ken. I'll enjoy it.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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EPISODE NOTES
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website rubbercheese.com/podcast.
If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcastCompetition ends August 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
https://crannog.co.uk/
https://crannog.co.uk/museum-development/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/mike-benson-22953833/
If you would like to support the Scottish Crannog Centre, please donate via Just Giving page.
https://justgiving.com/campaign/crannog
Mike Benson is the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Mike spent 28 years in the steel industry before working in museums. Mike left British Steel in 2004 to become Director of Ryedale Folk Museum in North Yorkshire. He then went on to be Director of Bede’s World and interim Director at The National Coal Mining Museum For England before starting work as Director in January 2018 at The Scottish Crannog Centre.
Mike has a track record of leading organisations through transformational change.
Mike lives in The Scottish Borders with partner Kathy and their dog Shadow.Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
In today's episode, I speak with Mike Benson, Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Mike shares with us the truly unique working environment at the centre and the variety of opportunities they're able to offer young people who struggle with mainstream education.
We talk about the devastating fire back in 2021, but all the positivity around building back bigger and stronger than ever.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: All right, Mike, thank you for joining me on the podcast today. It's lovely to see you. It's been a long time since I saw you. I think last year I last saw you speak at an event.
Kelly Molson: So I'm delighted that you've been able to give me a little bit of your time today to come on and chat. As ever, I've got some stupid icebreakers to start the podcast with. Right. I know that you've got a dog. What is the stupidest thing that your dog has ever done?
Mike Benson: Well, she does it most days. If you don't give her treat or her, she will sit and just stare at the wall with her nose against the wall. If we go anywhere that she doesn't like, she just walks straight up to the wall and just sits and looks at the wall.
Kelly Molson: Oh, like a protest. Like, I'm not happy here, protesting?
Mike Benson: Yeah, absolutely. At first you feel really bad, but it's one of those protests that wears a bit thin, I'd imagine. But she keeps doing it a bit like a toddler does kind of thing. But she's getting an old dog now, so she's a bit more pronounced now. She will just sort of shift her head up a little bit, waddle over, bang her nose against the wall, and just stare at it until the situation is more to her liking, whatever it is.
Kelly Molson: She's a diva. What a diva. It could be worse, though, Mike, couldn't it? Because it could be a dirty protest because some dogs do a bit.
Mike Benson: No, she's more intellectual than that. She's Belgian. She's Belgian. So she's quite philosophical and intellectual.
Kelly Molson: I like a style. Okay. If you were to participate in karaoke, what would be the song that you would blast out on that microphone?
Mike Benson: Take the ribbon from your head, take it loose and let it fall. Hold it soft against my skin like a shadow on a wall.
Kelly Molson: Oh, Mike. I did not know we're going to get a rendition. That is amazing.
Mike Benson: Pre karaoke. I used to go quite a lot to Beer Colours, where there'd be a guy on an accordion and you would ask him for a request, then you would sing while he played. I don't know if you ever went to them. And that was always my song. So the guy on the accordion, wherever it was, will be playing away now. Can you play? Help me make it through the night and then I would sing it to much acclaim. I can't sing a note, to be honest, but there you go.
Kelly Molson: Oh, that was quite delightful, Mike. And if I was not expecting that.
Mike Benson: You moved to tears, I can tell.
Kelly Molson: This will be the second time that you've moved me to tears, Mike, but for very different reasons. We'll come to that later in the podcast. Right, I want to know what is your unpopular opinion? So something that you hold dear and believe to be true but not many people agree with you on.
Mike Benson: Yeah, I've just asked Kathy, my partner, that one, because I couldn't really think of something she was saying. My background was in British Steel. I spent 27 years on the shop floor there, 28 years. And she thinks, one hand, I'm very disciplined and I like everybody to get to work on time and all that boring stuff. On the other hand, I expect everybody to be creative and I don't think that's unpopular or people don't agree, but that's what she's told me that I should say. So I'm going to say that.
Kelly Molson: I see you're quite contradictory in that sense.
Mike Benson: Yeah, well, in everything.
Kelly Molson: Let's get into our chats. There's loads that I want to cover today. You are the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. Tell me a little bit about your background. How did you get to where you are now?
Mike Benson: I think, as I said, I left school at 16, went straight into the steel works in Middlesbrough where I stayed, and it's where I always wanted to work. Very proud to work there. And my first day in work was maybe 100 lads in there and this great big guy got on the stage and said, "Welcome to Bridge Steel", kind of thing. You're following in the footsteps of giants that have built the world and all this stuff, and I still believe it. So it's it kind of did the trick. So, yeah, and I stayed there and stayed there and loved it. Towards the end of my time, I start to do an Open University degree when I was in my late 30s, just basically so because I could help the kids with the homework and stuff, I suppose.
Kelly Molson: Wow.
Mike Benson: I don't know anybody from my school that went to university or even to college. We all went to work. So, yeah, that was that. And then doing my stuff for the Open University start to go to get a different idea of what museums could be. Started to realise that nobody was really telling in our story very well, the steelwork story, where I lived, the locality and everything. So we set up a little group around our shift and with a couple of volunteers called Iron Owe AWE, which I thought was quite smart at the time.
Kelly Molson: Very Good.
Mike Benson: Yeah. And went into schools and we got funding to make films. We did fantastic film with the first strikes, really, with 400 kids all marching down the streets, demanding to only work 8 hours a day and all the rest of it, which was really great.
Mike Benson: Anyway, to cut long story short, we'd been asked to go down to London. We'd won this award, which was really funny because we had a few beers on the train going down and we get to London to go to the Strand where we'd won this Roots and Wings award. Beat loads of posh museums and the guy in the door would let us in because we didn't look like museum people and there was no more. He thought we're just trying to plug in for the wine or whatever. So I turned to a phone box. There was no well, mobile phones wrote, but I didn't have one early days and to ring the lady up and say, “Your man on the door won't let us in.” We're not the right type.
Kelly Molson: Amazing. So you never really fitted the traditional museum mold.
Mike Benson: And it's still exactly the same fully enough. And on the back of that, on the way home, we got back early doors, and I was six till one shift. And when I got in, there was a message on the phone from the National Park. North York Moose National Park. Just asking me if I was interested in applying the director of Ridell Fort Museum, which is a rural museum in the North York moors. So I went for it, don't know why, and got the job. I don't know how. Then I had the big decision whether to leave all my friends that we'd been to each other's 18th, 21st, weddings, all the rest of it. That was a huge decision. I always remember I only ever had one good bus at British Steel.
Mike Benson: All the buses were crap, but I went in to see him, guy I really trusted, and he just said, "You've got to go, there's thousands of lads here that would chuck the right arm off to do a job like that." And I went over to the museum and there you go. That's how I kind of ended up in this sector, really.
Kelly Molson: That's amazing. And it literally all came from you going back to do an Open University course to help your kids. It wasn't necessarily about you and a new career and changing your part.
Mike Benson: No last thing in my head.
Kelly Molson: I think that's really motivating to hear because I think a lot of people think that by the time you're 30, you should have it all together.
Mike Benson: I'm 60 and I can go together.
Kelly Molson: 45, no clue. But do you know what I mean? I think that there's a lot of people out there that kind of by that point they think, “Well, you should have your career sorted by then. You should know what your trajectory is and what you're doing”. And it just goes to show that there's an opportunity to change your life whenever you decide to.
Mike Benson: Yeah, you need look, I think you need a lot of look. I've been lucky in that sense, I think, as I say, and my plant is still going, so I would be retired now, which is a bit of a reflection on a bad decision made now, looking back. There you go. And it was a completely bloody h***, completely different world. I'd never met a vegetarian before, ever.
Kelly Molson: So culturally it took you into a place that was so far from what you know.
Mike Benson: Yeah, I was lucky enough to I've been doing the job about a year or so and I was lucky enough to win a Claw Fellowship, which is like a high level training thing, they send you around the world and all sorts. It's brilliant. I went and stayed with a fantastic guy, a First Nation Canadian chief on the Pacific Coast. Anyway, but I'd gone to this place and again I got to this really posh spot down in Kent near Seven Oaks and said, “I'm in the right place”. And the lady said, "I don't think so". I'd driven all the way down Milan Bretta with sidecar, so that was interesting. And we'd gone out for a meal somewhere, myself and the other Claw fellows, and we had a bit of a chord thing going on.
Mike Benson: I think when I was at British Steel, where if you were a little bit skinned, if you'd gone out for a drink or for meal or whatever you would say you'd pay with your credit card and the ladder would think, “Oh, bloody Ollie skinned”. So we'd all chip in. Anyway, I goes for this meal and my fellow Claw fellows at the end of night all put the credit cards on the table and I thought, bloody h***, everybody skinned. So I ended up paying for offering to pay the bill, which I did, which then left me skinned and then I cut and done. That was just the way things were because again, you would never use your credit card. It was just like something that you very rarely would use, but in the real world, everybody uses their credit cards all the time.
Kelly Molson: What a brilliant story.
Mike Benson: Yeah. And another one is when I first went into the an interior deal, there was a guy there and I'd asked him to do something and he said, "No, it's not my job". And at British Steel you were kind of saying, "I'm going to give you 5 minutes to think about it, I'm going to send you home". So I give him his 5 minutes and I sent him home. And then I had a gaggle of trustees coming in about an hour later saying, "What you doing?” “Listen, I give him his 5 minutes and I sent him home". And they were like, "what?"
Kelly Molson: Doesn't work like that here?
Mike Benson: What planet did you come from?
Kelly Molson: Wow. So you changed your life. And then you went through quite a lot of crisis learning experiences.
Mike Benson: Yeah, to learn a whole new lexicon. And after so long, I thought it just be yourself.
Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I think you're absolutely right, because you bring something quite magic to everywhere that you go, and I've seen that from the way that you've spoken and the way that other people have spoken about you. Right. Let's talk about the Crannog. Let's talk about the Crannog Centre. So you're the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog. So you're the Managing Director of the Scottish Crannog Centre. What's a Crannog for our audience that are listening? What is a Crannog?
Mike Benson: Well, I've googled it.
Kelly Molson: So did I, Mike.
Mike Benson: I Googled it because it is many things to many different people. I Googled it and it's an artificial island that people might have lived on. It might have been a wooden structure. So basically, particularly in Scotland and in Ireland, you'll see as you're going around the lochs, you'll see little clumps of stone in the middle of the loch or to one side with a tree in or something. And at some point that would have been an artificial island that somebody made into a dwelling. So I think if you Google it yeah, for Rose and interestingly, after the fire, it's a symbol of home, it's a symbol of community, it's a symbol of what can be achieved. The engineering was unbelievable. The joinery skills were unbelievable. The candunas, you think two and a half thousand years ago.
Mike Benson: It must have been bloody freezing and everybody was sat in a cave and all this stuff. And actually there they were building these beautiful homes, places, whatever, and there could be places of prestige and what have you. But there were a home and inside there they will have been playing a seven stringed musical instrument. We've got evidence of that in the collection. They will have been trading with this is before Brexit, they were trading with Europe, which is a continent that's very near to was just over the water, that's really easy to trade with, used to be. So all that stuff, and it's become a place where everybody can contribute, everybody can learn a skill and kind of inspired by that notion, whether it's romantic or not, that everybody has a part to play. And that's how you get a flourishing community.
Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners who may not have visited or you may not know what the Crannog. Just for our listeners who may not have visited or you may not know what the Crannog Centre is for. What is the Crannog Centre's purpose? Has it been created to kind of showcase?
Mike Benson: Yes, it's literally on the straight level if you like. To tell the stories of the crown of dwellers, the day to day lives of what the best we can. We don't know exactly. That's the beauty of it. Half of what we say is based on certainty, the other half is based on opinion, because we can only go on the evidence that we have a number of archaeologists at work, and you get three archaeologists, you get four theories and it's like that every day and constant learning that goes on. So on that level, it's to tell a story of those kind of dwellers from two and a half thousand years ago. But also, I think, to be relevant for today, to look at sustainability, to look at the learning opportunities that people have.
Mike Benson: We have a thing on the wall at work where we put on the questions that the public have asked that week. One of them was from a little girl asking how far the Christmas would get in because there isn't a chimney.
Kelly Molson: Good question.
Mike Benson: Yeah, the best one was but bearing in mind we employ 23 people, are you all related?
Kelly Molson: Wow. Is that because it all feels like a family or is it all yeah, you all bitter like a family, maybe.
Mike Benson: Yeah. But we kind of rub along and get there and we all cover each other's backsides and we work really hard or try to, but yeah.
Kelly Molson: That's a nice question.
Mike Benson: I'm hoping it was done in the right way.
Kelly Molson: I love that. So I can remember very vividly. It was the 16 June and I was on a webinar which was for ASVA members, and you came onto the webinar and shared the news of what had just happened. And I genuinely was so moved that I had to switch my camera off and have a little cry. It was a really difficult thing to watch you talk about. I can only imagine what you were feeling at that point. But would you be able to just take us back and explain what happened on the I think it was the morning of the 16th, wasn't it? The early hours of the 16th or the evening?
Mike Benson: Yeah, it was just a couple of days before then. I'm still a bit raw and I was in two months whether to do that call, really, but I didn't realise I thought, yeah, I'll just go and tell them about a fire. But I didn't really yes, it's still quite raw when I think about it.
Kelly Molson: Can imagine.
Mike Benson: So at 11:00 at night when you look at the CCTV, there's a little tiny glow inside the Crannog and then by 6 minutes past it's gone. And Rich, one of the assistant directors there, drank me up hours in bed, asleep, rang up and said, "Mike, the Crannog’s on fire". And I said, "Yeah, that's fine, I'll sort out in the morning", went back to sleep and he rang me back again. " "Mike, Mike, it's really on fire." And I could hear all the fire engines and everything going behind him. So of course I raced down. By the time I got there, it was gone. I think there was five fire engines, lots of police and all the rest of it. And yeah, it was quite difficult. The chair of trustees was there, he was bereft, he got there before me, obviously, lots of tears.
Mike Benson: There was a couple of members of staff who'd locked themselves in the car, were crying. So basically we made a few calls, got everybody on site round about half one in the morning, I think at night, so it's still black and the lights are still flashing. I just said to everybody, "You know what, nobody's been hurt. Thank our lucky stars nobody's been hurt. We're going to do exactly what the crown of dwellers would have done. We're going to pack up our things, which froze is the collection, the precious things that they've left for us, and we're going to move". And I exaggerate this a little bit, but the reality was, on the following morning at 09:00, we sat there and we had no money, we had no plan, we didn't quite know what was going to happen.
Mike Benson: By about half ten that morning, were starting to have a plan and we'd fortunately had already, through a community asset transfer, which is where a community group can make an application to local authority or to the government to buy something at a reduced price. We'd already bought the new site on the other side of the loch through community asset transfer.
Kelly Molson: Amazing.
Mike Benson: And by the second day, I think over 50,000 had come into the just given page.
Kelly Molson: It was an incredible outpouring of community spirit, wasn't it? The support that you got was I mean, it was local, national.
Mike Benson: Yeah. Yeah. People ringing in to offer volunteer time, money coming in. We had the politicians involved. We were charged by Scottish government, not straight away. After a couple of bit of time, maybe a week or so, were asked to try and come up with a plan that was realistic, that wouldn't cost too much, that would get the organisation away, it wouldn't be the full monty, but it would get us up and running. We presented that plan to Scottish government and they've agreed to support us, as have other trust foundations and everybody else. So we've started work on the new site, March. So in less than two years, we've got through planning, which anybody knows we're planning isn't easy, and even though they were sympathetic, they had their protocols to go through.
Mike Benson: We raised the money, we hit January this year and were a little bit short because of everything that's gone up with inflation filled that funding gap and we're hoping to open in November.
Kelly Molson: That is magic. I think what we have to remember as well is this was happening still during while the Pandemic was going on. So this was 2021 that this happened. So were still in a position of places not being fully open, still having all of that own kind of personal impact that were struggling with, as well as having something like this happen. I can see it in your eyes now. I can hear it when you're talking. The emotion about that day is still kind of with you.
Kelly Molson: You hold it still there, but the way that you were able to, the very next day have a plan in place is testimony to, I think, yourself and the people that you have surrounding you and how much they love that centre that you've been able to kind of come back so quickly and make this happen.
Mike Benson: Yeah, I mean, we opened four days after the fire, obviously with no crown of a bit like the Van Gogh Museum without any Van Goghs, and we didn't think we'd get many visitors, and they just powered in.
Kelly Molson: Amazing. That's the power of telling great stories, Mike. People still want to come.
Mike Benson: Yeah, that's all it is. Without getting my little hobby horse. Maybe it goes back to the earlier question about your opinion. I think museums still have a long way to go, really, in how they work. And it's just really simple, really. Just you're telling a good story that people want to listen to and hear, and we kind of do that best we can.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, no, you really do.
Mike Benson: We're a little bit wonky on the edges, but that's allowed.
Kelly Molson: That's what people love. That's what people love. I think that there's such a level of authenticity about how you speak and the way that you do things. And that's, for me, what I find really engaging.
Kelly Molson: I saw you speak last year at the Scottish Tourism Alliance conference. I think it was last November. No, it really was slick, but I really enjoyed it. So Mike did a really clever thing, so he was billed as the speaker, but he actually got other people to speak for him, which I thought was genius. I'm going to use that at some point whenever I'm asked to speak. But it was great. You spoke about the Crannog Centre, but you talked about how you've harnessed potential and created this really great working environment. And you've done that by building a really diverse workforce and volunteers and people that come along and just help and support you. And I think it is such an amazing story.
Kelly Molson: You have a lot of young people that come and work and volunteer at centre while they were speaking for you and sharing their experience of working there. I was just blown away by all of the amazing opportunities that you can offer them. Like, bear in mind, this is a relatively small centre that we're talking about. We're not talking about the VNA, we're not talking about the London Transport Museum here. The variety of what those youngsters can do there and what they can learn and what they can be part of is incredible. And I think you help a lot of youngsters that are struggling with mainstream education by offering them a different way of learning, a different way of being involved with things. And talk to us about how you've managed to create this incredible working environment.
Mike Benson: Yeah. Again, I think I can't take any credit for it, really. It's kind of what I grew up with as well. When you went into somewhere, there was quite a diverse workforce that worked in British Steel or wherever. Part of the learning and part of your reflections are certainly within the task of what a museum is. If you want to engage with diverse audiences, you need to have a diverse workforce. People need to be able to come into that museum and see people like themselves, not just there, but actually having agency, being able to make decisions, being leaders, being able to flourish, being able to be themselves. We talk about freedom of self, that ability to really be yourself at work. Another word kind of made up is that feltness.
Mike Benson: We call it feltness, where people can just come in and feel that there's something there that they can just feel there's love or hard work or graft or academic rigor or all of those things thrown into the pot. And that diversity is that you can feel it. And again, time and time again, when people come and we ask them what the feedback is, they can just feel something there that they can't quite put the finger on. So we called it feltness.
Kelly Molson: It was a lovely way of defining it, but that's a really hard thing to create. Like, how do you create that? I guess it's a mixture of the people and the characters that you have working there and the things that they can do and the things that they are allowed to do, I guess the autonomy that you give them.
Mike Benson: Yeah. And being aspirational and wanting to be the best that we can be. So I think that notion of creativity aligned to discipline, that unleashing of folks, we're all hemmed in nowadays by all kinds of barriers, and we're kind of shuffled along, I don't know, like, through amaze almost, and sometimes almost uncontrollably, we end up somewhere. I just think to be able to just break all that down and just start again is no bad thing. And so that's what we've tried to do with the Crannog Centre there and take that inspiration, as I said, from that notion of a community that could flourish. Everybody must be able to contribute.
Kelly Molson: How have you done that? Did you set out in your mind when you went to the Crannog Centre? Did you set out and go, "This is what I want. I want to be able to offer all of these different experiences to young people who are struggling with mainstream education?" Or is this something that's just kind of happened naturally, that you've attracted people? How have you set out to kind of do it?
Mike Benson: Yeah, that we set out to do it that way. So my interviewer said we would set up an apprenticeship program where we'd set up blah, blah, create a framework for success and depends what you call success, whether it's footfall, whether it's donations, people making donations, whether it's how much you sell in the shop, whatever that your success measures are. So each of the museum that have been that, we've done something similar with the apprenticeship program, with the diversity, and I think here we've managed to take all the learning of what we've done so far, if you like, and put it all into practice and it doesn't always work. And sometimes you think to yourselves, go up and much easy just to get a load of. We interviewed some folks that were getting a craft fellow funded through Hess.
Mike Benson: That's somebody who's going to learn traditional skills. And the amount of young people that came to that with two degrees and a masters and a half a PhD and stuff, I just think it must be really hard to get your break into this game, into the museum world, if we can create different routes and that. I was asked by trustees, "What would make you happy in ten years time?" And I said, "For one of the apprentices to be the director."
Kelly Molson: That's lovely.
Mike Benson: And I think having that approach, I think and it happens in business all the time, I think the museum is still stuck around hierarchy and prestige and a certain type of knowledge and a certain type of person. But, yeah, I think that's kind of where were going with that.
Kelly Molson: That's really lovely. But you are a small team, right, Mike? There's not thousands of people at this museum that help you do this. So what you've been able to achieve with the relatively small team is incredibly impressive. Who heads up the program? Is that you? Who defines what the kind of apprenticeship program looks like and the structure?
Mike Benson: Yeah, I kind of keep my paws out with that, really. I'm really good at talking, a good job. I don't actually do anything.
Kelly Molson: You’re a leader, Mike.
Mike Benson: No, honestly, I'm not good at anything. I am not good at anything. Kathy, my partner, will say I can't put a screw in the wall or anything and I'm literally no good at anything. But, yeah, I think we just create an environment and again, we get bogged down with business planning and all that all the time. I did a talk to some community groups the other day and I just used the image of a sunflower, because quite often you'll consultants who come and say, you need that business plan, it needs to be really hard. And yet a sunflower doesn't really have much of a business plan. It just follows the sun and soaks it all up and grows where it's best. And I think just sometimes you can be a bit too.
Mike Benson: All I was saying to him is than these folks in town to get stuffed if they think it's nonsense. So I think, yeah, I'm what Lenos? I always do. I think it's just as I say, create an environment. And it's really hard. It's much harder to create that environment than it will be to have a straight structure. Straight, linear. You report to him, you report to him, nothing happens until he's signed that off. So it's chaos. It's bloody chaos.
Kelly Molson: But is that partly because you're not asking people to come in and fit your mold, you're almost asking them to come in and then you're flexing your mold to how they need to grow and adapt.
Mike Benson: So you've got wobbling all the time. Yes, it really is. And it's not for everybody. It's really hard. So it's not for everyone, particularly those trained within the museum profession, that likes straight lines. It's really hard. Or anybody that likes to work in duchess museums in general, it's not for everyone, some folks to come and work with us, and it doesn't work for everyone because they want to see that comfort, really. It's that comfort of that straight line and somebody's going to tell me what to do. I have no clue what's happening at work half the time. Not when they say, we decided to do this. All right, this guy's turned up, he's going to do this. Smashing.
Kelly Molson: But that takes a lot to be that flexible, though, doesn't it? Like you say, sometimes as humans, we kind of like a plan. We like to see the trajectory, we like to see what the next step is, and not being able to see that is uncomfortable for a lot of us. So to have an organisation that's so fluid, that's not for everybody at all, you have to be quite I think you've got to be quite a special person to be able to lead an organisation that is structured like that.
Mike Benson: Hence the baggy eyes.
Kelly Molson: Yes. What does the future look like for the Crannog Centre? So you've had a grant from Scottish government and it's being rebuilt on the new site, which is directly across the loch from where?
Mike Benson: Twelve times bigger. We're building it as a nine edge village as well. So we're doing it the wrong way around, kind of. Instead of building the Crannog, first, we'll build a nine edge village. So what's next is we'll try and get that done. This was always project one. As I said, we needed to have something that would get us up and running. And then Project Two will be to build a proper museum. So at one end of Scotland's most powerful river lies the VNA in Dundee, and at the other end of Scotland's most powerful river, Batte, will I our new museum as well. As we go into Project Two, hopefully the deeper sense of belonging in more heft he says, “Don't quote me on that.”
Mike Benson: And it will be a different type because I think the VNA will probably be one of the last of the big concrete, super duper designed museums. Not critical at all. I think as the world's moved on to a more stable models, there'd be maybe a different approach to how public buildings like that are built in the future. So that's what's coming next, if you like. Whether I'm still there to do that or not, who knows?
Kelly Molson: Well, one of your apprentices will be director by then, probably, if you get your way. What does that look like in terms of time frames, though? So what are we looking at in terms of the new centre being open across on the other side of the loch?
Mike Benson: So we hopefully going to do a soft opening in November. So it's all about, as I've said, home and feeling safe and being yourself. So that opening will be potentially we'll have the Mary Hills Refugee Choir there, we'll have bands there and everything else. And we may be looking at how we can have on the old site some instruments there and some instruments. And now we're sad. And they talk to each other across the loch.
Kelly Molson: That's lovely. Yeah. To share the stories of the older and the new.
Mike Benson: And then the log boat will probably come along with a torch and all that sort of stuff. Anyway, everybody's talking of different things. We'll pull it all together. So, soft opening in November and then we'll go larger.
Kelly Molson: And you talked a little bit earlier about sustainability, is that right? I think I read this is that the centre is aiming for its new incarnation to become Scotland's most sustainable museum. Not just about carbon count, but about the kind of the craft and the skills and the sustainability of materials. Is that about how it's being built and constructed, as well as what you do there?
Mike Benson: Yes. So we've got some brilliant folks on site now. So we've got Julie, Laura, Jordy, who are women carpenters who are working away Chaz again, carpenter. Jim, our Stormwall builder, and then Brian, our Thatcher, will be joining us once he's finished the job up north. And while they're there, they're sharing the plan. Is that all those skills? Oh, I forgot him. Ash. He's building our he's built the first one up. It's a hazel, six meter high hazel roundhouse. It's gorgeous. He's nearly finished that working with Nelly. Anyway, give him all the name check. So the idea being that those skills are shared across the Crannog team. So in future years. The idea is that the Iron Age village that we're building now, the buildings were only ever intended to last seven years, ish seven to ten years.
Mike Benson: Then they'll go back into the earth and the caym across the road is a hill called Drummond Hill. And that's where we'll be starting to copies to grow the materials that we need to build these. So we employ Yein, the copieser and we'll have Jenny, the forest gardener. So all the materials and the timbers, the stone, the reed for the thatch the heather is all within walking distance of a crown of dweller.
Kelly Molson: This seven year cycle is that what would have happened back then?
Mike Benson: So yeah you entered the coppers in cycle you see I'm no expert on this, it sounds like I know what I'm talking about, I don't. However Ian the copies guy does and Jenny the forest gardener does. So within the forestry land services are taking out the large disease come in the hill opposite hopefully we'll take over some of that land where we will copy some and start to plant the materials that we need for the future. Hazel seven years then the York and everything else will take a bit longer but in years to come that'll be totally sustainable and you literally will cross the road and take a tree down and build a building out of it.
Kelly Molson: That is magic, isn't it? That is really.
Mike Benson: And that's what's happening now. So the timbers that are coming on site are within walking distance and the buildings that are going up is all the stone is just locally sourced, everything's just from over the road. And that requires a different skill set. Rather than just getting a timber from Norway or something from juicens, learning how to use local, local materials and making these buildings stay up and stand up and all that sort of stuff is a task in itself.
Kelly Molson: For me, it's that idea of those crafts never dying as well. We don't want that guy to be the last copieser. No those skills have to be transferred in a way that they are shared with the younger generation. I'm thinking about my two year old one day how lovely would it be to come and bring her and show her the way that people used to build houses back in the day and we don't forget those things, that's what's important.
Mike Benson: And the fact that you can make a living out of it. So when people come to see us they are supporting, keeping all that alive and that's part of thinking around that will take the buildings that we're building now down in seven or eight years time because that's how you'll learn to build them again.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I guess of course because then the new people can learn, they've learned their skills, can learn to go through all of that process.
Mike Benson: And the apprentices that are there now learning will be the ones that are teaching.
Kelly Molson: Yeah that's really cool.
Mike Benson: It's an old model but it's just how it is.
Kelly Molson: And in a way you forget the simplicity of that, don't you? You just forget.
Mike Benson: Yeah and then within that sustainability as well if we become the sort of organisation that people want to partner with and work alongside and also a place that people want to visit and support so you've got the skills, materials, those four elements and then we think that will create a sustainable model.
Kelly Molson: What more help do you need, Mike? So you've had a grant from Scottish government, you've had a huge outpouring of support from the general public when we had the fire.
Kelly Molson: You mentioned a little while ago about a funding gap. Obviously, cost of living crisis has probably affected that, the rising cost of materials, et cetera. What can we do to help you? Or is there still a live kind of go funding part that we can all go?
Mike Benson: You can still go onto our website and donate and I understand how hard it is for everybody just now as well, by the way. So we are still writing little applications here, there and everywhere just to try and cover those final bits. And it's really hard because what we've tried to do, what we could have done is just close the current site, build the, you know, get the main contractors gone in and put the drains in and the car parks and all that stuff in then we could. But we tried to keep everybody employed and keep the apprenticeship going and everything else and that's been quite a challenge.
Mike Benson: Obviously we haven't got a Crannog even though we're still getting we've improved our visitor figures to last year, just but it's really hard without that central point and the old site is looking tired, which is where we always intended to move. So I think if anybody did want to help us in that way, that would be great. And also just share the word, really, and just tell folks to come and visit us if they can. That's the best way to help. Just paying your seven pound to come in and see us and just be part of it and keep a little bit of that love in your heart when you leave.
Kelly Molson: Oh, Mike, you're going to make me cry. This will be the first time that you've got me. We are going to share in the show notes to this episode. We're going to share all the ways that you can still support the Scottish Crannog Centre. So we'll put a link to the website, we'll put a link to the donation portals and yeah, I think you're absolutely right. I think it's all about just encouraging people to go along. Seven pounds is not a huge entrance fee to go and experience some of these things that you will never have seen anywhere else. You might learn about a craft that you might never see anywhere else. That's not a huge amount to ask for people. So please dig deep if you can and help them create something that is going to be truly transformational for generations to come.
Kelly Molson: Not just for people that visit it, but for the people that go there and do these apprenticeship schemes and learn the trades and develop themselves into something that their wildest dreams couldn't have imagined. They could have achieved. Mike, thank you for sharing today. I'm so grateful of everyone that comes on to talk to me on the podcast, but your story really did touch me. I was eight months pregnant at that time, Mike. I'm not going to lie, I probably would have dropped, probably would have cried if the dog had come in here and looked at me funny. But you did break me that day and it's really lovely to hear all the positive things that have happened since then and all of the good things that are happening. Right, what about a book?
Kelly Molson: We always ask our guests to come on and share a book that they love with our audience. Can be anything you like.
Mike Benson: Well, because I am a museum director and an academic, I'm going to go for the Thursday Murder Club series.
Kelly Molson: I knew this was not going to be a business book, Mike.
Mike Benson: No, I've not planned them all. See, a book with leadership on it. I don't know if you've read any of them, but Elizabeth, Joyce, Ron and Abraham are just so stupid and funny and English and gentle. It's just lovely. So I've been plowing my way through all those I mean, the plots are way for thin the whole thing's nonsense, but it's just really good stuff to kind of remind you what human beings are.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, a lovely good escapism as well, aren't they, those books. They are great. Well, as ever, listeners, if you want to win a copy of Mike's book, you know what to do. Go over to our Twitter account and hit the retweet button with the message, I want Mike's book. And we'll put you into the prize drawer to win a book. And that is for the last time this season, because this is the last podcast of this season, which is crazy. We've had so many guests on, so many amazing stories, so many initiatives that have been shared with us and so many learnings that I've personally taken away. Thank you all for listening.
Kelly Molson: We will be back again in September after we've had a little summer break, because, let's face it, you are going to be way too busy for podcasts over the summer, visiting, having all of your guests visit. So, Mike, thank you again. It has been an absolute pleasure. I'm really glad that you came on the podcast and you didn't send somebody else to come and do the podcast.
Mike Benson: I was in two minds.
Kelly Molson: Brilliant. Thank you for coming on. Like we said, we're going to put all of the details on how you can still help the Crannog Centre into the show notes today. Mike, it's been a pleasure. Thank you.
Mike Benson: You'll take care now.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
The 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report is now LIVE!
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Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Kelly Molson, Founder of Rubber Cheese.
Download the Rubber Cheese 2022 Visitor Attraction Website Report - the first digital benchmark statistics for the attractions sector.
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 podcastCompetition ends July 31st 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.
Show references:
2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report Survey - https://www.rubbercheese.com/visitor-attraction-website-report-2023
Andy Povey, Managing Director UK & Ireland for Convious
Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/andy-povey
Convious: https://www.convious.com/
Andy Povey Twitter: https://twitter.com/MrTicketeer
Andy Povey LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andypovey/
Andy Povey joined Convious in November 2021 as managing director for UK and Ireland.
Andy has worked in the attractions industry since the early nineties when he began as a ride operator at Chessington World of Adventures. He stayed with the Tussaud’s company and later Merlin Entertainments for another 18 years, working in a variety of operational jobs at Rock Circus, Madame Tussauds, and central support, where he was responsible for the group’s ticketing systems. After Merlin, he worked for Gateway Ticketing Systems for ten years, opening and then overseeing their UK operation, before transferring his experience to the Convious team. Outside work, Andy enjoys visiting attractions of all shapes and sizes with his family.
Simon Addison, Heritage Business Manager at the Roman Baths
Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/simon-addison
Roman Baths: https://www.romanbaths.co.uk/
Simon Addison Twitter: https://twitter.com/addisonsimon
Simon Addison LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/simonaddison/
Simon Addison is the Business Manager, Roman Baths and Pump Room, Bath, and heads the finance and business planning functions at the Roman Baths. He is responsible for business analysis, pricing strategy and leads the benchmarking work.
Simon started his career in the financial services industry, where he qualified as a chartered management accountant with the Bank of New York. He moved to the National Trust in 2012, where he held roles in the finance team. Latterly he was responsible for the Trust’s finances in Somerset, Dorset and Wiltshire. Simon joined the senior leadership team at the Roman Baths in 2017.
Simon joined the Board of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions in May 2022.
Dominic Jones, CEO of The Mary Rose Museum, and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard
Skip the Queue episode: https://www.skipthequeue.fm/episodes/dominic-jones
The Mary Rose: https://maryrose.org/
Portsmouth Historic Dockyard: https://www.historicdockyard.co.uk/
Dominic Jones Twitter: https://twitter.com/DominicJonesUK
Dominic Jones LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dominicejones/
Dominic Jones was recruited to the Mary Rose in 2019 ago as Chief Operating Officer, and became CEO in 2021. He brings an excellent background in commercial visitor attractions (Disney, Merlin) and creative visitor experience development.
During his time at the Mary Rose, he has already driven an excellent commercial and operational performance and worked closely with previous Chief Executive to create the new Portsmouth Historic Dockyard joint venture with the National Museum of the Royal Navy, which launched successfully in August 2020.
Transcriptions:
Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson.
Today's episode is a little bit different. I speak to Dominic Jones, CEO of the Mary Rose Museum and Director of Portsmouth Historic Dockyard. Simon Addison, Heritage Business Manager at the Roman Baths and Andy Povey, Managing Director, UK and Ireland of Convious. Dom, Simon and Andy share with you the merits of taking part in the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Survey.
We talk about how the report has shaped their digital strategies and what that's delivered to their attractions in terms of increased revenue and improved customer experience.
If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip The Queue.
Kelly Molson: So I've got Dominic Jones, Simon Addison and Andy Povey here. All past guests, all good friends. We don't need to do icebreakers here because we all know each other pretty well now. But we are going to do a little mini round of unpopular opinions again, because, let's face it, that's why people listen to this podcast. Dominic, I'm going to start with you.
Dominic Jones: Why would you start with me? That's so unfair. It's obvious that Simon is your favourite. We can know this is how it works with Bath. He gets all of the good stuff and you come to Dominic first. I used my best unpopular opinion last time when I talked about not mentioning the weather. And I always think my unpopular opinion should be work related. So this one is an interesting one and I wonder whether you will disagree with me, let alone Simon and Andy. But I think when doing discounting, online or in person in our industry. You shouldn’t use percentages, and you should use physical pounds, because I think people who use percentages can really confuse people. And also, I just think it's bad form.
Kelly Molson: I should throw this one over to Andy, really, because he's pricing expert man, isn't he?
Andy Povey: I go that far, Kelly. I actually agree with Dominic, but from a geeky technical perspective.
Dominic Jones: Love Andy, always loved Andy. You know what, he's one of those guests that you just love.
Simon Addison: Dom, is this just an unpopular opinion because you just can't do percentages, you just want to know how many pounds to take off. Is that what it is?
Kelly Molson: Percentages are hard. We're not all like numbers people like you, Simon.
Dominic Jones: We're not all born with a calculator. The other thing is that actually, the great British public, our international public, they don't want to be working out. They want to enjoy the day outside. They want to enjoy the Roman Baths, they don't want to be sitting there working out, “What these percentages off mean?”
Simon Addison: Dom, you not listen to my podcast on pricing strategy. We don't discount.
Andy Povey: But that was going to be my point.
Simon Addison: Yeah, we should be confident enough to the quality of our own products, Dom. That will be my unpopular opinion. We shouldn't discount as an industry, but that's not what I've prepared.
Andy Povey: Discounting just seems like a really easy, quick thing for marketeer to do when they're desperate. And I think we should be a little bit more confident about what we're doing and actually use better tools and better ways of communicating the value of what it is that the attraction is doing. So slightly more unpopular, I suppose, Dom, would be let's not do discounts at all. Doesn’t matter weather it’s 4 pounds or percentages or whatever, then just don’t do it.
Kelly Molson: So, I’m just gonna come at this from a car boot perspective, which I have to skip randomly. But I love a little bargain. I went to a car boot sale. I'm renovating a cottage in North Norfolk at the moment and I'm trying to furnish it with as much second hand things as possible. So car boot sales are my friend right now, and if I had gone up to the stall and been like, "What's your best price on this?". And they said, "You can have 10% off", I'd have been like, "But what does that mean? It's 05:00 in the morning and my brain can’t work this out". But two pounds is yes.
Dominic Jones: And it works. And also, there's an element of, you do need to put discounting in, because you've got to look at reaching different audiences. You’ve got people like Kelly who want to bargain. So you need to put out a decoy pricing in. So they think, "Oh, I'm not paying that for tickets, but I got 2 pounds off, aren't I lucky? I like that.” The problem with percentages is it's people trying to be too clever and it's marketeers trying to be a little bit too clever. And I've never liked it. It’s not as bad as the weather. I hate the weather being used as an excuse, but my second one is using percentages in discounting.
Kelly Molson: Okay. I'm glad that you changed that quickly to discounting and not marketing because there's a lot of percentages in my report, which we'll discuss later. Right, Simon, moving on to you.
Simon Addison: Yeah, okay. It's nothing to do with work. Camping is not a holiday. There's no way that camping is a holiday. But I love the outdoors. We're going on holiday to Pembrokeshire in a couple of months, we'll be outside most of every day. We will walk in the cross paths in whatever the weather. But at the end of the day, we got a little cottage that we are renting to come back to for a shower that haven’t got to queue for. We're not sharing a toilet block like camping, washing up, cooking, they're disproportionately hard work, and that's assuming it's sunny. If it rains, it's just miserable.
Simon Addison: We can go out and get wet and we don't have to worry about whether we're ever going to get dry for the rest of the week in a tent. The kids will wake up. I haven't finished yet. Kelly. In a tent, they'll wake up at five in the morning when it gets light, and that means just the suffering of the holidays extended over an even longer day. And worst of all, the red wine is too cold and the white wine is too warm. Just miserable.
Dominic Jones: Do you not have a fridge when you do camping?
Simon Addison: Dom, I don't camp. You might have got that from there.
Dominic Jones: I go camping. I have a fridge. I have a blow up tent. I have all the cons.
Kelly Molson: Do you take your bed like the glastonbury dude?
Dominic Jones: Well, I try and turn up late to someone else that can turn it all up, but it's very nice.
Kelly Molson: Simon, I'm with you on this. I love the outdoors. I'm a big nature girl, but camping is a no no for me. It is miserable. Even glamping. I went glamping on a friend's hen doo once and even that was just a step too far for me. Everything was grubby. It rained, everything was then damp. Everything was damp. Like, everything was damp. It was horrible. Cottage all the way. Hello. I've got one in North Norfolk coming up, available for rent in September. If you're interested in a holiday in beautiful North Norfolk.
Dominic Jones: You should go to car boot sales. I believe they've got some great deals at the moment.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. They do have some great bargains, Dominic.
Simon Addison: Will you offer me a percentage discount on your cottage in North Norfolk?
Kelly Molson: Right, I like that one. I don't think that's going to be that unpopular, if I'm honest. Andy, over to you, final one.
Andy Povey: When you first broached the idea of coming back to the podcast, I was really excited and the fact that I was going to join probably my two favourite podcast guests was really exciting. So my unpopular opinion is hopefully it's going to be borne out or proven by this episode of Skip The Queue, in that Dominic Jones isn't going to be number one on the Skip the Queue chart by the end of next week.
Dominic Jones: That’s so harsh. Now, what have I ever done to hurt you, Andy?
Andy Povey: You've not hurt me, Dom, you're not. It's just a little friendly competition.
Simon Addison: Is Dom number one? He's never mentioned it. I've literally never heard him talk about.
Andy Povey: I don't know where you'd get that from.
Dominic Jones: I'm a very shy guy. Am I number one? You're joking me. Really?
Kelly Molson: Yes, you do not know?
Dominic Jones: We should tell people about this. This needs to get out there before it changes.
Kelly Molson: So I said, if Dominic is still number one at Christmas, I'm going to send him a gift. I'm going to send him something commemorative for this at Christmas. So he was number one last Christmas. You were the official Skip the Queue Christmas number one.
Dominic Jones: Amazing, I did not know that. Wow.
Kelly Molson: Yeah, I know. It is amazing. I'm sure you've not mentioned that before.
Andy Povey: You never talked about it.
Kelly Molson: We're just at the end of June where we're recording this, so there's still a fair few months to go. We do have our summer break coming up, the season five will start in September. So we've got from September to December for someone to topple you off that number one slot.
Dominic Jones: I'm happy to be toppled. And joking aside, both Andy and Simon's podcast were amazing and I love both of them. And actually all of your guests are really I do really love Skip the Queue. It's one of those treats you get to looking to the new Skip the Queue podcast. So if I get toppled from number one, life is okay.
Kelly Molson: You are very kind. Right. Thank you for sharing those unpopular opinions. What would be lovely listeners if you follow us over on Twitter, you can just search for Skip the Queue. I'd like to know who's unpopular opinion you preferred the most out of those three, please. Maybe I'll do a little poll on Twitter next week when this podcast episode launches. Right. This is completely unscripted and this is really last minute for the guests and so I'm super grateful that you could come and join me today. Now, it is a bit of an unusual episode for me because I actually don't tend to talk about the stuff that I do or Rubber Cheese does on this podcast. Maybe tiny little snippets of it here and there, but we never kind of dedicate an episode to the things that we do.
Kelly Molson: We had a free slot and I thought, I wanted to come on and talk about the initiative that we started last year that is now running in its second year. So bear with me while I explain a little bit of a background about it. So back in May 2022, Rubber Cheese, my agency, launched the first national survey of visitor attraction websites. So I've been asked to speak on a webinar by the lovely team at Kallaway PR, who have also Will Kallaway has been a guest on the podcast. They asked me to come on and talk about cart abandonment and ways that kind of design and UX can help prevent it. So I went away, put my slides together, tried to search for some data that would back up a few theories that I had.
Kelly Molson: And that was when I kind of hit a bit of a brick wall. Yeah, brick wall, that's what I'm trying to say. Couldn't find any specific data for the sector. I could find data about cart abandonment rates for all kinds of ecommerce sites, all kinds of pharmaceutical companies. Anything and everything that you could think of was out there except visitor attractions. And I realised that I think the data gets a bit skewed for them because they were kind of getting put into hospitality or tourism in general, or hotels sometimes, I think outdoor and sports. So I wasn't kind of able to back up theories that I had with the data. So that led us to setting up the survey.
Kelly Molson: And were really, really lucky to have some amazing bunch of people like the teams at ALVA and ASVA who totally supported the initiative and shared it with their members. Last year, we had a brilliant response. We had 70 leading attractions from up and down the UK take part. And in November last year, were able to launch the very first Visitor Attraction Website Report, which saw us set the first digital benchmarks for the sector. So the sector now has benchmarks for add to basket rate, basket abandonment rate, bounce rate, conversion rate, load times and then the report, because of the kind of questions that we asked, we got loads of key insight into user experience, booking journeys, mobile experience and loads, loads more.
Kelly Molson: But more importantly, that report, since its launch, has enabled attractions to make improvements to their websites, which makes their service better for their clients and makes their digital presence better. So it's been such an exciting thing to be involved in and it is a real passion project for me. I've loved every minute of setting it up. This year, we are now in our second year of running it and we've got a brilliant partner in Andy and the team at Convious, which I'm thrilled about. Say thank you. So I've asked you all to come on today to talk a little bit about the survey and the report and what it has enabled you to do. I want to start a little bit with Dominic and Simon, really, and ask them the questions, because they are in the position of being senior leaders in a visitor attraction.
Kelly Molson: They've both publicly spoken to me and said that the report has enabled them to do some really exciting things. And I think it's probably important for me to state that you're not our clients, like Rubber Cheese is not. We don't work with either of you from a client perspective. I'd definitely count you as friends and obviously Skip the Queue podcast alumni now as well. So, Simon, let me come to you first. What has the report enabled you to do at Roman Baths and why has it been important for you to kind of take part? What's it delivered for you?
Simon Addison: Sure, I think the report came out at a really important time for us because were already in the midst of a website redesign project. So what the report enabled us to do was to look at the findings in the report, the stats in the report, and ensure that were building our new website in a way that optimised that sort of user experience and customer journey. But I think also in visitor attractions, our websites are often trying to do two quite different things. So, on the one hand, it's sort of the gateway to a visit. It's the first place that people go when they're planning their visit and they want to maybe buy a ticket and come to Bath.
Simon Addison: At the same time, it's also telling sort of our more engaged audience, information about the collection and information about the history of the site or research that we're undertaking. And we want to be able to really quickly segregate those two audiences, because one audience we want to keep there for as long as possible to delve into the stories that we want to tell them and to really sort of effectively convert them from a very transactional relationship, which is buying a ticket to one of more of a supporter where they might donate in future. They'll become engaged in our program. And so designing a website that on the first page helps to divert visitors from that sort of more engaged, we're here to learn from, “We want to buy a ticket for Saturday”, and sort of get them on their journey quickly, efficiently and as few clicks as possible.
Simon Addison: So I think having that endorsement of the importance of the user, the journey, how many clicks is optimal before people start abandoning and giving up, that was so helpful in the way that were designing the website.
Kelly Molson: Amazing. That is such a good testimony for what we've done. And obviously we can't do any of that unless people take part in the survey and submit their data. And so we can understand and learn how websites are performing in the first place. But for me, it's really exciting to hear that because I guess having those kind of baseline benchmarks is a starting point for the industry. And that's, for me, what was missing completely in that we can talk about how we want them to improve and how we want the sector to move on. And I think, Andy, we've had a conversation before where we kind of feel like the sector is a little bit behind, where other industries are probably about four or five years, potentially behind in some areas.
Andy Povey: I'd go even further than that, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah.
Andy Povey: Generally people don't pick up the phone to me and ask me to come and talk about their ecommerce platforms if they're perfectly happy with what they're doing. So maybe I'm seeing a different side of the market. But it astounds me how many attractions there are that aren't able to monitor their performance, to look at their conversion rates, to look at their basket abandonment rates, all that kind of stuff. It's astounding, which is why I'm really happy to be working with you on the survey this year.
Kelly Molson: Okay, well, let me go to Andy now. So, Andy, introduce yourself for your role at Convious.
Andy Povey: So I'm responsible for everything we do with Convious in the UK and Ireland. So job title is MD, UK and Ireland.
Kelly Molson: So Andy and I got introduced quite a while ago, actually, now. I feel like it was a Ticketing Professionals Conference. Was it there?
Andy Povey: I think it was Dominic Jones that introduced us at the Museums and Heritage.
Kelly Molson: Yes, it was Museums and Heritage. It was.
Andy Povey: And it did indeed.
Dominic Jones: I can't believe you forgot that.
Kelly Molson: Yes, it was with the Sarcophagus.
Dominic Jones: I brought two great people together. I mean, I feel like I don't get the credit for this introduction. Thank you.
Kelly Molson: I'm sorry.
Dominic Jones: You do?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, it was you. You're actually really good at introducing people.
Dominic Jones: Talented people. Talented people to each other.
Kelly Molson: Yeah. You grabbed me at this year's Eminet show and introduced me to multiple people, actually. It was very kind of you. What a kind man you are.
Dominic Jones: It's a pleasure.
Andy Povey: Isn't he?
Kelly Molson: So this year, well, I mean, I guess this is thanks to you, Dominic. So Dominic introduced Andy and I.
Dominic Jones: You are welcome, by the way. Welcome.
Kelly Molson: Why is it important for Convious to be part of what we're doing this year with the report?
Andy Povey: Well, it's actually more important to me on a personal level, I think, Kelly. I'm a massive fan of attractions have been for my whole working life, which is there have been quite a lot of years in that so far, and I just want to see attractions doing better than they do at the moment. We've shared lots of conversations about really awful booking experiences, not just for attractions. Booking tickets to my kids, after school clubs. Personal bear of mine is dreadful. Don't ever do it if you don't have to.
Andy Povey: So I find that really frustrating. It upsets me to see attractions getting it wrong and some get it really wrong. So having some benchmarks, having some industry standards where people can go, actually, we're not doing what we should be doing. And why aren't we able to measure that? And what does it mean to our business by not measuring that? It's really important.
Kelly Molson: It is really important. It's been phenomenal to have the support of Convious and specifically Andy and Mirabelle, who I've worked very closely with over the past few months on this project. What it's also allowing us to do, and hopefully this will grow year on year, is that it's opening up to a European audience as well. So, Andy, Convious is a Dutch company originally.
Andy Povey: Yes. So we're headquartered in Amsterdam. Germany is actually our largest market in terms of volume of customers, but we also have significant presence in France and Belgium, Netherlands and Bedelux area.
Kelly Molson: So we have had a number of submissions this year from European countries. And that's all down to Convious.
Andy Povey: Thank you.
Kelly Molson: We would hope over the next few years that this can start to grow and grow and become something that isn't solely focused on the UK market, which would be really exciting. We did actually have a Canadian zoo take part yesterday, which was quite exciting. So the message is slowly starting to spread out worldwide as well. An international survey. That's exciting, isn't it?
Andy Povey: Absolutely, yeah.
Dominic Jones: It was a game changer. That's what you've done. You've created something that is a true game changer. I remember getting very excited about the results and sitting at the back of the London Transport Theatre or wherever you launched them, and then just getting depressed every single slide. I was like, “Oh, no, we don't do that, or, we don't do that well, or, that's not great”. But it was fantastic because actually, for the first time ever, were able to compare ourselves and think, “Right, so if this is the industry standard, how can we make that better? How can we adapt that at the Mary Rose in Portsmouth Historic Dockyard?” and things like the five steps to make a booking and all this other sort of stuff that you were putting out. And I remember writing my book and thinking, “This is awful. This is absolutely awfu”l because we are performing way worse than that. We're still not fixed it.
Dominic Jones: We've got some money to look at websites and we put some new websites in and we're still developing it. But even little things like we changed and had a microsite last summer, we had one of our best summers ever, but we did that because of your data. We were looking and thinking, “We've got too many steps to making a booking or It takes too long to load this page, or actually we need to.” So I think you've really been a massive game changer, and if now you're getting the Canadians involved, I mean, it's going to be fantastic. I can't wait to see what they've got to say.
Dominic Jones: So I do genuinely think you've made a big difference and I can't wait to see this year's results and next year's results. And I hope this is something you keep doing forever because you've made a real difference. You really have.
Kelly Molson: Dominic, you're so kind. That's really kind. Thank you. That's amazing feedback. What I love about what you said is that you've actively been able to take the data that people have supplied and go, “We are here. We're not performing to that point yet. But if we make these changes, we can get to that point.” And that's what I love. This is what this is all about. It's about marginal gains. It's about making those tiny little 1% improvements every day and getting better and better. We couldn't ask for more. That's what we hoped.
Dominic Jones: And before I get kicked and hit by all my colleagues, there were lots of things that were doing great as well. But actually, you don't talk about them, do you? Don't say, “Oh, well, we're doing okay because we're very British, we only really talk about the things that we want to improve or we're not doing right.” But I do think it's a phenomenal game changer and it's the sort of report that you can use as a toolkit to really sort of check where you are and where you want to be. And I genuinely can't wait for the next one. I hope we get a preview for doing this podcast. Did we get an early release? Is that part of the deal? Simon, did you sign something like that?
Simon Addison: Yeah, signed it all. Dom, did you not get the paperwork?
Dominic Jones: Of course you did. He's got people.
Kelly Molson: If you've taken part in the survey, you will get it exclusively before it is released to the general public. So, I mean, I can confirm that you both have, which is a relief.
Dominic Jones: Of course we have. We're early adopters, we love it.
Simon Addison: I did check before we came on this afternoon that we completed it because I thought that would be really awkward.
Dominic Jones: You probably won the Convious prize, right, for being one of the people that completed it all. The 100th person to complete. I saw all that online, honestly.
Andy Povey: I think everyone got one by you, Dom. I don't know what it was you've done to upset Mirabelle in our marketing team.
Dominic Jones: I think you're taking this podcast thing a little bit too seriously.
Simon Addison: Just to go back to what you were saying, Kelly, about marginal gains, I think that is where the value of this is, because most of us have got websites that are capable of selling a ticket. But when you operate a visitor attraction as successful as Dom’s, or you get hundreds of thousands of people going to your website or to your attraction each year, millions of people to the website.
Simon Addison: And if you can achieve a 1% shift in a customer behaviour, the returns on that are really significant. So you don't have to suddenly come up with a revolutionary new website. You have to focus on what are the things that are just holding you back a little bit, removing those pain points from the customer journey. The uplift is so significant of just achieving a small percentage change. I know Dom doesn't like percentages, but that is what we're talking about here.
Dominic Jones: No, with that terms, I do, absolutely. And you're absolutely right. And even little things like how it looks on a mobile as opposed to looking on a desktop.
Simon Addison: Exactly.
Dominic Jones: Change our way of thinking. And you've got to keep doing it because that's what's going to make this industry and where we all work and the amazing places that we work in even better. It's brilliant.
Kelly Molson: Well, we absolutely will continue to do it. So this is the second year that we're running it and we have no intention of stopping. Just going back to what you said, Simon. I think what you said about making what you already have better in terms of your website, I think that's a really important point to push is that it has been a really weird few years. And this year I think all of us were kind of hoping this would be a year of normality. And let's face it really hasn't, has it? It's been another odd one.
Kelly Molson: So we've started off the year, there's an awful war happening, there's a terrible cost of living crisis, there's all kinds of stuff happening that is affecting attractions. Yet again, affecting all of us, really, but affecting attractions in terms of whether people are going to come, how much they're going to spend, what they're going to do. We know that marketing budgets were going to be probably drastically cut this year by at least 15, 20%. That was the message that was being given when I attended the ALVA Heads of Marketing meeting before Christmas. So I think that being able to look at the report and use it to implement changes to what you already have is really important. You may not have the budget to go out and start again.
Kelly Molson: You don't necessarily need to, but if there's improvements that you can be made to your site in terms of the performance or the speed, all of those things are going to help. They're all things that will add up over time and ultimately make the performance of it better and make the customer experience better. So think that's quite an important message to talk about. Another thing to add is that this year we're doing it again. We're asking the same questions that we did last year because obviously we need the same data set, but it's more so it's bigger and better. We'll get feedback on whether that's too much for people, but we're asking questions around Usability, whether you're collecting feedback. We're asking questions around kind of promotions and discounts and how people are measuring their traffic sources and whether they're doing user tests.
Kelly Molson: So there's so much more that's going to be in it from this year. And one really exciting thing which you touched on, Dominic, is that everybody that takes part in the survey will get exclusive access to the report before it's made public. But actually, as soon as you've filled in the survey this year, you get a little mini report. And what it does is benchmark you where you are now against the benchmarks from last year. So it will give you a little report to identify how your website is performing based on last year's benchmarks that we identified. Now that's really important. So you could be underperforming, you might be performing too, you might be overperforming, you might be doing better than those benchmarks from last year, and those benchmarks may change dramatically from last year to this year, we don't know yet.
Kelly Molson: So that's like a little added bonus. If you're on the fence about taking part, you will get something that's actionable as soon as you've taken part in the survey this year. This year the report will launch towards the end of September. We will release dates and be a bit more specific once we've closed the survey. But this episode is going to launch on the 5th July. That means that you've just got one week left to take part. So one week left before the survey closes on the 12th of July. So if you are thinking about it, stop thinking about it. Go and do it. It will literally take 20 minutes. You're going to need your Google Analytics open or other analytics tool that you use. You can find the link to the survey in our show notes of this show.
Kelly Molson: You can head over to Rubbercheese.com and you will find the link to it on the home page. Or you can search for the 2023 Visitor Attraction Website Report and you will find it. You can head over to Convious and you will find it on Convious website. It's everywhere. Go find it. Do it. Take part. These guys did it. Made a big difference.
Dominic Jones: Best 20 minutes of your life. Just do it. Just do it. Honestly, what else can you do? So much value in 20 minutes. There's not much else you can do.
Kelly Molson: I worry about how you spend your time. If that's the best 20 minutes of real life. Dominic, that's a concern, but, I mean, he's not wrong.
Dominic Jones: I mean at work, not like in real life. I do amazing things in my normal life.
Kelly Molson: If you could talk to all of the visitor attractions that are listening now, what would you say to them to encourage them to go and take part?
Simon Addison: I would say that if you're not already looking at the things you need to fill in, then you should be looking at them anyway. So you say it takes 20 minutes, Kelly, to fill them in? I'll be honest. I didn't fill them in for the Roman Baths, our Digital Marketing officer did. And I think Dom's blank face when you're talking about the mini report also tells me that he didn't fill it in for Mary Rose either. But it's 20 minutes. But it's all data that you should be looking at. And if you're not looking at it's probably a prompt that you or your teams need to be looking at it anyway.
Simon Addison: And getting that report allows you to either make the case with your trustees or your board to invest if you need investment, or it provides an endorsement of the quality of the website and the offer that you've got. Either one of those things is really useful and we know how hard it is to get investment. Kelly, you talked about marketing budgets at the moment. If you want to get money to invest in your website, having this evidence will help convince your CEO or your Trustees that's the right thing for you to do. And equally, if you don't need to, then this is confirmation of that. So that's what I'd say.
Kelly Molson: Thank you. That is brilliant. How about you, Dom?
Dominic Jones: I'd agree and I'll come clean. I didn't fill it in either, but someone did do it. But it's not the filling in, it's the reading it and using it that counts. Right? That's what matters. It's about receiving it and doing something with it. I actually think it's really useful to get as much benchmark data as possible in this industry. And actually what you do is you give us this for websites, you give it for ecommerce and it's fantastic. I wish there were more people doing it in all the areas of our industry because actually this visitor attraction to get benchmarks is quite rare. So it's fantastic to get that. So I really appreciate that. And I would say if you're listening and you work in a visitor attraction, why wouldn't you do this?
Dominic Jones: Because like Simon says, you can understand where you are. You can use it for funding, you can use it towards getting revenue, you can use it towards recruiting some extra people in your team. You can use it to how you performance manage your team. You can use it for so many things. It's such a good document. I can't stress enough, I might not have filled out the form, but I definitely read it and I definitely used it and I do definitely love it.
Kelly Molson: Wow. So appreciative of your fabulous comments. Thank you both. Andy, what would you add to that?
Andy Povey: Well, I don't know that I can, but really it shouldn't really take you that long to complete this because you should be all over this kind of data anyway. If you're a digital offer in any business and if you're not looking at this kind of stuff, then it's probably time to really start managing your business in a much better way. And really, just to reiterate the point, that an incremental improvement, just a 0.5% improvement in the results in this kind of area can deliver you hundreds and hundreds of thousands of pounds extra additional revenue over a twelve month period. So what else is that you could do in your business in 20 minutes that's going to potentially deliver that kind of result?
Kelly Molson: Wow. There you go. I think you've said it all. Well done. Thank you. I really appreciate this. I threw this at you literally a few days ago to come on and they've had no time to prepare whatsoever. So I'm super grateful that you've given up a little bit of time for me to talk about it today. This is something that I'm so passionate about. I bloody love this podcast. I'm so lucky that I get to talk to such lovely people. And I think, like you've all said, just like, I mean, like echoing what Andy said, being able to make this industry better is something that is literally like at the core of me right now. I just want to see good people doing really good things and having really good results.
Kelly Molson: So if everyone could please just go out and fill the Blooming survey and I'd be really grateful. Thank you. Right, books. Have you all prepared a book today? I didn't ask you to. I've got a book, but I feel like you might have. Right, throw it out.
Dominic Jones: So I've got a book called The Alignment Advantage Transform Your Strategy, Culture and Customers to Succeed. Now, I love a good strategy book, so the last time I was on the podcast I recommended Good Strategy, Bad Strategy, a great book about strategy. I did bill it as the best book on strategy. Scrap that. It's the second best book on strategy. This is now the best book on strategy because it talks about how you have to align your culture and as a strategic enabler, your strategy and your experience. And for people who listen to Skip the Queue or fill out the Rubber Cheese Website Survey or work with Convious, one of the best people to work with in the world, they will love this book. It is incredible. The only book to read on Strategy by Richard Nugent, The Alignment Advantage. Fantastic.
Dominic Jones: There is also an interview with a great guy from the Mary Rose in chapter two, I can't remember his name. I think it rhymes with Dominic Jones. I can't remember it fully, but it's very good to read.
Kelly Molson: I knew that there was something like that coming. I knew, Dominic. Amazing. Thank you for another number one strategy book. Simon, what would your book be and have you featured in it?
Simon Addison: I can say I have not featured in this book. Unlike Dom, I don't read a lot of business and leadership books. I tend to read for escapism and relaxation. But I have picked a workbook and it's probably the only workbook I've gone back to and reread portions of. And it's called Leadership: Plain and Simple by Steve Radcliffe. The book was a foundation of a leadership course that I did when I was at the National Trust, which was called Future Engage, Deliver. And it was centered on the idea that in order to be an effective leader, you need to have clarity of your vision for the future. You need to engage your colleagues and your teams in that future and then collectively, you need to work together to deliver it. And it sort of broke that strategy and leadership piece into those three distinct portions.
Simon Addison: And it had some really helpful models in there for self reflection, for getting meaningful feedback from teams and developing techniques to engage stakeholders in the delivery of your vision. I would recommend that obviously it's not the first or the second best book on leadership, but maybe it's the third. Who knows?
Kelly Molson: Love that. What's really interesting is these books. Both neither of those books have been recommended on the podcast before, so I always like it when a new ones come up because I add it onto my little wish list on Amazon.
Dominic Jones: I'm going to read that book. I've not heard of that one, Simon, but that sounds amazing. I do love the book recommendations. I do the same. I go buy them. Except for the Harry Potter one.
Kelly Molson: I already had and you knocked Geoff off as well, didn't you?
Dominic Jones: Did I knock Geoff off?
Kelly Molson: Yeah. Geoff was number one for quite a while.
Dominic Jones: Is he no longer number one? Skip the Queue.
Kelly Molson: No, did I not tell you that you are number one?
Simon Addison: Once you edit this out, kelly, this is going to be a really short podcast episode.
Kelly Molson: I'm leaving all of this in. Andy, what about you? Have you got a book that you'd like to share?
Andy Povey: A book I'll keep going back to is The Experience Economy by Joe Pine. And I don't know whether someone else has recommended this in the past, but for me, that whole life chain value thing, the graph where you talk about a thing becoming a commodity and everything moving into the sort of experience space, really fits with what we're doing in our industry. It really fits with what we do at Convious. The reason I enjoy what we do.
Kelly Molson: It's a good book. I'm going to ask Joe if he'll come on the podcast.
Andy Povey: So I saw him talking at the Blooloop conference a few years ago. Absolutely compelling.
Dominic Jones: Could he maybe talk at the January? Why don't we get him on 2025 podcast? Let's do that, right?
Kelly Molson: Yeah, let's discuss it off the pod. Yeah, we'll discuss that later. Thank you all. I'm so grateful. Oh, as ever. Sorry, listeners. If you want to win a copy of those books, head over to our Twitter feed. You know what to do. Retweet this podcast announcement. But more importantly, go and fill in the survey. Be so grateful.
Andy Povey: Fill in the survey.
Kelly Molson: Fill in the survey. We have got, actually a podcast exclusive. Let me tell you how many attractions have taken part so far. Last year, 2022, 70 attractions from up and down the country took part. This year with a week well, actually, it's two weeks today, but a week to go. When this podcast launches, 129 attractions have taken part. So we've nearly doubled on last year. I'm so thrilled. But, yeah, if we could get that to 140, that would be amazing. Imagine 140 attractions being able to improve their websites this year, being able to improve their customer service, being able to improve their bottom line. That's what it's all about. Thanks, guys. You've been amazing.
Simon Addison: Thanks, Kelly.
Dominic Jones: Incredible.
Andy Povey: Thank you, Kelly.
Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned.
Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.
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