Podcasts about cultural enterprises

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: www.matthewhenderson.netCreative Ideas and Solutions. Innovative consultancy and support for visitor attractions, specialising in commercial and  product development. https://www.beamish.org.uk/https://culturalenterprises.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/hendersonmatthew94/ Matthew Henderson is well known across the sector, having won many awards for his creative approach to retail and product development, and is a Trustee of the Association for Cultural Enterprises.Having increased sales and developed commercial activity as Head of Commercial Operations and Development at Beamish, The Living Museum of the North, Matthew has been inspired to launch Creative Ideas and Solutions. The aim of which is to support other organisations in enhancing their visitor engagement, commercial strategy and product development. Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. In today's episode, I speak with Matthew Henderson, founder of Matthew Henderson Creative Ideas and Solutions. Matt was previously Head of Commercial Operations and Development at Beamish Living Museum, where an abundance of innovative ideas drove their commercial income. We talk a lot about product development and how to develop commercial products and experiences that truly reflect your organisation. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Matthew, it is absolutely brilliant to have you on the podcast today. I'm just going to tell you, you have been, like, one of the most recommended people to me ever to come on.Matthew Henderson: Really? Kelly Molson: There are so many people, “You've got to get Matthew on. You need to get Matthew on to chat to” and finally, we are here. Matthew Henderson: Well, thank you so much. That's an amazing thing to hear, but, yeah, thank you for inviting me on. It's a real honour to be on it. Kelly Molson: Well, shuffed. It's going to be good. Okay. Right, I've got some ice breakers for you. I want to know what is your favourite crisp flavour?Matthew Henderson: Favourite crisp changes rigged, but at the moment it's probably squares just for how vinegary they are. Kelly Molson: Oh, the sort of vinegar ones? Yeah. Matthew Henderson: I would go with them, but occasionally a knickknack I would go for as well, which is quite a controversial opinion. Kelly Molson: Spicy knickknack. Did they used to do like a hang on, they did like a fishy one, didn't they? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, I wouldn't go near that, but, yeah, the spicy one, yeah. Normally I'm a chicken corner kind of guy, but I can handle a knickknack spice.Kelly Molson:  Spicy knickknacks. I'm with you on that one. That is a good solid, crisp flavour. Right, good. Okay, if you had your human body but the head of animal, what animal would you choose? Matthew Henderson: Strangely, I actually do have a pet owl, so I feel like just to keep on theme yeah, probably an owl. I think their school is taken up by three quarters. Their school is hitting up by their eyes. Their brain is very small, so maybe I'll retract that. But wise old owl is quite a myth. But they are sort of very attractive, aren't they? Kelly Molson: They are. Wow. Oh, God. So many questions. You've got a pet owl, you're like Harry Potter. This is incredible. How have you got a pet owl? Matthew Henderson: Well, yeah, it's sort of a bit more run Weasy than Harry Potter would say. Growing up, I used to help my grandma nature reserve and every weekend she used to take me to there on the Saturday and then the Budapest Centre on the Sunday. It was just the sort of thing that we always did and I ended up volunteering there and fell in love with it. And then I had this little owl, who, when he came in, was written off that he would die overnight. It was so unwell. And I think a cat tried to eat him. All this sort of tragic story. And then every day he got a bit stronger, to the point where he used to come home with me every night. We've got a tesco together because you couldn't leave. It was kind of in my hoodie pocket. Matthew Henderson: And then when I sort of stopped volunteering there and got a job, he would have died of heartbreak, really. And I think so died by that point. So 14 years on, he still lives with me. Probably the funniest thing that's ever happened with Bug is when everyone did Zoom quizzes during lockdown. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Matthew Henderson: And my friend works for Capital FM and Bug the Owl just happened to be in the background while were playing this quiz. And my friend from there was on, to which he told Roman Kemp the next day about Bug the Owl at work, to which Roman Kemp and FaceTimed me the next day to see Bug the owl. And then me and Bug coal hosted capitol breakfast for 20 minutes one morning, you think lockdown life couldn't get any stranger. And then you describe what an owl looks like on Capital FM. Kelly Molson: This question has gone to a place that I would never expect him to go to. Oh, my God. Matthew Henderson: We could get him at the end. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God. Please, I would love to meet Bug. And also, my heart has just melted massively from that story. Matthew Henderson: Yeah. I love him.Kelly Molson: Absolutely incredible. Matthew Henderson: My friends always say that I should do TikToks with them because I have a dog as well, and the owl will sit on the dog's head and groom and they'll play together. And I think if I had more time, they'd probably be a TikTok account for them. Kelly Molson: You have to make that. I would download TikTok just for that. Just for you, and Bug and your dog. Oh, my God. Honestly, Matt wasn't expecting that response. That's got me all the feels. Matthew Henderson: On the random way, I think I would have an owl's head as a head and a human body. Kelly Molson: An excellent reason why. Well, this is random. My next question was, have you ever met a famous person and lost a tiny mind a little bit, but I don't know if Roman Kemp is enough to make you lose your mind. Matthew Henderson:  Yeah, I think I actually met Russell Brand. This is another sort of bizarre lockdown story, just as it happens, but I went to his gig, he did an outdoor, socially distanced gig and then at the end he walked past and I got a selfie with him, to which I just put it on Instagram. We haven't broken any rules. It was all fine. And the Daily Mail lifted that photograph and ran it on the front page of their website with a story around Russell Brand refusing to social distance, which wasn't true. But, yeah, he ended up on Hollywood Reports and all sorts of zoom called with him afterwards to talk about it, and he absolutely loved it. But, yeah, meeting him was amazing. And then my ultimate hero is Mike Skinner from the Streets. Matthew Henderson: I have his lyrics tattooed, and that probably the only time in life I've been absolutely speechless. I just could not say a word when I met him. And he was very nice and very polite. But, yeah, meeting him was pretty amazing. Kelly Molson: Oh, my God, Matt, I want your life. Matthew Henderson: We might go downhill from there. I think they're only sort of two impressive odd stories. Kelly Molson: They're probably the best answers to any icebreaker questions I've ever asked. Matthew Henderson: It's quite nice because they don't naturally come up in conversation, either of those points. But maybe that's the art of icebreaking. Kelly Molson: Absolutely. Totally fascinating. Right, well, I don't know where this is going to go, but what's your unpopular opinion?Matthew Henderson: My unpopular opinion is that I've never had tea or coffee and I have no desire to. Kelly Molson: You've never had a brew? You've never had a cup of tea? Matthew Henderson: Never had one. Yeah. Shocking. And I actually went on a half day course about coffee once I've smelled this and learned all about it, but it's not for me. Kelly Molson: I think the coffee one I can get. I think that there's probably quite a few people that because tea and coffee are very different and I can understand that. But to never even have tried a little sip of tea?Matthew Henderson: Yeah, nobody's ever really that impressed with it. Yeah, maybe it's TikTok and tea this year, maybe that's the aim.Kelly Molson: 2023, we're coming at you. Matthew Henderson: About two or three years ago, I tried to grip for the first time, much to all my friends amusement. And I remember afterwards my friend Ben, who's a very loud lad, and he took me one side and said, “I'm so proud of you for trying that, man”. So I just loved, like, how genuine he was. Kelly Molson: Matt, it's already my favourite podcast. Sorry, everyone, Matt's got me in tears here. All right. Okay, let's start where it all began, shall we? Let's talk about Beamish. So you were there for ten years and you started out as a costume demonstrator? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, that's right. Kelly Molson: And then your path went further and further and further in. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, it was the best thing ever did. So, like I sort of mentioned, my grandma used to run a nature reserve, a little small cafe and gift shop, and she would let me organise the Christmas tree fairs when I was little. And sometimes I do little markets and fundraisers and stuff. So I think, looking back, I was always sort of destined for a career in tourism from that, because my mom always laughed that I was more excited about seeing the gift shop than I was the attraction a lot of time. When you look back, it's so obvious, really, but from there I started volunteering at the Falconry Centre, which is obviously where Bug the Owl came from, and got really interested in the sort of business side of it and the customer service side.  Matthew Henderson: And I was studying business at college, a six month college, and they said to me, "why didn't you go and try somewhere else on work experience?" And I was like, "no, I'm going to work at the Falconry Centre. That's my sort of thing I'm going to do". And they were like, "Why didn't you just go for four half days, like four afternoons to Beamish, which was about 20 minutes up the road, and just see what it's like?" And instantly, within about an hour of being there, I realised it was the people that I loved working with. And for all I loved the animal side, that it was that tourism, that business, that people and that culture that I loved. Matthew Henderson: And then, yeah, from there, I think it's sort of seven different jobs, but progressed from work experience to being a volunteer to then a costume demonstrator, and that's how it kind of started. Kelly Molson: Amazing. So many people start their career at one level in an attraction and just work and that's what happened, isn't it? So ultimately, you ended up as head of commercial operations. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, several different jobs, and was really fortunate with my time at Beamish that I did an apprenticeship, which I'm really sort of proud to have come from a non traditional route into the sector and then did an assistant role and an officer role and started did a maternity cover. And all these sort of real brilliant opportunities from Beamish led to that head of commercial role, which was final role at the museum. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So Beamish, to give context to people that haven't been to Beamish, and don't understand what it is. It's a living museum, isn't it? And you've kind of got like little mini attractions within this attraction itself. It's absolutely incredible. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. It's a living museum. It's around 400 acres in size and Beamish tells a story of everyday life in the Northeast in various different time periods. But the majority of the buildings have been moved brick by brick or stone by stone and recreated. So the buildings themselves are as much as part of the museum and the museum's collection as the object inside it. But they use everyday objects to tell the story of life in the Northeast. So rather than having it in a glass case and obviously there's a need to protect some object in the museum's collection and stores, sometimes it's replica. But the majority of real collections that have been really used, whether that's a teapot or a post tube or how can that history be brought to life? So, yeah, there's some amazing museum living museums around the world. Matthew Henderson: I think Beamish is one of the standouts, really.Kelly Molson: Yeah. I think the term immersive is being thrown around, like, a bit willy nilly at the moment. But for me, that is a really immersive museum experience, isn't it? Because when you go, people are in traditional costume and you can go and see things being made. Like, Matt very kindly people that are listening that won't be able to see this, but Matt very kindly sent me some sweets in the post from Beamish, which I'll just show on camera here. And the sweets get handmade in the shop and you can go and see that happening. And using all the traditional methods, So it is a fantastically kind of immersive museum experience that you can get involved in. So everything's going swim and knee and then all of a sudden there's a global pandemic. Life takes a bit of a turn, doesn't it?Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. So I was working on product development at Beamish at the time, so we've been doing a lot of really exciting work about how could we use the museum's collections to create products that truly reflected that experience. And Beamish is a dream for that kind of thing, because, like you say, there's so many sort of hands on opportunities and there's so many stories to be told. And I think one of my favourite things about working in Beamish was that you have these pockets of specialism right around the museum. So you could go and have a conversation with the curator of transport and learn the intricacies of sort of steam and charms and buses and then try and come up with product from that. Or you could go and speak to the garden team or the horse team. Matthew Henderson: So were making all this sort of exciting product and then, yeah, the museum was on the rise. Visitor numbers have been going up, income had been going up, and then, yeah, the gates were shut and 95% of the income comes from visitors. And suddenly there was a need to try and diversify and to engage that audience, which is where some of the sort of work that we did during lockdown came from. Kelly Molson: And some of the things that you did are absolutely brilliant. So I saw you speak at the Museum and Heritage Awards last year and you shared some of the things that you did during lockdown that helped to drive revenue and they're so good. Some of the examples that you shared are just so creative and so genius. Can you tell us a little bit about some of them? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, so the first thing we did was set up an online shop. So the idea being that we didn't want it to feel like a traditional online shop, we wanted it to reflect the museum experience, where you can go into the sweet shop and buy sweets, you can go into the cooperative store and buy biscuits, you can go into the various different sort of exhibits and participate. Like the chemist, for instance, has a cold cream that's a recipe from 100 years ago. So we set up that online shop and literally between a very small team of used our existing ticketing platform. And it was a little bit like an episode of The Apprentice, really. There was like no budget, there's a half a platform there for us to use and how could you turn this around? Matthew Henderson: And I think because everyone at Beamish had such passion for it. It was a very concerning time, but also a very exciting time, thinking that we could try and drive some income. And we started seeing support from around the world. People were ordering these sort of tins of sweets and all this sort of product development work that we'd been doing. It was actually perfectly aligned that we had these unique products that could be sold. And then we started to think, well, how else could we use online? So the Head of Learning, Simon Woolley, who's a brilliant person, he started doing school lessons. So he would do murder mysteries online and Victorian school lessons for schools around the world. Me and him said, “there surely must be an opportunity for home schoolers here”. Matthew Henderson: So we started putting Victorian lessons on for home schoolers where they could order a slate and pencil in the post from the online shop and then Simon would essentially sort of scare them for an hour at the Victorian Headmaster. And the day was basically with the parents that we look after your kids for an hour, you have an hour off and they can participate in this living museum. Then we did things like afternoon tea deliveries. So we have famous of amazing bakers. They came to the museum and created these unbelievable afternoon teas along with tea and coffee that were sourced from local supplies and branded as Beamish specific blends for them. And we sent out costume staff to deliver them. Matthew Henderson: So you could only order them, you could order them from around the world, but they would only be delivered in the Northeast because we wanted to deliver them by hand, safely, but in full costume. And I remember a quote that came from Jeff, who was one of the costume team that was delivering them and he said, "people ordered them from as far and wide to the nearest and dearest, the United States, Australia and Europe. And occasionally there were real tears of gratitude from the receiver where it felt a privilege to be bringing a ray of happiness to someone." And that sums it up for me, really. Kelly Molson: That is incredible, isn't it? Matthew Henderson: Because it wasn't only about generating income, it was about keeping connected with that community. And 50% of Beamish's audience is local, so being able to sort of literally go to the doorstep of 1200 people, which is like the equivalent of visiting every family that came on a bank holiday. If you think in terms of scale of two or three drivers out there for a few weeks delivering them and that was a really special thing. And then I think probably we still we started wholesale ventures, we started selling to the likes of Fenix and farm shops when retail shops could be opened. But museums and visit attractions weren't just a diversified income and that was like, again, about generating income, but also that connection with people. Matthew Henderson: And it was really exciting for those shops when Beamish returned up in full costumes with these handmade sweets and keeping that name out there, that sort of museum alive. But I think for me the most special thing was were faced with the prospect that maybe Father Christmas has grown, wouldn't go ahead and how could we do an online offer of that was the challenge put forward. So we did for 13 hours a day, we did zoom calls with Father Christmas around sort of well over 1000 children took part in that.  And every ten minutes, Father Christmas would call a different family and would have these absolutely amazing moments where grandparents would join in the call and seeing their children engage, their grandchildren engage with Father Christmas. Matthew Henderson: And you would see parents, grandparents just in floods of tears saying these really special moments because we could collect information in advance that Father Christmas could use to make it even more special. And really did sort of bring the magic. So that was me and Father Christmas and a small team for sort of hours a day and it was just a really special way of connecting with our audience. Kelly Molson: There's so many different ideas there as well, Matthew. I mean, obviously you've got your team around you as well. How did you go about working out what you were going to do? Because I can imagine that there were more ideas that actually didn't happen as well. Right, so how did you work out that process of going, yeah, that's the one, we can run with that. No, these ones, they're just not going to work for us. Matthew Henderson: I think essentially there's a little bit of looking at the resource that was available and the sort of finances behind it. If it was a nice thing to do, was it at least going to sort of generate a small income and then what were the things that were going to really drive income from the museum? And Rhiannon Hiles is the CEO of Beamish, was incredibly supportive as she was sort of leading the museum and me and her would have these conversations where one of us would come up with an idea. And the Father Christmas thing actually started out it was going to be pre recorded videos and it was her that said, “no, this needs to feel exactly like the experience of the museum. We need to create that magic”. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, just really great support from her, really great team that were willing to give everything a go and it was just a real chance to bring commercials to the front of everything the museum was doing. And I think from there we really did connect with that audience. I remember one of the Father Christmas calls, a parent had written that a child no longer believed in Father Christmas because the last time they saw him was in America, and he has an American accent. And our Father Christmas, luckily, could speak different languages. So straight away he said, "loving to meet you". If it was Bethany, he said, "Love it to meet you, Bethany. I saw you last time in Florida, didn't I?" And you could see a little bit of magic. Matthew Henderson: He said, “the thing is, wherever I go, I change my accent, I change the language, like when I go to France”. And then spoke in fluent French, and you could see this kind of like moment where the magic was just literally back in that house. It's like on a film where you sort of see the sort of stars coming back in and it's back to life, and you could see the joy in her parents face. And you think, if we hadn't been allowed to do those calls, what would that magic have been for her in these horrible circumstances? Equally, on the flip side, our Father Christmas only really knew French and English. Matthew Henderson: We were hoping there's not going to any last minute request as we kind of moved on the conversation. Kelly Molson: So you saw magic in one window and sweat in another window.Matthew Henderson: Behind the zoom screen. Yeah. Father Christmas sometimes had a little auto queue that I could give him prompts on, and we had a great time doing those things. Kelly Molson: It's incredible to go to that level of detail as well. To be able to put that magic back is absolutely phenomenal. What you mentioned, you said that everyone was willing to give it a go, and I think that's something that's really important to talk about because there was a level of like during the pandemic, well, let's just try it, right? What can we do? Can't do anything worse than actually is what's happening, right? So let's just give it a go. So people were quite brave in some of the things that they were doing. Do you think that's got lost a little bit now? Do you think people are a bit more cautious about what they're doing? Matthew Henderson: I think there's definitely a thing where the day to day takes over again, and I think there's a real opportunity to look at sort of strategy and given the opportunity for teams to come up with ideas, creative ideas, and then allowing them to happen, I think, with Beamish, I'm not certain we would have made an online shop within the last few years because you managing multiple different exhibits, outlets, operations, and it was never sort of creeping to the top of the priorities list.  So I think the pandemic offered an opportunity to really question what you were doing and like, I said, give things a go. And Beamish has certainly carried on that sort of innovation with Rhiannon Hiles, CEO, I'm sure that will continue.Matthew Henderson: But, yeah, I think there is perhaps a thing where the day to day takes over and I think it's maybe coming together through things like the podcast that you do and the work at  Association for Cultural Enterprise does and Museum and Heritage Show and hearing those inspirational stories. And I think we've all got those moments where you sit and hear somebody speak and then you just can't wait to get back to where you work to try and sort of pivot from that point, really. Kelly Molson: Yeah. It's the same with me, to be honest. I went on a new business and marketing workshop last week and came out of that completely and utterly inspired by the people that were delivering the course, by the people that were on the course with me as well. And now we're kind of back in the day to day doing. You have to really be careful to make sure that you carve out the time to do those things, don't you? You have to give time for innovation, you have to give time to be creative because you need the headspace to be able to actually do it, don't you?  Matthew Henderson: Definitely. And I think if you're working in a visit attraction, there's a lot to be said around the fact that it is a joy to work in these places, because the whole purpose of them is to bring joy to people. So for me, it's often about sort of standing and looking at the attraction, walking through it when it's busy, sort of hearing those conversations, working front of house. And then I always find that at the moment when you realise, for me, I started as a costume demonstrator and that was the thing that I loved. Every time you got the opportunity to work with the visitors, to work with those people, it reignited that passion of, this is why we're here. So for all in management, you might sort of step further away and you might be more in sort of meetings and the like. Matthew Henderson: I think it's about still being connected and realising why we're all in this industry. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Off podcast earlier, when Matthew and I were chatting, we actually had a conversation about how our earliest memories are from attractions, aren't they? They're from places that we've been to, so I can remember one of my earliest memories is feeding the ducks, a place called Forty Hall in Enfield. It's a lovely heritage home. It's got beautiful grounds. It was really close to where my nan and granddad lived, so we used to always visit my nan and grandad and then go there afterwards. And it's one of my earliest memories of really happy times. And it's a visitor attraction, so we have to remember the impact that we're having on people from a really young age. And that's a huge responsibility and also something wonderful to be part of. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. I went to Sovereign Hill in Australia, which is a living museum, a few years ago, and one of their directors said to me, "it's an honour to bring joy to millions of people". And often you might see that joy firsthand, but then it's like you say, you would never really know the impact of that work. You would never know that people like you and me are talking about feeding the ducks all them years later. And I think it's every time you get an opportunity to create something or to work with someone, it's about making it the most special thing and that's how you get that legacy. Matthew Henderson: And I think for Beamish in particular, the people of the Northeast have a real love for it because everybody has a connection to it, whether they donate as an object, whether they know somebody that used to live in one of the houses before it was moved, whether they went there on a school trip. And I think it's about working with all those generations. And I love the idea that we might create retail products and you don't really know where in the world they end up or who's going to treasure them. And it's a real honour and I think you have to keep remembering that, especially when sort of day to day work maybe sort of takes over or feels a little heavy. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So you've moved on from Beamish now. Let's talk a little bit about some of the things you're doing. I'm a recent Trustee of the Museum of the Broads, which is quite a big responsibility, actually, and I'm really enjoying it, but it's all quite new for me. But you've been a trustee for quite a while, haven't you, for the Association for Cultural Enterprises? Matthew Henderson: Yeah. So off the back of the work that Beamish did during lockdown, I've got the opportunity to speak at the Cultural Enterprise Conference and then met some of the team there and had kept in touch with Jill, who's the brilliant CEO. And then yeah, the advert went out that they were looking for trustees and it was one of those things I spoke to Rhiannon at Beamish and sort of said, "do you think you would apply for this?" And she was saying, "Well, I think you should." And it said, "Why didn't you give this a go?" And I think that's what I was really asking was, "should I give this a go?" So I applied and interviewed and, yeah, it's been one of the best things ever done, connecting with the work of the association, but also the other board members. Matthew Henderson: So sitting on a board for me, like some of my sort of industry heroes, really, and getting to hear them speak. And sometimes I'll be in these board meetings and I'll realise I haven't spoken in a little while because you're so busy listening to them and you kind of forget that you're part of it, really.  So, yeah, they've been really welcoming to me and been a big part in the decision to give this new venture a go. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So this is exciting. So I am going to guess that everyone that you've been speaking to there has been really supportive of this. But you have jumped in with 2ft and you've set up a new consultancy. Tell us a little bit about it. Matthew Henderson: So where it came from was, through the work that I've been doing and the work for the Association for Cultural Enterprise, people had been very kind in the sort of words that they were saying about some of the work we've done. And then often I was visiting other attractions or meeting them and helping to come up with creative ideas. So the new sort of venture is allowing that to be a full time thing for me so that I can offer more support to these organisations, whether that's on product development, whether that's on community co production, creative strategy. So, yeah, it's a very new thing, but really exciting. And like we sort of said at the start, I think from that moment of helping my grandma at the nature reserve, you kind of look back and it was always meant to be that you would work in tourism and then this path has come quite naturally, really. Kelly Molson: It's really exciting. And congratulations on getting set up and taking the big leap into doing it for yourself. How do you start this process with an attraction? Because I guess just thinking about what you've been through at Beamish, I mean, it was perfectly set for all of the things that you did. You've got this amazing heritage there, you've got these artefacts that you can take design elements from for packaging and everything kind of came together so beautifully. How do you start to look at that, doing those things in a different organisation? Matthew Henderson: So I think if it's a product development, there's a lot to be said around, hopefully getting to know the team that are working in the shop. They'll know what sells well and what doesn't, and if they have any data to sort of back that up. But a lot of the time, those informal conversations of, "I wish we had a magnet wave exxon”, or speaking to the front of house teams of what are the things that the visitors find emotive, what do they laugh at? What do they cry at? What do they take a photograph of? And then, how can we draw inspiration from that to create product ranges? And that's a lovely challenge and it takes working with the team, I think, because it's a new venture. Matthew Henderson: One of the things I'm really keen on is that the support isn't a standard package, so depending on the attraction, I can sort of flex up, flex down and take different approaches, but very much about putting those people at the heart. It's not a consultant coming in to say this is how you should be doing it's more about allowing them to discover this is the different way you can do it. And we don't all have to have the same I keep using magnets, but magnets or food and what are the opportunities to support local, to create different things to be sustainable in terms of packaging and environmental impact? So, yeah, really exciting. But it's about putting those people at the heart of it all, I think.Kelly Molson: Because we talk quite a lot, don't we? About having things that are niche, like products and things on your shelves that you can only get at that attraction.  Not just the blanket. Everybody's got these things. It's just another thing with the logo on it. And I think there's also a big part about at the moment especially, where we still don't really know what's coming this year. Attractions, I guess, still pretty nervous. They've had a really rough time the last few years and this year might not be that much better, we don't know. But it's thinking about what more they can do with what they already have. So looking at the products they already have and actually can we improve those rather than something from scratch? What more can we do to make this better? Matthew Henderson: Yeah, definitely. And I think people understandably in the current climate are even more cautious with money. So it's about making sure that it's an experience, that the experience doesn't stop when you get to the gift shop door that carries on. So how can you create product that is reflective of that amazing day they've had that memory and that they can take a piece of it home? And I think that's the challenge and one that is really exciting to work with organisations and attractions to do and not always the most expensive thing to do. I think there's always ways to find smaller suppliers, local suppliers that can offer that bespoke and offering support both ways. Matthew Henderson: So if it's a small producer that works in a certain town, reassuring them that, "look, it is a risk for you, it is an investment for you to partner with an attraction and to do something bespoke but look at the benefits when this happens”. What can we put in place to work both sides? Do we make an agreement that we'll keep stocking it until you've run all those labels out? Because those labels might be a big investment for a small company or a small business. So, yeah, it's adaptable solutions, but making sure experience is key, I think.Kelly Molson: That's really nice as well, isn't it? Because it builds the partnership between local organisations and therefore you're kind of actively both promoting each other. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. And I think especially now, I think there is so many from lockdown. A lot of people change their lives, didn't they? And a lot of people set up as local producers or suppliers. And if they were there before, I think they had a really rough time during that. And that was one of the things with the work at Beamish, was really support and local and it's such an exciting thing to find a coffee supplier or a tea supplier. Not that I'd be sampling either of them.Kelly Molson: Wasted on you. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, a fudge supplier, and bring them into the heart of the thing that often they pay to take their family to. And how can you find opportunities to involve them? So could they go to morning briefings and bring everyone a cup of tea to try it? How do you make sure that the person stands in behind the till has as much passion about that coffee as the person that makes it? And it's by showing them that connection that every time they get an order that there's sort of a celebration in that office. Really, that, "wow, look, we've had another order from this organisation". Our business is strengthening and it goes back to the point where the customer is buying something and you want that person selling it to have as much passion. Matthew Henderson: So a lot around staff ownership, I think, is quite key with it. Kelly Molson: Yeah. I love that idea of celebration, isn't it? That's really important, isn't it, to drive that kind of passion for what you're doing. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, completely. And I think in all of our own businesses, often that's a private thing, isn't it, to celebrate it and while we're chuffed, because you have to kind of look cool and as if you don't really need the work or don't. But actually, it's about sort of really celebrating those moments. And I think through the work that the Museum and Heritage Show do and the Association of Cultural Enterprise, I think it's about celebrating those moments and really enjoying it on a bigger scale. But for those local producers, I love the idea that someone might buy something local and have a feel good moment. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, it's really nice to buy something that's a memory or a part of the attraction, but also that feel good of supporting the attraction, which is often a charity within the cultural heritage sector, but then also supporting local and UK businesses. So, yeah, there's a lot of lovely moments to be had, I thinkKelly Molson: Isn't there? I've got, like, a big grin on my face while we're chatting about now. It's lovely, Matt. And I think, actually, we can't talk about celebrating without discussing your recent award, because you won quite a fantastic award recently, didn't you? Let's talk about it. Let's celebrate it. Matthew Henderson: Thank you. Yeah, it was an amazing thing. So my great friend Matthew Hunt, who was formerly at the Science Museum, nominated me for Rising Star, the Cultural Enterprise Awards. And then I was sort of blown away that he would even consider that and then somehow won that. And literally this isn't something maybe I shouldn't be saying on the podcast, but I was literally talking to the person next to me and didn't hear because I didn't know that ever seen that I would win. So went up and was like, over the moon to win. And to be in that room full of those people years was I remember getting back to the hotel. I just couldn't sleep. Sort of reliving that. But then actually, there'd been a vote for the overall winner during the conference and amazingly won that as well. Matthew Henderson: So, yeah, it was certainly something that it was something that sent to my mom, really, a photograph of those two awards. And then the museum had great success as well, with Best Shop for the market stalls, a lot of market stalls that they did in the museum. And heritage awards and the Pandemic Pivot award. And best products for the cold cream and the chemist shop. So it was lovely as a team, really, at Beamish to celebrate those wins. And Allison, who's the stock manager at Beamish, we had a little shelf for those trophies and it was just in our little stock room. But it's a really special thing for a team that had sort of been brought to the front through lockdown because of the needs. Kelly Molson: I think that's wonderful and it's really good. Like you say, it's really important to celebrate all those little wins and they're big wins and they definitely need to be celebrated. It's been phenomenal talking to you today. Thank you so much for coming on. We always ask our podcast listeners to recommend a book that they love for us, something that might be something that they just enjoy reading to their children. It might be something that's helped shape their career in some way. What have you got for us today? Matthew Henderson: Thank you. So I'm actually, in between leaving Beamish and this new venture, I had four weeks off where I went to the movie theatre to volunteer. So my thing was that I was going to take loads of books and to sort of read. And actually being a walking by lines in the middle of the night and not being able to sleep was a need to do that. And I read a book called A Bit Of A Stretch by Chris Atkins, and it's not a book that would normally jump off the shelf to me, but it's a real story about his time that he spent in Wandsworth Prison after being involved in a tax avoidance scheme. And it's this day by day diary of his time in Wandsworth. And the reason that I picked that is previously, Johnson King hearing outreach, working in prisons.Matthew Henderson: And I think at the moment, everyone's looking at the things that we can see in terms of cuts and the things that need support, but actually, for prison and sort of rehabilitation, it's behind a wall. And we never sort of look at it or think about it because it's not in many of our day to day lives. But that book and that sort of time for the work that I did in there really brought those people and those people that work there to the front. So I would recommend that I feel like every person in the country should have a copy of that book and it's just the most emotive funny book that I've ever read. So, yeah, I would definitely recommend it. Matthew Henderson: You could keep out the lions roaring over the top of it, but certainly I would recommend to anybody to read that. Kelly Molson: Brilliant. That great recommendation. Never been recommended before either, so this is a new one for us. Well, listen, if you want to win a copy of that book, as ever, if you go over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want Matthew's book, then you'll be in with the chance of winning it. It's been brilliant to have you on, Matthew. I'm so glad that everybody recommended you to come on. I'm so glad that I took their advice. Your new venture is called Creative Ideas and Solutions. Your website address is your name, right? Matthew Henderson: It is, yes. It's MatthewHenderson.net. Kelly Molson: There we go. We're going to put all of that in the show notes, so if you do fancy a chat with Matt, you'll be able to find him there. Matt, keep being you, because, honestly, this has been such a delight to talk to you. I've loved every single minute of it. I hope Bug is well and continues to be your best bud. Matthew Henderson: Thanks so much for the invitation here. It's a real honour. So thank you for that. Kelly Molson: It's been great. And maybe you'll come on again. Maybe come on again next year and you can tell us how things have been going. Matthew Henderson: Yeah, that'd be amazing. Yeah, I'll bring Bug with me. Kelly Molson: That's what I was hoping for. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

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: https://www.english-heritage.org.uk/https://culturalenterprises.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/kingston-myles-080088118/ Kingston Myles is Head of Commercial Development at English Heritage. He describes his role as “seeking out and executing opportunities to generate new income for the charity and improve on processes to reduce expenditure”. Kingston is responsible for a number of growing and emerging businesses that intersect the Charity and its assets (sites, collections and brand) with commercial businesses (Venue Hire, Licensing, Holidays and Compliance). Kingston has a varied background and prior to joining the heritage sector in 2017 worked in numerous venues and across several high profile events including Glastonbury Festival. Kingston has a passion for both sustainability and equality, he describes this passion as being a positive culture amplifier. He plays an active part of driving change from within – currently sitting on the Organisations EDI Steering Group and is the founding member and chairperson of English Heritage's BAME Staff & Volunteer Network. Kingston is driven by wanting to see more senior leaders that are representative of society across the arts, heritage and cultural sector. Kingston is also a Trustee for the Association of Cultural Enterprises – a sector supporting organisation focused on the advancement of commerce in the cultural sector. Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world.  In today's episode, I speak with Kingston Myles, Head of Commercial Development at English Heritage. Kingston shares his insight into where the biggest opportunities lie for diversifying income streams and his top three tips on how attractions of any size can utilise these strategies. If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on itunes, Spotify and all the usual channels by searching to Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Kingston, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast today. I'm very excited to have you here. Kingston Myles: More than welcome. Kelly Molson: Hopefully you'll feel as excited after I've asked you the icebreaker question. Who knows. But let's go. Right, this is quite topical for today, so I want to know, what are you most likely to buy when you exit through the gift shop. Kingston Myles: Me personally, probably a bottle of gin or alcohol. That's probably my go to when I leave through the gift shop. Kelly Molson: Good choice. A gin man. A man of my dreams. Not going to lie. Okay. All right, well, this is another one that leads on from that, actually. Do you have or have you ever had a collection of anything? Kingston Myles: Yes, when I was growing up, I had a collection of the James Bond videos and used to put them all together on the shelf and they used to paint a picture and that one was missing. My nan used to buy them for me when I was a kid and, like, only one of them was missing right up until videos kind of got killed by DVD and DVDs got killed by Netflix. So, yeah, I guess that was probably the one thing I can remember having, like, a proper collection of. Kelly Molson: Did you ever get the missing one? Kingston Myles: No, it was like number 13, I think, from memory. Not that it's bugged me for all these years. Kelly Molson: Look, someone listening to this is going to send you that now. They're going to hunt it down on ebay and be like, “Look what I found you”. Kingston Myles: And I'll be in the loft digging out the videos and then trying to find a video player. Kelly Molson: Have you still got them? Kingston Myles: I think they're still at my parents house and they're lost. Yeah, we don't throw stuff away easily. Kelly Molson: No, we're hoarders as well. It's really sad, though, isn't it. Because my mum did this when I was younger with Disney videos. So every new Disney film that came out on video, she bought, and I think she was thinking, “Oh, this is lovely. You know, one day I'll have grandchildren as well and they can watch them”. Kingston Myles: Yeah. And then streaming came along and now we've kind of just got everything at the click of a button. Kelly Molson: Disney+ mum, taken over. Right, good. I like this. Okay, last ice breaker question. What's the best attraction event that you've ever experienced? Kingston Myles: I went to the Ally Pally fireworks last year, which is the big fireworks show for London. And I'm not a Londoner, so you've got to imagine, first of all, I was in South London and I told friends I'll pop up and see them. There's no popping from South London to Ally Pally, as I found out the hard way. But I've just never seen a pop up one night fireworks show on the scale of that with like, the infrastructure and all the different bits that kind of make it what it was. I really underestimated it. I thought, I will turn up, there'll be like, a few burger vans and like, a bit of music and a bar. No, it's this just incredible pop up experience that takes over Ally Pally. Kingston Myles: So that was probably the one that surprised me most because I went thinking it would be like every other sort of local firework display and it was huge. Kelly Molson: Everybody rates this. I've never been to this. I can remember years ago, ice skating at Ally Pally, and I used to have to get three buses to get to Ally Pally to actually do that. But everybody speaks so highly of this fireworks attraction. Fireworks night. Kingston Myles: Never been. It's phenomenal. It's huge and there's literally tens of thousands of people go to see it. So it's definitely worthwhile going to. I think also it's one of those once you've been to it, you want to go and find something else because the magic will probably fade potentially relatively quickly and there's lots of other incredible displays around London, but it's definitely a worthwhile experience. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Good choice. Wasn't expecting that. Okay, right, your unpopular opinion. What have you prepared for us?Kingston Myles: I think my really unpopular opinion is that actually we over-index our focus, especially in the culture and heritage sector, on gift shops, on catering and on membership. And actually the future is way beyond that. So that's probably my unpopular opinion. We over-index on shops and cafes and forget that there are dozens of other ways that you can generate income. Kelly Molson: Oh, I like this. And very topical for the things that we're going to talk about today as well. It's an excellent lead into the conversation. Okay, well, we are going to talk about diversifying income streams today. Your role. When we spoke pre interview, we had a brilliant chat and I just found your role so interesting and so diverse. Can you just share a little bit of what you do with our audience and kind of what your tasks are with achieving?Kingston Myles: Yeah, sure. So my official title is head of commercial development, which is best summarised as being responsible for this kind of incubator of business growth and efficiency. So I'm responsible for four business areas within English Heritage: our brand licensing program, our portfolio of holiday cottages, and our venue hire business. And those are all income generating parts of this sort of incubator and then also responsible for managing a suite of national contracts. So the provision of services to all of our site operations teams and that's really about looking at efficiency opportunities, the chance to rationalise contracts and reduce perhaps the supplier debt that we have in terms of the number of suppliers we're working with so we can get better value for the charity. Kingston Myles: But all of those business areas are kind of unique in that they've got such scope to grow at a point they will eventually have their own, hopefully their own allocated head of department when they sort of graduate my care and then something else will fall into, I'm sure, my sort of pool. Kelly Molson: It feels quite entrepreneurial, your role, is it quite a unique role for English Heritage or is this something that you've kind of defined for yourself within the organisation?Kingston Myles: Yes, I'm the first head of commercial development. The role was created back in 2020 with an initial focus on looking at brand licensing and contracts and compliance and then there was sort of an opportunity to pull the holiday cottage piece in as well. And then various sort of personnel and structure changes meant that I inherited the venue hire business, which is exciting because it's kind of the closest thing to sort of my previous job roles, sort of pre culture and heritage, but yeah, it's definitely unique in a sense of various business areas rather than sort of one specific focus, that traditional focus of having either like ahead of retail or ahead of catering, which we do have all head food and beverage, but within the cultural sector, sort of heads of business development, heads of business innovation, change, transformation. Kingston Myles: I mean, they all sound very buzzworthy, but there are definitely more and more roles emerging as institutions say, well, actually, how do we diversify our income streams. Strike up more partnerships. We kind of need somebody who is almost like a paid entrepreneur and I'm so privileged in that. That kind of really is my job. I'm paid to be entrepreneurial without the risk of having to invest all my own cash and capital into an idea, Kelly Molson: It's the perfect role. Kingston Myles: Yeah, definitely. Especially because when it's successful and when we do great things, they contribute towards this sort of wider charitable purpose. So you get this real benefit of creating a business, but that business has this incredible sort of halo effect of doing good because we all work for a charity. Kelly Molson: Yeah. So it's the warm and fuzzy feeling as well. You mentioned just briefly there that your roles previously outside of the sector, what were those roles and how have they helped you with this role? That's quite an interesting thing to understand. Kingston Myles: So I used to work in bars and nightclubs, hospitality and events, sort of a real event and hospitality sort of butterfly as that industry kind of is. You kind of chase progression, opportunities, new openings, there's always something sort of shiny and new moving in the hospitality space and managers move around a lot. But I think the transferable skills from that, it's everything from just general business operations and financial acumen which especially if you're in an independent operator, you're really close to both the PNL but also the balance sheet and cash flow. And then also kind of innovation and that entrepreneurial spirit that sort of need to be able to grow a business, whether that's more people through a door, a higher transaction value or a more efficient control of your suppliers and contractors, kind of it's all transferable into the sector. Kingston Myles: And there's this kind of really interesting change in the sector at the moment in that more and more people are transitioning into the sector. Rather than kind of perhaps growing through the sector, it's becoming more attractive as a sector to work in, which is exciting because it used to really be a case of sort of join and you had to work your way up, whereas actually the sector is recognising those transferable skills, add value, especially in this current climate. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I like that take on it, actually, because we have a lot of guests that come on that work within the attraction sector that would start at quite a low level entry point and then work their way up. You're probably the first guest that's come in from a completely different perspective. It hasn't been your beer or endo. You haven't had this huge desire to work in it from the minute that you came out of school. You've transitioned from something that's completely different but really transferable. So I'm excited to hear where today takes us. All right, well, let's start. What I'd like to understand is how attractions start that process of diversifying its income streams. You talked a little bit at the beginning about we're quite tied to admission fees and membership and retail. How do they start to look beyond that?Kingston Myles: Yeah, I think part of it is taking stock of what you have. If you've got big open green spaces, then great. You could focus on large third party events, working with production companies and clients and promoters. If you've got this really interesting design Led collection, or if you've got a really interesting story to tell, then perhaps it's more around sort of brand licensing and leveraging the intellectual property. So I guess step one is asking, what do I have beyond my shop, beyond my Cafe, beyond admissions. What product could I create? Kingston Myles: And what product is going to be the easiest to create is probably the best place to start because I speak to a lot of colleagues within the sector or a lot of sort of commercial managers within heritage and culture institutions that are like, right, well, we want to do everything that your job does. And I'm like, well, you don't have a portfolio of properties that could be transformed into high quality lets or accommodation. Never going to have a holiday business. So don't try and squeeze glamping into this really small corner of your estate. Focus on something else. So, yeah, I guess it's taking stock is key. Kelly Molson: That's really good advice, isn't it. And I guess it's looking at what you already have and making the most of it, which is a message that is quite key at the moment, where we're seeing budgets being marketing departments all over. You don't have to necessarily start from scratch. It's just about making the most of what you already have and developing that into something that you've already got quite a captive audience for. Kingston Myles: Yes, definitely, 100%. Kelly Molson: Great. Okay, so what are the areas that look quite exciting at the moment. If we're an attraction. Where can you see some of the biggest opportunities?Kingston Myles: Yeah, I mean, so filming location hire. We've seen this huge boom in domestic filming location hire. Domestic film shoots, domestic productions, regional screen tourism offices are popping up. There are some incredible partners within the film sector. Film London, Creative England, Screen Yorkshire, sort of all these bodies that really drive trying to connect people with great spaces to production companies that want to film domestically. And I think as we see the kind of challenges of the cost of global travel and the strength of the pound in the sort of wider economic world, although I'm not an economist, sort of change, there's a real opportunity to capitalise on productions that say, actually, we can unit base. We can produce here, we can shoot here. We can shoot on location. We've got this tiny little island, the UK. Kingston Myles: And I predominantly focus, obviously, on England because of my role, but we've got this tiny little island. But there's so much in it, so much to see, so much diversity. So I definitely think there's an opportunity to unlock more spaces for filming a location hire, for sure. Kelly Molson: Yeah, that's a great one. I guess that's relevant. If you have a stately home, for example, it's a perfect opportunity. But it kind of doesn't matter what your attraction is, right. Because we've seen TV shows be filmed at places like Bembom. I call it Bembom Brothers. But Dreamland in Margate. We've just seen a film that's been released very recently that's been shot as part of that. And I guess so there's opportunities regardless of what the size of your attraction is and what it actually is as well. Kingston Myles: Completely. And I think it's about for each attraction, they'll have unique challenges. If you're a high footfall visitor attraction, sort of a theme park, for example, then yeah, you're going to have the conflicting challenge of foregoing admissions revenue to potentially reduce your operating capacity to shoot a film. If you're the custodian of a collection of national significance or an indemnified collection of art, then you're going to have all of the unique challenges of working in a space with all of the environmental controls required to protect pieces of artwork and historic collections. And if you're an independent stately home, you're potentially going to have the challenges of the knowledge base required to execute a filming location hire, sort of safely, efficiently. So I think each part of the attraction sector is sort of a whole when you sort of that really broad spectrum of attractions. Kingston Myles: Each will have their own unique challenges. There's a real benefit in networking and learning and working with those within sort of business specific areas that already do it and do it well. So, yeah, hopefully that helps. Kelly Molson: Definitely helps. We'll talk a little bit about sector collaboration later as well. So I've got a few questions around that. What does English heritage do. Can you share some of the examples of the diversity that you've been able to develop within the organisation?Kingston Myles: Yeah, so staying on the subject of filming location higher, as an example of an income stream that isn't purely based on what people might perceive, which is we've got historic properties, so they must just do period dramas. Actually, we make our properties available for blockbuster films. Obviously, I can't disclose what those are, but there are some that are in post production, which I'm really excited to see how they bring our properties to life in these really incredibly creative and thought through worlds and spaces. But it doesn't just have to be big major film shoots. We work with fashion houses, brands and editorial magazines to provide spaces for photo shoots. Kingston Myles: And then of course, within that same genre, we work with individuals, couples who might have a real affinity to a property that want to shoot an engagement shoot, or a wedding shoot, or a celebration of life shoot. So there's a real broad spectrum in that you don't have to suddenly close everything and have these massive film crews turn up with all these incredibly ginormous, almost intimidating pieces of equipment. It could just be a really lovely local couple that met at a property that are getting married down the road and on the day of their wedding, what they'd really like to do is jump in their wedding car, pop up, take some photos for a couple of hours and leave again. So it's that real spectrum of like two people in their camera person to two to 500 person strong film crew. Kelly Molson: I love that as well because that it means that regardless, again, of size of attraction, there's still something that you can offer in some way. And I think that's really important to point out is that these strategies, they aren't just for English Heritage is a very large attraction organisation, but it's not just for those. There's plenty that the smaller attractions can take from this as well. What other things does English Heritage do? Because I know that you've got partnerships. I know you mentioned holiday lets.Kingston Myles: Yeah. So we've got an incredible portfolio of holiday lets. So we're really unique in all of our holiday lets are situated within sort of the boundary of our properties and then when the properties close in the evening to guests that are staying overnight, so day guests leave and our overnight guests can sort of explore the exterior spaces and gardens and landscapes overnight. So they're really popular. We're really lucky to welcome sort of just over 1300 holidays a year across our portfolio, which is exciting, and that's an expanding portfolio. So we're imminently about to open a new holiday at the Head Gardeners House at Audley End in Essex, and that's been through a renovation process. So that was sort of bringing the property out back into use. Kingston Myles: And we opened a property at Rest Park, which is not too far from Audley End End in 2021. But it's not just sort of holiday lets and filming. You know, we've got the brand and licensing program. So it's really about rather than sort of doing something at our site, if you kind of, you know, generalise the holiday business and the venue hire and filming business as sort of something that's happening at site, there's an activity at one of our properties. Our branded intellectual property licensing business is all about unlocking the assets that we have in the collection to tell the story of England we're really uniquely placed as English Heritage. Our CEO, Kate May referred to us once as the sort of the Museum of England, which is a really nice way of looking at the stories that we can tell. Kingston Myles: So our brand licensing program will do the things that one would expect. We'll use an incredible archive of wallpapers captured from properties over the years in sort of design led work. But we also try to work with a range of licensing partners or licensees that adopt some of our core values. Are they established English business manufacturing in England with some really incredible conservation and stewardship credentials? Are they celebrating sort of traditional ways of working. Because we're not only this sort of steward of nearly 400 historic monuments and the blue plaque scheme in London, but we're really here trying to preserve the sort of art, the craft, sort of the true vibe of Englishness. So we get this real opportunity to play from sort of design led work right through to sort of culture, craft and Englishness as a brand itself. Kelly Molson: Oh, my goodness. I have so many questions on these, but also a statement. I live like five minutes from Audley End and I had no idea that you were opening the Gardener's Cutters as a holiday let. I actually had no idea that English Heritage had a holiday let side to its organisation. So this was all quite new to me when we first spoke. What I really love about it is it really drives into the message that we're hearing more and more frequently now as we come through into 2023, that people are willing to pay more for something that is a really unique experience. And when you mentioned there about the holiday lets and people can then walk around the gardens at night and get a completely different I just thought, “Oh my goodness, I had no idea that you could actually do that”. Kingston Myles: Of course. So there's like an added reason to go and stay book somewhere. That's beautiful. Obviously it's going to beautiful, it's an English Heritage property, but you have this unique opportunity to explore the place that you're in when nobody else is there at a time that you would never, ever be able to be in it. And I just think that's amazing. Kingston Myles: Yeah, they're phenomenal and we've been really lucky. We've worked really hard tirelessly to drive up the quality of our offer. So we started a refurbishment program of our holiday estate towards the end of 2020, 2021. We're sort of now sort of at phase three of what will probably be five phases of bringing all of those holiday lets up to standard. So at the moment we've got a suite that are being refurbished as we speak. When the Head Gardener's House opens up Audley End, that will be sort of kitted out with I mean, the kitchen is beautiful, but so is the interior. And it's not just a case of, well, actually if we just thrown a load of stuff in there, we work really closely with the business that won the tender for the refurbishment. Kingston Myles: So we're working with John Lewis on that property and we work with their interior designers. We're trying to create and I know we'll touch on it later, but we're trying to create these experiences where actually, if you really enjoy being in one of our holiday cottages, you can go away and you can buy pretty much anything you see inside. And as much as possible, as the licensing program evolves, those products will be English Heritage products. So you'll be sat below a wallpaper that's inspired by a clipping from a collections archive down the road that actually was in a building on. So we have this incredible piece of wallpaper from Great Ormond Street. Kingston Myles: So the same road as the famous hospital that's used on product, and you'll be able to go and buy that, but you also might be able to buy it on a cushion or on home furnishings or on a bed spread, but you get to experience the quality of it first and then you've really got this sort of continued storytelling. Like guests don't just leave because they've checked out, they kind of take a little bit of us with them, which is the aspiration, and I think it's what the Premier ended this years ago. They had this whole campaign where you could buy the hypnos bed that you slept on in a Premier inn. And they were one of the first brands to sort of say, all we are as a Premier inn right. Kingston Myles: But if you had a great night's sleep, have this great night's sleep at home, because you can buy the same bed that we have. So, yeah, it's just kind of trying to perfect that wheel, if you like. Kelly Molson: You described it as experiential shopping, which I think is a great term. And I just love how many facets are waving into this in that you're celebrating artifacts, artwork, craft that has come from, you know, all these incredible places, and you're allowing people to now stay in a beautiful holiday cottage, purchase part of that experience to take home with them. If that's not diversifying countries, I don't know what describes it any better, to be honest. Kingston Myles: Yeah, and I mean, you know, as a charity, we're on this incredible mission to be financially self sufficient. So, you know, we are an independent charity from 2015, so and then this financial year is the last year that we received sort of government tapering relief. So we're really out there to become much loved to connect with our members, our visitors and our audience. And what better way to do that than not only offer them a great day out. Because that's like a core part of what we do. Offer them a great day out that really tells the story of England, offer them this opportunity for a great stay out that tells the story of England, and then an opportunity to sort of take a piece of that. Experience home with them or to go and shop for that experience. Kingston Myles: Because we'll never be able to put a three piece sofa or a kitchen in one of our retail spaces. They're gift shops. They're exit through the gift shops. They're incredibly well run by my colleagues in our retail team. So how can we do that? How can we showcase those other products through our holiday laps, et cetera.Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's brilliant. If I can ask you a little bit about partnerships, I just think that this is so relevant to this part of the conversation. But what I'd love to understand is how you define what a good partnership looks like. How do you choose the products and how do you choose the organisations that you do partners with? Kingston Myles: Yeah, I guess the first thing to say is, and I can touch specifically on products because we have a real robust roadmap for how we choose who we're going to work with when it comes to sort of licensees. And partners to create product with in that aspect, but broader than that sort of partnerships for us. Touch on. Especially for me, on all of our business areas. So we've just closed a 30 night Christmas light trail at Kenwood in northwest London, which we run in partnership with Kilimanjaro Live Christmas at Kenwood. And we are hosting again Gardener's World Autumn Affair, and Audley End in Essex, that will be there for the second year this year. And we run that in partnership with the team behind Autumn Fair. Kingston Myles: I guess I bring those up because it really symbolises how partnerships work best for us, which is that there's an equal contribution where both parties are adding value. It could be really easy to mistake working with a charity or working with an attraction as potentially very one sided. We need, they have, or they have and we need, but actually it's not. We've got this real opportunity to grow combined audiences, add combined and shared value and celebrate sort of everything that stands true in both camps from a value perspective. With products, it's a slightly more robust roadmap because we are manufacturing something, we're creating something that's going to carry our trademark, our logo. So we have five core values that I apply to our licensing business. So we look for products of quality, we look for products which carry hallmarks of authenticity. Kingston Myles: Are they telling a story accurately? Because we are the storytellers of England, it has to be, right. Are they responsibly sourced? Is the organisation a responsible organisation. Is it fun? Because ultimately fun is one of our core values and it can sound really cheesy when you say one of our corporate values is fun with a capital F. But no, we are fun. We're ultimately a day out for lots of people, for nearly sort of pre pandemic, 10 million visitors a year and our 1. 2 million members. And then with products, we look at sort of, is there something imaginative here. Are we doing something different. Are we going to tell a really cool story of England in a way that people might not expect. Kingston Myles: Or is English Heritage as a brand going to appear somewhere that you might not expect but are sort of surprised and delighted by. And you could, I guess, engineer those values back over all the other partnerships that we have as well, because actually they're all of quality, they're all authentic. Everyone that we work with is respectful and responsible and lots of the stuff that we do, especially the events, are really fun and imaginative. So, yeah, I'm going to go away and add that into my own strategy now. Kelly Molson: I'm glad that you've been inspired by this conversation. What I really liked about that is that the way that you describe the products is that they're very unique to your values and very unique to your organisations. And that's what people are looking for, isn't it. They don't just want another cushion with something on it. They don't just want another thing that they can buy. They want something that they can only get when they visit your organisation. They can only get it if they go to Audley End. They can only get it if they go to it wherever else they go to. That's what's really important to people at the moment. That uniqueness completely. Kingston Myles: And I think one of the cool things about our brand licensing program is that we are loosely making products. We make the products available on site as much as we can and off site with retail partners, but you'd never normally expect to walk into. So I walked into Sainsbury. So I used my very first ever job, when I was like 18. I was on like I took a gap year and I guess a big regret. I should have just gone traveling it's in the world, right. But instead I was like, no, I'm going to work, I'm going to save, I'm going to go to university, I'm going to be really responsible. So my first average job was in Sainsbury's, and I went back to that Sainsbury store in Barnwood in Gloucester and I walked into the Beers, Wines and Spirits aisle. Shock. Kingston Myles: People are going to get a real perception of me here and they're hanging there on a Clip strip. I mean, I knew they were going to be there. Their hanging there was this chip shop, Scraps and Fries, a crisp product that we made with our partner, Made for Drink. So, you know, here I am, sort of twelve years on stood, you know, the shop still feels the same. You still recognise some of the colleagues stood in the Beers, Wines and Spirits are looking at this product that is made in partnership, crafted in partnership with Made for Drink. They're carbon neutral when they're produced, they're in recyclable packaging and they celebrate sort of flavors and stories of England through food. And it's an English Heritage product in a Sainsbury. Kingston Myles: It's not necessarily the type of product that people might expect to see our brand on, but actually when they learn about the story and then they learn about the partner that we've partnered with, they're surprised and delighted, and I always like to share. We had several different reach outs from prospective partners to create snacking products, crisps, et cetera. And we chose to go with Dan at Made For Drink because they best matched all of those values. I spoke about sort of quality, authenticity, respect, imagination and fun, rather than perhaps maybe a global snack manufacturer that, yes, we could have made tens of thousands of packs, but it would have been just our logo on just another bag. There wouldn't have been the depth of storytelling. Kingston Myles: And then when you look back to us being that sort of Museum of England with our sort of ambition of telling England's story, you kind of have to really stay true to those values to create a quality product and to create lasting partnerships and relationships. We don't want to feel like we have something. Our logo, they want it, great, have it. And then what do we get beyond that. Very little. Whereas with the partnership with Made For Drink, there's been lots of innovation. We're getting to work with lots of domestic food producers and flavor houses. So it's really exciting and it really kind of embodies everything that partnerships should for an attraction or a cultural organisation. Kelly Molson: A great story. So did you feel secretly pleased when you were stood in that same Sainsburys that you didn't go on that gap year and that you did save up and go to university to do all these wonderful things. Kingston Myles: Yeah, I felt a bit smug because I was like, from the shop floor to the shelf, this guy. So I had a little moment in the aisle and I took a little selfie and did that thing that everyone doesn't post it on LinkedIn, sort of with all of the sort of faux pas of the average LinkedIn post ending on a rhetorical question. But yeah, so it was a little moment of joy as I took it and I went through the self gang check out and bought it. And I was like, yeah, here we go. And I've got the receipt somewhere. It's nostalgic. It was fun. Kelly Molson: That's brilliant. And well deserved as well. Congratulations. Great story. Okay, what I'd love to do, we talked a little bit about how a lot of the strategies that you've worked through are they're not just for huge organisations. There are things that any size attraction can do. How can they utilise these strategies. Is there any way that you could summarise kind of like a top three tips for us. Kingston Myles: Yeah, so I have, like, I'm really a staunch believer in the working methodology, “Know, do and review”. So that'd be my first tip. Right. Know what you can't do. Because all the way back to sort of our first part of the conversation, like, know what you can't do, know what you can do. So take the time to look at, take stock, understand what you have, what you don't have, what you might need to be successful, then get on and do it. Because I'd say all managers at some point have definitely written or all leaders have definitely written a strategy that they've then done absolutely nothing with other than PDF it and shove it in a OneDrive or a folder somewhere. So get on with the doing, which is so important. And that means rolling up sleeves. Kingston Myles: You can't be a bedroom leader. You have to get out. Get out on the ground, stand there and really understand if, “Did I know everything or do I need to know more?”. So you're constantly learning through the due process and then review, right. Like, stop and wrap it up or think about it, perfect it, tweak it, don't let it just roll downhill, out of control. And equally, don't hold it at the top. Sort of afraid to let go, but yeah. So no do and review would be my first tip. My second tip, especially for smaller organisations, so the institution I worked in prior to English Heritage, so I worked for the University of Oxford in two different museums. One very big museum and one very small museum. My second tip really comes from there. Which is one meeting, one topic, one focus. Kingston Myles: When you're in a smaller institution stakeholders often have really wide reaching job remits and they're covering operations, commercial planning, health and safety, finance. You could be talking to the same person for all of those things. So don't sit down with that person and have a million different conversations. Really focus your time and energy one meeting, one topic, one focus. And I still use that to this day. I'm a real believer in like let's just talk about just this and then let's have a separate meeting to talk about something else. And then my final tip would be like the Power of no. I sound like I'm about to release three books, don't I. First book, know, do, review with Kingston. Second book, one meeting, one topic. Kelly Molson: And I would read these books. I would buy these books and read them. Kingston Myles: I'll brand license them and I'll put them in the holiday cottages. But yeah. The power of no. Right. It's okay to say no to things like if in the no process when you're doing all the research and all the groundwork does it not feel right. Do the numbers not stack up. We have human instinct and we've almost been programmed out of that. And there's lots of different analogies people run down and different avenues. Is it because actually we've got this hustle culture and we have to give everything a go. No, you don't have to give everything a go. If your expertise and skills and knowledge are telling you this is not going to work then just say no. And that's sometimes a really difficult decision. Kingston Myles: And I have lots of conversations with people recently I really want to do this but and I'm like if that butlist is factual and it's going to create a great amount of risk and don't do it. So yeah, the Power of no would be my third top tip. Kelly Molson: That is a great top tip for life in general, I think at Kingston. Weirdly. So every year I kind of set a word that I try to use as a guide for my year and this year's is reflect because I'm a bit of a people pleaser. So I say yes to many things and then run out of time and then end up not being able to do those things or just do them as badly. I do them to a level of degree that I could do better. So learning to say no I think is the most powerful tip that you've shared in that process and I'm going. Kingston Myles: To remember that and I've used it and I'm proud of the fact that we've said no to potential partnerships, we've said no to potential events. We've said no to certain activity types at certain types. Because when we take stock of everything we're trying to do there's already so much we say yes to that actually it's okay to say no because we can do really well over here. You know, the sort of the middle area. You know, sometimes the entrepreneurial spirit in you pushes the yes through. But a lot of time that sort of, “hold up, wait a minute”. Actually, no. It is so important and it saved us from going down in so many of my job roles.Kingston Myles: It saved me from going down like the rabbit hole of sort of you convince yourself that then you have to put all your energy and time into something and actually it doesn't yield the result that time could have yielded if you'd have focused somewhere else. Kelly Molson: Yeah, it's really important advice that everybody should listen to. Thank you. Brilliant tips. Thank you for sharing. You just touched on something there that I'd like to talk about because you talked about entrepreneurial spirit and I think there always is that element of wanting to do more and wanting to get stuck into doing the excited things. We talked a little bit about sector support at the beginning and you did mention that this role is quite relatively unique. Where do you go to find your kind of support network for the role that you have. Kingston Myles: So I'm really lucky in that I'm a trustee for the Association of Cultural Enterprises, so I sit on their board of trustees. I'm also a director of the trading company that we have. And the best way to summarise the association is that it's all about advancing commerce and business innovation in the cultural sector. So I appreciate that for sort of the wider attraction sector sort of culture and heritage is a swim lane sort of in the pool that is attractions. But that's incredible because all of the organisations that are members and nearly 400 cultural organisations are members sort of across the country, all of those organisations have got an appetite to do more. Kingston Myles: So you end up finding that actually this commercial manager in this really small museum somewhere has got this really incredible idea and we can help them with that, or I can help them with that, or one of my fellow trustees can help them with that, or this massive organisation wants to turn to a small organisation because they send something incredible. And I always think back to and I referenced the marketing of this, but there was the Museum of English Rural Life had this incredible Twitter explosion with some of their content, and suddenly everyone turned to their monsoor. How do you go viral? How has Murray gone viral? How can we go viral? And I guess the association is the best place to go and find the person likely to behind something commercially innovative. Kingston Myles: If you want to see something incredible that's happened at English Heritage, I mean, I'll shamelessly promote myself, but I'm probably likely to be able to point you in the direction of the commercial leader responsible for that. And everyone's really up for networking there. It's kind of the backbone of how it works is that willingness to share and support one another. And I think the culture and heritage sector within the attraction space is really good at that because we're quite comfortable with the fact that there's enough success there for everyone. I appreciate that. When you've got a competitor potentially down the road and you're a purely commercial attraction that's a little bit of a difficult conversation to have in the first instance. But actually it opens up doors and access to resources and also access to people's mistakes. Right. Kingston Myles: Like, what if people said no to. Or would they have said no to. Now that you can learn from and say no to yourself. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Again, brilliant advice. And it's so good that there are organisations out there that offer this level of support. What we'll do is everything that we've talked about today we'll pop links to in the show notes so you can access information about English Heritage. You can see some of the products and we'll pop the link to the ACE organisation as well. And if that is useful to any of our listeners you'll know where to go and find it. Thank you so much for coming on and sharing. Kingston. This has been a brilliant chat. I'm so grateful for your time, for your insight into this. We always like to ask our guests to share a book that they love at the end of the podcast. So what have you prepared for us today? Kingston Myles: Yeah, so I'm waxed lyrical about this book. It's called First Break All The Rules. It's a gallup study of what successful managers do differently. So First Break All the Rules is probably one of the most powerful leadership books I've read for a couple of reasons. One, it's backed by this phenomenal global study of businesses, their leaders, their people, their results. So there are some great books out there but they're theoretical, they're someone's opinion. This book is etched in statistical facts. So I quite like that. That pleases the inner nerd in me. And secondly, it really does force you to think differently about especially if you're leaders or a leader of a team. Really forces you to think slightly differently about how you can get the best out of your best people, how you can recruit for the best people. Kingston Myles: And at first read, it can read quite controversially because what's called First Break All the Rules so you would expect it but it can read quite controversially. It will force you to really think about Do Leaders Play Favorites. Is a really great chapter in that book and the difference between skills, knowledge and talent and coming to terms with the fact that you can teach people skills and knowledge but their talent, their behaviours. You can do your best to bring out what somebody has but you can never add to that in the book. So I would definitely recommend especially leaders of teams and leaders of leaders to read that book or listen to them. Kelly Molson: Great book choice. So that has not come up on the podcast in, what, 60 odd episodes. So that is a really good one to go on the list. And as ever, listeners, if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with the words I want Kingston's book, you'll be in with the chance of winning a copy as well. Amazing. Thank you so much again for coming on. It's been a really interesting chat. I am sure that at some point we'll get to meet each other at Audley End maybe as well. One of the next events that you're running there.Kingston Myles:  100%. We should do like an ad hoc episode live from  Audley End. Kelly Molson: Okay. Let's talk about how we can make that happen. Excellent. Thanks again. Kingston Myles: You're welcome.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

During the epidemic, many small companies took the initiative to reduce their office space in order to keep their operations going and prevent a break in their capital chain. In order to help small and micro cultural enterprises to tide over the difficult times, Beijing has introduced a number of policies.Join other motivated learners on your Chinese learning journey with maayot. Receive a daily Chinese reading in Mandarin Chinese in your inbox. Full text in Chinese, daily quiz to test your understanding, one-click dictionary, new words, etc.Got a question or comment? Reach out to us at contact[at]maayot.com

So often we associate science and technology as something we design today, that creates the future we hope to exist in tomorrow. We automatically envision lab coats, and microscopes, or the Elon Musk's of the world in factories controlled by robots with the common narrative being that we must invent, innovate and iterate to land on the solutions we need to create a better world.On the flip side, we see cultural art, music and creative expression as something that holds the ropes of history, rather than the threads of the future. We see images of indigenous paintings, we buy boomerangs in our tourist shops, and occasionally hear the rumble of the didgeridoo at an event. We celebrate culture, but maybe not venerate it as a vital part of moulding our collective future.What if our ancient cultures and first nations people all over the world had key insights into science, technology and harnessing creativity to build a better future before we were even thinking about it? As leaders, entrepreneurs and business owners if we considered these cultures, as our business consultants how would we build, design and deploy our offerings in a different way?Today's guest is Luke Briscoe. He is CEO of Indigi Lab and a proud Kuku-Yalanji man from Daintree in Far Northern Australia. For the past twenty years, he has been leading cultural change and organisational transformation across numerous sectors. His vision for a sustainable world is one that places First Nations Science and Innovation at the forefront of providing positive solutions to the vast Environmental, Cultural, and Social issues facing Humanity.Indigi Lab supports research enabling communities to develop cultural enterprises and provides science and cultural consultancy around sustainable solutions, especially around the SDGs. The Indigi Lab framework and principles into researching and project planning is guided by the United Nation Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and The Seventh Generation Principle, and support real sustainable approaches to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander advancement in sciences and technology.In addition to his work in the science and technology space, Luke is also the co-founder of Earth Kin which he has started with his daughter Phoenix. ​​EARTHKIN is an initiative started by the KIN global music collective and the brains trust of INDIGI LAB with the aim of ensuring First Nations Youth artists, fashion designers, startups and the broader community have access and tools to create their own fashion labels.Get ready for a journey through indigenous culture, the importance of indigenous thinking and perspective in business, science, technology, art and social change. Welcome to the DNA Of Purpose Podcast.

In this open, honest, and passionate episode, Caroline Brown, Head of Commercial Services at the British Library, and Chair of the Association for Cultural Enterprises, tells us how growing up in a small, working class Welsh village helped shape her entire career...

The Cultural Enterprises Podcast returns for series two – with a new presenter and a new format! Each episode Gabriela Gandolfini will chat to a top sector leader to find out how they got to where they are, what inspires them, and what advice they have for the next generation of leaders? First up we have Julie Molloy, Managing Director of the National Gallery Company and Trustee of the Association for Cultural Enterprises. Julie tells us how, via C&A, Windsor Castle, and the Royal Academy, she got one of the most prestigious positions in cultural enterprises – and how she stays motivated after two decades in the role.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his first Slade Lecture on Drawing in Italy before 1500. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his second Slade Lecture on Michelangelo’s drawings for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his fifth Slade Lecture on Parmigianino’s drawings for the Madonna of the Long Neck. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

art, drawing, painting, visual arts, italy David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his third Slade Lecture on Raphael’s drawings for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his second Slade Lecture on Michelangelo’s drawings for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his first Slade Lecture on Drawing in Italy before 1500. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his second Slade Lecture on Michelangelo's drawings for the Sistine Chapel Ceiling. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his third Slade Lecture on Raphael's drawings for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

art, drawing, painting, visual arts, italy David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his fifth Slade Lecture on Parmigianino's drawings for the Madonna of the Long Neck. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his seventh Slade Lecture on Barocci's drawings for the Madonna del Popolo. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his first Slade Lecture on Drawing in Italy before 1500. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby’s and Christie’s, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his third Slade Lecture on Raphael’s drawings for the Stanza della Segnatura in the Vatican Palace. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

art, drawing, painting, visual arts, italy David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his fifth Slade Lecture on Parmigianino’s drawings for the Madonna of the Long Neck. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his seventh Slade Lecture on Barocci’s drawings for the Madonna del Popolo. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Professor David Ekserdjian gives his seventh Slade Lecture on Barocci’s drawings for the Madonna del Popolo. David Ekserdjian is the Slade Professor 2017-18 and he presented a series of lectures titled 'From Drawing to Painting in the Italian Renaissance'. David Ekserdjian is a world-renowned authority on Italian Renaissance painting, with particular specialities in the artists Correggio and Parmigianino, the subjects of two Yale monographs of 1998 and 2006. He is also an expert on the history of collecting and this informs his work as an adviser to auction houses like Sotheby's and Christie's, international museums and galleries such as the National Gallery and Tate Britain, as well as private collectors. Bronze sculpture is another of his areas of expertise and it formed the topic of the most recent of the many exhibitions that he has conceived and curated. 'Bronze' at the Royal Academy (co-curated with Cecilia Treves) drew international acclaim and almost a quarter of a million visitors. His book of the exhibition was described by the Wall Street Journal as "the most beautiful book published anywhere in the world this year", and went on to win the Association for Cultural Enterprises award for best new publication.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of December 2014 and January 2015. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry and offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of October and November. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry and offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World, Electronic and Experimental Music.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of August and September, a particularly busy period as far as international tours are concerned. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry and offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of June and July. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry and offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of April and May. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry and offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of February and March. Catalan Music offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres produced in Catalonia, ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of December 2013 and January 2014. Catalan Music offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres produced in Catalonia, ranging from Pop, Jazz and Fusion to World and Electronic Music. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry.

Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of October and November. Catalan Music offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres produced in Catalonia, ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to World and Electronic Music. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry.

CATALAN MUSIC AUGUST-SEPTEMBER 2013 Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of August and September. Catalan Music offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres produced in Catalonia, ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to Electronic Music. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry.

CATALAN MUSIC JUNE-JULY 2013 Hello and welcome to a new edition of Catalan Music’s bimonthly podcast in which we’ll be covering all the international activities involving Catalan artists in the months of June and July. Catalan Music offers you all the latest news and events on a happening Catalan music scene, covering a wide range of musical genres produced in Catalonia, ranging from Pop, Jazz, Fusion and Folk to Electronic Music. Catalan Music is the brand name specially created by the ICEC (The Catalan Institute of Cultural Enterprises) for Catalonia’s music industry.