Podcasts about london international festival

Ron Ramin was born and raised in New York City. He earned his undergraduate degree at Princeton University, where he majored in music and studied privately with composer Milton Babbitt. Upon graduation, he moved to Los Angeles where he composed music for 20 Primetime television series and 30 movies/telefilms. Ron is the recipient of a CableACE Award, a Primetime EMMY nomination, and TV/Film Awards from BMI and ASCAP. In recent years he has shifted his focus to composing for the concert hall. This includes "Golden State of Mind," a symphonic suite depicting the beauty & drama of the California landscape and its cultural diversity. “Greetings!" was given its world premiere performance in 2016 by the Marin Symphony, conducted by Music Director Alasdair Neale. His latest work, SEVENTEEN, is a narrative work for orchestra and six on-stage Gen Z narrators. Days after the 2018 mass school shooting in Parkland, Florida, librettist Portia Kamons and Ron began to work on an artistic response to the relentless plague of gun violence in American schools and communities. Their attention soon focused on the rising generation of young people channeling their grief and anger into deliberate and effective action. They were bringing extraordinary commitment, determination, and energy to multiple challenges of their time. Ron & Portia were also determined to bring classical music audiences together with young people for an orchestral performance and thoughtful discussion. From the beginning they committed to employ verbatim text from the young Americans themselves. SEVENTEEN is their story, told in their own words. The Orlando Philharmonic commissioned it and gave the premiere performance Nov 8, 2024. Eric Jacobsen, their innovative music director, conducted the performance and Jamie Bernstein directed the six young on-stage narrators. The orchestra, to its credit, made this a free community event that included a thoughtful discussion and Q&A following the performance. A former Board member of the Society of Composers and Lyricists, Ron currently resides in Northern California and New York City.   Portia Kamons is a producer and librettist working with newly commissioned pieces in theatre, live events, music and feature film. With composer Ron Ramin, she is the co-creator and librettist for SEVENTEEN, a narrative work for Orchestra that received its world premiere by the Orlando Philharmonic on 8 November 2024. She was the Executive Producer for Virtua Creative on the US WW1 Centennial Commemoration narrated by Kevin Costner, as well as Exec Producer for "Visions of Peace" a special project for the WW1 Centennial with President Jimmy Carter. Portia was the lead producer of Tennyson Bardwell's feature film DORIAN BLUES which won 14 awards at festivals worldwide. She was a founding member and the first General Manager of Primary Stages Theatre in New York City, and a Producer for the NextWave Festival at the Brooklyn Academy of Music. For many years she worked for as a producer with En Garde Arts in New York City, and the London International Festival of Theatre in the UK where she lives. She is a regular consultant to Danish web-based documentary platform, OTHER STORY.     website: www.seventeeninamerica.com Instagram: @seventeen_in_america  Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61561439852395 email: hello@seventeeninamerica.com Make sure you SUBSCRIBE to Crushing Classical, and maybe even leave a nice review!  Thanks for joining me on Crushing Classical!  Theme music by DreamVance. You can join my email list HERE, so you never miss an episode! I help people to lean into their creative careers and start or grow their income streams. You can read more or hop onto a short discovery call from my website.   I'm your host, Jennet Ingle. I love you all. Stay safe out there!  

Craig has worked in the arts in the United Kingdom, Australia and now, the United States. Hiscurrent role is in Cleveland, Ohio as the President & CEO of Playhouse Square, a uniquecollection of 12 venues presenting an impressive season of performances and concerts as wellas hosting eight resident companies.Craig was previously in London as CEO of the Royal Albert Hall, one of the world's most wellknown and busiest performance venues.Prior to this, he was CEO of Opera Australia, the country's largest performing arts organization.Craig also worked in London for nine years as CEO of English National Ballet; COO ofRaymond Gubbay Ltd, a commercial promoter of classical music; and also consulted to theLondon 2012 Olympic Games on cultural presentations.Before leaving Australia, Craig was Deputy General Manager of Sydney Theatre Company, andworked with the Sydney 2000 Olympic Games as General Manager of Image, Special Eventsand Olympic Arts Festivals - a role that involved the development and delivery of acomprehensive, substantial, and successful four-year cultural program.Craig has served on the boards of LIFT - the London International Festival of Theatre; TheExhibition Road Cultural Group and English National Ballet School. He is currently on the boardof d&b audiotechnik, a leading manufacturer of speakers for the entertainment industry; C4RD –Centre for Recent Drawing, London; and the University of London. In 2015,Craig was awarded an AM (Australia Medal) for services to the performing arts in Australia and is now a Global Ambassador for Advance Australia.

Hannah French presents the first of two programmes of highlights from the 2023 London International Festival of Early Music, including performances from harpsichordist Jane Chapman, recorder player Erik Bosgraaf, the Wroclaw Baroque Orchestra and Ensemble Pampinea.

Hannah French presents the second of two programmes of highlights from the 2023 London International Festival of Early Music, today focusing on their support of young, up-and-coming artists. The OAE Experience Ensemble offers students the chance to play alongside seasoned professionals, and you can hear them playing music by Haydn and Mozart, as well as students from Chethams School of Music in Manchester, and London's Guildhall School of Music & Drama and the Junior Royal Academy, performing music by Telemann, Purcell and van Eyck.

This episode, hosted by Dr Ellie Woodacre, features another roundtable with members of the Henry on Tour project team--we discuss the progresses of Henry VIII and the big themes of the project including kingship & queenship, logistics, legacy and performance.About the project: This exciting three-year venture brings together a cross-disciplinary team of scholars and technical specialists from both the academic and heritage sectors to explore, evaluate and reconceptualise Henry VIII's progresses. Led by Historic Royal Palaces in collaboration with the Universities of York and Newcastle, the main research focus will be on the logistics of Henry's journeys around his realm and their performance as a spectacle, their significance in demonstrating kingship and queenship, and their legacy for the study and interpretation of the Tudors in schools and at heritage sites. The project will map Henry VIII's complete itinerary for the first time and the associated landscapes, the routes taken, the venues visited and the palaces, country houses and ecclesiastical institutions that accommodated the royal household. Henry VIII on Tour will thus be presenting new stories, posing and answering innovative research questions, and hopefully inspiring greater curiosity about local places and heritage sites. As well as contributing to our understanding of Henry VIII, his wives and court and the relationship with his people in historical terms, the project will be reflecting on what monarchy and visibility means to us in the 21st century.Check out their upcoming project events HERE.Guest Bios:Anthony Musson Project lead / Theme lead: logisticsHistoric Royal PalacesProfessor Anthony Musson joined Historic Royal Palaces in 2018 to lead and foster a distinctive vision for the charity's research into historic palaces, diverse communities, landscapes and collections. He is editor with JPD Cooper of Royal Journeys in Early Modern Europe (Routledge, 2022).Kate Giles Theme lead: legacyUniversity of YorkKate is a building historian and archaeologist with a particular interest in the study of late medieval and early modern communal and public buildings. As Co-Director of the Centre for the Study of Christianity & Culture, Kate works with national, regional and local organisations to find creative ways of sustaining and sharing their heritage with others.Kirsty Wright Post-Doctoral Research AssistantHistoric Royal PalacesMy research focuses on early modern architecture, politics and government. I completed my PhD at the University of York on the Exchequer of Receipt in the Palace of Westminster, which explored the relationship between institutional development and the architecture of the palace. Toby WardEnsemble Pro VictoriaFounded at Cambridge in 2015, EPV is a pioneer in combining high-level performance with the latest research. Under their director Toby Ward, EPV won joint-first prize at the London International Festival of Early Music Young Ensemble Competition (2020).  Their Gramophone award-nominated debut recording, Robert Fayrfax: Music for Tudor Kings and Queens, was released by Delphian in 2021. Their second album, Tudor Music Afterlives (Delphian, 2022) includes new polyphonic reconstructions. 

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 on 20th December 2023. The winner will be contacted via Twitter.Show references: https://vacevents.com/THURSDAY 5TH OCTOBER – QEII CONFERENCE CENTRE, WESTMINSTERhttps://vacevents.com/committee/ Bernard Donoghue OBECEO & Director, ALVA, the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions, Mayor of London's Culture Ambassador. Co-Chair, London Tourism Recovery Board.https://www.alva.org.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-obe-0aa9b97/ Bernard has been the Director of ALVA, the UK's Association for Leading Visitor Attractions, since 2011 following a career in advocacy, communications, and lobbying, latterly at a senior level in the tourism and heritage sector. In  2017, the Mayor of London, Sadiq Khan, appointed Bernard to be the Mayor's Ambassador for Cultural Tourism and a member of the Mayor's Cultural Leadership Board. Bernard is Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board. He is also Chairman of LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre; Chairman of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world, and also of the People's History Museum, the Museum of Democracy.  He has been a member of the UK Government's Tourism Industry Council since 2016.  Bernard was named by Blooloop in 2020 as one of the world's 50 most influential people in museums, and in July 2021 won the public vote for the COVID Special Recognition Award from the UK Museums and Heritage Awards for his service to, and leadership of the museums and heritage sector in the UK during the pandemic. Ken Robinson CBE FTS - Founder of VAChttps://www.linkedin.com/in/ken-robinson-cbe-fts-bb811312/Ken is an independent adviser who speaks and writes on tourism topics.  As a "tourism enthusiast" he aims to be a pragmatic pioneer of new initiatives, strategies and solutions to optimise the economic, cultural and social benefits of tourism.   Ken's Consultancy companies completed over 1500 assignments, mostly in the UK but also several hundred international projects, beginning over 50 years ago, before the days of mass tourism.  He was a founding member of the Tourism Society and supported the formation of the Tourism Alliance, both of which organisations he has served as a board member and Chair, as he has on several other Tourism bodies. Specialising initially in visitor attractions, Ken initiated and subsequently chaired the National Visitor Attractions Conference, VAC, and has been on its Committee ever since.  In addition to many clients in the public, private and third sectors, he has advised the UN's International Trade Centre, on national and regional Tourism strategy development.  His current focus is to move the industry's thinking from marketing to the critical need to manage future tourism for the benefit of host communities, and to optimise tourist's experiences.  Ken was appointed CBE for services to Tourism in 1997, and an Honorary Doctorate in 2014. Paul KellyChief Executive, BALPPA, Chair of VAC https://www.balppa.org/https://www.linkedin.com/in/paul-kelly-2714a922/Having been with BALPPA for 11 years and working with VAC for that amount of time as well, Paul started his career in the attractions sector at Thorpe Park in the 80's and then moved on to the London Eye for its opening around the millennium.  He has  always been involved with visitor attractions.  Several more years working within Merlin followed both in the UK and abroad, mainly on business development.  Being a BALPPA member for 30 years means, being Chair of the organising committee at VAC keeps Paul in touch with all aspects of the attractions industry. Liz Terry MBEManaging Director, Leisure Media Grouphttps://www.linkedin.com/in/elizterry/ Janet Uttley Head of Business Transformation for VisitEnglandhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/janetuttley/  Transcriptions: Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip The Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Season 5 kicks off today with not one, not two, but three excellent guests.On today's episode, I have the pleasure of speaking to Bernard Donoghue, Paul Kelly and Ken Robinson, founders of the Visitor Attractions Conference. You also know Bernard as, Director of ALVA and Paul as CEO of BALPPA.VAC celebrates its 20th anniversary this year and I'm finding out where the idea for the event spanned from, how it's changed and developed over the years. And we take a look ahead to what 2024 has in store for the attraction sector.Unfortunately, fellow Founder; Liz Terry, the Managing Director of Leisure Media Group, and also Janet Uttley, Head of Business Transformation for VisitEngland, were unable to join us on this episode. But stay tuned for lots of insight and to find out how you can get your ticket for the VAC conference this year.Kelly Molson: If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue.Kelly Molson: Bernard, Ken, Paul, it is a treat to have you all on the podcast today. Thank you for joining me. I think this is the first time I've had three guests as well, so this could be interesting. Bernard Donoghue: And three men as well. I mean, it's like a really bad testosterone banana rama, isn't it? Really. Kelly Molson: I'm just a little flower in the middle of you thorns today. Yes, it's a real shame. So, unfortunately, Janet Uttley and Liz Terry couldn't make it along to join us today, which is a shame. But I'm sure that they will get lots of mentions as we talk through some of the things that we're going to chat about today. But first, as ever, I want to start with a little icebreaker. I'm going to ask you all the same thing because I'm intrigued as to whether you ended up doing what you thought you might. So, Ken, I'm going to start with you first. When you were at school, what did you think that you'd grow up and be when you were older? Ken Robinson: I didn't know. Kelly Molson: Had no clue at all? Ken Robinson: No, I didn't have a clue. I was lucky to have a good education. I didn't work at school. And then I got into a job, which was I was very successful at it and it was very boring. So I left. And when I discovered tourism and visitor attractions, it took me over. I didn't decide to do it. It told me that was it. Kelly Molson: Oh, I love it. It's like a calling. Ken Robinson: At the time it was, I was actually sitting in a turret room which had been vacated by Lord Montague. His desk used to face in and I liked that because I didn't have to look at the faces of the visitors going past who might complain, because in those days, buli was very expensive. And then one day I thought to myself, these people are investing their hard earned money and leisure time in making a decision to come here and it's our job to make sure they have a good time. And I turned my desk round and I looked at them all day long and the moment I turned my desk round, everything changed. Kelly Molson: I love that, because you could see the whites of their eyes and how they were engaging with the venue as they turned up. Ken Robinson: Well, it's just such a failure, isn't it? If you've got somebody who makes a choice and spends their time and money, a family decision for many people, and it should be a highlight. And if it isn't, whose fault is it? It's probably the fault of the visitor attraction, given that the person has chosen to go there in not communicating well enough with them about what they've got and what they would find interesting. Kelly Molson: This is such a brilliant story and that wasn't where I was expecting this to go either, Ken. I love it. Paul, what about you, Paul?Paul Kelly: Yeah, I mean, when I was at school, I was interested in sports and that was it, really, and luckily, that dragged me through the various places I went to. But what I was going to end up doing sports. I think once you get into sports quite seriously, you realise fairly quickly that actually you're not going to make it, so you have to find something else. So, laterally, I decided that business was a good idea. So I started doing business studies up in North Wales and for some reason were doing a sandwich course in those days, I think it was called that. One of those, I got placed at Thorpe Park. I don't know why particularly, so there's a group of six of us went down to Thorpe Park to work there and I actually started working on the rides.Paul Kelly: I'm not sure what it had to do with business at the time, but I'm glad somebody thought it did. And I couldn't believe that was a job that you could do, you could be paid for, because I came from the north at that point and there wasn't an awful lot going on in the 80s and actually be paid. Everyone enjoyed themselves, fantastic atmosphere, parties every night. I'm sure it's still like that. And it was just amazing. And from that moment on, regardless of what happened after that, including other colleges, other bits and pieces, effectively, I never left. Kelly Molson: It's always going to be in that sector. Paul Kelly: Yes. Kelly Molson: Excellent. Great. Bernard, same to you. Bernard Donoghue: Well, this may come as a surprise, but my grandfather was in the Irish Guards, my father was in the Grenadier Guards, my brother was in the Royal Marines, and I had a very large collection of action men. I genuinely thought I would probably end up in the army. And actually, I got an offer after university to go into the Household Cavalry. I don't think I've ever told anyone this before. Anyway, it just clearly I didn't pursue the application. It wasn't for me at all. Got really into politics. So I started working in the House of Commons, House of Lords and the Council of Europe in Strasbourg, and then I've just been in sort of lobbying, campaigning, political world ever since. But I still miss the uniforms. Can't deny it. Kelly Molson: I think we'd like to see you in that uniform, Bernard, if I'm not going to lie. So from the lobbying aspect, which is obviously a really big part of the role that you currently have, how did the attractions bit kind of slot into those? Where did the two join up? Bernard Donoghue: It's a really odd coincidence. I was trustee of a charity that Diana, Princess of Wales, was a patron of, and I was working full time for a charity that she was a patron of. So when she divorced Prince of Wales, now the King, she reduced her patronages down from 187 to six. And I happened to be involved with six of them. I went to work for her as a deputy private secretary, press secretary. But of course, the moment she died, which was August 31st, I had no job. Suddenly I was unemployed. And I got contacted by a woman who Ken will certainly know, probably Paul will, too, by Sue Garland, who used to be Deputy Chief Executive of VisitBritain, who'd heard me speak at something and said, "Well, we're just about to create this post of government affairs liaison. Would you be interested to working on the role while working on what you do next?”Bernard Donoghue: And that was in August 1997. And here I am still. Ken Robinson: But also, can I add something to that? Because I was lucky enough to be sitting in the room on many occasions when Bernard would give his briefing at meetings that were held by VisitBritain. And it was always a highlight of the day because Bernard, in those days, never pulled his punches. I'm not saying he does now, but he would just explain to everybody in the room what was going on with all of the political parties, which we never understood, and explain what we ought to be doing in order to best put our case. So it was really no shock when he turned up at ALVA, because I would say this if he wasn't here, he was the star of the show there, and that expertise that he showed has blossomed in the job that he's doing now. Kelly Molson: This is lovely, isn't it? Aren't you all nice? Bernard Donoghue: This is love in.. Kelly Molson: Probably why you all work together, right? You will get on so well. Right, back to you, Ken. Unpopular opinion, please. Ken Robinson: Most visitor attractions do not deliver full value for money to most of their visitors. Kelly Molson: Okay, Paul and Bernard, do you agree with this? Will our listeners agree with this? Is this an unpopular opinion?Paul Kelly: Did you use the word most, Ken? Ken Robinson: I did. Paul Kelly: I'll go for some, not most. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah, I'll go for some as well. One of my favourite programmes is Yes, Minister. And whenever you'd hear something off the wall, bonkers, they would say, that's a very brave opinion, Minister. That's a very brave opinion, Ken.Ken Robinson: Now's not the time to justify it. I'll do that on another occasion. Kelly Molson: Yeah, we will invite you back and we can do that one on one, Ken. Paul, what about you? Unpopular opinion? Paul Kelly: Well, I'm guessing that anybody that's worked in a theme park will probably have the same opinion I have. So I worked at Thorpe Park, which was 450 acres, two thirds of which was water. And at the end of the day, when you were walking out, and in those days, that could be 9, 10 o'clock at night, it was beautiful. On a late summer's evening, calm waters, walking through a park which had just been cleaned and tidied and ready for the next day. It was fantastic. And we all had the same opinion once were down the pub discussing the day. It's just a shame we have to let people into theme parks because it's the absolutely beautiful place without them there. So sometimes people let the parks down. Kelly Molson: That's a good one. That is a good one. Yeah. And you don't want to let them in to see the beautiful bit either, do you? Because then there'd be people there. It wouldn't be serene. Paul Kelly: No, I mean, those evenings, if there was still time, we'd go windsurfing on the lakes, cable water ski around the back. And it was just a shame that all these people came in every day and messed it all up. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Well, I'm pretty sure that most people who've worked in theme parks aren't going to disagree with you on that one, Paul. Good one. Bernard, what about yours? Bernard Donoghue: Even though I chair a theatre and I know how important the revenue is, I'm not a fan of selling drinks and food to people in theatres because they just make a noise. I can't bear it. I mean, it depends. I mean, it depends if it's a panto or something like that. Completely fine. Ken Robinson: Oh, no, it's not. Bernard Donoghue: It kind of allies to what Paul was saying as well, which was I don't know whether it's an unpopular opinion. I think it's probably a popular opinion. But visitor behaviour, whether it's in a theatre, a museum, an art gallery or wherever, has completely deteriorated post lockdown. Some people's behaviour is getting worse and it's very difficult to know what to do about it. Kelly Molson: Yes, agree. I don't think that's going to be very unpopular at all, actually, considering some of the things that we've seen recently. Thank you all for sharing. Okay, let's get back to the serious bit. The Visitor Attractions Conference. It's 20 years old this year. If you are listening and you're not familiar with it, one, why the hell not? And two, you need to grab a ticket today. It's the leading networking and learning event for visitor attractions across the UK. And I first visited in October 2019 and it was the first sector specific conference that I had been to. We'd been working in the sector for probably about three or four years, had never really at that point kind of gone all out on our like, "This is what we're going to niche and this is what we're going to specialise in."Kelly Molson: So I was kind of doing a bit of a fact finding mission really, and I came along and it absolutely blew me away. I think it was one of the friendliest conferences I've ever been to. I think you'd created an environment where everybody was really welcome, no stupid questions. Everyone from speakers to guests where kind of felt like they were all on the same level, really happy to answer questions that you had, really happy to talk to you. And I think that was for me. I came away from that event, I went back to my team and said, "This is where we should be. This is the event for us, this is where we should be attending, these are the people that we should be speaking to." And I've absolutely loved every minute of that. Kelly Molson: I mean, the next one I went to was a virtual one. So it was very different to the 2019 event, but still excellently organised. So firstly, thank you for making that happen. But where did the idea for the VAC come from in the first place? How did this come about? Ken Robinson: So we have to remember that the world was very different over 20 years ago. Really, really very different. Not just a question of internet or pre COVID and all those things and pre Olympics, but just very different. And attractions in those days thought and acted and communicated in their sectoral associations. Historic houses talked to historic houses, curators of museums talked to curators, bishops talked to priests, zoologists talked to botanists, but they didn't talk across the sectors. There were two exceptions to that. One was that in Visit England or English Tourist Board, there'd always been a committee there which was across the sectors, but the other one was ALVA. Now, when ALVA was formed, it was a 1 million visitors plus club for attractions, with 1 million plus visitors a year. Ken Robinson: Subsequently, groups of attractions, particularly English Heritage, National Trust, were involved originally associates, but it was a 1 million plus club and that's only 1% of the attractions in the United Kingdom had over 1 million. And it was very London centric. And ALVA had a five objectives, four of which were about government. And the interesting thing was that I was very good friends all through this time with Lord Lee, who know a very big part of the early success, pre Bernard of ALVA. I said to John Lee, “Look John, could you not change your name to ALVA and be involved with all the visitor attractions because they badly need something which glues everybody together and we need to get across this away from this sectoral stuff.” Ken Robinson: And everybody was talking about historic houses, talk about the house museums, talking about the continents of the museum but they weren't talking about visitors. They weren't talking about how you communicated with the visitors or what they were motivated by or how you could better manage things for visitors, give them better they weren't doing that. So John agreed with this and I've got the original papers here. I looked them out that I was asked first of all by ALVA in December of 2001 to write a paper on the future of ALVA which is headed: ALVA in the Future Representing All Visitor Attractions. Then after that the conversation went on and we realised that if were going to have some kind of overall event we couldn't do it without the National Tourist Board, we couldn't do it without Visit Britain, Visit England. We needed their input.Ken Robinson: We needed them to talk to DCMS and make sure it would happen. And also we wanted to do this not on a commercial basis but being by the industry, for the industry, run by the industry, not for profit. And that was a problem because we wanted to do it in the QE II Centre because we wanted to be in the centre of everything and that was going to cost an extraordinary sum of money and there wasn't that much money that could in that first year come originally from VisitEngland. So the partners in this, the partners being ALVA, BALPPA, Paul's organisation, Leisure Media the wonderful Liz Terry and her magazine which has forever been behind this event for no recompense whatever and myself put up 5000 pounds each security in order that the thing would happen. Ken Robinson: You said, "We'll stand the risk, let's do it.". So in 2004 I wrote the briefing of the first conference and I found from a 2003 the government asked for a list of topics that would be discussed in order they could work out whether or not they might like it and it's still here. What I like about it is it would do quite well for this year's conference. All those topics are still relevant. So that's where it came from. That's where it came from. We wanted it to have at the time the lowest possible attendance fee to get the highest number of people there. We wanted to involve everybody. Ken Robinson: And the cast list for that 2004 event, my goodness me, absolutely fantastic cast list in terms of the people we had for an initial event and you can imagine when it was announced and everybody was behind it ALVA was behind it. BALPPA, I should have mentioned that Colin Dawson, Paul's predecessor was an absolute stalwart of the conference in the early years he stood by know, when times were tough and that's where it came from. Kelly Molson: That is phenomenal. It was really putting your money where your mouth is, isn't it? By all of you actually personally investing in this thing to bring it to life. You don't hear many things happening in that way anymore, do you? It's all about getting investment and asking other people to make the commitment to it and take the risk. Ken Robinson: Well, we have a company now, I should say. We have a company called VAC Events, and we are all equal. The four of us are equal shareholders, that's to say, Bernard and ALVA, BALPPA and Paul, Liz and myself, for no benefit. Martin does it for us, but we are the people that carry the can, if you like, and I don't think we've ever had anything out of it apart from a nice lunch at Christmas, but apart from that, it's a great feeling of doing something. When you say everybody is very friendly and talks to one another. That's why they're all in the same business. Bishop, curator, zoologist person running a heritage railway, they're all in the same business. Kelly Molson: Obviously, the first event was a success. You've been on and you've done many, what, 20, 20 events since that first one. How have you seen it kind of change and develop over the years? So what did that first conference look like compared to what this year's will look like? And how have you kind of evolved it over that time to keep it relevant to your audience? Paul Kelly: Well, I think so. My involvement directly has been the last ten years, so I'm halfway through chairing for this one, but I was actually there at the early ones because I worked at that time. I was working at the London Eye, just across the river, and I was good friends with Colin Dawson at the time. I'd worked with him at Thorpe Park and he for some people, may well remember Colin as entertaining Princess Diana on a log flume in 92, 3 and 4. Paul Kelly: And I was there. It's hard to tell, but I was actually there. I'm not in any of the photos in Paris Match and all of those places. I have a couple of myself here. I didn't get anything signed by Princess Diana and sent over to you know, bitterness takes a while to and I've joked with Colin over this many years. Colin was there, but if you look closely behind the scenes, you'll find I was there too, but so I was great friends with Colin over many years and still am. He was obviously contacting everyone he knew about this conference. He was working for BALPPA at the time. I was working for the Two Swords Group, had the operational contract for the London Eye. Paul Kelly: So I went to the first one and I suppose my impressions of the first one was for somebody who hasn't been there before, the QE II is extremely impressive as a conference center. I don't go to many that look like that around the UK. Most of them normally the ones I go to are in attractions, they're slightly different so it was hugely impressive both on its location and what was across the road and how things went and I was a little bit starstruck I suppose, for the first one. Now I get the opportunity to sit on the stage and look out at everybody and have a slightly different view on it all, but still think it's an extremely impressive environment to do that. Paul Kelly: And I think the biggest change for me, and I think we may cover a little bit later, is how we've broken up the afternoons into separate segments and sections where people can go along to a smaller, informal group discussing a topic that they particularly want. And I think the thing I also like about that is the amount of people who want to go to more than one of them that are on at the same time and are almost complaining there's too many things to go to, which I think is hilarious, which means it's really good. And hopefully that means that next time they'll really think about which one do I want to go to, obviously I want to go to more than one, but I'm going to pick my best one. Paul Kelly: So I think for me, that's probably the biggest change over time. But what doesn't change for me is the team that we have putting these things together, which we're actually relatively slick at. Everyone gets the chance to put their opinions and I'm glad we don't record those meetings and it works out really well. And I think as a team, it's amazing how long we've stuck at it and stuck together. Kelly Molson: I'd love to be on a little fly on the wall for those meetings. Have you ever had a fallout about something? Bernard Donoghue: Yes, we're frequently violent. It's a visitor experience in its own right, I think. Kelly Molson: I'll pay for it. Bernard Donoghue: We reflect the madness that some of our visitors demonstrate on site so in that case I think we're rooted in the industry. The first one that I went to was in 2011, so I just joined ALVA at that point. And the first one I spoke, it was in 2012 and I've been doing the same kind of slot ever since. I do a kind of State of the Nation in the morning because ALVA obviously gets loads of data and information and we publish all of our visitor figures and all the rest of it, and actually we collect and commission much more data now than we ever used to. So I share all of that in the kind of Donoghue half hour copyright. Bernard Donoghue: What's lovely I mean, Paul's absolutely right is that over the last twelve years I think we've seen a real move from people desperately wanting to speak about their successes to being really open about what hasn't worked, which of course is far more interesting and useful. So there's been a really lovely shift from people saying, "No, I don't have to do the propaganda stuff.” Actually, I'm going to tell you what it was like, why it was a disaster and what we learned from it. And that's so useful. So you do get this real honesty coming from the speakers who know that's what they find useful too. So why not share it? I think the other one is I do a presentation about, is there core behaviours of successful visitor attractions regardless of type?Bernard Donoghue: And there are there's about ten of them, but one of them is the ability to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. So the presentations that are most fascinating for me is where a visitor attraction, it doesn't matter whether it's a cathedral or whether it's a museum or gallery or theme park, have teamed up with someone that you wouldn't expect them to team up with to tell the story of their people and places and collections in a new, innovating, exciting way. And those are fascinating, absolutely fascinating. So I love those. There's much more of that. Kelly Molson: Fantastic. Well, on that note, I want to know from each of you who has been the most inspiring speaker that you've had at the conference over the past 20 years. Ken, let us start with you. Who do you think would be on your list for that? Ken Robinson: I had a look through the programs going back to 2004 and came up with the following names which surprised me, actually. I think originally our first most inspiring speaker was Simon Jenkins, the columnist of the Times, who had very strong views, which didn't necessarily agree with what government and others were doing. He did give a very inspiring presentation and then there are some people who perhaps we would expect less. The most single most surprising speaker was somebody called Tristram Mayhew, who titles himself as the Chief Gorilla of Go Ape and in a room full of suits and quite smart dresses and trouser suits, Go Ape shambled onto the stage in a car key shirt and proceeded to explain how he'd done things differently. And frankly, it was riveting. We had a chap called Tony Berry from the National Trust who gave presentations. Ken Robinson: His first one was just stunnning, you know, in the days when HR was less popular, Tony Berry would tell you why you should be interested and he was absolutely amazing. And Sue Wilkinson, incidentally, of the National Trust, who was the person responsible really for dragging the Trust from its sort of old form to its new marketing orientated thinking about its supporters future success? She was terrific. And the other person I would mention another Tony, I don't know whether or Tony's there's Tony Butler from the Museum of East Anglian Life, who again, when Bernard was talking about people talking about doing things differently and it inspires you. Some of those examples are very interesting, but not easy to copy. Ken Robinson: In other attractions, we always look for things that do go across the piece, so anybody can learn from the lessons within the example that we're talking about. And incidentally, we do have arguments in meetings, it's about whether particular speakers and particular topics are the way of doing things. And generally speaking, when we all have a good go at it comes out better than it did when anybody said, “Well, I know what the right answer is. No, you don't. Let's all talk about it. So that works.” So you get these people that actually inspire and they light up the room, not because of clever graphics and not because of a forceful way, but they light up the room because of the originality of their ideas. Now, I'll come to my number one. Ken Robinson: I'm sorry about this, because he's sitting on my screen down there, and that's young Bernard, who since he joined our there you go. That's the top half that works. You should see the bottom half doesn't work. He's just had pins put in it. Kelly Molson: Just for our listeners here, Bernard is given a little muscle strong arm salute on screen here. Ken Robinson: Bernard combines the latest immediate knowledge of talking to people across the industry with an absolutely amazing gift of the gab, with a power of communication. And he's unstoppable. And we wouldn't have stood him for all these years if he wasn't. So of all the years and all the speakers, the consistent best is Bernard. But we have had other people, often surprising, who take know, you don't expect it, you think you're going to listen to ordinary session, all of a sudden it takes fire. Kelly Molson: Bernard, what have you got to say to that? Bernard Donoghue: What I say to Ken is there are packets of cash going from London to the south coast with immediate effect. Delighted. Thank you very much. It's really lovely, actually. I've tried to change things every year to do partly political, but also partly about good practice and who's doing what and who's interesting. I'll tell you what, one of my favourite speakers, and it was in a conversation, one of the things that we've introduced is a sort of conversation with slot, which works really well, actually, because a bit like this, you're off script, you respond to people. Liz chaired a conversation last year, so were in Birmingham last year and it was all about HR issues and of course, it know, coming out of COVID and cost of living crisis and recruitment challenges and all of those kind of stuff. Bernard Donoghue: And Tina Lewis is the director of people at the National Trust. National Trust, getting great repertoire here. She came out with an idea that they're doing at the National Trust and I've implemented it in the three organisations that I chair and it's made the biggest difference. So the National Trust, they will pay the rent deposit for your flat if you need them to. So if you're going through a cost of living crisis and you can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. You can't get up the cash to put down a rent deposit on your flat, they'll do it for you. That was such a transformational thing to hear. You could almost hear the gasp in the room of people going, "Oh, my God. Yeah, if we can, let's do that." Bernard Donoghue: And I've now introduced it. As I say in the organisations that I chair, not many people have taken it up, but the fact that we've said it has made such a difference to people. I mean, as it is at the Trust, actually, there's been a relatively small number of people at the Trust who've taken it up, but the very policy decision, the very communication of it, just spoke volumes about an organisation that cares about its staff, and particularly those staff who are on really limited budgets. So there's been loads and loads of speakers over the course of the last few years, but that for me was a nugget which has changed people's lives and has been implementable. Kelly Molson: I think that's the key to that part, isn't it, is that it's an incredible thing that they've done, but the fact that it can be implemented someone has listened to that talk. They can take that away, take it to their board, take it to whoever needs to okay that, and they can put that into action like that straight away. That's the power of a really good initiative and a good speaker to be able to deliver that as well. Paul, what about you? Please don't say Bernard. I think he's had enough praise today. Bernard Donoghue: No, keep going. Kelly Molson: No. Paul Kelly: You're OK, Bernard? We'll leave that one where it is, shall we? If we can squeeze Bernard into the room next. Right, so one special mention I wanted to give, actually, which is one of the years not too long ago, we invited Simon Calder to speak, the travel journalist, and I have to say I wasn't convinced, because clearly he's not working in one of our attractions and doesn't necessarily know the industry pretty well. But I have to say, he was hugely entertaining, had done his homework, was hugely knowledgeable, and so he was absolutely excellent. But I think the most important thing for me is that he left us and he said to me, “Enjoyed it so much, I'll come back later.” And I said, “Yes, of course you will.”Paul Kelly: So he went away and he came back at the end of the day to talk to all the people that he'd seen early in the day, because he loved the atmosphere and he wasn't required to do that. And he came along. And for that I have to put a special mention in one for myself to actually listen to the others when they say, “This will be good”, and secondly for him, for actually doing a bit and actually coming back later. And he was a fabulous addition and outside of our industry. So my inside the industry one is somebody I ended up working with because I was with the Two Swords group and then they were bought by Merlin with Nick Varney and his Merry Men. Paul Kelly: So Nick and his team had obviously been in the industry a very long time at this point, dipped in and out of theme parks and attractions. But Nick didn't actually do many talks. You wouldn't actually hear him speak about too much. I'd heard him speak over in the IAAPA trade show held in Orlando every November, and he was absolutely brilliant. And then Ken managed to get him to speak at VAC one year. And again, he was absolutely excellent. And this fits in nicely because now that he's retired from Merlin, he's speaking again this year. So I think that will be really interesting because he's absolutely excellent. Ken Robinson: And by the way, guys, just to show you that we know what we're doing here, this is 2004, okay? And it says here the recipe for success. Nick Varney chief executive, will talk about the components for commercial success. And that's before. So we've got him first and look what happened. Kelly Molson: I'm really looking forward to that interview, actually, and I think it would be really interesting to see how he differs now. He's kind of outside of the sector, and I think that the format that you've got him in. So that's the interview with Liz, isn't it? On stage? I think that's going to be a really great format as well. I've seen that work really well in the past where she's interviewed people and it just feels really comfortable and really conversational. I think that brings out the best of people. Bernard Donoghue: Kelly, do you want to know who's been of most variable quality? Kelly Molson: Oh, yes. Bernard Donoghue: Tourism Minister. I mean, without doubt. I mean, we've been going 20 years now, therefore we've had 20 tourism ministers, had one a year, like Christmas cards. And some of them have completely got the industry completely understood. It delivered a barnstorming speech, and then the next year you'll get the annual Tourism Minister pop up and they'll read something flat, banal, uninteresting. And we're so torched by the experience that we don't invite the one next on the year. So we're always banging on about this. Tourism is very good at job creation. In fact, we've created 20 Tourism Minister jobs in years, but they are of variable quality. Ken Robinson: The best we ever had, Bernard, I think, by far, was John Penrose, when he had completed his review of the industry and got very clear views, which he put to government. Unfortunately, government didn't do it, as they usually don't, but he was good and people liked him and gave him a high rating. I think the next best was probably Margaret Hodge, who was very good and spoke from the heart. But as you say, when we look at every year, we look at a rating of every speaker and the meeting after the event, we go through those ratings and decide, those that got good ratings, why did they get it? Was it intrinsic to their character, their nature, their topic? Was there something special? And those who didn't, why was that? Was it our fault? Ken Robinson: Did we not brief them properly? Or was it never going to be any better? Ken Robinson: And that way we managed to manage the conference. So know the attraction sector. We sometimes forget that over half of all visits to visitor attractions in the UK are free of charge. We forget that the majority of visitor attractions are medium and small businesses. We forget that there are charitable and commercial attractions. We must be able to bring this whole sector together and move our thinking forward in the way that Bernard has just explained in terms of what he does with ALVA. And the other thing that Bernard mentioned was ALVA's research now. Ken Robinson: 20 years ago, you had to wait until the annual book came out from Thames Tower and then eventually from the centre of luck look to page 16 and there would be numbers, but very little interpretation of what those numbers meant. Now, Bernard is behind much of the work that is done now with ALVA. But the key to it is it's not just numbers, it's interpretation. And because of the communication skills, when ALVA put out a message, it is interpreted. It says why it was a successful year or what was mitigating against that. And that's so important in trying to move our case forward. Kelly Molson: But it's important in improving the content that you give your audience at the conferences as well, right? If something isn't working and you've got a process of evaluating why that hasn't worked and how you improve on it for the next one. Let's just focus on why should people attend VAC this year? What is in it for them? What's on the agenda? What have they got to look forward to and how can we get them to book a ticket? Bernard Donoghue: I'll happily go first and go quite niche, actually. One of the things that I do now outside of ALVA, or because of ALVA is that I co chair the advisory board for VisitLondon. So essentially chair the London tourist board. And I do that with Kate Nichols of UK hospitality. And we created the London Tourism Recovery Group during COVID So my suggestion would be Sadiq Khan. So we've managed to get the Mayor of London to come along and speak at this anniversary conference. And it's not just because he's the Mayor of London and it's the 20th anniversary, but it's because he's the first ever Mayor of London that hazard one of his four political priorities, culture and tourism. That's number one. Bernard Donoghue: Number two is that he put his money where his mouth was and he funded the Let's Do London Recovery campaign, which was both domestic and international with the industry. We delivered it with London and partners, but he put up the lump sum behind it. And third, he completely gets that tourism and heritage and culture is both where you grow jobs and we're very good at it, but it's also where you grow people. It's where you grow people in terms of their cultural literacy or their sense of community or their independence or their sense of history. And therefore knowing where you come from enables you to be a better future citizen, if you like. Bernard Donoghue: So my quick blast would be we've got him doing a welcome, but also saying why visitor attractions and tourism are so important to him and to the economy and the politics of London. So that's not to be missed. Kelly Molson: That is a big draw. Absolutely a big draw. Paul, you mentioned earlier about the variety in splitting up that second session, that second part of the day with the seminars and the smaller talks that you do as well. That for me, as an attendee, is really valuable because you can kind of pick and choose what's relevant to you and go along and see lots of different talks. What do you think is the draw for people to come to the conference this year for you? Paul Kelly: Well, I was just jotting down, thinking about it's a little bit. An extension of what Ken was talking about is that it's the variety of what we do in one place is greater than anywhere else. And all the conferences I do because of the nature of what we do each end of the spectrum. So we've got talks about people who run charities to people who run hugely commercial operations. We've got people doing talks on which are free to get into those who are quite expensive, but focus on value for money. And you've got those that are indoor, those that are outdoor. When I spent my time business development at Merlin, they were always focused on a balanced portfolio. And a balanced portfolio meant making sure that right across your business, you have every aspect covered. Paul Kelly: So everything balances indoor, outdoor, UK, Europe, USA, whatever it is. And I think with our conference, that's what we try and do, we try and balance all of those types of different types of operations so that everything is covered, not to the point where it's too thin and you don't learn anything. And that's the key to it, is that we go into the depth. And the depth, I think, is greater now because we do those breakout sessions and we've got time to do in fact, we double up for those three different areas just for that afternoon. So I think those are the things, if anyone asks me why they should come, it's about the variety.Kelly Molson: Regardless of size of your attraction as well. And actually, from my perspective as a supplier to the industry, it's just as valuable to come along and learn and understand what's going on in the sector. You don't have to be an attraction to come along and take part and be educated about what's happening in the sector. What about you, Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I think that those of us who have stood on the stage at the QE II Centre and looked at the people who have come can see that there aren't any slumbering faces out there. There are people making notes, people nudging the person next to them, people looking round when we ask a question. We now have a sort of red and green card system for, do you agree? Don't you agree? Which we sometimes use, which is very interesting, engaging the mood of the room. And I think that the thing about VAC is don't be lazy if we're going to come to VAC. Don't be lazy. If you're coming to VAC, l And jot down what questions you might like to ask those people or what you'd like to learn from that session. Write it down, don't think you can remember it at the time. Ken Robinson: Bring it on a note with you when you come and then you will find, and we all know this, that the networking that happens at the end of the day and in the breaks at VAC it's like a family wedding in a way. I mean, everybody wants to talk to everybody else and it's so valuable. I think everybody who goes away from VAC should have a good few things that day, which they say, “I wouldn't have thought of that if I hadn't been there”, or even, “I disagree with that”, but it's made me realise what my true opinion about that is equally valuable. But don't be a lazy attendee. Come and participate, come and enjoy, come and learn, come and take back benefit to everybody that works with you. Kelly Molson: Yeah, I couldn't agree more. I think that thing about not being scared to ask questions is really valid as well, Ken, because this happened to me, actually. I went to one of the seminar sessions, and this is back in 2019 and was really inspired by one of the speakers about it was Julez Osbek, who was at Continuum Attractions at the time, and she talked about marketing segmentation, but had a completely different perspective on it in terms of not doing it demographically, just talking about age brackets and things like that. And it was really interesting. I didn't get a chance to ask a question during the seminar, but I found her afterwards and she was very approachable, very happy to answer my question. And then I stalked her on Twitter and got her to come on to the podcast afterwards to talk about it. Kelly Molson: But that's for me, what VAC is about. It's the openness that people are really willing to share. So don't be afraid to go and find the speaker that you've been inspired by and go and ask them the question afterwards, because everyone's really happy to talk about their topic and they're really happy to help people. That's my little key takeaway from it anyway. Right, so it's going to be on Thursday, the 5th October. This podcast episode is launching on the 20th September, so you haven't got long to go and get your tickets, so make sure you do. It is the 5th October, the QE II Conference Centre in Westminster. The website address is vacevents.com. That's Vacevents.com and you can get your ticket there. All of this information will be in the show notes, so don't worry if you didn't get time to scribble that down. Kelly Molson: While I've got you all, though, because you all are in the sector and you've got lots of insights to share. I want to know from each of you what you think that attractions should be focusing on and what 2024 might look like for the sector. Paul, what about you? Start with you. Paul Kelly: So I've been chatting to some of our operators. We have some very large operators around the UK asking them how it's going? And unsurprisingly, you could have said the same question 20 years ago, what's our biggest challenge? It's the weather. It's not actually the cost of living crisis, it's not COVID you can put plans together for those things and you can work on it, but the weather always is a little bit of a challenge. So this summer inverted commerce has been quite hard to focus on what we can deliver when the days have been half decent. Actually, we've done quite well, we always do relatively well, certainly in our sector, I'm sure the others will agree, in a recession. Paul Kelly: So the key seems to be, and I'm going to put it out, I haven't quite found the right words for it, but I'll develop this once I've spoken to a few more. What every attraction for me has to have is an opportunity for people to downgrade what they did slightly. What they're doing is they're ringing it up and saying, "Can't afford to do this, have you got something that's almost like that?" But whether it's a slightly different experience, less time, one day less so whatever the packages are that people are offering, there has to be one rung lower than it was before to still encourage people to come along because they're not able to reach the same heights at the moment that they did previously. But they still want to have that family experience that day out, create those memories. Paul Kelly: All of those things are still relevant. And if you don't have that opportunity, then they'll either go elsewhere or they won't go. So, again, it's managing. So I'm not talking about huge discounts, I'm talking about being relatively clever in what you package and what you put together to make sure they still attend and they still get what they perceive to be value for money. But unless you have that option then I think they won't come. Kelly Molson: Really great advice, Paul. Thank you. Bernard, what about you? Bernard Donoghue: Like Paul, actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. Actually, especially since Lockdown ended, but actually for about the last five or six years I've noticed a particular thing which is where visitor attractions have got reserves, and that's a big if by the way, particularly in the course of the last couple of years. So it comes back to Paul's point about kind of ensuring yourself against the excesses of the weather and making sure that you're still particularly a family attractive visitor attractions that'd be one. Second is cost of living crisis, certainly for the average customer, but also the energy costs for visitor attractions too. Bernard Donoghue: Just crazy amounts of money that visitor attractions are now paying i If you're a zoo or an aquarium you can't turn down the temperature of your botanics you're a living reef. So we're going to have to find some way out of that. And that means that actually for many organisations it's going to be as financially challenging over the next twelve months as it has been over the last two. And then I think the third, and this is a continual for me and Kelly, you and I have talked about it before, but it forms the last session of the day at the VAC conference which is diversity and inclusivity. And my feeling is that every visitor attraction should be critically honest about who comes, who doesn't, why they don't come and what are you going to do about it?Bernard Donoghue: And in particular those organisations who in receipt are government money or public money or who had COVID loans from the UK taxpayer. If their visitors don't look like the community in which they're housed, they have a moral question at the heart of their business. That's it. If you want to take public money you need to have an audience that looks like the diversity of the public. And that's a challenge. I get that, I completely get that. But I think that making sure that we are as accessible in every conceivable way, economically, physically. Accessible to people and that they see their stories and themselves reflected in their collections and people and staff and volunteers and board members, I think that's the biggest challenge of the sector as it is indeed to many other sectors. Bernard Donoghue: But I think we're doing some amazing things and we need to shout about it and we need to share and we need to learn from each other. Kelly Molson: Absolutely agree. And that session is going to be a really great session. That's one not to miss. Ken? Ken Robinson: Well, I would say two things. First of all, as far as our visitors are concerned, I think there is a bigger polarisation now than there ever has been between those who have money and can still afford to do things and are not much impacted by the current circumstances, despite everything. And those who haven't and those who haven't have got to find ways of saving money, getting more for their money. There are so many things they can do that are free and alternatives that charged attractions find it difficult. I think we have to remember that the biggest number of attractions in the United Kingdom are heritage based attractions and they weren't purpose built like many of Paul's members, the attractions are purpose built for entertainment. But heritage attractions have got a bigger responsibility or museums housed in historic buildings. Ken Robinson: And all the time they're having to cut their costs and finding life difficult. Money isn't going into maintaining that National Heritage. And that's a real big long term challenge, one that government can't ignore. So government has a vested interest in the health of our businesses because the more healthy they are, the less will fall back on the state eventually. One last thing, I would like to mention Martin Evans and the tourism business. Ken Robinson: For the last I don't know how many years, Martin has been the person who has put together this event for us. He has to do the heavy lifting. He is backed up by our conference organisers, who are also very efficient. And the other person that I wouldn't like to miss from this, because if she could have been here today, you would have got a different flavour, is the wonderful Liz Terry and the support that her organisation. That's Liz's Organisation, her hard work in Leisure Media Group. She publishes Attractions Management magazine. Ken Robinson: She has never asked for anything from this conference and she gives it great support, without which we wouldn't have made 20 years, as I said earlier. And also a big shout and a screen for Liz. Kelly Molson: That is lovely. Thank you. I'm sure Liz will very much appreciate that. We won't forget her. Don't worry, she'll be on the credits for this podcast. I always ask our guests to leave us with a book recommendation for our listeners. So a book that you've loved, a book that you've enjoyed as part of your career growth can be absolutely anything. So, Paul, what would you like to share with us today? Paul Kelly: Oh, I tell you what, books are a bit highbrow for me. Yes, Bernard agrees with that. So I'm from the north, so I used to travel a lot when I was working North America. Commuting a little bit. So I did read a little bit then, but I very quickly swapped over to podcasts things that I download. I watch Silent Witness from the 90's, early 2000s repeatedly. I like Meet Marry Murder, which is one of the cable channels, so I'm quite simple. So I don't really have a book recommendation. I think when I have time to read, I will look forward to reading what somebody else recommends. Kelly Molson: Well, I will take Silent Witness as a recommendation because I love Silent Witness, Paul. Oh, so good. Never miss an episode, ever. So, OK, they go I mean, I can't give it away as a prize, but go and check out Silent Witness if you haven't. Bernard, what's yours? Bernard Donoghue: Well, I've been on this before and I remember my recommendation and it sounds really facile, but it was absolutely true, was Ladybird Books when I was a kid, and then that's how I got into history and heritage and storytelling and absolutely loved them. And I've still got loads of them, which is a bit sad, actually. I'm currently confined to home with a broken ankle. So I've been going through my big Bernard book of books, of all the ones that I haven't got around to reading, and the one that I've enjoyed most and has really surprised me is Lucy Worsley's biography of Agatha Christie. Absolutely fascinating. I thought I knew her. I thought I knew all about her. I know all of her characters, I've watched every conceivable film and TV program, but what a fascinating woman. Bernard Donoghue: So that's the one that I've loved this summer. Kelly Molson: Great recommendation. Yeah. I wondered what were going to get from you, actually, because you've had a lot of time on your hands to go through that book pile. Bernard Donoghue: It was either going to be Agatha Christie or the Argos catalogue. Honestly, it could have gone. Kelly Molson: It's not Christmas yet. You only do the Argos catalogue at Christmas. Ken, over to you for our last recommendation. Ken Robinson: Well, the best book quite hard to get hold of now, but I can supply copies is Action For Attractions, the National Policy Document, written in 2000. But if you want something other than that, then I have just finished reading a book which everyone else read years ago called Sapiens, which is about this thick, that's to say two and a half inches thick. For those of you listening. It's by somebody, I've just had to look him up because I couldn't have remembered it, by Yuval Noah Harari. And it's entitled A Brief History of Humankind. And what's so interesting about it is it goes through segments explaining the great moves that have happened to us humans since we appeared on this Earth. Ken Robinson: And I found the whole thing fascinating to read in one go what took me a long time, particularly the last bit, which talks about how commerce has changed the world and what we're all doing, and that's, after all, what we're doing at VAC. We are engaged in the kind of commerce that is to entertain, amuse and give enjoyment to our visitors, and at the same time keep the heritage of the country going and keep an awful lot of people employed, so I recommend Sapiens. Kelly Molson: Ken, that's a great book. It took me a really long time to read as well, but it is an absolutely fascinating book. I would totally back up your recommendation there. Have you read the next one as well, Homodeus? Ken Robinson: No one a year is enough for me. Kelly Molson: Well, I've got a toddler, so reading doesn't come easy for me right now. But Homodus is next on my list to read because that's the next one on from Sapiens and it's supposed to be a really good read as well. Right, listeners as ever, if you want to win a copy of Ken and Bernard's book, retweet this episode announcement with the words, I want the Vax books and you will be put into a prize drawer to win them. And also, do go and watch Silent Witness, Paul's recommendation, because it is blooming brilliant. I love it. Thank you all so much for coming on to join me today. I've really appreciated it. It's been a fascinating kind of deep dive into the Visitor Attractions Conference. I genuinely love this conference. It is one absolutely not to be missed. Kelly Molson: I mean, there might be a speaker called Kelly at this one. This is so I'll be there. Come and see me too. But no, thank you. It's been wonderful. As I said, we will put all of the info in the show notes. We'll put all of the connections to Paul, Ken and Bernard too. So if you've got any follow up questions that you want to ask them, I'm sure they'd be really happy to help. But it's vapevents.com. Go and grab your ticket now. Thank you, guys. Ken Robinson: And I have to tell you, Kelly, we are going to spend our time at our next committee meeting thinking of impossible questions for you for when you're speaking at VAC.Kelly Molson: Oh, God. Do it. I love impossible questions. Put me on the spot, Ken. I'll enjoy it. Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review. It really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip The Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast. 

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is  Kelly Molson, MD of Rubber Cheese.Download our free ebook The Ultimate Guide to Doubling Your Visitor NumbersIf 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/podcastIf you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this episode.Competition ends August  27th 2021. The winner will be contacted via Twitter. Show references:www.twitter.com/bernarddonoghuewww.linkedin.com/in/bernard-donoghue-0aa9b97www.twitter.com/alva_ukwww.alva.org.uk/index.cfmBernard Donoghue is the Chief Executive of the Association of Leading Visitor Attractions (ALVA), the umbrella body for the UK's most popular, important and iconic palaces, castles, museums, galleries, heritage sites, stately homes, cathedrals, churches, gardens, zoos and leisure attractions. ALVA is a powerful advocate for the sector to Government, the media and business; it organises events, benchmarking, training, commissions research and the sharing of best practice for members across marketing, visitor experience, fundraising, public engagement, security, education, retail and a variety of other areas.In May 2017 he was appointed to be a member of the Mayor of London's Cultural Leadership Board and is the Mayor's Ambassador for Culture. He has been a member of the UK Government's Tourism Industry Council since 2014. In January 2021 he became Co-Chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board, to plan and deliver the strategic recovery of London's visitor economy and sits on the GLA's COVID Business Forum and various London Mayoral cultural and business recovery taskforces.Bernard has been Chair of the award-winning London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) since 2010, having been a Board member since 2005 and Deputy Chair between 2007 and 2010. In June 2021 he became Chair of the Board of the Bristol Old Vic, the oldest continually operating theatre in the English-speaking world. He is a Trustee of the People's History Museum – the Museum of Democracy, in Manchester, and will take over as Chair of the Board in November 2021.He is a member of the Cathedral Council of St Paul's Cathedral, London, and a member of the Exhibition Advisory Board for Two Temple Place and the Hoare Trust. He was Chairman of WWF-UK's Council for 10 years, until 2020, and is a former trustee of WWF-UK. He has been a trustee of Centrepoint, Kids in Museums, the Museum of The Home and the Heritage Alliance. He has been a judge for the Museum and Heritage Awards since 2003.In October 2020 Bernard was named by Blooloop, the world's leading online resource for professionals working in visitor attractions, as one of the world's 50 most influential people in the museum sector. Transcription:Kelly Molson: Welcome to Skip the Queue, a podcast for people working in or working with visitor attractions. I'm your host, Kelly Molson. Each episode, I speak with industry experts from the attractions world. In today's episode, I speak with Bernard Donoghue, CEO of ALVA. We discuss what the fast-approaching end of restrictions mean for attractions, how to balance digital engagement with an overseas audience and what these past 15 months have really been like for Bernard personally. If you like what you hear, subscribe on all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue. Kelly Molson: Bernard, I am so happy to have you on the podcast today. Thank you so much for coming on and joining us.Bernard Donoghue: It is my absolute pleasure. It was a choice between you and a meeting with four MPs so here we are.Kelly Molson: Well, I mean, I have to say, I'm clearly the better choice here. Thank you. Okay. As ever, we're going to start off with our ice breaker questions. If you had a time machine and you could travel backwards or forwards, what year would you go to and why?Bernard Donoghue: Oh, good lord. Sorry, by the way, this reminds me of the brilliant line by Sandi Toksvig. She was in a café in York once and there was a sign saying we serve tea at all times so she asked for a tea in the Renaissance, and they didn't understand her.Bernard Donoghue: I don't know. Wow. I don't know. I think possibly in the 1920s because you're just at the cusp of so many things. You're at the tail end of the Edwardian period so you've got all of that and then you're at the cusp of electricity and technology and radio and aeroplanes so probably then.Kelly Molson: We're hearing a lot about it being like the Roaring Twenties as well, aren't we? Once we get through all of this too. It's probably quite current that you've chosen that as well. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Kelly Molson: Obviously, flapper dresses because all of those were completely beautiful. I mean, I would be down with that.Bernard Donoghue: No. Seriously, I do look good in beads. It's true.Kelly Molson: I could see that about you. You've got that look. Great. Okay. If you were a WWF wrestler, which I can see actually, I feel like you've got the look of a wrestler about you as well, maybe not in beads, what would your entrance song be?Bernard Donoghue: For years, by the way, I used to be a trustee of WWF UK and all of my friends just assumed that I had a sort of parallel existence in spandex somewhere and I had to remind them that actually, no, it was about conservation. What would it be? Something from RuPaul's Drag Race actually because they're always fantastic. Yeah. When they come back on the stage at the end, that's the music.Kelly Molson: Okay. Something really flamboyant I feel like.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. You know, you can strut ... I mean, I know strutting is not necessarily a WWF thing but presence is all.Kelly Molson: Absolutely. We can make it a thing. It can be whatever we want.Bernard Donoghue: Thank you.Kelly Molson: Okay. If you could give one piece of advice to your younger self, what would it be?Bernard Donoghue: If I was 20, I think my advice to my 20-year-old self would be to make the ... This sounds a bit professional. Just make loads and loads of connections, network, network madly, even though, and this will come as a bit of a surprise, even though, I'm an introvert, get out there and network because it suddenly dawned on me in the last few years, when I was in my twenties, I was a campaigner, I was a young lobbyist and I worked for disability charities and all the people who did the same kind of job as me then, are all chief executives like me now. Bernard Donoghue: Of course, that makes sense because you grow through the ranks so now I've got a peer group of lots of chief executives in lots of very varied, different spheres and realms. It's been brilliant because we've all come through the ranks together and in good times and bad and now we've got a ready-made oven-roasted peer group that we can all rely on. There's about six of us. I think that.Bernard Donoghue: And B, take your job seriously but don't take yourself too seriously.Kelly Molson: That's good advice. That's really good advice. The networking thing is really interesting, somebody asked me a couple of weeks ago what has been the thing that ... What's been the one thing that I've invested the most in over the last few years that has made the biggest difference to my business and I completely agree with you and I said it is about building your network and it's about getting out there and making those connections because such incredible things come from knowing such a variety of different people in all kinds of sectors. You just never know what kind of opportunities and doors are going to be open for you from doing that.Kelly Molson: Also, you just can't grow a business on your own or do anything on your own. You need that peer support around you. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. You're absolutely right. The key to that is knowing people who are not like you and in businesses that are not like yours. In ALVA, for example, I hear it time and time again that museums and galleries don't actually learn much from other museums and galleries because they're all kind of in the same boats and cathedrals don't learn much from other cathedrals, but they will learn things from Zooms or Harry Potter or Warner Bros, so places that are very different to them and, therefore, come at an issue from a very different perspective. That's where you learn most.Kelly Molson: Absolutely. I completely agree with you on that one as well. That might come up later actually in our chat. Okay. Last one but it's your one, what's your unpopular opinion?Bernard Donoghue: I hate the phrases going forward, and very much, as in, "I am very much looking forward to it" or, "I am very much committed to this." I hate those phrases with a passion whereas it's clear other people don't. They would be capital punishments when I take over the rule. Bernard Donoghue: What's another unpopular opinion? I cannot see how people can watch Jeremy Clarkson. I don't get it. Absolutely don't get it at all. Oh, oh, here's one actually and it's only because it was his birthday last week, I have never understood Bob Dylan and his popularity.Kelly Molson: Wow. Gosh, that's quite a strong one.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I don't get it. Kelly Molson: Okay. Bernard Donoghue: Glad he's around, glad he's there, not for me, thank you.Kelly Molson: I like that. Bob Dylan and Jeremy Clarkson was not a mix I was expecting to get on the podcast today.Bernard Donoghue: They're not a duo that has ever performed together as far as I'm aware, or likely to. It's probably just as well.Kelly Molson: It wouldn't make either of them even more appealing to you, though, would it? Not really.Bernard Donoghue: No. I think I would have to take out a restraining order if they decided that they wanted to come around.Kelly Molson: I love that. Well, let's see what our listeners think, Jeremy Clarkson fans out there? I don't know. It's not my cup of tea. Tweet us and let us know what you think about that. Kelly Molson: Now, Bernard, I don't even know where to start with this list so Mayor of London's Cultural Ambassador, CEO of ALVA, Co-chair of the London Tourism Recovery Board, Chair of LIFT Festival and Trustee of People's History Museum. Quite an impressive list that you've got going on there. What I want to know is where did it actually begin, though? Where did your connection with cultural heritage and attractions organisations start?Bernard Donoghue: I've always absolutely loved ... I'm kind of being paid for all the things that I would do at a weekend. Kelly Molson: Nice.Bernard Donoghue: You know, when I was a kid, my parents would take us around National Trust properties and English Heritage properties and stately homes and places like that so the first place that I went to was Waddesdon Manor, which if people don't know it, it's the maddest, most beautiful Loire valley style chateau but in the vale of Aylesbury, just outside Aylesbury. Built by the Rothschilds as kind of an entertaining pad. Absolutely beautiful, absolutely stunning.Bernard Donoghue: My first stately home ... Well, that's kind of a stately home. The first stately home is Blenheim Palace. I just got the bug. I just have loved history, heritage, visitor attractions since I was a kid. I went off to do political jobs and then back in '97 I joined Visit Britain as their first-ever head of government affairs, not quite a lobbyist because it's a government agency and so you're not allowed to be called a lobbyist, but it was all but a lobbyist. That just opened my eyes to tourism and then visitor attractions. Bernard Donoghue: On the culture side, the theatre side, the theatre has always been a complete passion so I stepped down this year as chair of LIFT London International Festival of Theatre after 11 years and I'm just about to go onto the board of the British [inaudible 00:09:15]. My theatre passion continues.Kelly Molson: I love that. I love what you said, I get paid to do all the things that I would love to do on the weekend. What a fantastic role to be in. Bernard Donoghue: It's absolutely true. I should show you my wallet actually. My wallet is full of membership cards, as in 30 of them, so occasionally I'll look at my wallet and think, "This is money laundering essentially." I'm being paid and I'm paying them back in return. This is just a circular economy.Kelly Molson: That's one of the things that you've done really well throughout the pandemic is you've been so supportive and you've been really proactive on Twitter about saying to people, "Look, if you want these places to still be around when we come out of this, buy the membership, buy something from their shop when their shops are open, or buy something from them online" and I think it's been such a positive message to send out the whole way through, so not money laundering, supportive. Being very supportive in your role.Bernard Donoghue: You'd have to talk to my bank manager because some days it was like money laundering.Kelly Molson: There are loads of things that I want to talk about going forward, even though you don't like that but what I want to go back to is a little bit in the past as well. I really want to talk about what it's been like for you personally. I think you have been a real kind of pillar of strength to the sector and huge support and I think that as wonderful as that's been, that can bring its own challenges on yourself as well. Kelly Molson: Ultimately, you're the person that's putting out this kind of positive message all the time and being really actively encouraging but I could imagine that's had a lot of pressures and challenges for you personally as well. What has it been like, the last 15 months? How have you motivated yourself to be upbeat and positive throughout all of this?Bernard Donoghue: Well, that's very kind, first of all. Thank you. I think I divide it between last March until Christmas and then sort of Christmas onwards. Last March until Christmas, there was a sense of really being able to cope because the adrenaline was getting you through. It was all novel and new and I've always thrived in crisis management. In all the roles that I've had over the last 20 years, crisis management has been at the heart of that, whether that's about actively managing crises or the corporate PR response or being a spokesperson or whatever.Bernard Donoghue: In some ways, I sort of thrived on all of that through adrenaline. It's been much, much more draining and exhausting since Christmas and I think that's probably the same for everybody actually. We've gone through it again and actually, it's no longer new and it's no longer novel and now it's just sapping.Bernard Donoghue: I have often felt on an almost kind of daily basis, and this is just honest, I'm not exaggerating, there's quite a lot resting on my shoulders and it feels quite lonely because the advice from the government has been so inconsistent and so unclear and often contradictory. There's a small group of about three or four of us in the tourism sector who have had to daily unpick all of that and interpret it for our respective sectors.Bernard Donoghue: I know that if I weren't doing that then it just wouldn't get done ... It would probably get done somewhere at somehow at some point but, as you know, I do a daily bulletin so it goes out every evening at six o'clock with the latest information. There's a real sense of I need to get this out and get it done every day. Bernard Donoghue: I've made a rod and back really because there was nothing that I would love more than stop doing these bulletins. That's not possible while we're still in a state of flux. It's been a bit lonely. It's been odd working from home when normally I would be a consummate traveller and visit loads of my members around the country. There's been a lot of pressure but the feedback from people about the vital nature of the information and the advocacy and all the rest of it, and the achievements actually, has been extraordinary.Bernard Donoghue: I don't think myself, my work has ever been more exposed than it has in the course of the last 15 months. Sometimes that felt scary and sometimes that felt brilliant.Kelly Molson: I think as well it's never been more celebrated as well because you have had so much support from the sector. There are a lot of people looking for you. Like you say, you're delivering daily bulletins, you've been doing incredible webinars with ALVA so regularly, you've opened those up to non-members as well so everybody can benefit from the knowledge on them. There's a lot of eyes on you as well. That's a lot of pressure. I think from a positive perspective, what I see being delivered back to you is nothing but encouragement. Everybody has been so incredibly supportive of what you're doing and so grateful for the things that you're doing for them. I think that's been really lovely to see.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. It absolutely has and, in particular, from those organisations and businesses who, as you say, are not members of ALVA, I mean, I took the decision on day one that although ALVA is a tiny organisation and people will probably be really surprised, there's me and one other member of staff.Kelly Molson: Wow. I'm surprised.Bernard Donoghue: We're just two people. Lucy is brilliant. She's our finance and business manager. She's living in Norwich and I'm here in London. It's just the two of us. It's a tiny organisation so we're spread very, very thin. But given the nature of our members and my role of years in getting high-level meetings with government and all of that, I just thought we're in a leadership role here, we should use that for the benefit of everybody, let's be generous, let's not be parochial.Bernard Donoghue: We made the decision to commission all the research and give it out for free, and that visitor sentiment research has just been vital. It was one of the best things that we did. Open up our webinars to everybody. If anybody wants a bulletin, they could go on the mailing list. Whether they're members of ALVA or not because there was the analogy, it's been used a lot of times but I think it's true, we're not actually all in the same boat. We're all in the same storm but we're in very, very different boats and some are bigger and more stable than others. We happen to be in a relatively stable, well-structured boat so I think it's beholden on me and us to try and help everybody as much as possible.Kelly Molson: I am absolutely gobsmacked that it's just the two of you. I did not know that myself and I think that's an incredible achievement, what you've been doing, just the two of you to organise all of that. Wow. Hats off to you both there.Bernard Donoghue: It's exhausting. I mean, look at me. I'm actually 47 in real life.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Me too. That's what I tell to everyone, Bernard. Gosh, that really has surprised me. Just go back because you said about you're a big traveller, you would be out and about all over the place and up and down the country, I'm sure, what do you think that you'll take away as a positive from the time that you spent working at home? Are there any kinds of changes that you'll make to your working habits? Kelly Molson: For example, I would commute to my office on a daily basis, I would often be out in London or all over the place doing meetings. Now I start to think, well, some of them I'm really missing but some of them are actually probably a bit unnecessary, we can cut down on the fuels that we're burning, we can cut down on the time that we have, and I've actually quite enjoyed having a little bit more personal time to do things like eating better because you don't eat that well when you're travelling or doing a little bit more exercise. Have you found that there are some positive things that you can take from this that you'd continue?Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. There's a number. I mean, one was we made the decision, we used to have an office in Somerset House on the Strand, a beautiful, beautiful room in grade one listed former palace. Absolutely gorgeous. Looking down onto the piazza, currently covered in trees. I couldn't justify the cost because Lucy, my colleague, went over to Norwich to be near her parents. We very sadly lost one of our colleagues. There used to be three of us in the office and we lost one of our colleagues last year to cancer. Bernard Donoghue: There were just the two of us and I thought I can't justify an office just for me, lovely, though, it is so actually we haven't had an office. We've given it up, which means that I am, for the foreseeable future, working at home. There are plus things to that ... Well, this is a plus and a minus, this is no particular priority order, we've got a cat, Tom, he's a badsy cat. I think he's going to go into trauma whenever we leave the house.Kelly Molson: Oh gosh. Yeah. Bernard Donoghue: We've been around 24/7. We are now more grateful ... When I say we, this isn't a royal we. This is me and my partner. We are now more grateful than we ever thought possible to have a garden in central London. That's just been fantastic. Bernard Donoghue: But I am looking forward to getting back to some degree of working normality because I have to say I've never worked longer or harder than I have over the course of the last 15 months. It's been exhausting.Bernard Donoghue: On a normal day, I would probably have five or six, at least, one-hour Zoom meetings back to back. And then write the bulletin at six o'clock in the evening. Typically, I'm working from about 7:30 in the morning until about seven in the evening. I was doing a bit of that pre-COVID but it's pretty unsustainable so I'd like to get back to a degree of normality.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Definitely. I think that the difference between having multiple face to face meetings during the day is very different to the Zoom meetings. I don't know about you but my diary gets crazy and I look and I think, "I've got four back to back" and there's no time to process in-between. It's that cognitive overload whereas if you had back-to-back face-to-face meetings you don't get the same kind of drained feeling. Yeah. I really feel you on that. It's definitely been longer working hours for us here as well. I really sympathise.Bernard Donoghue: Also, I mean, the meetings that I'm having, bluntly, you can't coast because either I'm the guest speaker so you can't wing it, or it's a meeting with ministers or SAGE or public health England and so it's serious grownup stuff. You can't step back, you can't just switch off, you can't think I'm going to coast this for half an hour, I hope that nobody asks me a question because they're not those kinds of meetings.Kelly Molson: No. You can't switch off your Zoom and quickly grab a cup of tea and a biscuit while everyone else is talking, can you? It's not the done thing. Bernard Donoghue: It's not really, no. Kelly Molson: That was a good segue into something that's going to happen today. We are recording this and it is the seventh of June. There are reports that Matt Hancock is going to give us another COVID statement this afternoon and, potentially, that is about the dates that we are due to be opening up with no restrictions.Kelly Molson: Now I want to ask you a little bit about what that means for attractions and what we could potentially now be looking at. We are hopefully coming through to the other side. The vaccine program is doing phenomenal things. What does this fast-approaching end to restrictions mean for attractions now? Do you think that we're going to see this extended?Bernard Donoghue: It's a really good question. I've been talking to about five or six chief execs over the course of the weekend just about guidance and advice. I think there are two very significant things and at first glance, they're in contradiction with each other. The first is that the longer we have social distancing measures and face mask use and mitigation measures in place, the longer it will take for the sector to recover.Bernard Donoghue: When we have businesses, whether it's a hotel or bar or restaurant, a theatre or an attraction when we have those businesses opening up one-third capacity, none of them is making a profit. Actually, they're opening for PR purposes and in order to achieve fuller visitor figures down the track so no one is operating profitably.Bernard Donoghue: Getting those backup and running is really critical but we know from all of our visitor sentiment that still 80%, eight zero, 80% of the British public are uneasy or cautious about those very mitigation measures, like social distancing and face mask use, being eased too early. Bernard Donoghue: Visitor attractions are faced with a real dilemma I think, which is if it's announced that on the 21st of June all social distancing measures are lifted throughout England and, therefore, visitor attractions can up the numbers, don't have to do face mask use measures, abandon social distancing, still the vast majority of their visitors won't like that and will feel uncomfortable and a tiny minority will think they're in bliss and think that they're liberated and all the rest of it.Bernard Donoghue: My advice has been to visitor attractions, you and your visitors have to be the ultimate arbiter of the visitor experience. It may well be that you have to keep social distancing and face mask use measures in a place way beyond the 21st of September because that's what the public wants so, even though, you are technically allowed to get rid of those things by government, actually, take your lead from the public because they're going to be the ultimate arbiters. Bernard Donoghue: Those things are potentially in contradiction with each other. One of the things I'm constructing literally this week is some ALVA national advice to visitor attractions so that front of house staff can basically say to an irate guest on the 22nd of June, "I know the government has just announced that but actually, we're adhering to ALVA national advice" in order that they don't get than that confrontational pushback from members of the public because I genuinely feel that the loudest voices are for liberation but the quietest voices are for care, safety, sensible precautions and we need to manage that really, really carefully.Kelly Molson: That's a really difficult challenge, isn't it? For front of house staff that will be in that position of having to push back on people. I can see it in my head happening. There's an encounter where people are angry about the fact they're being told that they still have to wear their mask, yet the government has said that they don't need to do this anymore. I can't imagine how difficult that's going to be so I think what you're putting in place is a really valuable kind of asset for the organisations to have.Bernard Donoghue: We saw some examples, relatively limited, but we saw some examples of poor behaviour on the parts of the public last year when attractions reopened for, frankly ... It's not an excuse but it is understandable. They, like us, we're tired, fraught, and quick to anger, end of their tether, and they just wanted to get out and be in nice places. We've seen some of that poor behaviour on the part of the public again this time round as indoor and outdoor attractions. Bernard Donoghue: Honestly, for every one person who pushes back saying, "Don't make me wear a mask. Don't manage my social distancing", there are nine others watching saying, "Well done, you. You're doing exactly the right thing." That, I think should be the barometer of safety.Kelly Molson: How does this work with ... What we want to see is attractions open and open at full capacity. But we, obviously, have got this challenge around overseas visitors and many of them not being able to come here, many of them not feeling safe to come here at the moment, understandably. How do attractions manage that? If they can open at full capacity, is the reality that they're not going to be at full capacity because we just don't have that influx of people that we need?Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. That's right. I mean, bluntly, there are some visitor attractions in the UK and just off the top of my head, they're places like the British Museum, Edinburgh Castle, Stonehenge, Westminster Abbey, St. Paul's Cathedral, Tower of London that are so heavily dependent on overseas visitors, inbound visitors coming from the rest of the world, that even the best ever staycation this summer won't help them repair their balance sheets. Bernard Donoghue: We've made it really clear to ministers ... I took the minister for London and the minister for tourism round four visitor attractions in London a couple of weeks ago to Westminster Abbey, Tower of London, London Transport Museum and the Royal Opera House and, at each one, showed them what a COVID safe welcome and visitor experience looks so they were comfortable with that but also made it clear to them that some of those, particularly, the Royal Opera House, Tower of London, Westminster Abbey are so dependent on inbound visitors that they will require additional support way beyond the rest of the sector to really recover sustainably because their visitors, their market won't come back in any meaningful numbers until next year.Bernard Donoghue: It was really to peg to ministers even if you lift all restrictions on the 21st of June, that's not the end of the story. Kelly Molson: Yeah. Yeah. You have to be prepared to give more support past that point as well. Those attractions, in particular, that do rely really heavily on overseas visitors, what can they start to think about putting in place at this point? I know there are many attractions that have put on lots of digital events or things that people can engage with online. Do you see that continuing hugely for the rest of the year and then into 2022 as well?Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Yeah. I do. I mean, we've talked about this actually. At the VAC conference, one of the great achievements of last year was the explosion in digital content and not just the amount of it but the diversity and the brilliance and the innovative use of digital. I think because the last year has been sort of chaotic and odd and no holds barred, it's just liberated a lot of organisations to take risks with their programming and their content and their decision making in a way that they would never have conceived of before and to speed up some of their decision makings and just to think actually let's just do it and see what happens.Bernard Donoghue: I think the digital explosion has been absolutely phenomenal so downloadable jigsaws and recipe books and maps and behind the scenes tours and going up into the attic of buildings and into the archives, all of that, absolutely phenomenal. Bernard Donoghue: It hasn't particularly connected with audiences who weren't already interested in those buildings so it's had some public engagement successes but not massive but what it has made people do is get on the customer journey so if they're seeing the stuff online, they'll one day aspire to be there and stand there on the spot because it can't replace the actual physical experience of being there.Bernard Donoghue: In terms of digital output, the Bristol Old Vic, and the London Symphony Orchestra, they've both made decisions recently that in addition to their live performances, they're going to broadcast their performances on digital as well. If you're in Tokyo or San Francisco, you can subscribe to watch these performances, a bit like a Netflix subscription, so you buy a book of 10 performances at reduced costs.Bernard Donoghue: What this means, of course, is that those theatres, that orchestra is getting a whole new audience who are paying money that they never had before but they're also starting them on a customer journey so that person in Tokyo one day, hopefully, will want to stand in the Bristol Old Vic and see where David Garrick performed. You're getting them on that customer journey whilst also monetizing it as well.Bernard Donoghue: I think that's probably the biggest evolution and change to businesses in the course of the last year. You may have got round to it in about three or four years time but all of that has just been sort of contracted and sped up in an extraordinary way.Kelly Molson: It's what you said, it's about risk-taking. I can remember having this conversation with Laura Crossley from the National Football Museum. They came on the podcast to talk about their podcast and they said that actually, it was something they'd been talking about for ages, they were going to do it, and then things kept getting in the way. Ultimately, they just got to a point where they were like, "Let's just try it. Let's just throw something at it. Let's see if it sticks and let's just do it." Kelly Molson: I loved that attitude that has been taken by so many different organisations this year and it's propelled them forward in a digital sense because let's just try it, who knows what's going to happen? None of us had a clue what was going to happen last March. That whole attitude about risk-taking I think is really important and I'd really like to see that continue as well.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Me too. I mean, two years ago, people would have thought it would be utterly impossible to run a business with nearly all of their staff working from home and even if they thought it was possible, it didn't sound particularly attractive because it just sounded too complicated and messy. Look where we are now.Bernard Donoghue: Things can be done. I think one of the things that we've done for years is collect all of the visitor numbers from all of our members and then publish them in the media in March. I've done some longitudinal research to look at are there common characteristics or behaviours on the part of those visitor attractions that sustainably and successfully grow their visitor numbers but also diversify their business numbers as well? Bernard Donoghue: I do a presentation and a workshop on this and, funnily enough, there are. There are common behaviours. You can absolutely see them. In that group of about six or seven behaviours, one of them is about the appetite for risk on the part of the board and senior management. The other one is about the confidence to foster creative partnerships with unusual suspects. Don't just work with the people who are your natural neighbours, either physically or theoretically, but actually, this is something we were talking about at the beginning, try and foster creative partnerships with people who are not like you and, therefore, they bring something completely different to the party.Kelly Molson: That's going back to what we talked about, about museums not learning from other museums and theatres not learning from other theatres because you're just in the same challenges all the time. Looking at that kind of wider sector communication of sector cooperation even and seeing where the boundaries overlap and what you can do that like you said, the theme park or the zoo down the road might be doing but you're a theatre. How can you embrace some of the things that they're using?Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Yeah. One of my favourite examples recently is that I was down ... I've managed to get out of London a couple of times since September in the last three weeks and I was down at Bristol going to see the Bristol Old Vic. They're doing something really, really clever, which is they have just parted ways with their in-house catering company and they've just decided that they want to be a community showcase so they're getting in local Bristol restaurants and chefs to be their in-house caterer for a month and they have a different one every month.Bernard Donoghue: It's just blindingly brilliant because, A, they're connecting with their communities, they're showcasing the diversity of food in the local area, it's all five-mile menu stuff so it's all locally sourced. But it also means there's a new reason to come back every month, even if you don't go to the theatre to see a show, you'll go there to eat. I just think that was genius.Kelly Molson: It is genius.Bernard Donoghue: I've been sharing that with a lot of museums and galleries and heritage attractions saying actually if you're in-between contracts and you're thinking about an interim period between catering contracts, why don't you think about this?Kelly Molson: That is an absolutely brilliant idea because I love attractions but I'm a big foodie as well so, for me, I'd be looking and going, "Oh, well, I need to book a table at that place at least once a month now because I'm going to go back and I'm going to experience a different food" or, "I've really wanted to go to that person's restaurant, how amazing, I can combine eating that person's food with a show that's on at the same time." It's a genius idea.Bernard Donoghue: It really anchors the theatre in its community. We've seen over the course of the last year that the wreaking of your community and understanding your community and reflecting back who your community are through your work and your HR programs and your staff recruitment measures and all those kind of things, that's been absolutely key because if you lose your connection with the community, you're lost and wondering.Kelly Molson: Yeah. Completely agree. I think, for me, personally, that's one of the best things that have come out of this. As an individual, I've always been really keen on supporting local independents and shopping locally anyway but even more so since this happened because you can see the effect of what's happened so drastically on your own community. You want to be able to do as much to support that as possible. That is such a great idea. I hope everyone that's listening picks up on that because I just think that is awesome. Well done, them. Kelly Molson: We're coming to the end of the podcast interview but I can't not ask you what's next for ALVA? What have you got planned that's coming next? It's been a pretty full-on year. Are the webinars going to continue? Are your daily bulletins going to continue for the foreseeable future? Sounds like you might need a little bit of a break at some point.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. Well, the daily bulletins will certainly continue because I don't think anything is going to change significantly until September or such. The webinars are coming back. We took a month off from the weekly webinars so we had a webinar every Wednesday from the beginning of January until last month with over 50 case studies from across the UK. I mean, they were all amazing. Absolutely amazing.Bernard Donoghue: I think, by the way, that it's been through the webinars and also your work as well, that we've got to know what people are doing in a little bit more detail and from unusual suspects in a way that we didn't really before. We always used to rely on big annual conferences to get case studies and stuff. Now we're just full of case studies everywhere. I love that more generous, more open, more accessible, more sharing environment that we now inhabit.Bernard Donoghue: The webinars are coming back at the end of June. They'll probably be fortnightly and our first webinars will be the latest wave of visitor sentiment research so what are people thinking about now? Are they confident about going back into attractions? Are they confident about social distancing measures and those kinds of things?Bernard Donoghue: Also, we'll be doing case studies about post-21st of June, how visitor attractions are going to cope with that dilemma about being told, on the one hand, you can open with no restrictions, on the other hand, knowing well, that their visitors require and expect some degree of social distancing and protection of safety measures. How do you balance those two things? Those will be the first two webinars.Bernard Donoghue: Then beyond that, I suspect global domination. Kelly Molson: Of course. It's the obvious next step, isn't it?Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I mean, I don't want to get Napoleonic about it all but I think we could be replicated around the world.Kelly Molson: Well, actually, on that note, what can people that are listening, what can our listeners do to support ALVA? Bearing in mind that I've had the bombshell that it's just the two of you that are doing all of these things. What can our listeners do to help you back?Bernard Donoghue: Oh, well, the most useful thing and I've said this a lot, honestly, it's been my complete saviour, is that we wouldn't have been able to achieve things like the reduced rate of VAT for visitor attractions, the continuation of furlough, the construction and the creation of the Cultural Recovery Fund, I mean, all of those critical measures for the tourism sector ... I mean, the tourism sector, by a long country mile, has been the part of the economy that's received the most financial support from the government. Bernard Donoghue: I think it's partly because we were hit first, hit hardest, and we'll take the longest to recover but it's also because we've had amazing data. I know data is a bit un-sexy but, honestly, we couldn't have got through the meetings that we've had with treasury and number 10 and DCMS and public health England and the Scottish, Welsh, and Northern Ireland governments without the depth of really, really useful data that visitor attractions have been able to provide us, what their percentage of furlough rates are, where they've had to make staff redundancies in what areas, where their visitor numbers have been affected, the difference between the dependence on domestic and inbound tourism, conversion rates in shops, average transaction values.Bernard Donoghue: All of that kind of stuff has just been bliss to work with because it's really good, really solid, well-evidenced data and as a lobbyist, that's just gold. Keep giving us information, anecdotes, case studies, and experiences as well. Those case studies can often feed through to government ministers in a way that just a raft of figures can't. If you can bring it to life, particularly, in small kind of epithets like sanitise the site, not the visitor experience and you can't furlough a penguin. Really short, understandable, Sesame Street type lobbying, that works.Kelly Molson: I love that. Keep sharing, keep cooperating, keep helping others, and we'll get through the other side in the best position that we possibly can.Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I'm confident of it. Absolutely confident of it.Kelly Molson: Good. I'm really glad to hear that. Last question for you, we always end our podcast by asking our guests for a book that they love or a book that's helped shape their career in some way. Can you suggest one for us today?Bernard Donoghue: Actually, if I'm going to be really, really honest I'm not sure that I'd be in my job today were it not for Lady Bird books, that I had when I was a kid. Everything from Marie Curie to the plant life of Africa through Joan of Arc through to Christopher Columbus. Honestly, those Lady Bird books ignited my curiosity and the more I got, the more I started just reading about heritage and history and sciences and those kinds of things. Bernard Donoghue: Yeah. I mean, it's not quite Brideshead Revisited but if I was going to be completely honest, it would be the collection of Lady Bird books that my parents got for me from car boot sales and secondhand shops when I was a kid.Kelly Molson: Oh, I love that. I can remember them all lined up on the bookshelf as well with all the different coloured spines. Beautiful. All right. We'll choose one. Let's have a think, off-podcast, and we'll choose one. Then as ever, if you want to win that book when we decide what it is if you head over to our Twitter account and you retweet this episode announcement with, "I want Bernard's book" then you're going to be in with the chance of winning it.Bernard Donoghue: Actually, I have got spare copies of the Lady Bird book of London from about 1960. I'm very, very happy to donate it.Kelly Molson: Oh my gosh. Well, that would be fantastic. If you're happy to do that then all right, listeners, get tweeting and you could be in with the chance of winning. That's a really lovely gift. Thank you. Bernard, I've loved having you on today. Thank you so much. You are our season finale as well because we're going to have a little bit of a break over summer and we're going to come back again in October once all of you listeners will be so busy over summer with plenty to do. You'll have more interesting things to do than listen to this podcast every day. Kelly Molson: I'm really delighted that you could be our season finale. Thank you. I know how busy you are and, even more so, having had a chat today. We'll put all of your contact details and everything into the show notes so people can find where you are. If you're not following Bernard on Twitter, then, one, you're a fool and, two, where have you been for the last 15 months? Because, for me, personally, if there's been anything that I've needed to understand about what the sector is going through or go and find, it's either speaking to people on this podcast or it's go and follow ALVA and Bernard on Twitter and I'll always find out the answer to what I want. Thank you for being such constant support and thank you for all of the hard work that you've been putting out there through this pandemic. Really appreciate it.Bernard Donoghue: Oh, no. It's my pleasure and for those of you who do follow me on Twitter, I can only apologise for my behaviour on Eurovision song contest night. I just got carried away and it was inappropriate.Kelly Molson: What goes on on Eurovision, stays on Eurovision, Bernard. Don't worry about that.Bernard Donoghue: Thank you very much.Kelly Molson: Thanks for listening to Skip the Queue. If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five-star review. It really helps others find us. Remember to follow us on Twitter for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned. Skip the Queue is brought to you by rubber cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. You can find show notes and transcriptions from this episode and more over on our website, rubbercheese.com/podcast.

malakaï is an artist and cultural producer from pre-gentrified Hackney. They like to create work that disrupts the performer/spectator relationship, dissecting subjects like queer intimacy, generational trauma, gentrification, environmental racism and Black Britishness. Both as an artist and cultural producer, malakaï has created/presented work with the likes of Soho Theatre, SOAS, Serpentine Galleries, the Royal Exchange and the Royal Court. malakaï is an alumnus of the Barbican Young Poets, and has since independently produced and directed work by other Black writers, pushing the boundaries of form and storytelling in live performance. malakaï also delivers anti-oppression consultancy independently as well as with organisations including Fearless Futures and Sour Lemons with clients across the cultural, charity, tech and financial services sectors. In 2014, malakaï co-founded producing theatre company The S+K Project, where they were Artistic Director until 2019. malakaï is currently Associate Director at Theatre Peckham and is Co-director of Afro-diasporic literary movement BORN::FREE. malakaï serves as a Trustee for Hackney Showroom and London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT), and is Chair of LIFT's Tottenham Board. ----- This episode was sponsored by DAYE - a women-led business revolutionizing women's health. Their tampons are the most absorbent Organic tampon on the market, sanitised to eliminate the risk of TSS, and wrapped in truly sustainable packaging. Clinically- validated, cramp-soothing CBD tampons delivered straight to your door. To get £5 off your first box of tampons or proviotics, head over to yourdaye.com and use code Networking5 ---- I LIKE NETWORKING is the mentoring and networking platform for women and non-binary people in the creative industries. Stay in touch with us on Instagram and subscribe to our newsletter to stay in the loop and access many perks. You can also join our community or our supporter's circle.

One month into the first lockdown of 2020, we called Kris Nelson, Artistic Director and CEO at LIFT:the London International Festival of Theatre, to find out how theatres and their people were surviving. In this episode, we’re returning to that conversation because it captures a unique moment in the pandemic upheaval, and we’re calling Kris once again–a year later–to find out what has changed and how his predictions for theatre have shifted. Transcript available at goethe.de/uk/podcast

Zoë dials in to share some virtual theatre you y'all to check out during these strange times. There's a bunch of videos for you to check our on the London International Festival of Mime website or you can check out plenty of the Auckland Pride Festival virtual events, like Same Same But Black.

In this episode, host Katie Kheriji-Watts speaks with London International Festival of Theatre co-founder Lucy Neal about the moral and social responsibility of art in a world inalterably changed by the burning of fossil fuels, about what climate justice could mean for internationally-focused arts organisations in wealthy countries, and about why the culture sector should publicly declare that we’re in an ecological emergency. mentioned in this episode : Lucy Neal http://www.lucyneal.co.ukLIFT https://www.liftfestival.comTransition https://transitionnetwork.orgPlaying for Time: Making Art as if the World Matteredhttps://www.oberonbooks.com/playing-for-time.htmlCulture Declares Emergencyhttps://www.culturedeclares.orgPoints of Entry can be found online at : http://www.pointsofentry.comhttps://www.instagram.com/pointsofentryif you enjoyed this episode, would you please consider subscribing, rating, or leaving a review ? it takes less than a minute and really makes a difference for independent productions like this one. thanks !

Covid-19 is only one of the most recent challenges for theatres and festivals worldwide. The rise of right-wing parties have created mistrust and misunderstanding towards the performative arts sector in many countries. Why does theatre matter right now? The second episode of “Talking Culture” welcomes Kris Nelson for an exclusive interview. The Artistic Director and CEO at LIFT, London International Festival of Theatre, and the Goethe-Institut London invited a number of theatre and festival directors to the first workshop of “Dramatic Episodes” at the end of 2019. The series “Dramatic Episodes” looks at the future role of theatre in civil society: goethe.de/uk/podcast

"I wince when I think what my neighbours might be hearing."Try on Nora's shoes and take a moment to see the world through her eyes. Nora's story was produced by David Waters, and was collected when our A Mile in My Shoes exhibit was part of the London International Festival of Theatre.More about our A Mile in My Shoes project: https://www.empathymuseum.com/a-mile-in-my-shoes/Find out where Empathy Museum will travel to next: https://www.empathymuseum.com/where-to-find-us/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

"Even now I still see my dad as the strongest man I've ever met, the hardest man I've ever met..."Try on Andy's shoes and take a moment to see the world through his eyes. Andy's story was produced by Andrea Rangecroft, and was collected when our A Mile in My Shoes exhibit travelled to the London International Festival of Theatre.More about our A Mile in My Shoes project: https://www.empathymuseum.com/a-mile-in-my-shoes/Our A Mile in My Shoes exhibit is currently at Arts Centre Melbourne in Australia. Find out where Empathy Museum will travel to next: https://www.empathymuseum.com/where-to-find-us/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For episode 32 we are joined by the wonderful Empathy Designer, Artist and Strategist, Enni-Kukka Tuomala. Enni is one of those people who shines brightly and you are immediately drawn to as soon as they walk in the room: kind smile, super smart, emanating positivity. Enni discusses what it is to sculpt a purpose from really listening to your gut and trusting your instinct. She focused on what shape that would take, carving into a functional role. Through combining all she has learnt; from her undergraduate degree in Classical Archaeology & Ancient History to working within advertising for five years, to completing a Masters in Global Innovation Design, as well as, being on the board for the London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) - she arrived at Empathy Designer & Artist. She creates; tools, games, installations, experiences and environments that focus on creating empathy as the outcome, in addition to working with empathy. Enni connects people, communities and politicians aiming to transform empathy from an individual feeling to collective power. Bring it on! Enni’s role IS ESSENTIAL.  She shares her creative journey, how she kept an ‘Empathy Journal’ (yikes!!) and discusses her current project ‘Campaign For Empathy’ - aiming to bridge the growing distance between communities during Brexit uncertainty in the London Borough of Newham. You can find more information about Enni and her work on her website: https://ennikukka.com/ You can find out more information and get involved in Campaign for Empathy here: https://bowarts.org/whats-on/exhibitions-and-events/campaign-for-empathy

"They don't have to like it, but it's not their job to destroy it."Try on William's shoes and take a moment to see the world through his eyes. William's story was produced by Melissa Viney, and was collected when our A Mile in My Shoes exhibit was part of the London International Festival of Theatre.More about our A Mile in My Shoes project: https://www.empathymuseum.com/a-mile-in-my-shoes/Find out where Empathy Museum will travel to next: https://www.empathymuseum.com/where-to-find-us/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lara Pawson is the author of 'This Is The Place To Be', a fragmentary memoir which was published in September 2016 with CB editions. It is based on the long looping monologue, Non Correspondence, which was directed by Forced Entertainment’s Tim Etchells and performed by Cathy Naden at the Battersea Arts Centre for the London International Festival of Theatre 2014, After A War. In the 'Name of the People: Angola’s Forgotten Massacre' (IB Tauris, 2014) was her first book. It was nominated for several awards and longlisted for The Orwell Prize 2015. It was translated as 'Em Nome Do Povo: O massacre que Angola silenciou' (Ediçôes Tinta da China, 2014). Her commentary, essays and reviews have been published in many places, most recently in the Times Literary Supplement, Verso, New Humanist and ArtReview. As well as making many programmes for the BBC, Lara has participated in numerous radio and television programmes in London, Lisbon, Luanda and Johannesburg.

Gloria Calderon Kellett is a producer and writer, known for One Day at a Time (2017), How I Met Your Mother (2005) and Drunk History (2013). She has been married to Dave Kellett since February 24, 2001.   Gloria Calderón Kellett is currently a writer and Supervising producer on the CW series “iZombie.” Before that she was on ABC’s “Mixology”, the Lifetime series “Devious Maids, the CBS series “Rules of Engagement” (2008-2011) and “How I Met Your Mother” (2005-2008) during which she won an Alma Award for Outstanding Script. She is a graduate of the Writer’s Guild Showrunner Training Program and has sold pilots to Fox, ABC Studios, CBS and TVLAND. Her first short film, “Wounded,” was an official selection in the Geneva Film Festival, the Palm Springs Shorts Fest, the Sedona Film Fest, the Gig Harbor Film Festival and the Big Island Film Festival. Her second short, “Very Dirty Things” was an official selection in the LA Comedy Film Festival. And her third short film “BLIND” was an official selection in the NBC/Universal Short Cuts Film Fest, the Napa Valley Film Festival, The San Luis Obispo Film Festival and the Big Island Film Festival. She has written several plays to critical success, including “In Her Shoes” (Hudson Avenue Theatre); “Baggage” (Hudson Avenue Theatre / workshopped at The Mark Taper Forum), “Left Overs” (Odyssey Theatre), “Disconnect” (Elephant Theater), “Skirts & Flirts” (Hudson Mainstage Theatre / Kraine Theatre, NYC), “Bedtime Stories” (National Comedy Theater), “Snapshots” (Pico Playhouse), “Identity Theft” (Elephant Theatre), “Drinking Games” (Pico Playhouse); “Just Friends” (Chalk Rep); “Blind” (Stella Adler Theatre); “Dinner & A Movie” (24 Hour Plays @ Wilshire Ebell) and “The Friend Zone” (Stella Adler Theatre) among many others. Gloria graduated from Loyola Marymount University and was awarded a Kennedy Center/ACTF Award for her first play, “Plane Strangers” – which also went on to win the Del Rey Players Playwriting Award, and the LMU Playwright of the Year Award. Gloria went on to earn a Masters degree in Theatre from the University of London. Her play, “When Words Are Many,” was a finalist for the London Writers Award. Additionally, her play, “Dance Like No One’s Looking,” won the International Student Playscript Competition, judged and awarded by Sir Alan Ayckbourn. While in London, she worked at the Royal Court Theater and the London International Festival of Theatre. Since her return to Los Angeles, Gloria has been a founding member of the sketch comedy group And Donkey Makes Five, and has written and performed stand-up comedy at The Improv and The Comedy Store. Her book, Accessories, has been translated into Italian and is published by Small Fish Studios in the U.S. and Cassini Press in Italy. In her free time she teaches and lectures about writing (Loyola Marymount University, University of Miami, Imagen Foundation panelist, CBS Diversity program special guest) and on occasion she acts. Check out Gloria’s website: www.everythinggloria.com

Theatre Director, Enrique Vargas and Artist and Filmmaker, Lynette Wallworth both create immersive works that explore bold new ways of telling and experiencing stories. In Echo of the Shadow, Vargas invites the audience to enter a sensorial labyrinth, a singular experience of looking, listening, smelling, tasting and touching. In Collisions, audiences are taken on a virtual journey to the remote Western Australian desert where Martu elder, Nyarri Nyarri Morgan, shares the story of the impact of the 1957 atomic bomb testing on his homelands. Join Enrique and Lynette in a conversation moderated by Artistic Director Jonathan Holloway about creating immersive worlds, audience interaction and experiential storytelling and their most recent works showing at ACMI as part of Melbourne Festival. Lynette Wallworth is an acclaimed Australian artist and director whose immersive installations and films reflect connections between people and the natural world, while also exploring fragile human states of grace. Her works use mesmeric environments, interactive technologies and narrative long form to engage with viewers. They have screened at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Smithsonian, Vienna Festival and the London Film Festival. Enrique Vargas is a Colombian dramaturge and anthropologist who is renowned for his immersive and experiential theatre works. He began inventing games in the intricate and labyrinthine coffee plantations typical of the Andes surroundings where he grew up. His productions include Ariadna’s Thread, Oraculos and The Memory of the Wine, amongst many more, which have shown at Taipei Performing Arts Center, World Theatre Festival Shizuoka, London International Festival and the Theatre Festival Iberoamericano de Teatro de Bogotá.

Robert Grant is a writer and script consultant. He sits on the jury of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature and is part of the team behind The London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film. He’s also the author of “Writing The Science Fiction Film.”

Marx and Julie talk about what is happening in the world of film, TV and web series.This time, GenreTainment chats with London writer & filmmaker Robert Grant about his new book Writing the Science Fiction Film. He gives tips on how to write good science fiction and we explore what made classic sci-fi films so successful.Robert Grant is a filmmaker, screenwriter, critic, and script consultant based in London. A core member of the team behind the The London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, he also serves as Literary Editor for SCI-FILONDON.com and is currently on the jury of the Arthur C. Clarke Award for Science Fiction Literature, the UK's most prestigious genre award.Hosts (and filmmakers) Marx and Julie give you the latest news on movies, television, web series and comic books; plus, interviews with writers, directors, producers and actors in both independent and not-so-independent creations.Links:Television on the Wild Wild Web: How To Blaze Your Own Trail@MrMarx See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Alex Fitch talks to the directors of two new cutting-edge animated films which mix animation and live action footage to beguiling effect. In a Q and A recorded at SCI-FI-LONDON, the London International Festival of Science Fiction and Fantastic Film, Zoltan Sostai discusses his film Cycle, a spiritual successor to Tron and The Matrix, which […]

Philip Dodd hosts a concert on Europe, with political thinker Slavoj Zizek who has recently returned from Athens, the writer Pankaj Mishra, Edward Lucas, the Editor of the International section of The Economist and the broadcaster and journalist Michael Goldfarb. And Kamila Shamsie reviews the extraordinary eight hour, un-cut staged reading of The Great Gatsby, Gatz, part of LIFT, the London International Festival of Theatre.

Libby Purves is joined by seahorse expert Amanda Vincent, Carmen Bugan, who grew up under the Ceausescu regime in Romania, theatre director Lucien Bourjeily and crime writer Lynda La Plante. Dr Amanda Vincent is a marine biologist and one of the world's leading experts on seahorses. She is currently based at Cambridge University's Department of Geography and runs Project Seahorse which is developing conservation schemes to protect the declining seahorse population around the world. Carmen Bugan grew up in Romania under Nicolae Ceausescu. One day in 1983, her father was arrested for protesting against the regime. In her memoir, 'Burying the Typewriter 'she tells how her father had been typing pamphlets on an illegal typewriter and burying it in their garden. Her father was imprisoned for three years and her family were placed under surveillance, surrounded by microphones and informed on by their neighbours. Burying the Typewriter: Childhood under the Eye of the Secret Police is published by Picador. Lucien Bourjeily is a Lebanese film maker and theatre director. His show '66 Minutes in Damascus' will be staged at Shoreditch Town Hall as part of The London International Festival of Theatre (LIFT) from June 19-24. It's an interactive theatre experience in which audiences are put in the position of tourists being detained in Syria. Lynda La Plante CBE is an author, screenwriter and former actress who wrote the TV dramas Widows and Prime Suspect. Her new novel 'Backlash' is the latest in her 'Above Suspicion' thriller series. Lynda was awarded the Dennis Potter Writers Award by BAFTA. 'Backlash' is published by Simon & Schuster. Producer: Paula McGinley.

In 1926, LP Hartley called The Great Gatsby “an absurd story”. Now, it is hard to imagine that F Scott Fitzgerald’s 1925 novel was ever considered less than a masterpiece. And it seems particularly popular in our recessionary times – with the remarkable eight-hour play Gatz having had rave reviews in York, and now about to open in London; and Baz Luhrmann’s film version starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Carey Mulligan released later this year. Jan Dalley talks Gatsby mania with Sarah Churchwell, Professor of American Literature at the University of East Anglia; Mark Ball, artistic director of the London International Festival of Theatre; and the critic Matt Trueman. Produced by Griselda Murray Brown See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.