Mission:
High Life Highland appointed Spider Entertainment Services as Operations Management Partner (OMP) to assist in preparing the Inverness Castle Experience for opening as a world class visitors attraction in 2025 working with the wider architectural, design and creative teams. Official Announcement
What is the Inverness Castle Experience?
The Inverness Castle Experience will be a new visitor attraction in the centre of Inverness, celebrating the 'spirit of the Highlands' through its stories of past, present and future.
Link to Experience Website: https://invernesscastle.scot
Project Overview
The Spider team alongside the project stakeholders held an initial kick-off meeting November 2023 with High Life Highland representatives and Mather & Co, followed by regular progress meetings, during the proposed 24-month process. A project plan was agreed upon mapping out the approach, with tasks assigned to internal staff and outside vendors. The Spider Team abides by a two year schedule for on and off-site (remote) meetings with the key stakeholders to keep all parties informed of progress, milestones, challenges and opportunities. Working with Mather & Co we incorporate all the steps of a typical operations management plan (see below), supporting the on-site delivery team, to seamlessly fit with the delivery of the experiential design. The soft opening date is scheduled for late 2025.
Spider Services Utilized
· Operations Management Services– preparing for opening of venue (typical strategy)
o Review of proposed staffing structure and pay grades (benchmark data)
o Recruitment schedule for management of cash flow and for timing of implementation for marketing, development, and soft open
o Assistance in recruitment strategy, developing role specific descriptions, person specifications job adverts and planning and undertaking the recruitment of teams across the service and experience industry.
o Propose the staffing structure, grades, and salary levels
o Development of staff training programme and implementation
o Training documentation as applicable
o Advice and selection of the visitor services management system
o Advice on the catering operations and services as applicable
o Advice on the retailing operations and product lines proposed
o Advice on maximizing the commercial efficiency of all areas of operation
o Advise on identifying opportunities to continually refine and develop the visitor experience after opening
o Advice on the practical logistics of creating and operating a new attraction
o Timescale
o Feedback on or creation of the Operating Plan
The Spider Operations Management Team:
The Spider Team comes with creativity, experience and innovation. We have developed cultural exhibitions, museums, visitor attractions and installations for a wide variety of clients in the UK and internationally.
We pride ourselves in looking at the whole ‘experience’ package from an interpretative and experiential point of view right through to a practical and commercial one. Many of our team have also operated museums or attractions so are fully aware of the practical implications of going live, and as such provide an experienced approach on future maintenance, seasonality, flexibility, and operation.
Our experience of developing new concepts and feasibility studies for visitor attractions in the cultural sector is vast and we are familiar with working on projects for independent trusts, local authority clients, National Lottery Heritage Fund, Historic England, English Heritage, and National Trust to name just a few.
Meet the Team!
Kev Smith – Operations Director
Background: With 30 years’ experience in operational management and commercial development across the Attractions industry, Kevin has planned, developed, opened and operated numerous attractions including Spinnaker Tower, Portsmouth; York’s Chocolate Story, York; The Real Mary Kings Close, Edinburgh; The Royal Mint, Cardiff; Oxford Castle and Prison, Oxford; Kent Life; Coronation Street The Tour, Manchester and Star Wars Secrets of the Empire, London to name but a few.
Sally Reynolds – Chief Experience Officer
Background: Sally led the project to develop, fund, design and build the Silverstone Museum from its inception in 2011 to its official opening by the Duke of Sussex and Sir Lewis Hamilton in 2020. She then led museum operations until March 2022 when she left to join Spider Entertainment Ltd. Sally has 25 years’ experience in the attractions and museums industry, six with the world's second largest attraction operator – Merlin Entertainments Ltd.
In addition to our Lead Operations Management Team Kev Smith and Sally Reynolds, we rely on the contributions of fellow Spider team members James Orchard (Project Management) and Ashley Lynch(Design Delivery/Creativity).
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