Today’s attractions need to do more than look amazing — they need to feel, sound, and even smell unforgettable. In this episode, we explore how to go beyond the visual and bring audio, scent and motion to the forefront of the guest experience. Paul Marden is joined by Liam Findlay, Theme Park and Museum Scenting Consultant from AromaPrime Themed Scents; David Wakefield Director and Co-founder of On the Sly; and Matt Clarkson, Creative Director of Simworx.
Today’s attractions need to do more than look amazing — they need to feel, sound, and even smell unforgettable. In this episode, we explore how to go beyond the visual and bring audio, scent and motion to the forefront of the guest experience. Paul Marden is joined by Liam Findlay, Theme Park and Museum Scenting Consultant from AromaPrime Themed Scents; David Wakefield Director and Co-founder of On the Sly; and Matt Clarkson, Creative Director of Simworx.
Show References:
Liam R. Findlay – Theme Park & Museum Scenting Consultant, AromaPrime Themed Scents
David Wakefield – Director & Co-founder, ON THE SLY
Matt Clarkson – Creative Director, Simworx
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Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast telling the story of the world's best visitor attractions and the amazing people that work in them. I'm your host, Paul Marden.
Today's attractions need to do more than look amazing. They need to feel, sound and even smell unforgettable. In this episode, we explore how to go beyond the visual and bring audio, scent and motion to the forefront of the guest experience. I'm joined by Liam Findlay, theme park and museum scenting consultant from Aroma Prime themed Scents, David Wakefield, director and co founder of On the Sly, and Matt Clarkson, creative director of Simworx.
Paul Marden: Hello, guys. Welcome to Skip the Queue. Hello. We have to start with our Icebreaker questions, which is the bit that I never prepare anybody for.
Paul Marden: I was reading on, I think it was Blooloop, that the National Gallery is advertising for trustees at the moment and, you know, one of these big national galleries and museums, it would be amazing, I think, to be able to be parachuted into one of those jobs. But if it was, if you could get parachuted into any museum or visitor attraction to kind of get involved in the strategic vision and dealing with problems, where would you love to go?
Matt Clarkson: Well, for me personally, I think that I've heard rumours there's a big theme park being built over the next few years in the UK.
Paul Marden: Oh, yeah.
Matt Clarkson: Don't know too much about it really, but I mean, yeah, I think we all want to be involved purely just for the insider knowledge, I think, more than anything, I think.
Paul Marden: Yeah, seeing it from a hole in the ground and risen out of the ground and how there must be some amazing stories and amazing experiences that people are going through there.
Matt Clarkson: Exactly, yeah.
Paul Marden: What about you, David?
David Wakefield: Well, I think from a sound and an audio point of view, anything that's got a really rich legacy of iconic IP would be awesome to get your teeth into. Right. If you've got that amazing back catalogue of really well known music and sound design, something like that would be, yeah, would be a real joy to work on.
Paul Marden: What about what sort of thing are you thinking? Are you thinking sci fi? Are you thinking, you know, something from the movies?
David Wakefield: Yeah, I mean, just from a personal point of view, like a, you know, to be able to have a lot of fun with like the Disney back catalogue would be a good, A lot of, a lot of fun, I think. Or even, I mean, it's just, you know, not necessarily a themed attraction, but it kind of a parallel kind of world back when you had like the Beatles, Cirque du Soleil show, going around and being able to kind of explore and rework the Beatles back catalogue. You know, something like that, where you've got. Got something that's just so iconic that you can kind of put your own creative stamp on. I think that would be awesome.
Matt Clarkson: Excellent.
Paul Marden: Liam, what about you? Where. Where would your ideal place to be parachuted in to go and work?
Liam Findlay: Well, I do think I enjoy visiting Disneyland Paris with it being our local Disney park. And surprisingly, Disney parks don't have all that many smells and I'd quite like to go in and rejig that a bit. They do have a few, but there's a lot of potential, kind of untapped potential. I think maybe in Phantom Manor.
Paul Marden: Oh, well, there you go.
Liam Findlay: A few spooky smells.
Paul Marden: You never know, there might be somebody at Disney listening right now thinking, yeah, there's a missed opportunity here. Let's get Liam in to help. Lastly, water rides or dark rides. What's your preference?
David Wakefield: Water rides. I get terrible motion sickness. The dark rides are not a good thing for me. It's a water ride.
Liam Findlay: Yeah. I've grown up on dark rides, so they're my favourite. Never been keen on them. Well, yeah, I grew up being a bit scared of like log flumes, but you get good dark ride and water ride combinations, so. But it's more dark rides for me.
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, I think probably growing up it may have been water rides, but then, yeah, I think as UK parks, certainly you only get about two weeks of the year when you can actually dry off from them. So I would opt for dark rides, certainly.
Paul Marden: No, yeah, I think I'm with you. The practicality of them is not quite brilliant in this country. We've got so much to talk about today, so why don't we press on with the real questions rather than the fun stuff. Why do you guys think the non visual senses, so the sounds, the scent, the motion elements are so powerful when it comes to building emotional connection in attractions. David, did you want to maybe go first with that?
David Wakefield: Sure. I think audio is the fastest route to an emotional connection. So whether you have music and soundscape setting the mood, they're really able to trigger those kind of nostalgic connections or kind of heighten your excitement before a single visual appears. You know, you can kind of be. Be triggered into those. Prepping, prepping the mood for that. The right soundtrack or ambient layer can really sort of shape the expectations that you're going to have and raise the anticipation in the moment and really make it unforgettable. Kind of unique sound environments can turn perhaps passive visitors into real active participants and really deepen that immersive experience that they're about to have. Yeah.
Paul Marden: And I think the wrong audio experience is really jarring, isn't it? If the audio is done well, you don't notice it. If it's done badly, you almost trip over it, don't you?
David Wakefield: Yeah, absolutely.
Paul Marden: Liam, what are your thoughts around? Why scent is an important part of this mix?
Liam Findlay: Well, it's kind of similar to what David said about music and that it's a very direct route to your emotions. Olfactory bulbs directly connect to the part of the brain that processes memories and emotions. And I think when you go through life, you can walk down the street and there'll be all sorts of smells and all sorts of sounds and the movements as well, if you're navigating through a crowd, for example. And often kind of extra sensory or extra sensory elements are seen as a bit of an afterthought. And I think it's good if they can be considered as part of the whole. More blended in with everything else. Because life is a blend of multisensory elements.
Matt Clarkson: Sound and sense and motion. I think they all tend to bypass that logical part of our brain, and they do go straight into the emotion and the memory of what you're experiencing. There's almost, I suppose, like a vulnerability that comes with that. It's almost like that loss of control, I guess, the things you don't see. So when you feel something move beneath you or you hear that right sound at the right moment, it becomes visceral, I guess, really. And that's the difference between something that you see and something that you feel.
Paul Marden: Yeah. I've got memories of going to different attractions, museums to theme parks, where they might capture one of those extra senses. But I'm trying to think where I've seen it done well, that these things are all blended together seamlessly. So in my head, I'm thinking, at the Postal Museum, it's not a ride. There's a part of the museum where kids can get on board and start sorting mail as if they were on a train. And there's movement and there's sound, but I don't think this. I don't remember there being scent. Can you think of places where all of this is blended together to create that kind of emotional attachment for people?
David Wakefield: So this isn't like a theme park experience, but we were the music directors for the London New Year's Eve fireworks each year. And when you go to see that show live, it's a very immersive experience in a different sense because it feels so visceral and so real. You've got the power of the fireworks that you're experiencing so close. The visual aspect of that, you know, the magic of the drones and any other kind of lighting that's happening, the awesome lighting that's happening and literally the smell of it as well, you got the smell of the pyro. So really is a very all encompassing, immersive experience, that's for sure.
Liam Findlay: I think simulation experiences often at least try to blend them together. Well, the first one that came to mind was the Flight of Passage ride, Disney's ride, where they'll have the music that people will have an emotional connection to because they might recognise it from the film. But they also have a lovely scent blending technology where they blend different scents together in the tubes as they puff them out, which is kind of reflective of reality as sense blend together in the air. And of course, there's the movement. So I think that's a nice combination of all our specialisms there.
Matt Clarkson: It takes a lot of collaboration, really, and a lot of specialist parties to obviously all come together because I think, yeah, people will be specialised and, yeah, experts in one particular field. So it does take that big sort of collaboration from multiple parties to get that sort of high level.
Paul Marden: And then when we get that right, we know that, as you were saying, Liam, all of these senses are connected into the brain, some of them are tied to memory, some of them evoke emotion. How do attractions go about harnessing all of these different senses to build a lasting impression?
Liam Findlay: Well, as far as scent goes, we find it useful when attractions can give us as much information as they can. So ideally they'll approach us early on. Rarely happens. But if they can give us concept art or even like provide a sample of music, tell us the story that they're trying to tell, then we can make sure that what we're developing is consistent with what the other parts of the team are producing. You might think that smell is a smell, but you can have smells that are a bit more appealing to family audiences and smells that are maybe more realistic and more appropriate for a museum experience. Whereas a theme park might want something that's more fantastical and that's going to evoke more feelings of excitement.
Liam Findlay: So, yeah, as much material that we can get that's been produced by the other sensory specialists is always handy. And of course, movement as well. If it's a high paced ride, then it might need more like fiery and kind of in your face smells compared to a nice slow, relaxing boat ride that's going to perhaps have more calming smells.
Paul Marden: Matt, what are your thoughts in terms of how do we work this into the entire journey to leave that lasting impression?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, so I suppose regarding the motion, I think at Simworx we tend to think of the motion element as a kind of amplifier for the experience. So sudden drops and surges forward trigger excitement, but then slow, smooth glides sort of build anticipation. But then if you layer that in with all the other elements, then you're creating this multi sensory anchor that guests remember sort of long after they've left the experience.
Paul Marden: I was at IAAPA and I went on this immersive ride and really I was not moving very much at all. I had a helmet on, I had the kind headset in front of me and I wasn't moving that much. But yet I felt a huge sense of movement around. I did flip upside down at one point, so there was quite a lot of movement at some points. But, but at times when I was. I'm not very good at this, but when I separated myself from what was actually going on and kind of looked down on myself at what was happening, I could see I wasn't moving very much. But it gave me this impression of real movement. So is that, is there a subtle art to this?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, definitely. I think subtlety is the key. It's about precision, not volume. When it comes to either be it motion profiles or those use of these sensory effects, I think it's subtlety. Is your friend here? Definitely.
Paul Marden: David, what about you? What do you think? How does music help you with that lasting impression?
David Wakefield: Well, I think there's a couple of points really. I think the music and creative audio, almost like the. How you orchestrate that emotional arc of a guest's journey is really important. So from literally when you walk in the venue or you first interact with that brand or that moment right the way through to when you lit to the big climax, the big finish point. And when you leave, you know, they're the things that anchor those memories for, you know, for years. I think some key things would be distinctive, whether it's sonic logos or light motifs or themes, things that are kind of reinforcing the brand identity and kind of spark instant audience recognition. So, you know, like a Disney theme or something like that.
David Wakefield: Those kind of things really help to heighten the moment and also going back to the kind of guiding people through an event. So some kind of interactive sound so whether it's triggered by guest movement or proximity to something, it really deepens that immersion and it makes experiences more engaging. Even, you know, even a more budget conscious attractions. You know, that's really a really powerful thing. But the journey through or the journey of your experience in that attraction is really key.
Paul Marden: I was at Big Pit not too long ago actually and they've redesigned their gift shop experience and like most museums, it's the last thing you do as you exit through the gift shop. But they had a really clever use of sound. There was they had recorded sounds from down in the mine. They'd accessed recordings from the past, layered it all together. There was the canaries. So at times you would hear the noise of the canaries and that soundtrack that clever use of sound has really stuck with me because it really was the last thing that I, I experienced as I was leaving. It was a really clever use of sound, I thought.
David Wakefield: And it really leaves a lasting impression with you, doesn't it? That's, that's what you remember, that fear.
Paul Marden: Exactly, exactly. So we talked a little about the feelings and how those feelings, you know, those emotions leave us with a real memory of the place and it sticks with us and then that's what. When we tell our stories to our friends and families, it'll often be the emotions that were evoked from all of those senses. That is important. But can we use these kind of non visual senses to guide the guest through the experience as well? Is there some way in which movement, perhaps Matt could guide threepol through the experience to set pace or something like that?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, absolutely. So I think, yeah, with some of our sort of motion bases, you could have a low rumble on a floor plate which would immediately get guests to sort of stop and stay on alert, look around a bit. But then you can use sort of bright and energetic sound tracks to almost sort of push them forward into different spaces if you need to hurry them along. But then even sort of subtle vibrations through seat haptics or directional airflow and almost without realising sort of focus your guests attention onto a different space.
Paul Marden: Oh, that's interesting. Yeah.
Matt Clarkson: It's subtle that you wouldn't actually realise it, but you are being focused into the direction that we want you to focus on essentially. And it's all about how we want guests to sort of move and feel within each space every time we design these sort of, these motion cues.
Paul Marden: And I wonder whether just as you're talking about it, so the kind of the airflow attracts your attention. I guess you could use heat as well. Heat or cold to be able to encourage people to do things. Or it's a. You're in a dark corridor and you feel very cold. There's lots of air blowing around you that might speed you through that bit of it because you feel uncomfortable.
Matt Clarkson: Exactly. And even if you're attracted, without realising, to a warmer space purely because the space you're in is a lower temperature, it's definitely. Yeah, it's effective.
Paul Marden: Excellent. Liam, do you use fetid smells to be able to encourage people to not to stop somewhere?
Liam Findlay: We do, yeah. Yeah. There are a few examples. There's a castle in Wales. It has a narrow maze outdoors and so they don't want crowds gathering in that narrow space. So they've got a mediaeval toilet there that has a smell, which is kind of. It presents itself as a fun feature, but it also ensures that people aren't going to crowd there. And it was interesting hearing. Hearing David talk about the guest journey and the soundtrack. And sometimes we consider a smellscape a bit like a soundtrack. And especially in scare mazes at Halloween, we can use scents to influence or try to influence how quickly people move through. So, for example, there's often a false sense of security conjured in the pre show area.
Liam Findlay: So there's trailers at Thorpe Park that used a popcorn smell, so everyone kind of feels nice and relaxed at the start and they're not ready to rush through. And then temperature was mentioned again, if it's a very dull, dark kind of corridor, you can use damp smells to make it less comfortable, so people kind of shift through a bit more. And of course you have the big kind of sensory overload moments, maybe where someone jumps out with a chainsaw and it's all very loud and that's when you bring the rotting flesh out, because that's when you want people to scream and run out the room. So, yeah, there. There are ways of kind of influencing the pace with smells.
Paul Marden: And of course, sound does exactly the same thing, doesn't it, David? You can use relaxing sounds and set pace and get hearts thumping, can't you?
David Wakefield: Exactly, yeah. I think there's different layers. You can do it kind of with the actual composition or the soundscapes that you're using. Actually, the word smellscape, I've not heard of that before. That's an awesome.
Matt Clarkson: I think you need to trademark that, Liam. I think.
David Wakefield: Yeah, yeah. But, you know, even with the right design of the AV system and where you place the sounds, can you can physically draw people along. You know, we're designing a space at the moment for an immersive experience. And there's a long corridor we want the guests to walk down and how we're designing the sound to physically pull you down there. So you're kind of following the sound and you're aware of the sound at the other end of the corridor that you're kind of drawn towards, and it's physically moving you through the space. And as you're walking down that corridor, you get a sense of going from one space to another.
David Wakefield: So the sound is morphing and changing and you kind of get the sound, you know, the feeling going down a tunnel or something, you know, and a very physical experience of a change of environment, whereas you're literally just walking down a very bland tunnel. But you kind of get this experience and it's all driven by, you know, by the sound and how it's produced and processed, but physically where the sound is coming from as well.
Paul Marden: Excellent. I'm thinking about the operators that are dreaming up new rides or new sections of their museum. There's a lot involved in trying to engage with professionals like yourselves. So it all starts at the brief, doesn't it? What is it that you guys need in order for you to be able to work together and deliver on the goals that the client has got?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, well, I think, obviously, I think Liam has touched on it briefly, but I would say, yeah, as long as we're all brought in, the earlier the better, really. So before any layouts or visuals are locked in. And, yeah, we find the best creative briefs don't just describe what you'll see, but they also describe how guests will feel at each particular point of the experience. And, yeah, certainly for our created pitches and proposals for clients, we also include, let's say, our dark rides, for instance. We break down each scene and give the narrative, give potential visuals or concepts, et cetera. But we also bullet point the emotion that we want guests to feel at each particular stage. So obviously you can build up that tension you can release in different scenes and stuff.
Matt Clarkson: And obviously, as long as you all agree on that emotional journey from the start, then you can weave the sound, the motion, the scents in from the ground up so they're not bolted on at the end. Because I think, like, we've touched on. It's like you can always tell when they're an add on.
David Wakefield: Yeah.
Paul Marden: Is it often the case that it's a very creative exercise where all of the senses will be brought together into the room. All of the consultants, all of the designers together, brainstorming how these things flow. Or is it very much more a case that you're brought in for your individual expertise, but you don't necessarily collaborate with the other people in the team?
Matt Clarkson: It varies. And obviously the best sort of projects, the best creative briefs definitely involve all parties, definitely involved everybody from the start. But it's not always like that, unfortunately. And sometimes it is just a case of we've already agreed everything, we just need you to put a motion base in a themed vehicle in this space. But yeah, obviously the best ones do involve all parties from the start. So you build it from the ground up and then you incorporate every sense, every sensory cue that you want literally as you're writing the story there and there.
Paul Marden: David, from your perspective, are you often involved in the early stages and the design of the whole thing or are you asked to come along and provide a soundtrack and just make this thing happen and you've not been involved in all the other creative parts of it?
David Wakefield: Well, you can imagine my answer. It's both of those things. And we're equally used to delivering on projects right from the beginning or literally with two days to go and the end client hasn't really considered sound or they assumed somebody else was doing it and then everyone's panicking going help. And we have no budget and we have no time. Yeah. So we do that. Which isn't as necessarily creatively rewarding. Certainly the, you know, most of my day to day life is spent talking to clients and creative directors and saying, you need to be speaking to me. Right. When even at your RFP stage.
David Wakefield: I'd much rather you pick up the phone and have a conversation with me then and I can just fire you some top line ideas about how I can make your pitch more engaging and just bake some of these really interesting and engaging ideas in from an audio perspective right at the beginning so you're not having to kind of find the budget later or you're not having to kind of sell in a concept later. It's like get that baked in right from the beginning and like build your project around that essentially, that's when it works best.
David Wakefield: I always think the soundtrack kind of acts as a bit like the glue to a project in some ways, especially on like a time coded project where you've got all of these awesome tech aspects, whether it's pyro or lights or smell or sound or movement, whatever it is. But how the soundtrack reacts to that can really work hand in hand through the development phase. And, you know, we can kind of write musical design, sound design elements that can help inspire some of that design that's going on from the other. From the other aspects, and vice versa. Something might come up which we're like, oh, wow, that's amazing. But, you know, sitting in a room and having a conversation and saying to all these people that are experts in their own tech aspects and saying, right, what's the best thing that we could do?
David Wakefield: Make your thing look awesome or sound awesome or be the best it can be. And then kind of collaborative work with the creative director on bringing that to life.
Paul Marden: Yeah, absolutely. I'm. I'm guessing, Liam, it's not as easy as sticking an air freshener in the room to just lay on the scent. So it must take quite a lot of planning for you guys and being involved in the early stages of the project to make the aromascape really feel authentic.
Liam Findlay: Yeah. It seems that it's the same benefit for everyone. Early is good. We can. At AromaPrime, we've got over 400 smells that we try to keep stocked at all times. So sometimes it can be quite a simple solution. If someone needs to be disgusted, then we got poo and vomit in urine. If they need to be happy, we've got smells that make them happy. What can be a challenge for us in terms of people coming to us late is that we might not have the stock and it might be a couple of months lead time before we can get it. And then they have to have something that's not quite as good because their event is in two days and the late ones can be fine. We send it out and it's all good.
Liam Findlay: But with the early ones, I can remember one of my favourite projects was when they sent me the blueprints for their dark ride and I could look at the specific scenes and what was going on in them and I could kind of plot out the emotional journey that way. And that was really good. And what's also useful for us is knowing how they want to apply the scents, because there are all sorts of different challenges with different scent applications. Like in a theatre, you don't want to diffuse too many smells and have the auditorium stinking. You need to time it out. Right. Or in a museum, you might. There might be conservation concerns and they don't want scents that are going to damage paintings, for example.
Liam Findlay: So we can advise on how to apply the scents in a way that is going to be safe in Terms of conservation and also guest comfort. Because sometimes guests don't expect smells in museums. So we can like suggest different kinds of smell stations where people have the choice to access the smell or in a roller coaster where it's really hard to apply a scent. So they might need a scent cannon that blasts out when the vehicle slows down and it needs to be semi indoors so the wind doesn't take it away. So yeah, knowing how they plan to apply the smell, because sometimes we don't get told.
Liam Findlay: I guess not everyone's used to dealing with smells and it doesn't occur to them, but sometimes they'll just say we need the smell and then it will only occur to them to ask about the application later on down the line.
Paul Marden: I can clearly understand. So for me, when we talk about brand, it's the association and the feeling that people have with a thing. What is the Disney brand? What is the universal brand? What is the brand that's associated with the Science Museum? And I can clearly believe that there is a, you know, there's an auditory brand, there's also a scent brand. You know, you go into different shops and there's a clear different scent that's involved. David, how do you go about contributing that soundtrack to the overall brand?
David Wakefield: Yeah, well, I think a big part of what we do is actually interpreting briefs and words into what that means from a sound point of view, whether that's music or sound design. And actually, you know, spending as much time and love and energy on creating what a brand sounds like compared to what it looks like visually or might smell like or whatever is, it's so key and you know, coming up with their, you know, proper custom sort of soundscapes or music or even sonic signatures, they can become like an attractions audio logo, I suppose. And it really builds brand recognition and kind of loyalty to that brand. And it's so important. It's so important. It's kind of critical really.
Paul Marden: Liam, consent form part of that kind of non visual brand. Is there something that if you go through an attraction, there's a, there's a base note that you always return to in terms of scent, which gives you a feeling that when you leave that's, you remember that attraction because of that?
Liam Findlay: Yeah, there are there, it's kind of two ends. You can have something that's really designed specifically for a brand, like a hotel signature scent. I was working with a brand once and they sent me, which is very handy. They sent me their, like Media pack with all their logos and their fonts and I could look at like the shapes and the colours because you can have smells that bring out certain colours and that helps bring out the mood of the brand. If it's kind of a bit less specific. Like a roller coaster, for example. Sometimes you need to get a balance of what is pleasant but also unpleasant enough to make people apprehensive before they board the roller coaster. Like Nemesis Reborn, for example. Alton Towers.
Liam Findlay: We made an alien smell for the loading station and that's got a kind of a smoked fish element to it because we wanted it to be kind of meaty and reflective of the red colours and a bit kind of unusual, but also not incredibly unpleasant. And we don't want people feeling sick when they are on the roller coaster.
Paul Marden: Wow.
Liam Findlay: But people, strangely, even with the most disgusting smells, like at the dungeons, when everywhere was closed for lockdown, people were coming to us because they couldn't visit the attractions. They would be buying the dungeon smells and the rotting flesh and the torture chamber smells because that was a way that they could take themselves back to those places from home. And kind of unexpectedly, a lot of ride smells because people, there's such a strong connection between smells and memory and transporting yourself back somewhere. Lots of attraction smells kind of become very valuable to people as ways of bringing back happy memories. I think a big one, a big incidental one, is the smell of the water in Pirates of the Caribbean, which was.
Liam Findlay: Never had an intentional smell, but everyone associates it with that kind of damp, calm surrounding like they're about to go on the ride. And I have candles that replicate that.
Paul Marden: Matt, am I being fundamentally ignorant? But I can't. How can movement and haptics and things like that contribute to the brand?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, I think we're the tricky one in terms of that sort of brand identity, really. But I would love to sort of imagine one day that guests would go to a park and go on a ride and immediately know that it's a Simworx branded experience, purely just by the feel of it or by the way it moves, the style and the use of effects and. Yeah, this could have already happened, we don't know. But I think almost having that sort of signature range of movement, be it sort of quite dynamic or quite smooth, certainly in terms of its structure, I think that in a way could be multi sensory branding for the movement element. And I think it's an opportunity for us and. But it's a tricky one, I must say.
Paul Marden: Yeah, let's talk about those attractions with more limited budgets. Is there anything that the three of you think of that is something for that is a low entry point, simple, low cost solution that can contribute your signature sense, as it were. David?
David Wakefield: Yeah, I think actually one thing that's often overlooked is how cost effective sound can be in the delivery of an experience and a delivery of a sense. Certainly compared to how much it costs to get in big drone fleets or motion graphics or expensive lighting, etc. You know, one simple sound pad like bass rumble or something or just a simple soundscape, a simple chord. I can make you feel something completely different as you walk in a room compared to very expensive motion graphics or very expensive lighting. So it doesn't need to be expensive at all, it just needs to be well considered. I think that's. That really is the key.
Liam Findlay: I do often find often some customers can be perhaps not even consider scent at all because they expect it to be really expensive with all the machines and the pricey oils. And sometimes that's not helped by competitors who are very expensive. But yeah, there are always really cost effective approaches. It could be a case of just having a very simple machine, cost effective machine and a small amount of oil. And sometimes you only need people to smell things when they enter the room because you adapt to smell so quickly and then don't sense it anymore. If you just have something when they first enter that can influence their emotion as they progress through. Or it could be like in a museum again if they have a smell station. It doesn't have to be something really fancy.
Liam Findlay: It could be some museums that are very low budget. They just get those little wooden boxes you can get in from the works, for example, and then put a very small amount of oil on a cotton wool ball so that people can open the box and sniff. So yeah there's. We try to recommend the more effective methods that tend to cost a bit more, but they're very low cost ones as well.
Paul Marden: Matt, how can you bring movement and sensation into the play on a lower budget?
Matt Clarkson: Yeah, I think obviously as we've touched on, there's things like seat haptics, there's rumbling floor plates for instance, that aren't obviously don't take huge budgets. But I think if you incorporate all the other elements, obviously a range of 4D effects like we offer that can be quite cost effective and obviously used at the right time with the perfect sense, with the perfect sound. I do think they all. Yeah, once you've sort of got them all together, working quite fine it can be a cost effective solution to, yeah, sort of truly immerse your guests. But I must say. Yeah, I definitely agree with David. I think having that good soundscape for, yeah, quite a cost effective budget, I think does make so much difference.
Paul Marden: You're not supposed to be helping him with his pitch. He was doing by himself. Let's wrap this up with one final question. Each of you. I want you to give a lasting piece of advice to attractions to help them to deepen immersion through sensory design. Liam, what would yours be?
Liam Findlay: I suppose on the topic of budget, you don't even. Which is kind of shooting myself in the foot. But you don't even have to buy created smells when you're designing a themed environment or a museum display that has some sense of immersion to it. You can even just think about the materials you're using. If I talk about Disneyland again, if you go to the Adventureland, they have lots of rope, they have lots of stone and metal that brings out the. It kind of makes visitors aware of those materials and the context of the time period. If you go into Frontierland, there's lots of wood and leather in the shops. When it gets sunny. I was at an Italian theme park during a heat wave and they had a cowboy land and it was the hottest place I'd ever been.
Liam Findlay: But it really felt like the Wild West because the buildings, you could smell them because it was all wood and it was all really hot. And you can think about the weather as well. So if you're in a really hot country, you might want to take advantage of that. Take advantage of the fact which plants are going to grow best in your environment. If you are somewhere wetter, like at Disneyland Paris and it's going to rain a lot, you can think, okay, what absorbent materials can we use, like rope and flags that are going to bring out smells or even stone. So, yeah, you can. Even if it's not created smells, there are ways that you can incorporate scent into the design to benefit the storytelling.
Paul Marden: David, what's your thoughts?
David Wakefield: I think the most important thing is to make audio an integral part of your initial creative vision. Make it key to the guest journey or the event. It doesn't need to be a lot. It just needs to be considered very early on. Sometimes less is more, you know, a more memorable or well designed piece of sound. There's way more than lots of layers of generic audio that becomes like audio soup, you know, I mean, be very considered, be very precise and make it part of that creative vision really early.
Matt Clarkson: Yeah. Just to echo David in a way, but obviously with the motion, I think. Yeah. Subtlety, as we've touched on, is always your friend, I think. And less can be more, certainly. And the best attractions, they never overwhelm the senses. They align with them. So to work on that, to obviously make sure that you produce the best experience.
Paul Marden: I think we've established why you do your jobs and I do mine, because subtlety is not my thing at all. But it has been wonderful to talk to you all how you bring your art into the entire guest experience. I think is really interesting. So thank you ever so much for sharing that with us today.
Matt Clarkson: Thank you very much.
Liam Findlay: Thank you.
Paul Marden: Thanks to all three of my guests today. It's been wonderful talking about exploring the senses. This episode was written by Emily Burrows and me, Paul Marden. Editing was by Steve Folland and production by Emily. Sami Entwistle from Plaster and Wenalyn Dionaldo from Skip the Queue HQ.
If you enjoyed today's episode, please like and even comment on the episode in your podcast app. It really does help people to find us on Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Links, transcripts and show notes are available on our website, skipthequeue.fm. Thanks for listening and see you next week.