In this episode of SKip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Mark Lofthouse, Senior Manager of Business and Client Strategy at RWS Global, to explore the power of brand connection and what it really takes to turn audiences into advocates. Drawing on this experience across live experiences, entertainment and immersive projects, Mark shares how brands can move beyond messaging to create meaningful, emotional connections through design, storytelling and shared moments. Let's get into it.
In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Mark Lofthouse, Creative Director and Business & Client Strategy Manager at RWS Global, a global entertainment company delivering experiences across attractions, live events and destination design.
Mark shares his journey into the attractions industry, from starting out in haunted attractions as a teenager to leading creative strategy on IP-led experiences around the world. Andy and Mark talks about how brands and attractions can create meaningful emotional connections, why guest-first design is critical to commercial success, and how IP partnerships can help venues reach new audiences when done thoughtfully. The conversation also looks ahead to the future of immersive experiences, personalisation, and what regional and family attractions can learn from projects that are thriving today.
Show References:
Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey
Mark Lofthouse, Senior Manager, Business & Client Strategy at RWS Global
Skip the Queue is brought to you by Merac. We provide attractions with the tools and expertise to create world-class digital interactions. Very simply, we're here to rehumanise commerce. Your host is Andy Povey.
Credits:
Written by Emily Burrows (Plaster)
Edited by Steve Folland
Produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)
Andy Povey: Hello and welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast that tells the stories of the world's best visitor attractions and the amazing people who work in them. Brought to you by Merac
Mark Lofthouse: I'm Mark Lofthouse, I am a creative director and I'm also the business and client strategy manager for RWS Global, predominantly looking after entertainment, seasonal events and experiences across Europe and Oceania. So I cover quite a large area of the world.
Andy Povey: Well, Mark, welcome to Skip the Queue. So you actually wearing two hats at the moment, aren't you? And talk to me a little bit about. Let's start with RWS. If you can explain to people at home what RWS is all about, what you do there.
Mark Lofthouse: Sure. So RWS Global is a sports and entertainment company. It's been going around for a couple of decades now and it's grown quite substantially as a business over the past couple of years predominantly through acquisitions of other businesses and that's kind of how it's grown but in essence anything experiential, anything events or entertainment or destination design specific the company look after. So it's everything from visioning and ideation and master planning of brand new projects around the world all the way through to that sort of on site operations and management of entertainment teams. It covers a really large sort of array of services within the entertainment industry.
Andy Povey: And I was just looking at your website just before we started and I saw a couple of things that I found really interesting. Opening ceremonies for athletic events and big sporting events in the States, that kind of stuff. It looks really exciting.
Mark Lofthouse: I suppose. I love the company as well because no two days are ever the same. So one day our teams are working on the opening ceremony, the Olympics or the sports presentation at the Olympics and the day after that we're managing the entertainment operations for Merlin Entertainment. So it's completely different sort of industries that we work in but at the heart of everything it's entertainment. It's about connection, it's about connecting sort of a brand with audiences. So I suppose that's the best way to describe it. It's all about connection and kind of insp. In the next form of entertainment going forward.
Andy Povey: Oh, that sounds. It sounds fantastic. I mean ultimately that's what we're all here for and that's why everyone's in the industry isn't it entertainment that connect storytelling and then closer to home you do some more work independently and tell us a little bit about that.
Mark Lofthouse: Sure. So since being sort of 16 years. I've been a graphic designer. My Love is for theme parks and entertainment and I was that kind of weird kid who was always obsessed with theme parks or scary things.
Andy Povey: I can relate to that. 100%.
Mark Lofthouse: I kind of got into a really weird niche when I was like 15 or 16 years of age of doing haunted attractions or skirmishes however you'd kind of best term them. So I started doing that was 15 or 16 and then I've started a business since then working with people as a kind of consultant within that field. So currently so far I've been sort of part of 150 or so different skirmises since. Since I was 16 years. So that's been from. I started as a performer in the industry, started as a performer, worked my way up to kind of being a creative director for another company and now I own my own business. So it's predominantly a haunt based skirmish based consultancy but also graphic design agency as well.
Mark Lofthouse: So I've worn many different hats in the attraction industry since being 16 years of age and I've kind of got a really good understanding of the business side of attractions. So now I offer that as consultancy as well as a sort of marketing and design side of experiences. So it's quite a complex beast to oversee. But yeah, I do that away from rws. It's all above board, everyone's very aware of it but I do that sort of the other side.
Andy Povey: Keep your hand in as it were and the couple face.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, yeah. But my focus at the moment is entirely RWS global and that's what I focus to do and that's what I work on.
Andy Povey: Fantastic. Do you ever get any spare time to do anything other than work or is it work even?
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah. This is the weird thing isn't it? Because I love theme parks, I love attractions. So actually. And I work in that industry. So for me when I'm not working on attractions or theme parks I'm visiting them. So it's kind of like a postmas holiday. But I never leave the industry. It's just something that I love. I've always been obsessed with the industry so it's very rare I get downtime but when I do it's spent at a theme park so I kind of never escape it.
Andy Povey: Now I need to remember the name of the guy or the person who came out with that quote of find a job you love and you'll never work a day in your life.
Mark Lofthouse: So true.
Andy Povey: It's completely how my career has been and a lot of other people that we see in the industry. That passion is really Important, I think so obviously with RWS you need to be very cautious about what you're allowed to share. So I don't want you to break any trade secrets or upset anyone. But can you tell us about the latest project you've been working on? What's been keeping you busy?
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, sure. So we again, difficulty about this industry. We want to talk about the amazing things that we're all working on, the kind of crazy ideas that we're coming up with. But the problem families were just not allowed and sometimes we're never allowed to talk about the project we've been part of. But I think something I can say is we at RWS are working a lot at the moment with brands who aren't necessarily in the attraction industry and they want to get into the attraction industry, although they want to be part of location based entertainment. And we're doing a lot of work on that side of it at the moment. So we're doing a lot of partnership deals with new IPs or existing IPs and brands who haven't necessarily stepped their foot into that world before.
Mark Lofthouse: And we're working as kind of guidance for them to kind of show them how it works, what the pitfalls are, how to kind of work through those problems and then connecting them with kind of clients on our side who we can then bring that brand to and to produce that entertainment for them. So we're doing a lot of work with that at the moment, which is keeping us incredibly busy. We've got another couple of projects which are due to be announced very, very soon, which are IP focused. But yeah, that's kind of a considerable amount of our work at the moment is connecting brands to clients, but where the kind of mediary in between where we help the client get exactly what IP they want, but also from an IP perspective, without a kind of brand guardianship on their behalf.
Mark Lofthouse: I'm working kind of as an extension of their team, if that makes sense.
Andy Povey: It does, absolutely. I mean, that's a really fine line that you're treading there, isn't it? You want to make sure that whatever the IP owner is doing is actually works for them.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, the. I think the beauty of it is that we've been doing this a long time now. We've all been working with IP for a long time with some kind of household names, with the likes of Warner Bros. And we know what works. We, we know how to help them kind of get. And were kind of experts in the field, especially when it comes to IP and Entertainment. So it's actually our duty, in my opinion, to help these brands kind of get out there in the right way because I, I've seen it firsthand away from RWS Global, where some brands have kind of stepped into that world and it's not gone quite right for them. And I think we've all seen examples of that.
Mark Lofthouse: So I think there should be some more emphasis on companies like ourselves who are dealing with IPs to say, we will help you in that process to get there because use our expertise anytime. We kind of need you to do that. Right. So I think there's so much ownership that needs to be on companies like ourselves to work with brands a bit stronger.
Andy Povey: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So imagine I'm an owner of a multinational, multi billion dollar brand. What's in it for me? Why would I want to do this?
Mark Lofthouse: I think for you it's gaining network as much as you possibly need to. So for me it's getting you put into the right people that you want to get in touch with from an experience point of view. Now what a lot of people don't realise that experience isn't necessarily just about fancying a logo on a live theatre and saying, " Oh, this is style to that. It's not about that actually. It's all about connectivity on an emotional level. When you feel something, so you go to a theatre show, for example, you feel something deep inside when you go there and it's this magic that you get and when you start to develop that within a brand as well, the brand connection that you get and the marketing reach that you can get from that is incredibly strong.
Mark Lofthouse: It's something the TV advert could never do. So I think for brands to actually get you connected on a true emotional level with the audiences who are hopefully going to be buying your product or buying into your IP going forward, there's no better way to do it than through experiences.
Andy Povey: No, I couldn't agree more. I mean, I've got 11 year old twins and they're still obsessed with Bluey, so that connection for them is just phenomenal. So when you're working on a project, you're looking at some IP going into a venue, focusing really on that sort of theme park side of things, more the physical attraction side of things. Then when does it start? Where does the brand. How do you identify those things that have that connection, that shared experience?
Mark Lofthouse: It usually comes in one of two ways. The way that I've kind of work and the way that we tend to work, it either comes from the client, the end user, saying to us, " We need something that from a marketing reaches people to this demographic. This is what they're looking for. It's this audience group." That's how we need to connect with this. And how do we do it through ip, because we're struggling with our own marketing. So a theme park, for example, may we are predominant in the knows at a family park, but we want to reach teenagers. How do we kind of get there for you internally to change your marketing communications to get to that stage where you're just attracting that is so incredibly difficult, costs a lot of money, takes a lot of time.
Mark Lofthouse: Sometimes a really kind of quick win and an easy way in that is by utilising an IP that is already firmly within, deeply rooted within that demographic. Right. So we sometimes get that from that side where they say to us, we need you to come in and kind of bring an IP on board. Sometimes the IP come to us and say, we really want to start doing experiential. Like we've just mentioned, a lot of the work we're doing is based on that. So for me it all comes down to what the aims of both of them are, to match them both up. And I think that's such a key thing to think about, that each of them have their own aims, they know what they want to do. But actually the. There's a lot of synergy within those aims.
Mark Lofthouse: Which one of them, from an IP perspective, maybe we need to connect with teenagers on a deeper emotional level. We need to kind of get their buy in. Social media isn't working as much anymore. And then the park sometimes come in and say, well, actually we need to connect with that demographic and we can't get there. So then what we do is kind of match up them too with the. With the conversations that we're having with IPs and also with the client. And we match them both up and kind of pair them up. That's usually the way it works, that we kind of sit in the middle and kind of either connecting tissue between the two.
Andy Povey: You're like a dating agency almost.
Mark Lofthouse: Sounds like it sounds like matchmaking, doesn't it? It's a matchmaker.
Andy Povey: I was gonna say you're the tinder for the attractions industry, but maybe.
Mark Lofthouse: Are we swiping right? Are we swiping right? But yeah, I think there's that kind of level. But then every now and again we do get somebody coming forward who is the park who's already speaking to an ip. But for some reason that connection isn't quite working. And they know that the brand may be very specific on what we need and what we want. And you're not allowed to step out of these parameters, which happens quite often in ip. So then we step in and kind of work out, actually. Okay, your aims as a brand and an IP are this. How can we smooth that process out to actually get you to both align and kind of sit on the same level? So that's kind of the third option. Doesn't happen as often. I usually say it's kind of first two that happen.
Andy Povey: Yeah. So you. You're coming in almost as a. I'm back on this relationship. You're the marriage guidance counsellor at that point.
Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And it's coming from the point of view of our entire focus. Then he's on experience. Right. We aren't thinking of. Of the end elements of this demographic we need to attract, and this demographic is the one that we want to get into. We're not thinking of that. We're thinking of, okay, you want this. How does that feel to the guests coming in? What is the experience of what is the catalyst to draw those feelings on? And I'll talk about emotion and connection a lot in this podcast, but it's so. It's so kind of true to me. The reason I'm in this industry is because I've got a really deep love and connection for the industry by being there as a child, going to theme parks as a child with family members who aren't around anymore.
Mark Lofthouse: And it really connected and resonated with me. And for me and our aims as a business, we want that feeling in the younger generation coming up. That's. We want to create the same feelings that we had when were growing up. And the reason we love this industry, we want that on the audience. So our focus in the middle is to just focus on the guest experience to ensure that we get exactly the true emotion that we want to connect with.
Andy Povey: Do you know this. This theme of putting the guest at the centre is running through so many of the different podcasts I've done recently. And it's actually one of the reasons that we're here in Merac is actually putting the customer, the guest at the centre of everything you do. Because no one's going to argue with that.
Mark Lofthouse: It's so true as well. And I'm sure you've been in the same position where we've seen before, people focus on too much on their own brand or focus too much on their aims that actually forgotten the point. They're so kind of blindsided in what they're looking at. They've forgotten the point. The point is it's the end user, it's the guest. That's what we need to focus on. If they're having a great time, that's going to have an impact on our business. It's going to be spent. Per head will be increased because when people are having a good time, they're more likely to spend money. Repeat visitation will be up from a theme park perspective. So I think so many people need to focus more on thinking. This isn't for me.
Mark Lofthouse: Yes, I'm a creative in this industry, but I'm not designing for me, I'm designing for the end users, I'm designed for the guests. And that focus needs to be paramount and I will die on that hill that we need to stop focusing on what we want and focus on what the guest wants and what the point of it is.
Andy Povey: I think that comes across in bucket loads just from talking to you now. And obviously that would come across with every customer, every attraction, every IP owner that you engage with. So what's the first thing you look for when you're trying to marry these two sides together? The first thing you look for when you're looking to understand if the brand's going to work in a particular area?
Mark Lofthouse: It's a real tricky one because sometimes certain brands that you're looking at, you think, this would be perfect. I'm going to use a TV show, for example. You've watched a TV show and in your head you think, I know how this can be done in the real world, I know how that can connect. But actually, a lot of the time it's just the visuals that you're connecting with. So actually there's no emotional connection to do anything. There's no purpose behind it. And I kind of. I put it back to these kind of immersive art installations. They're beautiful, they are gorgeous to go and see them, but do they truly, deeply connect to you on an emotional level, or do you just see a beautiful visual? I want the Instagram photo behind it. And if the aim of that is that's fine.
Mark Lofthouse: And I think for me, what we look at is can this be transitioned to a real world situation where we. You go into this and you feel like you're in that world, you are truly immersed in that. You are in that environment. You are. Are you a character in there? Are you just. Well, you're in there. You may be, but that's fine. I think having that defined from the beginning, what the role of the audience member is kind of how we look at guest experience. So we always think, are the audience just seeing something and it looks pretty. That for us is in the best way. And that for us isn't necessarily a huge tick box for us. For us, what we want is them to go in there and feel something.
Mark Lofthouse: We want them to go in and be all inspired or feel humbled by a space, if it's a really large grand space. And that's how we look at it, especially with brands. So we think can that be lifted and can we get those feelings across or are we just going to focus entirely on what it looks like? And if that's the case, we take a completely different tact with it. So for me, I always have a look at brands that I know we can kind of lift some of their brand guidelines. What they, every brand has what they kind of deem themselves as like emotional connections with. So they always have a true feeling of what they want and we always have a look at that and go, actually, is that, will that work in the real world?
Mark Lofthouse: For example, I'm sure a lot of listeners and yourself will have seen in other brand guidelines, people have trust. Now every business should be trustful, right? You should always trust a business that.
Andy Povey: Should just be one that doesn't want to be trusted.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, that should just be standard. Right? So if you see that as like a, a tree brand, pillar of a company, that can never be achieved in a real world situation, that's a really hard feeling to achieve in an experience. So that's what we tend to look at. We tend to look at the ones that actually, on a physical level, on an emotional level, can we connect them audiences together. And then if you say yes, there is a way of doing it, then we look at how we can do that and ensure it kind of fits within the brand, the venue that we're looking at and all of that. And it kind of fits in with that. But for us it truly does start with the emotion and how we can kind of connect them together.
Andy Povey: That makes absolute sense. And your analogy of trust is so true and it helps me understand. So you might have already answered in this next question in what you've just discussed. So if you have, then let's elaborate on it, but obviously not with the work that you've done. But what's it look like when it goes wrong?
Mark Lofthouse: I'll be very careful what I say here. But I think, yeah, I think when it goes wrong, we see examples of. I'm just going to pick one here. And we see example of Halloween haunt first. I don't know if anybody saw that. Last year it had two big IP names associated with it. A really large event in the UK which ceased trading halfway through the event, because actually it didn't have the understanding of how IP relates to a real world situation. And we've seen the Willy Wonka experience. That's the kind of example of it going wrong. And again, that wasn't ip, that was just somebody stealing ip, which is a completely different subject we won't talk about now. For me, what the pitfalls of kind of failing as an experience are, is focusing too much on the brand in its entirety.
Mark Lofthouse: So a lot of people will look at a brand and I'm just going to use Coca Cola as an experience now. They'll think of Coca Cola and then they'll think everything has to be read in the. They'll think that we have to put the logo everywhere that you see. And that is how you do a brand experience. It's not. It's not about brand slapping or putting a logo on this, that and the other end. For me, that's where a lot of brand experiences fall. When you're just putting a logo on it, you're not really attracting the audience and connecting them with why that brand's there, you're just putting a logo on there. Whereas brands who truly look at the guest experience, so they don't just think, well, people need to see this because they connect that with our brand.
Mark Lofthouse: But actually on a deeper level, what does your brand mean to these audience members? And actually, how can we do that? And if you're focused on the kind of visual aspect of it, how can we take elements of what people know and twist it to be a good experience? So, for example, the Coca Cola word, we all know what that brand looks like. So to see the way it rolls, could we make that into a slide? But it's not very evident. It means that. But then people subtly and subliminally will connect that back to the guest experience. So I always think things tend to go wrong or don't go as well as they should do when people just completely focus only on the visual aspect of what that brand should be. And I make it really simple.
Mark Lofthouse: A lot of audiences don't necessarily like super simple experiences. Some like to delve a bit deeper, some like to kind of find a little bit more out of the storyline. Right. So if you're just focusing on what things look like when people first walk in, those people are so eager to get the next level. And if you haven't planned for that next level, you're going to have a lot of upset people. So having different levels of kind of tie ins for the different audience learning capacities, is it visual learner, is it a kinesthetic learner? And thinking of all those different things that for me, when all of that is missed out and people just look after the visuals, that's when it doesn't quite work.
Mark Lofthouse: I'm making it really simple now, but there's obviously so much that kind of works to connect them.
Andy Povey: It makes total sense. mean, many years ago I operated rides at Chessington World of Adventures. I remember the runaway mine train there being sponsored by. It was a drinks manufacturer. Whether it was Schweppes or Coca Cola, I can't remember. But other than the logo at the front, there was nothing. No connection at all. Yeah, what you're describing makes absolute sense. It really resonates, Mark.
Mark Lofthouse: When you're solely focusing just on the kind of visual aspect like you said. So a kind of really good example now will be. Would be theme parks who just attach a vehicle to a roller coaster car, right? They just say sponsored by X brand. How many people are just never going to notice that? If you're not a visual learner, you're never going to connect that with it. You're never going to actually take that away from you. So you've spent the money for paying for a brand or they might have paid you for it, but equally you've spent that money paying for that and you spent the money putting the details on the car for what purpose. It's not connected with 90% of your audiences.
Mark Lofthouse: But is there other ways that you can have a look at re skinning that ride, for example, where it then has different items littered throughout it. Is there anything you could do with the audio? Is there anything that you can do from a giveaway perspective instead of spending the money on just doing that? Could you look at this instead? And I thinking of the way people learn differently is a really core way to work out, actually, if you're hitting all of the different sensory elements.
Andy Povey: No, completely. I mean, as you just described that I've had to flashback to the soap manufacturer that sponsored the log flume at ALTON TOWERS maybe 10 years ago, baths rather than logs and became a bath flume.
Mark Lofthouse: And it really worked like it's. You knew what you was getting into and actually there was so many tie ins with that ride. Even the voiceovers, if I remember correctly, the sound effects that happened throughout the ride, it connected back to the really well. And it's a true great example of how it can work well.
Andy Povey: So while we're talking about what works well as an attraction operator, what am I going to see as the tangible benefits I get? The brands getting all of their lovely feelings and their emotional connections. What's, what's in it for me as an attraction operator?
Mark Lofthouse: Depending on the amazing deal that you get, it could be a substantial amount of money.
Andy Povey: But okay, we like that straight away.
Mark Lofthouse: Particularly for me, it's about a larger marketing presence. Right. Predominantly the reason we do brand deals is to get that kind of foot reach in the door to potentially attract new audiences like we mentioned before, or actually just get a stronger hold on the audiences that you already have and you know that resonate well with a brand. So for me the whole marketing comm side of it, of working with brands is a kind of key driver. When it becomes experiential, then you get the footfall element to it as well. So actually when you do a, maybe a one off event, that is an ip you will get a significant higher footfall the majority of the time if it's the right IP and emphasis on if it is the right IP for your business.
Mark Lofthouse: But you will get quite a significant increasing footfall which works brilliantly for you and the brand. And for me it's the whole marketing side of it that is why working with a brand truly works well.
Andy Povey: I mean how'd you describe in that my mind's going to Peppa Pig World and Boris Johnson talking about taking these kids there. I mean that's marketing gold for some people.
Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. Yeah.
Andy Povey: The experience that Drake Manor had with Thomas Land 15 years ago, it's still going strong.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah. Especially I think when it comes to family ip, the kids force the adults hands let's face. And I think that's why family attractions. Looking at ip getting the right IP for your demographic, where you are. For example, up here in the north there is a farm park and they've got Shaun the Sheep from Aardman and it's worked so well for them and it's because it's true to who they are, it fits in where they are and it is attracting that new audience that wouldn't necessarily know about the place to come there beforehand. So for me, family attraction looking at IP can definitely get a really good stronghold to do it. It gets tricky when you go into sort of more adult or teen demographics. That's when it gets difficult.
Mark Lofthouse: For me, adult and team relies more on an event, something that's a bit shorter term rather than a long term investment.
Andy Povey: Yeah, only to you.
Mark Lofthouse: You tend to find that most of the disposable income from them goes on events or goes on nights out or goes on weekends, whereas a family will majority go out for a full day. And that's kind of the biggest difference that you see. But yeah, I think family IPs and family parks looking at IPs is definitely a win on all accounts.
Andy Povey: Yeah. I mean, it's also that mark of quality, isn't it? I mean, a lot of research that we're seeing from the association of Cultural Enterprises, from Alva, it's all talking about people wanting to almost guarantee that they're going to have a good time. Money's tight. So I don't want to go and spend 100, 150 quid on my day out and I want that guarantee that it's going to be right.
Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. I think it's trust, isn't it? Trust and loyalty. And I think we are all as people loyal to certain things, whether that is a brand, whether it's. How many people do you know who only have certain tea bugs because they're so loyal to brands. It's such a British thing. But yeah, I am. So it's a true thing. I think it's loyalty as well. And that's why brands can work really well. What I would recommend especially for family parks, is doing the due diligence behind it. So really looking into the reach of that brand, who the demographics are, what locations, then people are who follow the brand. My biggest piece of advice will be to do the footwork before you kind of go fully into any brand.
Mark Lofthouse: Doing that will work massively well for you and the client in the long run.
Andy Povey: Very much so. I mean, that's common for so many things, isn't it? Do your homework. So looking into the future now, crystal ball moment, how's this idea of connection to brands changing? What's all the immersive tech and personalisation doing to change what's deliverable, designed by customers, then?
Mark Lofthouse: What I found and especially from clients that I'm dealing with and from what I've seen firsthand when I go to experiences, people want more and I know that's always the case, but it's getting more and more now. People are just expecting so much more from experiences. That puts so much emphasis and pressure on producers. It puts pressure on brands. I've seen there's a lot of. A lot of focus on, like you've mentioned, personalisation. People want that experience to be theirs and theirs alone. And whether there's elements of that attraction or experience that you can entirely make theirs and make it feel like it is their personal brand and they've then got the connection with the brand or the location or whether it is just a case of pulling a family together or focusing on what that is.
Mark Lofthouse: People want to know what role they're playing. Are they doing this? Are they doing that? There's such an emphasis now on placement of people feeling like they need to be part of this and experiencing much more of an interactive journey than just going, seeing something now and witnessing it. We've seen obviously quite a large increase in, like, immersive theatre because people love to be part of a storyline. They love to kind of investigate these new layers and get more of the brand and more of the storyline. So for me, there is such an emphasis on that personalised journey. I think it's a really hard one because how personal can you make something what 2, 300 to 10,000 people are going through at the exact same time? It's a really difficult one.
Mark Lofthouse: You have to rely on some pretty nifty technology or push into mobile devices to kind of get that feeling across. What is really interesting is, especially when it comes to the technology side of it, a lot of producers and a lot of clients that I'm speaking to, they've started to slightly move away from digital to some extent, because they want people to feel there in the moment. They want people to be there with their friends, with their family. And I know I'm gonna say again, and people are gonna go, don't do a drinking game. Every time I say emotion, I'm just gonna say that. But I think it all. It all comes down to that, to the emotional connection, doesn't it? When you've got a device, you are one person, one device. It's hard to get the connection from it.
Mark Lofthouse: When you're in a room full of 2, 300 people watching a music event, you're all feeling like you're part of it. It collective group experience. So it's really interesting that a lot of people at the speakers who are now wanted to move away from sort of like the technology behind mobile devices and move more into connecting in the real world with large group audiences. And for me, I quite like to see that change. I love going places and seeing things and being part of a bigger experience together. That being said, there is some incredible tech on offer at the moment when it comes to mobile devices. One piece I kind of will touch upon now is how do we measure the KPI of an experience and how it works? Well, it's a tricky one because it's hard to measure an emotion. Right.
Mark Lofthouse: And often when what's the way to do it? By asking people how they felt. But that's often post something happening. Right. So there's some technology happening in development at the moment that is looking at AI and how we can track real time emotions that are being felt. And it does that through like facial recognition, it does that through heat sensors. It can do it through all manner of different ways. And I am so excited to see that to start to happen because we're going to get real time data on how people are feeling at any one stage and we can really start to track it. And it's so exciting to see that happening.
Mark Lofthouse: So for me, that's the technology I'm really excited to see being implemented inside attractions or experiences because it's going to really give us all a kick to start focusing a bit more on the hero now and how we kind of design for that new data coming in. It's so exciting.
Andy Povey: No, I'm smiling massively. You're taking me back to podcast I did just before Halloween with Doug Douglas from Avon Valley and he was saying the thing that he's monitoring, the thing that he gets a kick out of is seeing the teenagers and their dads come out of the scare attraction, grabbing each other. And just having made that connection, it's very difficult, particularly for teenage boys to make to their fathers and their parents. So he's doing in analogue fashion exactly what you've described. So I really look forward to seeing some more of that tech. Very interesting. So coming back closer to home, I suppose, and looking at what you're doing with your own brand, Neon Skull, you've recently completed a project with my friend Stan at Crealy.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, I have. It's a really exciting project. So the design business that we mentioned before, I predominantly focus on small to medium sized enterprises within the leisure industry in the UK. That is my entire focus. For me, there was a lot of agencies, there was a lot of design firms that were focusing on really big parks and doing big projects, but actually they were so expensive to kind of get them to work with small regional parks. So I kind of saw a gap in the market. That was my entire aim, to work with farm parks, regional parks. So when Crealy reached out and said, would you like to. Would you like to be involved with these junior rides? We've just bought these junior rides. Would you help us with that?
Mark Lofthouse: I jumped at the chance because I love the team at Crealy. Anyway. Josh and Jody and the team are just amazing to work with. So it was a really great project. And we, yeah, together, have developed two new ride concepts. So the kind of processes that they reached out and said, we bought it started with one ride originally. We bought this new ride, which is obviously the relocation for Paulton's Park. Magma ride. Relocated. We bought this ride. Can you help us come up with a name? Can you help us come up with a creative direction for it? What is the storyline? What will it look like and feel like? So I work with them to kind of vision and ideate what that entire process will be. So we worked completely collaboratively together, which is what I love about the team that we.
Mark Lofthouse: It is in the case of. They say, okay, here you go. Have fun with it. We actually work directly with each other and snowball ideas and come up with those ideas together. So we worked on the brand together. I did a couple of brand workshops and then worked on the kind of narrative of the ride, the marketing blurbs for the ride, and then the actual visual side of it as well. So we developed the sort of schematics, the 3D designs for the ride, what it'll look like, what it'll feel like, and then some really nice pieces of concept art that we worked on as well. So it was a great project. And then Josh called me one day and said, we've just bought another ride, so will you work on that one as well?
Mark Lofthouse: I think when he called me, he was in the airport going to see the ride for the first time, which is quite funny. So we did the whole process again for that new ride as well. So it's been. It was a really quick turnaround for, obviously for marketing for this year to kind of go ahead. So we finished up really quickly together, and I'm. I'm so excited for both of them, and I think it's really exciting to see a park thriving like they are. And I think it's a really difficult time in the industry. We. I think there's been one this past week where we're seeing businesses that have been around for many years really struggling and some are kind of entering administration or liquidation. It's horrible to see in UK.
Mark Lofthouse: So theme parks, like, really making these decisions, building two new rides, it's really. And obviously we've got places like Paul's park doing incredibly well. I think it's. It's so easy as an industry to focus on the kind of negative downside to what is happening. And I think we, of course, need to bear that in mind. But actually we need to start looking at people like Crealy and looking at people like Paul's park and even some of the larger players taking some notes on what they're doing and kind of how they're working, because it's. We've got such a flip side of a coin at the moment in the industry. Some people are doing really well and others are obviously suffering. And I do think some of the decisions that are being made by people like Creeley or Polton's park is incredible.
Mark Lofthouse: And I do think people need to start really looking at the kind of direction that they're taking the parks and decisions that they're making, because they're doing incredibly well.
Andy Povey: Yeah. And I mean down in that southwest, getting down towards Cornwall, Devon. It's a difficult location, isn't it?
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah, it's notoriously. Notoriously a difficult region because they're so reliant on holiday trade, aren't they? They're so reliant on seasonal trade and obviously Camel Creek as well. Who's another client of mine. They're doing incredibly well now. They're looking at overnight accommodation. They're kind of building that region, the region up again, which is amazing to see. And they're kind of investing as well. So we worked with them on a whole new area about three years ago now, so. Which was the land of myth and legends. So again, we did the ideation work to that as well and it was great. I love working with regional parts because you can see a difference.
Mark Lofthouse: You can go there and you see the smiles and you see the kind of increase in visitor numbers and I love working with businesses like that. It's just great to see on that kind of really raw level.
Andy Povey: I couldn't agree more, Mark. We need to get out of the office and go and see what we're doing, see the people experiencing what you're creating and why we're doing it. So we come to the end of our time. Let's try and sub up. We've talked a lot about emotion, we've talked a lot about IP for those smaller venues across the UK that are listening. So the regional parks, the farm parks and even some of the museums. What would be your tip for '26? What, what's your recommendation?
Mark Lofthouse: My biggest tip and recommendation is never think that it's too early to start planning. And I know that seems incredibly vague, but a lot of businesses that I deal with only start planning their seasonal activities quite late on in the year. And this is kind of the time where you need to start planning your entire year's worth of seasonal activities. You can get the best deals by booking in way earlier than you can later on. And that's with every vendor, every supplier. The biggest kind of takeaway is start to this year focus on being on the ground if you're a manager and having a look at how your experience is truly affecting people.
Andy Povey: Management by walking about. I love it.
Mark Lofthouse: Yeah. Don't forget your litter picker as well. That's always a key if you're a manager in a park. But yeah, I think my biggest thing is get on the ground, start having a look. Especially if you're in a management role, because it's fine having a look at data that people have sent you via email or when they've got home, but that's not true reflection of how they feel there and then in that moment. You never know. Especially I always say if people are leaving the park and they're stuck in a traffic jam getting on, they're three hours late getting home. By the time they send out feedback, that data is going to be very corrupt. So get on the ground, start asking questions on the ground to the guests, start seeing what reaction people are having there.
Mark Lofthouse: And then my biggest advice would be to do that this year. And it's so easy to forget to do that, but it is so important.
Andy Povey: And I'm sure if we had someone from a marketing role, they'd be there, get out with your camera and film this stuff. Because that's marketing goal.
Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely.
Andy Povey: Back to that trust thing, isn't it? People trust reviews from other people much more than they'll trust anything you or I come out with from a marketing perspective.
Mark Lofthouse: Absolutely. And I can't remember what the ratio is, but there is a fact about so many percentage of people leaving negative review rather than a positive one. So whenever you're looking at reviews, it's so easy to spot the negative ones straight away because you want to read that and you don't think the positive ones are real, but actually by going out and getting testimonials at the time, there is no way to base that against negative because the majority of the time it will be largely positive. Unless people are not having a great day, in which case you need to take that feedback on board and implement something quickly as to why they're not having a great day.
Andy Povey: Again, back to Doug, he was talking about changing his attraction at 24 hours notice, which you can do if you were a smaller farm park. I suppose.
Mark Lofthouse: It's just key. I think it's so many of us kind of rely on an end of year, don't we? We look at the end of the year, we look at all of the feedback from the year and then implement something for the next year. Right. But then that might have been feedback from February. So by the time you're doing that, you've had an entire year of going through that process where people are just not enjoying it. So for me, when you start to get negative feedback and maybe if it correlates with several negative ones, you need to implement something very quickly. It's key. Yeah.
Andy Povey: What message to end on. Mark, thank you so much. I really enjoyed the conversation and I look forward to meeting you face to face for the first time and sharing some more ideas and thoughts. Ladies and gentlemen, if you've enjoyed what Mark had to tell you, then you can go and have a look at his website, rwsglobal.com we'll put a link to that in the show notes.
Mark Lofthouse: Thank you so much having me on. I really appreciate it and I just you'll have probably guessed I love talking about attractions, so thank you so much.
Andy Povey: I'd stop it now otherwise we'll be here all day.
Andy Povey: This episode was written by Emily Burrows, edited by Steve Folland and produced by Emily Burrows and Sami Enwistle from Plaster, as well as Wenalyn Dionaldo from Skip the Queue HQ. If you enjoyed today's episode, please like share and comment on the episode in your podcast app. It really helps to spread the word about us and the amazing attractions we work with.
Be sure to visit SkipTheQueue.fm for this episode's transcriptions and to listen to the rest of the seasons over. Additionally, MERAC has just launched the fourth edition of the Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report. If you want to find out how attractions can improve their websites in 2026 and where the real opportunities are lie according to the latest data, then download the results from merac.co.uk. Once again, thank you for listening. I've been your host Andy Povey. See you next time.