Skip the Queue teams up with BALPPA to celebrate 90 years of the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions. Andy Povey and co-host Laura Baxter speak to some of the people behind the UK’s best-known attractions, sharing stories, memories and insights into how the industry has evolved and where it could be heading next.
For the next few weeks, we’re teaming up with BALPPA to celebrate a very special milestone - 90 years of the British Association of Leisure Parks, Piers and Attractions.
To mark the occasion, we’re going behind the scenes with some of the people who have helped shape the UK attractions industry, hearing their stories, exploring how the sector has evolved and looking at what the future might hold.
Andy is joined by co-host for the series, Laura Baxter, as we chat to the people behind some of the UK’s best-known attractions.
Across the series, we’ll be joined by:
Marc Miller — Managing Director, Stockvale Group / Adventure Island
Gary Smart — Chairman, Harbour Park
Julie Dalton — Managing Director, Gulliver’s Theme Parks
Eddie Kemsley — Senior Executive / Director, Dreamland Margate
Anna Warnecke — CEO, Kynren
Richard Mancey — Managing Director, Paultons Park
Debs Griffin — Director, Sundown Adventureland
Cassie Poland — Managing Director, Drusillas Park
We’ll also be joined by Paul Kelly, Chief Executive Officer of BALPPA, for a look back at the organisation’s 90-year history and a conversation about its role in supporting the industry and what lies ahead.
Expect stories from behind the scenes, memories from across the industry, insights into how attractions have changed and a look at where the sector is heading next.
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 hosts are Andy Povey and Laura Baxter.
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Andy Povey: Welcome to Skip the Queue, the podcast by and for people working with visitor attractions, brought to you by Merac. I'm your host, Andy Povey. Now, today's episode is a little bit different. I'm joined by Laura Baxter, who you may have heard of from Blackgang Chine on the Isle of Wight. More recently, she's been doing some work with the British Association of Leisure, Parks, Piers and Attractions, or BALPPA, as we all know and love. Together, we're planning something quite special to help mark the occasion, their 90th birthday.
Laura Baxter: So I'm Laura Baxter and if anybody does know me, they probably know me from leading the marketing over at Blackgang Chine, the iconic UK's oldest theme park over on the Isle of Wight. And it has been my pleasure and privilege to do that for the last four years now. But recently I stepped out on my own because I love the attractions world. And the more people that I met, the more I realised there was a little bit of a gap in the market where these parks and sites perhaps didn't have the full time need for a senior marketer, but that meant there was usually a very overwhelmed and very overworked marketing exec there that could perhaps do with some support. So I've gone out freelance as your CMO and that does exactly what it says on the tin.
Laura Baxter: I work fractionally as a C suite level marketer coming to your organisation, do a little bit of an audit, see where you're at, offer you some help on the strategy and give your team some guidance for them to then go away and execute themselves in house.
Andy Povey: You specialise in attractions, obviously?
Laura Baxter: Yeah. So leisure, attractions and tourism, absolutely. What sets my heart on fire, what I love to see, what I love to experience myself. So what a huge honor that I get to work in that space as well.
Andy Povey: It's BALPPA's 90th birthday coming up.
Laura Baxter: I know. How exciting is that?
Andy Povey: I feel like I've been around BALPPA for a long time, maybe not all 90 years, us. And obviously you're a lot younger than I am. So what's your involvement in the celebrations?
Laura Baxter: Well, I've been really lucky that I've been doing some work with BALPPA behind the scenes, looking more towards actually, what does the next 90 years look like? You know, BALPPA has got an incredible legacy behind it, but where does it go from here? As we know, the world has changed so much, especially within the attraction space. So it's just doing some work behind the scenes, making sure that BALPPA is fit to continue on for another 90 years.
Andy Povey: We're here with Skip the Queue, starting a series to help us celebrate the 90th birthday.
Laura Baxter: Yeah. So we have got a phenomenal lineup of guests that are going to be coming on. So all of them are BALPPA members. We're going to be speaking to some of our oldest members. We do still have some founding members, maybe not the original individual, but certainly the businesses that helped bring BALPPA to life back in the day. We're going to be talking some of the newest attractions and the emerging experiences that are happening, who have of course, joined BALPPA already this early into the space and then everybody in between. We're going to be covering what it's like to run a family business, what it's like to run a smaller seaside attraction, and what it's like being part of a bigger attraction.
Laura Baxter: And really the thread that's going to tie all of those together is what has BALPPA done for them? Why has being a BALPPA member made their storey and their park what it is today?
Andy Povey: So, Laura, for those people who aren't part of BALPPA or aren't members of BALPPA, what's about mean to you? What is it?
Laura Baxter: So if we strip right back to people who don't know, BALPPA is the British Association of Leisure, Parks, Piers and Attractions. BALPPA is the British association of Leisure, Parks, Piers and Attractions. So that covers everything from theme parks to farm parks to zoo parks to indoor entertainment centres to seaside piers, obviously, and anything and everything in between. It also has a trade membership as well for those people that are working to supply the leisure industry specifically as well. For me, I got involved fully with BALPPA when I started at Blackgang Chine, was very lucky that Dominic, who was the MD there at the time, was on the management committee. So he's really heavily involved and really pushed me to be a part of the events and attend staff, you know, be that the webinars.
Laura Baxter: So don't forget, you don't have to have big commitment to be a part of BALPPA. You can get involved with lots of online stuff and community. But I was really lucky that Paul asked me to speak at the marketing seminar. So that was my first public speaking gig. I was absolutely petrified. That's where I met you actually, at Dreamland in Margate. And I spoke about Christmas in June, which was just so much fun because I am a Christma Holic. I love that topic. But for me, BALPPA then it really just snowballed from there. You go to one of these events, be it an industry specific seminar like the marketing one or the Health and safety or something more general like a summer experience or the annual dinner.
Laura Baxter: Just meeting everybody from this space is the best thing because I do think this industry attracts people who are passionate about it. You don't have people working in this space that don't love this industry, they don't love days out, they don't love experiences. So when you're in a room with like minded people, you just hit it off right away. And these people not only become friends, but actually they're just there for sounding board, for advice. Because we're all off in our own little individual attractions. We're all in our little bubbles. We might all be sat there worrying about the same thing, but actually, big or small, we've all got the same challenges, we've all been through the same thing.
Laura Baxter: And just being able to have someone at the end of a phone or at the end of a LinkedIn DM or an email that can come back to you if you're having one of those moments is so powerful. And you only get that community. So for me, Bowper is community.
Andy Povey: I couldn't agree more. I mean, I've been around for a little bit longer than you.
Laura Baxter: Not much.
Andy Povey: 20 years ago maybe, something like that. There are countless stories I can relate of how individual members of BALPPA and people within BALPPA can have supported me and asked throughout my career, throughout the highs and the lows. It's my friends, this is where I go to and I need help. There are countless stories I can relate of how individual members of BALPPA and people within BALPPA can have supported me and asked throughout my career, throughout the highs and the lows.
Laura Baxter: It's a comforting space because everybody there has been through or is going through whatever you're going through. So someone within BALPPA has probably experienced whatever you're going through, so you, when you've immediately got that shared connection, you just hit it off. Right? You know, one minute you've got VAT relief and it's record breaking numbers, the next minute it's a pandemic, the next minute it's something else. So someone within BALPPA has probably experienced whatever you're going through. So you, when you've immediately got that shared connection, you just hit it off.
Andy Povey: I mean, I've been a trade member through numerous different companies and organizations and one question that keeps coming back to me from all of the marketing teams I work with is where's the benefit? Where's the value? Where are the number of leads you've generated from going to this conference? Andy, you will generate business by being a part of BALPPA. But whether I could attribute that to going to a marketing conference down in Dreamland four years ago or being summer event on the Isle of Wight three years ago, it doesn't work that way.
Laura Baxter: It's the long game, isn't it? It's the connections, which obviously take time and, you know, you've got to nurture those relationships and show up. I think what's really unique about BALPPA is that because you're not going there to sell, you're just going there to make relationships and build relationships. Actually, there's something just about the knowledge shared and that it's not a salesy environment that it's very evident after talking to someone like yourself. Andy knows a thing or two about ticketing, doesn't he? He's quite an expert in that because you've not sat there and given me a deck and tried to sell something to me. We've just got chatting and something totally separate would have come up and you'd have offered, "Oh, yeah, you could solve this by dah, dah. When we was here, I did this and when I was at that place, I did that." And you're like, "Wow, this guy has a world of experience. He's a genuine expert." And that's what then builds the trust. And that's the thing. How could you not kick off a BALPPA series with anyone other than Mr. Paul Kelly, BALPPA's CEO?
Andy Povey: Yeah, I'm in everyone's black book under T the ticketing bloke. Laura, talk to me about what's coming up. Obviously, we've got our first episode just around the corner.
Laura Baxter: We have. How could you not kick off a BALPPA series with anyone other than Mr. Paul Kelly, BALPPA's CEO? So Paul is going to be joining us for the first episode, giving us a history of BALPPA. Tell the listeners a bit more about what BALPPAr does. I think that's the thing. There's so much that Bowper does that people probably don't realise BALPPA do. It's kind of all done quietly in the background. And I'm always saying to Paul, you need toot your own horn a little bit more. You need to let people know all of the amazing work that you're doing behind the scenes. So hopefully that episode will answer a lot of those questions because it's not just golf. There's a lot more that goes on.
Laura Baxter: Do you play well? Mini golf?
Andy Povey: Yeah, of course.
Laura Baxter: Good little pitching putts here on the Isle of Wight. You know, give the kids around for their money. But no, I've actually never played proper golf. And then we're speaking to some incredible people from across the industry. We're going to be talking to Richard Mancey from Paultons. What an incredible story and journey that is that they've had over there. What place we're going to be talking to new and emerging attractions. So we've got the amazing Kynren are going to be on and finding out more about their journey and everything they're building up north and we're talking to lots of other little parks in between. I obviously have a real special place in my heart for seaside attractions.
Laura Baxter: But especially being an Essex girl, Adventure Island and the wonderful Marc Miller is going to be on and I'm really excited to be recording an episode with Debs from Sundown. Again, I love me a quirky little family park as much as I love all of the big ones with the big roller coasters as well. So you've got a huge mix of people that we're going to be talking to. So I'm pretty sure there's going to be nuggets of wisdom in every single episode.
Andy Povey: I've just looked at the schedule we're recording with Julie Dalton at Gulliver's. Julie won't remember this, but she and I first met 30 years ago when I interviewed for a job at Matlock Beth.
Laura Baxter: Oh, wow.
Andy Povey: She might remember me from then. I'm not sure, though I doubt I was the only person that was involved in that conversation. Then we've got HP Leisure coming on, who've been around for almost as long as BALPPA. I don't know, we'll find out when we talk to Tim.
Laura Baxter: Yeah, yeah, we'll need to double check with Tim. I don't want to get any of my numbers wrong, but yeah, very exciting to have again, people from the industry that are not necessarily just operators, but service the industry and know it inside out.
Andy Povey: Completely. I mean, he's Mr. Games, he's under G in everyone's black book.
Laura Baxter: Yes, you've got the T, he's got the G. Yeah, there's going to be some real grapes on there. And like I say, I think every episode is going to have its own unique little input, which again, just shows the breadth of the membership that we have here at BALPPA.
Andy Povey: Thank you, Laura. If you want to get more of the special BALPPA 90th series or you want to hear more from Skip the Queue, head over to skipthequeue.fm.
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Today's episode was co produced by Sami and Emily from Plaster with Laura from YourCMO. Socials and schedules were all managed by Wenalyn back at Merac HQ. Editing and making us all sound super professional was by Steve Folland. I've been your host, Andy Povey. Thank you and goodbye.