Skip the Queue

In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Cassie Poland, Joint Managing Director of Drusillas Park in East Sussex.Drusillas started life in the 1920s as a tea cottage where motorists could stop on their way through the Downs. A hundred years on it's a zoo and a ride park on the same ten-acre site, and it's been in the Smith family since Cassie's parents, Laurence and Christine, bought it in 1997.In 2022 Cassie took over as joint managing director alongside her brother Ollie. Their sister Caroline runs Amazon Adventure in Tunbridge Wells, the soft play centre the family opened in 2024. And this April they acquired Urban Jump, a trampoline park in Heathfield, reopening it rebranded as Go Wild! and reopened on the fourth of July.Cassie is also BALPPA's first female Vice Chair - which means she'll become its first female Chair.They talk about running a zoo and a ride park as one business, going from one site to three, and what she wants to do with the chairmanship when it comes. This episode is part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry.  Show references:  Cassie Poland — Managing Director, Drusillas Parkhttps://www.drusillas.co.uk/https://www.drusillas.co.uk/drusillas-director-joins-balppa  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.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn. Credits:Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)Edited by Steve FollandProduced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster) Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth. Download your FREE copy here

In this episode of Skip the Queue, Laura Baxter is joined by Richard Mancey, Owner and Managing Director of Paultons Park in Hampshire. Paultons opened in 1983 as a country park and bird gardens, founded by Richard's parents John and Anne. Forty years on it covers 140 acres, and the introduction of the world’s first Peppa Pig World in 2011, changed everything. In May this year it opened Valgard: Realm of the Vikings - a twelve million pound land and the park's biggest investment to date.It's also consistently rated among the best theme parks in the country, is the current reigning “Best Theme Park” at the UK Theme Park Awards, and has been ranked among the best in the world, on guest reviews alone.This episode is part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry. Show references:  Our Guest Host in partnership with BALPPA:Laura Baxter - Founder of YourCMOhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-baxter-4a756466/ BALPPA - https://www.balppa.org/  Our Guest:Richard Mancey — Managing Director, Paultons Park https://paultonspark.co.uk/ 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 guest host is Laura Baxter.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn. Credits:Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)Edited by Steve FollandProduced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)  Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth. Download your FREE copy here

In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Anna Warnecke, CEO of Kynren in Bishop Auckland - an attraction that doesn't really look like anything else in the UK.Kynren began in 2016 as an open-air night show telling 2,000 years of English history on a seven-and-a-half-acre stage, performed by a cast and crew of a thousand local volunteers, and built as part of a wider mission to regenerate a County Durham market town.This July, it went a step further and opened Kynren - The Storied Lands, a daytime park built entirely around live shows and immersive experiences rather than rides.They talk about what changes when your product is performance rather than throughput, what an experience-led attraction can teach a traditional operated site, and what the first few weeks of a brand new park have really been like.This episode is part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry. Show references: Anna Warnecke — CEO, Kynrenhttps://www.linkedin.com/company/kynren/https://kynren.com/ 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.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn. Credits:Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)Edited by Steve FollandProduced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster) Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth. Download your FREE copy here

In this episode of Skip the Queue, Andy Povey is joined by Eddie Kemsley, CEO of Dreamland in Margate – one of the oldest surviving amusement park in the country, and one of the most reinvented.Dreamland dates back to 1880. It closed in 2003, and reopened in 2015 as a vintage amusement park. Since then it has become something harder to categorise: a park, a six-and-a-half-thousand capacity outdoor music venue, an indoor events space, a wedding venue and a filming location, all on sixteen acres of seafront.At the end of 2023, LN-Gaiety - the Live Nation and Gaiety Investments joint venture - took a controlling stake in the business.Eddie now leads the boutique festival side of the business, she has served on BALPPA's Management Committee and still sits on the marketing sub-committee, helping shape the association's marketing seminars.They talk about diversification as strategy rather than accident, what the events and filming side really contributes, and what the industry network gives an operator who sits beyond the usual categories.This episode is part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry. Show references:  Eddie Kemsley - CEO Dreamland, Margatehttps://www.dreamland.co.uk/https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-kemsley-59926110/  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.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn. Credits:Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)Edited by Steve FollandProduced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster)  Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth. Download your FREE copy here

In this episode of Skip the Queue, Laura Baxter is joined by Julie Dalton, managing director of Gulliver's Theme Park Resorts - and the head of what is, remarkably, the only multi-site theme park brand in this country that isn't owned by a corporate.Gulliver's began in 1978 as a model village on a fifteen-acre hillside above Matlock Bath, built by Julie's parents Ray and Hilary Phillips - Ray a builder by trade, making the miniature houses himself. Warrington followed in 1989, Milton Keynes in 1999, and in July 2020, of all the moments to open a theme park, Gulliver's Valley in Rotherham.Four resorts, more than fourteen hundred staff at peak, and a stubborn focus on the same audience it started with - families with children aged two to thirteen.They talk about what it takes to run four sites as a family rather than a corporation, opening a park in the middle of a pandemic, and why so much of Gulliver's is still built in-house.This episode is part of Skip the Queue’s mini-series celebrating 90 years of BALPPA, looking at the people and businesses shaping the UK attractions industry. Show references:  Our Guest Host; in partnership with BALPPA:Laura Baxter - Founder of YourCMOhttps://www.linkedin.com/in/laura-baxter-4a756466/ BALPPA - https://www.balppa.org/  Our Guest:Julie Dalton — Managing Director, Gulliver’s Theme Parkshttps://uk.linkedin.com/in/julie-dalton-636084166https://www.gulliversworldresort.co.uk/ 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 guest host is Laura Baxter.If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and all the usual channels by searching Skip the Queue or visit our website SkiptheQueue.fm.If you've enjoyed this podcast, please leave us a five star review, it really helps others find us. And remember to follow us on LinkedIn. Credits:Written by Laura Baxter (YourCMO)Edited by Steve FollandProduced by Emily Burrows and Sami Entwistle (Plaster) Download The Visitor Attractions Website Survey Report - https://www.merac.co.uk/download-the-visitor-attractions-survey We have launched our brand-new playbook: ‘The Retail Ready Guide to Going Beyond the Gift Shop’ — your go-to resource for building a successful e-commerce strategy that connects with your audience and drives sustainable growth. Download your FREE copy here