This week on Skip the Queue, we’re stepping into the turret and turning up the tension, as we explore one of the UK’s most talked-about immersive experiences.

Our guest is Neil Connolly, Creative Director at The Everywhere Group, who have brought The Traitors Live Experience to life. With over 10 million viewers watching every betrayal, backstab and banishment on the BBC show, expectations for the live version were nothing short of murderous.

So, how do you even begin to transform a TV juggernaut into a thrilling, guest-led experience? Let’s find out who’s playing the game… and who’s about to be banished…

Skip the Queue is brought to you by Rubber Cheese, a digital agency that builds remarkable systems and websites for attractions that helps them increase their visitor numbers. Your host is Paul Marden.

If you like what you hear, you can subscribe on iTunes, 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.

Show references: 

The Traitors Live website: https://www.thetraitorslive.co.uk/

Neil’s LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/neil-connolly-499054110/

Neil Connolly is a creative leader of design and production teams focused on development, production and installation of live theatre, entertainment, multi-media and attractions for the themed entertainment industry worldwide.
Neil began his career as a performer, writer, producer & artist in Londons alternative theatre/art scene. It was during this time Neil developed a love and passion for story telling through the platform of interactive playable immersive theatre.

Having been at the vanguard of playable & immersive theatre since 2007, Neil had a career defining opportunity in 2019 when he devised, wrote & directed an immersive experience as part of Sainsbury's 150th Birthday Celebrations. Making him the only immersive theatre & game maker in the world to have HRH Elizabeth Regina attend one of their experiences.

In a distinguished career spanning 20 years, Neil has brought that passion to every facet of themed entertainment in the creative direction and production of attractions such as; Handels Messiah, Snowman & The Snowdog, Peppa Pig Surprise Party, Traitors Live, The Crystal Maze Live Experience, Tomb Raider Live Experience & Chaos Karts, an AR go-kart real life battle. Other clients and activations include: Harrods, Sainsbury’s, Camelot/The National Lottery, Samsung, Blenheim Palace, Land Rover and Warner Brothers.

Neil has worked across 4 continents for many years with private individuals; designing, producing and delivering live entertainment on land, sea & air. A world without boundaries requires freethinking.

Neil is currently working with Immersive Everywhere on creative development of show and attraction content for projects across U.K, Europe, North America & Asia.

Transcriptions: 

Paul Marden: This week on Skip the Queue, we're stepping into the turret and turning up the tension as we explore one of the UK's most talked about immersive experiences.

Paul Marden: Our guest is Neil Connolly, Creative Director at The Everywhere Group, who've brought The Traitor's live experience to life. With over 10 million viewers watching every betrayal, backstab and banishment on the BBC show, expectations for the live version were nothing short of murderous. So how do you even begin to transform a TV juggernaut into a thrilling guest-led experience? Let's find out who's playing the game and who's about to be banished.

Paul Marden: So, we're underground. Lots of groups running currently, aren't they? How did you make that happen

Neil Connolly: Yeah, so now we're two floors under us. There's a lower basement and some other basement. So the building that we are in, there's a family in the 1890s who owned all of the land around Covent Garden and specifically the Adelphi Theatre.

Paul Marden: Right.

Neil Connolly: And they wanted their theatre to be the first theatre in the UK to have its lights powered by electricity. So they built their own private power station in this building. Like, literally like, all this, this is a power station. But unfortunately for these the Savoy had taken to that moniker, so they quickly built their important institution. The family had this building until the 1980s when the establishment was assumed through the important UK network.

Neil Connolly: And then it was sat there empty, doing nothing for 40 years. And so the landlord that is now started redeveloping the building 10 years ago, added two floors onto the top of the building. So now what we're in is an eight-storey structure and we've basically got the bottom four floors. Two of which are ground and mezzanine, which is our hospitality area. And the lower two floors, which are all in the basement, are our experience floors. What we're looking at right now is, if you look off down this way to the right, not you people on audio, but me here.

Neil Connolly: Off this side is five of the round table rooms. There's another one behind me and there's two more upstairs. And then I've got some Tretters Towers off to the left and I've got my show control system down there.

Neil Connolly: On the floor above me, we've got the lounges. So each lounge is connected to one of the round table rooms. Because when you get murdered or banished, one of the biggest challenges that I faced was what happens to people when they get murdered or banished? Because you get kicked out of the game. It's not a lot of fun, is it? Therefore, for me, you also get kicked out of the round table room. So this is a huge challenge I face. But I built these lounge concepts where you go— it's the lounge of the dead— and you can see and hear the round table room that you've just left. We'll go walk into the room in a while. There's lots of interactivity. But yeah, super fun. 

Neil Connolly: But unfortunately for these the Savoy had taken to that moniker, so they quickly built their important institution. The family had this establishment until the 1980s when the establishment was considered through the important UK network.

Paul Marden: Yeah. So we've got 10 million people tuning in to Traitors per episode. So this must be a lot of pressure for you to get it right. Tell us about the experience and what challenges you faced along the way, from, you know, that initial text message through to the final creation that we're stood in now.

Neil Connolly: So many challenges, but to quote Scroobius Pip on this, do you know Scroobius Pip? 

Paul Marden: No. 

Neil Connolly: Great, he's amazing. UK rapper from Essex.

Neil Connolly: Some people see a mousetrap and think death. I see free cheese and a challenge.

Neil Connolly: There's never any problems in my logic, in my thinking. There's always just challenges to overcome. So one of the biggest challenges was what happens to people when they get murdered or banished. The truth of the matter is I had to design a whole other show, which happens after this show. It is one big show. But you go to the Lounge of the Dead, there's more interactivity. And navigating that with the former controller, which is O3 Media and IDTV, who created the original format in the Netherlands, and basically designing a game that is in the world and follows the rules of their game with some reasonable adjustments, because TV and live are not the same thing.

Neil Connolly: It takes 14 days to film 12 episodes of The Traitors. 

Paul Marden: Really? Okay. 

Neil Connolly: So I was like, how do I truncate 14 days of somebody's life down into a two-hour experience and still deliver that same impact, that same power, that same punch?

Paul Marden: Yep.

Neil Connolly: But I knew from the beginning of this that it wasn't about time. There is a magic triangle when it comes to the traitors, which is time, space, atmosphere. And time was the thing that I always struggled with. I don't have a Scottish cattle show, and I don't have two weeks. No. So I'm like, 'Cool, I've got to do it in two hours.' So our format follows exactly the same format. We do a breakfast scene, then a mission, then a roundtable banishment, then there's a conclave where the traitors meet and they murder somebody. And I do that in a seven-day structure, a seven-day cycle. But it all happens within two hours around this round table.

Neil Connolly: I'm the creative director for Immersive Everywhere. We're a vertically integrated structure in the sense that we take on our own venues. So we're now standing in Shorts Gardens in the middle of Covent Garden. So we've leased this building. We've got a lease that is for a number of years and we have built the show into it. But we also identify the IP, go after that ourselves, we capitalise the projects our