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 Twitter  or Bluesky for your chance to win the books that have been mentioned in this podcast.

Competition ends on 21st May 2025. The winner will be contacted via Bluesky.

Show references:

Museum Wales website: https://museum.wales/

Big Pit National Coal Museum: https://museum.wales/bigpit/

Catherine Pinkerton LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/catherine-pinkerton-b1905a110/

Catherine Pinkerton is the Group Retail Manager at Amgueddfa Cymru - Museum Wales.

Having worked in senior management positions for some of the high street’s most recognisable brands such as Harrods, Selfridges, Dior and Guerlain to name but a few, Catherine spent 20+ years in London building her management career. Catherine is now the Group Retail Manager for Amgueddfa Cymru (Museum Wales). She is responsible for the management of all aspects of retail operations and development, across the national museums of Wales. Catherine is currently leading on a transformation project to create immersive retail experiences in each of the museum shops, reflecting the visitor experience and collections of each of the varied museums.

Guests Also Featured in This Episode:

• Anya Kirkby, Freelancer - Anya Kirkby Ltd – Product Development and Graphic Design anyakirkby@gmail.com
• Arantxa Garcia, Freelancer - Exibeo VM Creative Studio – Shop Design and Visual Merchandising Arantxa@exhibeovm.co.uk
• Nia Elias, Director Relationships and Funding, Amgueddfa Cymru nia.elias@museumwales.ac.uk
• Guy Veale, Freelancer – Freelancer - Sound artist/designer - gbveale@gmail.com
• Amy Samways, Shop Supervisor, Amgueddfa Cymru - amy.samways@museumwales.ac.uk
• Kate Eden, Chair, Amgueddfa Cymru - Members of Board | Museum Wales

Transcriptions:

Paul Marden: Welcome to Skip the Queue. I'm your host, Paul Marden. So today you join me on the top of a mountain in Blaenavon in Wales at Big Pit, the National Mining Museum. 

I'm here today for a really special event. I've been invited to the opening of Big Pit's new Museum Retail experience, which is a programme of work that's being done by the Museums Wales Group to improve the sense of place and the sense of feeling for what could be a blueprint for the rest of the group. 

We're going to be joined by a number of different people that have taken part in the project and without further ado, let's get started on our tour of Big Pit. 

Catherine Pinkerton: Morning, everybody. Hello, welcome. It is my absolute pleasure to welcome you all today and I know there's been a lot of you'd have travelled far and wide, so thank you so much for your time. I really appreciate you coming to see the amazing store that we've created and I hope you love it. We're just going to cut the river now. 

Paul Marden: First up I've got Catherine Pinkerton, Group Head of Retail at Museum Wales. Catherine, welcome to Skip the Queue. 

Catherine Pinkerton: Thank you very much. Thank you so much for having me. 

Paul Marden: Absolute pleasure. And this is a corker of an episode. I think everybody is going to be really interested in finding out about the retail, the gift shop experience that you guys have introduced at Big Pit and then you're going to go wider into. Into Museums Wales. This is a really weird episode because you and I are recording the morning after the day before. So yesterday was the big launch event and I was with you at Big Pit and I've met lots and lots of people and we're going to cut to them throughout the episode and hear from those people that were taking part in the project. But you and I have got the benefit of having enjoyed yester today's event and we can look back on what that experience was like and talk a little bit about the project. 

Paul Marden: Before we do that, I think it would be really lovely for you to introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about Museums Wales and Big Pit specifically. 

Catherine Pinkerton: Absolutely. Okay. So I'm Catherine Pinkerton. So I head up all of the retail stores within Amgueddfa Cymru, which is National Museums of Wales. I've been with the museum just under three years and I'm good that Cymru hosts seven sites. It's an incredible establishment to be part of and I think, you know, coming from a very commercial background, this is very different for me, but I think it's given me lots of insights into bringing kind of. Lots of. Kind of different skill sets, I guess, to this cultural sector. I think when I first initially joined Amgueddfa Cymru, there were lots of challenges. And that's not to say that we still have those challenges as they are in many of our museums. And I think coming from a retail background, it's. It's looking at something that's not. That's commercial, Paul.

Catherine Pinkerton: That's key. But actually, how can we make it very collection and story based on our amazing assets that we hold within our museums? And I think that I felt was probably the biggest thing that was missing because I thought we've got these amazing exhibitions, these amazing collections, amazing, you know, opportunities, and how are we putting that into the retail structure and how do we offer that to us, you know, to our visitors? And I think. I think sometimes it may be. Have forgotten that you go around these amazing spaces and it's very based on that visitor focus and how can we make that visitor feel very happy and engaged. But actually the end part of that process is nearly always coming through, exiting through the retail space. Right. 

Catherine Pinkerton: And if they've had this amazing opportunity to go and, you know, a lot of investment in these amazing spaces, and then they come through that retail space which has some elements, but not all of what our collections hold, there's a confusion there. You know, that end piece. And for me, customer service and visitor experience is absolutely key to how they. How they finish and how they end their day. And if they're ending their day with something, oh, okay, I'll just have a magnet then. Because there's nothing really else here. Yeah, that pains me. That really hurts me. I think, come on, guys, we can do better than this. We are in an element of. We have our own assets, our own elements to be able to kind of display that. 

Catherine Pinkerton:  And I think very much it would be very easy and to take the kind of easy road of having, you know, let's. Let's pop a dragon on a mug and yeah, we're a Welsh museum. No, we're not. We have assets here. We have beautiful exhibitions, we have beautiful spaces. And actually looking from further afield into. In terms of an emotional connection. And I think, you know, for me, from all of my past kind of previous work, I'm working with Amgueddfa Cymru. It's probably been the most challenging to get perhaps senior management to understand a crazy way of Catherine Pinkerton working into a. What's emotional retail? What does emotive selling mean? This lady is crazy. What's she talking about? But actually, it's really basic, isn't it? 

Catherine Pinkerton: Because for me, if I take my daughter or my husband to any kind of day trip, I want to take something emotional that I've connected with home with me, and that's so simple. But actually, sometimes it's not thought about in that way. And, you know, for me, I'm all about the emotional connection. And I think we put so much investment in curatorial teams to kind of give that to our visitors. We need to end that. That end part is so important for them to finish, you know, that journey with that emotional connection that they can take home as a souvenir. So, yeah, I've probably said more than I needed to there, Paul, but.

Paul Marden: Absolutely. So I think you're capturing the need to curate the. The ending experience because, you know, the nature of. The nature of people's memory is they remember the beginning and they remember the end and the bit that is in the middle is hugely important to the storytelling experience they have whilst they're at the attraction. But if you don't end on a high, then their emotional connection to you and the space and the stories they've heard is not going to be as impactful for them. 

Catherine Pinkerton:  Absolutely, totally agree. I think it's really key, and not just in the kind of, you know, the cultural sector, but in any sector, really. I think it's really important that connection is instant, really, because that is what you need to. That's the hook, isn't it, of getting that person, you know, and. And actu