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Chippenham high street on a sunny day, with colourful hanging baskets of flowers.

Digital technologies for accessibility and place management: interview with Wiltshire Council

By Place

Rebecca Lockwood Norris is the Senior Development Officer in Wiltshire Council’s Economy and Regeneration Service, where she is the lead officer for the Wiltshire Towns Programme.

With a Higher National Diploma in Civil Engineering from UWE, and APM’s Project Management Qualification, Rebecca has over two decades of experience working in the public and voluntary sectors, leading projects to better support and empower communities.

As part of the Programme, Calvium has been working with Rebecca to develop Wiltshire Council’s digital placemaking offering through the creation of the Explore Wiltshire app and Events Wiltshire website.

In this interview, Rebecca shares how Wiltshire has used digital technologies to meet some of its place-based goals, and why accessibility has been key to meeting the diverse needs of the community and creating more vibrant places.

Photos and job titles of Rebecca Lockwood Norris and Dr Jo Morrison

What are the primary goals of the council’s current regeneration and economic strategy, and how do Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire align with the strategy?

The purpose of our economic strategy is to improve the economic resilience of local high streets, which is one of the core threads of our business plan to create and support vibrant town centres. This is through attracting investment, supporting local businesses and town councils and encouraging local spend.

The two products that we have will support the delivery of economic wellbeing across Wiltshire. It is a holistic package of support for town centres, and that includes supporting the visitor economy and cultural offer, which I like to say is the fun to be had in Wiltshire.

How are you using place-based digital technologies to enhance the visitor experience while supporting local businesses and the wider community?

We need communication tools to make sure that people know about what’s happening in Wiltshire – arts, culture, local businesses – which is a major contributing factor to local economic resilience and regeneration.

The Place Experience Platform (PEP), which the trails app and the events website are built on, does what it says on the tin – it’s place and it’s experience – so when we saw that we needed to communicate the stories of the assets that we have in our towns, we initially commissioned the Explore Wiltshire heritage trails app to help people to find and navigate the heritage in our market towns.

We also wanted to ensure that visitors (residents, locals and tourists) have somewhere to find out about things to do. The two went hand in hand because the trails app was developed with an events function, so it was about taking that really strong connection with place through the trails and teasing out the events that happen in those locations too.

We created the progressive web app using the back-end of the trails app, which allows organisations hosting events and activities in Wiltshire to list and promote them in one convenient place. Because it’s also powered by PEP, it’s an accessible and secure format, just like the trails app.

Busy summer market, lining the high street of a market town.

In what ways does Explore Wiltshire contribute to fostering a sense of identity and pride within the town(s) it serves?

The app is helping visitors to discover the people and events, past and present, associated with the built environment and the communities that shape the history and the landscapes of Wiltshire.

There’s curated content, which is put together with each respective town council and sometimes with other community groups – heritage groups, for example – so it encompasses their viewpoint and identity at that local level. I think the more local you get, the more pride there is in a place because people like to celebrate what’s great about where they are.

How do Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire support the council’s objectives for driving footfall, boosting local commerce, and encouraging repeat visits?

Looking at the benefits that the heritage and arts and culture offers our local economy, we saw there was a gap in how we communicate these and that led on to defining the projects to respond to those gaps.

Through communicating the place experience in Wiltshire, we’re supporting town centres to be more vibrant, encouraging visitors into towns and getting them to come in more often and stay for longer. As a result, footfall is boosted and we anticipate people will spend a little bit more money if they’re there for longer or more often. That will give us more resilient town centres.

A secondary effect (because it’s beyond economy and region but still falls within the remit of Wiltshire Council) is the improved wellbeing of residents. If they’re getting out into our towns more often and for longer, they’re going to have increased physical activity and social interactions.

Street performance with large audience, and children dancing in foreground.

What role does digital innovation, exemplified by Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire, play in making the town(s) more competitive in attracting tourists, residents, and investment?

The products, as marketing tools, allow discovery of the curated information in a convenient, accessible way, and that’s there for everybody to access because it’s digital – whether local residents or people from outside the area. It allows us to communicate what our market towns have to offer, so we’re showcasing our county to both tourists and investors, and also letting residents know about what’s available to them locally.

How has Wiltshire Council worked with local stakeholders, such as businesses, cultural institutions, and residents, to ensure Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire reflect the unique character and needs of the community?

Returning to the importance of local identity and pride, we have developed the events platform with a user group that’s made up of town council and event venue staff.  These stakeholders in particular took part in testing for the first iteration of the progressive web app, the events site, and their feedback was taken into consideration as final iterations were developed.

Another element was something done internally at Wiltshire Council prior to the user testing; we engaged with our carers and disability staff network so that we can ensure the venue accessibility tags for event listings are comprehensive and inclusive. Alongside assigning categories to events such as ‘food and drink’ or ‘arts and culture’, we have added tags so people can clearly see if there’s disabled parking, a working hearing loop or quiet space, for example.

Screengrabs of Explore Wiltshire web app, with event filters including Disabled parking, Wheelchair accessible, Working hearing loop, Toilet facilities.

The Events Wiltshire website enables visitors to filter events by accessibility features.

What metrics or indicators will you use to measure the success of Explore Wiltshire and Events Wiltshire in contributing to the town’s economic growth and regeneration efforts?

Our primary measure of the response to the various projects in the Wiltshire Towns programme is footfall, which includes the volume of footfall and dwell time. We can also look at the specific town centre events – annual festivals, monthly markets, seasonal events – and see whether they’ve had a positive impact on footfall and dwell time. This involves monitoring where visitors have come from, which allows us to see how it’s altering behaviour and vacancy rates.

The connection with the experience and the PEP/digital products is that if we’ve got more people in our town centres, and the vibrancy is greater and there’s more happening, then that’s going to support the existing businesses. It should also bring new businesses and new investment into the town centres.

How has using digital technology supported accessibility, and enabled more people to access and enjoy activities in the county?

Accessibility has been woven into every aspect of the project. The design of the product through the PEP incorporates accessibility in terms of user ability and also venue accessibility. Then, applying our comprehensive accessibility guidelines in the development of the product, we’ve enabled all visitors and locals to have access to more information about place-based activity in the county.

Were there any surprises along the way?

Working on Explore Wiltshire Events was my first time working on a digital product development project, and so leading that I learned lots of new terminology and about new processes and features that are included in digital tools. These are things you just take for granted when you’re using it, but understanding what goes into that has been quite a learning curve for me. I’ve been supported by a project team of subject matter experts, both from other Wiltshire Council service areas and from Calvium, which is absolutely essential.

One surprise was the timescales needed to set up the domain and the work behind that for the web app. So I had no knowledge of what this was, and it was just a discovery towards the end of the development phase. Every time I speak to Calvium I learn something new on the technical side.

What has worked particularly well, what have been the successes? Do you have any advice for others in a similar position?

Really good collaboration and being open and honest about any limited knowledge is key. Having regular meetings between project stakeholders, even if they’re only a five to 10-minute catch up, have been really helpful in this project. Those conversations help to identify any gaps in the technical or process knowledge, and can challenge the assumptions that limit those surprises.

If we hadn’t been having the meetings, I would have discovered a lot later on that an extra couple of weeks was needed for the domain work, and it could have been a difficult situation if the launch was ready to go but publishing happened at a later date than planned. I was very honest with everybody about not knowing all the technicalities, so even if you think I might know it, just say it because you won’t know until you say.

Thank you Rebecca for sharing your experience and insight with us!

Drone photo of the gold columns and top of Beckford's Tower, looking over the landscape to the city of Bath

Heritage, communities and technology: Interview with Dr Amy Frost

By Place

Dr Amy Frost is the senior curator at Bath Preservation Trust, based at the Museum of Bath Architecture. An expert in 18th and 19th century British architecture, Amy is currently overseeing a £4m project at Beckford’s Tower, aiming to reimagine the landscape it exists within and ultimately remove the building from the heritage at-risk list. As part of this, Calvium and AR partners Zubr were commissioned to develop a mobile app and immersive digital placemaking experience for visitors.

In this interview, Amy – who also lectures at the University of Bath’s School of Architecture – shares her views on how community co-creation and digital technologies are supporting inclusive access to heritage sites.

Photos of Dr Frost and Dr Jo Morrison, with job titles

How did co-creation and consultation play a part in this project?

Given the project was going to be both a conservation project, and also finding a way to tell complex and problematic stories about Beckford, whose wealth came from the transatlantic slave trade, we started consultation early – even before we’d been given the National Lottery Heritage Fund funding, we did a public consultation to inform what we were planning.

The early stages of the project coincided with the pandemic at the start of 2020. As well as shifting our in-person sessions with community groups online, we put up gazebos on the site so people could participate in a socially distanced way. This created not only our interpretation strategy, but our community advisory panel who could be our ‘critical friends’. They advised on everything, from wording for interpretation in the museum to what floor colour to use to whether we have an EV charging point in the car park.

For the digital element, we did a lot of testing around what was being developed in terms of content, the app and augmented reality moments. The community shaped that development and what was eventually installed at the museum and online.

Do you still have relationships with communities today?

A lot of the partnerships we have made are ongoing, and that is the fundamental key to public and community engagement. The advisory panel has now segued into being the advisory board for the museum, which is really important because it should shift away from a slightly more traditional museum advisory board – where there are a lot of academics and experts – to a variety of people that are community-focused.

We see lots of people coming back too. For example, we had a big accessibility focus group with access users, who have come back and tested what we’ve done, given feedback and suggested new ideas.

It takes a long time to build and sustain those relationships but they’re so vital.

4 images. 1 Photo of two of the community panel. 2 Image from video interview with contractor, conducted by school children. 3 Photo of two more panel members from local communities. 4 Screengrab of five webinar experts during the heritage discussion webinar.

Community involvement included participation on the advisory board, visits and videos of the redevelopment by local school children, collaboration with dance studios and public webinars. Images: Beckford’s Tower – Bath Preservation Trust.

Why did you choose to include a digital component as part of the visitor experience?

Digital is essential to museum experiences now. Particularly when thinking about younger audiences, there is an expectation from visitors that there is a digital component.

We talk quite a lot about the digital visitor; digital enables us to have visitors who might not physically ever come to the museum, and that gives you a whole other audience. But we are always very firm from the beginning that digital in the museum enhances the experience, it doesn’t replace the collection and the physical interpretation. It’s not the fundamental layer but adds another layer of information, enjoyment or participation.

Crucially, as a small building on the outskirts of Bath, we’re susceptible to storms and WiFi going down, so we can’t over-rely on digital. We need to make sure visitors can come in and get the whole experience, so our whole project was built around the idea of future-proofing infrastructure. In that sense, everything was designed to be removable; for example, if an iPad isn’t working we will remove it rather than label it as broken so people won’t know it’s missing.

Can you describe how digital tech is helping to represent the complex and difficult histories of Beckfords’s Tower?

We have a layered approach to storytelling; what’s the first fundamental layer of information you want every visitor to have, and then how do you build on that? We have layered digital to allow people to have the choice to find out more about the story of William Beckford and the wealth he and his family gained through the transatlantic trafficking of enslaved African people.

While we have limited space to tell what is a very complex story on-site, digital allows us to go into those stories in more depth than a 150-word interpretation panel can give. The website, app and other digital elements, such as films introduced into museums, all give people the option to dig deeper. This is important because it creates safer spaces for people, so there’s certain language we don’t use on the physical panel but that we do use on digital and in the guidebook.

Digital also allows us to change things and add layers more quickly, which is really important when you’re dealing with difficult stories. The app content was informed by our consultations and community advisory panel, which resulted in age advisory warnings for some elements and layers developed for children and family audiences.

Photo of people in the main museum room with exhibits, information panels, painting and artefacts.

Photo: Zubr

You said at the Out of the Archives online event that you chose for interpretation to be flexible and continually changing. Can you expand on this?

Beckford’s Tower is a two-room museum, one of Bath Preservation Trust’s four museums. We have an incredibly small team and work on limited resources, so at the Tower we had to invest in infrastructure that could be flexible and changeable. For example, the design of the space and display cases has to be changeable by one person. Even the labels aren’t stuck to the wall; that’s partly to make it sustainable but also because no interpretation should be permanent.

Ideas are changing and new research is coming in all the time, particularly when dealing with complex subjects and when you want to take on board feedback and responses. Our mantra was: we need to be able to change a label in an hour and an interpretation panel overnight.

Digital really fed into that and finding an app where the content management system was easy to use (by non-technology experts) was really important. The Place Experience Platform allows us to change content and add more key features – augmented reality, photogrammetry, trails, films – and test them as we go.

How has the use of digital technologies supported the aims of Beckford’s Tower?

We have massive stories to tell and it’s so hard to do it in two rooms. When there are so many different people and voices that can tell them, we need to be able to do that in lots of different ways. Digital is a fundamental option and also gives us a way of holding those testimonies. For instance, we’ve been doing a lot of interviews and recording people, which need to be turned into a 60-second clip on an app. But in the process of creating that content for digital, we’ve got a two-hour interview with someone like the historian Robert Beckford and that becomes something we’ve got in the archive for future use.

It’s not just about the product of the digital, it’s about what you collect in the production of it as well.

2 photos. 1 hand holding phone, showing AR image of what that part of the building looked like. 2 Digital wall panel, with options to listen to audio and further information on artefacts.

Photos: Zubr

How has the Place Experience Platform supported  / helped to achieve the aims of the work of Bath Preservation Trust?

The big change in our project was the acquisition of the original garden landscape for the tower, including the grotto tunnel Beckford had built. Between the Tower and the grotto the landscape is now a public cemetery, which we don’t own, so we knew whatever interpretation we were going to do couldn’t necessarily be lots of physical intervention in a space still used for mourning and commemoration.

So rather than including lots of posts, pillars and signs, digital became the way of offering interpretation to that space. The Place Experience Platform has allowed us to not only offer fundamental information via a free downloadable guide, but also lots of different ways of telling stories. We include interviews with people who have a connection to the tower and landscape, varying from the archaeologist that did the final excavation of the grotto explaining what they discovered, to a resident who grew up looking at the tower, discussing how the view of a building created by the profits of slavery made them feel about their home as a young black person in Bath.

How has the digital layer and functionality of the digital visitor experience increased accessibility?

We always knew digital was going to be absolutely fundamental to access when you have a 120-foot high tower. When we did early access focus groups, we looked at barriers to access – including visual, hearing and physical – and decided a digital 360-degree panoramic tour of the building would be a big part of our digital package. It’s available through our only level access space, which is a free-to-enter vault in the tower that can be entered from the landscape.

There, we have tactile models with Braille interpretation, large print guides, and binoculars for the 360 tool – they are untethered to allow wheelchair users to move 360 with them.

What are some of the plans that you have to expand the experience?

One stumbling block we have encountered is how to get people to download an app out in the middle of a landscape where there is no phone reception and intermittent free WiFi. So we need to either find a way to encourage people to download it before they come, for example making it clearer on the website, or we need to put more physical interpretation in the space because people are missing so much amazing content on the app.

That evaluation process has been really interesting because it has given us a way to test what people do and don’t use in a landscape environment. We’re now looking at how we can use the Place Experience Platform to enhance the experience, such as making a tour that’s purely focused on the cemetery and the people that are buried there.

How is the partnership with PhD students supporting ongoing content creation? What are the next steps?

We are working with two students who are researching to identify and explore the legacy of enslaved people held in ownership by the Beckford family. It’s still in the early days, so we’re currently looking at what points can some of the things they’re researching be added to the museum, for example physical displays, news and blog items on the website, a film they record or workshops they run.

It depends on what they find and how they process it. Testing theses and research is so important when talking about applied history. You can have all the academic knowledge and research, but it’s vital to communicate it with a wider public rather than just an academic audience.

We don’t know what the next steps are yet because we don’t know what they’re going to find and what will become part of the museum. And that’s exciting.

What have been the key points you’ve learned through delivering the digital project?

Given the difficult stories we’ve got to tell, finding the right partner was critical; whoever we worked with had to be completely on board with how upfront and transparent we wanted to be with how we tell them. We interviewed a lot of people during the tender to ensure we had the right people on board, which led us to Calvium and Zubr.

Fundamentally, Calvium is passionate about getting stories out there and is very embedded in opening up that access – something that isn’t necessarily always the case if you’re hiring a tech firm, for instance. The heritage sector has such passion, you need to be working with people that share it.

Local is also really important to us, so working with companies down the road in Bristol rather than from further afield was important for our sustainability goals and reducing our carbon footprint.

Screen grabs from app of map, exhibits, quest, trail and photo of the tower with surrounding landscape.

Digital enables working with people who are not local, and that can be great, but nothing is better than when the development team are able to easily pop over to the museum and check things or remind themselves how the museum works. That approach to working with people locally as much as possible for our digital provision will certainly be something that we look to embed in all our future projects, not just at Beckford’s Tower, but at our other museums as well.

What would you say to other venue / place managers considering PEP as a digital place-based tool?

I would recommend it. What helps is there is a structure, so you’re just providing content to populate it. Calvium is continually developing it from feedback so I think the more people that sign up for it and the more bespoke elements that are needed, the more the platform will flex and grow.

For a small organisation like ours, you don’t want something that’s been purpose made for you because that’s not sustainable in the long term – we’ve had that in the past where we couldn’t afford a service level agreement to keep it going – whereas something being used by lots of people is going to last longer. We need to future-proof what we use.

Is there anything you’d like to say about working with Calvium?

It’s been really easy and respectful, and that’s when good partnerships really work. When it hits points where we don’t understand something, Calvium communicate in a very easy-to-understand, supportive way. It feels very much like if there’s a problem or something goes wrong, even if it’s not in a service agreement, Calvium is there to give you a hand.

For a small organisation like us, where we don’t have the skills in-house or a dedicated digital officer, it’s so important knowing you can just drop an email or pick up the phone and ask for help.

Thank you Dr Frost for sharing your insight and experience of this fascinating project!

Two people, one in a wheelchair, at the edge of tarmac path. They are looking towards a crowd further away who are looking through a fence.

Enhanced accessibility with the Place Experience Platform

By Place

We’re passionate exponents of accessibility and that’s true of every aspect of the Place Experience Platform, from meeting and exceeding digital accessibility standards, through to making it easier for people to visit places and spaces. In line with this, we’ve recently developed new functionality to make it much simpler for end users of the Place Experience Platform to find the accessible facilities and amenities they need, when planning and undertaking a visit. 

Two screengrabs of the Events Wiltshire website, showing the accessibility filters for searching for events, and list of amenities available at an event, including Disabled Parking, Hearing Loop, Wheelchair accessible.It’s now possible to search, filter and display all of the accessible amenities provided in an area, the results of which are clearly displayed on a map alongside other useful and relevant information. Even better, when the user is physically in the place, the location aware nature of the content helps with establishing proximity to an amenity and wayfinding.

Five overlapping images: 1 Location feature menu. 2 A map with pins for event locations. 3 Photo of person using a laptop at an out door table with a hot drink. 4 Amenities filter list, with toilet facilities and Working Hearing Loop selected. 5 Image, date and title of four events.The new feature has shipped to the Wiltshire events site and the accompanying Explore Wiltshire App. Both are powered by a single Content Management System making it simple and quick to publish across multiple platforms at once. 

Want to learn more about the enhanced accessibility of the Place Experience Platform? Book a demo here and we’ll give you a walkthrough. 

Out of the Archives, Heritage, tourism and digital technologies. Episode 3. Image: Photograph book with old photos

Out of the Archives 3 – Heritage, tourism and digital technologies

By Place

How can digital technologies provide new forms of accessibility and interpretation, helping to tell seldom heard stories and histories? 

In this one hour session, guest experts from three different disciplines met to share their experiences and discuss the possibilities: 

  • Dr Amy Frost, Senior Curator at the Bath Preservation Trust
  • Amy Stewart, Producer at Zubr Curio
  • Kathryn Davis, Managing Director at Visit West. 

Thanks to all who could join us for this lunchtime exploration of heritage, visitor engagement and digital technologies.

This event was part of the Out of the Archives series, which explores the question of how organisations can use their heritage and cultural assets to create rich and engaging digital experiences for visitors and local communities.

 

Speaker biographies

 

Dr. Amy Frost
Bath Preservation Trust  & Museum of Bath Architecture,
Senior Curator / Architectural Curator and Collections Manager
Dr. Amy Frost is the Architectural Curator of the Bath Preservation Trust based at the Museum of Bath Architecture and specialises in British architecture of the eighteenth and early nineteenth century.  Alongside her work on the built heritage of Bath she is also an expert on the life and aesthetics of the British collector and writer William Beckford (1760-1844) and is the Curator of Beckford’s Tower & Museum in Bath.  She is a part-time Teaching Fellow at the University of Bath, School of Architecture.

Kathryn Davis
Managing Director, Visit West
Kathryn Davis was appointed Managing Director of Visit West in 2023, following 23 years working in Destination Management and Marketing in Bristol, Bath and the south west of England. Visit West deliver three Bristol Business Improvement Districts and are a nationally accredited Local Visitor Economy Partnership (LVEP).  She represents the destinations at national and international forums and promotes the value and importance of the visitor economy in the region. Kathryn is Vice-President of the Tourism Management Institute, a Board Member of UK Inbound and Gloucestershire County Cricket Club, and a member of the Tourism Industry Council.

Amy Stewart
Producer, Zubr Curio
Amy Stewart is a Producer at Zubr Curio, a specialist augmented and virtual reality studio catering specifically to the arts, heritage and culture sector by developing high-quality, accessible, audience-centred immersive content and educational experiences.

 

Additional resources

 

Dr. Amy Frost

Beckford’s Tower community advisory panel 

Beckford’s Tower

Calvium summary of Beckford’s Tower digital project

Amy Stewart

US Civil War AR experience: St James Church

Acropolis AR app

AR for Carrickfergus Castle

Window to the Past: Bristol Old Vic 250th birthday

Kathryn Davis

Visit West destination management plan, including focus on ‘Heritage Reinterpreted’

Wake the Tiger, experience in Bristol

Local Visitor Economy Partnership programme (LVEP), information from Visit England

Calvium

Enhancing place engagement with augmented reality

‘Creative app maps the way through Redcliffe’s art scene’, Bristol 24/7

The story of the Creative Journeys project, Art Acumen website 

Place Experience Platform

Free resources on digital placemaking

Out of the Archives: Episodes 1 and 2 

People in fancy colourful dress playing instruments on a street

Supporting engagement with events and festivals

By Place

The Rochester Sweeps festival is a highlight of Medway’s county calendar, where Morris troupes gather from around the country to celebrate May Day traditions, enjoy the present and strengthen connections for the future.

In May 2024, the festival was supported by the Visit Medway app, which provided a comprehensive digital guide to the festival, including information on performers, venues and timings to support visitors and festival-goers to make the most of the event and time in the area.

The festival guide was available over the bank holiday weekend of the event, as a special section of the app. 

Being able to easily add event guides to an existing app saves time and resources for the Visit Medway team. Annual event information can be saved, ready to be revised next year. For visitors, the app provides one port of call for specialist events, the region’s permanent attractions as well as other events through the year, increasing awareness of a wider range of activities in the area, and encouraging repeat visits.

Out of hte archives - Using heritage to support tourism. Episode 2.

Out of the Archives 2 – Using heritage to support tourism

By Place

This one hour event gathers experts from a Business Improvement District, Destination Marketing Organisation and District Council. They discussed how they present their unique local heritage to boost leisure and tourism – and the implications of digital technologies on their destinations. This ranges from place-specific issues, practical resource implications, the role of local communities and social media, as well as lessons learned for the benefit of other destination teams.

The Out of the Archives series explores how organisations can use their heritage and cultural assets to create digital experiences for visitors and local communities. This time we focussed on how this can support the visitor economy and economic regeneration.

These presentations primarily speak to those working in the public sector who have responsibility for tourism, economic development, heritage, culture, museums and archives, with a real focus on practical lessons.

Speaker biographies

 

Nick Lancaster, Economic Development Officer, East Cambridgeshire District Council
Nick is passionate about leveraging technology to enhance visitor experiences and drive sustainable growth. He spearheaded the implementation of a digital signage network in Ely, tackling longstanding wayfinding challenges and facilitating a more connected city. Nick believes in the power of digital signage to revolutionize visitor experiences and unlock a city’s full potential, and champions innovative solutions for economic prosperity.

Allison Herbert, Chief Executive, Bath BID
Allison joined Bath BID in June 2017 and became the Chief Executive in December of that year. She has extensive public and private sector experience in events, economic development and project management. Whilst at the BID, Allison has created several new projects including Welcome to Bath, the BID Welcome Ambassadors, the Bath Business Conference, the Town Traders, the Bath BID Safe and Secure Business Crime Reduction partnership, the ReBalance Bath Wellbeing Festival and the Bath Gift Card.

Matt Routledge, Sales and Events Officer, Visit Ely
Matt studied Heritage and Interpretation at Leicester University, and has worked in Heritage and Tourism for just short of a decade. As part of his work at Visit Ely, a Cambridgeshire DMO, Matt led the Visit Ely digital signage and wayfinding app project.
Additional resources

Additional resources

 

Interview with Visit Ely‘s Matt Routledge about their digital projects.

Visit Ely app – for Apple and Android

Bath Digital Festival – Cities Showcase

Watch in full or read key points from Episode 1 in this series. This talk features more information of the Wiltshire Heritage Trails, as mentioned in this event’s chat.

Out of the Archives – Heritage experts discuss pioneering digital experiences

By Place

In this one-hour online event, three award-winning council and university heritage experts discussed their pioneering use of mobile digital experiences. 

Professor Fabrizio Nevola from the University of Exeter, Terry Bracher from Wiltshire Council, and Pete Insole from Bristol City Council together have decades of experience in using heritage, culture, and unseen archive materials and collections to engage visitors and local communities.

They describe their work and the impact it has made to their organisations and their communities, referring to the History City suite of apps, Explore Wiltshire, Know Your Place and StoryMaps.

These presentations primarily speak to those working in the public sector who have responsibility for tourism, economic development, heritage, culture, museums and archives, with a real focus on practical lessons.

Speaker biographies

Prof Fabrizio Nevola is Professor and Chair of Art History and Visual Culture at the University of Exeter, where he is also Director of the Centre for Early Modern Studies. He specialises in the urban and architectural history of Early Modern Italy, and his most recent research looks at the street as a social space, the urban iconography that often binds main streets into a coherent whole and the relations between public and private self-representation. On these topics he has published and edited numerous articles and books.

Terry Bracher is Heritage Services Manager at Wiltshire and Swindon History Centre. He has been awarded a BEM for services to Heritage and Public Libraries in Wiltshire. Under his leadership, WSHC has been recognised as one of the top ten services in the country. He oversees the eight miles of archives and a wide range of outreach services, and has been influential in developing local studies work focussing on recognising and celebrating diversity.

Pete Insole is Urban Design Team Manager in Bristol City Council’s Planning Department, and has nearly 30 years’ experience of working in heritage and place practices. He managed creation of Know Your Place, an award winning online resource, and has used it to develop a story of place concept that provides a platform for multiple voices to collectively share and define Bristol’s heritage through historic photos, oral histories, postcards and other formal and informal archives.

Additional resources

Prof Fabrizio Nevola – History City

Terry Bracher – Explore Wiltshire

Pete Insole – Know Your Place and StoryMaps

Calvium resources

Row of shops, with chairs and tables outside a cafe. Planters with flowers in foreground

Seasonal storytelling with digital technologies

By Place

Our calendar years are defined by the four seasons, and within those fall many diverse occasions – from religious and traditional celebrations like Christmas, Easter, Diwali and Chinese New Year, to local festivals, carnivals and events that are unique to a particular place.

Every year, our high streets are transformed by the big seasonal events as retailers and placemakers vie to attract footfall and stand out amid the competition. It also marks a particularly testing time for parents like me, who have to drag bored children around shopping.

While we love a family day out in town, I wish there was more than Pokemon Go to keep them entertained. Something that engages everyone, no matter their age. Which got me thinking about the role of place-based, digital seasonal storytelling on our high streets – both as a form of entertainment, but also a way to attract visitors and support the local economy.

While it is true that the Christmas season is a vital period for our high streets – the UK spends more on seasonal gifts than any other European nation – seasonal storytelling is more than the Christmas and Easter scrum. Think of all the religious celebrations, national holidays and local Saints’ days; the sporting events, festivals, carnivals, markets; tribes coming to town such as Whitby goths or a football derby. The UK is full of cultural diversity and there are myriad seasonal events with stories to be told.

Reimagining high streets through storytelling

Our high streets are evolving to serve a different role in people’s lives and are being reevaluated to meet people’s expectations today. According to BBC analysis of ONS data, British high streets are becoming more than just shopping destinations; they are places people go for experiences.

As a nation of storytellers, our connection to places is embedded in stories about places and our relationship with them. This means storytelling has a central role to play in creating place-based experiences that increase dwell time, boost footfall and connect different high street communities – businesses, local authorities, residents and visitors.

The below examples highlight the wide-ranging ways digital storytelling can be used to revitalise British high streets.

Market town street with crowds and bunting

Photo: Ruby Doan

Easter trails and spring-time bloom

Easter egg hunts have long been a tradition in the ‘real’ world, so it is not surprising that a growing number of towns are incorporating digital Easter hunts into their place strategies. But as they become more common and less of a differentiating factor, the real potential lies in being clever with how those augmented reality (AR) eggs or bunnies can draw attention to specific places and shape a narrative. Incorporating additional elements, like quizzes or prizes, might be able to further enhance engagement with the story.

Spring is also a unique season for nature as flowers bloom and trees regain their greenery, so there will be lots of opportunities to showcase the scenic beauty of town areas. Consider, for example, where bluebells or daffodils can be seen and how a narrative of the town can be told along the way.

The Discover Stroud Trails app, for example, highlights the best locations to see snowdrops and bluebells in the district, ultimately encouraging people to explore and spend time in nearby towns.

An abundance of spring/Easter/May Bank Holidays around this time also brings long-weekend leisure jaunts and lots of tourist pounds. It is a prime time for places to be creative to support the local economy and increase the likelihood of people revisiting or recommending.

Summer holiday entertainment

With six weeks of school holidays to fill, this is a really key time for places to think about how to bring the summer holiday footfall to their towns.

A nice example of this is Get Suffolk Reading and Lowestoft Town Council’s storytrail for Kensington Park. Developed as part of Love Parks week for families during the summer holidays, the story can be followed by scanning QR codes around the park. A good example of enhancing engagement, an extra interactive element allows children to interact and share their own ideas too.

Character-themed trails like Wonky the Woodpecker trail in Winchester, meanwhile, are a great way to entertain youngsters while highlighting what is interesting about a place (the legend of Wonky dates back to King Alfred). A digital/AR element could easily be applied to offline trails like this to add a new layer of storytelling, making it quick and easy to create Wonky-themed trails for any seasonal event in and around the town.

High street ending in a park, with families enjoying space and sunshine

Photo: Illiya Vjestica

Ghosts and gunpowder plots

With autumn comes falling leaves, fireworks displays and an array of menacing and comedic-looking pumpkins in neighbourhood windows up and down the country. The widespread enthusiasm for Halloween makes it a great time for towns to have fun with digital storytelling. This could involve creating trails featuring spooky characters or recounting local ghost and horror stories, such as Dracula at Whitby Abbey or historical tales from Bodmin Jail in Cornwall.

Then Bonfire Night brings with it the story of Guy Fawkes and the Gunpowder Plot. It is yet another chance for places to think about how storytelling can complement the usual fireworks displays and bonfire gatherings, and in a way that is interesting and educational as well as entertaining.

This trail in York, which is centred around York in the time of Guy Fawkes, shows how the story could be made unique to a place. Adding an immersive element, like AR explosions or a historical character leading you around, could make it even more exciting.

Christmas and Valentine’s Day

Christmas is arguably the biggest global seasonal event, bringing with it vibrant markets, impressive lights displays and increasingly extravagant shop windows.

Festive trails featuring elves, reindeer and Santa are created to lead people on hunts around places in the search for hidden characters and clues. But beyond entertainment, these trails usually have a much greater purpose; to encourage people to explore town centres and support local businesses, such as Northampton’s Hi Santa Stops experience.

Similar to the shared experiences created through dressing up, trails like this can help to create a sense of community over the festive period, connecting people with each other, with places and with local businesses. The prize element adds a nice incentive at a time when people are already looking to spend.

Not forgetting the myriad rich stories and traditions to be told at this time; of the roots of St Nicholas and Santa Claus, the nativity and birth of Jesus. This digital nativity trail in Leeds, for example, invited local communities to follow the trail using QR codes and online videos, which could be found in local businesses along the way.

A couple walking down a Victorian shopping arcade with Christmas lights above

Photo: Dean Xavier

Valentine’s Day arrives with an abundance of hearts, roses, cards and more chocolate, often overshadowing the true meaning behind the occasion. With the origins of Valentine’s Day dating back to the 3rd century and the real truth still unknown, there are many possible stories to be told about the mysterious St Valentine.

Additionally, there is mythology surrounding other figures associated with the day, such as Cupid and Aphrodite. Wales also has its own celebration of the lesser-known Welsh patron saint of lovers, St Dwynwen, presenting a distinctive opportunity to celebrate its unique heritage at this time through digital storytelling.

Culture and celebration

From annual celebrations like Pride and Notting Hill Carnival, to once-in-a-lifetime events such as the King’s Coronation, there are opportunities to bring stories to our high streets throughout the year.

Think of all the carnivals and processions that take place in towns and villages. Somerset Carnivals, for example, is an ancient tradition that dates back to the 1600s. Now a popular showcase of fireworks, street processions, fairgrounds and street food, adding a digital layer of storytelling – perhaps QR codes to unlock stories about different locations along routes – would give people something new to do while ensuring its history lives on amid the annual hubbub.

Carnival float with Samba theme

Photo: Somerset Carnivals

Cam & Dursley’s AR storytrail for the Queen’s Platinum Jubilee Beacon, meanwhile, used magical characters to tell stories from the Queen’s 70-year reign. Not only an example of how high streets can harness the power of storytelling to mark nationally-celebrated events, this type of digital experience would also work well to tell the stories of famous locals, past and present.

Seasonal occurrences like Whitby Goth Weekend, Bristol International Balloon Fiesta and Edinburgh Fringe Festival also present key opportunities to create digital experiences that tell the story/history of unique place-based events and draw people to surrounding high streets. Finding ways to engage locals is just as important as attracting visitors.

Challenges and place-based solutions

Given a major issue for high streets and town centres is that the tourism offer is often at the expense of supporting local identity – i.e. tourists coming for an event and not engaging or spending in the town – place-based storytelling is well-positioned to address this challenge.

As demonstrated with the examples above, there are various ways digital storytelling can be used to encourage people to explore a place and support the local economy throughout the year. It is a core pillar of Calvium’s Place Experience Platform (PEP), which supports placemakers to do that easily and flexibly, enabling the creation of trails, hunts and quizzes for special days, weeks or seasons.

Screengrabs of Pumpkin Patch Hunt on Explore Wiltshire app

Warminster Town Council, for instance, used PEP to create a seasonal pumpkin hunt as part of the Explore Wiltshire app. It is a prime example of how time-targeted content can strengthen a place’s tourist offer while fostering connections between high street communities.

Community co-creation is key to the success of creating digital place-based storytelling experiences like this. This is not only in our experience, but something reinforced by the High Streets Task Force, which recognises the importance of considering the “unique history and lived experiences of local communities in forming place narratives, rather than employing a more detached top-down branding approach.”

Final thoughts

With digital technologies continually adding fresh opportunities for visitor engagement, our high streets must adopt the evolving opportunities fostered by digital storytelling.

For all its many benefits, storytelling has a crucial role to play in helping high streets to become the places of experience that people want them to be. Placemakers that can harness digital technologies imaginatively, therefore, will be better placed to meet and exceed expectations while hitting their KPIs and ensuring the long-term sustainability of high streets.

Aerial view of cathedral and city

How Visit Ely is harnessing digital technology to maximise visitor experience

By Place

In charge of a city bustling with history and culture, Visit Ely has been ramping up its digital offering to reach new audiences in a post-pandemic world. The tourist information experts have worked with Calvium to deliver an innovative digital placemaking experience on mobile apps and digital kiosks across the city.

On the cusp of completing the initial rollout, Visit Ely’s Sales and Events Officer, Matt Routledge, tells us how Visit Ely has adopted, adapted and evolved in recent years, and the importance of putting community at the heart of digital placemaking.

Can you give an overview of Ely and its local economy – where does tourism factor and what are the economic development strategies?

While it may not appear quite as sprawling as nearby neighbours Cambridge and Peterborough, Ely is a city. We have a sizable agricultural income and economy because of the nature of the fens. We are home to a number of production industries, including being the European home of international organisations such as Thorlabs. We also have a bustling town centre and tourism sector.

Tourism is a sizable element of the visitor economy throughout the summer and winter, and we have everything they need in one destination, such as accommodation providers, food and drink establishments, independent shops, markets, and unique visitor attractions, for example, Oliver Cromwell’s house. Residents and school visits certainly contribute, but it is tourism that provides a considerable cash injection to Ely’s overall economy.

As placemakers, a destination marketing organisation and visitor guides for the city, what are your key opportunities and challenges?

The biggest challenge is that we are in a very well-supplied market where there is a finite resource of time and money for people to enjoy leisure activities. They go hand-in-hand: if you have money, do you have time to spend it? If you have spare time, do you have money to spend? So to assert ourselves, we need to make our product appear top-of-list in front of people.

Fortunately, that isn’t enormously difficult when you have a resource, a product per se, such as Ely, which is filled to the brim with history and things to do. People travel all over the place for our markets, for instance, while our upcoming traditional apple and harvest fair attracts between 5,000-7,000 people in a single day.

Photo of street festival with large eel

Ely ‘Eel Day’ is a popular annual festival which includes a parade, led by a giant eel. The weekend event is an established attraction with music, games, stalls, Morris dancing and various other entertainments including competitions such as ‘eel’ throwing. Photo: Terry Harris.

Digital technologies are playing an increasing role in the lives of locals, visitors and potential visitors. How is this influencing the ways that these groups engage with Visit Ely and the city?

Digital technologies have created two almost defined streams of tourism. We have our traditional 50-65+-year-olds who engage with our print materials, want to see posters and still pop in to see us at the tourist information centre; then we have a newer, younger audience that are much better served and reached by digital platforms.

We’ve seen a need to move towards Facebook, X, Instagram, TikTok, and have had to adapt. We know that we are looking at a global audience and in the post-pandemic world, international travel is coming back with a renewed vigour. There is a desire to travel internally and internationally from markets that we may have not seen before. People are doing more virtual tours using a range of platforms, and then going to see places as a result of that. That’s also why Ely is on these platforms.

So, digital technology has had an enormous impact and will continue to have an enormous impact on how we drive business and in what basket we put our eggs.

What has been your strategy in providing local information through public access, as well as direct to personal devices?

This strategy – the development of a tourism app – dates back to the early days of the pandemic, where the economic development team at East Cambridgeshire District Council applied for funding from the combined authority. Because of the local roots the project needed to flourish, it made sense for it to sit under the Visit Ely banner.

That has influenced the initial campaign and structure of how we are going to engage, particularly in making sure the app isn’t just a boon for tourists. That was one half of it – giving tourists and potential visitors the opportunity to see all the things to explore in Ely via an app – but we also wanted local residents to benefit as much by letting them know what’s available, to defeat that kind of threshold anxiety that might exist. There is an ever present sense of “that isn’t for me” or “It’s of no use to me”, but once you get someone over that threshold, once they engage and see what is on offer they will hopefully become life-long users.

It has very much been something we’ve wanted the community to be at the heart of, so this has informed the content we show, like government buildings, the library or emergency dentist – things that your average visitor may not want or need.

Can you describe the Visit Ely app and its visitor experience?

We currently have around 326 local sites, services and places of cultural interest listed, ranging from dentists, museums and architects, to the cathedral, public transport and the ‘secret yarn bomber’ – a local resident who designs knitted tops for post boxes under a secret identity.

We have events, which we can geolocate so somebody gets a notification when walking past a specific place. Then there are the trails and quests, including wellbeing trails for Ely Country Park and the ‘Station to City’ trail, which seeks to bridge the gap between the city and train station, which can feel quite isolated.

We know people love gamification; if you can turn something into a challenge, adventure and experience, then you should. So our first quest is made up of 40 questions, leading people to look at and discover things they might otherwise miss.

More recently, we have started to roll out digital kiosks, which host a version of the app that is only available on the kiosks – which you don’t need a phone for. By the end of the project, we will have 17 kiosks in key prominent locations around the city, including the railway station, market, riverside and all car parks.

What value do you anticipate the app will bring to your city?

It will add value from a two-fold perspective. Economically, it will bring eyes that formerly would not have reached the city of Ely. Equally, it will support residents, local businesses and events that are taking place in this city to grow, develop and share themselves around the world and within our own little microcosm here.

We’ve had some incredibly positive reviews already, often saying it’s about time Ely was put on the map! I had an email from a lady who had lived in Ely for eight years, and because of the app she had gone on her first proper walk around the country park. She said it was revolutionary.

Visitors are enjoying it too because they are able to plan their visit and make the most out of it, rather than getting overwhelmed with choice anxiety.

What have you discovered/encountered working with digital technologies and information/content – has it changed the way you see future storytelling and visitor experiences?

We are on the cusp of something incredible developing from here and you cannot avoid it; you cannot outrun the future. So we are being faced with that redirection.

The app is the perfect example of that happening. We are taking that relevant information and transposing it to a new medium. We’re saying to people we are still here; the tourism office and printed visitor guide aren’t going anywhere but digital works harmoniously with it and they can be used to support each other. We have to be acutely aware of the change of tide of technology we adopt to adapt to evolve.

Are there any words of wisdom that you would pass on to other Councils or places seeking to create their own digital placemaking experiences?

Root it in your community and get that community buy-in from the beginning. Make it work for residents first, then it will grow and flourish because it is tended by those that know the soil, air and nutrients best. Let them plant the tree and grow with you.

We have made it a very open project and invited people to feed back and submit their own events. It’s about giving the community a sense of ownership; letting them know that their thoughts, wishes, feelings, desires, ideals and content is appreciated and not just paying lip service.

What are your plans for the future?

We are adding more content daily and would like to start doing more community-curated trails, letting those who know Ely best submit their own routes. They will be the lifeblood of this app.

It is still a very young idea but we’re so invested in it and there are so many branches that can spring from it… additional screens, new functionality on the app, itineraries. The wish list grows and grows, because if we are constantly improving the experience and keep giving people something to come back to, they will come back.

 

Thank you Matt for sharing your experience and insight!

Enhancing place engagement with augmented reality

By Place

Augmented reality is a familiar technology that has been creating new spatial experiences for many years now. To inform an AR project that I’ve been undertaking recently for Calvium’s Place Experience Platform, I decided to find out a bit more about augmented reality…

While early innovations in immersive reality were emerging just as The Beatles started rising to fame – the first VR mounted headset was developed in 1960 – it was undoubtedly Pokemon Go that took AR to the mainstream in 2016, carving out a lucrative space for AR as an entertainment experience.

AR has come a long way in the past decade alone, with increasingly sophisticated technology driving innovation to enable more immersive experiences and a greater connection to places. Whether for entertainment or education purposes, AR is being adopted by many to enhance storytelling – in journalism, theatre, museums, towns and cities. My particular interest lies in the ways that AR is being used to form new experiences for people in places, and a variety of examples follow.

Developer at office desk

The world’s first augmented reality city

Stirling in Scotland is currently undergoing a £200,000 transformation to become the first fully augmented reality city in the world. Part of the Scottish government’s Place Based Investment Programme, Stirling Council has teamed up with BT and global design agency Seymourpowell to bring the city’s history and heritage to life in a new AR environment.

The place-based app, dubbed Stirling XP, overlays key attractions with interactive information, graphics and 3D models, while interactive games will unlock rewards and incentives across the city. It is part of a wider ambition to raise Stirling’s profile on the international stage – particularly by tapping into the expectations of a younger generation looking for more immersive and digital experiences. Another key aim is to open up new opportunities for local businesses and boost the wider tourism economy.

We know that digital placemaking has become a key component of the visitor experience and has the potential to realise socio-economic benefits for a location. Neil Christison, VisitScotland’s regional director notes: “…tourism is a force for good with an impact that spreads far beyond the industry itself – it benefits our economy, our community and our wellbeing.” As a central pillar of place-based digital capabilities, investment in augmented reality can be an investment in the local economy.

Bringing history to life

AR is not only a powerful way to bring modern-day cities to life, it also has a great role to play in recreating places of the past. Zubr Curio’s Acropolis AR app, for example, allows visitors to the Acropolis of Athens to explore the ancient buildings as they would have appeared in the 5th Century, and walk the paths that connect them. The app is not only location specific, but also lets people enjoy the experience wherever they are in the world. By bringing a miniature 3D model of the Acropolis Hill to their living rooms, users can inspect the ruins as they appear today and reconstruct the monuments in AR, piece by piece.

Two computer generated images of the Acropollis, one in ruins and one complete

Images: Zubr Curio

The New York Times has used AR to recreate history in a slightly different way. As part of its experimentation with AR in storytelling and journalism, the publisher used photogrammetry – the process of taking overlapping photos of an object, structure or space and converting them into 3D digital models – to recreate a model of an historic Chinatown street in New York. Using over 4,000 images, users can explore archival photos of that space through the lens of AR – including a famous vintage dim sum parlour dating back to 1920.

Back in 2019, Calvium collaborated with Professor Fabrizio Nevola at the University of Exeter, Professor Donal Cooper at the University of Cambridge, the National Gallery and long-term partners Zubr to create Hidden Florence 3D: San Pier Maggiore. Using AR, the app places the user inside a reconstructed model of the Church at San Pier Maggiore in Florence that was destroyed in the 18th Century, and recreates the building around the altarpiece, which is currently situated in the National Gallery.

Adding a new dimension to fiction

Audio has been an incredibly popular extension of fiction for decades, with the first audiobooks dating back to the 1930s. So it makes sense that AR is being used to add another dimension to fiction and storytelling, creating immersive experiences that pique the imagination of both adults and children alike.

For example, Singapore’s Mint Museum of Toys’ series of AR story-colouring books for 4-12-year-olds encourages learning through interaction and creativity. Each book is based on collections from the museum, including one about a girl who grew up in 1920s Singapore, which tells a story of how this nation-state has progressed since then.

The University of York, meanwhile, has developed an immersive AR pop-up book to bring the story of Dracula to life. The 20-minute experience combines a ‘real world’ fine art pop-up book with immersive AR animations, with a tablet dressed as a ‘spirit detector’ inviting audience members to become part of Dracula’s reincarnation. The project hopes to eventually enable the development and testing of a location-based version that can be toured internationally.

Even closer to Calvium HQ in Bristol, Aardman Studios has created its first AR experience for Wallace and Gromit. The narrative-driven experience sees the world-famous duo take on a contract to ‘Fix Up’ Bristol and positions the player as a new employee of the company. They can interact in a variety of ways, including through AR gameplay and extended reality portals.

Fictioneers’ Richard Saggers, who worked on the project with Aardman, described it as groundbreaking work “which demonstrates the huge opportunity to evolve the way stories are told.” Saggers highlights the importance of having diverse, multidisciplinary teams, which is something Calvium certainly advocates for too!

Immersive theatre

The immersive nature of theatre means it is already very well-positioned to experiment with AR. The National Theatre spotted the opportunity early on and launched its own immersive storytelling studio back in 2016. The studio is designed to examine how emerging technologies such as AR can widen and enhance the company’s remit to be a “pioneer of dramatic storytelling and to enable an audience to stand in the shoes of another”.

One studio output includes a live AR performance of All Kinds of Limbo; people can buy a £6 ticket and watch it on their smartphone or tablet, wherever they are. This demonstrates the power of AR to make theatre more accessible too.

Professor Elizabeth Hunter’s theatre productions, meanwhile, use video games and AR headsets to place audience members in the perspective of a play’s characters. Bitter Wind: Greek Tragedy for Hololens, for example, puts users in the POV of the protagonist by overlaying their physical surroundings with digitally rendered versions of palace windows, torches and wall fragments.

Place Experience Platform evolution

Calvium’s Place Experience Platform (PEP), that I mentioned earlier on, is one tool that can give place managers the capability to put AR elements in a location, and then manage, update and expand on them. We are constantly looking to improve capabilities and expand our menu of experiences from which place managers can choose their feast!

We recognise the value of making AR scalable and accessible to everyone using our platform, which is why I am currently designing new elements that will be made available to all of the PEP customers.

Windmill Hill City Farm

To coincide with Halloween, we recently co-designed a new digital visitor experience for Windmill Hill City Farm. The 15-minute trail follows Dusty the ghost, who appears as an animated AR model and needs help finding their friends around the farm. We’ve created five fixed templates of different ghosts in the CMS, which can be customised to create individual trails and challenges around different sites.

Starting with an initial set of characters, each place can create their own site-specific experience from a ready-to-go toolbox. for personalising to their place. We see a huge opportunity to create more seasonal trails like this, including for Easter, Christmas and major peek holiday times. Moving forward, developments like this will be available to all clients as part of their subscription.

5 portrait phone-shaped images of a family members at a city farm with AR ghosts next to them

Calvium’s CEO Jo Reid tests the ghost hunt at Windmill Hill City Farm

Beckford’s Tower

A more complex, unique and bespoke project, our latest collaboration with Zubr is an example of a more complex, unique and bespoke project, which uses mixed media storytelling to enhance the historic site of Beckford’s Tower in Bath.

As this project was built using PEP, the curatorial team can continue to develop it once the project is over. There are so many stories to be told, which means place managers can produce and release new content over time; they can get user feedback, make changes, tie in releases with themed promotions and regional events. It’s a quick, cheap and easy way to update and keep visitor experiences fresh and relevant.

Final thoughts

As I’ve discovered, AR is no longer a novel and risky innovation; it is a must-have way to engage. In the context of place-based storytelling, AR can help draw out what is distinctive about your place. It can further enhance the craft, creativity and quality of storytelling, and deepen understanding of the unique local aspects of a place. AR as a technology is a common offer, but how you use it to lead people around your place and tune it into your particular context is what will make you stand out.

People expect a digital element to their place experience nowadays, and so a digital component, AR or otherwise, should be seen as a staple part of any placemaker’s toolkit. Not only do audiences enjoy digital experiences, it is a tried-and-tested way to boost engagement with a place, support a place’s brand and encourage repeat visits. A win-win for all!