Examination of Witnesses (Questions 140 - 159)
WEDNESDAY 8 JULY 1998
MR ROBERT AYLINGand MS JENNIE PAGE.
140. If we go back to the online games, I hope that you
can lay to rest any suggestion that there will rows of Playstations
with kids queuing up to play at Playstations.
(Ms Page) Absolutely right, it will not
be that. That is not what it is about. It is about using the technology
which children and teenagers are particularly familiar with in
order to carry through what the experience is meant to be about.
141. I am still worried because if a child goes to the Natural
History Museum or Science Museum they are there for a couple of
hours and there are things to keep them entertained. You actually
mentioned when you were talking about pricing earlier Alton Towers
and Chessington but of course Alton Towers and Chessington are
wholly different and it is a constant experience of play and fun
things for children which they are constantly doing - they go
in and pay their money and do it. I am still just a little worried
that parents are going to come down, some of them, as Michael
was saying, having paid a lot of money on a family ticket and
after a couple of hours in the Dome they are going to struggle
to keep their children entertained and they are going to say,
"Gosh, our day is going to be cut short."
(Ms Page) I disagree with that interpretation.
I think one of the other things one needs to take into account
is the very large part of the day in many standard commercial
tourist attractions spent in queuing. The whole philosophy of
this Dome is to avoid that endless consumption of time in queuing
and to provide entertainment for a substantially greater percentage
of the time you spend on site than most people experience.
142. I wholeheartedly approve of that. Can I just ask one more
question. One of my great loves in life is playing ballgames
and when I heard Peter Mandelson tell us that surfball was going
to be the great game of the 21st century I was naturally very
excited. In this country we have invented many of the great ballgames
in the world which the world plays now. What is happening with
surfball?
(Ms Page) Surfball was a code name which we invented
to describe the concept of a modern game which has not yet been
played. We hope very much that in the serious play zone we will
be able to introduce people to new games. I regard that as again
being part of commercially confidential information which the
company proposes to keep to itself for some time yet.
Chairman
143. As you well know, commercially confidential information
is something in which this Committee always has a very intense
interest! We would very much welcome you providing in confidence
commercially confidential information which might assist Mr Faber.
(Ms Page) We will certainly do that in due course,
Chairman, yes.
Mr Faber
144. I will not press it particularly hard but the great ball
sports which we all play around the world, as I say many of which
have been British inventions, most of them have evolved over a
long period of time and most of them have evolved in different
ways. I do not think for any of them one man has gone into a room,
played around on a computer and come out with a ballgame
that is suddenly going to sweep the world in the 21st century.
I think the language could have been a little less over-excited
when introducing us to this great new sport. I cannot get a grasp
on whether there is going to be a sport being played in the Dome
or whether it is a video game or a computer sport or what it is.
I think in that case it was wrong to have implied that this was
going to be some great new sport which was going to take the world
by storm when clearly, with respect, it is not. I do not know
who the people are who are working on it but I hope that they
are the very greatest ball players in the country because they
at least might know what they are talking about.
(Ms Page) Had we known that the Committee was going
to contain somebody who was so keen on ballgames we might
perhaps have chosen
145. Sport is in the name of the Committee.
(Ms Page) It was the "ball" that I was
emphasising.
Chairman: I think the Committee may well contain part
of its curiosity in this inquiry but since we intend to hold,
as you know, another inquiry which we will complete before the
end of the year, I think that the Committee's forbearance about
the absence of absolutely precise information will not last indefinitely.
Mr Stott?
Mr Stott
146. I apologise for my absence for the last half an hour, I
had a paged message which I had to deal with. Mr Ayling, in your
other capacity as Chief Executive of British Airways flying all
these millions of passengers all around the world, you have an
astonishingly captive audience on those aircraft. What is British
Airways doing to promote the Dome with all those millions of people
flying around in your aircraft?
(Mr Ayling) I am naturally interested in two aspects
of this from the point of view of British Airways, if I may answer
from that point of view, Chairman. The first is to attract as
many people to Britain during the Millennium year as possible
particularly on British Airways aircraft and it is true that apart
from London and Britain being places which people want to come
to for commercial and social reasons, one of the great reasons
they come to this country is because of the recreational attractions
and if we are going to have world-class recreational attractions
during this year we want to get as much benefit as possible. So
my colleagues who sell in-bound holidays and British Airways
sells more in-bound holidays than any other organisation in Britain
to this country will be amongst the people who will be
putting together packages to sell to overseas visitors to come
here and the Dome will be one of the attractions although I do
not think it will the only attraction because there will be lots
of other things going on. So the first answer to your question
is our sales organisation is alive to selling this and selling
the Dome as part of the package to London and to Britain. The
second thing we are doing is we are increasing awareness. Whenever
it was safe to do so our pilots will point out if you are flying
over that bit of London that there is something new down there.
They like giving commentaries as aircraft come into London and
the passengers seem to like having commentaries. Our pilots are
pretty well-informed on the whole and the Dome is one of the things
they are pointing out at the moment. That is another thing we
are doing. Lastly, whenever I have an opportunity, and I have
quite a lot, of speaking to audiences outside Britain, whether
they are conferences of investment bankers, customers, people
in the travel and tourism industry, I make the point of banging
the drum about what we are doing in Britain during this year and
mentioning the Dome in particular and we take along with us lots
of attractive visuals to get people's attention.
147. I was thinking more specifically about an in-flight video
perhaps just before you show the film about the Millennium Experience
and about what you can get in the Dome. If you are sitting on
a British Airways flight from Los Angeles to London or to Singapore
have you thought about an in-flight video for ten minutes explaining
what we are doing, what the Millennium experience is and what
will be in the Dome?
(Mr Ayling) Yes and I think this is an extremely
good idea but I think it is a little early because
148. Early? You are only 18 months/two years away from this.
(Mr Ayling) There is no lack of awareness about
what is happening. When we get down to that kind of promotional
material we are going to be very close to selling tickets and
I think that we need to time that kind of marketing so that we
are creating the demand that we want to sell the tickets. But
it is a very good idea and it is certainly something that we are
thinking about and in consultation with Jenny Page and her colleagues
(I try to wear only one hat on these occasions and not too many)
we will put together that sort of material and showing it on the
aircraft is a very good way of broadcasting information.
Mr Stott: Thank you.
Chairman
149. Whilst obviously we understand that you cannot 17 months
ahead have decided every single detail about content, when do
you expect to have the content tied up?
(Mr Ayling) I think the truthful answer to that
is we do not know. Clearly you work back from dates which cannot
be changed. The first date that cannot be changed is when we have
our soft opening when the thing has got to be there and as complete
as it possibly can be to have a soft opening. Working back from
there there are many things which have got to be done weeks or
months in advance in order to be ready by that stage. Having had
experience of working with creative people in even my line of
business it is astonishing how sometimes things do not seem to
get finally fixed until quite late in the process. That is not
something which any longer worries me - it used to worry me -
because it is how things work. Mr Chairman, you know far more
about the creative world than I do but some of the greatest creative
acts of man have taken place only hours or minutes before the
conductor of the opera or the actors in the play were going to
perform it. I am not saying that this is precisely like that but
there will be a lot of things which will probably be determined
rather closer to the end than the beginning but all the structural
and main issues and big decisions will be taken well in advance
to allow that.
150. But you are perfectly clear now about what will go everywhere
in principle even though, as you say, some things cannot be tied
up until much nearer the date, ie, all the zones are clear in
your mind, all the zones are being worked on and you know basically
what is going to go everywhere in the Dome?
(Mr Ayling) Yes.
(Ms Page) Yes. If I may add, Chairman, there are
one or two small areas which we have specifically reserved because
we believe there may be additional pressure that is not part of
our current sponsorship strategy which we may wish to be able
to accommodate. If those spaces are not needed for additional
exhibits (and, as I think we have already indicated, we believe
there is quite a lot already in this Dome and more than enough
for one day's visit) it is a simple matter to adjust some of the
marginal retailing opportunities which otherwise would be in the
Dome. If the space is needed then we will move them outside into
the piazza. But it is a minuscule amount of space compared to
the scale of the Dome. Just about enough flexibility to make us
feel comfortable at this stage in the game.
151. When the Secretary of State appeared before us last month
he indicated that at that point you had achieved roughly half
your sponsorship target. How are you getting on with your sponsorship
target? Are you absolutely confident that you will meet it and
are all your signed up sponsors still in the running?
(Mr Ayling) If I can take that question, Mr Chairman.
We are determined to meet it. We are absolutely confident that
there are opportunities for selling commercial sponsorship so
that we can raise the amount of money that we need. We will shortly
be making some more announcements that I hope will please people.
We have identified sponsorship in excess of £100 million.
When one bears in mind in fact that the sponsorship drive did
not start in earnest until October or November of last year a
great deal has been done in a very short amount of time. I am
very pleased with what has been done, but we still have a lot
to do and I will not be completely relaxed on this subject until
we have got all the commitments that we need to fill the slot
of revenue which is coming from commercial sponsorship but I do
think that we are doing well. I think we have a good team of people
and the noises that I hear from the sponsorship world are much
better than they were, say, a year ago when there were doubts
being expressed as to whether this was not rather an ambitious
amount of money and, yes, I know of none of the original people
who have committed who have pulled out and, of course, we were
very grateful with their initial commitments because that allowed
the whole thing to get off the ground.
Mr Fabricant
152. Just a quick one on the Spirit Zone. If I can quote one
little line from Churches Together in England. They make an obvious
statement but it is worth saying: "The date of the Millennium
has its true meaning in the calendar based on the assumption that
the birth of Jesus Christ is the turning point of history."
While I was tartly told off by the Secretary of State for believing
everything I read in the newspapers, was the report in the Jewish
Chronicle that there are going to be barmitzvahs held in the
Spirit Zone true?
(Ms Page) I am afraid I have not read that particular
report so I do not know its source but there is no intention to
hold corporate hospitality and this would have to be regarded
as the equivalent
153. It is a religious ceremony.
(Ms Page) I know what it is. What I am trying to
indicate is that there are opportunities to use elements of the
Dome for a whole variety of purposes. Corporate hospitality is
the most frequent one. We are in discussion with the Lambeth Group
about the provision of in addition to the Spirit Zone a worship
space inside the Dome but the Spirit Zone, is like all the other
zones, there for the general public and for the use of the event
public while the Dome is open. It is therefore inconceivable that
it will be used for any kind of private or corporate function.
I am sorry if I started with the corporate word, I quite clearly
know what it is, but it certainly would not be possibly to use
one of the zones for that sort of facility whilst the Dome is
open.
(Mr Ayling) I think the answer is no.
Chairman
154. No chopped liver in the Dome!
(Mr Ayling) There used to be a marvellous restaurant
in Commercial Road called Blooms where I had chopped liver but
it is closed.
Chairman: You can go to Golders Green!
Mr Wyatt
155. Chairman, I am sorry I am late, some of this may already
have been covered, but when we were in Scotland there was a real
concern as to how families would actually get to the Dome. Given
that all the flights are taken is Go going to be actually operating
a cheap flight because it is very expensive to go between Edinburgh
and London? Will City Airport be used at all for doing that? I
ask that in the sense of how does the rest of Britain enjoy this
if it buys its tickets? Are you thinking of doing citybycity
days so that Edinburgh can have 28 days or Cornwall might have
15 so that this can be catered for on the transport side and also
on the hotel side?
(Ms Page) I am afraid I cannot answer the question
about Go because it is outside my remit but doubtless Mr Ayling
will come in at the end and make his own comments about the airlines.
We certainly think that as far as Scotland and some of the other
northern cities and Belfast are concerned, that there will be
packages which make sense using the airlines. There is a possibility
of using not only the City Airport but also Stanstead which has
been branded by the BAA as the "Millennium Gateway Airport",
and onward transport by coach and I would expect a lot of interest
in that sort of package. As far as the focus on individual cities
is concerned, I have already this morning referred to the programme
called Our Town Story which is designed to ensure that
every town can, as it were, have its day in the Dome and in fact
that might well be used by individual train operating companies,
airlines and indeed coach companies to focus cheap packages for
transport purposes. In general I think yes, we are exploring the
sort of opportunities that you are suggesting.
156. On the opening night which is incredibly important since
it tells the world and also tells us in Britain what is there,
there will be no doubt be an extravagant opening. Who will have
the TV rights to that?
(Ms Page) The discussions that are going on at
the moment about the opening weekend are being chaired by the
Department of Culture, Media and Sport because quite clearly what
happens in the Dome itself is of great importance but there will
be a lot of things happening elsewhere in the capital and indeed
in other capitals around the country and other cities around the
country. There is no sense in which any broadcasting authority
is going to have an exclusive on that opening night. It will quite
clearly be up to the individual broadcasting companies to determine
how they want to cover it but we are working on the assumption
that it will be accessible to everybody.
157. So it will be freely accessible to all broadcasters and
radio operators so that we get maximum exposure?
(Ms Page) There will be maximum exposure. Some
television companies have already been in discussion with us,
in fact almost all of them, about their opening night plans and
quite clearly since it seems to be the world agreement that there
is a 24hour slot which is going to be filled with Millennium-type
broadcasting from midday on the 31st to midday on the 1st people
are going to want a lot of other sites other than the Dome and
as well as the Dome in order to provide broadcast material. We
are part of the scene for very large numbers of different broadcasters.
158. If you are Scottish Hogmanay is a pretty big issue so presumably
for the Scots it is more important to watch something Scottish
than British?
(Ms Page) Our belief is that most broadcasting
authorities will want to pick up bits from a whole range of activities
all around the world and certainly we would expect that Scotland
would be covering Hogmanay but I would hope that everybody will
be covering Hogmanay as well as the Dome.
159. When we had the funeral last year of Diana there was a single
television feed that was made available free to every broadcaster.
That made access different according to your own tastes. Are you
going to have one access? You do not want 500 crews and 20 outside
broadcasters, you basically want one.
(Ms Page) We are actually in discussion with the
broadcast authorities at the moment as to whether we take one
or two feeds out but I believe you are right that it would be
sensible to have a maximum of two feeds coming out of the Dome
on that day. That will not stop us requiring to house a very large
number of OB vehicles where individual television companies will
translate what they are taking and take it to their own use.
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