Examination of Witnesses (Questions 280
- 289)
THURSDAY 29 JUNE 2000
MR GUY
HANDS, MR
PETER MIDDLETON,
MR MIKE
SWINNEY, MS
BARBARA ANDERSON
AND MR
GWILYM JONES
280. Their only interest is in how successful
you are economically and financially?
(Mr Hands) Not quite. We have also put into our bid
some terms with regard to economic regeneration as well which
effectively will mean if we do not get the regeneration with regard
to the buildings delivered over a period of time we will lose
some of the site. We have to perform internally and externally.
281. Finally, Mrs Organ asked you about possible
proposals to take the Dome over before the end of the year. You
said you would consider something if it was put to you. Can you
assure us today that none of you have had any conversations with
either ministers or civil servants or members of the Millennium
Commission to date about taking the Dome over?
(Mr Hands) None at all.
282. You have not been approached?
(Mr Hands) We have not been approached.
Ms Ward
283. Can I ask, first of all, have any of you
ever been employed by Disney?
(Mr Swinney) Since I would be the only likely candidate
I actually take great pride in pronouncing that I have never been
an employee of Disney.
(Mr Middleton) Me too, sadly.
284. So we start from the point where none of
you has Disney in mind, I assume?
(Mr Swinney) No.
(Mr Middleton) No, because the Disney proposition
is out of town, it is a large amount of space and it is like in
Florida acres and acres and acres. They key to ours is that it
is urban. It is an urban resort and the things that go into that
need to be put close together. You do not have the space anywhere
in an urban resort and that is the main difference. Some of the
things that Disney do, like the way in which they manage to let
people believe they are not in a queue when in fact they are in
a queue, are absolutely skills that we will bring into running
the Dome. This is not at all Dome Disney.
(Mr Hands) Another very important difference, which
I will let Mike expand on, you have to have intellectual property
which is immediately recognisable to people. You cannot create
a Space Mountain because you have not got space. Therefore, what
you show has to be something that people can immediately relate
to, such as the Beatles, such as Grimms' Fairy Tales, such as
the Berlin Philharmonic. Mike, could you explain?
(Mr Swinney) With that pronouncement about being proud
of not being from Disney I would also say that we are not proposing
to bring Sony, who is our parent company, also to the Dome. What
we have had great success in doing is taking a full proportion
of artists and artisans and crafts people and great story tellers
and great dancers and great artists from around the world who
have been rejected by people like the Walt Disney Company and
Universal Studios because they did not start the film and bring
all those works to life.
(Mr Middleton) If I could spare Mike's blushes, Metronim
has been open a year in San Francisco, it has had over 6 million
visitors. The Mediage in Tokyo opened on 21 April and it has already
had two and a quarter million visitors. This works.
285. What is it that it provides that is different?
(Mr Middleton) It is fun.
286. What is amazing? We think about that in
the context of what else is going on, particularly for paid attractions.
What annoys me is the comparisons between the Dome and the Tate
Modern.
(Mr Hands) These are built for the long term, talk
through Wild Things.
(Mr Swinney) I approached Maurice Sendak about seven
years ago. Maurice is this wonderful 70 year old legend who writes
books for four year olds. If ever there was a guy who was 70 who
is really four years old, it is Maurice Sendak. To see the look
on his face when at the end of the day he sees kids crawling around
on his characters, throwing blocks at each other, laughing at
things which pop up and talk to you or wandering through these
mazes, interacting with other kids and learning about story telling
and learning about music and learning about art, I found him in
tears in the middle of the place. That is what creates the difference
for an urban audience. Those kinds of things which are hands-on
easy to deal with, easy to understand, which not only tell stories
but tell stories in the way that kids actually begin to learn
and are educated.
287. Can I ask also then about the audience
you are going to look to attract, particularly with ticket prices.
Can you tell me whether you think the ticket prices that the Dome
has at the moment are reasonable and would be within the margins
or the areas that you would consider?
(Mr Hands) We have done a lot of testing of that.
Ticket pricing is clearly an emotional issue and it is an issue
you have got to get right. We need to attract the vast majority
of people, we want to attract all age groups. The pricing that
is there at the moment, there is no question it is an expensive
day out but entertainment is reasonably expensive, going to a
football match is reasonably expensive, going to Alton Towers
is expensive, coming to London to go to museums is expensive.
The survey results we get back is that price is not an issue,
what is an issue is content. Our view is that we will continue
with the pricing policy that is there. We will introduce a season
ticket for people who can go more often than once which will be
very, very reasonable indeed. We will continue with the Greenwich
Card for local residents. We will do that without having any ongoing
subsidy.
288. You are proposing also to have hotels in
the resort?
(Mr Hands) Yes, the outside development is to put
some hotels there. We think it will be completely unique, there
will be nowhere else in the world where you can go to a capital
city. We want to put some budget hotels and a four star hotel
there. The four star hotel we want to have a conference centre
in it because we think that is important to the business park
as a whole and the development of the Greenwich Peninsula. Our
figures allow for approximately 20 per cent, over a million visitors
a year, so we will need to have accommodation.
289. You took into account, obviously, the points
made earlier by Mr Quarmby with regard to the tourist industry,
particularly getting people from overseas to come here while the
pound is so high. How do you think you will market that strategy
for making it an international venue rather than a London and
South East venue?
(Mr Hands) There is a lot which I would like to get
Peter to talk about but the one thing which is absolutely essential
to us is foreign tourists, that they do not just see it as a question
of going to a visitor attraction. They have to see it as going
to the Dome, to also see historic Greenwich, historic Woolwich,
to be able to be within 15 minutes of this building and the centre.
It is a completely unique possibility there.
(Mr Middleton) Two things. One, clearly the online
strategy that we are developing is going to be very important
for that because after a certain period, I hope by next March,
people going to our website will be able to see what the actual
content of the Dome is now and the plans for the refurbishment
over a two year period. That will get some attraction. The second
is that it is already very well known internationally. In Germany
there is a high recognition of the existence of the Dome as an
entertainment centre. I do not think that the international marketing
side that you normally have, of having to get foreigners to understand
that the thing exists, we do not have to do that, they know it,
they are reading about it in the papers. What we have to do for
them, as we have to do for the people of this country, is to show
them that it is absolutely possible to create a world class entertainment
centre in that fantastic structure. We have no doubt that we can
do that.
Chairman: Gentlemen and lady, thank you
very much indeed. It has been extremely helpful.
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