Published: 8 Aug 2024
We work with cultural and heritage sites of all shapes and sizes, helping them to deliver extraordinary onsite and online visitor experiences via audio and multimedia guides, digital opportunities and film.
These five case studies highlight our team’s expertise and dedication to delivering exceptional results. From unique challenges to groundbreaking solutions, we’ve helped our clients achieve their goals and exceed expectations.
Windsor Castle has been the home of the Royal Family for nearly a thousand years and is one of the country’s major tourist attractions.
With nearly 1.5 million visitors every year, the biggest challenge ATS had to address was how to help people navigate their way around this complex site whilst at the same time ensuring that they engage easily with Windsor’s rich history.
To meet this challenge required not only a radical change to tour content but also the development of an intuitive wayfinding system. ATS worked closely with both the Curators and the Visitor Services team to develop the tour and train and support staff in its distribution and management.
We were able to use our extensive experience of working at some of the busiest tourist attractions in the country to develop a wayfinding system for Windsor. Our bespoke interface allows visitors to choose the route they want to take and to explore topics and objects within it as well as to hear from experts who work in the castle. We also developed innovative ways of balancing the 1,000 year history of the castle with its contemporary use, including interviews with members of the Royal Family on what it’s like to live and work at Windsor.
The experience for families has also been boosted by the creation of a tour which includes games and interactives. Given to everyone as part of their entry ticket, our multimedia guide has already become an integral part of the visitor experience.
Take a look behind the scenes here.
The D-Day Story originally commissioned ATS to develop their audio guide back in 2021. The initial audio guide consisted of an adult tour, a separate tour for visually impaired and blind guests, and French and German language versions.
The D-Day Story has resources and interpretation for much younger visitors as well as adults but was missing interpretation aimed specifically at 9-14 year olds, so they asked us to create a Family Tour to add to their existing audio devices.
Our brief was to follow the same route around the museum and focus on the same objects that are included on the main adult tour with the idea that families can take the tour together, each with their own device.
The content was produced specifically with the 9-14 year old age bracket in mind and we felt it was important that it didn’t talk down to the younger visitors but was still engaging.
The D-Day Story is all about letting the objects tell their own story about the people involved in the Normandy landings and this new audio tour reflects that.
Hear what Ross Fairbrother, General Manager, The D-Day Story has to say about working with ATS on this project.
The Old Royal Naval College (ORNC) invited ATS to help them bring James Thornhill’s epic painting closer to the viewers at home. As part of a dual project alongside creating the new onsite multimedia guide, an online solution would increase online engagement and on-site ticket sales.
ORNC appointed ATS to explore three main challenges:
The approach to designing a digital experience, as with any interpretive content or visitor experience, is that it has to have a purpose. Simply putting 360 degree images of a space or building with no content or interpretation won’t provide impact or retain visitor interest. The solution had to include a variety of high-quality bite-sized content that is easy to use and share.
As with a physical tour, we explored and tested the user experience, designing the interface, wayfinding and routing of a digital tour. We had to overcome the challenge of exploring both the ‘physical’ space and include detailed interpretation of the complex painted scenes of gods, monarchs, seafaring and complex allegory. Visitors must not get lost or they will leave the website prematurely.
The 360° explorable virtual tour of the Painted Hall allows visitors to view the paintings in ultra-high resolution detail, either following a suggested tour route or through a self-led journey of the Hall, revealing the symbolism that is featured in the painted scheme.
Accessibility has been a high priority for ORNC throughout the whole restoration and reinterpretation project, the virtual tour includes audio description & narration, text transcripts and British Sign Language videos for deaf and hard of hearing visitors.
You can view the virtual tour here.
Blenheim Palace is a country house in Woodstock, Oxfordshire, England, built between 1705 and 1722. It is one of England’s largest houses and was designated a UNESCO World Heritage Site in 1987.
ATS was invited to produce a “virtual museum” to complement the new Churchill exhibition at Blenheim Palace and the client were keen that the website could be enjoyed by both those who had attended the exhibition in person and those who could not.
Our solution involved:
Take a look here.
Since 1995, the Roberts family have been producing world-class English sparkling wine in Sussex, focusing on quality and sustainability from grape to glass.
We worked their Head of Hospitality to create a self-guided audio tour on an app so that visitors can use their own phones.
The self-guided audio tour allows visitors to discover the 11 acres of vines and natural beauty of the Ridgeview Wine estate and surrounding woodlands. This brand-new visitor experience features unique insights from the Roberts family and showcases how their heritage vineyard evolves throughout each season.
The content production included one day onsite, recording audio with the CEO Tamara Roberts, Simon Roberts, Director of Winemaking and Matt Strugnell, Head of Viticulture.
For more information on how an app might be the perfect solution for you, take a look at our article: Big Stories, Small Footprint: Apps for Outdoor Attractions.
Each of these projects represents a unique collaboration with our clients, and we're proud of the outcomes we’ve achieved together.
If you’re facing similar challenges or looking to elevate your visitor experience, we would love to have a chat and see how we can help.