The Power of Opening Up

The long, dark and lonely nights are drawing in. Groan.  I absolutely hate the clocks going back.  I hate waking up in the dark and getting home in the dark. I hate the cold. I hate the rain. I hate the winter.

To try to make myself feel better I reminisce about happier summer times. This year, and last actually, some of my best summer days and nights were had in Cardiff Castle.  Depot Live organises gigs there, which I can only imagine are quite logistically challenging to set up, but have the glorious effect of staging a band against the most incredibly beautiful backdrop.  I love Cardiff and felt a huge sense of pride whilst listening to the iconic “A Grand Don’t Come for Free” album, delivered by the epic Mike Skinner, looking across at the historic Norman Keep to the left of the stage whilst the sun gently and warmly, set towards the horizon.   This is the best youtube clip I could find of said moment.

These gigs were rammed and it was so wonderful to see such an important space in Cardiff completely bursting with people.

It wasn’t always that way though. For a long time I remember when people would come to stay with us, if we weren’t feeling particularly wealthy at the time, a typical Cardiff tour would involve taking your guests to the large castle front door, walking up to the barrier and standing to view the castle accommodation to the left and look upwards towards the keep.  A rope barrier preventing you from moving past the stone entrance unless you pay an entrance fee. There’s only so much time anyone can stay stood on the spot looking at monumental historic buildings from a distance, hanging out by a barrier, so, after we’d have our fill of looking for a bit, you’d be forced to turn around and leave.

There has definitely been a change in approach at some point by Cardiff Castle management, probably driven by a need to drive income, to be more ‘open’.  The barrier preventing entrance is now mostly down, except of course when you do need to pay to enter on occasions such as going to see The Streets. If nothing particularly special is happening, you can now enter the Castle Grounds and visit the coffee shop (hopefully to spend some money!) and walk around so that you are really part of the historic monument. As a resident of Cardiff, you can bring documents to obtain a ‘Cardiff Castle Key’ which enables you to visit the castle when you wish. Certainly making the opportunity to take guests around the inside of the Castle more economically viable.

The Castle regularly opens their doors now for things like the Cardiff Christmas Wonderland, setting up food stalls and rides and setting up an ice rink (which you have to pay to use of course) and summer celebrations of Welshness such as ‘Tafwyl’.   I am not privy to seeing Cardiff Castle accounts pre and post ‘opening up’ but it at least feels that there are definitely far more money-making opportunities to be had given they are now more ‘open’!

I think that the same approach has worked really well in Cardiff’s Millennium Centre in the Bay.  Noone can argue that the structure isn’t memorably beautiful and grounded in Welshness thanks to its sensitive use of Welsh building materials – as such it’s something for our city to really be proud of.  Whilst the originally conceived booking hall lent an air of gravitas to the monumental nature of the performances that you were about to experience, it certainly didn’t scream a warm welcome.

The best picture I can find of what the entrance to the Millennium Centre used to look like is here thanks to Katie Witcher Hamer from W is for the Wales Millennium Centre | We Are Cardiff

Quite austere, industrial even, and quite frankly, a waste of good public space.  So it was greatly pleasing when someone with some commercial knowhow overhauled the ticket box counter to turn it into a café and bar.  The Millennium Centre has been totally transformed.  It was always quite good at opening itself up, but by turning the heart of the building into a social space, they’ve clearly identified itself as very much a public building, whilst also capitalising on commercial revenue opportunities other than just selling tickets.

So whilst I mourn the summer and prepare myself mentally for another long winter ahead, I’m thinking about what other brilliant Welsh spaces I can move to be part of, to be with other people and to connect.

It’s not going too badly.  Last Friday we went to St Fagan’s Halloween Nights and it was, yet again, a complete triumph and in no need of the Event Lean – Sarah Lethbridge’s Lean Blog guide that it initially inspired.  It’s so well done, honestly, I have no notes.

This year they even showcased all of the ghostly characters that you had to find on the checklist around the burning Wicker Man, making sure that if you hadn’t have managed to find someone during the event, you could check everyone off if you stayed until the very end.

Genius.

So if you’re looking to generate more money, consider opening up your world to more people, not restricting who can enter and participate.  Capitalise on as many money making opportunities as you can, because people can’t spend if you hide your light away.