Recovered sea plastic in the ‘ Submarine Room ’
The Wake the Tiger team people . We want it to be successful financially , but we also want to inspire positive change through the messaging . All the rooms and artworks come from deeper theories , there ’ s a narrative in the creative – a big part of the journey is about reconnection with community , with nature and with creativity .”
Much of the work to get the project up and running has been handled in-house and among the key members of the Boomtown team focusing on it has been Doug Francisco . As well as being the festival ’ s creative director , Francisco works as a creative consultant for numerous projects and production companies such as Arcadia Spectacular .
“ Doug , who is behind a lot of the narrative at Boomtown , is heavily involved in this project including the development of the characters ,” says MacVoy . “ We have been able to do so much in-house because we have such a creative team including experienced designers , artistic designers and prop designers .”
The project is being handled by a standalone company , Wake The Tiger Ltd , which was set up by Boomtown ’ s founders in March last year . Among the external operators to work on Wake The Tiger is Crowd Dynamics , whose clients include
Winter Wonderland . It was employed to create audience simulations to calculate the appropriate audience capacity limitations .
Among the other external companies bringing the project to life are local operators including independent design company Taxi Studios , which designed the Wake The Tiger logo , and Bristol-based PR operation Plaster .
MacVoy says the most difficult part of the process of bringing Wake The Tiger to life was coming up with a name for the project : “ We went through this painful six weeks of trying to get a name . It was killing us . Eventually , Lak ’ s wife suggested the name and we all loved it . There ’ s a book called Waking The Tiger , which is all about finding your inner self , and that ’ s a big part of the idea behind the project . The name just seemed really appropriate , but there will be no tigers involved nor cuddly toys for sale .”
There will , though , be other merchandise on offer . It is expected that some 75 % of the project ’ s revenue will come via tickets sales , while secondary revenue sources will include food and beverage sales and a merchandise range including sculptures , prints and NFTs .
Technology is expected to play a key role in the evolution of the
project in the coming years , with virtual Wake The Tiger worlds created .
“ We are going to be developing a crossover between the real world and a digital universe , so we are flipping the usual process on its head – companies such as Disney will make the film first and theme park attraction later , whereas we have gone for the real-world attraction first and will build out other digital IP such as games from it later ,” says MacVoy .
Another focus is corporate hires . “ It is a really unique space ,” he says . “ It would be an amazing location for Christmas parties or wedding receptions . We have not started working on that yet but it is in the pipeline .”
The priority for the moment is building awareness . Aside from raising funds , MacVoy says the Crowdcube campaign was created largely to build word-of-mouth ahead of the Wake The Tiger launch .
“ It is a great way of building brand awareness and engaging brand ambassadors ,” he says . “ It is a big marketing piece . We could have raised the money privately , but the Crowdcube campaign has been a great way of helping to get awareness out . Now we can ’ t wait to get it open .”
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