No previous experience required! imagineear trains 23 UK arts and cultural sites to build a multimedia tour in a day

Through imagineear Academy’s ‘Build a Tour in a Day’ programme staff at cultural sites across the UK are being trained to create full multimedia tours, from start to finish, and with no previous experience – in a single day.

The imagineear Academy launched its ambitious ‘Tour in a Day’ programme to highlight the ease with which the revolutionary mediaPacker platform can be used to build, edit and present multimedia tours.  In June alone 23 museums, galleries and visitor attractions institutions joined the Tour in a Day programme and were trained by the imagineear team.

A previous generation of museum guides was supplied to sites and their visitors with static audio content – and then often at considerable expense – which restricted the spontaneity of museum staff and volunteers, some with expert knowledge of interpretation.  Now visitors increasingly expect interactive and video content from cultural sites.  And the sites increasingly expect to own and control much of the content themselves.

imagineear’s response to this challenge was to create the mediaPacker platform, so simple to use that any museum curator or staff member can pick it up fast, with absolutely no prior experience required.  Yet so powerful that it can present tours of all kinds, including linear, random access, or slide-show, with one or several content levels, driven by menu-choice or stop number, in full interactive audio and video.

Andrew Nugée, imagineear co-founder and CEO, explained the evolution of the idea: “After many years in the industry, we felt our clients needed and deserved a fresh approach, where they are in control and the solution is simple to build and deliver, yet powerful and scalable.  And - particularly important in this economic climate - one that offers great affordable value.  This design brief led in short order to the mediaPacker, the imagineear Academy, in2handheld and the Tour in a Day programme.  It is so satisfying to see that our clients share our belief in this new approach.  And the often outstanding multimedia tours they have produced are ample proof of its success”.

imagineear Academy’s ‘Build a Tour in a Day’ programme shows museum staff how the traditional barriers have been removed.  In a single day staff, even without any technical background at all, can now create content, build and edit tours, and see them on a multimedia player ready to hand to a visitor.  Better yet, the speed and simplicity of the process naturally encourages greater creativity, playfulness, experimentation – in short, better tours.  As always, imagineear remains on hand to help if required at any stage, with scripting, recording, post-production, translation, rights clearance and advice.

To find out more, see the mediaPacker in action or to apply to join the ‘Build a Tour in a Day’ training day, contact london@imagineear.com to learn about upcoming sessions in Bristol and Edinburgh.