HIPPODROME
Nearly there W
e’ve visited the Hippodrome site a few times over the past couple of years and each time, significant change has occurred. We visited the Hippodrome again in January
to see a building transformed, and to witness the shell of a unique gaming venue come to life. Simon Thomas, Chairman of the Hippodrome Casino, talked to Casino International about the project’s closing stages.
Casino International: When will the casino
actually be finished? Simon Thomas: We will have the building finished
in May and then we have to get all the commissioning sorted – our philosophy is to not open until we are completely ready as the day we open our front door we are going to be absolutely rammed with people, which we have to be able to deal with. And obviously there are still the learning curves that you have to go through like putting systems under pressure, so we’ll do plenty of soft running before we open the full operation.
CI: How will you market the project just before
you open? With no firm opening date, is it possible to keep things really fluid on such a huge project? ST: There’s massive excitement already and we have a good idea of our timetable, but we’ve been careful not to reveal the opening date, partly because it is a project of considerable size and complexity and things may have to change, and partly to keep the competitors guessing! In terms of marketing, we have an exciting pre-launch programme planned and we’ll use all of the traditional methods, but we will also use digital and social media extensively. But our biggest marketing tool has to be our location. We have a quarter of a million people walk past our front door every day. At the second door directly into Chinatown we have tens of thousands of Chinese walk past every day and Leicester square tube station underneath means 40 million people a year pass by in front on Charing Cross Rd. So with stunning signage on the outside, the building will market itself pretty effectively.
34 MARCH 2012
A huge amount of man hours have gone into renovating London’s Hippodrome Theatre to transform it into the Hippodrome Casino, a gaming environment that will be completely unique in the UK – and possibly the world
Many parts of the building are now at the
decoration and fitting-out stage. The new build part of the building, which is the infill of the lightwell that joined Cranbourn Mansions to the Hippodrome theatre, is largely complete and decoration starts shortly. Then the main Theatre atrium is about two weeks behind that for decoration. The challenge of the 60 ft atrium was we had to have a scaffold deck below it to allow its restoration and decoration; now that is down the space is complete and we are installing the floor and the woodwork. So the next six weeks or so is mainly decoration, and then the fittings and furniture will go in. All the bars, furniture and a lot of the fittings are made off site so everything is ready to come in. Lots of things are happening very, very quickly. We have 220 men on site so there’s a lot of man hours going in to this huge building and progress is rapid. The outside of the building is currently scaffolded because we are finishing off all the window decoration and the external lighting scheme.
CI: What restrictions have you had to deal with
regarding the exterior of the building? I know your plans are quite bold. ST: In Westminster there is a restriction against
high level illuminated signage, but we successfully negotiated with the Council that given the historic nature of the building, the fact that we have retained a theatre within it and that it has always had strong signage on it, they should allow us decent signage. And they have! They’ve allowed us to put high-level vertical signs on the three main corners: one each into Chinatown, Leicester Square and Charing Cross Road, plus vertical uplighters the whole of the way round the building; 7 External electronic screens, another sign above the Cranbourn Mansions entrance and coloured LED light changing strips right around the building on two levels so we can turn the building red, white and blue if we really want to. So you won’t miss us as you go past. Obviously it’s done tastefully but it will make the building stand out.
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