GARY GODDARD COVER STORY Creating happiness
Gary Goddard and his company Goddard Group is celebrating its 15th anniversary this year. We spoke to Gary about the amazing path that has led him to this point – and what’s at the heart of the company’s 15 years of success.
G
ary Goddard has been in the business of realising dreams for a long time, and with great success, but arguably the most iconic work of an incredible career has come in
the last 15 years. When Macau wanted to appeal to a mass market player, they turned to the master of appeal, Gary Goddard, and the result was Galaxy Macau and Studio City. Gary spoke to Casino international about his
work and career, and a great 15 years with Goddard Group.
Casino International: You’re celebrating
15 years this year – 15 years of what though? Gary Goddard: This year, we are celebrating
15 years of the Goddard Group, my ‘new’ company. I had another company before this, Landmark, which I sold 50% of to Prince Al- Waleed and Michael Jackson back in 1998, and left that company in 2001, and then created this company in 2002 – and here we are 15 years later!
CI: What did the previous company do that is different to the new company? GG: The new company picked up on the foundation of the first company, because probably 70 per cent of our revenues are as a design and production company; that’s design services which we then follow through into production. Around 30 per cent of our income comes from television, Broadway, live entertainment, that kind of thing. We are a broad-spectrum entertainment company, one of the only design companies that keeps its foot in film, television, theatre and other media, which I think informs the work we do. In that sense, what we are doing now is a continuation and expansion on what I have been doing my entire life.
CI: What are the benefits of offering such
a varied service array? GG: There are two answers to that; the first is, as a creative person, all of entertainment
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interests me and I am naturally curious, and like to stay in touch with what’s going on across different media. My background is not as an architect, it’s as a theatre and film writer/director/producer. Because of that interest I think there is a theatricality to our work that is different to a straight-ahead architect; I think you see that when you look at projects like Galaxy Macau, Studio City, and the work we did for over 16 years with Caesars Palace as they expanded their footprint to include The Forum Shops, the Coliseum, the new Towers and so on – that was all part of our master planning with then-Chairman Henry Gluck. That theatricality that we bring to our projects separates them from most other architectural-based projects. Of course, we know architecture and we have architects and designers on staff, but here what we bring to things is a theatrical sense of immersion – so whatever and wherever the project is, we apply that sensibility. It helps our work stand out in a unique way and it’s why most of our work becomes iconic, and a highly-photographed destination. We emotionally engage guests in the environments and worlds we create.
CI: The word I would use to describe your
work is experiential; you clearly grasp the depth of experience, rather than just creating something to look at, or that works on just one level. GG: Yes, exactly — we try and engage all
your senses as much as we can, dependent on the project: not just visually, but with sounds, scents, audio visual, vibrations – as much as we can, if it can be done, to be innate or organic to what we are creating, we try and engage all of the senses.
CI: Your
background is incredibly varied; almost like you’re
Gary Goddard (L) poses with Al ‘Big Al’ Bertino at Walt Disney Imagineering in 1977 while developing concepts embodied in EPCOT
a polymath devoted to learning, and including each new chunk of knowledge to the next project, snowballing along. GG: That’s the story of my life, I think!
Everything you get into leads you on another journey where you learn about that medium, story or period in history, architecture… all those things if you are naturally inquisitive lead you down a road, where you pick things up and move on. It stays in your computer afterwards. We pick up things from every project we have worked on.
CI: Is there any project you have worked on that has taught you more, that stands out as a learning curve? GG: The things you learn the most from,
you’re not necessarily aware of at the time. It’s only on looking back that you realise it. The best example of that for me was when I got
Cirque du Soleil Experience Park
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