LEEDS AND BATH
Victoria Gate Casino, Leeds Suppliers and contractors
You’ll not get far without your suppliers in a new casino environment, but luckily a lot of the big names are well used to opening new sites and can build in flexibility to their schedules to match the dynamic nature of the project. There will always be a late panic when launching a new
casino, but having trusted, reliable suppliers helps keep the impact of that to a minimum. Working with people like TCS, Novomatic and IGT in the UK does make life a lot easier. There are always pluses and minuses to working with any sort of “turnkey” solution with suppliers – the downside usually being it’s more expensive – but regardless, there are a lot of professional people out there and leaning on their experience is never a bad option.
Leading up to launch
Make no mistake, opening a casino without a large corporate infrastructure behind you is not a stress free experience. From my perspective, living away from home for months and dealing with dozens of suppliers, scores of contractors, recruiting the team and developing the critical marketing plan for the new operation can leave you in a bit of a spin. I guess it gets easier the more you do it, although if you’d put that to me three days before the Leeds launch I’d have politely disagreed. Or not so politely. The launch day itself is always a subject for debate. What’s the purpose of having a huge gala event with the great and the good of the city invited along to quaff free champagne, when virtually none of them will have an impact on the eventual operation? Well, building local relationships is always important, and there’s plenty of PR to be generated by such an event. In some cases – Leeds included – we had a good enough handle on local casino players of interest to be able to invite them to the launch, and make them feel valued. Other than that, it’s definitely not as simple as “you have to have a huge launch because that’s how it’s done” – we opened Blackpool with no party and no marketing, and pound for pound that’s probably as successful a launch as there’s been
in the UK for a while, so it’s at least a nuanced debate. Nonetheless we partied hard for both Leeds and Bath – Leeds being particularly tricky, given we only got full access to the building effectively four days before launch – but it never ceases to amaze me how teams pull together to get everything delivered. It’s easy to think, as the person responsible for delivering the project, that you need to be involved in everything and aware of every detail, but the truth is when you’re surrounded by a team of professionals, at maximum motivation with the excitement of a new launch, they’re entirely capable of getting the project where it needs to be without constant direction.
Victoria Gate Casino, Leeds Bevan Cockerill Aftermath
There is always a flat spot a few months after launch, when reality bites. Staff turnover is still high enough to make everyday life difficult, the pressure of wanting to bring in and smooth out standard practices in HR and marketing strains working weeks to the limit, and of course everything gets more complicated when there are actual customers to deal with, and the myriad problems they generate. There aren’t many more satisfying feelings in the casino
business, though, than turning words on a page into a real life operation that makes money, and the teamwork and feeling of collective accomplishment that goes with that. It’s a hard road, but a great destination.
NOVEMBER 2018 53
Bevan Cockerill
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