Escape Room Designer Brief

Introduction

The Museum is a much-loved museum in the London Borough of Southwark, celebrating the story of the building of the Thames – the first tunnel under a river anywhere in the world. Stretching from to Wapping, this engineering feat was led by Marc Brunel, who tunnelled deep beneath the Thames using an innovative tunnelling shield. His son, , also worked on the tunnel, nearly losing his life in the process.

The museum displays are housed within the Grade II listed engine house. The engine house is a Scheduled Monument, and the museum is Arts Council-accredited. In 2017, the museum acquired at auction a pre-eminent collection of Brunel watercolour designs of the 1843 , which require appropriate display in the engine house through this project.

The adjacent 15-metre deep tunnel shaft is Grade II*-listed. In 2016, it opened as a flexible space for performance, events and activities through the installation of a new staircase and entrance. These events are inspired by the historic use of the tunnel shaft (or Grand Entrance Hall as it was originally known) as an entertainment venue hosting concerts, banquets and fairs.

The museum attracts c.35,000 people annually through walking tours, school trips, events and our museum exhibition.

The site is of international heritage significance due to its structures and direct connections with the ground-breaking achievements of the world-famous Brunel family.

The project

We are seeking creative practitioner(s) to create a bespoke, online escape room about the Brunel Museum, Rotherhithe. The primary objective of the Escape Room experience is to generate income for the Museum through sales. The secondary objective is audience development - to engage target audiences with the Museum’s site, collections and themes with a view to encourage in person visits.

Audience

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While the audience for this will be online, because the secondary aim of the project is to drive visits to the site, consideration should be given to the needs of local, adult (25- 44yo) audiences.

To identify these, we use the Audience Agency segmentation and are focusing on the following two segments, EXPERIENCE SEEKERS and METROCULUTRALS:

• EXPERIENCE SEEKERS – highly active, diverse, social and ambitious, engaging with arts on a regular basis. Digitally savvy. Attending mainstream, contemporary and culturally diverse offers is at the heart of their social lives. • METROCULTURALS – prosperous, urbanites interested in a very wide cultural spectrum. Active museum attenders but tend to be more engaged in the arts.

Further details of the Audience Agency’s segmentation can be found here: Audience Spectrum | The Audience Agency

Scope of work

We are particularly keen to hear creative, innovative ways to engage with the Museums site and histories, without being too prescriptive.

However, the escape room needs to:

-Be a timed experience

-Have a reward element

-Be shareable

Time period: We are happy to explore any ideas from the Thames almost 200- year history, from the building work beginning on the tunnel, the tunnel flood, its reopening as a tourist attraction, its reputation as Hades Hotel, or it’s later history as the tunnel for London overground trains. See appendix 2 for further details.

We are expecting to provide the initial set-ups costs to develop the activity, as well as some towards marketing (please see The Budget section below). Following this there will be no further investment from the Brunel Museum. As such, we are looking for an

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experience that can continue to run over a long period of time without continued reinvestment from the Museum.

We anticipate that this will be an unfacilitated experience, which can be run remotely. However we would be interested to see how a facilitated experience might work. Please give special consideration to how the costs of facilitation would be covered outside the fee associated with this project.

Attracting an ethnically diverse audience is a key part of our audience development strategy, and we welcome proposals that feature an ethnically diverse cast of characters, including those set in Victorian London.

We want the experience to be shareable - and would like to see proposals that include an easily shareable ‘selfie moment’ at some point during the experience for individuals to share on social media.

Assets

• In 2017, the museum acquired at auction a pre-eminent collection of Brunel watercolour designs of the 1843 Thames Tunnel. These have been digitised if you wish to use them. • We have Google tours of the tunnel in different time periods: o 1843 https://poly.google.com/u/0/view/3SqQQ1sYqce o 1869: https://poly.google.com/u/0/view/cMG1pY3AnrI o 2020: https://poly.google.com/u/0/view/55rg5BJ63rP • Mozilla Hub: This link opens the "scene" - from here you can publish a "room" and invite others to join you in that room https://hubs.mozilla.com/scenes/qVyx4ba • As the project is intended to showcase the site, you would be welcome to film in the space. Please indicate on your timeline when you would do the filming.

Timescales

10 February – Proposals Returned

w/c 15 Feb - Appoint tender

w/c 22 Feb- 1st Invoice

W/c 8 March -2nd Invoice (on delivery of alpha product)

W/c 22 March -Delivery and final snagging

W/c 29 March - 3rd Invoice

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Fee

We have £24, 000 available for this project, which we intend to pay over 3 instalments of £8, 000. 1st on signing of contract, 2nd on delivering of Beta proposal, 3rd on delivery of the final product.

Please outline how you would spend the budget including:

-Research fees

-Development

-Actors (if applicable-see below)

-Illustrators/Animators/Filmmakers (if using)

-Creation of props

In addition to the £24, 000 fee, we have £7000 ringfenced for Marketing this project. While this would sit with the Museum, we invite you to propose how you might wish to spend this money to ensure attendance at the event.

Fees

If you are paying actors, we expect equity rates.

We expect any subcontractors to be paid a fair wage. For further details, please see the following website:

Living Wage Foundation: https://www.livingwage.org.uk/what-real-living-wage

Equity rates: https://www.equity.org.uk/at-work/list-of-rates-and-agreements/

Tender response

Please provide:

1. An outline of the activity itself, showing how you have considered the needs of the audiences and the history of the site

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2. An indication of the price point, estimated sales in the first 12 months, and proposed commission. Please use the template provided in Appendix 3. 3. Samples of similar work (including images, testimonials) 4. An outline budget of how you would spend the £24k 5. A proposal for testing content with audiences 6. An outline marketing plan of how you would reach the target audiences 7. Proof of public liability and professional indemnity insurance

Please submit your proposal by 5pm, Wednesday 10 February 2021

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Criteria

The criteria for the recruitment of the Consultant is as follows:

Selection criteria Weighting

Income generating potential and value 40% for money

Consideration of audience needs 30%

Interpretation of the history of the 30% Thames Tunnel

TOTAL 100%

Contact Details

Please email any questions regarding this brief to: [email protected]

Submission of Tenders

Quotations must be emailed to [email protected] by 5pm, Wednesday 10 February with the email header “Escape Room Tender”.

Any proposals received after the deadline will be immediately disqualified from the process.

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