Business

A Night at the Drive-In

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It’s a hugely ambitious project, but if anyone is qualified for the undertaking, it’s surely Dave. His background in entertainment involves 18 years on the radio, running the Broadway theatre for five years and hosting Truckfest for over 20 years, in addition to his current position as Operations Director at Peterborough Garden Park.

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This latest project really is a culmination of all these different experiences and his expertise has allowed him to successfully tackle a variety of issues, even things like catering:

I was thinking about how we could get caterers involved and how to interest them. Because you’ve only got a 20-30 minute window before the movie, and because of my experience running the Broadway theatre for five years, I know that people don’t stick around afterwards – within 10 minutes you’ve got an empty car park. So I thought, why don’t we do what they used to do and have an interval in the movie. Suddenly that becomes interesting on two points because it means the caterers could have more involvement, and it also means that we can play adverts in that interval

In fact, advertising is actually an important part of Dave’s plans for the Giant Screen Company:

Of course, a huge spin-off is that the screens are an advertising medium. So you’ve got, before the movie, half way through the movie, at the end of the movie etc. But you’ve also got the novelty value of, if for arguments sake, a screen was positioned outside Boongate, and Marshalls wanted to advertise their new range of cars from 8pm to midnight, you’ve got a massive moving billboard. Or things like firework night, where you could have the logos of all the sponsors on the screen. Or even if people wanted to hire it out for individual events. I’ve already spoken to the council who are interested in putting some on in the centre of town in front of the Guildhall to boost what they’re doing. So it’s got all those sorts of connotations as well, it’s not just about movies

It’s clearly a well thought out venture with a huge amount of potential. And for this, Dave has had a secret weapon up his sleeve in the form of “Secret Millionaire”, and successful entrepreneur, Mike Greene. After getting to know each other at a series of local networking events, Dave decided
to approach Mike for some advice on his business plan to bring outdoor screens to Peterborough.

He got more than he hoped for, as Mike, who is now heavily involved with mentoring programmes,
took a keen interest in the project and has been
influential throughout, as Dave reveals:

Mike’s been a big supporter of it and a great mentor as well. He’ll say, ‘Have you thought about this?’, or ‘Why don’t you do it this way?’ and every time I meet him he comes up with something else and you go: ‘why didn’t I think of that?’. Even earlier today when I had a coffee with him, he suggested having a trailer of some description with tiered seating and speakers inside, so you could have a sort of VIP area. He’s always sitting there with a whole bunch of ideas!

Aside from being a treasure trove of ideas, Mike has also been a massive influence in helping at-the-drive-in-6
Dave to approach the project, by introducing ideas such as “transition maps” – a concept where you
succinctly map out what stage you should currently be at, and where you need to be going. He has also helped Dave to see the benefits of taking the time to plan the business before launching,
a lesson Dave has been grateful for as it has enabled him to spend more time doing things like
research, attending seminars on Google AdWords, and getting to grips with tasks like opening bank
accounts, well before the pressure of actually running a business begins.

While meeting Mike has proved invaluable to getting the Giant Screen Company up and running, Dave points out that it wasn’t so much luck as the great business network in Peterborough that fostered this union.

The great thing about Peterborough, just like my relationship with Mike, is that it really is a small town in as much as there’s 100 people that run it. And every time you go somewhere you see the same faces and you know you can ask this person for that, or that person for this, and you can really get things moving very quickly. Whereas if you go into unknown territory it can be an uphill struggle to get anything moving. So I think there’s an awful lot of plusses for Peterborough

It seems there’s just one obstacle standing in Dave’s way:

The company’s up and running, we’ve got the screen, we’re ready to go! We just need the dark nights…

https://www.peterboroughgardenpark.co.uk

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