Portfolio
St Pancras
St Pancras International is a fantastic place and we wanted to delight visitors to the new international station even though it only had partially opened facilities. We needed to create a great event – a splash to re-establish his iconic London landmark, now the new home to Euro-star.
The time of the re-opening, the Christmas season, provided a unique opportunity to re-introduce the station as a meeting place and a destination in its own right and making it one of the highlights of London's Christmas celebrations.
The vision was to redefine the way the railway station is used. Opening a world-class brasserie, Europe’s longest champagne bar and top quality independent retailers, delivering an atmosphere similar to that found at an international airport. Duly ensuring a top quality customer experience of the space. Researching the St Pancras customer profile we established that the people passing through the station would be very receptive to these amenities. Following on from this our researched also highlighted that they were also highest spending leisure customers of any station. From this information we linked many of the events with companies that would naturally fit with this customer profile, for instance the V&A children’s workshop, Hamley’s Punch and Judy and Fentiman’s Furtling card workshop. Resources, prizes or financial donations were raised from all.
The idea was to transform the venue so it became reminiscent of a festive Victorian Christmas extravaganza, as it was in 1868 – the year the station was first opened, something truly unique to enjoy when meeting friends and family. Organising: a Santa’s Grotto, carol singers, magicians, pantomime, puppet shows and children’s art competition amongst many weekly and daily events during the opening celebrations. We successfully infused the festive mood throughout the building and created a distinctive celebration particular to the history and future of St Pancras.
The backdrop was the record-breaking world’s largest advent calendar. Built around the grand St Pancras clock – the celebrated meeting point, hence our premise:
“meet me at St Pancras”.
Each day, with a great fanfare a celebrity opened a door on the advent calendar, coinciding with its live broadcast on London wide radio. Pictures and the supporting press release were sent to news desks for inclusion in the following days publications. Involved closely with this daily event was Great Ormond St Hospital, the lead charitable benefactor. Finally realising £150,000 donations for the hospital.