Crumble or crème brulee?
Alastair Upton, Chief Executive at the BluecoatCrumble or crème brulee, which would you serve at a dinner for funders of the redevelopment?
I’ve just had a test meal after which we had to decide what to serve. Not a bad hours work you would think but the chef is so amazing and the food is so good that you aren’t deciding what you like, I loved it all, but having a weird conversation about what guinea fowl and steak might ‘say’ about the Bluecoat. It reminded me of the exercises you do at re-branding, ‘if the Bluecoat was a pudding what would it be?’.
The artists are in! Alec Findlay hung some of his beautiful bird boxes in the garden at the weekend, the Paul Morrison piece starts going in this evening and the Hew Locke is already beginning to appear on the wall of the upstairs gallery. We are back doing what we are here for and it feels good.
The Lord Mayor popped in the other afternoon. Hilary, the Lady Mayoress started the tour by saying she used to go through the Bluecoat a few times every day and had a pained, fearful expression on her face as if expecting to be tortured as she was shown the desecration we had inflicted on ‘her’ building. I didn’t spot when she was won over, I expect it was when she got a good look at the garden but by end she was very excited about coming back and she for one will be here at 10am on March 15th.
Mr
Obeying your brochure, I tried to book on the website. Nothing doing. (Actually I tried it just half an hour ago...still nothing). I rang the number. Spoke to a very polite but completely ineffectual guy with no training about your site, your procedures and, more to the point, about booking anything....either a table in your restuarant or Jeanette W. I leave a message on your admin number to ring back.......noone does.
I try today and, eventually, I get an excellent chap called Mike who takes my booking to see JW. And I now have an email confirmation....so the system is in place. I have even registered on your site. Great!
But my, you need to get those folks trained, Alistair!
There are many people like me. We have a deep affection for the Bluecoat. We liked its old quirky ways and its shabsheek. But we like the idea of making it bigger and better too, and have looked forward to the new version.
Don\'t mess up now, mate.
Make sure every single person on Saturday knows exactly what they are doing and why they are doing it.
Good luck,
Eden Thomas.
You are right this has not been good enough and I apologise for that.
We have been taking on-line bookings for all our events since 7th February when we launched the programme and we thought it was working. Now we know that there is a problem with this we are trying to work out what it is and resolve it.
As far as the meal booking is concerned you identified a clear failing in our systems and we understand what has gone wrong. This will be dealt with straight away. I hope you will have a call confirming your reservation very soon.
Before I spoke at the event I had a chat with our head of marketing and said I had a terrible feeling of hubris with so much that could go wrong and I wasn’t sure that I should be unrelentingly positive. I was and there you are, pride before a fall.
We now just have to get it right
I’m glad that we got you tickets in the end and I will see you at Jeanette’s talk.
Alastair
It has to be
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