Ashbourne Visitor Centre- inviting interested parties to submit a tender to undertake the upgrading of the Viking Experience as described in the project description and brief .

Tender description

The context of this project is to improve the guest queue experience of one of our most popular attractions, Viking Voyage at the Park, a water flume attraction, which is 6450m2 in size opened in June 2017. Keeping in line with the attraction and it’s theming at present is important. The aim of the project is to tell stories of Viking settlements in Ireland’s Ancient East through engaging our visitors 5 senses: taste, sight, touch, smell, and sound. Through research conducted on visitors to the attraction in 2017, we found that the queue was the key area which needed to improve to ensure guests remained satisfied. During our peak months of visitors (June, July & August) the queue can reach up to 2 hours in length - a plan to break the queue area into a sequence of mini destinations utilising the Viking buildings already in place, making improvements to the buildings, if necessary. We have developed an overview on Viking settlement in Ireland for this experience. This overview is provided for a storyline to be developed by the creative agency chosen to complete the project. The storyline should focus on visitors as “Vikings” preparing for battle in Ireland as they are about to set sail to fight Brian Boru and his army. On this journey, we plan to interweave historical information into a fun experience for our visitors. A summary of the timeline of Viking settlements and invasions in Ireland is supplied. This project is funded by Fáilte Ireland through Ireland’s Ancient East, a major national tourism proposition that focuses on telling stories of 5,000 years of history in contemporary and innovative ways. Tayto Park is pleased to be part of this. The aim of the project is to engage visitors in an exciting, mixed media, multi-sensory encounter with the Viking raids and settlement in Ireland’s Ancient East. Media will include (but need not be limited to) live actors, animatronics, soundscapes, audio and video installations, graphic