THE CHIMNEY LIFT EXPERIENCE

The Brief

Battersea Power Station wanted to enhance the guest journey before the Chimney Lift, transforming the queue into an experience that felt intentional, memorable, and commercially impactful.

The goals were clear: increase ATP, increase guest experience, appeal to an international audience, and add new revenue opportunities, all without slowing the line.

Creative Concept

We reimagined the wait time as a time-travel moment.

Guests step through a portal into 1930s London, landing inside Sir Giles’ office complete with period details, artefacts, and an LED “window to the past.”

From there, they explore hands-on interactives, projection-mapped storytelling on Building Battersea, and AR touchpoints that reveal the hidden history behind one of London’s most iconic buildings. Fun, educational, and brilliantly unexpected.

The Delivery

The experience unfolds in four chapters: the Time Portal, Sir Giles’ Office, Building Battersea, and the Working Station, each designed to entertain guests, improve the experience, manage capacity, and tell the Battersea story in a tactile, playful, and educational way.

Our creative construction partner, Bearded Kitten Studios, crafted bespoke sets, reconstructed archival artefacts, installed interactive elements and designed a custom ticket kiosk and bar.

With the help of the best partners in their fields, the team engineered an entire suite of interactive tech:
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• AR tablets, allowing guests to navigate the current site and compare it to the past
• Projection mapping to uncover the process, trials and tribulations of Building Battersea
• Audio moments
• Interactive quiz tables
• A kinetic Working Station replica for guests to test their hand at the original tasks that once powered London’s landmarks

Everything was delivered to run daily, reliably, and for many years to come!

The Impact

The Chimney Lift Experience isn’t your average ‘queue’. The fully realised permanent attraction has captured the attention of London locals and tourists alike.
The extended dwell time increases earning potential, AR and interactive tech deepen engagement with international visitors, and the whole experience supports ticket upgrades and smoother operations.

Client teams reported stronger guest satisfaction scores, smoother throughput, and a clear uplift in perceived value for the experience, proving that a better queue can build a better experience.

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