Making magic

Long before it was fashionable for restaurants and destinations to sell themselves around ‘story’ an innovative Queenstown company was doing just that, creating ‘magic’ in the process.

Now a multi-award-winning tech entertainment company operating some 200 operations in 16 countries, Magic Memories has taken full advantage of technology to drive positive change and revenue growth.

Founded in 1994 by then-recent University graduate John Wikstrom and Stu Norris, they saw an opportunity to capture photos of tourists having the time of their lives.

“Rather than waiting two or three hours to collect their photos, we created new, beautifully designed take-home products and had them ready for immediate purchase,” says Wikstrom.

Every attraction brand has a great story, explains Wikstrom.

“We took it as our role to tell that story for them and added the photos to personalise the product. We hired actors and backpackers to be part of the photography process, using scripts that made the customers laugh, and capturing authentic emotions, which was our goal.”

Magic Memories enjoyed success with this model for many years, until the internet and mobile phones arrived on the scene and everything went digital.

“In about 2012 we did some major market research and found customers wanted all of their photos and videos available on their mobile phone and they wanted it for free.

“Our first ‘aha’ moment was customer service, the second was going digital,” says Wikstrom.

“We listened and designed a solution which we first introduced at Sydney Wet’n’Wild Water Park. It was an entire digital offering that was built into the ticket price.”

The attraction was paying them to create and distribute personalised content experiences directly onto customers’ phones. In return, paying customers were now their active social media marketers.

Magic Memories moved to printing-to-order and building an e-commerce database that created new communication and revenue channels.

At the time they had about 50 operations around New Zealand and Australia and had just broken into the UK.

“That test was a game changer. Disney was building a similar concept at the same time, spending approximately $US 6 billion.

“Everyone watches Disney and we had enough proof, so we set out to bring what Disney was doing to the rest of the world’s attractions,” says Wikstrom.

Customers loved it and customer engagement went through the roof.

Their next challenge was building the software capability and the team to deliver the new concept at scale.

A capital raise followed. Magic Memories built a new executive team and appointed a board of directors to take the new concept to the world.

“At the same time, we decided to acquire a US competitor. They operated 85 attractions in 30 states there.”

Wikstrom, and his wife Maria, moved their young family to New York where he spent four years making it work. They’d done the same thing when breaking into the UK, spending eight months in London in 2013.

The company’s strategy is to be known for quality content and for making people smile.

“We create and deliver our business model from our own cloud-based technology platform.

“People are still critical to our success, but we can now deliver end-to-end systems without the need for any additional labour. We’ve grown from a single revenue source to four revenue streams.”

Half the business is now licensing systems, products, services and software.

“The brand partners remain in control of the primary functions like pricing, banking and licensing our system,” explains Wikstrom.

“We design the system, create the products, provide the support and work on improvements while they run it.”

They stuck with their tried and true strategy of “hiring people who’ve been where you want to go”, bringing experienced tech entrepreneur Roger Sharp on board when the pandemic devastated their revenue in 2020.

All 175 attractions they worked with, in 10 different countries, stopped operating due to Covid-19 restrictions.

Sharp led them through “crisis mode” and helped them bounce back. Magic Memories pushed into new markets and raised about $25 million for new developments – including a contactless system.

“Customers love great content. Being cloud-based, and having the ability to automate means we can now look at more sectors – resorts, stadiums, cinemas, restaurant brands and the likes.

“Wherever people enjoy being together for a branded experience, Magic Memories can add value.”