Lions, and tigers, and light trails: Port Lympne’s Tony Kelly on the creation of a new light trail
Port Lympne’s Tony Kelly on the launch of Port Lympne Illuminated, a new light trail set to excite audiences in Kent this winter…
Port Lympne Safari Park is full of wonderful creatures but this November, the park will also be full of original characters and holograms that will blur the line between real and virtual worlds.
For the first time, the wildlife reserve will host its own seasonal light trail, transforming the park’s 600-acre landscape into an after- dark spectacle.
As managing director of Port Lympne, Tony Kelly (pictured below) is leading the pack on this project, which has been in the planning for some
time. “I started talking to LCI Productions in February 2024 but I knew it was too late to get something going for Christmas,” Kelly explains. “Then, I went to a show at the NEC in October and someone recommended them to me.”
Kelly reached out to Rob Paul, design director at LCI Productions, the event production company. The more he spoke with Paul, the more he knew that the light trail was the right thing to do and LCI were the right company to partner with.
“I was pretty convinced by October 2024 that we were going to launch a light trail for 2025. I just liked Rob. He put good things on paper, understood what Port Lympne is all about and that we’re not just another park. Plus, he had the CV to back it all up.
“We worked out what infrastructure we would need, got budgets approved, and decided that we weren’t going to mess around.”
MAGIC AND MYSTERY
Indeed, LCI Productions is well-versed in light trails. It produces IMG’s Windsor Great Park Illuminated and is drawing on its experience to design and produce light and water shows and interactive experiences for Port Lympne’s loyal family audience.
With conservation at the heart of Port Lympne’s mission, the light trail has been carefully designed to enhance the natural environment and not disturb any of the wildlife. LCI Productions will ensure the trail respects and enhances the natural landscapes and celebrates the park’s residents with magnificent light sculptures.
Visitors can expect Holofan fairies leading the way and 3D projections transforming the tree canopy above. A high-energy disco in the Orangery will pulse with synchronised light and sound, while hyper-realistic holographic tigers will prowl in the shadows, adding an extra layer of magic and mystery.
CUTTING-EDGE STORYTELLING
LCI Productions has a team of creative and technical wizards designing zones to balance “innovation with the park’s natural beauty”.
It was important that Kelly and his team worked with someone incredibly capable and experienced.
“We’ve got our own brand and reputation at Port Lympne already, and who we worked with had to fit that,” Kelly continues. “I don’t like doing things half-baked. If you’re going to do it, do it properly and if we’re going to attract a lot of new visitors then we want them to have an exceptional time.”
Kelly adds: “We are excited to give the people of Kent and our guests something totally unique and different to experience during the winter months, as we merge cutting-edge storytelling with our core conservation mission. This brand-new experience has been designed for everyone to enjoy, creating a magical adventure that also directly supports the animals in our care.”
TICKET SALES
Port Lympne encouraged people to pre- register for exclusive access to buy tickets, so customers could get the “best time slots”. Ten days later, Port Lympne Illuminated – a Christmas event that has never taken place before – went on general sale. In the middle of a heat wave. Sales soared, knocking all expectations out of the park.
“In August, at Port Lympne, we would normally do 1,500 to 1,700 tickets a day. The break-even point for this show is 34,000.
In June, we sold 7,000 tickets so we were delighted when we went on general sale, especially as we hadn’t even properly started marketing the event. We promoted the show on social media and put it on our email footers. We didn’t spend any money on advertising.
“But we’ve got a good marketing team and we have a £30 million turnover business, so it’s not our first rodeo.”
Kelly believes that he and his team, and the event, are in a “good position”. Sure, the light trail will have competition from Christmas Lights at Leeds Castle and Christmas at Bedgebury but if you look on a map, find Port Lympne and head to the right, you have to go past the safari park to hit the respective castle and forest locations.
“I just think we might be very well located for this particular event,” Kelly says, hopeful.
TOUGH ASK
Yet, it’s not the only thing that Kelly is hopeful for. He wants the event to extend the park’s ability to make more money which can be poured into local employment and more conservation projects. He explains further: “Like most attractions, we make most of our money between April and the end of October. You know, it’s not a great experience going to a wildlife park between November and the end of March. But we’re slightly different here because we have on- site accommodation. We make more money than most people would make between those months but it’s still a very tough ask.
“For example, if you come here in November, you might check in at 2pm. You’ve got a couple of hours of daylight, and then it’s gone, and then you’ve got the morning before you check out again. So it’s a very different experience coming to us in November, December, January, than it is through the summer months. And for that reason, we’re not as busy.
“The cash we generate for all of our conservation activities in the summer, we lose some of that through those less busy periods. The purpose of this [the light trail], and I think where we have an advantage with it, is that it will drive our short breaks business as well.
We’ll be able to sell more accommodation on the back of it and we’ve already started doing so and if it goes well, we’ll get over that break- even point.”
Kelly is honest in his responses. He hopes to turn the quieter winter months into more profitable ones with less peaks and troughs, which naturally has an impact on the future of the business.
“If you have a period of loss making months where you’re losing some of the cash reserves you’ve built up in the summer, you can’t start other projects as early as you would like. If we can get ahead of the game by having a successful event this winter, it will help us to generate more products and more opportunities for people to come to see us. We’ll be able to keep our seasonal staff on for longer and that’s a great thing for our local area.”
CAPTURING HEARTS AND MINDS
As StandOut writes, there are less than two months to go until Port Lympne Illuminated opens its gates, but Kelly is already looking to the future. He has a long-term events and business plan and has already spoken about 2026 and 2027 with Paul and the LCI Productions team.
“There are a few things that I’d like to have done that the budget wouldn’t allow, but Rob convinced me that we have to have some things to ‘add’ and have somewhere to go in year two and three because we will have to keep the event fresh.
“Rob has told me not to worry about it too much,” Kelly concludes. “God forbid, if we didn’t capture people’s hearts and minds and we ended up losing money, I’d have to explain myself, because we are a charity, but I don’t think that’s going to happen.”
