Stage One

Johnnie Walker Princes Street

One of Scotland’s most famous sons. At home on the capital’s most prestigious street. The Johnnie Walker Princes Street experience is a permanent eight-floor ‘brand home’ in Edinburgh. A close collaboration between Stage One and the world-renowned BRC Imagination Arts.

From the six-story sculpture that dominates the atrium, to the 10 rooms and corridors that contain the tour itself. Stage One was an integral part in delivering the project.

This shrine to distillation was no simple build and fit. It was our duty to remain faithful to the creative vision and deliver an experience that stood head-and-shoulders above competitors.

Hours of consultation on design, engineering, and finishing were needed to make it possible. But every second spent was worth it. From the moment visitors enter they are faced with a towering atrium sculpture running up through the staircases.

You’ll find no visible joins and fixings on the sculpture, but the major focus is actually the integrated LCD panels we inserted. Allowing for co-ordinated animations and artwork that span from the sixth floor to the bottom. Offering a unique creative opportunity, similar to an animated six-story mural.

Installing those screens was a challenge. Because of ongoing construction work, lifts and scaffolding were no longer an option. So, we installed rope access from the roof down to the atrium, allowing riggers to abseil down and install the screens.

Johnnie Walker Princes Street

Once past the atrium visitors can begin the tour. Starting in the welcome room, they’re surrounded by Johnnie Walker bottles past and present, all ‘floating’ in their presentation chambers. From there they move to the ‘Come Walk’ room.

Building these rooms was a bit like building a set. Details matter. From the living portraits on the walls, to the movable fireplace allowing service access to the famous Binns clock. Every inch of the rooms are meticulously fitted, painted, and finished.

None more so than the show action elements. The ‘Come Walk’ room contains two show action pieces. A travelator to move actors across the stage in time with the video elements broadcasting from the back of the room.

The second element is an automated drinks globe. Circling round the actors, it is a ‘fully functioning’ drinks globe. As it moves it can be spun round and opened, revealing a fully stocked whisky bar (of course).

Experiences like this are carefully orchestrated. And we take that extremely seriously. A large part of that battle is won in our workshops in Yorkshire. We sampled every material and adhesive – would it last, did it age authentically, did it take colour well? And our extensive CNC and 3D printing facilities allowed us to take a fastidious eye to the machining quality of everything we made.

Johnnie Walker Princes Street

For example, the centrepiece tables in ‘Landscape of Flavour’ room are where visitors gather. Arriving at these tables must exude the quality you expect from a marquee brand like Johnnie Walker. So not only does that demand premium materials and flush fittings. But when the guide puts a glass cloche over the whisky to smoke it, our micrometre accurate finish means no gas escapes.

Is it a small detail? Yes. But that’s the level dedication that goes into making such a complete experience. Every material, join, and infill went under sustained testing, along with the intense scrutiny upon installation.

That determination extends even to the audio system. Which in the ‘Creativity’ room, needed to be concealed, but the design drawings mandated it be hidden behind solid timber. Ordinarily, sound doesn’t travel through solid wood very well.

However, we were able to source timber from Austria and machine it in such a fashion that let sound to move freely through and around it. Allowing the speakers to create room filling sound, while still being concealed.

It is these extraordinary efforts that we and our partners went through, that sets this brand home apart from the rest.

Visitor experience created, developed and produced by BRC Imagination Arts, brcweb.com.