Audio Guides reimagined
Content is still king!
Three key features
No doubt you’ll be looking for the following features in an audio guide:
- Engaging content that does your locality justice
- Accompanying text and GPS coordinates
- Social media-friendly and comes with QR codes
We’re off to a good start so! We want to tell your locality’s many stories well and be enjoyed by all that hear them. Not just enjoyed, but shared, talked about and remembered, thus encouraging further footfall.
Matching the landscape with a suitable soundscape
We’ll research and go over the stories that are available in an area. Finding out who tells them best or indeed get a voice-over to tell them and get to work. Our speciality is in bringing a landscape to life and bringing people to the place where memorable events took place. See and hear samples of our various guides below then get in touch. We’d be delighted to do your locality proud with them.
Case Study One Driving Tour
The pride of all
Prepared for National Heritage Week, Donegal’s Hallowed Sites is our new generation of audio tour offering audio, text, coordinates and images. ‘So far, so what?’ you say, but the devil is in the detail and its intricacies only come to life in Spotify. That playlist has another 35 audio pieces to really bring the glorious county of Donegal to life.
The GPS coordinates of the sites are included at the start of each episode. Simply cut and paste them into Google Maps to be taken there directly. Once at the point of interest, just play the extensive audio clip. Read the additional text to get a sense of what made that place so special. Alternatively, at nearly eight hours long, feel free to play it at home! Be transported to Ireland’s most picturesque county complete with indigenous tunes and lore.
Case Study Two Cycling Tour
The Norman Way
Commissioned by Wexford County Council. This cycling route from Rosslare to Kilmore Quay covers the first half of The Norman Way in south Wexford. While the brief was to cover Norman sites, we also ensured that all interesting points of note were included. We believe this is what sets us apart. We go the extra mile in seeking out the idiosyncrasies of a locality, the stories that really help to make it stand out.
We brought this coastal landscape to life with thanks to some great local storytellers. A range of voices and styles was recorded. By the time the curious cyclist has arrived at Kilmore Quay they’ll have been entertained and educated. Fresh air, good scenery and exercise? You’ll have earned your fish and chip supper!
Case Study Three Walking tour
Bringing a stroll to life
It’s all about the details. So with our tour of Sligo Town, you don’t just pass a secondary school. You hear a ripping tale that happened there about one of its famous pupils,. You don’t just walk over a footbridge to see the wonderful Garavogue river. You hear about Bram Stoker’s Dracula and his connection to the town. Every street had a story when we looked harder and so we found the people to tell them.
Commissioned by Fáilte Ireland, this audio guide was an overhaul of a pre-existing tour from the 1970s. We set about looking at what still worked and added in the more interesting points of our research. Yeats’s eccentric grandfather had a lookout tower in his downtown HQ to see what his ships were up to? It still stands out on the town’s skyline, so of course we included it!
Case Study Four Hiking tour
The Bluestack Way
Covering a 65 kilometre waymarked way through the iconic Bluestack mountains was indeed a challenge, but when the scenery and stories were so enjoyable, it stops feeling like a chore. Broken down into the stages that a hiker would ideally complete the tour, we sought to include every facet of interest along the way of the 147 stacks of the range.
Local voices can be heard telling us about the past, its social history, its folklore, the flora and fauna of the area, the geology – all of the poetry and prose of the area were covered and a few stories that really make this place stand out. Mother Nature provides the landscape and we are happy to complement her wonders with a soundscape that does justice to a place that is truly world class.
Case Study Five River tour
The Blackwater Valley Guide
As an island nation, we have plenty of water to offer at every turn. Priding ourselves on going the extra mile to get a good story, we’re not just confined to land in our quest and along the Cork/Waterford border, we found some real gems with assistance from The Heritage Council.
Youghal is the last port of call for the mighty 104 mile Blackwater river that has come all the way from North Kerry, famously swinging south at the dogleg in Cappoquin. We won’t be telling you the full story, but as a precursor to any planned boat trip you take with Tony Gallagher, we’ve got a selection of stories from Tony himself, Mick Hackett, Kieran Groeger and Peter O’Connor that will captivate. A special thanks to these raconteurs for helping to bring the stretch from Youghal to Lismore to life with such aplomb.
Case Study Six Poet's Pilgrimage
Yeats Country Guide
A stellar cast – including Yeats himself – are included on this Yeats Country Guide. This is an audio guide that properly salutes the young poet’s dalliance with the Celtic Twilight. Split over two days, this audio guide covers all of the essential spots in both Sligo and Leitrim that inspired a young Yeats to write some of his most memorable work.
If you’ve something really special to showcase, the Yeats Country Guide is the perfect example of how we can do it for you. See our dedicated Yeats page for more details on how the tour works. Better still, go to the Spotify playlist to hear not just the stories, but the Yeats-associated music and some famous voices speaking the poet’s verse. We think he’d approve.
Main image above is Early Evening in Donegal by Desmond Kinney.