Events & Experiences Lead

Role Purpose

The purpose of this role is to lead the creation and delivery of outstanding events and experiences that enhance visitor engagement, support commercial growth, and strengthen our reputation for quality across all attractions. By combining audience insight, creative vision, and operational excellence, the Events & Experiences Lead ensures we offer compelling, relevant, and revenue generating experiences for both B2C and B2B markets.

The Role

As the Events & Experiences Lead, you will be responsible for designing and delivering high-quality, audience-led events and experiences across our UK attractions. You will drive the development of a commercially sustainable programme that appeals to a wide range of current and future audiences, ensuring our events portfolio is engaging, innovative, and operationally robust. The role also includes close collaboration with our Sales team to create tailored experiences for private, corporate, and group clients.

This role covers multiple sites across the UK, so some travel will be required. Flexibility is essential, including working evenings, weekends, and bank holidays as needed, along with any other reasonable duties to support successful delivery.

The role is hybrid with an expectation of being based at an attraction approximately 3 days a week. This could be based at Shrewsbury Prison, Shropshire or Shepton Mallet Prison, Somerset.

Key Responsibilities

This section outlines the key areas of accountability for the role and the standards expected in each area.

Strategy & Delivery

• Develop and deliver a clear events and experiences strategy for the Attraction Division aligned to organisational objectives, vision, mission, and values.
• Lead the end to end creation and delivery of high quality, audience led events and experiences across all attractions.
• Identify and maximise commercial growth opportunities through new and existing events, experiences, upgrades, and add-ons.
• Drive idea generation, content development, planning, execution, and evaluation for all B2C and B2B events.
• Trial and embed innovative, creative, and digitally enhanced approaches that elevate the visitor experience while respecting heritage and operational constraints.
• Plan and coordinate a range of events including conferences, corporate bookings, exhibitions, professional B2B events, and seasonal programmes.

Experience & Engagement

• Create engaging, immersive, and experiential visitor offerings that meet the needs of diverse audience segments.
• Develop a cross-attraction programme of audience led events, identifying opportunities for shared themes as well as attraction specific experiences.
• Continuously review, refine, and enhance existing events and experiences based on insight, feedback, and performance data.
• Conduct post-event evaluations, gather feedback from multiple teams, and identify trends to improve audience engagement and satisfaction.
• Build positive relationships with customers, clients, community groups, local authorities, tourism partners, and other stakeholders to drive engagement and satisfaction.

Operational Management & Compliance

• Oversee all operational aspects of event delivery, including logistics, floor planning, staffing, scheduling, vendor coordination, and on the day management.
• Ensure all events comply with health and safety legislation, safeguarding requirements, licensing conditions, and organisational standards.
• Produce risk assessments, method statements, and other required compliance documentation.
• Address operational challenges proactively, finding practical solutions and mitigating issues effectively.

Financial & Commercial Performance

• Produce financial proposals and business cases for events and experiences, ensuring opportunities for income generation are maximised.
• Manage budgets efficiently, monitoring costs, resources, and revenue contributions.
• Conduct market research and competitor analysis to identify new commercial opportunities and inform decision making.
• Prepare post event reports summarising outcomes, attendance, revenue, and feedback insights to evaluate commercial success.

Collaboration & Communication

• Foster strong working relationships with managers, department heads, and attraction teams to support effective planning and delivery.
• Collaborate closely with the Attraction Managers and Team Leaders to identify new opportunities and maintain high operational standards.
• Work with the Marketing Manager to develop and implement press and promotional plans for events and experiences.
• Work with the Sales Manager to shape and develop new B2B and group offers.
• Maintain clear, timely, and transparent communication with senior management and internal teams to support smooth delivery and informed decision making.

Key Performance Indicators

Performance in this role will be measured through a combination of quantitative and qualitative indicators aligned to the Cove Group's PDR framework.

These include:

• Event revenue & profitability
• Attendance & occupancy rates
• Event cost control
• Post event satisfaction scores
• Quality of event delivery and operational execution

About You

The Events & Experiences Lead role is ideally suited to an experienced events professional who combines creative vision with strategic thinking and strong operational capability. You will be comfortable taking ownership of complex, multi-site programmes and will bring a proactive, audience led mindset to the development of engaging and commercially successful events. You will thrive in a fast paced environment, enjoy working collaboratively with colleagues across the organisation, and be motivated by the challenge of shaping exceptional visitor and client experiences.

Essential Skills & Experience

• Proven track record in developing and delivering audience led events and experiences within a cultural, commercial, heritage, or visitor attraction environment.
• Ability to design and produce a variety of events and experiences informed by data, research, trends, and audience insight.
• Strong organisational and project management skills, with experience managing multiple simultaneous workstreams.
• Significant experience in managing complex budgets, ensuring events maximise income, control costs, and achieve commercial targets.
• Excellent written and verbal communication skills, including the ability to produce clear proposals, reports, and presentations.
• Confident in building and managing relationships with a wide range of stakeholders, partners, and internal teams.
• Strong IT proficiency, particularly across Microsoft Office applications (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, Outlook).
• Knowledge of current health and safety requirements relating to events, including risk assessments and method statements.
• Ability to work under pressure, prioritise effectively, and meet deadlines.
• Flexibility to work evenings, weekends, and bank holidays as required, and willingness to travel between sites.
• Ability to work independently with initiative, as well as collaboratively within a team.

Desirable

• Experience in a management role within the tourism, heritage, or visitor attraction sector (minimum 2 years).
• Strong experience in budget management and financial planning (minimum 2 years).
• Knowledge of best practice in audience development and engagement.
• Experience producing events that integrate digital technologies or innovative engagement methods.
• Familiarity with evaluation tools, customer feedback platforms, or audience insight methodologies.

Personal Attributes

• Engaging, enthusiastic, and confident in representing the organisation.
• Creative and innovative, with the ability to generate fresh ideas and bring them to life.
• Strategic thinker with the ability to connect audience insight to commercial and operational goals.
• Motivated, proactive, and able to drive projects forward with minimal supervision.
• Passionate about delivering exceptional visitor experiences.
• Highly organised, time-efficient, and attentive to detail.
• Positive under pressure, able to respond calmly and effectively in challenging situations.
• Sociable, flexible, and collaborative, contributing positively to team culture.
• Strong work ethic, professionalism, and a commitment to continuous improvement.

The Reward

This role is both challenging and rewarding, offering the opportunity to lead and shape the future of our events and experiences offer across our Attraction division. You will find immense job satisfaction in creating innovative and immersive experiences appealing to a diverse audience. We offer competitive remuneration and a collaborative work culture where your contributions are valued and recognised. This role provides opportunities for professional growth and development.

What We Offer

At Cove Group, we believe work should be something you look forward to. We're building a culture where people feel valued, growth is constant, and purpose drives everything we do. You'll be part of a team that's passionate, collaborative, and proud of the difference we make every day.

As part of our culture promise, we offer:

• A collaborative, supportive, and values-driven environment.
• Fair pay, regular recognition, and genuine appreciation for your work.
• Opportunities for professional growth, learning, and development across Cove Group.
• Clear expectations, honest feedback, and leadership that lifts others.
• A positive, purpose-driven workplace where you can grow, thrive, and make an impact.

Here, you won't just do great work, you'll help shape a culture we can all be proud of.

Job Types:
Full-time, Permanent

Pay:
£30,000 - £35,000 per year DOE

Benefits:

• Company pension
• Employee discount
• Flexitime