In a happy coincidence, Acoustiguide’s most recent project engages visitors out-of-doors, celebrating New York City’s greatest oasis – Central Park.

Have you ever wondered why there’s a castle in the middle of Central Park? If so, you will find the answer in the Central Park Conservancy’s new digital guide, which tells the story of the Park’s beloved Belvedere Castle. The experience solves other great mysteries, too, including how the Ice Age set the blueprint for Belvedere, how the Park’s turtles chill—literally—in wintertime, and why there’s a weather station sited at the Castle. As you’re getting the behind-the-scenes reveal of the Belvedere’s great history, you’ll also find out how the Belvedere has managed to endure its 150 years—possible only because of the urgent work of the Conservancy, founded in the early 1980s to protect and preserve the Park.

“This multilingual auditory experience is an example of the innovative ways the Conservancy is working to enhance the Park experience and bring the Belvedere Castle, one of Central Park’s most beloved landmarks, to an even broader audience,” said Andrea Buteau, Director of Visitor Experience at Central Park Conservancy. “Acoustiguide’s expertise in creating accessible audio guides helped bring our vision to life.”

Officially launching on August 17th, the self-guided audio experience tour is replete with engaging anecdotes, multiple voices, a signature soundtrack, and features Central Park Conservancy President and CEO, Elizabeth W. Smith, Conservancy architect Denise Keaveney, and New York Municipal Archives Conservator, Cynthia Brenwall.

The audio guide is made possible through the support of Bloomberg Philanthropies and is available on the Bloomberg Connects app and the Conservancy’s website in English, Spanish, and American Sign Language. When the Belvedere re-opens, visitors will be able to access the guide onsite on Acoustiguide’s players.

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We’re writing to inform you of what’s happening at Acoustiguide in the midst of changes wrought by the COVID-19 virus. It’s an uncertain time for everyone, but we want to reassure you our work is ongoing without interruption.

Our teams are working from home, including our studio team, which have full engineering facilities and abilities to produce all of our audio experiences and program our proprietary devices from remote locations. We are armed with laptops and microphones and plenty of creativity that will serve our current and future projects well.

We are in frequent touch with all of our recording studios to vet their practices in keeping their studios clean and germ-free, and are assured, for this moment, our ongoing audio production work can continue. In the event that it cannot, we have strategies in place for doing “home” recordings for interviewees and VO actors. The same is true for our translation teams.

Acoustiguide has always been mindful that proprietary devices can be a delicate tool for anyone who is germ-sensitive, and so our practice has always been to have extensive hygienic protocols to ensure each device is wiped down before and after a visitor takes a tour. We always offer headphones as an option, and now, going forward, will also offer the option of disposable earbuds. Of course, many of our tours are available via apps for download on visitors’ own devices and we can assist clients who would like to add a mobile tour option. When museums are back up and running, we will be ever vigilant that these good practices continue.

This is a difficult time for everyone, and we are deeply proud to be part of the #musetech and #musesocial communities and are thrilled—but not at all surprised—by how quickly museums have pivoted to showcasing their collections digitally on-line. We, too, are looking forward to making past and present audio programs available to the public and will have news to share in the coming weeks. If we can assist you at all during this time, please reach out to us. Together, we can continue to be a source of joy and inspiration, champion great storytelling, and provide experiences that can remind us of the many wonderful things we can be grateful for.

We wish you and your teams excellent health and fortitude and look forward to continuing our creative partnership.

Very best,

Daniela Gorelov & Eyal Ben Gigi
co-CEOs, Acoustiguide

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• A tour available in 15 spoken languages as well as in Catalan, Spanish and international sign language.
• A project that has involved the collaboration of the Embassy of Korea in Spain and the Cultural and Recreational Centre for the Deaf in Barcelona.
• High-quality content that will guide visitors through the interpretive process at the Sagrada Familia, providing a personal and unique experience

(Madrid, Tuesday 10 July 2018). – Last April the Basilica of the Sagrada Familia launched a new audio guide service, managed by Audioguiarte. The resource offers fresh, high-quality content specifically conceived for audiences from all over the world. The tour created for the launch is available in 15 languages: Spanish, Catalan, English, French, Italian, German, Portuguese, Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Russian, Dutch, Finnish, Swedish and Hungarian. The Embassy of Korea (Republic) in Spain provided invaluable support for the production of the tour in Korean.

Another highlight of the new service delivers accessibility to the contents for deaf people. A sign-language audio guide is now available in Catalan, Spanish and the international sign system. This particular aspect of the project was carried out entirely by a team of deaf people from CERECUSOR (Cultural and Recreational Centre for the Deaf, Barcelona), coordinated by Audioguiarte.

Audioguiarte and the Sagrada Familia are currently working together to introduce new tours for all kinds of audiences, including new accessibility projects, a tour for families and specific versions for groups and audiences with less time available. The pursuit of excellence is at the core of all of these new developments, in terms of delivering high-quality technology, high-quality content and high-quality interaction with visitors.

Audioguiarte’s mission is to enrich the visitor experience at museums and tourist attractions, both national and international, through the use of cutting-edge information technologies. In the last 15 years, the Audioguiarte team has worked with cultural institutions, tourist sites, entertainment venues and miscellaneous other places that lend themselves to guided tours. Its aim is to reach all visitor profiles.

Audioguiarte is the exclusive distributor in Spain of the international group Acoustiguide. A world leader in the delivery of audio and multimedia experiences, the company has spent more than 60 years developing technologies and services for hundreds of museums and cultural centres. The new tour for the Sagrada Familia includes Acoustiguide’s latest generation of multimedia guides, Opus+, which features an enhanced, visitor-friendly interface, a resilient and ergonomic design, and an innovative flexibility and ease-of-use for both visitors and tour guides alike at this temple visited by thousands of people every day.

As well as being available for individual visitors, the Opus+ device is integrated with the guide system offered specifically to groups visiting the temple. This means that numerous groups of visitors can tour the temple simultaneously, listen to their guides and, if they want to, turn on the audio commentary offered by Opus+ without breaking the obligatory silence in this sacred place.

Further information:

Production and Dissemination Department

atencionalcliente@audioguiarte.com

913059358

Audioguiarte Servicios Culturales S.L.

www.audioguiarte.com

www.acoustiguide.com

www.sagradafamilia.org/es

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A fortress, palace and prison, the Tower of London’s remarkable tour offers a selection of options to guide visitors at their own pace and chosen route.  The tour provides the origins of the Tower, the Medieval Palace and the stories of imprisonment and execution.  The guides can be picked up from the Visitor Centre near the Beefeater Shop.

• Tour options include;
• Introduction Tour
• Traitor’s Gate tour
• Medieval Palace tour
• Normans and Before tour
• Imprisonment and Execution tour
• Crown Jewels – including the VI Tour option
• Life at the Tower tour

The Tower of London is one of the UK’s most visited heritage attractions with nearly 3 million visitors a year from around the world.  In addition the languages offered in the audio guide include Spanish, Mandarin, Russian, Japanese and Korean.

Acoustiguide’s creative team produced the engaging and immersive kid’s tour option for the audio guides, which has proven to be quite popular for adults too!  Prepare to be guided by the Tower Ravens, who time travel through important events throughout the Tower’s history.  Their unique insight introduces and informs the visitors about the infamous occupants and the gruesome executions that occurred at the famous Tower.

With 1,200 new audio guides and nearly 3 million visitors to the Tower each year, this incredibly innovative project demonstrates the close relationship between Historic Royal Palaces and Acoustiguide, who also provide full staffing at the Tower; a dynamic and happy group experienced in looking after visitors and services.

Acoustiguide further provided a full end to end solution for both the Tower of London and Hampton Court Palace, covering networking and integration of the devices, charging solutions with customised casing with beacon alarm solution.

Acoustiguide and Historic Royal Palaces
The same audio guide solutions with bespoke casing, charging and alarm solutions, are also in place at Hampton Court Palace.

Acoustiguide’s Opus devices are in place at Banquetine House. For tickets, opening times and bookings please visit https://www.hrp.org.uk/hampton-court-palace/#gs.2VxyOlk

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Nearly half of all Americans have an ancestral tie to the 22 million people who sailed past the Statue of Liberty upon arriving at Ellis Island. A new audio guide experience developed by Acoustiguide in collaboration with the National Park Service and The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc., takes guests on a journey back in time and across thousands of miles to discover the deeply poignant, improbable and epic tale of these iconic American landmarks.

Responding to the call for greater accessibility, Acoustiguide’s award-winning creative team produced a suite of multimedia tours that provide an engaging and immersive experience for everyone. Available in 12 languages – Arabic, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Mandarin, Portuguese, Russian, and Spanish – the general tour tells the awe-inspiring stories that helped shape the course of American history. Another offering, an intergenerational, kid-friendly tour, brings families together to share the experience of discovery.

The Adult tour is also available in American Sign Language with video segments that coincide with each stop on the tour. And for visitors with low or no vision, there is an Audio Descriptive (AD) tour giving detailed dimensions and physical explanations as well as readings of text panels and overviews of content available in exhibit galleries. At the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration, the AD tour currently covers part of the 1st floor (General Introduction, Journeys: The Peopling of America galleries, and the Baggage Room) and half of the 2nd floor (The Ellis Experience) with a current running time of 135 minutes Additional content will be created and added to the tours over the next year.

“We are excited about our partnership with The Foundation and the National Park Service and to bring this new experience to The Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island,” said Nadav Karni, Acoustiguide Group CEO. “The tours are brought to life on our exclusive Opus series multi-media player, which is easy-to-use and comfortably fits in visitors’ hands. The crisp audio and visual display deliver a 360-degree experience that communicates the Institution’s mission and enhances visitor engagement.”

Said Stephen A. Briganti, president and chief executive officer of The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, “When the Foundation restored the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, we wanted visitors to gain a sense of the experiences had by the more than 22 million immigrants who passed through these doors. The new audio tours not only brings these stories to life but also explains the history of these two great national treasures in a compelling and entertaining way.”

“With tours in 12 languages, as well as an ASL tour and an Audio Described tour, the Park can offer an interpretive experience to the majority of our visitors to both Ellis Island and the Statue of Liberty,” Judy Giuriceo, Curator of Exhibits & Media, National Park Service.

With more than 120+ hours of contents and 2000 audio stop segments in the three-part chronicle at Ellis Island: The Ellis Experience; Journeys: The Peopling of America; and Journeys: New Eras of Immigration, the tours are an effective way to generate an emotional connection and spark conversation across generations.

“As an immigrant myself, and a true believer in the transcendent power of storytelling, I am deeply, deeply grateful to lead our team in delivering an audio experience at the most iconic American institution symbolizing hope, a new life and freedom to millions of people,” said Daniela Gorelov, Managing Director of the Americas, Acoustiguide Inc.

Conceived as true “theater for the ears,” this new tour approaches each chapter as its own, specifically suited to the subject matter and the design of the exhibitions. The Ellis Experience features first-person accounts excerpted from hundreds of oral histories; new interviews with historians, National Park Service Rangers, and other experts; actors portraying officials, doctors, and others who once staffed the island; sound effects; music; and carefully chosen and directed narrators.

The Journeys: The Peopling of America; and Journeys: New Eras of Immigration galleries are highly interactive and Acoustiguide designed tours to optimize visitor engagement in the exhibition space. Using the tour as a preview to “conversations” about the immigrant experience taking place in each space, the narrators invite the listener to engage in activities, view first-person audio and video content, and interact with educational installations to learn more about the lives of these immigrants.

At Liberty Island, visitors can take an engaging, family-friendly tour, sharing in the experience of coming to America and crossing New York Harbor to find a new home in the United States together.

According to Karni and Gorelov from Acoustiguide, it was very important to be able to paint a full and honest picture of the immigrant experience for younger visitors. Acousitguide’s award-winning creative team determined that by speaking directly to the visitor, these approachable and empathetic characters could effectively introduce topics and first-person accounts, ask provocative questions, and provide an opportunity for discussion.

The audio tours are included in the price of a ferry ticket.

“This exhibit is so profound and important,” said Gorelov. “There is a deep pull of the past in our current national conversation. We are proud to be able to be a part of sharing the stories of Ellis Island and its role as the thread that weaves the fabric of America.”

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About Acoustiguide – Acoustiguide provides the leading audio and multimedia experience to hundreds of museums, tourist and entertainment sites worldwide, creating content, software, and customized apps, delivered on its proprietary guiding technologies or via tablets and mobile devices. All content and apps are custom designed for each site, and the hardware can be branded. www.acoustiguide.com

About the Statue of Liberty National Monument – “The Statue of Liberty Enlightening the World” was a gift of friendship from the people of France to the United States and is recognized as a universal symbol of freedom and democracy. The Statue of Liberty was dedicated on October 28, 1886 and designated as a National Monument by Presidential Proclamation in 1924. Its purpose under the National Park System is to preserve, protect, and interpret as a national and international symbol of freedom and migration and to promote understanding, reflection, and discussion about the meanings of liberty and opportunity.

About Ellis Island –Opened on January 1, 1892, Ellis Island became the nation’s premier federal immigration station. In operation until 1954, more than 12 million immigrants were processed at the station. It has been estimated that more than 40 percent of America’s population today can trace their ancestry through Ellis Island. After 30 years of abandonment, the main building was restored by The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation and, working in partnership with the National Park Service, opened as a museum in September 1990. 

About The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. – The Statue of Liberty-Ellis Island Foundation, Inc. is a non-profit organization founded in 1982 to raise funds for and oversee the historic restorations of the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island, working in partnership with the National Park Service/U.S. Department of the Interior. In addition to restoring the monuments, the Foundation created museums on both islands, The American Immigrant Wall of Honor®, the American Family Immigration History Center®, and most recently The Peopling of America Center® which transformed the museum into the Ellis Island National Museum of Immigration. The Foundation’s endowment has funded over 200 projects at the islands.

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