Technology uplift keeps Paultons Park on top as it rolls out next gen customer self-service and point of sale solutions

Voted by Trip Advisor, Google Reviews and Trust Pilot as the UK’s number one theme park, Paultons Park in Hampshire has received a great number of accolades since it opened in 1983. Set in 140 acres of countryside to the North of Southampton, it welcomes over a million visitors a year to its attractions, rides and the UK’s only Peppa Pig World.

This family owned and run business has the customer experience at the heart of everything it does, and the last 12 months has seen new rides and attractions open. In parallel Paultons Park took a good look at all the existing technology touchpoints in use in its ticketing, retail, and catering facilities to see whether that infrastructure supported the needs of the business.

The challenges

Point of sale

With a large number of visitors moving around the park, and all keen to be on the next ride or at the next attraction, keeping that customer experience a positive one was the key driver of a major uplift in technology in the second half of 2024 and first quarter of 2025.

The legacy point of sale estate was not consistent across the park and was showing its age in terms of hardware and the forthcoming end of life of the early Windows®10 operating system. This led to reliability issues and slow transaction times which wasn’t appreciated by Paultons Park’s younger visitors, their parents or those looking after them!

Self-Ordering Kiosks

A second issue with a similar effect on the customer experience was around the first-generation self-ordering kiosks at their fast-food restaurant. Six years old and with their original operating systems, they were suffering reliability issues.  Couple that with issues around small screens and an interface which wasn’t intuitive enough within a high throughput location and problems occurred in an environment where visitors simply wanted a quick break for something to eat.

The solution

Point of sale – one terminal for multiple applications

The public’s first point of contact can define a visit to any venue, and the initial trial was to replace the tills at the admission kiosks. Looking at their ticketing providers list of suggested suppliers, and a look across potential vendor websites, Lawrence Mancey, Marketing & Technology Director (and Grandson of the founders of Paultons Park) asked ForPOS to come and provide a demonstration, along with one other possible vendor.

Understanding that Lawrence Mancey wanted a uniform solution that could provide POS across the park, but with different levels of functionality depending on the application and location, ForPOS, the UK’s sole Posiflex® distributor, selected the RT-60xx-G2 series as being perfect for the role since it could be supplied with different types of processor.

The trial revealed that the Posiflex terminal processed transactions faster and provided excellent total cost of ownership benefits. In addition, the aesthetic look of the terminal would complement the workstation environment and excellent cable management kept everything looking professional.

Admissions kiosks were to be supplied with the i5 powered RT-6016-G2. These locations were installed with 15.6” wide screens since they were effectively being used as a PC for details to be entered for annual passes, and tickets, for example. The retail and hospitality outlets did not need the same level of functionality and so the RT-6015-G2 with the Intel Tiger Lake i3 was the choice in this case.

The solution

Self-Ordering Kiosks – “They don’t come here to just eat!”

Reflecting the trend towards self-service kiosks, Paultons Park wanted to standardise on one type that was modular and therefore more futureproof in terms of being able to swap out the peripherals as and when upgrades were available. That modularity would also allow service indicators to be added and motion sensors to provide information and promotions when the unit was not in use.

Given these requirements, ForPOS leant Paultons a state-of-the-art Posiflex JK-3252 kiosk for the local UI designers and software development teams to test both software and a totally new user interface.

A feature of the JK-3252 that was really appreciated during this phase of development was the single key lock which opened the kiosks up for any maintenance or hardware issues with the peripherals, without having to remove the unit from where it was mounted.

Speeding up the self-service ordering process was a key requirement, and the test provided all the certainty that Lawrence Mancey needed to make the decision to replace the original units with the JK-3252. As he rightly pointed out, “People don’t come here just to eat. They want to get on with the rest of their day in the park”

The roll outs, made easy

POS across the park

The first 40 terminals were delivered in November 2024 and were installed within two weeks, using Paultons Park own maintenance team, with the next 40 arriving in the second week of January, this year.

ForPOS prides itself on technical excellence and that was something that made a real difference to the roll out, as Lawrence Mancey explained. “Because ForPOS supplied the terminals pre-configured, the actual installation process was so quick. We simply changed the till number in the software, set a printer up and ran a test. 5-10 minutes per till!”

Self-Ordering kiosks – all in a day’s work

As with the POS terminals, installation and set-up was easy and all five kiosks were ready for testing within a day. Its’ modular form factor and ease of access made it easy to install the printers, scanner and payment devices, with simple tasks such as printer roll replacements now being handled by the staff rather than the parks’ IT team.

Up and running! – It couldn’t have gone any better

To fundamentally replace all of the point of sale and kiosks in one go and in such a short space of time is quite an achievement. To do so within a theme park environment where there is such a small window to undertake this complex process takes trust and teamwork from all parties. ForPOS became that trusted advisor, with its inherent technical expertise taking a lot of the risk away from the customer and evidenced by the smooth and astonishingly quick installation processes for both types of technology.

Both POS and kiosk installations are up and running with 100% uptime across the entire technology estate. Customers are appreciating the new technology in the fast-food environment with faster transaction times and ease of use whilst the park is seeing an upside to orders through the kiosks.

For Lawrence Mancey, this huge undertaking could not have gone better. “If I look back on what we hoped to achieve, then we have done just that, and more. ForPOS provided a level of technical excellence and customer service that we couldn’t fault. Posiflex have a pedigree second to none in the hospitality and entertainment sector, and supplying Universal Studios in Florida is an example of that. Add Posiflex and ForPOS together and we are really getting the best of both worlds.” He added, “To be listed by social platforms as the best UK theme park is fantastic, and our investment in this major technology upgrade will demonstrate our commitment to provide the best possible experience for all our visitors.”