The Making of Harry Potter opens next week. John Ryan takes a tour of the magical theme park store.

Remember Harry Potter? This is the kind of question that probably wouldn’t pass muster on University Challenge as the reality is that the boy wizard is an everyday fact of life across the world, irrespective of age or gender. The fact may also account for the opening next week of an ‘attraction’, just outside Watford, dubbed The Making of Harry Potter.

And this is no small-scale production, according to David Kendal, retail and commercial director at the Potterthon, as it is more or less equivalent to “three Wembleys” in size. Die-hard devotees can wander the hangar-like halls that form the ‘Studio Tour’ admiring the dining room at Hogwarts (yes, it’s the original), ride a broomstick or even wave wands and make things come to life – well, sort of.

Even if you’re unfamiliar with the books and films, it would be hard not to be impressed by what’s been done – this is about bringing a fictional world to life and it succeeds. And at the end of this tour there is, naturally, the merchandising opportunity.

In The Making of Harry Potter, this translates as something akin to a museum shop where the impecunious can fork out £2.45 for a lolly, while those with rather more lolly can spend £499.95 on a replica version of Dumbledore’s magical robes. The point about this 6,800 sq ft store is that while it offers something for everyone and is, at one level, a memorabilia stop, it is also a highly wrought piece of retail design.

Kendal says the shop is the outcome of a process that started with a number of design consultancies engaging in a paid pitch in 2010 and resulted in Lumsden Design being given the task of creating the store. Callum Lumsden, creative director of the eponymous consultancy, has form in this area, having designed the retail areas at the British Museum in 2009 and the bookshop at Tate Modern, among others.

Those were projects that involved the creation of spaces that would complement the environment of which they are a part. The same is true of the shop at The Making of Harry Potter. Go on the full tour and you’ll pay £28 if you’re an adult, £21 if you’re a child or £83 if you are a family, and no attempt is made to make you part of the boy wizard’s world. Visitors are, instead, encouraged to understand how the movies were made, (Hog)warts and all. This is about the journey from a series of best-selling novels, nominally for children, to the films that proved equally popular and how that was realised.

In the store this means no pretence is made at immersing the shopper in HP-land, but the substantial space is themed in a manner that encourages browsing while reminding shoppers of the books and films.

Revealing the artifice

Perhaps the most obvious instance of this is a couple of unfinished-looking stage-set Gothic arches that bear the words, seemingly drawn in block capital pencilled letters: “METAL SUPPORT FRAMES FOR LEADED LIGHTS THRO’OUT SEE DRWG No 19.” It’s a matter of laying bare the artifice of making a film and showing things as they are, according to Lumsden.

The arches are, in fact, mid-shop features with integral shelves used to display a soft-toy version of white owl Hedwig (Potter’s pet – read the books) and magic wands. Wands form a major part of the offer, with some mid-shop units devoted to nothing else. The units are made to feel like elements from the movies by using deliberately aged wood with multiple drawers, each with a differently sized escutcheon – this interior is intimately concerned with details.

And if wands are required, there are many to choose from. Kendal points to the wands in boxes piled on to the mid-shop cabinets. “They’re deliberately messy, which is perfect for the film, but we have to keep stopping ourselves tidying them,” he says.

There is, of course, a Quidditch area and the cash tills and counter have a replica of the bank that is used in the films. A visit to the bank may, in fact, prove necessary if you are to avail yourself of items from the “collectibles” space in the left-hand corner towards the front of the shop. Here, the stock is displayed in LED-lit cases with gold ingots, arranged in pyramids, used as props for the purpose. The ingots look heavy and real but, as in the rest of the shop, all is artifice and on enquiry they turn out to be made of sponge.

If a souvenir is purchased, the product packaging has been created by the same development team that designed the toys. And Lumsden Design is respon­sible for the star-spangled gift-wrap.

The shop at The Making of Harry Potter is an object lesson, therefore, in how to make a store that sells stock associated with books and films about a school for wizards and to maximise a brand’s undoubted potential.

Let there be light

Compromises have, of course, been made with the lighting providing a prime example: “In the film, Hogwarts had no electricity,” says Lumsden. The answer has to been to create overhead grids of bare filament bulbs across parts of the shop that look a little like candles. Again, this is not a matter of creating faux candles – it is about scene setting.

There’s been a Harry Potter experience in Orlando for about 18 months and it’s been mobbed since it opened. When this one flings wide its doors, it seems probable that something of the kind will also prove to be the case in this country. On the face of it, it would seem straightforward to create a store that reflects a world-beating franchise, but this is not a mere exercise in putting stock on shelves and then standing back.

The store associated with The Making of Harry Potter is about continuing an experience that has been enjoyed by the visitor and potential shopper and making sure nobody leaves empty-handed.

Shop and studio tour are around 10 minutes in a cab from Watford Junction, which in turn is less than 20 minutes from Euston. Alternatively, and this seems the more likely method of arrival, The Making of Harry Potter is less than five minutes from Junction 19 of the M25.

Whatever your views on Harry Potter, gift retailers in particular would do well to give this the once-over, as it’s a clear demonstration of what can be done when creativity and commerciality join forces. And it has the capacity to take up to 5,000 visitors a day. With the Olympics just around the corner, the opening seems timely.

The Making of Harry Potter

Location: Studio Tour Drive, Leavesden, WD25 7LR

Store design: Lumsden Design

Opens: March 31

Owned by: Warner Bros, a subsidiary of Time Warner