The Bangalore Palace is a little like the atom — most people believe it exists, but not many have seen it.
Few long-time residents of the city have actually visited the palace and it can be a little overwhelming at first sight for people who have always known, in a vague sort of way, that a palace must exist since the surrounding grounds are referred to as ‘Palace Grounds’.
It is to fill this gap that Sri Srikanta Datta Narasimharaja Wadiyar and Narrowcasters, India’s dominant audio-tour company, decided to enrich the experience of visitors to the palace through an audio guided tour.
Announced in a press conference held at the Palace’s grand durbar hall on Monday, the audio tour aims to guide visitors through designated spots in the palace. Narrowcasters, which operates in many countries in the Asia Pacific as well as Australia, has produced guided audio tours for such eminent Indian historical sites such as the National Museum, New Delhi, Hawa Mahal, Jaipur and Mysore Palace, Mysore.
Research of over two years has gone into creating and perfecting the script for the audio tour, says Michael Ludgrove, curator, royal collections, Royal House of Mysore and Bangalore Palace.
“Wadiyar took a keen interest in the script, which was written in collaboration between him, Narrowcasters and myself. Wadiyar approved the final version,” says Ludgrove. Narrowcasters approached Wadiyar and his estate to create an audio guide for the Bangalore Palace, and the two entities will now be collaborating on a number of similar projects.
“We get millions of visitors every year who want to understand our unique heritage better and gain a more comprehensive understanding of it. With these audio tour guides, we are putting in place a modern and quality site interpretation service that will help them get a better understanding of history,” said Wadiyar at the press conference.
According to Penelope Street, founder and executive director of Narrowcasters, the audio tour is a great tool used increasingly by tourist sites all over the world. Visitors to the palace will be handed a small and lightweight mp3-based audio player with numbers corresponding to the numbered sites within the palace.
The audio player comes along with a headset with built-in microphones.
Visitors start the audio tour at a particular spot (numbered 1) and then sequentially visit numbered stops. The audio guide can be paused at any point and then resumed; the whole tour lasts 45 minutes to an hour and is available in seven languages: English, Hindi, Kannada, French, German, Italian and Spanish.
