Bring the city’s past to life What story do you want to tell? Create an immersive ‘time travel’ experience in the streets with HistoryCity. Design a character-led trail, voiced by actors, that connects the fabric of today’s city to the lives and events of the past.
About HistoryCity • HistoryCity apps include Florence, Hamburg, Exeter, Valencia, Trento and Deventer. Upcoming are Hidden Copenhagen, Venice, Tours and Landshut. Upcoming trails on existing apps include a Spanish Civil War story for Hidden Valencia and two trails for Hidden Trento. • Each city app can host multiple trails and georeferenced historic maps. • A HistoryCity ‘time jump’ guide on Apple Maps accompanies every app and feeds traffic to the App Store. • HistoryCity apps and HistoryCity Apple Maps guides are published in English and local languages. • For the education sector, a teaching package allows students to create their own trails for smartphones.
Who are the apps for? University Researchers and Educators Develop locative research and translate it into high-impact public history that expands, and challenges, how we think about a city’s heritage. Extend partnerships with local museums and heritage bodies. Enable students to create their own trails that address the social, cultural and material histories of place with the teaching version of the apps. Heritage and Tourism organisations Create a more diverse and rich heritage offer for visitors and residents. Give new life to established heritage sites, historical figures and events, while putting a spotlight on hidden gems and histories. Decentralise footfall by promoting sites off the beaten path. Museums, Galleries, Archives Deepen the connection between museum and city. Take objects in collections, ‘relocate’ them to their former sites or places they were associated with, and build stories around them. Begin or end trails at the museum or gallery. Publicise exhibitions and events live on the apps and Apple Maps platforms. A great opportunity for museums to partner with local universities.
Production Overview Exeter, via Calvium, provide the app build, map georeferencing and technical support. Exeter history team provide trail development and support, with live or online workshops, editing, audio and back-end production, testing oversight, and content for related Apple Maps Guide. From first meeting to publication we allow six months. Prices are determined by your plans. Come speak to us to gain a quote for a new city or walk.
Coming up in 2023 A Spanish Civil War trail for Hidden Valencia set in 1937 with characters from both sides of the conflict.
Timeline of production 1-3 months
4-5 months
Proposal (themes, character, outline of sites) /discussion of proposal (meeting - feedback).
Organise recordings. Production for scripts (usually producing over Zoom with voice actors).
First draft Rough character scripts (25080wds per site) - plus draft Discover More scripts (c170wds), which is the expert audio commentary at each site. Or at least firm topic ideas/objects for Discover Mores.
On-screen texts for trail (title/About/character description/directions/ credits, etc.)
Feedback/discussion This is where effectively we nail sites, themes, character, narrative and most objects/images (meeting). Second draft. Editing/discussion of edit (often with meeting). Finals: Scripts/Discover Mores. Finalised app images. Copyright clearances for images in hand. Final tweaks for audio content, scripts and DMs.
Prepare Read More texts (c400wds) for linked webpages. Load HC platform with content. Preparation of Apple Maps guide.
6 months On-site testing and tweaks. Finalise all app and webpage content. Publish App and Apple Maps guide!
Facts and figures Since launch in 2021 the HistoryCity Apple Maps guides increasingly drive iOS app downloads. They are also a powerful standalone promotional tool with high usage figures,
HistoryCity Apps: Downloads (Thousands) Deventer Exeter Trento Valencia Hamburg Florence
0
2
4
6 2020 - 2022
8
10
12
14
16
2014 - 2022
HistoryCity Apple Maps Guides: Views (Thousands) Deventer Exeter Trento Valencia Hamburg Florence
0
50
100
150
200
July 2021 - Sept 2022
Hidden Florence downloaded around 15,000 times in over 40 countries (since launch in 2014).
Hamburg 5337 (since launch in 2020)
Exeter 1270 (since launch in 2020)
Trento 2257 (since launch in 2020)
250
What people are saying
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Exeter’s long and fascinating history is partly told by objects in museum collections and partly by traces in today’s streets. Exeter is the ideal way to bring both sets of stories together, being both dramatic and accessible. - Thomas Cadbury, assistant curator, Royal Albert Memorial Museum, Exeter. Collaborator on Exeter app. Amazingly well made app which is both a fun and hugely informative way to discover the lives of real people who inhabited Renaissance Florence. - Tripadviser, 5 stars. This is kind of like playing Pokemon GO but with historical sites. - Rebel Wilson, Travel Man, Channel4, aired 25 December 2016. I just wanted you to know that this is the best idea to mix modern technology and history I heard yet […] Now to figure out how to travel to Florence to use it on location… - James L, AppStore. Thank you, thank you, thank you so much for this app! It’s perfect — well designed and interactive and it shows you Florence from a different perspective, not like the rest of the tourist guides! I’ve had a lot of fun with it today and did both of the walls. I wish there was more, because it was awesome! - Dinara, GooglePlay Store.
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This is hugely valuable for historians, because it allows us to take what we have discovered in an archive, in a document, in a fragment of history that has been hidden away, and transpose that into real space and see it in three dimensions. To see it therefore as the people who lived that history saw it. - Professor James Clark, University of Exeter. Chief consultant on Exeter’s ‘Dissolution and Dissent’ trail.
Deventer Florence Valencia Hamburg Exeter Trento Step into the past Free audio guides on As featured on
Coming up: Copenhagen, Venice, Tours, Landshut
Contacts and Links To find out more please email:
Download HistoryCity apps: linktr.ee/historycity
Prof Fabrizio Nevola HistoryCity project lead F.Nevola@exeter.ac.uk
HistoryCity Apple Maps guides: tinyurl.com/3w2u3naw
Dr David Rosenthal HistoryCity trail director d.c.rosenthal@exeter.ac.uk
Instagram: www.instagram.com/historycityapps/ Teaching with HistoryCity www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bwecoLWI-c
Key links: HistoryCity Exeter – Brief documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3--jpNQ4Nik HistoryCity Florence – Brief documentary: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg26ROoHMaE
www.hiddencities.eu
Hidden Cities: Urban Space, Geolocated Apps and Public History in Early Modern Europe. Edited by Fabrizio Nevola, David Rosenthal, Nicholas Terpstra. Routledge, 2022. Open access: tinyurl.com/mrxyzbax
@HiddenCitiesEU
www.historycityapps.org