Creative Lead – Events and Branded Experiences

Job Description

What you'll bring to the team

Creative Lead – Events and Branded Experiences

Location: London / Hybrid (2-3 days per week in our London Arbor office)

Merlin Entertainments is home to some of the world’s most iconic attractions, and our Merlin Magic Making (MMM) Team is where that magic begins! We’re looking for a dynamic Creative Lead with strong events expertise to drive exceptional creative direction across a diverse portfolio of attractions, IPs, experiences, and immersive live concepts.

As a Creative Lead, you will be responsible for shaping and overseeing the creative direction of events and guest experience projects across a varied remit, ensuring the delivery of innovative, engaging and high‑quality concepts. You will bring strong experience in themed entertainment, attraction design and live events, applying exceptional creative thinking, leadership and a solid understanding of design principles and marketing strategy. Working closely with our designers, marketing teams, production teams and external agencies, you’ll take the lead in shaping ideas from the first spark through to final delivery, making sure everything is aligned to Merlin brand guidelines and external IP branding parameters.

The Creative Lead will oversee creative execution from concept through to delivery, supporting Creative Directors during reviews and ensuring all ideas remain on‑brand, viable and strategically aligned to wider Merlin roadmaps. Working closely with producers, designers and Project Delivery teams, you’ll ensure projects meet deadlines, budgets and quality expectations. You will also guide onsite art direction and ensure all creative assets align with operational and marketing goals.

A key part of the role is resourcing the right design talent and external partners for each project, so naturally collaboration is essential. The Creative Lead will build trusted relationships with senior stakeholders across the business including Divisional Directors and Resort VPs, Marketing Directors and General Managers. You will also manage relationships with external agencies and freelancers to ensure consistently high creative output.

You will play a central leadership role within the creative team, providing mentorship and feedback to designers, copywriters, AV specialists and producers. The Creative Lead will play a key role in shaping a creative culture where people feel supported, inspired and confident to contribute their best ideas. You’ll bring the team together through hands‑on workshops, brainstorming sessions and day‑to‑day coaching, helping everyone grow their skills while keeping our thinking sharp and aligned to each brand’s goals.

Please note – internally this role is known as Creative Lead (Events)

Qualifications & Experience

• Proven experience in creative leadership, within entertainment, themed attractions or media is essential
• Proven experience developing live events, festivals or residencies is essential
• A proven portfolio highlighting successful creative and marketing work brought to life in real environments
• Ability to lead projects end-to-end, managing deadlines and budgets
• Expertise in brand storytelling, idea generation and visual communication
• Proficiency in Adobe Creative Suite and other industry-standard tools
• Strong understanding of marketing trends, guest experience and emerging creative technologies
• Excellent communication, presentation and stakeholder management skill
• Ability to provide strong creative leadership while effectively managing projects, stakeholders and external partners to deliver innovative, high-quality outputs

Benefits

• 40% discount off LEGO® sets and products on the online LEGO Store!

• Merlin Magic Pass: 20 free tickets for you, your family and friends to enjoy all of our Merlin Attractions across the world!
• 25% discount in Merlin retail shops and restaurants (a brilliant extra treat when you’re using your Magic Pass to visit!)
• ‘Enjoy the Ride’ Merlin Annual Pass for you and five loved ones!
• Staff discount codes for Merlin Annual Passes to gift to loved ones!

• Private pension scheme
• Life assurance scheme
• Employee assistance programme
• Access to Perks at Work which 30,000+ national & local employee discounts
• Ongoing training & development

About Merlin

A job with Merlin isn’t like a job anywhere else. With attractions around the world, from rollercoasters to wax figures, we don’t trade in suits, handshakes or briefcases. We trade in fun. In smiles, shrieks and spine-tingles. In Memories. In magic. But there are no tricks behind our magic. Instead, there are people like you. Passionate, dedicated people who are committed to making sure our worldwide attractions and guests’ experiences are the best they can be.

If you have any questions or if you require any reasonable adjustments, because of a disability or medical condition, please contact us by email at recruitment@merlinentertainments.biz and one of the team will get back to you as soon as possible.

Pay Range

Competitive