For most children the long summer break is the best time of the year. A chance to throw off their uniform, escape lessons, and wait for their parents to entertain them. Needless to say, few parents regard the prospect of finding something fun and educational (but not boring!) for the whole family to do, with wholly unconfined joy. After all, the most popular attractions usually seem to be the ones with the largest queues.

Actually this is not strictly true. Today, many of the best venues are installing new ticketing and point of sale systems which process transactions faster and ensure that queues are kept to a minimum. Take The Merlin Entertainments Group for example, which owns and manages 22 Sea Life and Dungeon attractions in the UK and Europe, including The London Dungeon, Gweek Seal Sanctuary (in Cornwall) and the Sea Life Centre at Disneyland, Paris. Merlin recently launched the appropriately named Excalibur Project with the purpose of installing a new IT system, capable of handling all its customer facing operations - turnstile admissions, souvenir shops, cafes and photo point kiosks - from a single back office.

The project is the brainchild of IT Development Manager, Chris Thorne, who developed a bespoke software solution, for use in all its UK and European sites, to meet Merlin's specific business requirements. For example, detailed on-site management reports, providing detailed visitor analysis and even a weather report for that day. Chris has also been quick to take advantage of best of breed open systems hardware, such as EpsonÍs TM-L90 printer. The TM-L90's main attraction was its USB port connectivity, which gives attraction staff the flexibility to "hot swap" printers in the network, according to their requirements.

"The USB connectivity is obviously invaluable for our sites as it means we can operate at optimum efficiency," noted Chris Thorne, "and the TM-L90's also have all the functionality we need, enabling us to print entry tickets, receipts and barcodes, as required. They are also extremely easy to use, particularly the drop-in paper load feature, which has been a revelation. And, of course, they are much faster than our old printers, up to four times quicker to produce a z-read report, for example."

So far, up to 50 TM-L90 printers have already been installed in Merlin's European sites, with the roll out still in progress. Once fully installed, Chris reveals, he is looking forward to the marketing opportunities opened up by its 2-colour printing capability.

For further information contact David Ormerod, Epson Retail Technology Tel: 01442 227318