The Motorway Hotel TV Show at The Moat House

This is an announcement we couldn’t have imagined we would be sharing with our guests. It is as surprising as it is exciting. Channel 5s new series The Motorway Hotel has been filming behind the scenes at The Moat House and shall soon be released for the Great British population to enjoy. This was a totally new and unique adventure for us, with the “fly on the wall” style of production and camera crews filming our every step, we wanted to share the news and highlight our experience!

About The Motorway Hotel TV Show on Channel 5

The show in this series is about us, The Moat House and our relationship to the M6, one of the busiest motorways in Britain. We are just a short drive away, making The Moat House incredibly accessible. Additionally, given our particular location we are also well hidden from the motorway, surrounded by countryside in our own luxurious cocoon. Which, we like to think, makes for more picturesque filming.

The Motorway Hotel is produced by Tom Porter and Nick Godwin who both have an exceptional resume of TV Shows. The show itself is an observational documentary and is very much what it says in the tin “The Motorway Hotel”. What makes it entertaining is that our every step is followed. It truly is a fly on the wall experience where you get to see the ins and outs of running a family owned hotel.

As for how popular or entertaining the show will be we don’t know, but if Tom Porter and Nick Godwin believe it will make great TV then we’re sure it’ll definitely be worth a watch.

How the Experience Felt

Overall it was a fantastic experience. We were naturally very tentative when the producers first approached us about being a part of the show but as we discussed the details with them further, we began to feel at ease and ready to see it as an exciting adventure.

It is a very peculiar sensation knowing the cameras are on you and even more so when we were planning and organising our day like we normally would and then asked to repeat it because the shot wasn’t quite right. It was hard to be authentic in these situations because what we had just previously been through as a team had now become a script for a better take. As bizarre as this was initially, we soon got used to it over the 3 months the crew were with us. 

Perhaps one of the strangest accounts from the experience was when the edit team would come down for a visit from London and knew so much about us despite never having met them. They had studied and observed hours of footage for the show and knew our names and our personalities. It was like we were their distant acquaintances only we were only just meeting them for the first time.

As you’ll see from the footage, it is quite impressive to see how adaptive everyone can be. Soon enough the cameras on us were just a standard day, almost as if they were not there at all. Until we had to repeat a shot! 

How We Had to Adapt

One of the hardest adaptations was remembering that the mundane conversations, tasks and planning that happened day to day were really interesting to the crew. The crew saw a daily storyline progressing over weeks and months, connecting the dots. Whereas, this is just what we do. Just like with any job, when you have an experienced team, many of the tasks required to make the day run smoothly are often small and sometimes boring. When the task is big and thrilling, it is usually because something has gone wrong. Which, of course, we try to avoid at all costs. So we had to be mindful to keep the crew in the loop so that they could capture the daily nuances throughout their time with us.

Another challenge was getting used to working around the cameras. Even though by the production company’s terms they were “small” cameras, they still felt pretty imposing and at thousands of pounds each we were all terrified of bumping into one of them!

The Reality of Behind the Scenes

We’re hoping the show will illustrate just how much work and attention goes into making the guest experience what it is, and all the people behind the scenes that make that happen.

The reality is not everything goes as smoothly as planned behind the scenes but every effort is made to ensure that our guests' experience is nothing but the best when they stay with us. This is a chance to highlight exactly what happens and the care we give to our work.

We feel proud to be revealing this because our team work so hard to make The Moat House what it is and generally speaking, hospitality doesn’t have the most positive reputation, so we’re hoping we’ll be able to show a different side to that stereotype in this series.

When the Show Will be Released

Currently, there isn’t a confirmation on when the show will be released. We have been told that it will be late 2023 / early 2024 so keep an eye out for the release dates!

Top 3 things We Learned

1. 
   How incredible our team is. Not only did we all take this experience in our stride despite some initial fears, we took to it like a duck to water. Whilst continuing to provide our guests with our usual high levels of service throughout.
   
   
2. We’re so fortunate to have an amazing group of regular customers who are our biggest champions. Many of our regulars took part in the filming and it was such a heartwarming experience listening to the interviews they did with the crew. Hearing from others about how much our hotel means to them was a really special experience.
   
   
3. How much goes into making a tv show! In the same way that what was boring and mundane to us, was interesting to the film crew, the opposite was true as well. Learning about the entire process from start to finish was truly fascinating.

Would We Do it Again?

Absolutely! We would jump at the chance to participate in a similar opportunity. Now we know what to expect and how things work, it feels a lot less intimidating.