About Us

John Strachan and Jamie Alexander set up Alexander Strachan Limited trading as The Survival Game. This was paintball at its infancy, the third site in Scotland, based in Kirknewton.

(Pic: John’s wife and co-director, Lucy)

John leans on his army background and develops an outdoor team building service using a range of “command tasks” as used for officer selection for Sandhurst. John moves to Kirknewton and sets up the office in a spare bedroom.

(Pic: This is the first ever “team building” event. The client was Scottish & Newcastle. In orange, co-founder Jamie Alexander.)

Renaming of the business to Maximillion Events Ltd and The Survival Game sold. Maximillion focuses on Team Building and Corporate Events.

(Pic: John hard at work, note; no PC, we had an electric typewriter.)

UK Bungee Club (Scotland) set up. John and Lucy would go on launch over 10,000 jumpers from cranes throughout Scotland over the next three years.

(Pic: Tom Burnet who would soon join Maximillion as Sales & Marketing Director.)

Kirknewton Stables. Owned by the Welwoods, developed as a conference and wedding venue. Maximillion managed as their “home base” for the next ten years.

Sarah Esslemont starts a full time position as Operations Assistant. Sarah will go onto become our Managing Director, the position she enjoys today.

(Pic: Sarah second from left, bottom row.)

Our second web site wins our first award “Winners on the Web”.

We decide to develop a portfolio of indoor team building products kicking on with Kinetic Connections, Rhythm Rocks, Take5, Mexican Railway, Create & Paint, TeamWorks In.

(Pic: Kinetic Connections assembled in Kirknewton Stables)

Following the successful delivery of a subcontracted It’s A Knockout in La Manga for Deutsche Bank, we purchase a complete set of inflatables to bring the product in house.

Maelstrom launch becoming one of our most popular and successful products. With two identical sets, groups of up to 400 can be facilitated.

(Pic: Marketing Manager Paul Wakefield sprints across the stage.)

Launched Eden. Eden was conceived by John and developed with Gamesman Productions as an event that would encourage improved sustainable behaviour at home and at work.

(Pic: Stuart “the moff” Moffat mans the desk.)

Set up our London office in Isleworth with Catie Friend and Mark Johnston at the helm.

(Pic: Mark Johnston in his big hair phase.)

Maximillion buys a 3000 sq ft office and 9000 sq ft warehouse in Newbridge on the outskirts of Edinburgh and set about an extensive refurbishment creating an exemplar of sustainable buildings.

Reeling from the financial crash of 2008, Maximillion enters survival mode forcing widespread redundancies and sub letting surplus space to new tenants. Meanwhile, we win at the Scottish Thistle Awards

Gold Star awarded by Green Tourism Business Scheme. Only ten gold stars are awarded each year to the ten most sustainable business out of a membership of over 2000.

(Pic: Nick Aitken collects)

Sign a license agreement with Wildgoose for the Scottish territory providing GPS treasure hunts from iPads and being the first to provide the service in Scotland.

MadMax Adventures launched.  A multi activity centre on Kirknewton Estate  west of Edinburgh offering clay pigeon shooting, quad bike trails, archery and 4×4 offroad driving.

Sign a ten-year contract to set up and run “Turnberry Adventures” at the five star Turnberry Resort. Providing the same suit of activities as MadMax Adventures.

MadMax Adventures sold to Newhall Estate who continue to run the centre in Kirknewton to this day.

Celebrating our 30^th Anniversary.

(Pic: Team on our 20^th Anniversary in 2009.)

Covid wreaks havoc throughout the events industry.  Fortunately, Maximillion is able to leverage the Wildgoose technology and does well providing virtual team building and virtual conferences. Virtual and hybrid events are now here to stay.

Turnberry Adventures wound down, the level of business enjoyed not justifying the resource to maintain the service.

New web site launched together with a brand refresh. This is our fifth web site giving an average of a new web site every seven years.