Meet The Monopoly Studios Team
Andy Kleek is the CEO, mastermind, and driving force behind the Monopoly empire. Monopoly Studios has developed from its sister company Monopoly Events, Europe’s leading pop culture event organisers. Andy’s main passion and love for these kind of events started with his vision of building the biggest and most daring prop builds for his customers to see at his shows.
At the first Monopoly convention in 2015, Andy commissioned Simon to build an X-Wing and Scout Walker. These builds were jaw dropping, and since then Andy formed a relationship with Simon and afterwards Ian. In 2024 with the expansion of the Monopoly empire, it made sense to take on Simon and Ian full time, and open a specialist arm dedicated to prop and set builds, where Monopoly not only make all their own exclusive props and sets in house, but also take on commissions for some of the world’s biggest events.
The first job Monopoly Studios landed, was the Hot Wheels Live Expo in Manchester, and since then our reputation and status in the UK as the industries go to prop and set builders, has been cemented with many other high profile contracts. No matter how wild your idea may be, we want to build it!
Andy Kleek
Simon Wright
​At the ripe old age of 16, Simon started working at the York Theatre Royal as an apprentice scenic carpenter. 40 years on and he is still going strong!
Countless projects throughout his career have included scenery and prop builds for film, stage & TV, exhibition, museum installs, public attraction installs and theme park attractions.
Although Simon has known and worked alongside Ian for many years, they first came together to work on a private commission for Monopoly Events building a life-sized ED-209 from Robocop. This was such an impressive build that it cemented the idea and prospect of permanently teaming up under the same permanent roof to build high-end props and scenes.
Beyond his heavy schedule at Monopoly Studios, Simon enjoys being in a Pink Floyd tribute band, narrating audiobooks for Audible, creating art and producing music!
​Ian has a long and established career in the industry. Having worked for Topshow, Harrogate Theatre and Northern Ballet, he has built scenery for many west end and touring theatre shows.
Ian excels in problem solving and thinking outside the box.
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His attention to critical detail has seen him re-creating the famous Doc Brown brain analyzer many times, and supplying them, along with other speciality props, to the Back To The Future Musical for the West End, Broadway, and international touring versions of the hit musical!
When he is not knees-deep in the workshop, Ian enjoys films and travelling, combining these two passions, Ian has a seemingly limitless knowledge of film facts and often rocks up at film set locations, and invariably gets invited in for a chat!
Ian Robinson
