December is the month of gift-giving for many. I wanted to share some highlights from a recent trip as a series of gifts to you. I hope they will give you inspiration and trigger new thoughts about things you should try. I believe strongly in A.I. = Always Improving. As well, R&D should be a consistent part of your toolbox. When I say R&D I mean Rob & Duplicate. Learn from the best (EID) and steal from the rest.
This R&D post will be the start of several as a result of a recent trip to Austria that included the overenjoying of the coffee culture and stunning architecture of Vienna. With the weather being predominantly sunny museum visits were not as high on the agenda as originally planned. One stood out, however, and filled my heart with joy and satisfaction: witnessing an excited crowd forming incredibly long line-ups to buy simple admission tickets to Vienna museums. That evening there was a celebratory feeling in the air, especially in the area designated as the MQ - the Museums Quartier. Culture and heritage was on everybody’s mind -it was a happening!!
Lange Nacht ticket line-ups (Courtesy : Bill Reynolds)
Lange Nacht der Museen (Long Night of Museums) is a one-night, one-price admission blowout (15 euro), where over 100 venues collaborate and agree to be open from 6pm to1am one night of the year (slow October). The museums tend to put on special tours or events just for the occasion. So you might run into a concert at the historical instrument collection, be allowed to hold a gold bar at the National Bank’s Museum of Money, watch restoration work at the Furniture Museum, take a crash course in Esperanto at the National library, or join an Indonesian line dance at the Weltmuseum.
The city even provides all the public transit for free. What a grand idea - they have been doing this for several decades. This year they had 183,000 tickets sold. The numbers were stunning at least for the downtown venues we visited.
The two museums we choose to enter were jammed pack with visitors for the full 90 minutes we had dedicated for each of them. I have included a picture of one museum lobby to give you a sense of this. To say I was blown away- would be an understatement. There was no blockbuster event - no celebrity visit - just basic museum entry and the crowds responded.
Lange Nacht museum visitors (Courtesy: Bill Reynolds)
My few and short conversations with museum staff manning the information tables indicated they were thrilled with the interest level - one person actually said to me that the Lange Nacht concept was the best thing that could have happened to stimulate exposure.
One of the museums we visited had arranged for hot food vendors in the indoor hallways outside the galleries creating a festival atmosphere. Many of the venues had chosen to offer free tours or provide interactive stations manned by interpreter/researchers spread around the exhibition areas. I even heard about a sponsor providing chocolate snacks for people lined up in an exceptionally long queue.
Something that impressed me was the apparent age of the crowd from my cursory survey (check out my photos) documenting this : dominantly people in their late 20’s and thirties, either alone, in couples, or in groups - not the normal museum crowd. There was definitely a feeling of date night.
Courtesy: Bill Reynolds
Even though the national Natural History Museum had primarily an archaic display style of research collection focusing on taxonomy, visitors were lingering, gesturing, in conversation with each other and seemed genuinely engaged. In the previous photo, you can observe that the museum had supplemented their glass case specimen displays with some giant magnified replicas on top of the cases along with embedded videos in the cabinet ends.
In other cases, they had rearranged specimens to create a simulated mini -diorama. Yet it seemed to me that the sheer diversity and oddity of life forms was what created the awe in the visitor. From a keen naturalist standpoint, this museum had an awesome collection from all over the world not just Austria, which allowed for a certain WOW factor.
Over popularity meant the gallery space often got so crowded it was interfering with the viewing quality, it was upsetting individual personal space and the internal building temperature was getting uncomfortable. I felt the carrying capacity was being exceeded.
Courtesy: Bill Reynolds (teaching display cases like this brought back memories of undergrad naturalist nerd biological science classes in the 70’s)
Many interpretive moments were being lost. It was obvious that interest was piqued at various points for different people yet there was a pressure to keep moving due to sheer numbers of people. Reinforcement of interest could not be capitalized on. Successful from a numbers through the door perspective but what does the visitor takeaway? How do you stay connected with them in the future?
With meteoric public exposure through Lange Nacht promotion to museum spaces, and with visitors realizing what was still to be experienced - would that stimulate people to come back? This is a very worthwhile question to have evaluated through a survey.
Note the 2-d turtle skeletons above the cabinets like works of art-also different forms of plastic are clothesline strung from the ceiling making a point about turtle ingestion issue (I think … perhaps an exhibit in progress)
Takeaways for me:
if you are in need of a rejuvenation of visitor numbers or change in your same-old visitor types try an admission time changer
sites should consider extending their hours on occasion definitely into the evening to draw a different crowd
sites should experiment more with one-occasion, non-normal time blocks like early morning for instance
a range of heritage sites in close proximity of each other could think about working together more often with same day joint admission opportunities, especially during slow times
facilities should incorporate a food fair of different types in their public spaces as inclusive promotion for their regional ethnic communities
big heritage sites need to work together with small sites to raise their profile in the community on specific days with joint shuttle availability
don’t forget to design a method to follow-up with the new visitor base you attracted (don’t let them slip through your fingers)
beware of overcrowding and have planned contingency visitor dispersion techniques
allow yourself time for occasional exhibit observation times to gauge visitor interest spots to guide your decision-making for future interaction stations
OK blogpost reader it is your turn to send in your spark of inspiration to us based on reading of this post.