Open Forum

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums. 

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets. 

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------

Valerie, 

On our busiest days we have been using two employees with a counter app installed on tablets: one stationed at the entrance to a gallery and one stationed at the exit. The app keeps a count of how many people are in the gallery at any given time and if we are getting close to our reduced capacity, we ask folks to view another gallery for a few minutes until there is adequate space for social distancing in the main gallery. We haven't had too many folks express any annoyance at the inconvenience (it usually only takes a few minutes.)

Best,
Emily

Emily Monsted
Advancement Data & Donor Relations Manager
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester, VA 22601


------------------------------
Emily Monsted
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 04:51 PM
From: Valerie Seiber
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums.

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets.

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------

Hi Emily, 

Thank you, for sharing how your museum is navigating this challenge. Do you mind sharing what app you are using for this purpose? We have been using timed ticketing for general attendance inside our two main galleries, but will need something else in place for our special exhibit gallery this summer. An app that is easy to use and just maintain guest totals could be suitable for our needs. 

Great thread all! Thank you for sharing.

------------------------------
Megan Osetek
Interpretation Manager
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
Kalamazoo MI
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-17-2021 08:12 AM
From: Emily Monsted
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Valerie,

On our busiest days we have been using two employees with a counter app installed on tablets: one stationed at the entrance to a gallery and one stationed at the exit. The app keeps a count of how many people are in the gallery at any given time and if we are getting close to our reduced capacity, we ask folks to view another gallery for a few minutes until there is adequate space for social distancing in the main gallery. We haven't had too many folks express any annoyance at the inconvenience (it usually only takes a few minutes.)

Best,
Emily

Emily Monsted
Advancement Data & Donor Relations Manager
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester, VA 22601


------------------------------
Emily Monsted
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester VA

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 04:51 PM
From: Valerie Seiber
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums.

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets.

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------

Megan, 

The app is called Tally, I believe it's this one: https://agiletortoise.com/tally/

Emily

------------------------------
Emily Monsted
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester VA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-18-2021 12:45 PM
From: Megan Osetek
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hi Emily,

Thank you, for sharing how your museum is navigating this challenge. Do you mind sharing what app you are using for this purpose? We have been using timed ticketing for general attendance inside our two main galleries, but will need something else in place for our special exhibit gallery this summer. An app that is easy to use and just maintain guest totals could be suitable for our needs.

Great thread all! Thank you for sharing.

------------------------------
Megan Osetek
Interpretation Manager
Kalamazoo Valley Museum
Kalamazoo MI

Original Message:
Sent: 03-17-2021 08:12 AM
From: Emily Monsted
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Valerie,

On our busiest days we have been using two employees with a counter app installed on tablets: one stationed at the entrance to a gallery and one stationed at the exit. The app keeps a count of how many people are in the gallery at any given time and if we are getting close to our reduced capacity, we ask folks to view another gallery for a few minutes until there is adequate space for social distancing in the main gallery. We haven't had too many folks express any annoyance at the inconvenience (it usually only takes a few minutes.)

Best,
Emily

Emily Monsted
Advancement Data & Donor Relations Manager
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester, VA 22601


------------------------------
Emily Monsted
Museum of the Shenandoah Valley
Winchester VA

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 04:51 PM
From: Valerie Seiber
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums.

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets.

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------

Hi Valerie,

we are seeing somewhat "normal attendance" coming around this season. We have timed tickets in place in the case that we do start to see our very near normal but right now we have one entrance open for visitors to open and signs before entering/in the lobby for visitors to purchase online tickets. This allows us to scan their admission and enter quickly rather than waiting in a line for a cashier. We're a large museum so our 25% capacity at any given time can be nearly 4,000. So we have sort of "blocks" in place on top of that to wear we can have 4,000 in the morning and just about a 3,000 in the afternoon. Hopefully this information helps. What other museums in our areas are doing is the blocks as well, using their "average spend time" and adding more tickets to their day after each of those times. Also happy to hop on a chat if you have any questions!

Best,
Michael Padilla
Visitor Services Team Leader
Field Museum, Chicago
mpadilla@fieldmuseum.org

------------------------------
Michael Padilla
Visitor Services Team Leader
Field Museum of Natural History
Chicago IL
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 04:51 PM
From: Valerie Seiber
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums.

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets.

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------

Hi Valerie,
We looked into software options for timed ticketing, but found it all to be too complicated to implement with our existing Point of Sale; integrating walk-ins with pre-purchased tickets; and having to teach our docents (who are all volunteers and tech-wary) another system for admissions. 
Instead, we decided to have a waiting period between parties (initially 10 minutes, but not strict depending on the previous visitors exit from our main room). We then set up a somewhat labyrinthine entry area to direct people and keep them separated in 3 areas while waiting. We used movable display fences for this, so we also hung photos to give them something to do while waiting. We are fortunate that our main entry area is a somewhat large room (we are in an historic house), so we were able to accomplish this.
It's not perfect, and people still get jammed up in other areas, but it's the best we could do without having our docents become "hall monitors". We certainly don't have enough volunteers who have returned to do that; and, we believe our visitors bear some responsibility to respect other visitors. It's been working out for us, and our visitors are very understanding.
This is a great question, and I hope others respond, too. I'm sure there are some great solutions people have come up with!

------------------------------
Janeen Trevillyan
Director
Sedona Heritage Museum
Sedona AZ
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 03-16-2021 04:51 PM
From: Valerie Seiber
Subject: Crowd Control Without Timed Tickets

Hello!

What methods or strategies are other museums using to help control admission crowds other than pre-paid time tickets?  I'm interested in both what has worked and what hasn't worked for your museums.

We are anticipating some very busy days around the Easter holiday and are already close to our reduced occupancy rates for our state. On "normal" days we don't really need to implement timed tickets.

Many thanks in advance,
Valerie

------------------------------
Valerie Seiber
Senior Manager, Historical Collections and Exhibitions
The Hershey Story: The Museum on Chocolate Avenue
Hershey, PA
------------------------------