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I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.  

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

I don't have any of my own data, but I thought of this article when I saw your post (hope it helps) ....
Special Exhibits vs. Permanent Collections (DATA) - Colleen Dilenschneider

Colleen Dilenschneider		remove preview
Special Exhibits vs. Permanent Collections (DATA) - Colleen Dilenschneider Special exhibits do no't do what many cultural organizations think that they do. In fact, they often do the opposite. The prospect of hosting special exhibits - and blockbuster exhibits, in particular - often makes exhibit-based cultural organizations excited. TheyRead More › View this on Colleen Dilenschneider >

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Amanda Vance
Curator
Texas City Museum
Texas City TX
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 10:37 AM
From: David Beard
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

Thanks Amanda.  Our museum could never accommodate a "blockbuster" in any event.  But the institution suffers from literally decades of stagnation and flat visitation.  It was a Once and Done, been there, done that, bought the tee shirt experience.  In many ways my intent for building a changing/traveling exhibit schedule is to cultivate more locals to become Members, therefore adding value to their membership with new exhibits. My board's delusions that new exhibits can be quantified in terms of cost/return is where I am struggling with them.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-11-2018 03:28 PM
From: Amanda Vance
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I don't have any of my own data, but I thought of this article when I saw your post (hope it helps) ....
Special Exhibits vs. Permanent Collections (DATA) - Colleen Dilenschneider

Colleen Dilenschneider		remove preview
Special Exhibits vs. Permanent Collections (DATA) - Colleen Dilenschneider Special exhibits do no't do what many cultural organizations think that they do. In fact, they often do the opposite. The prospect of hosting special exhibits - and blockbuster exhibits, in particular - often makes exhibit-based cultural organizations excited. TheyRead More › View this on Colleen Dilenschneider >

------------------------------
Amanda Vance
Curator
Texas City Museum
Texas City TX

Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 10:37 AM
From: David Beard
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

As a state park interpretive center with a small exhibit gallery (perhaps 4,000 sq. ft. of space when you count nooks and crannies), our reason for being is interpreting a large Devonian fossil bed. Filled with static (non-interactive) exhibits and plummeting attendance, I developed a plan for temporary exhibits - mostly made in-house. (My previous career was at a science center and I worked with many traveling exhibits.)

We did one photo contest-based exhibit (waterfalls), celebrated the bicentennial of John James Audubon at our park, fishing, many were paleontology-themed, and even rented a traveling exhibit called "Fossil Art." Attendance was rarely boosted to any statically significant level, but it kept our name "out there" in the community. Our only "blockbuster" was a full-building dinosaur exhibit that saw our visitation increase by 60%. When we had a similar exhibit two years later there was no increase.

So what do we do at our park now? Our museum underwent a complete renovation of our exhibit gallery in 2015. We opened in 2016 with more interactives - and no room for even a small temporary exhibit. I have shifted my effort toward creating more new programs. Attendance varies with equal publicity: we had 240 come for a one-hour geode program in January! (Who knew?) Last year I had one on 'photographing nature with your smart phone' that had no one attended. That will continue for the foreseeable future.

From the perspective of a visitor: my family has gone to museums both local and in nearby cities (two-hour radius) to see special exhibits. But my family is really into movies so those exhibits included the Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Star Wars (costumes) and Titanic (about the ship, not the movie). Most other type of extra-fee exhibits do not attract my family's interest, even if it's local.

Consider other activities to increase visitation if temporary exhibits don't work.

------------------------------
Alan Goldstein
Interpretive Naturalist, CIP
Falls of the Ohio State Park / Interpretive Center
Clarksville IN
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 10:37 AM
From: David Beard
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

You might want to see if ILE has some useful data on this:

Informal Learning Experiences, Inc.

Informallearning		remove preview
Informal Learning Experiences, Inc. Informal learning environments -- including but not limited to museums, zoos, nature centers, cultural centers, and numerous out-of-school paces -- give people of all ages the opportunity to be engaged and inspired as they learn about a topic particularly through their varied interactions with objects and people. Informal Learning Experiences, Inc. View this on Informallearning >

Trying to quantify the impacts of traveling exhibits on potential visitor numbers seems like trying to hit a moving target, as results can be so variable from place to place.  I've seen some instances of huge increases for smaller and mid-size museums, but I think the question becomes whether any temporary exhibit would have had this effect, or if that (specific) exhibit is what was driving the numbers up.  In those instances of great success, the common theme seems to be content that reaches beyond the scope of the museum's own collections, offering visitors something that the museum by itself could never offer.  Traveling exhibits have become a solution for many museums seeking to maintain interest and support from their own communities.  When there's always something new at the museum, people are more likely to visit, and to become members. 

A reality that is less apparent from the outside is that many museums today simply have limited exhibit production capabilities.  Some have only one or two exhibits technicians on staff, and minimal space and equipment for fabrication.  Some of the big historic museums once had painters, sculptors, taxidermists, metalsmiths, carpenters, and other creative professionals in-house, but today even they are often reliant on external contractors for exhibit production.  Perhaps the cost structure of renting exhibits from someone else is more favorable than retaining the talent needed for continually producing exhibits in-house.  I've seen instances of small teams of skilled and creative staff members producing top quality exhibit content, but that scenario doesn't happen unless the museum makes in-house exhibit production a facilities and funding priority and is able to gather the resources to support it. 

     Happy Friday,

          Michael

------------------------------
Michael Holland
Principal/Owner
Michael Holland Productions

Redmond, WA USA
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-12-2018 10:17 AM
From: Alan Goldstein
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

As a state park interpretive center with a small exhibit gallery (perhaps 4,000 sq. ft. of space when you count nooks and crannies), our reason for being is interpreting a large Devonian fossil bed. Filled with static (non-interactive) exhibits and plummeting attendance, I developed a plan for temporary exhibits - mostly made in-house. (My previous career was at a science center and I worked with many traveling exhibits.)

We did one photo contest-based exhibit (waterfalls), celebrated the bicentennial of John James Audubon at our park, fishing, many were paleontology-themed, and even rented a traveling exhibit called "Fossil Art." Attendance was rarely boosted to any statically significant level, but it kept our name "out there" in the community. Our only "blockbuster" was a full-building dinosaur exhibit that saw our visitation increase by 60%. When we had a similar exhibit two years later there was no increase.

So what do we do at our park now? Our museum underwent a complete renovation of our exhibit gallery in 2015. We opened in 2016 with more interactives - and no room for even a small temporary exhibit. I have shifted my effort toward creating more new programs. Attendance varies with equal publicity: we had 240 come for a one-hour geode program in January! (Who knew?) Last year I had one on 'photographing nature with your smart phone' that had no one attended. That will continue for the foreseeable future.

From the perspective of a visitor: my family has gone to museums both local and in nearby cities (two-hour radius) to see special exhibits. But my family is really into movies so those exhibits included the Lord of the Rings, The Hunger Games, Star Wars (costumes) and Titanic (about the ship, not the movie). Most other type of extra-fee exhibits do not attract my family's interest, even if it's local.

Consider other activities to increase visitation if temporary exhibits don't work.

------------------------------
Alan Goldstein
Interpretive Naturalist, CIP
Falls of the Ohio State Park / Interpretive Center
Clarksville IN

Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 10:37 AM
From: David Beard
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------

Hi David,

I am the Visitor Experience Coordinator at a small nature center in Park City, UT. In the past few years, we have started to bring in traveling exhibitions and currently, we have our first traveling exhibition with an admission fee. Luckily for us, we have about 2,500 square feet of space that can be reconfigured to house these exhibitions. 

In my experience, photo exhibitions and those aimed at adults do not increase visitation by much. However, exhibitions that are kid friendly and have lots of interactive components have definitely increased our visitation. We are a suggested donation for entry <g class="gr_ gr_2770 gr-alert gr_gramm gr_inline_cards gr_run_anim Punctuation only-del replaceWithoutSep" id="2770" data-gr-id="2770">center,</g> but decided with the most recent exhibit that we would charge a fee just for the exhibition to help to cover the costs of hosting that exhibition. This "Art and Science of Arachnids" exhibition boasts 100 live arachnids and a series of interactive components. The exhibit opened on September 15, 2018 and our visitor numbers for September 2018 were 165% higher than our visitation for Sept. 2018. (We went from 509 visitors in 2017 to 1,350 visitors in 2018). We also increased our advertising efforts during this exhibition. Feel free to reach out to me if you would like more info about where our visitors are coming from and how we are marketing the exhibit. 

Last spring we had a small special exhibit about insects called "Small Wonders" that increased our visitation by 166% in comparison to the same time period the year before. 

I highly suggest hosting traveling exhibitions if you can make them work. There are options for small museums out there and even if you feel like you can't afford it, it's never a bad idea to reach out to the exhibit company to see if they have options for smaller museums at a lower cost. I would also suggest planning to do as much advertising as possible, If people don't know about it they won't come.

More info about the traveling exhibits we have hosted can be found here: http://www.swanerecocenter.org/preserve_ecocenter/ecocenter_activities/exhibits

Feel free to reach out with questions!

------------------------------
Hunter Klingensmith
Visitor Experience coordinator
Swaner Preserve and EcoCenter
Park City UT
------------------------------

Original Message:
Sent: 10-04-2018 10:37 AM
From: David Beard
Subject: Visitation Increases for New/Traveling Exhibits

I am looking for some general input from other museums on whether or not the average new or traveling exhibits you have increase visitation in any significant way.  Large "blockbuster" exhibits like Titanic or King Tut are always a big draw and allow an upcharge to boot.  But most of us will never be able to either afford or have space for most of these.  My personal experience at seven museums has been not much of a bump.  Statistically insignificant, actually.  It seems that the opening receptions are a big draw and count toward visitation, but those are not the general audience.  An exception was at a small, local museum that dusted off an old exhibit about interesting ruins exposed in a local reservoir during a drought.  This was, however, THE local museum and FREE to boot!

Can any of you give me any examples of any percentage increase that you note for your new/traveling exhibits?  My board seems to think there is some magic formula that I can use to predict the ROI for future exhibits.

Thanks in advance.

------------------------------
David Beard
Executive Director
USS KIDD Veterans Memorial Museum
Baton Rouge LA
------------------------------