We also use a combination of BYOD, our recorded guided tour, provide a tablet if needed, and most treasured - actors leading tours (they shift between first and third person during presentation).
Given the costs analyzed and charted of all providers we opted to purchase $40.00 tablets at Best Buy and encase them in children's thick rubberized holders (drop resistant). Essentially, our tour is recorded as an .mp3 and available on our website as a clickable via our provided tablet or your cell phone. A guest can stop and start it as they move along. You can also provide earbuds if you like, or pending your space and sound elements (considering annoyance to others) allow the guest to play it out loud.
It's important to ensure your speaker records the tour loudly into the microphone of whatever recording device that is used. In our case, we used a cell phone and free recording app. On the day we started we established, uploaded, and immediately made available our cell phone and tablet tours within four hours, which included the recording and upload time. We put a link to the tour on our site (just click, we tell folks!).
To avoid saturation of the WiFi node in our museum we also put that .mp3 directly onto the tablets so they DID NOT require a connection. Some small, thoughtful signs also help folks on the walls.
We considered many providers, including solutions of up to $30K establishment and installation fees. These also included master actors with voice overs and pantomime recordings, back and forth, to "listen in" on the events of the day. Some were cellular carrier based solutions. Maintenance fees and rerecording fees, as the museum would shift exhibits and spatial dynamics over time, are stiff. Your trustees and board will sit up in their chairs when they consider the pricing. In some museums, the cost won't be a factor as they are flush. However, corrections and updates to the recording would take time from the vendor - as would bringing in those actors all over again or re-mastering the recording in studio (more money all the time).
I found the costs, and sluggish nature of it all, to be wasteful and imprudent. Instead, our team recorded our own script, interjected historical audio clips and more with Presidents and First ladies talking out loud, as well as our own sound effects (think 1940's radio shows!).
Our cost for the entire project was four hours time and $300.00 - TOTAL. We then offered cell and tablet tours beginning that afternoon.
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Thank you, from Marti
Martin CJ Mongiello, MBA, MA, MCFE.
CEO and CMO at The United States Presidential Service Center Foundation Trusts and US Presidential Culinary Museum. White House Military Office badge number 14592, 301 Cleveland Avenue, Grover, NC 28073
001 (704) 937-2940
www.PresidentialServiceCenter.orgwww.PresidentialCulinaryMuseum.orgGM of The Inn of the Patriots country inn
www.TheInnofthePatriots.com"Enjoy a night at the museum!"
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Original Message:
Sent: 02-25-2020 04:45 AM
From: Vivian Zoë
Subject: Mobile devices: rental or BYOD?
From anecdotal evidence, I would agree with Jared and take it a step further (since we do). When given the option, visitors will more often select a human guide (docent/interpreter) than App OR museum-offered (free of charge in our case) device.
Vivian F. Zoë, Director
Slater Memorial Museum
108 Crescent Street, Norwich CT 06360
860-425-5560 vox
860-885-0379 fax
"Inspiration is for amateurs - the rest of us just show up and get to work," Chuck Close, 2003
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Original Message------
I forgot to mention that the ideal is to offer the tour in as many possible platforms as possible. Good content should be platform agnostic and adaptable. The reality is that there is an audience that will take a device but not use and app and vice versa. If there is resources to have an app and a device option that is ideal. If there is pressure internally for an app, you can still provide the tour on devices at the museum by providing the same app on multimedia devices that are museum appropriate but can still run the app.
Let me know if you need additional information.
-Jared
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Jared Crellin
Account Director
ListenUp Audio
Atlanta GA
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