Sometimes I feel like I am two people, museum-wise. Take today for example. Between the AAM webinar on Excellence and Equity and class tonight, I spent about 7 hours thinking about audience advocacy, civic dialogue, the role of education, etc. All good, soul-edifying things.
But I also spent several hours working on things to drive revenue, and ways to get parents to pony up cash for premium experiences.
And I should probably feel bad about that, but I really don't.
So, I guess what I am wondering, is this: Is it ok to play both roles? Can you advocate for audiences and still play the business angle? I think my response is yes.
I sometimes feel like a broken record in class. When in a classroom full of students and often professors for whom museum work is largely still theorhetical, I feel I need to remind them that museums are an odd combination of business and educational/cultural institution. People always seem to forget the business end of things.
The modern museum is constantly faced with a need to compete for your constantly decreasing free time. We need to keep you coming in the doors. LIke it or not, the money you give to museums, through tickets, donations, retail and food service, helps us not only keep the doors open, but care for collections and continue our mission.
So how do I reconcile championing things like photo sales and face painting - and charging for them- with my passion for audiences and education? It's not always easy. I almost have to be two people, part savvy businesswoman who looks at theme parks and malls and says "what a great idea!" and part subversive educator who looks at websites and tiny museums and library programs and says "what a great idea!" When I am lucky, the two things meet up. When I am not, they juxtapose in ways that are uncomfortable.
I cannot say that I am sorry for thinking of ways to generate revenue. It is not my intention to nickle and dime visitors. I can only hope that what we are coming up with is an experience that is beyond a simple retail transaction. I hope that I manage to balance the two sides of my personality.
Anyone out there have similar experiences? Or thoughts?
Links for a talk on crowdsourcing at UCL
3 months ago
2 comments:
All I can say is, most of the local museums have offered BOTH for a very long time, and now it's pretty much an expectation:
- Basic exhibits are always there and always enjoyable without having to pay extra.
- Special exhibits and "perks" are always available, too, for a bit of extra cash, but they aren't necessary for people who just want to have a nice, relatively inexpensive day at the museum.
I know other people probably feel differently about this -- but while I admit to feeling a bit disappointed about not being able to indulge in certain things on the days I was cash-poor, it never affected my decision to attend or not to attend the museum in question. It helps that Indianapolis has completely AWESOME museums to begin with!
Yes Mrs. Hyde there is a dark side. The bottom line? Museums, altruistic though they may seem, must live in this 21st century economically driven world. It means walking the line between crass commercialism and quality erudition. As long as you don't have too many scavenger hunts (ahem) and make sure that the penny presser and the sit-on-Santa's-lap-photos have some connection to place and memory of the place, then I think you are doing okay.
In my time I saw a goodly number of Halloween events for pre-schoolers top 750 people each at 5 different events, all at $10 a pop. This professor knows a thing or two. :)
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