Where are Your Museum's "Fans" on Super Bowl Sunday?

Super Bowl Sunday will be a great day to visit your local museum --- because it will be even quieter than usual. 

Why are so many people, even folks who don't normally follow football, more rabidly enthusiastic about watching the "Big Game" or attending a local Super Bowl event than visiting your museum?

  

I'd say one possible answer lies in finding the difference between a "fan" and a "casual visitor."  Fans wear logo gear all year long and have no compunction in excitedly telling total strangers how great their team is.

So how can museums create more "fans" and expand their demographic reach as well?  

Places like the City Museum in St. Louis have set out to be gathering spots for their local communities and have opened up to all sorts of fun ideas that are edgy enough to attract a wide, enthusiastic audience of repeat visitors who definitely become City Museum fans.

Of course, all this talk of creating "museum fans" is pointless if your museum isn't really fan-worthy.  Is your admissions procedure torture?  Do you create core exhibits and attractions that are worth revisiting, or do you depend on the hucksterism of events that are only vaguely related to your museum's mission and purpose?  What are the obstacles that prevent your visitors from becoming fans?

Let's see if we can create more museum fans. 

  

GO MUSEUMS!

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Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

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Where are your Museum's "Fans" on Super Bowl Sunday?

Super Bowl Sunday will be a great day to visit your local museum --- because it will be even quieter than usual. 

Why are so many people, even folks who don't normally follow football, more rabidly enthusiastic about watching the "Big Game" or attending a local Super Bowl event than visiting your museum?

  

I'd say one possible answer lies in finding the difference between a "fan" and a "casual visitor."   Fans wear logo gear all year long and have no compunction in excitedly telling total strangers how great their team is.

So how can museums create more "fans" and expand their demographic reach as well?  

Places like the City Museum in St. Louis have set out to become a gathering spot for their local communities and have become open to all sorts of fun ideas that are edgy enough to attract a wide and enthusiastic audience of repeat visitors who definitely become City Museum fans.

Of course, all this talk of creating "museum fans" is pointless if your museum isn't really fan-worthy.  Is your admissions procedure torture?  Do you create core exhibits and attractions that are worth revisiting, or do you depend on the hucksterism of events that are only vaguely related to your museum's mission and purpose?  What are the obstacles that prevent your visitors from becoming fans?

Let's see if we can create more museum fans. 

  

GO MUSEUMS!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

Paul Orselli writes the posts on ExhibiTricks. Paul likes to combine interesting people, ideas, and materials to make exhibits (and entire museums!) with his company POW! (Paul Orselli Workshop, Inc.) Let's work on a project together!

If you enjoy the blog, you can help keep it free to read and free from ads by supporting ExhibiTricks through our PayPal "Tip Jar"

Museum Super Bowl Day?

Super Bowl Sunday will be a great day to visit your local museum --- because it will be even quieter than usual. 

Why are so many people, even folks who don't normally follow football, more rabidly enthusiastic about watching the "Big Game" or attending a local Super Bowl event, than visiting your museum?
Have you ever seen someone outside a museum scalping tickets to get inside?  

I'd say one possible answer lies in finding the difference between a "fan" and a "casual visitor."   Fans wear logo gear all year long and have no compunction in excitedly telling total strangers how great their team is.  The National Football league is, as recent news reports have detailed, even going after a traditionally neglected demographic, women 18 to 49, with great success.

So how can museums create more "fans" and expand their demographic reach as well?  

Places like The City Museum in St. Louis have set out to become a gathering spot for their local communities and have become open to all sorts of fun ideas that are edgy enough to attract a wide, and enthusiastic audience of repeat visitors who definitely become City Museum fans.

Of course all this talk of creating "museum fans" is pointless if your museum isn't really fan-worthy.  Is your admissions procedure torture?  Do you create core exhibits and attractions that are worth revisiting, or do you depend on the hucksterism of events that are only vaguely related to your museum's mission and purpose?  What are the obstacles that prevent your visitors from becoming fans?

Let's see if we can create more museum fans.   

GO MUSEUMS!

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Sign up for Free ExhibiTricks Blog Updates" link on the upper right side of the blog.

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Some People Just Don't Like Museums. Is That A Problem?

I've been thinking a lot about museum visitors lately, and how to shift them from being passive viewers and to turn them into museum fans.  (I've written about this before in previous posts here and here.)

It's hard for some museum workers to accept, but there are some people who just don't like museums. Is that a problem?  And if it is, what are the best solutions?

Even if they could get in for free, some folks just don't seem to click with museums.  Just like some people don't like football or opera or amusement parks. 

The difference between museums and those other things, though, is that often museum workers really, really think that there should be ways (if we only try hard enough!) to get those museophobes to change their attitudes about visiting museums.  Maybe so.  But should we change to create museum converts, or better spend our time trying to build on our existing strengths?

It seems that places like The City Museum or The American Visionary Art Museum (to name two of my favorite examples) just keep trying to forge unique paths with a strong institutional ethos rather than getting tangled up in parsing different demographic groups.  And as a result, they develop a wide range of fans who are so excited about those institutions that they make a point of telling other people to visit, too.

What does it mean to be truly welcoming to the widest possible audience for museums without merely pandering to different communities by dumping a bunch of free passes on them?

Maybe the best way to attract a wider audience is to start on the inside and take a hard look at ways to become truly fan-worthy, instead of trying to wheedle or cajole people to step in from the outside.



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Wanted: Museum "Fans"

How would museum staffers do things differently if they were trying to increase the number of museum "fans" instead of "customers" or "guests" or "visitors"?

I mean "fans" like those who attend college football games or people who stay at the Mandarin Oriental Hotels or who line up at midnight to buy Harry Potter books.

It will be a great day when museums become so popular that people are scalping admissions tickets outside instead of shuffling around half-empty exhibit halls.

But until then, how do we create more museum "fans"? Give us your best ideas in the Comments Section below.

Don't miss out on any ExhibiTricks posts! It's easy to get updates via email or your favorite news reader. Just click the "Free Updates" link on the right side of the blog.

P.S. If you receive ExhibiTricks via email you will need to click HERE to go to the main ExhibiTricks page to make comments or view multimedia features (like movies!)