Animal Zoo Art
From planning events in the digital age to back-to-school discounts, zoos are constantly looking for new ways to attract visitors, generate excitement, and increase visitor engagement.
Visitor and member engagement through events or local collaborations serves several mission-statement purposes. It helps keep doors open, which leads to more resources to care for animals and act as an educational resource to the public, and it allows zoos to form closer bonds with their local communities and partner with organizations for the future.
And this isn’t always easy. In the slower seasons, like winter and fall, it might be harder to build traffic and keep your visitors/members engaged. This is where outside-the-box becomes necessary to meet the demands of your institution.
One exciting and creative way to increase visitor engagement is through animal zoo art. By hosting different kinds of art-related zoo events and bringing in art through your doors, you can cultivate more community and creativity within your park.
Zoos and Art: Ways to incorporate Art into The zoo going experience
Not surprisingly, there are a number of ways that zoos are incorporating art into their parks. The park itself is one large venu, which gives you plenty of space and opportunity to place art and hold outdoor exhibits. Below we’ll look at some of the best ways you can incorporate art into your zoo.
- Paintings/artwork of animals
- You can host small exhibits within your doors and around your park. Hold an art contest themed around a new animal arrival or baby arrival. You can announce a winner, host an event, and place all the art in an allocated area in your park. This zoo in Virginia found that among the most photographed and shared objects in their park was a life-sized elephant sculpture made of 6,000 aluminum butterflies. Not only was the piece a wonder to look at, it was great fun for visitors, and generated its own buzz on social media that, no doubt, helped engage and attract more visitors. Bring in sculptures, paintings, and other artistic objects to attract a wide array of guests.
- Paintings done by animals
- The Woodland Park Zoo in Seattle claims that humans aren’t the only ones with artistic talents. Zoo spokesman say that when given the opportunity to create art, some animals are more artistically inclined than others. While their animals aren’t always willing to engage in art, some animals, like the park’s orangutan, produce a large amount of artwork. One of those pieces sold on eBay for $1,300. Whether you’re selling art made by animals or simply displaying at your venu or online, you can be sure to generate excitement, engage visitors, and increase traffic to your park by allowing your animals to create their own artwork.
- Art done at the zoo
- One of the ways you can partner up with community members is to hold interactive art courses in your park for your patrons. Bring in a few art instructors, and hold short workshops where guests can draw their favorite animals, landscapes, portraits, and more. When holding an event like this, it’s important to have control of the volume of guests and managing systems, which is what ACME’s timed ticketing features will help you optimize. You can create a safe space for your art even by controlling the flow of visitors through your managing system.
Reasons to incorporate art into the zoo going experience
If you’re not yet sold on incorporating art into the zoo-going experience, consider the below benefits of how art can help transform your zoo into a creative space and increase your member and visitor count.
- Art presents an opportunity for you to creatively show the value and importance of nature in our culture. You can highlight particular issues of importance, like rainforest conservation or a species in danger, through a compelling piece of art that highlights that issue.
- Art allows you to tap into a different visitor base. People who might be moderately interested in visiting the zoo might be excited by the idea of engaging in an artistic event. Incorporating art in your zoo essentially allows you to widen your visitor and member net.
- The great thing about art is that it’s not limited to age or background. Everyone in the family can get involved, which makes it a safe pick to create an event around anytime of year.
- Use art as a catalyst for education. You can accompany an artistic event, say “Art in North Pole,” with a guest speaker to talk about the importance of the species living there, the effects of climate change, and what visitors can do to help. Education and art are a great point of union because it allows people to engage with the subject matter they’re learning in a fun and memorable way.
- You can get closer to your local community. Whether you team up with an art museum, a school, or nationally recognized organization, zoos need to build partnerships for growth; art can provide that sense of community and camaraderie.
ACME can help you turn art into members
Planning your art event is only half the battle. You have to execute, which is where an advanced ticketing and visitor management systems comes into play.
With paperless ticketing, time ticketing, cloud-based features, and membership management, you can stay on top of your tickets, sales, marketing, and other organizational needs.
Try ACME today to see how you can incorporate art into your zoo.