How to Bring in More Guests to Your Museum Using Audio Visual Displays
July 2, 2021
As with most industries in the 21st century, the advent of technology and the digital age has changed the way we do pretty much everything. From how we shop, travel, and book tickets to online banking and connecting with loved ones, technology has fully transformed our lives inside and out.
Museums are no exception to these changes. With a generation born on smart technology and customers with growing expectations, the onus is on museums to provide a more engaging, innovative, and interactive experience that brings together the intersections of art, history, and science with the wonders of technology.
Across the world, museums are turning to audio visual technologies to bolster their exhibits and reinvent the way that their guests experience art, artifacts, history, the sciences, and more.
What is audio visual technology in museums?
Audio visual technology (AV) is, simply, electronic media that has a sound and visual component. For museums, however, this could mean a number of things.
For a museum exhibit, an AV display could be an immersive digital experience, virtual reality experience, augmented reality, or interactive rooms with digital walls and ceilings, among others.
It’s important for museums to stick to their core values when implementing audio visual technologies into their exhibits: raising awareness around the importance and necessity of culture in society, education, advocating for tolerance, preservation of treasured artifacts, innovation, leadership, and so much more.
AV exhibits aren’t about overshadowing any of these core values. In fact, AV technology is often a great way to complement these values and bolster your organization’s mission.
Below we’ll get into some of the best ways you can implement AV technology to make exciting exhibits, along with some of our favorite examples in the museum world today.
AV museum designs
There are a number of tried and true methods to create fun and engaging AV museum designs, and with new technologies and more creativity, museums are finding more ways to implement AV to their exhibits every day.
Below are a few ways you can start using AV in your museum today.
- Interactive maps – Interactive digital maps come in many shapes and sizes. Digital maps can be sprawled across walls and ceilings, or they can be displayed on smaller platforms, ready to be touched by passing visitors.
- The Historic New Orleans Collection recently created an interactive map as a 3D model. The map highlights historic buildings found through the French Quarter, allowing visitors to click, zoom in, and learn about the architecture and layout of the city.
- Story telling – Whether people are admiring a piece of art, looking into a scientific discovery, or unearthing artifacts from ancient civilizations, they want to know the stories behind the exhibit. They want to know how these cultural wonders were brought into existence. AV and digital experiences have completely changed the way museums can tell stories and provide insight into the narratives that bring our world together.
- On the one-hundred-year anniversary of King Tut’s Tomb, IMG and the California Science Center teamed up to create an immersive digital tour of the artifacts surrounding King Tut’s tomb as well as King Tut’s mummification process. A large projection warp screen, state-of-the-art sound system, and an immersive narrator all worked together to create a unique, story-driven experience.
- Audio tours/listening experiences – Recent years have seen museums take large strides in their audio tour and listening experience options. Audio tours are now easily downloadable through apps, and museums are finding ways to make these tours more engaging, like including scavenger hunts into audio experiences.
- Media Combo has created a unique museum experience that brings together the traditional audio tour with the interactive edge of augmented reality. Visitors can watch portraits come to life, windows open to historic scenes, and historic figures make appearances before their eyes.
- Games – One of the biggest challenges in the early days of the digital area was getting visitors off their phones and ensuring no photos were being taken. Today, museums are going in a different direction. Phones are being implemented for tours, augmented reality experiences, and interactive games that place guests at the center of the visiting experience
- The MicroRangers competition allows visitors to solve fun, science-based problems at the microscopic level. Intended for children 8 and above, this mobile-based game turns guests into MicroRangers, where they can solve one of nine MicroCrises alongside “real” scientists.
Audio visual technology has completely transformed the way we interact with art, history, and the sciences in museums, and so long as technology continues to evolve, so too will our ability to create new and exciting museum experiences.
Generate excitement, attract non-traditional visitors, and reinvigorate your exhibits with an innovative audio visual museum experience.
ACME Ticketing gives you the tools to thrive
A lot of the innovations that are reaching museums will be a matter of trial and error. Because so much of the technology and experiences are new, it will take a lot of data and information to learn what resonates with guests and what doesn’t.
This is where having a cutting-edge ticketing and member management solution, like ACME, can help you immensely. ACME’s CRM allows you to track visiting patterns and create long-lasting relationships with guests that will keep them coming back.
Simplify the way you manage your ticketing, membership, and communication needs with ACME today.