Creative Ways To Drive Revenue – Outdoors!
February 3, 2021
California recently lifted the stay-at-home order, allowing museums, zoos, and aquariums to open their outdoor operations immediately. Although they cannot operate at full capacity, this is a positive step in bringing arts and culture back into our lives after a very difficult and very long year. If you are a museum, zoo, or aquarium that is fortunate enough to have adequate outdoor space, now is the time to get creative! Now more than ever, people are looking for safe places to visit with their families and friends – places to escape to, places to get inspired by, and places that will excite them. Below are some creative ways you can turn your institution into one of these places!
A Drive Through For The Whole Crew
When you think of things like a drive-in movie or a drive-in restaurant, it sounds old school, right? Well not anymore! Drive-ins (or throughs!) are the latest and safest way to visit all your favorite places, and one of the only ways to experience an event these days. If you have the outdoor space, try to reimagine all of the events that you would normally host, but make them accessible from a car. For example, you can host a drive-through “night at the zoo” or “zoo lights”. If you want to make it interactive, you can offer a drive-through scavenger hunt from the safety of your car. Create a scavenger hunt list that is available online from any smartphone, and have your visitors search your museum, zoo, or garden for certain animals, species of flowers, or hidden symbols in the artwork. Who doesn’t love a good (and slightly competitive) game?
For larger-scale events, if you have a parking lot available, think about things like outdoor concerts where everyone stays in or around their car. You can host educational workshops outside, invite local musicians, artists, comedians, etc. to come to perform at your venue outdoors, and even offer self-guided (via a downloadable audio tour) tours or scavenger hunts.
Another fun event idea is to host a drive-in movie! We have all been watching movies from our couches for almost a year now, who wouldn’t love to switch it up and come watch a movie under the stars, amongst the trees, or with the animals! Encourage them to bring snacks and blankets and make it an event the whole family can enjoy.
How To Manage These New Events
All of these new and innovative ways of generating revenue are wonderful, however, you must make sure that you have the proper foundation to support this modern way of operating. You have to think about things like advanced reservations, capacity management, automatic ticket validation, automatic ticket rebooking, no-touch entry, no-touch payment processing, and mobile tickets/memberships. All of these things will ensure not only that you are providing a safe environment, but also a positive guest experience.
Demonstrating to your guests, patrons, and supporters that you are committed to providing a comfortable and safe space for them to enjoy is at the top of everyone’s mind right now. There is very valuable technology available for you to leverage, and ACME is here to help.
ACME offers a cost-effective, flexible, and customizable platform for museums, zoos, and aquariums that are working with restricted resources and short timelines. We have all the tools you need to be successful and operate efficiently: Time-based Ticketing, Contact Tracing, and Contactless-Entry and Payment. Not to mention we are cloud-based and accessible from anywhere for all of your staff that is working remotely, and we are an open platform, meaning we easily connect with all the best-in-breed systems to create a super platform, tailored specifically to you and the needs of your business. To learn how ACME can help you quickly and successfully reopen your doors, reach out to us today!