Why Outdoor Museum Exhibits are Important to the Future of Museums
The COVID-19 pandemic brought with it a series of challenges that will have lasting effects on our lives and industries forever. Even with vaccines making a noticeable difference, roll outs have been slower than health officials would like, and the Delta variant has presented new challenges and a sense of uncertainty for the future.
What does this mean for museums? It means that they have to continue evolving and implementing the lessons they’ve learned from the pandemic if they’re going to thrive going forward.
One way to adapt to the challenges of the time and attract new visitors and members is to implement outdoor museum exhibits. Outdoor exhibits are safer and present museums with opportunities to engage new visitors, engage new kinds of arts, and reshape the visiting experience.
Below we’ll get into why outdoor museum exhibits are important to the future of museums and how you can start creating outdoor exhibits today.
Engage new visitors
While there are still ways to engage with your visitor base through outdoor exhibits by curating items through a more traditional exhibit structure, you can use the opportunity of outdoor exhibits to engage with new visitors.
Outdoor exhibits can help you to attract the following visitors:
- Safety-inclined visitors – Even with facemasks, some visitors may still be feeling some hesitation about being indoors with large crowds. Hosting outdoor exhibits will give these individuals an opportunity
- Those looking to get active – Especially in the hotter months, museums have a number of ways to create fun exhibits that get people moving and active. Exhibits that combine the wonder of physics with the fun of water, like the bike rope squirter, are great ways to engage children and those looking to beat the heat.
- Community members – Getting your exhibit out of the museum and into the community, like at a park or if you team up with a local zoo, is a great way to engage members who may not typically find themselves in a museum or know about your events.
- Night time visitors – Outdoor exhibits give you the opportunity to decorate gardens, trails, and forecourts with lights, art, and architecture that turn a dark setting into a magical night time experience. Attract couples and families who wish to get swept away by the beauty of your exhibits at night.
With changes to the visitor experience come opportunities to attract new visitors, and utilizing outdoor museums to reach non-traditional museum audiences is a great way to generate excitement around your museum and build members.
Engage new kinds of art
The outdoor exhibit experience comes with several perks – it’s social-distance friendly, allows you to get creative with outdoor venues, and can help you attract new visitors. Additionally, it gives you the chance to engage with new kinds of art.
Interactive art experiences, architecture-focused exhibits, and art that can be strewn across cities, parks, and open spaces all become available to museums engaging with outdoor exhibits.
Below we’ll look at what some of these exhibits might look like.
Outdoor museum exhibit ideas
Outdoor museum experiences come with their own unique set of challenges – weather, lighting, and less control of an outdoor environment – but they also present a number of new ways to reshape the visiting experience.
Below are some of our favorite outdoor museum exhibit ideas:
- One of Berlin’s most visited and recognized memorials, The Holocaust Memorial is a great example of how to utilize an open space to create an important, necessary exhibit experience that connects with history in a meaningful way.
- London’s Garden Museum takes advantage of their historical focus to showcase glass and bronze architectural styles in a beautifully adorned museum garden.
- The Weald & Downland Living Museum takes visitors directly into the historical setting they wish to portray. The museum creates an immersive experience by allowing visitors to explore the town and see what life was like for those living there a century ago.
- Another historically-immersive experience, the Ironbridge Gorge Museum is an open-air museum that takes visitors back in time to get an up-close look at Victorian life. Spend a day interacting with “real people” from the Victorian era.
One of the best places to start with outdoor exhibits is your local community. Get together with community organizers to get the most out of your city and create unique outdoor museum experiences.
ACME gives you the tools you need
One of the big questions when planning an outdoor exhibit will be how to manage and sell tickets to visitors. WIth ACME, you have a flexible, cloud-based ticketing system that allows you to customize your ticketing options to meet your unique needs.
Timed ticketing entry features and a flexible POS system will make online sales and outdoor ticketing easier than ever.
Try ACME’s cutting edge solution today and thrive in an outdoor setting.