Museums are taking the place of the church in society
And I believe in charging!
Simon Jenkins, Columnist, The Times

Simon Jenkins started the Conference off on a heavenly theme by painting a picture of museums today — the well-funded nationals as cathedrals surrounded by thousands of "parish" museums, struggling to make ends meet. Some smaller, local authority museums in historic buildings are badly distressed, due to the structure of funding — not the staff.

Mr Jenkins endorsed his believe in museums — they have so much to offer and are more successful than football for example in attracting an audience. He could not understand the obsession with getting children into museums — Why? They should also appeal to adults. He referred to the "educational pollution" in one historic house museum and to the political correctness of others.

"I believe in charging" said Simon Jenkins. The tragedy of London’s free museum is that they have sold themselves to the Government.

In conclusion Mr. Jenkins returned to the main theme of churches: "Museums are the new church — the most significant cultural experience in most people’s lives."
Challenged by the audience’s questions, he reiterated his stand on charging. "People play for pleasures - £20 to £25 to go football matches, for example, they pay to go to the theatre, to concerns, why should they not pay to go to museums."

According to Professor Victor Middleton, reliable data on audiences and museum visiting is harder to come by now, than 20 years ago. As more and more strategies and visions have been produced stressing the needs for targets, performance measures, benchmarking and indicators, reliable managing information databases have deteriorated at an inverse ratio.

We know there is an explosion in attractions with 78 opening in 2000. We also know that the Cultural Spectrum within which museums have to compete has become wide and competition frantic.

However disposable income has increased, there has been a growing exposure to education and therefore the demand for leisure should be increasing. The biennial survey of day visits was cancelled for 2000 but will now take place in 2002.

The free for all will be the battle for survival for these audiences with the fittest surviving and the weakest going to the wall. The fittest are the nationals, museums with multiple markets, partnership deals, in town centres, museums with multiple funding and those involving their audiences. The weakest are small museums with single source funding, stand-alones without partners, one or two paid staff, those outside honeypots, those with aging trustees and volunteers and those local authority museums under continuous funding pressures.

URGENT We need to restore and develop trend supply and demand data for the benefit of all museums and galleries throughout the UK. The failure to do this will lead to the waste of £millions.

People living in and around Manchester were interviewed for this survey for Resource as part of researching the Renaissance in the Region report. People’s perceptions of museums was that they were still stuffy and needed livening up. Some people felt they were like a temple, glass cases of dinosaurs. At the same time, when digging deeper, it was clear that people are proud of the heritage and feel a strong sense of identity with their local/regional museum, even if they don’t use them. They would stand up for their museum if it was threatened with closure — "you cannot throw anything away, it’s like throwing away your history."

Museums have a lot to offer lifelong learning and proactive schools programme should be encouraged. But learning in a museum should not be like school.

There was resentment — "London gets everything first". National collections should go local — should have big openings in the regions, not just in London. Museums should be more relaxed — coffee bar, chill out room, hands-on.

The biggest block to visiting is the lack of information — need constant advertising — needs to be good design, good print, get famous people involved, should use personalities and television.

The challenge of free admission is that numbers rise, counting becomes inaccurate and some costs increase, as there is loss of earned income from ticketing.

Counting visits can be done manually — by clicking or attendance log; using an automatic system with infrared magic eye, digital video or turn-style, or through ticketing.

The choice of system depends on a number of factors including size of audience, number of entry points, staff etc.

All available statistics have inaccurate history of counting as we know from when museums first started to charge. Now is an opportunity to ensure accurate counting and, if possible, retain ticketing in museums which previously charged.

Manual systems are naturally inflationary as those who "click" want numbers to be good and improve month by month. The collation of the data is also time-consuming and does not allow for people popping in out (for a smoke! for example). In a small museum this may be fine. An attendance log can also work in a small museum and provides some data on visitors. The infrared eye is also potentially inaccurate, again as the same people go in and out. And it provides no data on visitors.

Ticketing in free museums introduces a barrier but also provides a human contact and an opportunity for promotion. The printed ticket could carry a cross promotion internally with the café or special exhibition or with another attraction. It also provides basic data on visitors on which in depth visitor research can then be based.

Roy Clare introduced the National Maritime Museum which went free last November. The challenge for the future is funding gap as grant aid declines, compensation for "free" entry limited and costs rise with higher number of users. The NMM decided to retain ticketing. It has so far enjoyed a growth of 67 per cent in visitor numbers.

It is important to separate out profit-making activities from cost-defraying activities; the former include licensing for example while the latter would include special exhibitions. Efficiencies and saving s must be made — for example reducing the number of entrances at the museum. Don’t forget your Friends — keep something special for them.

Raise the profile for commercial sponsors, who will expect an efficient, business-like approach but also social responsibility. The Museum has to uphold its academic, intellectual and learning foundation, protect free educational facilities for schools and maintain its ethics by investing in staff development and collaborating with other maritime museums by sharing expertise and traveling exhibitions. Costs must be managed and Watch the VAT!

Questions and Answers — Morning Session

Advertising and PR: It’s important for the message to reflect the audience, their wants and needs. The Eden Project, with a charismatic leader, has set new heights in penetrating the media. But in PR you have less control over your final messages.

Are Museums and Attractions moving closer together?

Museums need to be defined in a more popular way but should loose their identity. The museum brand is invaluable.

Museums must stop competing against each and collaborate — the competition comes from other forms of attractions and the leisure sector.

Sarah outlined the collaborative campaign set up by five nationals to promote free entry as it was introduced in November. She outlined the V&A marketing strategy initially based on a 15 per cent increase. Free entry started with the opening of the new British Galleries (new director) — new message from a changing institution. Secondary pricing for major temporary exhibitions retained. The strategy is directed at the mass market with emphasis on loyalty and relationship building.

The Imperial War Museum, Natural History Museum, National Maritime Museum, Science Museum and V & A took part in the campaign, coordinated by an independent consultant. It was important to suggest that "go free" did not mean "go cheap". It was directed at price conscious museums considerers. The campaign included posters on the underground and press advertising, partnership with Time Out including a London for free supplement, a dedicated website, and partnership with transport operators.

The results were that all the museums increased their numbers from 50% up to 221 per cent (V&A). Spend was also up but not in the same proportion. There was an increase in domestic visitors, dwell time, went down, more family groups and weekend visitors.

Special exhibitions are forms of communications — research, international exhibition, showcase, dynamic and promotional medium and audience building.

You can lose money by having lots of artifacts from different international sources, lots of special environmental and security conditions, a short run, obscure subject of niche interest, totally dependent on sponsorship — and insufficient or no marketing.

You secure new audiences by having strong name recognition, a good storyline, relevance and interest, an enlightened sponsor, sufficient marketing, TB tie-in and tie impact.

You make life difficult by over-programming, being over-enthusiastic, in a moving market, with fickle media and absent friends.

12 per cent of visitors are influenced by special exhibitions.

Wales had a head start on free entry from 1st April 2001, but only seven days’ to implement the change. Overall visitor numbers have more than doubled with wide variations between the different sites. Additional questions were added to the annual visitor exist survey in 2001 to assess the awareness of free entry.

The findings were summarised by Robin Gwynn as follows:

Free admission did not appear to be the key factor in deciding on a visit to one of the museums.

However, the high awareness of free admission, from 62 percent to 72 per cent, before the visit, suggested that the "Free for All" marketing campaign had been successful. It also suggested that some visitors were perhaps reluctant to say that "free" was the main influencing factor.

Visitors from social classes C2, D and E rose from 31 per cent to 37 per cent of all visitors — a modest shift.

The percent of return visitors remained steady — the proportion of first time visitors rose at the same rate as return visitors.

There had been a small change towards more, younger visitors.

The research suggests that the marketing approach — evolutionary rather than revolutionary — was right. In terms of tone etc. important not to alienate existing audiences while encouraging new visitors. Some changes have been made in promotional material.

The Research Centre at Leicester has been appointed to take forward non-visitor research on behalf of NMGW in order to inform on policy and strategy of future audience development.

Questions and Answers

Re Wales — did you work with other attractions?

Wales is encouraging joint promotions with other cultural attractions through the Wales Tourist Board.

What counting method are you using?

RG confirmed that NMGW is using clicking (at all sites) and anything else could be seen as a barrier, particularly at the Museum of Welsh Life.

Both the V&A and BM use the electronic eye.

Who is collating all this research for the sector as a whole?

Representative from Resource — said that they would be.

Sandra Bicknell examined visits over a period of time at York attractions which showed peaks and troughs, each of these could be explained. York is an ecosystem with variations within the system relating to a range of factors and subject to impacts from the outside environment. For example the floods in November 2000, and the recent reporting of a relatively small flood, as well as transport. Free admission will have an impact but it is still too early to say. It might raise the whole visit profile of York by brining in new visitors. But once people have spent their time in free attractions will they have time for charging attractions. The February half terms results are inconclusive.

However the national-museum-centric and London-centric view of life from government and those who comment on museums and galleries in the media, have given a misleading message and our staff get asked why our museums are not free.

The whole funding system is lop-sided with grant-in-aid providing subsidies from £6 per visitor to £30 per visitor.

Sandra Bicknell would like to offer free access but cannot do it. So what’s the alternative. Symbiosis — we must work together for the collective good or the imbalance will become even greater. York is the destination and York is what we must push.

Thinktank, a charging attraction, has met its targets in the first six months with 125,000 paying visitors. Although the city council allocates 42 per cent of its running costs, it has to generate sufficient income. We have to take our offer to the public on their terms.

No one will argue with the Government’s aim to encourage broader access to the cultural heritage. New types of museums, independent museums opening since 1970s, have done this presenting to the public, areas of the cultural landscape previously ignored. Independent museums have engaged tens of thousands of people as members, friends and volunteers, inviting the public to pay an admission fee.

In funding "free" national institutions, the DCMS has unfairly treated citizens across the land, favour Londoners and overseas tourists. There are no long term benefits for the national museums themselves.

How do we overcome this at Thinktank:
1. Developing our shareholder relationship with Birmingham institutions.
2. Presenting our science in narrative form
3. Position ourselves slightly controversially
4. Be proactive in the local community
5. Big focus on improvement and change
6. Introduce new ideas quickly — Golden Jubilee project to find 50 significant developments in science, medicine and technology

Merlin Entertainments operates 21 visitor attractions in eigyht European countries, welcoming 5 Million visitors and employing over 1,000 staff. It has won numerous awards.

"We are treated as fairground attractions by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport; yet we look after 300,000 school children a year."

In his call for a better balance between the well financed public sector and vanishing private sector, Nick Varney, outlined the triple whammy:

The strong pound — declining tourist market

The lottery and ERD funded attractions - £600 million in 4 years not including the Dome
And now free entry…..

The impact is that 12 million visitors are now being sought in a static/declining market; the DCMS is bailing out failures; expansion in free visits puts further pressure on paid for attractions.

As a result all plcs with attraction divisions have sold them; senior management teams have been removed by new venture capitalist owners; significant cost cutting in commercial sector — no investment in people or health and safety; closure of smaller businesses will follow.

Merlin is selling 8 of its UK attractions and now putting 95 per cent of all investment outside the UK; facining direct competition from subsidsed projects such as The Deep in Hull, funded to the tune of £46 million.

Russell Hopson confirmed public interest in the heritage e.g. Antiques Roadshow, Elizabeth I, Timeteam etc. This was born out from research carried out by English Heritage last year which showed some two thirds of the public who thought the heritage was very important.

Despite this visits to heritage attractions and museums and galleries have fallen; MORI research suggests a resurgence. Early 2002 results shows museum visits up while other leisure visits have declined. English Heritage has experienced an increased market share and increased revenue from commercial activities.

Income from admission is very important to EH; also membership and commercial income. Market has been static for a decade. Should EH go free? Is it right? Is price an indication of value? Will it broaden access? No evidenice of price elasticity?

EH is trying to win hearts and minds through membership scheme; committed to building the brand; using different tactics for domestic and overseas; continuing existing pricing structure and building on existing advocacy.

EH is broadening access through pricing, free open days, Museums and Galleries Month, school visits and in the longer term:

The discussion session following this session focused on the private sector/public sector debate and stressed the importance of finding ways of working together to the benefit of both.

Several members of audience asked the Campaign for Museums to pursue the various key points made with other organisations and the DCMS.



Ylva French
The Campaign for Museums — 18 March 2002