History Museums and Family Audiences - Why So Challenging?

It is tough being a history museum or historic site, trying to attract family audiences. As we saw in our August e-newsletter article, history-based museums are the least favorite museum type among young families.

But as children get older, visitation does increase dramatically (to recap, the graph is below and is based on a survey of nearly 5500 children’s museum visitors and members).

 

Additionally, survey work of family visitors at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History confirms and extends this research. As seen in the graph below, family visitation continues to increase as children get older, peaking at age 13 but holding relatively steady through the teenage years.

 

data courtesy, Smithsonian Institution, National Museum of American History

 

On Tuesday, October 30 (1:00 EDT/10:00 PDT) we are hosting a Museum Conversation on “History Museums and Family Audiences – Why So Challenging?” to drill down on the challenges history museums are facing.

Joining us on this free one-hour conference call will be:

• Ellen Rosenthal, Executive Director, Conner Prairie
• Gar Crispell, General Manager, American Girl Place Chicago
• Camy Clough, Senior Program Producer, National Museum of American History

During this call, we will be tackling big issues, from age-appropriateness to time-strapped families to guided tours to the “been there, done that” fallacy.

This call is about your needs and challenges in the history museum field, and we are encouraging you to submit questions to our panel!  Please feel free to click on “comments” below this posting and submit questions for the call or for discussion on this blog. 

Want to dial in for the free call?  There is still space available!  Simply e-mail me at susie at reachadvisors.com (though replace the "at" with an @!) or leave a message for me at 617.489.6180 x 4.  I will confirm your registration via e-mail.

Can’t make the call? Check back here a day or two later and we will post a recap and continue the conversation.

NOTE - comments posted to this entry have been moved to our recap entry.