Museum Audience Insight

Admission Fee + Time Commitment ≤ Museum Experience (We Hope!)

This week, we are wrapping up our series on admission fees and attendance trends, based on a quick survey we recently ran, with one overall takeaway:   

It’s the product.

That’s it.  It’s simple.  And yet it is extraordinarily hard to execute.

We noted a couple of posts back that those museums with attendance growth tended to attribute it to things the museum had done, while those with attendance decline tended to attribute it to constraints external to the museum.  Thus, an honest assessment about the product you have to share (that is, exhibitions, original objects or spaces, programs, and events) is the first step, so it was refreshing when one of our respondents said:  “About 5 years ago our products were horrible and we were discounting ourselves out of existence.  Invest in your exhibits, make them the best they can be, look for blockbusters.  Then charge a fair price – make your museum valuable and people will want to come and pay a higher fee.”

But the thing is, our client and field-wide research indicates that price isn’t the primary barrier for most regular museum-goers, time is.  Thus, if the actual experience doesn’t match or surpass the anticipated experience, regular museum goers will complain about the museum being a waste of both time and money – not the message you want being conveyed by word-of-mouth or on sites like TripAdvisor or Yelp.  Museums that are committed to free admission, or who have occasional free days, are not immune from this pressure, as time is still precious to visitors. 

Given that museum admission fees are, for the most part, inelastic to most regular museum visitors, reasonable price increases work if the product is of high enough quality to merit the increase.  As one respondent noted, “We raised the bar on our product quality and made the museum a place people WANTED to come to!  People don’t mind paying a higher fee if they feel the product quality is better.”

 

But we do have a big caveat.  We should note that price does seem to be an issue for less regular visitors and some regular museum goers, particularly families with young children, single parents, and young adults under 30.  If those are primary or targeted audiences, then creative pricing strategies, such as family rates or special prices/times for young adults, may be in order to ensure that admission fees are kept affordable.

Ultimately the goal, then, is to value both the time and the dollars of our visitors, giving them an experience that at least matches their expectations, and ideally over-delivering on this product in a meaningful and memorable way so that connect with the content, objects, experiences, and stories you want to share with them, in ways that change them, and in ways that make them want to support you and share your work with others.

Which brings us back to our other recent field-wide study.  Over the next few weeks we’ll be returning to our recent work on what makes a museum experience meaningful for our visitors, perhaps even transformative.  We hope and believe that this research will begin to help us identify the patterns of the most meaningful and even transformative experiences our visitors will have, and then help you think about how your museum’s experiences can over-deliver in truly meaningful ways. 

What do you think?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

 

Free Admission Days and Daily Deals

Free days.  Daily deals.  Who can resist?  They take away or reduce at least one barrier to visiting museums and (we hope) broaden and diversify our audiences. 

But are they ultimately beneficial to museums?  The thing is . . . we don’t know.  Some say unequivocally yes, and others are just as adamant that they are not.  For this post, we’ll share some of the experiences respondents in our recent, quick survey on attendance trends, and we’ll also feed in a few bits of our field-wide and client research as well to hear a bit of the visitor perspective.

 

Free Days

Nearly a fifth of responding museums reported that they never charge admission fees, while another fifth had occasional, sponsored free days.  Those occasional free days were interesting however, as some museums reported some unexpected challenges. 

First, free days do appear to be a draw for audiences that would not otherwise visit.  As one respondent noted, “Our occasional free days show there is a great deal of interest in visiting museums but admission fees are a real barrier to underserved audiences.”

But those free days can be too popular, as another respondent said, “We have been reaching capacity during free hours this year, which is new for us.  It is not going over well with visitors, in fact they are down right mad . . .,” thus illustrating that free days can go from PR boon to PR disaster if visitors are having negative experiences due to over-crowding.

Additionally, it was noted that too many free days can be problematic as well, as it can depress regular paid attendance or it can reduce the incentive to visit, even on free days (that is, if you have a free day every week, there is no sense of urgency to visit, so potential visitors keep putting it off).  The trick is to find the right balance of free days so that they are well-attended, but not to the point of overcrowding.

Or, perhaps even better, find a different way to provide free passes to targeted, under-served audiences.

 

Daily Deals

The feedback we received about daily deals (think Groupon, Living Social, etc.) was much more mixed.  Nearly half of responding museums had run a daily deal, and while most were rather ambivalent about the results (reporting “little impact”), some had a negative experience while others loved it.  (When ASTC recently asked for feedback on this same question, they also had mixed responses.)

Those who loved it felt that it had brought in new visitors or members.  As one respondent said, “We feel it is a great way to introduce newbies to the museum . .”  Gina Moreland, of Habitot Children’s Museum, has also had very good results with the daily deals.  She noted:

“We are careful to spread our deals out throughout the year so that we don't cannibalize our sales of visit passes and memberships, for example, we never do deals in the fall-winter when we receive the majority of our visitation.  We also never do a deal on membership - we do deals only for admissions.  To check on conversion rates (people joining or spending other money at the museum after coming in on a deal), we ask for name and contact info at the front desk.  Once they are in the database, we include them on mailings for upcoming events, news, free admission days, etc.”  

Gina estimates that 7% of daily deal tickets go on to purchase memberships and 5% go on to purchase a class enrollment.

 

On the other side were those who had a negative experience.  One respondent opined, “I believe it devalued our pricing structure . . . Unfortunately, the folks attracted by Groupon-style pricing is not the audience who regularly attends museums or join.  They are . . . looking for discounts.” 

Although we have never asked visitors explicitly about daily deals, we have picked up some feedback about them which generally reinforces this opinion.  In our recent field-wide study of children’s museum visitors, we had a number of respondents explicitly say, “I joined because of a groupon,” or something similar.  Another survey respondent noted she was a member of six museums and was “waiting for botanical gardens to go on Groupon to add that one!”  (I have to say, as a former development director, that one struck fear in my heart!)  Finally, in qualitative work for a client, we had a visitor state, “It also trains the consumer to wait for deals instead of supporting places outright, and with that mentality, we all lose.”  Food for thought.

So daily deals appear to have been quite successful for some, and not-so-much for others.  While we are not going to recommend or not recommend the use of daily deals based on current research, there may be times when a daily deal makes sense, and other times when it doesn’t.  The general sense, however, is that they are good for exposure and first-time visits, but they have little long-term impact on attendance or repeat visits. 

 

What do you think?  Has your museum had success (or challenges) with free days or daily deals?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

 

Attendance Trends: Overall Results

Think back five years, to 2007.  The US economy was, or at least seemed, robust.  Now think about the crash of 2008, and the doldrums the economy is still in.  It is no understatement to say that the past five years have been a period of turmoil in the American economy. 

We were curious how attendance has fared at museums, given this turmoil.  We’ve been hearing anecdotes of attendance growth as well as attendance decline; sometimes, and paradoxically, both trends have been attributed to the increase in staycations, among other reasons.

In our recent quick survey on attendance trends, we asked respondents how their museum’s attendance has fared over the previous five years.  Over half reported increased attendance, nearly a quarter reported decreased attendance, and the remainder said levels were about the same. 

Interestingly, however, those who reported increased attendance tended to attribute that growth to things museum had done, while those with decreases tended to attribute it to constraints external to museum.

What were the reasons for increases?  Respondents tended to attribute the growth to internal changes, such as: 

• new/improved exhibitions
• new/improved programs, including family programs
• new building/renovation
• improved marketing

And those who saw decreases tended to cite external pressures, such as: 

• fewer tourists
• cuts in school programs
• the economy
• museum budget cuts

Interestingly, of those with decreased attendance, no one mentioned underlying shifts in the population (such as a shift to a majority-minority population, for only one example), and just one respondent admitted to “stagnant exhibits.” 

While most respondents said that they were not anticipating any change in their admission fees in the near future, three-quarters had increased their fees in the past five years.  We were curious if increasing fees affected attendance, but only 13% reported a decrease in attendance after the fee hike, indicating to us that the new fees and the product quality (that is, the experience people have at the museum) were likley in alignment – a subject we’ll return to in a couple of weeks.

 

Attendance trends did differ by museum type, at least in our sample (keep in mind that this was a sample of convenience, and other samples, depending on who answered, could vary).  History museums appeared to be under the most attendance pressure, while science centers and children’s museums reported the most attendance growth (and were more likely to have increased admission fees recently and/or be considering a future price increase).  Art museums seemed to epitomize the status quo, with the steadiest attendance; they were also the least likely to have increased fees.

Additionally, museums with lower attendance (less than 50,000) had slower attendance growth and were much less likely to have increased fees than museums with greater attendance levels.

 

In our next post, we’ll examine the impact of daily deals and free days, before finishing off this series by focusing on price/product alignment.  

How does your museum compare with these findings?  Does it ring true, or are you seeing something different?  We would love to hear what you think!  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

Research Results: Admission Fees and Attendance Trends

Over the past several months, we have received a number of calls from individuals puzzling over attendance trends that they have been seeing.  Many of these calls have been discussions about attendance pressure, with a few museums seeing downward attendance trends, and others not seeing the attendance growth they had projected.

In these discussions we explored both external factors, such as competition for leisure time, competition with other sources of information (e.g., visiting Wikipedia instead of the science center); demographic trends, compression of incomes & wealth accumulation, as well as internal factors, such as product, amenities, messaging, and the value proposition in terms of price & time commitment, especially as it relates to the product.

Today we are beginning a short series of posts on attendance trends, and though we’re not going to cover each and every one of those factors (though much of our larger body of research, both field-wide and client-based, delves deeply into these factors), we did want to share the results from a very quick survey of museum managers we ran last winter on general attendance trends as well as trends in admission fees and how those may, or may not, affect attendance.  

Our quick survey was disseminated via this blog, and 196 of you very graciously took time to respond.  But it should be kept in mind that this was a survey of convenience, and therefore may not be representative of the entire field.  Additionally, it is not a large enough sample for granular segmentation, though we are able to look very broadly at the responses by museum type and admissions size.

To get us started, let’s first look at who responded.  As you can see from the bar graph below, about half of respondents came from history museums, with smaller percentages from other types (respondents could choose all that apply).

Responding museums also represented a variety of sizes (as defined by attendance).  Nearly half had yearly attendance of less than 50,000, a third had attendance between 50,000 and 250,000, and nearly a quarter had attendance over 250,000.

Now that we have a general sense of who responded, in our next post we’ll examine the five-year attendance and fee trends, and also look broadly at how different museum types and sizes fared.

What do you think?  Simply click on “comments” below to share your thoughts (and if you are reading this from your e-mail subscription, go to our blog to comment).

 

Men and Museums

When we run surveys, we can sometimes derive a lot of insight from more than just the results, but the inputs as well.  And there’s one statistic that we found perhaps more startling than any others.  When combining all of almost 30,000 respondents to our various field-wide museum surveys, only ¼ are men.   

Additionally, looking at it from another angle, only 1/3 of women in their thirties and forties report visiting museums often with their spouse. 

Where are the men?

To be honest . . . we don’t know and perhaps that’s the subject of another study.  But this is what we do know.

While looking at the overall picture of core visitors, only ¼ of our survey respondents are men, the percentage varies from survey to survey.  In both the study of outdoor history visitors and Connecticut cultural consumers, men comprised about 1/3 of respondents.  They were ¼ of science museum respondents, and just 11% of children’s museum respondents. 

A bit of this can be explained away by the general behaviors of men.  Men are less likely than women to sign up for e-mail newsletters, our primary vehicle for soliciting survey responses of core visitors.  Underlying this as well is that women are still the primary driver for museum visitation in most families, writing that membership check, and making the connection. 

This is reflected by the graph, below.  Men in their thirties, as you can see, have the lowest response rate, at only 13% of thirty-something respondents. 

In contrast, 38% of respondents over seventy were men, a response rate three times that of men in their thirties (and this despite the fact that women over seventy outnumber their male peers, demographically speaking). 

Men in their thirties, who are typically parents of young children, are just not responding.  And they are way outnumbered by women at museums across the country. 

The early indications from this preliminary data is that dads have, like moms, chosen to downplay their own needs and interests in favor of those of their children, and that when children are very young, moms are driving museums choices.  But as men age, they have more ability to drive which museums they visit, and hence, engagement increases in a straight-line progression with age.  There is, however, another nagging possibility that needs further exploration.  Is there an older generation of men that understand the value of museums in a way that younger generation of men simply won’t get? 

Bottom line?  Just like we have a challenge to engage moms, we have a double challenge with dads:  Reaching them and engaging them.  Clearly, this is an area that warrants further examination as we dig deeper with future research.  The gap is simply too big to ignore.

What are your thoughts?  Has your museum done something that attracts men (especially younger men)?  Click on “comments” below to share.  (If you are reading this from your e-mail subscription to the blog, please go to our blog's website to add a comment.)  Please include the name of your museum as well!