BellaOnline Forums Education Museums Museum Visitation Factors

Visitors consider many factors before choosing to come to a museum. Here are some of the factors involved in the decision-making process when it comes to leisure time options.

Museum Visitation Factors

Hi Kim. Our two museums have begun having Saturday programs. Each month there is a craft program, speaker in order to increase visitation.

I attended a book and author event at our museum last Saturday. Lynn Rainville gave a talk based on her book WWI memorials in Virginia but she covered memorials overseas and around the country as well. The next event will be at the end of August. The museum houses are doing hands on activities like making dolls or other items to encourage visitation. It's hard to compete when libraries have the same ideas and maker rooms which are available for ceramics and jewelry making and robotics.

Our museums are offering programs - doll making, DNA lectures, book and author events, pressed flower making, etc.. Many of them are well attended because they offer a historical perspective from our area. There was a grandparent/grandchild camp this summer. Kids from 8-12 were introduced to bucket brigades, brick making, daub and wattle, school, milling and grist mills, signing their names with a quill pen, mustering into the militia, marching with a musket (wooden). games. The children were all into this hands on history and were thoroughly immersed into the colonial period.

Our museums had a successful year - lots of continuing education - crafts, lectures, exhibits... This is a small county museum so it is not a high volume museum like a state or nationally known museum. We work hard to bring people in to see our history. chesterfieldhistory.com