As soon as air travel began to become more affordable, Britain's small museums, and other smaller tourism attractions were in trouble.
The problem was that, being British, those organisations didn't consider that they were in trouble. Their entry fees were still a lot cheaper than a plane ticket, and flying abroad was so much hassle, wasn't it? And besides, they were British. You could have a conversation with the lovely, British volunteers working in lovely, cosy, local British museums, you could enjoy the bracing British seaside, or the beautiful British countryside, whilst exploring quaint, quirky tourist businesses, and - the really cool payoff - keeping your money in the local economy!
And, for a while, the British public agreed with all of this. They pottered, they provided endless 2ps, 1ps, and 5ps, they brought quirky knick-knacks that would sit on a windowsill for a few weeks, then be moved to the mantlepiece, before finally being scuttled off to the bedside cabinet in the spare room, there to languish until the urge for spring-cleaning hit, and they hit the charity shops, or the rubbish bin. They toodled along in their cars for a couple of hours. They spent most of the day on an ancient, slow, inefficient bus. They purchased rainforests' worth of smutty postcards. They took photos, they bored their neighbours with slideshows. Things ticked along.
London's museums have never had a problem attracting tourists, and the regional museums assumed there'd be some kind of "trickle-down" effect - eventually, they reasoned, foreign tourists would get tired of London, and come to them.
For some venues, this happened - but not entirely organically. In order to have tourists come to them, these smaller, less central venues initially had to go to their customers.
They tapped into nostalgic novel-readers in America, selling a Britain that has never existed as they invite the comfortably off who are fatigued with Fifth Avenue and Starbucks to "explore how Shakespeare/Agatha Christie/the Bronte sisters lived!" - America is strong on business go-getting, strong on high-ticket sales, but what it feels it lacks is a sense of class, the ability to be content with very little. Americans will pay, and pay well, to be chauffered around in air-conditioned coaches, enjoy an hour or two imagining they would be able to live in perfect contentment in two rooms and gaslighting, convince themselves that it's struggle, poverty, and simplicity which fosters genius, which allows them to consistently ignore those struggling back home, particularly when it comes time to vote, and then settle down for a good lunch, before being driven back to their 5-star hotel.
Television, particularly the exporting of British films, "cosy crime" and nostalgia dramas to a global audience via streaming services, has increased the reach of this style of largely American-focused tourism to smaller venues - come and see the world of Midsomer Murders! Walk the streets of Call The Midwife! Roam the halls of Hogwarts!
But not every venue has that 'hook', and many very small, very locally-centred museums are aware that their British visitors, small in number as they are, would be likely to abandon them entirely if they encountered a large number of Americans in the small spaces the natives consider "theirs", even if they never actually visit them.
What are the opportunities for small museums?
Small museums are perfectly positioned to be the bridge between peoples' comfort zones, and the futures we need to move confidently forward into. Small, regional museums are the keepers of the stories of how people just like us navigated social change and paradigm shifts.
Rather than just seeing their artefacts as "things for people to look at", the vision should be to centre the artefacts in broader teachings about the successfully navigated change those objects represent, and how the mindsets, actions, and approaches from the people of that time can be unlocked and used as we face "new-but-the-same" changes today.
(AI is just the arrival of computers for our parents/grandparents. The rising trends of the sharing economy and social enterprise is just the industrial revolution for our 18th century ancestors. What's going on in America right now is just the English Civil War.)
The problem was that, being British, those organisations didn't consider that they were in trouble. Their entry fees were still a lot cheaper than a plane ticket, and flying abroad was so much hassle, wasn't it? And besides, they were British. You could have a conversation with the lovely, British volunteers working in lovely, cosy, local British museums, you could enjoy the bracing British seaside, or the beautiful British countryside, whilst exploring quaint, quirky tourist businesses, and - the really cool payoff - keeping your money in the local economy!
And, for a while, the British public agreed with all of this. They pottered, they provided endless 2ps, 1ps, and 5ps, they brought quirky knick-knacks that would sit on a windowsill for a few weeks, then be moved to the mantlepiece, before finally being scuttled off to the bedside cabinet in the spare room, there to languish until the urge for spring-cleaning hit, and they hit the charity shops, or the rubbish bin. They toodled along in their cars for a couple of hours. They spent most of the day on an ancient, slow, inefficient bus. They purchased rainforests' worth of smutty postcards. They took photos, they bored their neighbours with slideshows. Things ticked along.
London's museums have never had a problem attracting tourists, and the regional museums assumed there'd be some kind of "trickle-down" effect - eventually, they reasoned, foreign tourists would get tired of London, and come to them.
For some venues, this happened - but not entirely organically. In order to have tourists come to them, these smaller, less central venues initially had to go to their customers.
They tapped into nostalgic novel-readers in America, selling a Britain that has never existed as they invite the comfortably off who are fatigued with Fifth Avenue and Starbucks to "explore how Shakespeare/Agatha Christie/the Bronte sisters lived!" - America is strong on business go-getting, strong on high-ticket sales, but what it feels it lacks is a sense of class, the ability to be content with very little. Americans will pay, and pay well, to be chauffered around in air-conditioned coaches, enjoy an hour or two imagining they would be able to live in perfect contentment in two rooms and gaslighting, convince themselves that it's struggle, poverty, and simplicity which fosters genius, which allows them to consistently ignore those struggling back home, particularly when it comes time to vote, and then settle down for a good lunch, before being driven back to their 5-star hotel.
Television, particularly the exporting of British films, "cosy crime" and nostalgia dramas to a global audience via streaming services, has increased the reach of this style of largely American-focused tourism to smaller venues - come and see the world of Midsomer Murders! Walk the streets of Call The Midwife! Roam the halls of Hogwarts!
But not every venue has that 'hook', and many very small, very locally-centred museums are aware that their British visitors, small in number as they are, would be likely to abandon them entirely if they encountered a large number of Americans in the small spaces the natives consider "theirs", even if they never actually visit them.
What are the opportunities for small museums?
Small museums are perfectly positioned to be the bridge between peoples' comfort zones, and the futures we need to move confidently forward into. Small, regional museums are the keepers of the stories of how people just like us navigated social change and paradigm shifts.
Rather than just seeing their artefacts as "things for people to look at", the vision should be to centre the artefacts in broader teachings about the successfully navigated change those objects represent, and how the mindsets, actions, and approaches from the people of that time can be unlocked and used as we face "new-but-the-same" changes today.
(AI is just the arrival of computers for our parents/grandparents. The rising trends of the sharing economy and social enterprise is just the industrial revolution for our 18th century ancestors. What's going on in America right now is just the English Civil War.)
There is a huge gap for people who can sensitively explain to the frightened, the angry, the resentful, and the cautiously optimistic how we as human beings in community successfully navigate change. There is a growing need for governments and businesses to invest in change appreciation, not just change management. And small, local and regional museums could fill that gap, and begin generating revenue for themselves.
. Begin by recruiting the right volunteers: people who were there when the 300yr-old major local employer crashed out, who had a family history of working for that employer, then suddenly weren't any more. Farmers who remember the last days of heavy horses and year-round local labour. Business owners who've built back from more than one bankruptcy, more than one recession. Women who started their careers with ledger books and typewriters, and ended them having to begin to come to terms with the beginnings of AI.
Rather than just "watch the till, answer questions if people ask them", a central role for these volunteers will be to create and publish short courses, using the artefacts and their own experiences to educate around change management and change appreciation; this is something that would be well-served by a generation linking programme, where those in their final year of high school commit at least half of their summer holiday, and people who are currently out of work, are brought in to support with elements around social media and marketing, but with a wider aim for all generations present to share relevant learning with one another. Linking generations with this focus helps address the increasing fragmentation of society, it gives school-leavers ideas about career options, and it introduces those who are unemployed, and often struggling with the poverty that welfare dependence creates a chance to socialise with people who may have access to connections who are in a position to offer paid employment.
These short courses should be charged for, with instant-insight social media educational pieces being the only free content. Providing the courses through sites such as Reed, and delivering them on-site, as well as renting out museum spaces for businesses to host their own change management strategic planning sessions, surrounded by the inspiration of decades, even centuries, of people like them, who lived in the same places they do, who successfully navigated their own challenging change, allows for a far greater opportunity to generate income through these courses.
. Begin by recruiting the right volunteers: people who were there when the 300yr-old major local employer crashed out, who had a family history of working for that employer, then suddenly weren't any more. Farmers who remember the last days of heavy horses and year-round local labour. Business owners who've built back from more than one bankruptcy, more than one recession. Women who started their careers with ledger books and typewriters, and ended them having to begin to come to terms with the beginnings of AI.
Rather than just "watch the till, answer questions if people ask them", a central role for these volunteers will be to create and publish short courses, using the artefacts and their own experiences to educate around change management and change appreciation; this is something that would be well-served by a generation linking programme, where those in their final year of high school commit at least half of their summer holiday, and people who are currently out of work, are brought in to support with elements around social media and marketing, but with a wider aim for all generations present to share relevant learning with one another. Linking generations with this focus helps address the increasing fragmentation of society, it gives school-leavers ideas about career options, and it introduces those who are unemployed, and often struggling with the poverty that welfare dependence creates a chance to socialise with people who may have access to connections who are in a position to offer paid employment.
These short courses should be charged for, with instant-insight social media educational pieces being the only free content. Providing the courses through sites such as Reed, and delivering them on-site, as well as renting out museum spaces for businesses to host their own change management strategic planning sessions, surrounded by the inspiration of decades, even centuries, of people like them, who lived in the same places they do, who successfully navigated their own challenging change, allows for a far greater opportunity to generate income through these courses.
The course income should be split, with 50% remaining within the museum, under control of its Trustees, and the other half invested in high-ethics, high social-capital opportunities.
The vision for investment is to eventually generate a stream of income which can be drawn down on a month by month basis to fund paid roles, into which people with highly relevant, niche skills in change practice, social historianship, etc, who can advance the focus of "this present past teaches us how to move confidently forward into our future."
. Digital exhibitions - a virtual "walkaround" of your most visually appealing, or relevant-to-contemporary-challenges displays. Host these on your own websites, and on social media; again, this is an excellent "across-the-generations" volunteer project, supported by tech companies sharing their staff's time to give professional guidance. (A pro-active way to use those "community giving" days, which all too often are either an unused, but much-promoted "perk", because everyone feels a bit awkward about asking to use them, or which result in half the team having to double their workload, while the other half get dragged out on a litter pick - which everyone is already doing, and which we actually pay council tax, in part, for professionals to do.)
These digital experiences should be free, but end with a "pay what you can" call. Not everyone will pay, but a considerable number of people will do.
The income from this should be reserved to continue building on the tech side of the museum's presence.
. Displays need to change, but also stay the same. To give an example of two 'small' museums which are local and 'local-ish' to me, which illustrates this perfectly: My local museum has a collection of Lowestoft porcelain, which is something I also collect. I go to that museum in part to enjoy seeing pieces of porcelain I don't own, and therefore I enjoy knowing I can consistently and easily find their porcelain collection.
In contrast, the 'local-ish' museum, located in a city about 30miles away, is regularly dismissed by people who are actually local to that city as "showing the same cr*p that was there when I was dragged round on school trips." That museum is in a city which markets itself as being part of the "forefront of change" - but the museum doesn't reflect that. It roots itself firmly in the fact that it's located in a Norman castle, therefore it has to be unchanging, just as the castle is unchanging. Except history changes. Very recently, for example, the good British people of this city have expressed outrage at restoration work in this very castle - because that restoration was informed by advances in archaeology, which are showing us that medieval buildings were lavishly decorated, in very bright, primary colours - the colours degraded to nothing once the cultures left the stage, meaning we were finding artefacts we assumed had always been dull greys and browns and beiges. New technology has shown us they were bold - but oooohhhh, the denizens of this city are not happy about that change in "their" castle. But this change is likely to be what attracts new visitors to the castle.
Change doesn't have to be radical - think about how different a room looks when you simply move the furniture around.
Equally, change sometimes needs to be radical, because only radical change can represent a genuine reality; like the radical change in how historic buildings are decorated.
And the need for change can easily be married to, and met alongside, the need for small museums to generate income; whenever a local business, a local sports team, a local education establishment, a local area, is getting a lot of attention - local museums should be reaching out, and offering priced-up display space for artefacts, history, heritage from those areas, those places, those organisations. Space can be offered (and charged for) for those organisations, businesses, and places to promote aspects of their community and identity that they feel are relevant and important - people usually know how to find the museum; they may not know how to find the housing estate that's being talked about, or the start-up that's suddenly risen to prominence.
. Museums should extend their offering - if you're a local museum, charge for local tours, provided in rickshaw trams or horse-drawn buggies, for sustainability (look for local companies who could provide this, or apply for funding to help capable local entrepreneurs establish themselves.)
The vision for investment is to eventually generate a stream of income which can be drawn down on a month by month basis to fund paid roles, into which people with highly relevant, niche skills in change practice, social historianship, etc, who can advance the focus of "this present past teaches us how to move confidently forward into our future."
. Digital exhibitions - a virtual "walkaround" of your most visually appealing, or relevant-to-contemporary-challenges displays. Host these on your own websites, and on social media; again, this is an excellent "across-the-generations" volunteer project, supported by tech companies sharing their staff's time to give professional guidance. (A pro-active way to use those "community giving" days, which all too often are either an unused, but much-promoted "perk", because everyone feels a bit awkward about asking to use them, or which result in half the team having to double their workload, while the other half get dragged out on a litter pick - which everyone is already doing, and which we actually pay council tax, in part, for professionals to do.)
These digital experiences should be free, but end with a "pay what you can" call. Not everyone will pay, but a considerable number of people will do.
The income from this should be reserved to continue building on the tech side of the museum's presence.
. Displays need to change, but also stay the same. To give an example of two 'small' museums which are local and 'local-ish' to me, which illustrates this perfectly: My local museum has a collection of Lowestoft porcelain, which is something I also collect. I go to that museum in part to enjoy seeing pieces of porcelain I don't own, and therefore I enjoy knowing I can consistently and easily find their porcelain collection.
In contrast, the 'local-ish' museum, located in a city about 30miles away, is regularly dismissed by people who are actually local to that city as "showing the same cr*p that was there when I was dragged round on school trips." That museum is in a city which markets itself as being part of the "forefront of change" - but the museum doesn't reflect that. It roots itself firmly in the fact that it's located in a Norman castle, therefore it has to be unchanging, just as the castle is unchanging. Except history changes. Very recently, for example, the good British people of this city have expressed outrage at restoration work in this very castle - because that restoration was informed by advances in archaeology, which are showing us that medieval buildings were lavishly decorated, in very bright, primary colours - the colours degraded to nothing once the cultures left the stage, meaning we were finding artefacts we assumed had always been dull greys and browns and beiges. New technology has shown us they were bold - but oooohhhh, the denizens of this city are not happy about that change in "their" castle. But this change is likely to be what attracts new visitors to the castle.
Change doesn't have to be radical - think about how different a room looks when you simply move the furniture around.
Equally, change sometimes needs to be radical, because only radical change can represent a genuine reality; like the radical change in how historic buildings are decorated.
And the need for change can easily be married to, and met alongside, the need for small museums to generate income; whenever a local business, a local sports team, a local education establishment, a local area, is getting a lot of attention - local museums should be reaching out, and offering priced-up display space for artefacts, history, heritage from those areas, those places, those organisations. Space can be offered (and charged for) for those organisations, businesses, and places to promote aspects of their community and identity that they feel are relevant and important - people usually know how to find the museum; they may not know how to find the housing estate that's being talked about, or the start-up that's suddenly risen to prominence.
. Museums should extend their offering - if you're a local museum, charge for local tours, provided in rickshaw trams or horse-drawn buggies, for sustainability (look for local companies who could provide this, or apply for funding to help capable local entrepreneurs establish themselves.)
. Recruit retired specialists, and charge an accessible but relevant fee for local people to qualify, exclusively through your museum's site, expertise, and artefacts, in conservatorship, restoration, museum administration, teaching, and customer service. The aim should be for this educational aspect to become a significant income stream, and, where possible, relevant subjects should be offered online as well as on-site; not only does this maximise your customer base, it also respects the fact that spaces in smaller museum venues are limited. Initially, these roles will need to be filled by qualified volunteers; the aim should be for them to eventually become paid roles, ideally filled by people who have progressed through your qualification-centred courses.
We are at risk, in Britain, of losing our heritage to rampant development. We have around 645,000 people who are citing mental health challenges as a reason they are unable to work; this is likely to include people with neurodiversity conditions such as autism and ADHD; both neurodiverse individuals, and individuals dealing with mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety, often respond positively to work which has visible outcomes - such as the work of the background skills which maintain museum exhibitions. The need is there, and museums can meet it, and meet their own need for year-round income at the same time.
. Offer more to those who join as "Friends of..."
Free entry to an already very reasonably priced museum in exchange for £20 a year isn't really much of an incentive - especially if you're not bringing in new displays! How many times do most people want to see the same thing?
Instead, give Friends of the museum unique opportunities - when you're reworking adding to your displays, invite your Friends to a private auction, so that their membership gives them the opportunity to bid on, and potentially to own, the artefacts they've enjoyed visiting.
Have raffles for a funded position on one of the courses you've seen you should be running! Enter the museum's Friends.
. Adopt a Display - zoos have been offering the opportunity to "adopt" (or, rather, "sponsor") your favourite animals for a while; museums should bring this in for their displays. Have a yearly fee, which varies from display to display, for people to sponsor that display. (This could be an additional benefit for Friends - a 20% discount on sponsorship fees, for example.)
We are at risk, in Britain, of losing our heritage to rampant development. We have around 645,000 people who are citing mental health challenges as a reason they are unable to work; this is likely to include people with neurodiversity conditions such as autism and ADHD; both neurodiverse individuals, and individuals dealing with mental health challenges such as depression and anxiety, often respond positively to work which has visible outcomes - such as the work of the background skills which maintain museum exhibitions. The need is there, and museums can meet it, and meet their own need for year-round income at the same time.
. Offer more to those who join as "Friends of..."
Free entry to an already very reasonably priced museum in exchange for £20 a year isn't really much of an incentive - especially if you're not bringing in new displays! How many times do most people want to see the same thing?
Instead, give Friends of the museum unique opportunities - when you're reworking adding to your displays, invite your Friends to a private auction, so that their membership gives them the opportunity to bid on, and potentially to own, the artefacts they've enjoyed visiting.
Have raffles for a funded position on one of the courses you've seen you should be running! Enter the museum's Friends.
. Adopt a Display - zoos have been offering the opportunity to "adopt" (or, rather, "sponsor") your favourite animals for a while; museums should bring this in for their displays. Have a yearly fee, which varies from display to display, for people to sponsor that display. (This could be an additional benefit for Friends - a 20% discount on sponsorship fees, for example.)
Small museums typically close during the winter in the UK. Rather than taking that hit to income, rent the venue, during the winter, to organisations running entrepreneurship "incubators" - include the Department for Work and Pensions in your potential clients list, because there's a huge need for tailored support for the unemployed who have business ideas, but no resources, and the distraction of meeting DWP expectations, trying to build their business whilst also affording their utilities and groceries. Do not move away from entrepreneurships - museums are the past. Entrepreneurship is the future. The past and the future belong together.
Are you a small museum looking to develop consistent income streams? Reach out -
email us at: theproductivepessimist@yahoo.com
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