Yesterday Nina Simon tweeted about a New York Times Article, Nights at the Museum, When Fun Trumps Art by Chloe Veltman. The gist of the article is that more museums are hosting events that are designed to draw in a different (usually younger) crowd, but that don't always fit well with the museum's mission. Does it make sense for museums to hold these events even if they are unrelated to the exhibits (or even the theme) of the museum?
I'm of two minds about it. I remember attending Museum Night Fever with my Museum Studies classmates in early 2008 and being pretty disappointed that most participating museums were little more than event venues for fashion shows, body painting, bars, music, and dancing. Not that I don't love all of those things! (Well, except body painting. I have no strong opinion about it.) But I also love museums, and seeing as we were tourists visiting Brussels especially for the event it wasn't as though the glimpses we caught of museum exhibits were going to convince us to return.
That's a pretty extreme example. I'm sure many attendees of Museum Night Fever were locals, just like many of the attendees at the events mentioned in the NYT--L@TE at the Berkeley Art Museum or After Dark at the Exploratorium--must be. In these cases events serve the dual purposes of getting visitors in the door and introducing them to the museum. They are friendraisers rather than fundraisers, designed to bring people "inside the tent." They are meant to attract a different audience than would normally visit a museum. But how successful is this?
A friend of mine commented to say she sees this at her living history museum, which often holds beer & wine festivals. I know my museum has some tangential events too (Halloween carnivals, clam bakes etc) because there are just so many things you can do with a historic house museum. People only want to attend events commemorating the American Revolution but so many times per year.
Still, you could throw the hippest party with the best DJ and a great bartender, but if you're hosting it at a historic house museum in the boondocks of NYC (me) or a living history museum in a rural area (my friend) that doesn't mean you're actually going to attract a very diverse crowd. Our "on theme" events and our friendraisers attract more or less the same crowd of highly local, intensely patriotic, older visitors. I can't speak for every museum, but I doubt there's much we could to that would appeal to a younger, hipper crowd. They don't live around here, there's no good public transportation to get them here, and we lack multi-use space.
That's not to say that friendraisers aren't a great idea or that I don't believe my museum should hold them. It's just that my experience with these type of events doesn't fully align with the way they're depicted in the article. We might be bringing new people through the door, but those new people fit into the same demographic as our core visitors. In a way this is great because it makes these events very successful; people who attend them almost always return to later, "on theme" events.
I also don't mean to sound like I think it's impossible for house museums to host innovative programming. Without giving away the exact name of the museum I work for, I will say that it is a part of a larger consortium of house museums called the Historic House Trust of New York City. In addition to events hosted by the individual museums (many of which have more accessible locations and larger spaces than we do...I certainly don't speak for all house museums!) they have a group called the Roof Raisers. So far Roof Raisers events have offered food, music, a great location (the Arsenal in Central Park) and the opportunity for advocates of HHT to connect and learn a little bit about historic preservation. I haven't attended one of these gatherings yet, but they sound like they hit all the right notes.
This is veering off into an entry on the pros and cons of historic house museums. I do tend to think that their greatest strength (their sense of place) is also one of their bigger weaknesses, because a historic structure can be limiting in a lot of ways, but that's an entry for another day.
Back to the original article: nightlife in museums. Museos Unite has discussed a similar topic as a part of our Solutions Series, seeking ways to solve the salary crisis. You can read about the Offsite Museum Bar over at M.U. It's a topic we plan to re-visit soon (albeit with a slightly different twist). It would certainly address location difficulties like those my own museum has. A centrally located bar could help bring the programming and expertise of small, far-flung museums to the coveted demographic of young professionals. Would my small, poor house museum own a bar? Unlikely, but holding events and lectures at one isn't a bad idea.
Please forgive this very rambling first entry! I'll try and be more coherent next time.
