I recently attended the preview of V&A’s extremely popular David Bowie Is exhibition.  I must admit, I’m not a huge fan of David Bowie. The one minor link is his work with Jim Henson on Labyrinth and I like the song Under Pressure.  Other than that, he was just a character with a cult following I never really grasp.

Until now.

Top tip:  Take the Headphones! 

After your ticket is checked, you are offered a headset.  Take it!  This is not your normal audio guide with punching in numbers.  The V&A digital team has used RFID technology throughout the exhibition to automatically launch the appropriate information, song, interviews, etc depending on where you are in the gallery.  This was brilliant as it meant I didn’t have to go up to the display and locate the audio guide symbol and number, nor did I have to punch the number in.  This raised the exhibition to a different level for me as I found myself staying longer in areas to finish listening to what was being shared.

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Last week, I attended a workshophosted by RNIB called ‘Opening Up Creative Culture’.  This one-off free workshop at Ironbridge Museums asked for volunteers to be train to create audio descriptive tours for arts and cultures. While the course name presumes all candidates would work at a museum, that wasn’t true.  It was refreshing to find several candidates were Teaching Assistant, others were audio guide speakers and others were people who were visibly impaired.  All felt privileged to be there (and yes, there was a waiting list).

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Day 3 – the day when all teams shared their projects with *insert dreaded music here*  The Public. In other words, it was a day of total concentration on projects.

For my part, it was a hard day to try and capture in tweets or for this post so instead I went and made audio boos to capture the spirit of the teams, visitors and and support team involved in MuseoMix.

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Here Ye! Here Ye!  Roll up! Roll up!  The World Famous Social media event Ask A Curator created by the UK based arts marketing agency, Sumo is coming back to Twitter.  Mark your calendars and clear the day for this very popular event.

When is Ask a Curator?

It’s an all day event on September 19^th.

What is Ask a Curator?

It’s a way to talk to curators and people who work in cultural venues you normally don’t have access to.  You can ask anything that you’re curious about or want more information on.  Read the rest of this entry »

I first heard of Guide Me Tours when I met up for a bit of Museum Hopping (as you do) with Clare from Intermezzo Arts. She explained how it was a win/win situation as museums didn’t pay a thing but turned a profit.

Pardon?  Nothing is free without an asterisk.

But it’s truly a genuine business model that provides a free app to museums, galleries … any cultural venue and turns it into profit.  While I had the day with Clare and had the opportunity to ask question after question (looking for the asterisk and loophole), I felt a Guest Blog for her to explain it would be best.

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‘You never get a second chance to make a first impression’.

Good rapport with customers.

It may be an overused cliché, but it is still so vital in any customer or consumer led business. When we consider Museums or cultural venues we now collaterally see them as customer led, gone are the days when we could rely on prestigious or academic clout to ensure our security, we now need foot flow and we need to make sure that those visitors are stimulated during their visit and most importantly made to feel welcome and valued. Our visitors are our customers and the better they feel; the longer they will stay, the more money they will spend and the more recommendations of us they will give once they leave. Yet no matter how interactive our exhibitions, how informative our displays or innovative our approach we have to realise that very often we are judged on something far more human – our front of house staff.

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I would like to thank Mar Dixon for giving me a chance to write about Russian museums in her blog. It is an honour for me. I appreciate and with interest read about what Mar does and write with regards to museums and libraries.

I came to London from Russia 5 years ago to work as a software tester. Here while visiting many various museums, libraries, castles, parks, and towns, I became interested in culture, more than I had been before. At some point I came to an idea to help museum workers from my country to communicate with their international colleagues. In this blog, I will try to share with you some bits of knowledge about Russian museums.

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Jackfield Tile Museum is one of ten museums that make up the Ironbridge Gorge Museum trust.  While you may roll your eyes at the thought of going to a tile museum, it is our favorite museum out of the ten.  The museum is set on the site of a working tile factor.  The exhibitions are set up to include a scene of fairy tale tiles that were preserved from a  1930s hospital that was going to be demolished, an Edwardian Tube Station, a pub, butchers, typical 1930s front room and the original office, including the large accountant and order books used to ensure all orders were filled.  This is next to the show room, where they would sell their products via prime examples of the complex tiles created.

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Much Wenlock Museum (Shropshire) is set to reopen on February 7^th but I’ve the honour of a preview to see the progress that has been made since it closed almost a year ago for renovations.  Much Wenlock is a small town (whatever you do, don’t call it a village!) that was thrown into the spotlight when the organizers of the 2012 Olympics named one of the mascots Wenlock after the towns association with being responsible for bringing back the Modern day Olympics (see more information here). Read the rest of this entry »