Anna:
One of the oldest (if not the oldest) Camp-In programs is run by COSI, in
Ohio. They serve 1,000 kids per night in their program. I went to a workshop
they sponsored back around 1982 to learn how to run a Camp-In.
I used the knowledge to start such a program at the Maryland Science Center
in 1984. That program has been in continuous operation since then. For our
first year, we "field-tested" it on 5 consecutive weekends (10 nights) with
140 kids per night. It currently serves over 12,000 kids per year. The MSC
Camp-Ins are for groups of up to 350 per night. The original, and still
basic, audience are scout groups, especially Girl Scouts. The program has
since expanded to including Boy Scouts, Campfire, 4-H, church groups and
schools.
Camp-Ins can be a valuable addition to the educational programming of a
museum. If properly planned they can actually generate net revenue beyond
their basic costs. At MSC, we planned $.50 per kid per workshop (there were 4
defined workshops). With 12,000 participants, that gave us a budget of $6,000
per workshop. We could buy things for Camp-In that could later be used in
other programs. We were also purchasing in sufficient quantities that we
could search out wholesale prices for materials. Beyond the program fees,
kids spend a average of $5 apiece (and often much more!) in the museum gift
shop.
They are also a tremendous drain on staff and resources. I've seen many
museums run them at less than what it actually costs because they haven't
completely calculated all the staff time involved in planning and execution,
plus the support staff, program expenses, etc. These museums pick a fee "out
of the air" and then consider the program a failure when their staff burns
out and they don't generate enough income to cover the expenses.
It takes just as much time and energy to plan one Camp-In as it does to plan
for 10. And if you plan for 10 or more of them, you can hire part-time staff
to take the load off the regular museum staff. Of course, the first thing to
do is find out if there is a demand for the program in your area. Camp-In
events have proliferated in the past 15 years. Contact your local Girl Scout
councils. If several museums in your area already offer sleep-overs, the
market may already be saturated and a new program may not be noticed.
Girl Scouts are usually easy to work with and have centralized systems for
distributing information to their troops. Boy Scouts are more decentralized
and tend to be "suspicious" of "unknown" programming that originates outside
of their organization. That is until the program has proven itself and then
they like to get on board.
Keep in mind that working overnight really burns people out, especially if
they are the same people expected to keep the museum operational Monday
through Friday. If you do need to use Monday-Friday staffers, try to schedule
some time off immediately after the event, even if it means cutting back on
other programming a bit. Otherwise people tend to get majorly sick (colds
that become bronchitis) and miss more work than they would have with a bit of
planning.
A well planned Camp-In program is that rare phenomenon in museums--a program
that meets the educational mission while also generating revenue. Good luck!
Jeannine Finton
Education Consultant
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