Hi, Julie,

I posted yesterday - we also have 1.5 staff and a slightly larger budget
($100,000). We are in a town of 13,000 and a county of about 1.7 million.
Our TWO museums had a combined annual admissions of about 7,000 last year. I
think that their expectations of you are a bit unrealistic.

That being said, here are a few ideas for increasing visitorship:
--increase open hours, especially to take advantage of times when there is
liable to be increased foot traffic near your building
--sidewalk sandwich boards when you are open
--advertise special events and activities and that would be liable to draw
people in
--make sure your hours and address are regularly listed in local papers
--make sure you have flyers or brochures (we do ours in-house) available at
the local vistors's center and other areas where people might look for
things to do
--develop a tour prorgram, especially for students. This can add a lot of
numbers to your visitors. We send out mailings to schools, churches, senior
homes, boy and girl scout offices, etc. letting them know we do guided
tours.
--find ways to bring the students into the museum. Are there resources
available to them? Are there exhibits that would appeal particularly to
them? Do you take advantage of Parent's Weekend or Homecoming to try and get
groups to come through?

We are fortunate that the City we serve has been impressed with the increase
in our annual visitorship (1,000 in 1999 to 7,000 last year) and does not
have a specific number in mind. I hope some of these help - good luck!

Erica

Erica S. Maniez
Museum Director, Issaquah Historical Society
425/392-3500
[log in to unmask]
www.issaquahhistory.org

> I would like to hear from new, small museums.  Our museum has a staff of
> 1.5 and a budget less than $75k.  We opened in mid-October on the campus
> of mid-size community college.  Our college president expects our
> attendance should be 8500 this first year (actually, not even full year
> since our fiscal year ends in August).  Our college population on this
> campus is 2500, our city population is 25,000 and our county is around
> 50,000.  We're in a small, rural, east Texas county about an hour south of
> the Dallas Metroplex and an hour northeast of Waco.  I would be interested
> to hear from other museums like mine and Katie's as we are fending off
> mid-year budget adjustments.  (If your department is not making its
> projected income, your budget is adjusted accordingly.)
>
>

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