I’ve
found the discussion regarding operational hours very interesting—plus a
great way to remember how different each individual museum is. Our
current operational hours are Tuesday-Saturday, 10 am to 4 pm and Sunday, noon
to 4. We are closed the months of August (too darn hot) and January (who knows?).
We
are not currently discussing regular evening hours, and our evening events are
moderately successful. Even though we are just south of downtown (divided
by a freeway), we are considered by many to be South Dallas. And there
are tons of people who never, ever venture south of I-30 (one of our borders).
Consequently, we get few requests for evening hours. In addition to the
perception issue, we also have to consider our part-time staff—and make
sure they don’t go over their 30 hour limit.
Our
biggest event of the year (Candlelight) is from 3 p.m. to 9 p.m., so we
certainly have some evening hours, but I can’t imagine us having hours
like that on a regular basis any time soon. With 13 acres, we can look
pretty empty in the dark.
However,
we do regularly receive requests from teachers to open earlier for field trips.
So, even though our posted hours are 10, two years ago, we let teachers know
that we could begin checking in school groups at 9:30. For some, this should
be 9:00. At any rate, this has been very well-received—though we
still get some groups that drive up at 9 a.m. and wonder why we’re not
ready yet. Teachers are on such a time crunch, and there’s a lot to
see here. I’m surprised that more people aren’t mentioning
the needs of school groups as they consider their operational hours—they are
our bread-and-butter of weekday visitation.
Melissa
Melissa Prycer
Director of Education
214-413-3671
www.DallasHeritageVillage.org
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