Michael Roark wrote:

<<<<<the leadership took a risk (assuming 100K
mostly-paying? attendees lured away from other pursuits)>>>>>

I'm not sure this is the case.  I have seen three or four instances now,
where groups (and/or their consultants) seeking money to build/open a museum
have used incredibly high estimates of attendance.  My own museum estimated
300,000 visitors the first year; we actually got 165,000. So it isn't really
a case of "real" visitors lured away to other attractions, or that we failed
to lure them away from others - the visitors were never there in the first
place.  By using inflated estimates of the number of visitors, which the
banks and other planners love to see, we set ourselves up for inevitable
"failure", even if the museum turns out to be modestly successful.  I'm sure
that many feasibility studies are more rigorous, but some, at least, pull
numbers from thin air.

There is nothing wrong with risk taking; it does need to be grounded on
realistic assumptions.

Richard White, Curator
International Wildlife Museum
Tucson, Az.

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