Winterthur charges extra for special guided tours - and I for one have
paid to do that several times! I am sure many other places also do that.
Why not advertise it, charge extra to make it worthwhile financially,
and say the tours are restricted to 15 people, on a first come, first
served basis. That way everyone knows about it and has equal opportunity
to participate if they want to spend the extra money. They can't
complain then.

Sabrina Henneman

-----Original Message-----
From: Jason Aikens [mailto:[log in to unmask]] 
Sent: Wednesday, May 24, 2006 12:56 PM
To: [log in to unmask]
Subject: [MUSEUM-L] Tours in History Museums

I'm working on developing a "behind the scenes tour" provided by some of

our summer staff.  The tour would be on a first come first serve basis, 
would be free and would be unadvertised.  The idea is to offer the tours
3-
4 times a day and the tour would be 30-45 minutes long.  Each group
would 
be about 10-15 visitors.  The tour would show the visitors some of 
the "nooks and crannies" of the museum such as our library and archives 
and would be an added bonus for our visitors.

Traditionally we have been a self-guided museum.  Some of our staff is 
concerned that if we don't offer these tours to everyone that some will 
object if they learn about it after the fact.  They also feel 
uncomfortable with the un-advertised notion of the tour.  It is 
impractical to offer the tour to everyone since there will only be two 
summer staffers available daily for this project and our attendance can 
reach a 1000 people a day on the weekends.

Does anyone have any experience in starting guided tours?  Any pitfalls
I 
should watch out for?  Do people get mad if they are not able to 
participate on a free guided tour?

Jason Aikens
Collections Curator
Pro Football Hall of Fame

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