Remember the 70%: sustaining 'core' museum audiences

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Black, G. ORCID: 0000-0002-8541-1225, 2016. Remember the 70%: sustaining 'core' museum audiences. Museum Management and Curatorship. ISSN 0964-7775

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Official URL: http://doi.org/10.1080/09647775.2016.1165625

Abstract

This paper uses the UK as a case study to explore the urgent need for museums to develop strategies for the retention of 'core' museum audiences – the well-educated professionals and their families and friends who currently represent around 70% of museum attendance. It is a 'provocation' in four parts: the failure of museums to attract enough of this audience; an out-of-date display model and mind-set; the need for museums to rebrand themselves as social and leisure destinations; and a call for museums to acknowledge through their actions that their relationship with their audiences has changed. The failure of museums to react adequately to incremental change in western society since the end of the Second World War sits at the heart of the paper. Their response in the past has invariably been piecemeal, but what is required now is root and branch change. The alternative is that many museums will not survive.

Item Type:

Journal article

Publication Title:

Museum Management and Curatorship

Creators:

Black, G.

Publisher:

Taylor & Francis

Date:

2016

ISSN:

0964-7775