I've seen a lot of museums, galleries, heritage sites and stately homes holding Easter egg hunts, find the bunny/chick/egg trails etc. This makes sense over a period when the kids are off school, you want to entertain those visiting you, and want to attract new visitors looking at a range of options - you tap into the reason for that holiday break.
This is the first year though when I've stopped and thought, but is this relevant, and in the long term, beneficial to those sites?
This is the first year though when I've stopped and thought, but is this relevant, and in the long term, beneficial to those sites?
Does a trail to spot plastic animals in the displays encourage kids to engage more with the displays, or to just hare from one location to the next, with eyes only for the 'hunt' object and not for the historical/artistic content? Does an activity to decorate eggs help people understand, or want to learnt more about issues relevant to a venue?
I've not been in a situation like this myself, as venues I've worked at previously have held workshops (Make Easter bonnets for the Market Place parade) or activities (Egg and spoon races, sack races) which haven't used the venue and contents directly, but rather have tapped into traditional pastimes appropriate to the venue and it's location.
My gut feeling though, is that a generic Easter event may get feet through doors over Easter, but may not encourage a high visitor engagement with the venue, and therefore the venue becomes somewhere only to visit for it's events - not for it's intrinsic values. When attracting visitors with an event, the big 'win' should be that those visitors then engage and enjoy the venue sufficiently to want to return in the future for the venue itself, rather than waiting for the next holiday event to be held.
I've not been in a situation like this myself, as venues I've worked at previously have held workshops (Make Easter bonnets for the Market Place parade) or activities (Egg and spoon races, sack races) which haven't used the venue and contents directly, but rather have tapped into traditional pastimes appropriate to the venue and it's location.
My gut feeling though, is that a generic Easter event may get feet through doors over Easter, but may not encourage a high visitor engagement with the venue, and therefore the venue becomes somewhere only to visit for it's events - not for it's intrinsic values. When attracting visitors with an event, the big 'win' should be that those visitors then engage and enjoy the venue sufficiently to want to return in the future for the venue itself, rather than waiting for the next holiday event to be held.
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