Creating Small Traveling Exhibits

10:45 – 12 Small Traveling Exhibits

It was just after this session that my computer trouble set in!
So I’m finally getting to type up my thoughts.

Wow! This was the mother of all sessions. AMAZING! This was the encyclopedia, almanac, how to manual of creating a traveling exhibit. Where was this when we decided to create a PAL!

The panel was a well-seasoned group from several museums. An actual traveling exhibits person from Minnesota Children’s, a woman who oversees a series of museums throughout Arkansas, and a technical exhibit woman (who builds, maintains and ships) as well as a marketeering person from the children’s science museum in Ithaca NY. I’m trying to get the powerpoint (they said ACM would have them submit online – NY said I could email for their portion).

This session could easily have been 3 or 4 separate ones. We covered
Staffing / positions / duties
- every staff position needed to create, run, build, maintain, and ship an exhibit
Important how to facts in shipping exhibits
- Types of shipping (crates vs. blankets) (materials to crate) (types of trucks)
- Important documents (policies, responsibilities, contracts, condition reports, prop inventory)
Costs
- parts to replace, staff time, payment plans
Support
- staff coming out to set up, gallery diagrams, educational curriculum & plans, spare parts, paint kits,
Marketing
- photo shoots, word of mouth

Best tips::

Minnesota: record everything, photograph all pieces of every inch of each exhibit, measure everything, remember that use of characters licensing costs a lot and is frequent and requires constant communication and approval on all marketing materials.

Arkansas: measure everything, build modular, personal touch of follow up phone calls to ensure everything is working, go low tech, and keep it light, don’t make so specialized only one vendor can repair, think about requirements (lots of power, internet, dry ice?), flexible floor plans

New York: book only seasons a year about 3 ½ at a time, lots of prototyping, overhead is biggest cost in design, don’t ship in crates (unless fold flat), custom blankets better, blanket all contact points, ship with dollies, give very detailed instructions and manuals, loading ramps can be bough for $800 permanently while trucks with lift gates run a $1000 every time, spent about $20,000 on spare parts purchasing a head of time and about $20,000 in storage od unused exhibits,

Also -The Kohl’s exhibit survey should be out. All members were surveyed about their interests, etc. for traveling exhibits.

This one session just made the whole conference for me. I can’t wait until ACM posts the power point. I think these presenters are great future contacts. Minnesota really seems to know what they’re doing. The New York folks aren’t necessarily designing exhibits for our needs, but they seem to know how to pack, ship anything. They seem like the tinkering make it work kind of folks.

Oooh – and biggest insider tip – no one is paying full price for museum rentals. Good to know.