Baby Steps or Blockbusters?

The museum community continues to wrestle with the challenge of keeping the turnstiles spinning. A common strategy is the 'blockbuster' exhibition, which cannot be argued is a successful method of bringing a lot of people (and their cash) through the doors of an institution in a short period of time. But what happens when the shine goes off King Tut or the Titanic artifacts sail off to the next venue?

Blockbuster exhibits are not a sustainable strategy for audience development, and surely can't be counted on as a stable funding stream. The Kitchener Record reports today that young visitors to the Children's Museum in Waterloo will be reduced to making crafts from 'toilet paper rolls and macaroni' should increased funding not be found from local government sources to sustain the schedule of high profile traveling exhibits. On view until April 11 is Our Body: The Universe Within, where visitors are able to look under the skin and into the inner workings of the human body.

I'm sure that removing blockbuster exhibitions from the programming schedule will be a blow to the ambitions of museum staff, but organizations should look closely at the feasibility and return on investment of short-term spectacles. The slow, measured, one brick at a time, baby step approach of building a dedicated audience around a sustainable programming model should not be discounted. There is probably a lot a child can learn from pasta and cardboard.