Improve the museum visitor experience with less ticket options.
In the Fall of 2019, pre-corona-virus, while sleuthing through the Mount Vernon website, it occurred to me that they only had 3 ticket options. I thought it curious that such a big name in the historical house museum world would have such limited pricing options: Adults 12+, Youth 6–11, and Children 0–5. I’m used to seeing about 12 different price types, and admittedly often benefiting from it myself by using some affiliate membership card if simply being “Museum Staff” and showing my ID doesn’t work. At my own museum, of which I head up Admissions, we had 8 different main ticket categories, on top of countless discounts, partnerships, brochure offers, etc. Over the years the admission ticket types and discounts being offered had gotten a little bit out of control.
Around the same time, in a meeting with some of my lead staff, one asked if they could loosen up on checking ID in order to honor the senior discount (which was 65+). She said that it was leading to some negative interactions because often people wouldn’t carry their ID on them, or they left it in the car, or they’re not quite 65 but used to getting a senior discount at other places. I said ‘sure’, lets be more gracious with our seniors and try to take them at their word. Well, that led to further discussion about students. I learned that the ID requirement led to even more aggravated interactions with visitors who would frequently argue with the Admissions Associate because they didn’t carry their ID, or they would sneak one ID around to the entire group, or teachers (sometimes administrators) who demanded the student discount because they work at a school. I started to worry about the problems that these ID required discounts were making. First, I was concerned for the staff who were having to engage in these back and forth conversations that sometimes turned aggressive or uncomfortable as the visitor was bartering for a discount. Second, we were creating a really negative experience for the visitor right at the start of their visit.
So I reached out to a friend and colleague who works in the holy grail of historic house museums- Mount Vernon. I asked her if she could explain their decision to have fewer price types. She replied back that they had made the switch a few years ago, and that it had been a ‘game changer’. Visitors were having a better experience from the start, because they didn’t feel entitled to a discounted ticket, and staff had a much easier time without having to participate in a combative conversation about ticket categories.
Further confirmation of the need for a seamless entry and ticketing experience can be found in the book: How to Persuade and Influence People. Author Phillip Hesketh says research shows that “90% of the time, 90% of people form 90% of their first impression of you within 90 seconds”. In the museum world, that means that we have from the arrival and orientation at the Admissions Booth to win them over. So if your check-in experience goes awry, then you have an uphill battle to win back 90% of your visitors.
Thus began my deep dive into admission rates at museums throughout the nation to ascertain if there were others like Mount Vernon, who had started to limit their ticket types. With the assistance of my staff, we pulled admission prices for over 50 museums and cultural sites. We sorted them by annual visitation, and particularly focused on those that were most similar to our museum. Here is a summary of some of our findings:
- Of the 50, 10 were local to us.
- 10 had less than 200k annually, 12 had more than 750k annually. (Our visitation is around 320k, so the results are skewed slightly more towards larger organizations.)
- Just 3 of the museums had a Teacher discount.
- Only 7 had a teen rate.
- 40 of the 50 had a senior ticket with an average age of 64.
- 27 of the 50 had a student discount.
The research actually showed that just 10 of the museums had a similar model to Mount Vernon- with just the 3 (or less) ticket categories. But there were some impressive, heavy hitter museums in that group of 10: the Biltmore, The Breakers of Newport Mansions, Monticello, Falling Water and also Frost Science and Zoo Miami (both local). Yes, Zoo Miami is not a museum, but considered part of our research because it is a competitor for local tourism with us. With the information we gathered, 3 of our ticket types stood out as potential options for replacement: Senior, Student, and Teen.
Though this was primarily a customer service argument for me, as I hoped to improve the visitor experience with less ticket categories and no longer having staff check ID for verification, I knew that I needed to make a strong case for how this could potentially impact the museum. So I looked into our numbers for Seniors, Students, and Teens from the previous year. If we brought them all up to our Adult admission rate, we had the potential to bring an additional nearly $300k annually. Those in the non-profit world know it’s challenging to find new revenue sources, so that amount of money is no shortchange. Great, now I knew I could get the Finance team on my side.
Of course it is possible we could see a drop off in visitation from visitors who could no longer afford the experience. (But remember how I admitted to benefiting from free museum entry because of a membership/job title? Well don’t get me wrong, that’s nice… but I can afford to pay for the ticket. The goal is to have outreach and opportunities for the people who need access to the museum and can’t afford it.) So in addition to proposing that we do away with the 3 ticket types, I also proposed an increase in our community outreach and partnerships. We have the opportunity to reach out to local universities to see if we could work together to offer a reduced admission, or a reduced membership for their students. By narrowing down our ticket types, we could also have more opportunity for marketing and promotions- like student summer discounts, or targeted senior months. And maybe if it’s a promotion that we’re marketing, we could entice people to come in for that ‘limited time only’ opportunity instead of a ticket rate that’s always there.
After doing the research and feeling strongly that we needed to reduce the amount of ticket options we offer, I found myself in the middle of the corona-virus pandemic and the museum world turned upside down. Most museums were having to close and make some difficult decisions about staff, finances, and determining when/if they could reopen again. As the weeks went on and we gradually started talking about reopening, I wasn’t sure if it was a good time to be talking about changing admission rates. Unemployment rates were up, tourism was down, and people were generally avoiding public spaces. But the museum needed revenue to come in more than ever. And since the world was changing so much, visitors may not be as upset by change as they would have been before. Now, change feels like a normal part of what we expect from day to day. So I pitched the change in ticket types to Senior Staff. Full disclosure: it took several meetings and long discussions about how this would impact our community. The biggest concern was for our senior group (remember 40 out of 50 of the museums still have a senior rate). I reminded staff that we already participate in a local program through the county where we allow free admission to seniors on Mondays and Wednesdays, without a capacity limit for how many we provide this service to.
Note: I would not suggest making this change to any museum without thorough consideration for how it could impact your local community and also how you can use partnerships and promotions to ensure access to lower income community members.
In June, 2020 we launched ticketing with just 5 ticket types: Adult (13+), Child (6–12), Children (5 & under), Visitors using wheelchairs (this is because we are a historic house museum and visitors with a disability have a somewhat limited experience as parts of the gardens and the entire second floor of the Main House are inaccessible to them), and lastly Military (who are always free, and unfortunately still are required to show ID, though a very small percentage of our visitation).
So, how has it worked out?
It’s been about a month since we launched without the 3 additional ticket types, and we have not yet received one complaint. Granted, we are still at significantly reduced visitation due to the lasting effects of the corona-virus on tourism and public outings. When I asked an Admissions Associate about it she said “Sometimes people ask if we have a senior rate and I say ‘no’ and they just say ‘oh ok’, and that’s the end of it.” No longer are we having a debate over ID verification. Staff and visitors are happy, and hopefully that positive first impression will set the tone for the rest of their experience.
It still feels a little too early to decide this was a full on success. With so many unrelated variables, it will be difficult to even determine if there was a change in visitation due to the admission price change that didn’t already come from the pandemic response. While so far this has felt like a positive step forward for the visitor experience I’ll continue to closely monitor reactions from visitors and especially from our local community. If you work at a museum that is struggling to find more revenue sources and has too many ticket types, I would recommend doing your own deep dive and seeing if this could be a solution for you. Let me know if you do!
