Impact of the New Centres

The next eighteen months will see the biggest shake-up of the museum, gallery and science centre market since the aftermath of the Great Exhibition. Last century, the profits of the 1851 exhibition were used to set up the institutions that became the Science, Natural History and V&A Museums, as well as the Royal Colleges of Music and Art and Imperial College. This time round, it is the lottery millions that have fuelled the explosion in public buildings.

Ironically for money raised by a national lottery (described by Professor Frank Close as a “weekly tax on innumeracy”), one of the biggest winners has been science. A series of large, science-exhibition-based schemes will open between the summers of 1999 and 2001. The Arts have also benefitted with everything from sculpture to pop music receiving grants.

Not all of this has been good news. Some of the projects have been, to put it kindly, over-optimistic in their business planning. Many schemes are being managed by people with little or no experience of large capital projects, and the supply of experienced exhbition developers has been spread very thinly. In recent months, two projects in particular have hit the headlines with their financial woes.

The Royal Armouries Museum, in Leeds, predates the lottery boom. It was a flagship project for the previous government, being funded by a unique combination of public and private finance. The private financiers needed a return on their investment, funded by visitors coming to the Museum and spending money. The need was so great that even with outstanding visitor figures of 400,000 in its first year, not enough money was being generated. Earlier this year the DCMS was forced to step in with a rescue package.

The National Centre for Popular Music has faced even more criticism. Having opened in the summer, it has already come close to bankruptcy. The creditors have only recently bailed out the centre by agreeing to an offer where they receive 10p for every £1 they are owed.

The bulk of the publicity has been for the Millennium Dome. The early coverage has been quite negative, focussing on the huge amount of money spent on a project alleged to have little or no vision or purpose. As I write this, however, the first few journalists have been shown previews of completed exhibitions. The Dome’s profile may be about to improve.

Elsewhere there are causes for more optimism. The Millennium Wheel, while not an exhibition (yet), is still a lottery-funded attraction. Before tickets went on sale to the public, businesses bought over 500,000. In Edinburgh, the Dynamic Earth centre has received a quarter of a million visitors in its first 4 months (against an annual target of 430,000).

Obviously the picture for the next few months, let alone the next few years, is unclear. In an attempt to find out, I asked people around the industry (from inside and outside of BIG) what they thought would happen over the next few years.

The biggest issue for existing centres is how competition between attractions will increase. The popular opinion is that competition will increase, with more centres fighting to attract a finite number of visitors. Ian Simmons pointed out that the high profile of some of the new centres “will almost certainly pull people away from existing attractions”. A positive view from BIG’s perspective is that the numbers visiting hands-on attractions is likely to increase as a result. In the US, people seem to be more inclined to have a positive view: “people will also be visiting more attractions overall during this significant year - getting into the spirit and joining in the festivities.”

The new centres will receive a lot of media attention. Concerns are emerging that perceived failings in new attractions could tarnish the reputation of the hands-on movement. External observers report that the development processes of some of the new centres owes more to “a very dated 70’s museum style” approach than a contemporary understanding of the potential of interactivity. On the other hand, the millennium will witness some bright and innovative developments. We probably won’t really know until more of the attractions have opened. The UK may even match the prediction for the US where “within ten years there will be a hands-on museum in every city with a population of 25,000 or more.”

Most of the new centres are very large, with correspondingly high visitor targets. On the question of whether big is beautiful the answer, in the UK at least, tended to support the compact and bijou:
“Smaller centres with smaller expectations will meet and surpass them where larger centres will fail”.

According to Ian Russell, if you use a rough calculation of floor area divided by visitor numbers to estimate how running costs are being met “the most efficient science centre in Britain was Curioxity, in the little room above the fire station in Oxford”. The benefits of being small were variously described as strong community links, big impact from small changes to exhibitions, and an ability to react swiftly to circumstances.

There were other questions which revealed a cautious optimism for the future, especially seeing a spread of new Outreach programmes by new and old centres, and a growth in the use of the internet.

Some problems are likely to remain. Explainers will be paid properly “About the same time teachers are”. Stronger views were also expressed:
“Explainers will never be paid properly until senior management come to value experienced staff rather than trying to put the requisit bodies on the floor at the lowest possible cost. At present anyone trying to bid for increases is told that the nearest centre pays the same and no one considers the possibility that the whole industry might be short changing its staff”.

To end on a positive note, the wave of new projects could increase levels of professionalism into the industry. Katherine Hann put it best:
“The science centre movement suffers, in my mind, from being too humble, from underplaying the fabulous contribution it can make, and for failing to gear up sufficiently to compete with the big players in the marketplace. We should take on that challenge - and maybe with the new centres there will be sufficient critical mass to make this happen”

Happy New Year!

Newsletter Winter 1999 Contents

Articles > Explainers' pay | Secrets of the Exhibits 2 | Impact of new Centres | ECSITE Conf. report | From Chair | From Editor

News > Clipped art in park | CommQuest S. Africa | Inspire voted top | Intnl status for TQ Director | Move for Edinburgh Sci. Fest. | Oxford festival grows | Science Centres lobby | Smithsonian fellowships | What happened to Exploratory? | The Micrarium reborn | Have funds, travel grants