Thursday's Museums & Heritage cluster meetup!

Last Thursday, June 23rd, the Center for the Creative Economy was proud to host the first meetup of the Museums & Heritage cluster!

First of all, we would like to thank all who attended. We had a turnout of seven guests, including representatives from the Hillwood Estate, National Gallery of Art, and the National Aquarium, Washington DC, to name a few. We look forward to seeing these faces and many more at future Museums & Heritage events.

After introductions were made, discussions took off like a rocket. Over 90 minutes many issues effecting the cluster came to light, including:

*Facilities not located on the Mall are always searching for new ways to pull visitors off of the Mall to their venues. Many venues located off the Mall have great difficulty attracting visitors.

*The search for new ways to train museum security to better secure and become a responsive and able museum partner. Security personnel in cultural facilities often lack training specific to their places of work.

*The obvious one: finding ways to attract more visitors. The current positive response one museum had with an online coupon service should be followed to gain insight into its impact on attendance. Also, how can a museum provide "discounts" if admittance is free or by donation?

*Museums lack a centralized place or standardized method of entering special events (as it is, employees must submit their event data individually on each site they would like it to appear). The CCE will explore solutions to this problem in the music industry (which has an excellent system) and report on how this could be carried over to museums.

*It was mentioned that DC's blue-and-white directional signs often lack or provide vague information about where museums are located.

We hope to continue discussion of these and other problems as well as their solutions, so please join in the discussion! You may post here in the discussion board within the Museums & Heritage cluster group at creativesdc.com/group/museums or email us at CCEinDC@gmail.com to learn more about the Center for the Creative Economy and how you can get involved!