I was amused when visiting a naval museum at the staff attitude there, from enduring so many French school groups.
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You know that you occupy a strange niche when you get really upset about having deleted a photograph of the entrance foyer signs at the national Railway Museum York, and then email them asking if they can take a picture and send it to you.
So to clarify: at a museum dedicated to trains, and full of trainspotters, I got excited about high quality visitor signage and stopped to take pictures of it. Yup, nerd. Extra cartoon for father's day! Telling your child to go along with lying about their age so it would be cheaper to get in - on their birthday. I bet you've had similar moments or know your dad would do this if he'd thought of it ...
The idea of a venue free and uncluttered by information panels, where visitors can move at their leisure, opt for as much detail as they like and even select specialist types of information, is a grand one. Even better is being able to walk around together with a kids tour, adult tour, French tour and BSL tour all being used in the same vising group! However, to do this you have to involve the general public with technology.
Just show them through the basic three buttons, hand it over, watch them get it going and pause it (so you can see that they're using it correctly) and set them loose with advise to ask the roaming front of house chap if they need help. I would say: 40% take to it like they've used it all their lives 20% are over confident so mess it up, but then recover 25% are scared of it, but end up thinking it's amazing 10% ask if they can just borrow the shop's copy of the souvenir guide and give it back later 5% take it, smile, stuff it in a bag or pocket once inside and then complain later "I had no idea what was going on, there's no information in there!" King Arthur's Stone! For me the mention of a stone with inscriptions and ogham got me fired up, for my other half it was the myth of Slaughterbridge. We drove to the car park, took one look at the MDF knight on horseback, sort of fencepanel and shed ensemble, with slightly sorry looking signs, and drove off to Boscastle.
Looking at the website since, there might be a lot of very well thought out and reasonably well presented stuff beyond that potholed piece of ground and visible buildings. Sadly the welcome is so poor we assumed it would be a bit of a rip off to look at some idealised MDF cutouts, read the myths presented as bonkers fact, and admire a field. Perhaps next time we'll give it a go! The staff of the Portsmouth Historic Dockyard were fantasic at helping customers make the most of their visit, by suggesting alternate routes to avoid the massive mobs of loud, bored and troublesome French students. That's service!
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February 2023
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