What was your play pilot?

We created a pre-bookable playful trail to take our visitors on a journey around our exhibitions and exploring areas outside of our building, in a playful, creative way. Following a trail map, families would come across playful or creative interactions and find resources they would need to complete these tasks within a single use pack.

The activity was suitable for all ages.

We worked with the councils park team and enlisted the ‘Play Rangers’, to work on the outdoor activities.

Budget

££

What would you consider your level of experience in creating playful interventions in museums prior to the project (1 being the least experienced and 5 being the most)?

2

Why did your organisation choose to take part?

We wanted to encourage our family audience back into our building in playful, but safe way. We have a strong family friendly reputation and we adapted our family offering over lockdown. However since our building is now back open, we thought that this was a great opportunity to engage families once more with our exhibitions and collections.

We also wanted to learn from others’ experiences and gain knowledge and guidance from the mentors.

What did you achieve?

We had 25 bookable sessions over three days and all were fully booked. We welcomed 30 adults and 40 children and we even had some passersby join in with our outdoor activities.

We had some great feedback from one visitor via our Facebook page: “My daughter and I had so much fun today. This play trail was a brilliant idea. It’s nice that children can do things like this especially through the hard times the country is in.”

Lessons learnt

Talk to as many people in your team as possible when in the planning stage as they may have a great idea on how to overcome a challenge.

Make sure front of house staff are comfortable with a playful interaction. Be prepared to bring in education team for delivery.

Try not to over complicate things, sometimes the simpler the better.

Think about behind the scenes when it comes to COVID-19 safety, not just front of house. Think about staff movements around the building and access to areas.

Top tips

  • Keep it as simple and open ended as possible.
  • Arrange a Zoom/ Teams meeting for all staff before the event.
  • Keep your idea achievable in the time frame you have.

 

The Play in Museums in a Socially Distanced World project was made possible by the National Lottery Heritage Fund.

Tags: ,

Categories:

Audience: