3 easy ways to engage your public during COVID-19 restrictions.
What to do when you've been forced to close your doors to the public? It impacts your visitors, who have become stuck at home yet still looking for ways to satisfy curiosities, and to engage their families with important social, ethical, and scientific issues. It affects museums, galleries and science centres, who's visitor numbers and revenues have rock-bottomed. And it impacts the experience design sector who's passion and livelihoods lie in the creation of public experiences.
But the pandemic need not stop us completely in our tracks. Together with Glitch Studios, we've come up with three easy ways you can engage with your audience today.
1. High-Res Photography
Pick one or two of your highlights, and do some high-resolution photography to allow your visitors to get super close to the subject from home. Upload the images to your website with a feature story about why it's interesting to you. What important ideas do the images express and what can we learn from it?
Rijks Museum have an impressive range of inspirational 'always open' options for visitors, and High-Res Photography plays a large part. Photographs never replace seeing the real thing, but it does help generate interest, curiosity and remote study, and often leads to a personal conviction to visit the real thing at the next opportunity! Did you know Rijks Museum physical visitor numbers increased when they made their collection free and digital?
2. 3D Scanning and Photogrammetry
Go further into the digital experience adventure, by starting some photogrammetry? Your visitors can explore some of your favourite attractions or artefacts up close. Look here at an amazing example of a photogrammetric visit to the Tommi Toija Studio by Umbra.
Photogrammetry allows your audience to feel like they are in the space. It becomes possible get incredibly close to objects that may normally be hidden to the public.
3. Create a Point-to-Point Tours
Think google street-view in high resolution for your own venue. Your audience can experience your spaces through multi-dimensional photography and film. The effect is likened to sitting on a swivel chair, and being able to look all around, and up and down. Beyond COVID-19, this is an exciting way of supporting your Universal Access programme in general.
The process involves professional equipment, and software 'stitching' and optimisation of footage, but it may be more affordable than you imagined. You choose how many points of interest you'd like to create for a visit. Best of all? If your exhibition is regularly changing, this will be the start of a wonderful archive of exhibitions that can be re-visited online for all time! Here's a great example of a Point-to-Point tour developed by Glitch Studios for the Norwegian Centre for Holocaust and Minority Studies.
Point-to-point tours are often supplemented by content such as videos, audio, lectures and articles. With game-engine software, the experience has become intuitive, fast-flowing and surprisingly enjoyable!
In conclusion
These are just three of a whole bunch of affordable ways you can engage with your audience today. Now's a perfect time to make the leap into the digital visitor experience.
Thank you all for reading! If you found some of these ideas useful of the ideas present - please hit the 'share' button! or leave a comments if you'd like to hear some more.
The expology is all set to help you with any of the above ideas, so get in touch if you'd like to collaborate!