The three magic ingredients museums need for great visitor engagement!

It's no secret that I think museums are wonderful. Given my inexhaustible enthusiasm for the places, it's sometimes hard for me to remember that others don't always feel the same.

Modern galleries come alive with beautifully lit objects, information is accessibly written and, increasingly, digital interactive visuals and projections add the 'wow' factor to enhance the visitors' understanding.Why wouldn't visitors want to know more and to get involved in person or on social media?

I utterly refuse to accept that there isn't something, somewhere for everyone to find enjoyable or interesting in a museum, and that sustains me in all my interactions.

Of course, I know I'm happily deluded about it, but I've been engaging visitors in museums events and learning for over ten years, and I've heard all the excuses that are trotted out when people don't come or projects don't work. I'll be honest- I've used some of them myself.

We often blame uncontrollable factors like weather, location, marketing or transport and of course, often there's some real truth in our excuses. What works best for me is to concentrate on the bit I can control; the face to face contact with the visitor at the museum. That's why I've developed a method which can apply to any event or activity: I call it The Triangle of Visitor Engagement.

That's because it is a triangle. Cunning, eh..?

My solution is a simple formula, tried and tested. Regardless of budget, location or anything else, if your visitors encounter these three magic museum ingredients every time they come, they'll have a superb time and will be far more likely to return time and time again!! Here's what you need to do:

1) Experience- the opportunity for active involvement; something to do, touch, smell, taste.

2) Personal Connection- tug on the heartstrings, amuse, remember, make an association to something meaningful.

3) Idea- encourage thinking in unexpected directions, disrupt the usual historical narrative, offer an alternative view.

Numbers 1 and 2 are (or ought to be) standard practice. Many museums do these easily with dressing up activities and 'selfie corners'. It's number 3 that makes the whole thing come alive; the moment when the sensory and the personal collide in a moment of revelation. Here's a very simple example of my Triangle formula in action:

Activity: Serving gruel in a workhouse museum.

Experience: a new taste and smell, 'old-fashioned food'

Personal connection: to 'Granny's porridge' or 'when I was in 'Oliver!''

Idea: the suggestion that the workhouse survival diet was not just to save money (usual narrative) but to ensure that inmates lacked the energy to cause any trouble (disrupted narrative).

That's it. The three ingredients. Mix them up and watch the Visitor Engagement magic happen!!!